Anthologies
50 Great Short Stories is a comprehensive selection from the world’s finest short fiction. The authors represented range from Hawthorne, Maupassant, and Poe, through Henry James, Conrad, Aldous Huxley, and James Joyce, to Hemingway, Katherine Anne Porter, Faulkner, E.B. White, Saroyan, and O’Connor. The variety in style and subject is enormous, but all these stories have one point in common—the enduring quality of the writing, which places them among the masterpieces of the world’s fiction.
A Splendid collection of 50 stories from Washington Irving's 'The Adventures Of A German Student' to John Updike's 'The Lucid Eye in Silver Town'.Such classic stories as Edgar Allan Poe’s 'Ms. Found in a Bottle', Bret Harte’s 'The Outcasts of Poker Flat', Sherwood Anderson’s 'Death in the Woods', Stephen Vincent Benét’s 'By the Waters of Babylon'. Also some little-known masterpieces as Edith Wharton’s 'The Dilettante', Finley Peter Dunne’s 'Mr. Dooley on the Popularity of Fireman', Charles M. Flandrau’s 'A Dead Issue', and James Reid Parker’s 'The Archimandrite's Niece'.There are also splendid offerings from Melville, Henry James, Dreiser, Faulkner, Hemingway, Steinbeck, McCullers, Irwin Shaw, John Cheever and Erskine Caldwell.
In the first entry of the Dark Descent series, Hugo Award winning editor David G. Hartwell presents The Color of Evil , an anthology of nineteen superb stories of dark fantasy and horror from writing legends such as Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, and Shirley Jackson. From witches to ghosts to incomprehensible cosmic horrors, these authors dare readers to confront dark forces that are out of their control. Each story includes a insightful introduction explaining the evolution of horror fiction and each author's place within the genre. A collection of spine-tingling stories from masters of the craft, sure to leave you on the edge of your seat for days.
It was dark by the time Lucas stopped his taxi in the driveway of the Wheeler home and lumbered up the path to the front entrance. He still wore his heavy boots, despite the spring thaw; his mackinaw and knitted cap were reminders of the hard winter that had come and gone. When Geraldine Wheeler opened the door, wearing her lightweight traveling suit, she shivered at the sight of him. "Come in," she said crisply. "My trunk is inside." Lucas went through the foyer to the stairway, knowing his way around the house, accustomed to its rich dark textures and somber furnishings; he was Medvale's only taxi driver. He found the heavy black trunk at the foot of the stairs, and hoisted it on his back. "That all the luggage, Miss Wheeler?" "That's all. I've sent the rest ahead to the ship. Good heavens, Lucas, aren't you hot in that outfit?" She opened a drawer and rummaged through it. "I've probably forgotten a million things. Gas, electricity, phone . . . Fireplace! Lucas, would you check it for me, please?" "Yes, miss," Lucas said. He went into the living room, past the white-shrouded furniture. There were some glowing embers among the blackened stumps, and he snuffed them out with a poker. A moment later the woman entered, pulling on long silken gloves. "All right," she said breathlessly. "I guess that's all. We can go now." "Yes, miss," Lucas said.
A collection of short stories, in fact masterpieces from such authors as Hawthorne, Poe, Bradbury, Walker and Amy Tan.
Scared? You will be! Feel your nerves jangle and chills run up and down your spine thanks to the hair-raising genius of Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, E. F. Benson, H. P. Lovecraft, Fritz Leiber, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Stephen Crane, Charles Dickens, Robert Barr, and many others who know well how to manipulate a reader's emotions. From Washington Irving comes "The Adventure of My Grandfather" and from Saki, "The Cobweb." Bill Pronzini plays a horrifying game of "Peekaboo," while Frances Garfield portrays "The House at Evening" to alarming effect. This unique and very special collection is like a carnival ride of terror that you'll want to go on again and again.
The stories of magic and transformation that we call fairy tales are among the oldest known forms of literature, and many the most popular. "Jack and the Beanstalk," "Sleeping Beauty," "Little Red Ridinghood"--these ageless tales seem to have been written an almost magically long time ago. Yet fairy tales are still being created to this very day. And while they are principally directed to children and have child protagonists, these modern fairy tales, like the classics, have messages to those of all ages. In The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales , Alison Lurie has collected forty tales that date from the late nineteenth century up to the present. Here are trolls and princesses, magic and mayhem, morals to be told and lessons to be learned--all the elements of the classic fairy tale, in new and fantastical trappings. In Charles Dickens's "The Magic Fishbone," we find an unusually pragmatic princess who uses her one wish only after she has tried to solve her family's problems through hard work. Angela Carter's "The Courtship of Mr. Lyon" is a "Beauty and the Beast" tale with a contemporary twist, in which Beauty leaves Beast to live the high life, becoming a society brat who "smiled at herself in mirrors too much." And in T.H. White's "The Troll," we find out how his father killed the troll that tried to eat him. In these enchanting pages we also see how modern writers have taken the classic fairy tale and adapted it to their times in a variety of ways. Francis Browne, for example, takes a poke at Victorian standards of beauty in "The Story of Fairyfoot," about a young prince who is cast out of the kingdom of Stumpinghame because, unlike the fashion of the town, his feet are too small. Some writers, such as Ursula Le Guin, have taken familiar myths and turned them upside down. In Le Guin's "The Wife's Story," a mother sees the horrible transformation of her husband into "the hateful one", and then watches her sister and neighbors mob and kill this "creature whose hair had begun to come away all over his body...the eyes gone blue...staring at me out of that flat, soft, white face." And L.F. Baum's "The Queen of Quok," contains a castle and royal characters in a kingdom run by common sense and small-town American values. At one point the boy king of Quok has to borrow a dime from his counsellor to buy a ham sandwich, and greed transforms his young queen-to-be into a haggard old woman. With tales from the likes of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oscar Wilde, Carl Sandburg, James Thurber, Donald Barthelme, Louise Erdrich, and many more, The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales brings us through the modern-day world of the supernatural, the mystical, the moral, and reminds us that fairy tales are still very much alive.
In Florida Stories, Tales from the Tropics by Elmore Leonard, Cabeza de Vaca, Tennessee Williams, Damon Runyon, Joan Didion, John D. McDonald, Zora Neale Hurston, Ernest Hemingway, and John Sayles, you will be drawn into an alluring collection of stories, essays and poems reflecting tropical Florida - a tropical paradise where everything happens all the time.
Twelve tales of the supernatural include "The Screaming Skull" by J. Marion Crawford, "Ligeia" by Edgar Allen Poe, "Consequences" by Willa Cather, and "A Ghost Story" by Mark Twain
Table of Sheckley. IntroductionDonn Byrne. Tale of the PiperGeorge Eliot. The Lifted VeilM. R. James. Number 13M. R. James. RatsM. R. James. Count MagnusG. K. Chesterton. The Queer FeetJ. S. Fletcher. The Ivory GodDaniel Defoe. The Apparition of Mrs. VealE. F. Benson. The Thing in the HallGuy de Maupassant. NightGuy de Maupassant. The Drowned ManGuy de Maupassant. Who Knows?Nathaniel Hawthorne. Young Goodman BrownOscar Wilde. The Ballad of Reading GaolEdgar Allan Poe. The Tell-Tale HeartEdgar Allan Poe. The Fall of the House of UsherEdgar Allan Poe. The Black CatEdgar Allan Poe. LigeiaBram Stoker. The SquawO. Henry. The Last LeafW. W. Jacobs. The WellCharles Dickens. The Haunted Man and the Ghost's BargainAmbrose Bierce. Moxon's MasterAmbrose Bierce. The Middle Toe of the Right FootAmbrose Bierce. The Damned ThingF. Marion Crawford. The Upper BerthF. Marion Crawford. Man Overboard!Frederick Marryat. The WerewolfJoseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Schalken the PainterJoseph Sheridan Le Fanu. CarmillaWilkie Collins. Gabriel's MarriageMrs. Gaskell. The Sexton's Hero
Thirteen terrifying tales to take you on a heart-pounding journey to the dark side! Including: Bodies of the Dead by Ambrose Bierce: Is it your worst fear to be buried alive? Live your greatest nightmare in these four chilling tales. The Golden Rat by Alexander Harvey: A psychiatrist is haunted by a strange power that allows him to see him patients' worst fear manifested in ghostly images. Kerfol by Edith Wharton: A violent and bitter man is brutally murdered. His wife is accused but she pleads innocent, blaming the ghosts of her slain dogs. And ten more tales of horrifying consequences by Arlo Bates, Elia W. Peattie, Willa Cather, F. Marion Crawford, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Lafcadio Hearn, G. Ranger Wormser, Harriet Prescott, Julian Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe.
Gathering forty important short stories in a portable and economical format, the second edition includes even more of the fiction instructors want to teach and more of the help student readers need.
66 fantastic tales, both new and classic, by dozens of contributors including Ramsey Campbell and Fred Chappell, explore the sometimes deleterious effects of books. Illustrated by World Fantasy Award-winner Allen Koszowski. From the publisher: A disillusioned journalist searches for a missing girl in a midnight world of illegal coffee dens and black market books. An insomniac haunted by the death of his wife volunteers to take part in a bizarre research experiment. A wealthy bibliophile hires a thief to recover a book that has the power to change literary history. A bestselling writer confronts a menacing character from his past—the protagonist of his forgotten first novel. A shortsighted engineer stumbles across a book that’s not supposed to actually exist—a book that will forever alter the face of the earth. Just a few of the tales that await you in this mammoth anthology: 66 ingenious stories of lost knowledge and restless ghosts, secret libraries and forbidden texts, alternate worlds and ancient gods, by 59 acclaimed writers including Ramsey Campbell, Fred Chappell, H.P. Lovecraft, Jeffrey Thomas, Rhys Hughes, Gary McMahon, M.R. James, Lavie Tidhar, and Kurt Newton.
The best single-volume anthology of science fiction available―includes online teacher's guide The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction features over a 150 years' worth of the best science fiction ever collected in a single volume. The fifty-two stories and critical introductions are organized chronologically as well as thematically for classroom use. Filled with luminous ideas, otherworldly adventures, and startling futuristic speculations, these stories will appeal to all readers as they chart the emergence and evolution of science fiction as a modern literary genre. They also provide a fascinating look at how our Western technoculture has imaginatively expressed its hopes and fears from the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century to the digital age of today. A free online teacher's guide at http://sfanthology.site.wesleyan.edu/ accompanies the anthology and offers access to a host of pedagogical aids for using this book in an academic setting. The stories in this anthology have been selected and introduced by the editors of Science Fiction Studies, the world's most respected journal for the critical study of science fiction.
An anthology finalist in the NEXT GENERATION INDIE BOOK AWARDS, "6a66le: The Best Horror Short Stories 1800-1849" delivers 12 of the greatest horror stories for the first half of the nineteenth century. Andrew Barger, the editor of this book, read over 300 horror short stories to compile the 12 best. At the back of the book he includes a list of all short stories he considered along with their dates of publication and author, when available. He even includes background for each of the stories and author photos. A number of the stories were published in leading periodicals of the day such as Blackwood's and Atkinson's Casket . Read The Best Horror Short Stories 1800-1849 today! 'The Best Horror Short Stories 1800-1849' will likely become a best seller . . .What makes this collection (of truly terrifying tales!) so satisfying is the presence of a brief introduction before each story, sharing some comments about the writer and elements of the tale. Barger has once again whetted our appetites for fright, spent countless hours making these twelve stories accessible and available, and has provided in one book the best of the best of horror short stories. It is a winner. GRADY HARP - AMAZON TOP TEN REVIEWER Barger aims for readers both scholarly and casual, ensuring that the authors get their due while making the work accessible overall to the mainstream. BOOKGASM [a] top to bottom pick for anyone who appreciates where the best of horror came from. MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW
Ghost short stories became very popular in the first half of the nineteenth century and this collection by Andrew Barger, award-winning author of COFFEE WITH POE: A NOVEL OF EDGAR ALLAN POE'S LIFE and BEST GHOST SHORT STORIES 1850-1899: A PHANTASMAL GHOST ANTHOLOGY, contains the very scariest of them all. As he has done with a number of other books, Andrew Barger has added his scholarly touch to this collection by including story backgrounds,annotations, author photos and a foreword titled "All Ghosts Are Gray."Buy PHANTASMAL: THE BEST GHOST STORIES 1800-1849 tonight and be ready to be scared. Boo! The Tapestried Chamber (1827) Sir Walter Scott was a leading proponent of supernatural tales in Europe.The Tapestried Chamber is the second oldest scary story in the anthology and contains moments of sheer terror. Adventure of the German Student (1824) Washington Irving is best known for "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," but the"Adventure of the German Student" is as compact a fright as one will find in a little ghost story. The Old Maid in the Winding Sheet (1837) Nathaniel Hawthorne makes his only appearance with a horror tale that is superbly written. It was also an Edgar Allan Poe favorite. The Spectral Ship (1828) Wilhelm Hauff died in his mid-twenties, yet still showed early promise that he could have been one of the all time great supernatural writers. "TheSpectral Ship" leaves an indelible tang of horror. A Night in a Haunted House (1848) This anonymous ghost story will make a person think twice when they hear a thump coming up the stairs. The Mask of the Red Death (1842) "The Mask of the Red Death" is perhaps Edgar Allan Poe's finest ghost story. The writing and symbolism are unparalleled for this period in question. A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family (1839) Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu was the early king of the short ghost story. He would later publish "Green Tea," which is contained in BEST HORROR SHORT STORIES 1850-1899: A 6A66LE HORROR ANTHOLOGY. The Deaf and Dumb Girl (1839) This anonymous ghost story is collected for the first time in any anthology since its original publication in 1839. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1819) Washington Irving's most popular ghost story--and perhaps the most popular ghost short story of all time (assuming Dickens's "A Christmas Carole" is a novella)--is "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Although typically disfavored in a scary ghost story, it is one of the first to do it without losing the element of terror and it is the oldest in the Top 10, which gives the story high marks for originality and creativity.
Here's a collection of witch stories custom-made for your Kindle. Included in this volume: Sweetheart Roland – by Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm The Blue Light – by Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm The Witch – by Andrew Lang The Witch and Her Servants – by Andrew Lang The Witch in the Stone Boat – by Andrew Lang Prunella – by Andrew Lang The Wonderful Birch – by Andrew Lang Esben and the Witch – by Andrew Lang English fairy tale: Old Witch – by Joseph Jacobs Buried Moon – by Joseph Jacobs Johnnie and Grizzle – by Joseph Jacobs English fairy tale: Coat o' Clay – by Joseph Jacobs English fairy tale: Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh – by Joseph Jacobs Celtic fairy tale: Horned Women – by Joseph Jacobs The Cruel Stepmother – by Cyrus Macmillan The Dwarf, The Witch, And The Magic Slippers – by Constance Cary Harrison The Catskill Witch – by Charles M. Skinner The Partridge Witch – by Charles M. Skinner The Salt Witch – by Charles M. Skinner The Witch Of Pictured Rocks – by Charles M. Skinner Stone-Throwing Devils – by Charles M. Skinner Salem And Other Witchcraft – by Charles M. Skinner The Witch In The Well – by Enys Tregarthen The Witch Of Fife – by Elizabeth W. Grierson The Dead Witch – by William Ralston Shedden-Ralston Feathertop: A Moralized Legend – by Nathaniel Hawthorne A Fowl Witch – by Ambrose Bierce The Horror On The Stair – by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch Witchcraft In Louisiana – by Edward Eggleston The Witch – by Anton Chekhov The Inn of the Two Witches - A Find – by Joseph Conrad The Peruvian – by Perceval Gibbon The Talisman – by Eugene Field Horror: A True Tale – by Anonymous Witches, And Other Night-Fears – by Charles Lamb (essay) Magicians And Witch Folk – by John Greenleaf Whittier (essay) Witches – by Joseph Addison (essay)
Andrew Barger, award-winning author and engineer, has extensively researched forgotten journals and magazines of the early 19th century to locate groundbreaking science fiction short stories in the English language. In doing so, he found what is possibly the first science fiction story by a female (and it is not from Mary Shelley). Andrew located the first steampunk short story, which has not been republished since 1844. There is the first voyage to the moon in a balloon, republished for the first time since 1820 that further tells of a darkness machine and a lunarian named Zuloc. Other classic sci-fi stories include the first robotic insect and an electricity gun. Popular science fiction authors that started the genre in the United States are also present like Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Once again, Andrew has searched old texts to find the very best science fiction stories from the period when the genre automated to life, some of the stories are published for the first time in nearly 200 years. Read these fantastic stories today! The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar - Edgar Allan Poe The Aerial Burglar - Percival Leigh A Visit to the Lunar Sphere - Captain Frederick Marryat Glimpses of Other Worlds - Thomas Charles Morgan Hilda Silfverling, A Fantasy - Lydia Maria Child Rappaccini's Daughter - Nathaniel Hawthorne The Rival Mechanicians - Lydia Maria Child A Descent Into the Maelstrom - Edgar Allan Poe The Artist of the Beautiful - Nathaniel Hawthorne The Iron Shroud - William Mudford OUR OWN COUNTRYSo mechanical has the age become, that men seriously talk of flying machines, to go by steam,--not your air-balloons, but real Daedalian wings, made of wood and joints, nailed to your shoulder,--not wings of feathers and wax like the wings of Icarus, who fell into the Cretan sea, but real, solid, substantial, rock-maple wings with wrought-iron hinges, and huge concavities, to propel us through the air. Knickerbocker Magazine , May 1835
This book is a very fine anthology consisting of stories by twenty-five authors include Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, H. P. Lovecraft, Wilbur Daniel Steele, and Edith Wharton, to name a few. T. M. Gray has donated a wonderful original story (which Rick saw and loved) in Rick's memory. The stories themselves come in two varieties. They are either set in New England, or the feature a clearly identified Yankee protagonist adventuring elsewhere. Within our covers you will find cannibals, frog-like monsters, ghosts, giant worms, homicidal maniacs, re-animated corpses, sea serpents, vampires, werewolves, and witches. So switch on the lights, bar the doors, and tum the page if you dare.
This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for kindle devices. We have endeavoured to create this version as close to the original artefact as possible. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we believe they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
"The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain—a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space." - H.P. Lovecraft The Weird Fiction Collection #1 gathers together some of the best fiction ever written. Featuring: Black Hound of Death (Robert E. Howard) Lazarus (Leonid Andreyev) The Black Abbot of Puthuum (Clark Ashton Smith) The Canal (Everil Worrell) The Challenge from Beyond (C.L. Moore, Abraham Merritt, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Frank Belknap Long) The Crawling Chaos (H. P. Lovecraft) The Furnished Room (O. Henry) The Ghost of Mohammed Din (Clark Ashton Smith) The Hounds of Tindalos (Frank Belknap Long) The Monster-God of Mamurth (Edmond Hamilton) The Night Wire (H. F. Arnold) The Upper Berth (F. Marion Crawford) Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment (Nathaniel Hawthorne) The Secret of Kralitz (Henry Kuttner) The Long Arm (Franz Habl)
A chilling collection of classic weird and supernatural tales from the dark heart of American literature A masquerade ball cut short by a mysterious plague; a strange nocturnal ritual in the woods; a black bobcat howling in the night: these ten tales are some of the most strange and unsettling in all of American literature, filled with unforgettable imagery and simmering with tension. From Edgar Allan Poe to Shirley Jackson, Nathaniel Hawthorne to Zora Neale Hurston, the authors of these classics of supernatural suspense have inspired generations of writers to explore the dark heart of the land of the free. The stories in this collection have been selected and introduced by Laird Hunt, an author of seven acclaimed novels which explore the shadowy corners of American history. Contains: 'The Masque of the Red Death', Edgar Allan Poe 'Young Goodman Brown', Nathaniel Hawthorne 'The Eyes', Edith Wharton 'The Mask', Robert Chambers 'Home', Shirley Jackson 'A Ghost Story', Mark Twain 'Spunk', Zora Neale Hurston 'The Yellow Wallpaper', Charlotte Perkins Gilman 'An Itinerant House', Emma Frances Dawson
Experience the warmth and wonder of Christmas through the masterful storytelling of some of our greatest literary minds. Sixteen classic stories capture the enduring appeal of the Christmas tradition, all wrapped in lore with heartwarming narratives of redemption and humorous tales of everyday life. Selections include “A Christmas Tree” by Charles Dickens, “A Country Christmas” by Louisa May Alcott, “A Kidnapped Santa Claus” by L. Frank Baum, “A Letter from Santa Claus” by Mark Twain, “The Burglar’s Christmas” by Willa Cather, “The Christmas Banquet” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Christmas; or, the Good Fairy” by Harriet Beecher Stowe, “The Elves and the Shoemaker” by the Brothers Grimm, “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry, and “Where Love Is, There God Is Also” by Leo Tolstoy.