The Mystery of the Semi-Detached by Edith Nesbit
Written in 1893, The Mystery of the Semi-Detached by Edith Nesbit tells of a young man perplexed when his lover fails to show up for a half-clandestine meeting and passes her house on the way home.
Short Stories
Free short stories by the all time great short story writers
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The Invisible Girl by Mary Shelley
The Invisible Girl by Mary Shelley is a Gothic tale first published in The Keepsake for 1833. The story is set in Wales, and tells of a young woman named Rosina, who lives with her guardian, Sir Peter Vernon, and is secretly engaged to his son, Henry.Â
My Friend by Kahlil Gibran
My Friend by Kahlil Gibran is a parable published in 1918 and is taken from his book The Madman: His Parables and Poems. Kahlil Gibran is a distinguished Lebanese American writer, poet, and visual artist.Â
Abandoned by Guy De Maupassant
Abandoned by Guy De Maupassant describes a time when giving up a child for adoption meant forsaking his or her existence. A haunting short story of love, loss, and betrayal
Old Rambling House by Frank Herbert
Old Rambling House by Frank Herbert is a short story which first appeared in Galaxy magazine in 1958 and later in Herbert’s 1985 short story collection The Worlds of Frank Herbert.
Napoleon and the Spectre by Charlotte Brontë
Written when she was just 17, Napoleon and the Spectre by Charlotte Brontë was taken from her novella Green Dwarf in 1833. It was later republished in The Twelve Adventurers and other stories in 1925.
The Shot by Alexander Pushkin
The Shot by Aleksander Pushkin was published in 1831. It is the first story in Pushkin’s The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin, a cycle of five short stories
Bartleby by Herman Melville
Bartleby by Herman Melville or to give it its full title, Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street is one of his most famous short stories. It was first serialized anonymously in two parts in the November and December 1853 issues of Putnam’s Magazine and later in The Piazza Tales in 1856.
The Lie by Holloway Horn
The Lie by Holloway Horn was first published in Harper’s Bazar in 1921 and later appeared in the May 1922 copy of The Blue Magazine.
The Five Orange Pips by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Five Orange Pips by Arthur Conan Doyle was first published in The Strand Magazine in November 1891. It was included in the short story collection The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which was published the following year.