100 Great Short Stories

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer...

Part I A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his...

"Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it." — Anonymous Part I Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnum Vi...

THE MARVELLOUS THING IS THAT IT’S painless," he said. "That's how you know when it starts." "Is it really?" "Absolutely. I'm awfully sorry about th...

The girl was one of those pretty and charming young creatures who sometimes are born, as if by a slip of fate, into a family of clerks. She had no ...

'I suppose you will be getting away pretty soon, now Fall term is over, Professor,' said a person not in the story to the Professor of Ontography, ...

Long, long ago there lived at the foot of the mountain a poor farmer and his aged, widowed mother. They owned a bit of land which supplied them wit...

At five o'clock Ed Loyce washed up, tossed on his hat and coat, got his car out and headed across town toward his TV sales store. He was tired. His...

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 g...

"She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses," cried the young Student; "but in all my garden there is no red rose." From her ...

Idleness, vice, and intemperance had done their miserable work, and the dead mother lay cold and still amid her wretched children. She had fallen u...

Aunt Amy was out on the front porch, rocking back and forth in the high­backed chair and fanning herself, when Bill Soames rode his bicycle up the ...

The long June twilight faded into night. Dublin lay enveloped in darkness but for the dim light of the moon that shone through fleecy clouds, casti...

THE man whose story is here to be told was the wealthiest and most influential person in his parish; his name was Thord Overaas. He appeared in the...

High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had ...

Even when dealing with the perilously stereotyped modern interplanetary story, the devilish pen of Ray Bradbury achieves that originality of concep...

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's ...

"My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and put up with me." ...

I NOBODY knew his history-- they of the Junta least of all. He was their "little mystery," their "big patriot," and in his way he worked as hard fo...

It is said that in Ulthar, which lies beyond the river Skai, no man may kill a cat; and this I can verily believe as I gaze upon him who sitteth pu...

I IT was said that a new person had appeared on the sea-front: a lady with a little dog. Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov, who had by then been a fortnight a...

North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School set the boys free. An uninhabited hou...

The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of ...

[Written about 1867.] At that time, in Kentucky (said the Hon. Mr. K-----); the law was very strict against what is termed "games of chance." About...

“I don't s'pose you air goin' to do much Christmas over to your house.” Mrs. Luther Ely stood looking over her gate. There was a sweet, hypocritica...

GRISHA, a chubby little boy, born two years and eight months ago, is walking on the boulevard with his nurse. He is wearing a long, wadded pelisse,...

It has long been vaguely understood that the condition of a man's clothes has a certain effect upon the health of both body and mind. The well-know...

THE town was a little one, worse than a village, and it was inhabited by scarcely any but old people who died with an infrequency that was really a...

ONCE some guests were gathered in a rich man's home, and it happened that a serious conversation about life arose. They talked about persons absent...

The boy sitting opposite him was his enemy. The boy sitting opposite him was called Tigo, and he wore a green silk jacket with an orange stripe on ...

Hey, diddle, diddle, The cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon! The little dog laughed To see such sport, And the dish ran off with the ...

One evening when Andy Donovan went to dinner at his Second Avenue boarding-house, Mrs. Scott introduced him to a new boarder, a young lady, Miss Co...

ITHE evening service was being celebrated on the eve of Palm Sunday in the Old Petrovsky Convent. When they began distributing the palm it was clos...

A Study in the Present Tense A breezy day and a sunny landscape. An open country to right and left and forward; behind, a wood. In the edge of this...

There was once a king's son; nobody had so many or such beautiful books as he had. He could read about everything which had ever happened in this w...

A cruel battle was being fought. The ground was covered with dead and dying men. The air was hot and stifling. The sun shone down without pity on t...

Herminia, mounted upon a dejected looking sorrel pony, was climbing the gradual slope of a pine hill one morning in summer. She was a ‘Cadian girl ...

Consider that a conversation by telephone--when you are simply sitting by and not taking any part in that conversation--is one of the solemnest cur...

"You look worried, dear," said Eleanor. "I am worried," admitted Suzanne; "not worried exactly, but anxious. You see, my birthday happens next week...

"Come out of doors, master—come out of doors. I can't talk or think right with walls around me—never could. Let's go out to the garden." These were...

There were two or three things that I wanted to know. I do not care about a mystery. So I began to inquire. It took me two weeks to find out what w...

"You are not really dying, are you?" asked Amanda. "I have the doctor's permission to live till Tuesday," said Laura. "But to-day is Saturday; this...

A white-haired old man begged us for alms. My companion, Joseph Davranche, gave him five francs. Noticing my surprised look, he said: "That poor un...

It was a day in March. Never, never begin a story this way when you write one. No opening could possibly be worse. It is unimaginative, flat, dry a...

After dark on Saturday night one could stand on the first tee of the golf-course and see the country-club windows as a yellow expanse over a very b...

One September afternoon in the year of grace 1840 Avery and Janet Sparhallow were picking apples in their Uncle Daniel Sparhallow's big orchard. It...

In the summer of 1874 I was in Liverpool, whither I had gone on business for the mercantile house of Bronson & Jarrett, New York. I am William Jarr...

Hello! there's Milial!" said somebody near me. I looked at the man who had been pointed out as I had been wishing for a long time to meet this Don ...

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voice...

At one time the Danes drove King Alfred from his kingdom, and he had to lie hidden for a long time on a little island in a river. One day, all who ...

INTRODUCTION TO THE GOLDEN TOUCH AT noon, our juvenile party assembled in a dell, through the depths of which ran a little brook. The dell was narr...

Born 1706. Died 1790. In the year 1716, or about that period, a boy used to be seen in the streets of Boston, who was known among his schoolfellows...

A hundred years or more after the time of Alfred the Great there was a king of England named Ca-nuté. King Canute was a Dane; but the Danes were no...

THIS IS HOW it all came about. Six or seven of us were sitting one day after tea. Some were gazing across the street into the windows of a milliner...

The Tale of Tom Kitten Once upon a time there were three little kittens, and their names were Mittens, Tom Kitten, and Moppet. They had dear little...

There was once a little man whose mother made him a beautiful suit of clothes. It was green and gold, and woven so that I cannot describe how delic...

There was a man named Cin-cin-na´tus who lived on a little farm not far from the city of Rome. He had once been rich, and had held the highest offi...

I knew quite well why Father sent me to Prince Edward Island to visit Aunt Philippa that summer. He told me he was sending me there "to learn some ...

I was born in San Francisco in 1876. At fifteen I was a man among men, and if I had a spare nickel I spent it on beer instead of candy, because I t...

AT eight o'clock on the evening of the twentieth of May all the six batteries of the N---- Reserve Artillery Brigade halted for the night in the vi...

It was one afternoon in April, not long ago, only the other day, and the shadows had already begun to lengthen. Bertrand Delmandé, a fine, bright-l...

The small engine attached to the Neuilly steam-tram whistled as it passed the Porte Maillot to warn all obstacles to get out of its way and puffed ...

It was the green heart of the canyon, where the walls swerved back from the rigid plan and relieved their harshness of line by making a little shel...

I stated it as definitely as I could. I was in a room with them. They had tongues like me, and hair and eyes. I got up out of my chair and said it ...

LEGISLATION NEEDED This country, during the last thirty or forty years, has produced some of the most remarkable cases of insanity of which there i...

There were twenty-six flat children, and none of them had ever been flat children until that year. Previously they had all been home children. and ...

A man called on me the other day with the idea of insuring my life. Now, I detest life-insurance agents; they always argue that I shall some day di...

Pit where the buffalo cooled his hide,By the hot sun emptied, and blistered and dried;Log in the reh-grass, hidden and alone;Bund where the earth-r...

There was a handful of clay in the bank of a river. It was only common clay, coarse and heavy; but it had high thoughts of its own value, and wonde...

It was the hour of rest in the Country Beyond the Stars. All the silver bells that swing with the turning of the great ring of light which lies aro...

Down South whenever any one perpetrates some particularly monumental piece of foolishness everybody says: "Send for Jesse Holmes." Jesse Holmes is ...

The room was large, but with a low ceiling, and at one end of the lengthy, broad apartment stood a gigantic fireplace, in which was heaped a pile o...

He strolled to the corner and glanced up and down the intersecting street, but saw nothing save the oases of light shed by the street lamps at the ...

There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid. He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be; his coat was spotted ...

POOR John was very sad; for his father was so ill, he had no hope of his recovery. John sat alone with the sick man in the little room, and the lam...

I "I'm getting up, Teddilinks," said Mrs Whiston, and she sprang out of bed briskly. "What the Hanover's got you?" asked Whiston. "Nothing. Can't I...

AT the furthest end of the village of Mironositskoe some belated sportsmen lodged for the night in the elder Prokofy's barn. There were two of them...

Mr. Nathaniel Clark and Mrs. Bowman had just finished their third game of draughts. It had been a difficult game for Mr. Clark, the lady's mind hav...

I want to tell you all about dear old Bobbie Cardew. It's a most interesting story. I can't put in any literary style and all that; but I don't hav...

I. THE THREE QUESTIONS. There was once a king of England whose name was John. He was a bad king; for he was harsh and cruel to his people, and so l...

Political Economy is the basis of all good government. The wisest men of all ages have brought to bear upon this subject the-- [Here I was interrup...

"Harvey," said Eleanor Bope, handing her brother a cutting from a London morning paper of the 19th of March, "just read this about children's toys,...

"This out of all will remain - They have lived and have tossed: So much of the game will be gain, Though the gold of the dice has been lost." THEY ...

"Rather thirsty this morning, eh, Mr. Addicks?" inquired Cowdin, the chief purchasing agent. The "Mister" was said with a long, hissing "s" and was...

GRISHA, a fat, solemn little person of seven, was standing by the kitchen door listening and peeping through the keyhole. In the kitchen something ...

I Captain Parrol Hartroy stood at the advanced post of his picket-guard, talking in low tones with the sentinel. This post was on a turnpike which ...

ALONG ALL THE ROADS around Goderville the peasants and their wives were coming toward the burgh because it was market day. The men were proceeding ...

When we started for our drive the sun was shining brightly on Munich, and the air was full of the joyousness of early summer. Just as we were about...

The land dropped abruptly down from the gate, and a thick, shrubby growth of young apple orchard almost hid the little weather-grey house from the ...

It was the first of April, and Julius Barrett, aged fourteen, perched on his father's gatepost, watched ruefully the low descending sun, and counte...

Throughout the whole countryside the Lucas farm, was known as "the Manor." No one knew why. The peasants doubtless attached to this word, "Manor," ...

WHAT a number of bond robberies there have been lately," I observed one morning, laying aside the newspaper. "Poirot, let us forsake the science of...

When I heard that Peter Austin was in Vancouver I hunted him up. I had met Peter ten years before when I had gone east to visit my father's people ...

PART I Nowhere did so many people pause as before the little picture-shop in the Shtchukinui Dvor. This little shop contained, indeed, the most var...

Alas for the man and for the artist with the shifting point of perspective! Life shall be a confusion of ways to the one; the landscape shall rise ...

Every Saturday night the Clover Leaf Social Club gave a hop in the hall of the Give and Take Athletic Association on the East Side. In order to att...

Some years ago, when I was the Editor of a Correspondence Column, I used to receive heart-broken letters from young men asking for advice and sympa...

I One day last summer I went to Pittsburgh--well, I had to go there on business. My chair-car was profitably well filled with people of the kind on...

"How are you to-day, Mrs. Carleton?" asked Dr. Farleigh, as he sat down by his patient, who reclined languidly in a large cushioned chair. "Miserab...

Lakelands is not to be found in the catalogues of fashionable summer resorts. It lies on a low spur of the Cumberland range of mountains on a littl...

The walls of the cell were bare and white washed. A narrow grated window, placed so high that one could not reach it, lighted this sinister little ...

We rubber plants form the connecting link between the vegetable kingdom and the decorations of a Waldorf-Astoria scene in a Third Avenue theatre. I...

A breeze from the May world without blew through the class-room, and as it lifted his papers he had a curious sense of freshness and mustiness meet...

When the vegetable-man knocked, Jessamine went to the door wearily. She felt quite well acquainted with him. He had been coming all the spring, and...

JULY 16, 1833. --This is a memorable anniversary for me; on it I complete my three hundred and twenty-third year! The Wandering Jew?--certainly not...

"What I want you to do," said Mr. George Wright, as he leaned towards the old sailor, "is to be an uncle to me." "Aye, aye," said the mystified Mr....

Nikolai Yevgrafovitch Almazof hardly waited for his wife to open the door to him; he went straight to his study without taking off his hat or coat....

ONCE upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were— Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter. They lived with their Mother in a san...

IT WAS a dark autumn night. The old banker was walking up and down his study and remembering how, fifteen years before, he had given a party one au...

Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening-- the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there went a...

Norman Gortsby sat on a bench in the Park, with his back to a strip of bush-planted sward, fenced by the park railings, and the Row fronting him ac...

I ANDREY VASSILITCH KOVRIN, who held a master's degree at the University, had exhausted himself, and had upset his nerves. He did not send for a do...

"OFF THERE to the right--somewhere--is a large island," said Whitney." It's rather a mystery--" "What island is it?" Rainsford asked. "The old char...

Having murdered his brother-in-law, Orrin Brower of Kentucky was a fugitive from justice. From the county jail where he had been confined to await ...

At four o'clock that day, as on every other day, Alexandre rolled the three-wheeled chair for cripples up to the door of the little house; then, in...

UPON the pleasant veranda of Père Antoine's cottage, that adjoined the church, a young girl had long been seated, awaiting his return. It was the e...

It was a chill, rain-washed afternoon of a late August day, that indefinite season when partridges are still in security or cold storage, and there...

for THE REAL LITTLE LUCIE OF NEWLANDS ONCE upon a time there was a little girl called Lucie, who lived at a farm called Little-town. She was a good...

One summer, in my wanderings with a knapsack, I was at luncheon in the room of a wayside inn in the western country, when the door opened and there...

The Widow Ducket lived in a small village about ten miles from the New Jersey sea-coast. In this village she was born, here she had married and bur...

"That was truly his name, m'sieu'--Raoul Vaillantcoeur--a name of the fine sound, is it not? You like that word,--a valiant heart,-- it pleases you...

In the street, up there, was an old, a very old house--it was almost three hundred years old, for that might be known by reading the great beam on ...

There was an air of calm and reserved opulence about the Weightman mansion that spoke not of money squandered, but of wealth prudently applied. Sta...

TRUE!-NERVOUS--very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am! but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses--not destro...

The Tailor of Gloucester "I'll be at charges for a looking-glass; And entertain a score or two of tailors." My Dear Freda: Because you are fond of ...

Old Mother Goose lived in a cottage with her son Jack. Jack was a very good lad, and although he was not handsome, he was good-tempered and industr...

Laura stood across the street waiting for the people to come out from the picture-show. She couldn't have said just why she was waiting, unless it ...

Being the only true and reliable account ever published; taken from the Roman "Daily Evening Fasces," of the date of that tremendous occurrence. No...

I had heard so much about the celebrated fortune-teller Madame-----, that I went to see her yesterday. She has a dark complexion naturally, and thi...

I I have a project to suggest. But first I will write a chapter of introduction. I have just been witnessing a remarkable play, here at the Burg Th...

The first notice that was taken of me when I "settled down" recently was by a gentleman who said he was an assessor, and connected with the U. S. I...

He laughed involuntarily as the olive rolled towards his chair across the shiny parquet floor of the hotel dining-room. His table in the cavernous ...

--[Published at the time of the "Comet Scare" in the summer of 1874] [We have received the following advertisement, but, inasmuch as it concerns a ...

I The Call of the Woodsman The day before Christmas, in the year of our Lord 722. Broad snow-meadows glistening white along the banks of the river ...

So my poem is damned, and immortal fame is not for me! I am nobody forever and ever. Intolerable fate! Snatching my hat, I dashed down the criticis...

A little whimsy, now and then, makes for good balance. Theoretically, you could find this type of humor anywhere. But only a topflight science-fict...

"I suppose we shall never see Wilfred Pigeoncote here now that he has become heir to the baronetcy and to a lot of money," observed Mrs. Peter Pige...

Mrs. Jallatt's young people's parties were severely exclusive; it came cheaper that way, because you could ask fewer to them. Mrs. Jallatt didn't s...

On Christmas Eve the Mayor's stately mansion presented a beautiful appearance. There were rows of different coloured wax candles burning in every w...

It was Mrs. Packletide's pleasure and intention that she should shoot a tiger. Not that the lust to kill had suddenly descended on her, or that she...

Sir Lulworth Quayne was making a leisurely progress through the Zoological Society's Gardens in company with his nephew, recently returned from Mex...

As much as seventy years ago, in the city of Boston, there lived a small girl who had the naughty habit of running away. On a certain April morning...

MADAME Carambeau wanted it strictly understood that she was not to be disturbed by Gustave's birthday party. They carried her big rocking-chair fro...

A certain Preacher became wise to the Fact that he was not making a Hit with his Congregation. The Parishioners did not seem inclined to seek him o...

Every Sunday, as soon as they were free, the little soldiers would go for a walk. They turned to the right on leaving the barracks, crossed Courbev...

I About half-past five one afternoon at the end of June when the sun was shining warm and bright into the large courtyard, a very elegant victoria ...

The best soldier of our staff was Lieutenant Herman Brayle, one of the two aides-de-camp. I don't remember where the general picked him up; from so...

THERE was once a fine gentleman who possessed among other things a boot-jack and a hair-brush; but he had also the finest shirt-collar in the world...

Certainly the progress of science is a wonderful thing. One can't help feeling proud of it. I must admit that I do. Whenever I get talking to anyon...

Really, the largest green leaf in this country is a dock-leaf; if one holds it before one, it is like a whole apron, and if one holds it over one's...