Short Classic Literature

N. K. Jemisin is one of the most powerful and acclaimed speculative fiction authors of our time. In the first collection of her evocative short fiction, Jemisin equally challenges and delights listeners with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption.

In A Few Quick Ones, P. G. Wodehouse brings together some of his oldest friends for a party. Jeeves and Wooster are there, so is Mr Mulliner and the Oldest Member.

Discover the lost Seuss! These rarely seen Dr. Seuss stories were published in magazines in the early 1950s and are finally available in audiobook form.

Originally published in 1881, Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper is a timeless tale of switched identities. After the young Prince Edward VI of England and a peasant boy switch places, the "little king" tries to escape from a world in which he must beg for food, sleep with rodents, face ridicule, and avoid assassination. Meanwhile, the peasant, who is now the prince, dreads exposure and possible execution - while members of the Court believe he has gone mad.

This superlative work by Sarah Orne Jewett, a late 19th century writer, shows great literary skill, artistry and charm. The Country of the Pointed Firs depicts the close personal and family relationships in a small New England village. In its appreciation of the natural beauty and restorative powers of a small community, it is similar to Thoreau's Walden.

A prolific writer of Christian romances, Grace Livingston Hill also excelled in creating novels of suspense. These tales highlight three women who, through pluck and cleverness, strive to escape the menace that envelops them. (Of course, being GLH stories, there are always romantic possibilities!)

Spanning four decades in the mid-19th century, the interconnected novellas of Old New York lay out in vivid detail the complex and inscrutable codes, customs, and taboos of New York society in classic Wharton style.

In his only work of political satire, The Short Reign of Pippin IV, John Steinbeck turns the French Revolution upside down as amateur astronomer Pippin Héristal is drafted to rule the unruly French. Steinbeck creates around the infamous Pippin the most hilarious royal court ever: Pippin's wife, Queen Marie, who "might have taken her place at the bar of a very good restaurant"; his uncle, a man of dubious virtue; and his glamour-struck daughter and her beau, the son of the so-called "egg king" of Petaluma, California.

Lucy Maud Montgomery was a beloved and prolific Canadian author, best known for her Anne of Green Gables series. She was also the author of over 500 short stories, poems, and essays. This delightful collection includes 20 of her earliest short stories, ranging from tales of fated romance to school friendships to Christmas miracles, all touching on the narrative themes of class, family, belonging, and romance that characterize her work.

A collection of horror/thriller stories with surprise endings to chill you and thrill you to the bone. These are my latest stories The creepers include: SCARY NIGHTS: A serial killer goes to an amusement park and kills people for the fun of it. WHO'S BEEN SLEEPING IN MY GRAVE: A son visiting gravesites purchased years ago for his father, mother, and himself discovers a stranger buried in his plot. BOGEYMAN: Ben's elation from moving to a new state is shortlived when he discovers the bogeyman has followed him and is still sleeping under his bed. KILL THE NEXT PERSON YOU MEET: Charles puts a ...

A Penguin Classic. First published in 1938, this volume of stories collected with the encouragement of his longtime editor Pascal Covici serves as a wonderful introduction to the work of Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck. Set in the beautiful Salinas Valley of California, where simple people farm the land and struggle to find a place for themselves in the world, these stories reflect Steinbeck’s characteristic interests: The tensions between town and country, laborers and owners, past and present.

Nikolay is tired of his dull life working at a railway station and his loveless marriage. When he accidentally breaks a champagne bottle on New Year’ s Eve, his wife is convinced that it is an omen of bad luck to come. Nikolay, already dissatisfied with his life, thinks his wife is overreacting. His feels that not much more could go wrong in his life. Then, in the brink of his despair, a young and beautiful visitor, his wife’s aunt, arrives unexpectedly.

A collection of horror/thriller stories with surprise endings to chill you and thrill you to the bone: The creepers include: THE SLASHER: Ben discovers the author of a novel about a serial killer looks just like him. LAST CALL: A stranger claiming to be the devil wants to exchange a wish for a bartender's soul and won't take no for an answer. THE DIARY: Billy doesn’t know why his mother's diary does not mention him after a particular year. ANTLERS: After a horrific accident involving a deer, Martha can't understand how her parents survived catastrophic injuries. THE WIZARD: A billionaire ...

A second collection of horror/thriller stories with surprise endings to chill you and thrill you to the bone on Halloween. These nightmares are selections from the collections noted: HUMAN HEAD FOR SALE Mark purchases a human head on eBay to scare his guests at his annual Halloween Party. (Creepers 2) CARMEN A horror novelist employs a man-eating plant to eliminate his most offensive critic. (Creepers 10) CYCLOPS The freak show at the end of the fairgrounds is one Jed Norman will never forget. (Black As Night) DEVIL’S NIGHT The Blunt boys have never committed as malicious pranks on ...

O. Henry, the pseudonym of the American writer William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), is best known for writing stories full of wit, wordplay, and warm characterizations, and particularly for their clever twist endings. This volume contains 20 of O. Henry's best and best-loved stories. They are marked by coincidence and surprise endings as well as the compassion and high humor that have made O. Henry's stories popular for the last century.

From mystery and crime to romance and tragedy, in this collection you will discover award-winning writing that effortlessly spans genre and style. Witness the excess and luxury of 1920s America in The Great Gatsby, experience profound meditations on death in The Bridge of San Luis Rey, as well as Poirot's very first murder case in The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

Winesburg, Ohio is Sherwood Anderson's masterpiece, a cycle of short stories concerning life in a small town at the end of the nineteenth century. In the perfectly imagined world of Winesburg, an archetypal small American town, Anderson reveals the hidden passions that turn ordinary lives into fonts of unforgettable emotions. Played out against a deceptively placid backdrop, Anderson's loosely connected stories coalesce, like chapters, into a powerful novel of love and loss.

Benjamin Button was literally born an old man. He lived a backwards life, for his body grew younger as the years passed him by. Come and listen to the original, unabridged story by F. Scott Fitzgerald which inspired the movie.

French literature may be said to begin with the ninth century "Song of Roland," and it has since then churned out masterpiece after masterpiece in every century right up to the present. Beginning with Balzac and Dumas in the early part of the nineteenth century and proceeding to Sartre and Camus at the midpoint of the twentieth, the stories in this collection showcase the talents of some of the greatest French masters of the short story.

Akakij Akakievic Basmackin è un mite impiegato, deriso dai colleghi, copiatore di lettere ad un ministero, così povero da dover risparmiare un intero anno per potersi far fare un nuovo cappotto dal sarto. La felicità di sfoggiarlo dura un solo giorno: la sera stessa viene assalito e derubato del suo bene prezioso. La polizia lo tratta malamente e non riesce neppure una colletta tra i colleghi. Dopo pochi giorni Akakij Akakievuc muore di disperazione e di freddo.