Short Stories
Usually written in prose, often in narrative format, this format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction. Many short story writers define their work through a combination of creative, personal expression and artistic integrity.
Flatland [en] (1884) 
Edwin Abbott Abbott
How would a creature limited to two dimensions be able to grasp the possibility of a third? Edwin A. Abbott's droll and delightful "romance of many dimensions" explores this conundrum in the experiences of his protagonist, A Square, whose linear world is invaded by an emissary Sphere bringing...
Genres: Satire, Science Fiction, Short Stories
Micromegas [en] (1752)
Voltaire
Micromegas is an inhabitant of the star Sirius, 120,000 feet tall and accompanied by a dwarf from Saturn who is 6000 feet tall. During a grand tour of the universe they visit Earth in 1737 and, using makeshift microscopes, they detect a boating party of tiny human philosophers.
Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories
The Big Trip Up Yonder [en] (1954)
Kurt Vonnegut
Vonnegut's short work, "The Big Trip Up Yonder," is a genre science fiction tale originally published in the magazine "Galaxy Science Fiction" in 1959 -- "If it was good enough for your grandfather, forget it ... it is much too good for anyone else!"
Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories
In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I [en] (1891)
Various
If gentle reader you will step across this threshold now as the moon rises in the keen Christmas air and will find a place by the ruddy ingle within doors you may hear if you will a Babel of voices from many lands telling over the adventures of the road and falling into the good fellowship of...
Genre: Short Stories
Operation Haystack [en] (1959)
Frank Herbert
It's hard to ferret out a gang of fanatics; it would, obviously, be even harder to spot a genetic line of dedicated men. But the problem Orne had was one step tougher than that! Field Agent Lewis Orne must contend with genetic manipulation and dig deep into a complex political situation to...
Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories
The Christmas Books [en] (1879)
William Makepeace Thackeray
A collection of several Christmas stories including Mrs Perkin's Ball and The Rose and the Ring. Great reading over the festive holiday's.
Genre: Short Stories
Betty's Bright Idea [en] (1875)
Harriet Beecher Stowe
And this holy time, so hallowed and so gracious, was settling down over the great roaring, rattling, seething life–world of New York in the good year 1875. Who does not feel its on–coming in the shops and streets, in the festive air of trade and business, in the thousand garnitures...
Genre: Short Stories
The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain [en] (1848)
Charles Dickens
Redlaw is a teacher of chemistry who often broods over wrongs done him and grief from his past. He is haunted by a spirit, who is not so much a ghost as Redlaw's phantom twin and is "an awful likeness of himself...with his features, and his bright eyes, and his grizzled hair, and dressed in the...
Genre: Short Stories
A Kidnapped Santa Claus [en] (1904)
Lyman Frank Baum
Santa Claus lives in the Laughing Valley. On one side of the Valley is the mighty Forest of Burzee, home of the fairies. At the other side stands a terrible mountain that contains the caves of the daemons: Selfishness, Envy, Hatred, and Repentance. The daemons, thinking they have great cause to...
Genre: Short Stories
Some Christmas Stories [en] (1911)
Charles Dickens
In this charming collection of short stories, Dickens presents a galaxy of beautifully drawn characters. He presents the branches of Christmas tree as ladders which one climbs in the journey from childhood to youth. Going through the book evokes the sweet memories of childhood.
Genre: Short Stories
Brother Jacob [en] (1921)
George Eliot
Brother Jacob is Eliot's literary homage to Thackeray, a satirical modern fable that draws telling parallels between eating and reading. Revealing Eliot's deep engagement with the question of whether there are 'necessary truths' independent of our perception of them and the boundaries of art and...
Genres: Satire, Short Stories
Dream Days [en] (1898)
Kenneth Grahame
Dream Days is a collection of children's fiction and reminiscences of childhood written by Kenneth Grahame. A sequel to Grahame's 1895 collection The Golden Age (some of its selections feature the same family of five children), Dream Days was first published in 1898 under the imprint John Lane:...
Genres: Short Stories, Young Readers
The Arabian Nights Entertainments [en] (1890)
Anonymous
The Sultan Schahriar's misguided resolution to shelter himself from the possible infidelities on his wives leads to an outbreak of barbarity in his kingdoms and a reign of terror in his court, stopped only by the resourceful Scheherazade. The tales with which Scheherazade nightly postpones the...
Genres: Fairy Tales/Folklore, Short Stories
A Voyage in a Balloon [en] (1852)
Jules Verne
Amalgamating futuristic technologies and expeditions into the future, this is a scintillating collection by Verne. The work combines sights of the future as well as bird’s eye view of the contemporary era. This brilliant work by the author is the example of his genius and creative abilities.
Genres: Adventure, Short Stories
Dracula's Guest [en] (1914)
Bram Stoker
"Dracula's Guest" follows an Englishman as he wanders around Munich before leaving for Transylvania. It is Walpurgis Night, and in spite of the coachman's warnings, the young man foolishly leaves his hotel and wanders through a dense forest alone. Along the way he feels he is being watched by a...
Genres: Horror, Short Stories
Colonel Chabert [en] (1845)
Honoré de Balzac
The story of a French military hero of the Napoleonic Wars, long assumed to be dead, tries to recover his fortune and former wife through the help of a famous Parisian lawyer. Colonel Chabert, a Napoleonic War hero supposedly killed in the Battle of Eylau, returns to Paris after a long...
Genre: Short Stories
Gallegher and Other Stories [en] (1891)
Richard Harding Davis
Gallegher And Other Stories Summary: The pity of the whole situation was, that the boy was only a boy with all his man's miserable knowledge of the world, and the reason of it all was, that he had entirely too much heart and not enough money to make an unsuccessful gambler. If he had only been...
Genre: Short Stories
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. [en] (1820)
Washington Irving
This collection of stories from Washington Irving includes some of America's best-known works of fiction-such as the famous Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow-as well as lesser-known works as The Specter Bridegroom, Westminster Abbey, English Writers on America, Stratford on Avon,...
Genres: Essay, Short Stories
The Battle of the Books [en] (1704)
Jonathan Swift
While things were in this ferment, discord grew extremely high; hot words passed on both sides, and ill blood was plentifully bred. Here a solitary Ancient, squeezed up among a whole shelf of Moderns, offered fairly to dispute the case, and to prove by manifest reason that the priority was due...
Genres: Satire, Short Stories
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button [en] (1922)
Francis Scott Fitzgerald
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald about a man who ages in reverse: He is born a feeble 70-year-old and becomes younger as the years progress. This faithful graphic-novel adaptation chronicles Benjamin Button's many adventures: He falls in love with a...
Genre: Short Stories
