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...

Part 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...

"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 Vi...

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...

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...

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

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 ...

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's ...

"My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and put up with me." ...

I NOBODY knew his history-- they of the Junta least of all. He was their "little mystery," their "big patriot," and in his way he worked as hard fo...

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...

The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of ...

I IT was said that a new person had appeared on the sea-front: a lady with a little dog. Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov, who had by then been a fortnight a...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

"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....

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...

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...

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 ...

There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid. He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be; his coat was spotted ...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Alas for the man and for the artist with the shifting point of perspective! Life shall be a confusion of ways to the one; the landscape shall rise ...

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...

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...

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...

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-...

"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 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...

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...

"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...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

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...

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...

"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...

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 ...

I. THE THREE QUESTIONS. There was once a king of England whose name was John. He was a bad king; for he was harsh and cruel to his people, and so 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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

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 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...

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

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...

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

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...

"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...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

"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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

“I don't s'pose you air goin' to do much Christmas over to your house.” Mrs. Luther Ely stood looking over her gate. There was a sweet, hypocritica...

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

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 ...

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

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

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...

"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,...

ALONG ALL THE ROADS around Goderville the peasants and their wives were coming toward the burgh because it was market day. The men were proceeding ...

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...

IT WAS a dark autumn night. The old banker was walking up and down his study and remembering how, fifteen years before, he had given a party one au...

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...

Norman Gortsby sat on a bench in the Park, with his back to a strip of bush-planted sward, fenced by the park railings, and the Row fronting him ac...

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...

"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...

Dear Emily, --I have a brilliant idea, and at once hasten to share it with you. Three weeks ago I came up here to the wilds of Vermont to visit my ...

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

NINE years ago Pyotr Sergeyitch, the deputy prosecutor, and I were riding towards evening in hay-making time to fetch the letters from the station....

When I was a little boy I once went with my father to call on Adrian Borlsover. I played on the floor with a black spaniel while my father appealed...

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...

Some people--not you nor I, because we are so awfully self-possessed--but some people, find great difficulty in saying good-bye when making a call ...

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...

The nervous, dapper, "peart" young man took the chair I offered him, and said he was connected with the Daily Thunderstorm, and added: "Hoping it's...

"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 ...

With the last morsel of bread Tom King wiped his plate clean of the last particle of flour gravy and chewed the resulting mouthful in a slow and me...

Certainly the progress of science is a wonderful thing. One can't help feeling proud of it. I must admit that I do. Whenever I get talking to anyon...

THERE was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constan...

There is a story -- I cannot tell it -- I have no words. The story is almost forgotten but sometimes I remember. The story concerns three men in a ...

For twenty years—for twenty long, horror filled, war laden years the Earth had not known peace. Hovering over the metropolises of the world came lo...

In a recent issue of the "Independent," the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, of Brooklyn, has the following utterance on the subject of "Smells": I have a ...

Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that...

At four o'clock that day, as on every other day, Alexandre rolled the three-wheeled chair for cripples up to the door of the little house; then, in...

MADAME Carambeau wanted it strictly understood that she was not to be disturbed by Gustave's birthday party. They carried her big rocking-chair fro...

An etching One afternoon I was sitting outside the Cafe de la Paix, watching the splendour and shabbiness of Parisian life, and wondering over my v...

A certain Preacher became wise to the Fact that he was not making a Hit with his Congregation. The Parishioners did not seem inclined to seek him o...

There was once an animal born into this world, and opening his eyes upon Life, he saw above and about him confining walls, and before him were bars...

Weigall, continental and detached, tired early of grouse shooting. To stand propped against a sod fence while his host's workmen routed up the bird...

It once occurred to a certain king, that if he always knew the right time to begin everything; if he knew who were the right people to listen to, a...

THERE was once a sculptor, named Alfred, who having won the large gold medal and obtained a travelling scholarship, went to Italy, and then came ba...

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...

UPON the pleasant veranda of Père Antoine's cottage, that adjoined the church, a young girl had long been seated, awaiting his return. It was the e...

I The Call of the Woodsman The day before Christmas, in the year of our Lord 722. Broad snow-meadows glistening white along the banks of the river ...

In the room of one of my friends hangs a mirror. It is an oblong sheet of glass, set in a frame of dark, highly varnished wood, carved in the worst...

The papa had told the story so often that the children knew just exactly what to expect the moment he began. They all knew it as well as he knew it...

She was a writing medium. This is what she wrote:-- I can remember some things upon that evening most distinctly, and others are like some vague, b...

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...

An acquaintance of mine once told me the following story. When I was a student at Moscow I happened to live alongside one of those ladies whose rep...

Along time ago, there lived an old poet, a thoroughly kind old poet. As he was sitting one evening in his room, a dreadful storm arose without, and...

People said "The Evening Bell is sounding, the sun is setting." For a strange wondrous tone was heard in the narrow streets of a large town. It was...

The beautiful, brilliant Butterflies of the Meadow had many cousins living in the forest, most of whom were Night Moths. They also were very beauti...

Certain houses, like certain persons, manage somehow to proclaim at once their character for evil. In the case of the latter, no particular feature...

John Claverhouse was a moon-faced man. You know the kind, cheek-bones wide apart, chin and forehead melting into the cheeks to complete the perfect...