Painting by Vladimir Makovsky How Much Land Does a Man Need by Leo Tolstoy I An elder sister came to visit her younger sister in the country. The elder was married to a tradesman in town, the younger to a peasant in the village. As the sisters sat over their tea talking, the elder began…
Classic Short Story
BARTLEBY, THE SCRIVENER by Herman Melville
I am a rather elderly man. The nature of my avocations for the last thirty years has brought me into more than ordinary contact with what would seem an interesting and somewhat singular set of men,
Paul’s Case by Willa Cather
It was Paul’s afternoon to appear before the faculty of the Pittsburgh High School to account for his various misdemeanours. He had been suspended a week ago, and his father had called
A FIGHT WITH A CANNON by Victor Hugo
La vieuville was suddenly cut short by a cry of despair, and a the same time a noise was heard wholly unlike any other sound. The cry and sounds came from within
The Lady or the Tiger by Frank R. Stockton
THE LADY, OR THE TIGER? In the very olden time there lived a semi-barbaric king, whose ideas, though somewhat polished and sharpened by the progressiveness of distant Latin neighbors, were still large, florid, and untrammeled, as became the half of him which was barbaric. He was a man of exuberant fancy, and, withal, of an…
The Lady With The Dog by Anton Chekhov
Intro to The Lady with the Dog by Anton Chekov by Richard Everywriter (Editors note, this story was first published 2/21/2010 and updated 4/12/2025) We first published “The Lady with the Dog” on our website about 15 years ago. It was one of the earliest digital versions of this classic that subsequently spread across the…
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County By Mark Twain
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County By Mark Twain is one of Twain’s most prized stories.
The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad
French frigate La Boudeuse I On my right hand there were lines of fishing stakes resembling a mysterious system of half-submerged bamboo fences, incomprehensible in its division of the domain of tropical fishes, and crazy of aspect as if abandoned forever by some nomad tribe of fishermen now gone to the other end of the…