Flash Fiction or micro fiction are very short stories typically up to 1200 words but that have some character development. Here we’ve selected some of the very best stories from famous authors
Portrait of a Lady by T. S. Eliot was first published in Others: A Magazine of the New Verse Sep 1915. It later appeared in his 1917 collection of poems, Prufrock and Other Observations. The poem’s title is widely seen to be derived from the novel of the same name by Henry James
A Joke by Anton Chekhov was published in 1886. A young man recounts a wintertime romance during which he announces his love to his young lover – but only when they are tobogganing down a steep slope.
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe was first published in 1845. The poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a distraught lover who is paid a mysterious visit by a talking raven.
The Kiss by Kate Chopin is a short story about a woman scheming to marry a wealthy man. Written in 1894 is appears in The Awakening and Selected Short Stories.
A Ghost in Love by Songling Pu is taken from a collection of Classical Chinese stories Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. Qing dynasty writer Songling Pu wrote close to 500 stories over a period of forty years from the late 1600s and ending in the early 1700s, but did not appear in print until 1766
An Arrest by Ambrose Bierce was originally published in 1913 as part of his short story collection Present at the Hanging and Other Ghost Stories.
Dick Baker’s Cat by Mark Twain was published in the anthology, Lords of the Housetops: Thirteen Cat Tales in 1921
The Lay of a Golden Goose by Louisa May Alcott, describes a world inhabited by talking geese, ducks, and other birds, but it is an autobiographical poem. It reflects her desire to explore the world and the hardships that can build against people.
Ex Oblivione by H. P. Lovecraft is a prose poem written in late 1920 or early 1921 and first published in The United Amateur in March 1921, under the pseudonym Ward Phillips.
Ningyo No Haka by Lafcadio Hearn first appeared in Gleanings in Buddha-Fields, the third book of Hearn’s Japanese period, published in 1897.
