100 Great Short Stories

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer...

I A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back...

"Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it." -- Anonymous Part I Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnum v...

THE MARVELLOUS THING IS THAT IT’S painless," he said. "That's how you know when it starts." "Is it really?" "Absolutely. I'm awfully sorry about th...

The girl was one of those pretty and charming young creatures who sometimes are born, as if by a slip of fate, into a family of clerks. She had no ...

'I suppose you will be getting away pretty soon, now Fall term is over, Professor,' said a person not in the story to the Professor of Ontography, ...

Long, long ago there lived at the foot of the mountain a poor farmer and his aged, widowed mother. They owned a bit of land which supplied them wit...

At five o'clock Ed Loyce washed up, tossed on his hat and coat, got his car out and headed across town toward his TV sales store. He was tired. His...

Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant's garden. It was a large lovely garden, with soft g...

"She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses," cried the young Student; "but in all my garden there is no red rose." From her ...

Idleness, vice, and intemperance had done their miserable work, and the dead mother lay cold and still amid her wretched children. She had fallen u...

Aunt Amy was out on the front porch, rocking back and forth in the high­backed chair and fanning herself, when Bill Soames rode his bicycle up the ...

The long June twilight faded into night. Dublin lay enveloped in darkness but for the dim light of the moon that shone through fleecy clouds, casti...

Even when dealing with the perilously stereotyped modern interplanetary story, the devilish pen of Ray Bradbury achieves that originality of concep...

THE man whose story is here to be told was the wealthiest and most influential person in his parish; his name was Thord Overaas. He appeared in the...

High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had ...

It is said that in Ulthar, which lies beyond the river Skai, no man may kill a cat; and this I can verily believe as I gaze upon him who sitteth pu...

North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School set the boys free. An uninhabited hou...

Herminia, mounted upon a dejected looking sorrel pony, was climbing the gradual slope of a pine hill one morning in summer. She was a ‘Cadian girl ...

I was born in San Francisco in 1876. At fifteen I was a man among men, and if I had a spare nickel I spent it on beer instead of candy, because I t...

On the other side of the sea from Rome there was once a great city named Car-thage. The Roman people were never very friendly to the people of Car-...

We rubber plants form the connecting link between the vegetable kingdom and the decorations of a Waldorf-Astoria scene in a Third Avenue theatre. I...

Every Saturday night the Clover Leaf Social Club gave a hop in the hall of the Give and Take Athletic Association on the East Side. In order to att...

THIS IS HOW it all came about. Six or seven of us were sitting one day after tea. Some were gazing across the street into the windows of a milliner...

A man called on me the other day with the idea of insuring my life. Now, I detest life-insurance agents; they always argue that I shall some day di...

In the summer of 1874 I was in Liverpool, whither I had gone on business for the mercantile house of Bronson & Jarrett, New York. I am William Jarr...

I want to tell you all about dear old Bobbie Cardew. It's a most interesting story. I can't put in any literary style and all that; but I don't hav...

PART I Nowhere did so many people pause as before the little picture-shop in the Shtchukinui Dvor. This little shop contained, indeed, the most var...

POOR John was very sad; for his father was so ill, he had no hope of his recovery. John sat alone with the sick man in the little room, and the lam...

It was a day in March. Never, never begin a story this way when you write one. No opening could possibly be worse. It is unimaginative, flat, dry a...

Pit where the buffalo cooled his hide,By the hot sun emptied, and blistered and dried;Log in the reh-grass, hidden and alone;Bund where the earth-r...

The walls of the cell were bare and white washed. A narrow grated window, placed so high that one could not reach it, lighted this sinister little ...

I Captain Parrol Hartroy stood at the advanced post of his picket-guard, talking in low tones with the sentinel. This post was on a turnpike which ...

There were twenty-six flat children, and none of them had ever been flat children until that year. Previously they had all been home children. and ...

WHAT a number of bond robberies there have been lately," I observed one morning, laying aside the newspaper. "Poirot, let us forsake the science of...

I knew quite well why Father sent me to Prince Edward Island to visit Aunt Philippa that summer. He told me he was sending me there "to learn some ...

The land dropped abruptly down from the gate, and a thick, shrubby growth of young apple orchard almost hid the little weather-grey house from the ...

Born 1706. Died 1790. In the year 1716, or about that period, a boy used to be seen in the streets of Boston, who was known among his schoolfellows...

It was the green heart of the canyon, where the walls swerved back from the rigid plan and relieved their harshness of line by making a little shel...

It was one afternoon in April, not long ago, only the other day, and the shadows had already begun to lengthen. Bertrand Delmandé, a fine, bright-l...

[Written about 1867.] At that time, in Kentucky (said the Hon. Mr. K-----); the law was very strict against what is termed "games of chance." About...

There were two or three things that I wanted to know. I do not care about a mystery. So I began to inquire. It took me two weeks to find out what w...

GRISHA, a fat, solemn little person of seven, was standing by the kitchen door listening and peeping through the keyhole. In the kitchen something ...

One September afternoon in the year of grace 1840 Avery and Janet Sparhallow were picking apples in their Uncle Daniel Sparhallow's big orchard. It...

Once upon a time there lived on the banks of the River Dee a miller, who was the hap-pi-est man in England. He was always busy from morning till ni...

"How are you to-day, Mrs. Carleton?" asked Dr. Farleigh, as he sat down by his patient, who reclined languidly in a large cushioned chair. "Miserab...

AT eight o'clock on the evening of the twentieth of May all the six batteries of the N---- Reserve Artillery Brigade halted for the night in the vi...

ITHE evening service was being celebrated on the eve of Palm Sunday in the Old Petrovsky Convent. When they began distributing the palm it was clos...

At one time the Danes drove King Alfred from his kingdom, and he had to lie hidden for a long time on a little is-land in a river. One day, all who...

"This out of all will remain - They have lived and have tossed: So much of the game will be gain, Though the gold of the dice has been lost." THEY ...

I ANDREY VASSILITCH KOVRIN, who held a master's degree at the University, had exhausted himself, and had upset his nerves. He did not send for a do...

Hello! there's Milial!" said somebody near me. I looked at the man who had been pointed out as I had been wishing for a long time to meet this Don ...

"Rather thirsty this morning, eh, Mr. Addicks?" inquired Cowdin, the chief purchasing agent. The "Mister" was said with a long, hissing "s" and was...

I stated it as definitely as I could. I was in a room with them. They had tongues like me, and hair and eyes. I got up out of my chair and said it ...

THE town was a little one, worse than a village, and it was inhabited by scarcely any but old people who died with an infrequency that was really a...

A Study in the Present Tense A breezy day and a sunny landscape. An open country to right and left and forward; behind, a wood. In the edge of this...

Throughout the whole countryside the Lucas farm, was known as "the Manor." No one knew why. The peasants doubtless attached to this word, "Manor," ...

GRISHA, a chubby little boy, born two years and eight months ago, is walking on the boulevard with his nurse. He is wearing a long, wadded pelisse,...

A hundred years or more after the time of Alfred the Great there was a king of England named Ca-nuté. King Canute was a Dane; but the Danes were no...

It was the hour of rest in the Country Beyond the Stars. All the silver bells that swing with the turning of the great ring of light which lies aro...

There was once a little man whose mother made him a beautiful suit of clothes. It was green and gold, and woven so that I cannot describe how delic...

One evening when Andy Donovan went to dinner at his Second Avenue boarding-house, Mrs. Scott introduced him to a new boarder, a young lady, Miss Co...

When I heard that Peter Austin was in Vancouver I hunted him up. I had met Peter ten years before when I had gone east to visit my father's people ...

It has long been vaguely understood that the condition of a man's clothes has a certain effect upon the health of both body and mind. The well-know...

Hey, diddle, diddle, The cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon! The little dog laughed To see such sport, And the dish ran off with the ...

He strolled to the corner and glanced up and down the intersecting street, but saw nothing save the oases of light shed by the street lamps at the ...

The small engine attached to the Neuilly steam-tram whistled as it passed the Porte Maillot to warn all obstacles to get out of its way and puffed ...

I "I'm getting up, Teddilinks," said Mrs Whiston, and she sprang out of bed briskly. "What the Hanover's got you?" asked Whiston. "Nothing. Can't I...

Consider that a conversation by telephone--when you are simply sitting by and not taking any part in that conversation--is one of the solemnest cur...

A breeze from the May world without blew through the class-room, and as it lifted his papers he had a curious sense of freshness and mustiness meet...

I One day last summer I went to Pittsburgh--well, I had to go there on business. My chair-car was profitably well filled with people of the kind on...

The Tale of Tom Kitten Once upon a time there were three little kittens, and their names were Mittens, Tom Kitten, and Moppet. They had dear little...

LEGISLATION NEEDED This country, during the last thirty or forty years, has produced some of the most remarkable cases of insanity of which there i...

When the vegetable-man knocked, Jessamine went to the door wearily. She felt quite well acquainted with him. He had been coming all the spring, and...

It was the first of April, and Julius Barrett, aged fourteen, perched on his father's gatepost, watched ruefully the low descending sun, and counte...

INTRODUCTION TO THE GOLDEN TOUCH AT noon, our juvenile party assembled in a dell, through the depths of which ran a little brook. The dell was narr...

A white-haired old man begged us for alms. My companion, Joseph Davranche, gave him five francs. Noticing my surprised look, he said: "That poor un...

Nikolai Yevgrafovitch Almazof hardly waited for his wife to open the door to him; he went straight to his study without taking off his hat or coat....

After dark on Saturday night one could stand on the first tee of the golf-course and see the country-club windows as a yellow expanse over a very b...

Some years ago, when I was the Editor of a Correspondence Column, I used to receive heart-broken letters from young men asking for advice and sympa...

A cruel battle was being fought. The ground was covered with dead and dying men. The air was hot and stifling. The sun shone down without pity on t...

There was a handful of clay in the bank of a river. It was only common clay, coarse and heavy; but it had high thoughts of its own value, and wonde...

"You are not really dying, are you?" asked Amanda. "I have the doctor's permission to live till Tuesday," said Laura. "But to-day is Saturday; this...

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voice...

To avoid having this book hurled into corner of the room by the suspicious reader, I will assert in time that this is not a newspaper story. You wi...

The room was large, but with a low ceiling, and at one end of the lengthy, broad apartment stood a gigantic fireplace, in which was heaped a pile o...

When we started for our drive the sun was shining brightly on Munich, and the air was full of the joyousness of early summer. Just as we were about...

Lakelands is not to be found in the catalogues of fashionable summer resorts. It lies on a low spur of the Cumberland range of mountains on a littl...

Down South whenever any one perpetrates some particularly monumental piece of foolishness everybody says: "Send for Jesse Holmes." Jesse Holmes is ...

The boy sitting opposite him was his enemy. The boy sitting opposite him was called Tigo, and he wore a green silk jacket with an orange stripe on ...

Political Economy is the basis of all good government. The wisest men of all ages have brought to bear upon this subject the-- [Here I was interrup...

ONCE some guests were gathered in a rich man's home, and it happened that a serious conversation about life arose. They talked about persons absent...

"You look worried, dear," said Eleanor. "I am worried," admitted Suzanne; "not worried exactly, but anxious. You see, my birthday happens next week...

There was once a king's son; nobody had so many or such beautiful books as he had. He could read about everything which had ever happened in this w...

"Come out of doors, master—come out of doors. I can't talk or think right with walls around me—never could. Let's go out to the garden." These were...

Mr. Nathaniel Clark and Mrs. Bowman had just finished their third game of draughts. It had been a difficult game for Mr. Clark, the lady's mind hav...

"What I want you to do," said Mr. George Wright, as he leaned towards the old sailor, "is to be an uncle to me." "Aye, aye," said the mystified Mr....

"Harvey," said Eleanor Bope, handing her brother a cutting from a London morning paper of the 19th of March, "just read this about children's toys,...

AT the furthest end of the village of Mironositskoe some belated sportsmen lodged for the night in the elder Prokofy's barn. There were two of them...

JULY 16, 1833. --This is a memorable anniversary for me; on it I complete my three hundred and twenty-third year! The Wandering Jew?--certainly not...

ONCE upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were— Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter. They lived with their Mother in a san...

Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening-- the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there went a...

"OFF THERE to the right--somewhere--is a large island," said Whitney." It's rather a mystery--" "What island is it?" Rainsford asked. "The old char...

The Christmas holidays had come, and with them a welcome vacation for Hedley Marstern. Although as yet a briefless young lawyer, he had a case in h...

All about us, living in our families, it may be, there exists a race of curious creatures. Outwardly, they possess no marked peculiarities; in fact...

Conradin was ten years old, and the doctor had pronounced his professional opinion that the boy would not live another five years. The doctor was s...

for THE REAL LITTLE LUCIE OF NEWLANDS ONCE upon a time there was a little girl called Lucie, who lived at a farm called Little-town. She was a good...

The other burlesque I have referred to was my fine satire upon the financial expedients of "cooking dividends," a thing which became shamefully fre...

In the street, up there, was an old, a very old house--it was almost three hundred years old, for that might be known by reading the great beam on ...

Stubby had a route, and that was how he happened to get a dog. For the benefit of those who have never carried papers it should be thrown in that h...

"Human natur'!" said the night-watchman, gazing fixedly at a pretty girl in a passing waterman's skiff. "Human natur'!" He sighed, and, striking a ...

[Written about 1865] Once there was a bad little boy whose name was Jim--though, if you will notice, you will find that bad little boys are nearly ...

A little whimsy, now and then, makes for good balance. Theoretically, you could find this type of humor anywhere. But only a topflight science-fict...

[The following letter, signed by Satan and purporting to come from him, we have reason to believe was not written by him, but by Mark Twain.--Edito...

Dorothy was a little Kansas girl who once accidentally found the beautiful Land of Oz and was invited to live there always. Toto was Dorothy's smal...

In the reign of the same caliph, Haroun al Raschid, of whom we have already heard, there lived at Bagdad a poor porter, called Hindbad. One day, wh...

He had a dreamy, far-away look in his eyes, and his sad, insistent voice, gentle-spoken as a maid's, seemed the placid embodiment of some deep-seat...

I NEVER knew anyone so keenly alive to a joke as the king was. He seemed to live only for joking. To tell a good story of the joke kind, and to tel...

In an air-shaft so narrow that you could touch the next wall with your bare hands, Hanneh Breineh leaned out and knocked on her neighbor’s window. ...

The man in the ticket-office said: "Have an accident insurance ticket, also?" "No," I said, after studying the matter over a little. "No, I believe...

Once or twice a year I get a letter of a certain pattern, a pattern that never materially changes, in form and substance, yet I cannot get used to ...

He drank strong waters and his speech was coarse; He purchased raiment and forebore to pay;He struck a trusting junior with a horse, And won Gymkha...

I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more. Penniless, and at the end of my supply of the drug which...

"Sure you're done with it?" "Oh, yes," replied the girl, the suggestion of a smile on her face, and in her voice the suggestion of a tear. "Yes; I ...

The following adventure happened to me about 1882. I had just taken the train and settled down in a corner, hoping that I should be left alone, whe...

FOOTPRINTS in the snow have been unfailing provokers of sentiment ever since snow was first a white wonder in this drab-coloured world of ours. In ...

SHE had delayed, because of the dew-wet grass, in order to put on her overshoes, and when she emerged from the house found her waiting husband abso...

The moment that the wagon rattled out of the yard away to the station, Madame Solisainte settled herself into a state of nervous expectancy. She wa...

The Widow Ducket lived in a small village about ten miles from the New Jersey sea-coast. In this village she was born, here she had married and bur...

It was a hot afternoon, and the railway carriage was correspondingly sultry, and the next stop was at Templecombe, nearly an hour ahead. The occupa...

I had seen the Magic Shop from afar several times; I had passed it once or twice, a shop window of alluring little objects, magic balls, magic hens...

FOR ALL LITTLE FRIENDS OF MR. McGREGOR & PETER & BENJAMIN IT is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is "soporific." I have never felt s...

He laughed involuntarily as the olive rolled towards his chair across the shiny parquet floor of the hotel dining-room. His table in the cavernous ...

IT was midday. Voldyrev, a tall, thick-set country gentleman with a cropped head and prominent eyes, took off his overcoat, mopped his brow with hi...

On Christmas Eve the Mayor's stately mansion presented a beautiful appearance. There were rows of different coloured wax candles burning in every w...

For there be divers sorts of death -- some wherein the body remaineth; and in some it vanisheth quite away with the spirit. This commonly occurreth...

One morning the old Water-rat put his head out of his hole. He had bright beady eyes and stiff grey whiskers and his tail was like a long bit of bl...

The Baroness and Clovis sat in a much-frequented corner of the Park exchanging biographical confidences about the long succession of passers-by. "W...

Two men in a smoking-room were talking of their private-school days. ‘At our school,’ said A., ‘we had a ghost’s footmark on the staircase. What wa...

Time was, with most of us, when Christmas Day encircling all our limited world like a magic ring, left nothing out for us to miss or seek; bound to...

[Written about 1865] Once there was a good little boy by the name of Jacob Blivens. He always obeyed his parents, no matter how absurd and unreason...

I am tired. At the end of these years I am very tired. I have been studying in books the languages of the living and those we call dead. Early in t...

"Oh, Little Bun Rabbit, so soft and so shy, Say, what do you see with your big, round eye?" "On Christmas we rabbits," says Bunny so shy, "Keep wat...

When the last days were upon me, and the ugly trifles of existence began to drive me to madness like the small drops of water that torturers let fa...

One autumn I went to spend the hunting season with some friends in a chateau in Picardy. My friends were fond of practical jokes. I do not care to ...

IN REMEMBRANCE OF "SAMMY," THE INTELLIGENT PINK-EYED REPRESENTATIVE OF A PERSECUTED (BUT IRREPRESSIBLE) RACE. AN AFFECTIONATE LITTLE FRIEND. AND MO...

The Story of the Great Weep It was in the second decade of the Twentieth Century, after the Great Plague had devastated England, that Hermann the I...

Jeeves--my man, you know--is really a most extraordinary chap. So capable. Honestly, I shouldn't know what to do without him. On broader lines he's...

IT was a bright winter midday. . . . There was a sharp snapping frost and the curls on Nadenka's temples and the down on her upper lip were covered...

TRUE!-NERVOUS--very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am! but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses--not destro...