Free short stories by the all time great short story writers
Transcendental Wild Oats by Louisa May Alcott details her family’s involvement with the Transcendentalist community Fruitlands in the early 1840s. The work was first published in a New York newspaper in 1873.
The Coffin Maker by Alexander Pushkin tells the story of Adrian Prokhoroff, a funeral director who, in a drunken rage, shouts out an invitation to all his customers to a party at his house…and unleashes a scene of grisly horror.
On Cats and Dogs by Jerome K. Jerome appears in Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, published in 1886.
The Alchemist by H. P. Lovecraft was written in 1908, when Lovecraft was 17 or 18, and first published in the November 1916 issue of the United Amateur.
The Voyage by Katherine Mansfield was first published in The Sphere on 24 December 1921, and later reprinted in The Garden Party and Other Stories.
Raspberry Spring by Ivan Turgenev is the third story in Ivan Turgenev’s collection of short stories, A Sportsman’s Sketches. Published in 1852, it was his first published work.
The Hammer of God by G. K. Chesterton features his detective, Father Brown, and was published in the short story collection The Innocence of Father Brown in 1911.
The Punctiliousness of Don Sebastian by W. Somerset Maugham is an ancient tale of revenge as the title character confronts his wife’s infidelity and manipulates his way to a position of power.
A Pair of Silk Stockings by Kate Chopin was published in 1897. The story follows Mrs. Sommers who prefers spending a windfall on herself, rather than on her children.
Originally published in 1880, The Last Lesson By Alphonse Daudet is a poignant short story set in an unnamed town in Alsace during the early days of the Prussian occupation, around 1873.
