Audio: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Listen to an audio version of “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” James Thurber’s classic short story, read aloud by Mattie Overall. “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (1939) is a short story by...
Category: Short Stories
A collection of classic short stories for study, copywork, model-based writing, narration, dictation, and just plain fun.
Short Story Analysis – NDLA
How to Analyze a Short Story What is a Short Story? A short story is a work of short, narrative prose that is usually centered around one single event. It is limited in scope...
Eveline by James Joyce
Eveline: This short story by James Joyce is from Dubliners, Joyce’s 1914 collection of short stories. Eveline She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned against the window...
The Reticence of Lady Anne by Saki
The Reticence of Lady Anne By Saki (aka H. H. Munro) Egbert came into the large, dimly lit drawing-room with the air of a man who is not certain whether he is entering a...
Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf
Kew Gardens (1921) by Virginia Woolf FROM THE OVAL-SHAPED flower-bed there rose perhaps a hundred stalks spreading into heart-shaped or tongue-shaped leaves half way up and unfurling at the tip red or blue or...
The Other Side of the Hedge
In “The Other Side of the Hedge,” English author E. M. Forster seems to take a critical look at the modern quest to make progress without bothering to experience life. The Other Side of...
The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
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 and the vegetable man and the...
Bezhin Meadow by Ivan Turgenev
This short story by Ivan Turgenev is one chapter from his first major work, a gathering of observations and stories from his travels through Russia. This chapter is excerpted from A Sportsman’s Sketches, which was...
Cinderella
Cinderella OR A Little Glass Slipper This rags-to-riches folk tale of unjust oppression and triumphant reward features Cinderella, a young woman living in difficult circumstances. Through the intervention of a fairy godmother, she is...
![Major Andres Tree by Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) (from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) (New York Public Library Digital Collections) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/www.excellence-in-literature.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Major_Andres_Tree_Rackham-sm-1.jpg?fit=256%2C331&ssl=1)
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow A short story by Washington Irving Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is the story of the ill-fated 1790 courtship of Katrina Van Tassel, daughter of a wealthy...
The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde
The Happy Prince is the title story in a collection of short stories by Oscar Wilde. The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of...
Bulfinch’s Mythology Tales
Bulfinch and Mythology Thomas Bulfinch was an American writer born on July 15, 1796 in Newton, Massachusetts. Bulfinch belonged to a well-educated merchant family, and he himself had an extensive classical education at such...
A Worn Path by Eudora Welty
A Worn Path by Eudora Welty It was December—a bright frozen day in the early morning. Far out in the country there was an old Negro woman with her head tied red rag, coming...
Babette’s Feast & The Beatific Vision
Babette’s Feast & The Beatific Vision by Joshua Gibbs Feb. 9, 2014 Several months ago, Babette’s Feast received a Criterion release accompanied by a fat little book of essays about the film, as well...
Three Questions by Leo Tolstoy
“The Three Questions” by Russian author Leo Tolstoy is a short story in the form of a parable. In it, a king seeks answers to what he considers the three most important questions in life....
The Grasshopper and the Ants: A Fable
The Ant and the Grasshopper From Aesop’s Fables In a field one summer’s day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart’s content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great...
Echo and Narcissus by Ovid
Echo and Narcissus is a myth from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a Roman mythological epic from the Augustan Age. In this brief story, the mountain nymph Echo falls in love with Narcissus, a beautiful hunter from...
A Curious Pleasure Excursion by Mark Twain
“A Curious Pleasure Excursion” by Mark Twain was published at the time of the “Comet Scare” in the summer of 1847. A New York Times article on the subject reassures readers that there is...
Mark Twain’s Autobiography
Ask a humorist to write his autobiography, and you just might end up with a short story such as Mark Twain’s Burlesque Autobiography. This short story is entirely fictional, and is not intended to...
The Lake Gun by James Fenimore Cooper
The Lake Gun By James Fenimore Cooper “The Lake Gun” is one of James Fenimore Cooper’s very few short stories, and was written in the last year of his life. It was commissioned by...
The Gold Bug by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Gold-Bug” is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. Hero William Legrand is bitten by a gold bug which leads to an adventure and buried treasure.
In the Year 2889 by Jules Verne
In the Year 2889 By Jules Verne Edited by Blake Linton Editor’s Notes by Blake Linton In 1885, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., owner of the New York Herald (the same man who sent Stanley...
The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe
The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe NOTE: If you would like to view a dramatized version of the story, a 1952 video version of “The Purloined Letter” can be found here, courtesy of...
The Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry
The Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry remains one of the funniest short stories I’ve read. You will study it in Introduction to Literature, Module 1.
The Diamond Necklace by Guy de Maupassant
The Diamond Necklace by Guy de Maupassant, a classic short story with a surprise twist at the end. It is studied in module 1 of Introduction to Literature.
A White Heron by Sarah Orne Jewett
A White Heron A short story by Sarah Orne Jewett. NOTE: If you would like to listen to an audio version of the story, you will find a recording here, courtesy of EIL. I....
