Classic Short Story

The Mass of Shadows By ANATOLE FRANCE This tale the sacristan of the church of St. Eulalie at Neuville d’Aumont told me, as we sat under the arbor of the White Horse, one fine summer evening, drinking a bottle of old wine to the health of the dead man, now very much at his ease,…

Mud Road to Passchendaele by Douglas W. Culham, 1917 The Bowmen By ARTHUR MACHEN It was during the Retreat of the Eighty Thousand, and the authority of the Censorship is sufficient excuse for not being more explicit. But it was on the most awful day of that awful time, on the day when ruin and…

SOLANGE: DR. LEDRU’S STORY OF THE REIGN OF TERROR Leaving l’Abbaye, I walked straight across the Place Turenne to the Rue Tournon, where I had lodgings, when I heard a woman scream for help. It could not be an assault to commit robbery, for it was hardly ten o’clock in the evening. I ran to…

The Parson’s Daughter of Oxney Colne By Anthony Trollope (London Review, 2 March 1861) The prettiest scenery in all England—and if I am contradicted in that assertion, I will say in all Europe—is in Devonshire, on the southern and southeastern skirts of Dartmoor, where the rivers Dart and Avon and Teign form themselves, and where…

During the Exhibition of 1857, I was invited to be present at the opening of one of the mummy cases in the collection of Egyptian antiquities, and at the unwrapping of the mummy it contained.

Portrait of the Painter’s Daughter Anna Catharina A DAUGHTER OF THE LODGE by GEORGE GISSING For a score of years the Rocketts had kept the lodge of Brent Hall. In the beginning Rockett was head gardener; his wife, the daughter of a shopkeeper, had never known domestic service, and performed her duties at the Hall…

A WHITE HERON. Sarah Orne Jewett I. The woods were already filled with shadows one June evening, just before eight o’clock, though a bright sunset still glimmered faintly among the trunks of the trees. A little girl was driving home her cow, a plodding, dilatory, provoking creature in her behavior, but a valued companion for…

THE SELFISH GIANT 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 green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into…

THE REAL THING CHAPTER I When the porter’s wife, who used to answer the house-bell, announced “A gentleman and a lady, sir,” I had, as I often had in those days?the wish being father to the thought?an immediate vision of sitters. Sitters my visitors in this case proved to be; but not in the sense…

Zadig the Babylonian THE BLIND OF ONE EYE FRAN?OIS MARIE AROUET DE VOLTAIRE There lived at Babylon, in the reign of King Moabdar, a young man named Zadig, of a good natural disposition, strengthened and improved by education. Though rich and young, he had learned to moderate his passions; he had nothing stiff or affected…

THE CHRISTMAS TREE AND THE WEDDING If you have formatting issues, click here. The other day I saw a wedding? But no! I would rather tell you about a Christmas tree. The wedding was superb. I liked it immensely. But the other incident was still finer. I don’t know why it is that the sight…