Short Classics

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.

A collection of six new ghost stories woven from the fabric of England’s dark dreaming. The Orangery Wooed by a Georgian gentleman of taste, a young bride-to-be finds that all is not as it appears at her fiancé’s elegant Gaddesbury estate. There is a whiff of corruption at its heart which, for all his acid wit and fashionable acquaintance, grows ever stronger, until . . . Her Master’s Call Temesforde. Such a peaceful Shropshire parish. And yet, what a pity about the vicar. What did he know? How could he have known? The Reverend Ruth More knows nothing of it when she arrives to start ...

Three men, Mihailo the porter, Nikandr the fish merchant, and Stepan the coachman, sit around a table in the coach-house playing a game of "kings" with Stepan's eight-year old grandson, Alyoshka. While each card player competitively tries to win the coveted position of "king" in the game, a more serious atmosphere casts a sad shadow over the estate in which the coach-house is situated. The man of the house, for whom the porter and coachman work, has attempted suicide, and he lies in the estate house struggling somewhere between life and death.

Recently rediscovered in the archives of the New York Public Library, these short stories provide an unparalleled look at Truman Capote writing in his teens and early twenties, before he penned such classics as Other Voices, Other Rooms, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and In Cold Blood. This collection of more than a dozen pieces showcases the young Capote developing the unique voice and sensibility that would make him one of the twentieth century’s most original writers.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde tells the story of the lawyer Gabriel John Utterson as he investigates some disturbing incidents involving his old friend, the talented doctor Henry Jekyll, and his mysterious and sinister new companion, Edward Hyde. The lawyer is worried about his friend after he changes his will to include Hyde in case of his death or disappearance. Fearing that the doctor is being blackmailed by the stranger, the lawyer sets out to confront him.

The master storyteller amuses and entertains with a collection of stories which includes: "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg", "The Double Barrelled Detective Story", "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", "The Million Dollar Bank Note", "Benton and Mills", "A Tale", "Cannibalism in the Cars", "The Stolen White Elephant", "The Man Who Put Up at Gadsby's", "The Good Little Boy", "The Bad Little Boy", and "Baker's Blue Jay Yarn".

One winter evening a shoemaker finds a mysterious stranger naked and freezing by a shrine in his small village. The shoemaker rescues the man, and takes him home. Though the stranger won’t say where he came from, Simon invites him to work beside him, and stay with his family. As the story unfolds, the stranger transforms, and ultimately reveals an astonishing and deeply moving secret. Late in Tolstoy’s life, after he had written his great masterpieces War and Peace, and Anna Karenina, he underwent a spiritual transformation.

The grand-prize winner of a writing contest sponsored by the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper, "The Gold-Bug" was one of Poe's most popular stories during his lifetime. Similar to his ratiocination tales - early versions of what we now call detective fiction - "The Gold-Bug" is full of mystery and adventure and includes a cryptogram, invisible ink, a scarab-like bug, and pirate treasure.

Ryūnosuke Niihara was born in Kyōbashi, Tokyo in Japan on the 1st March 1892. Sadly, his mother suffered severe mental illness after his birth and so, at only eight months old, he was sent to be raised by his maternal uncle and aunt, from whom he received the Akutagawa family name. Akutagawa published "Rashōmon" in 1915 and whilst it was disliked by his friends everyone else knew better. As other short stories followed so did his growing literary reputation as the father of the Japanese short story.

Perhaps Blackwood's most celebrated story, The Willows was influenced heavily by his own trips down the Danube River. It tells the story of two campers who pick the wrong place to sleep for the night, a place where another dimension impinges on our own. H.P. Lovecraft considered this the finest supernatural tale in English literature.

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.

A collection of horror/thriller stories with surprise endings to chill you and thrill you to the bone. The creepers include: THE LUMBERJACK: Teenagers on Halloween out to do mischief, slash the tires and kill the wrong man’s dog. THE FROZEN ABYSS: A team of explorers ventures deep into a remote and uncharted region of Antarctica, following strange satellite signals indicating something massive buried beneath the ice. PRANKS: Four friends tinkering with a Ouija board on Halloween night compete for who can pull off the creepiest prank by midnight to win a mysterious "grand prize. THE ...

Charlie Bucket and his family are rushing around the Earth at seventeen-thousand miles an hour in a great glass elevator. It belongs to the fantastic Mr Willy Wonka, and the adventure becomes even greater upon discovering they're not the only ones orbiting the Earth at that particular time....

In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, the renowned philosopher Roger Scruton explores the concept of beauty, asking what makes an object - either in art, in nature, or the human form - beautiful and examining how we can compare differing judgments of beauty when it is evident all around us that our tastes vary so widely.

Ernest Hemingway's first new book of fiction since the publication of A Farewell to Arms in 1929 contains 14 stories of varying length. Some of them have appeared in magazines but the majority have not been published before. The characters and backgrounds are widely varied. "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is about an old Spanish Beggar.

Sometimes a journey can be of discovery. And in this compilation, Ruskin Bond has discovered hair-raising stories of other people's journeys taken many, many years ago. Bond describes the old track from Rajpur to Mussorie, surrounded by oak trees and colonial buildings in 'The Kipling Road'. Braving blizzards and bandits, M. Huc takes a momentous journey to Ladakh in 'Journey to the Forbidden City', while Osa Johnson, the only woman adventurer in the book, gives her awe-inspiring account of cannibals in 'A Woman Among Cannibals'.

A collection of twenty horror/thriller stories with surprise endings to chill you and thrill you to the bone. The nightmares include: SOMETHING IN THE SKY: Strange things happen to two college students on Lovers Lane after a meteor cuts a path through a nearby cemetery. THE TOASTER: The City of Baltimore appropriates funds to move Edgar Allen Poe's grave site to a new mausoleum. LORD OF DARKNESS: Fred finds a large box on his doorstep with a horrific looking ebony statue inside that terrifies him. He abhors scary things and takes it to the city dump for disposal. THE METEOR: Newt is ...

The Chuzzlewits are a family divided by money and selfishness; even young Martin, the eponymous hero, is arrogant and self-centred. He offends his grandfather by falling in love with the latter’s ward, Mary, and sets out to make his own fortune in life, travelling as far as America - which produces from Dickens a savage satire on a new world tainted with the vices of the old. Martin’s nature slowly changes through his bitter experience of life and his enduring love for Mary.

The revered author’s definitive collection of short fiction, which explores enduring spiritual and science fiction themes such as space, time, reality, fantasy, God, and the fate of humankind. As powerful, inventive, and profound as his theological and philosophical works, The Dark Tower reveals another side of Lewis’s creative mind and his longtime fascination with reality and spirituality. It is ideal listening for fans of J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis’s longtime friend and colleague.

The Classic Collection of Dystopias is an essential anthology that brings together three of the most influential dystopian novels of the 20th century. This edition offers a deep dive into the disturbing, thought-provoking worlds created by Ayn Rand, Evgeny Zamyatin, and Jack London, exploring themes of individuality, totalitarianism, and societal control. Anthem by Ayn Rand presents a future where individualism is forbidden, and one man's journey to reclaim his identity serves as a powerful critique of collectivism.