A haunted house that holds the mystery of the human heart; a challenge to read the contents of a library -- that reveals how dismally bad all too many books are. Five faces in a train compartment that among them become an unwritten novel. . . . a garden that holds the memory of love. Monday or Tuesday contains eight... read more »
Pit and The Pendulum is about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition. The story is especially effective at inspiring fear in the reader because of its heavy focus on the senses, such as sound, emphasizing its reality, unlike many of Poe's stories which are aided by the supernatural. read more »
Seventeen parodies with a Christmas theme of some of the most renowned authors of the period - including Kipling, Henry James, Thomas Hardy, H.G. Wells and Conrad - written by Max Beerbohm, whose reputation as a humourist and writer remains high. It is regarded as one of the finest collection of parodies in the... read more »
The first book of G.K. Chesterton’s ingenious, thoughtful, and lyrically written mystery stories featuring the unassuming little priest who solves crimes by imagining himself inside the mind and soul of criminals, thus understanding their motives. The stories are full of paradox, spiritual insight, and... read more »
Our protagonist takes refuge in an abandoned castle and discovers a room with a series of paintings accompanied by a small book describing them. His attention is attracted by an oval portrait depicting a young woman of rare beauty. The book tells of the artist falling in love with the gir and marrying her. It was... read more »
Montressor, angry over insults by his friend Fortunato, a fellow nobleman, plots to murder him during Carnival when the man is drunk, by immurement, sealing him up alive behind walls of bricks. He baits Fortunato by telling him he has obtained, out of season, what he believes to be a pipe of Amontillado, about 130... read more »
The plot follows an unnamed narrator at sea who finds himself in a series of harrowing circumstances. As he nears his own disastrous death while his ship drives ever southward, he writes an "MS." or manuscript telling of his adventures which he casts into the sea. Some critics believe the story was meant as a satire... read more »
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar tells the tale of a mesmerist who puts a man in a suspended hypnotic state at the moment of death to see if he can communicate with him after he is dead. While a tale of suspense and horror, it was also, at the time of its publication, a bit of a hoax since it was published... read more »
Poe's short horror story on the theme of being buried alive, which was a common fear in this period and Poe took advantage of the public interest. The first-person unnamed narrator describes his struggle with "attacks of the singular disorder which physicians have agreed to term catalepsy," a condition where he... read more »
Believing William Legrand to have gone insane following an insect bite, his friend initially decries his quest for gold as the ramblings of a madman. Yet when Legrand's conviction fails to waiver, they set off on a bizarre journey, accompanied by Jupiter, Legrand's loyal and equally sceptical servant. What follows... read more »
It takes much deception, betrayal, and madness to commit a murder. Even more madness to cover up that murder. In this haunting tale we follow the detailed planning involved to rid the world of an Evil Eye. Will the beating of the tell-tale heart reveal the truth to the police? read more »
Ligeia is a book written by Edgar Allan Poe and widely considered to be one of the top 100 greatest books of all time. This great novel will surely attract a whole new generation of readers. For many, Ligeia is required reading for various courses and curriculum's. And for others who simply enjoy reading timeless... read more »
In this, his most famous story, Kafka explores the notions of alienation and human loneliness through extraordinary narrative technique and depth of imagination. Gregor Samsa awakens one morning to find himself transformed into a repulsive bug. Trapped inside this hideous form, his mind remains unchanged—until he... read more »
The Piazza Tales were written upon the public indignation over his novel Pierre, which had forced Melville to retire to the piazza of his house in Lenox, Massachusetts. The six tales included here are among Melville's most notable writings. They include the famed tale "Bartleby" a story of slavery, "Benito Cereno... read more »
An influential short story by Philip K. Dick first published in Space Science Fiction magazine, in May 1953. It is one of Dick's many stories in which nuclear war has rendered the Earth's surface to an uninhabitable, gray ash pile, and the only things remaining are killer robots. (source: Wikipedia) read more »
Although best known for his novels, it was in his early short fiction that H. G. Wells first explored the relationship between the fantastical and everyday. Here horror meets humor, man-eating squids invade the sleepy Devon coast, and strange kinks and portals in space and time lead to other worlds-a marvelous... read more »
Under normal conditions a whole person has a decided advantage over a handicapped one. But out in deep space the normal may be reversed--for humans at any rate. Steena is a computer programmer who spends her life in the background, a woman in plain gray clothing who speaks little but her knowledge of odd bits of... read more »
The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents is a collection of fifteen fantasy and science fiction short stories written by the English author H. G. Wells between 1893 and 1895. It was first published by Methuen & Co. in 1895 and was Wells's first book of short stories. All of the stories had first been published in... read more »
Bartleby the Scrivener is the story of a quiet, hard working legal copyist who works in an office in the Wall Street area of New York City. One day Bartleby declines the assignment his employer gives him with the inscrutable "I would prefer not." The utterance of this remark sets off a confounding set of actions and... read more »
"I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a thunderbolt." These words of Maupassant to Jose Maria de Heredia on the occasion of a memorable meeting are, in spite of their morbid solemnity, not an inexact summing up of the brief career during which, for ten years, the writer, by turns undaunted... read more »
Volume two of the complete works in five volumes from one of the leaders of the American Romantics. Macabre parties in isolated castles … Gruesome bestial murders … Talking ravens, hellish black pits, innocents buried alive … Prepare to be chilled and enthralled by the haunting genius of the acknowledged... read more »
First published in 1877, these three stories are dominated by questions of doubt, love, loneliness and religious experience, and together form a triumphant conclusion to Flaubert's literary career. Includes "The Dance of Death," "The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller," and "A Simple Soul." read more »
This beautiful and remarkable little wonder of a book includes "The Happy Prince," "The Nightingale and the Rose," "The Selfish Giant," "The Devoted Friend," and "The Remarkable Rocket." Wilde is a man remembered for plays like "The Importance of Being Ernest," works like De Profundis and the scandal that attended... read more »
Lord Arthur Savile, about to be married to a sweetly innocent maiden, learns to his horror that a psychic can see a crime of violence in his palm. The clairvoyant tells Saville that before he can marry his beloved, he must murder a distant relative. What follows is a hilarious account of Lord Saville's various... read more »
Two former British soldiers who were sent in the early 19th century to British controlled India to search for adventure end up becoming kings of Kafiristan. This story is inspired by Josiah Harlan, an American adventurer who claimed the title of Prince of Ghor after leding a military force into Afghanistan in the... read more »
Soldiers Three is a collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. The three soldiers of the title are Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris, who had also appeared previously in the collection Plain Tales from the Hills. Soldiers Three and other stories consists of three sections which each had previously received... read more »
The twelfth in Andrew Lang's Fairy Book series containing 33 tales from Portugal, Ireland, Wales and points East and West, among them "The Brown Bear of Norway," "The Enchanted Deer," "The Story of a Very Bad Boy," and "The Brownie of the Lake". First published in 1910 and includes 51 illustrations. read more »
The Olive Fairy Book contains eight Punjabi tales, five from Armenia, 16 other stories from Turkey, Denmark, the Sudan, and more. An enchanting world of flying dragons, ogres, fairies, and princes transformed into white foxes with illustrations by H.J. Ford. read more »
In this volume there are stories from the natives of Rhodesia, collected by Mr. Fairbridge, who speaks the native language, and one is brought by Mr. Cripps from another part of Africa, Uganda. Three tales from the Punjaub were collected and translated by Major Campbell. Various savage tales, which needed a good... read more »
The stories in this Fairy Book come from all quarters of the world. For example, the adventures of 'Ball-Carrier and the Bad One' are told by Red Indian grandmothers to Red Indian children who never go to school, nor see pen and ink. 'The Bunyip' is known to even more uneducated little ones, running about with no... read more »