O. Henry

O. Henry: The Gift of the Magi

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 butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied.

W. W. Jacobs

W. W. Jacobs: The Monkey’s Paw

Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnam Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly. Father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed ideas about the game involving radical changes, putting his king into such sharp and unnecessary perils

Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov: The Lady with the Dog

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 at Yalta, and so was fairly at home there, had begun to take an interest in new arrivals. Sitting in Verney’s pavilion,

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart

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 destroyed—not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.

Washington Irving

Washington Irving: Rip Van Winkle

A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER. By Woden, God of Saxons,From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday,Truth is a thing that ever I will keepUnto thylke day in which I creep intoMy sepulchre — CARTWRIGHT. [The following Tale was found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old

Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield: Poison

The post was very late. When we came back from our walk after lunch it still had not arrived. “Pas encore, Madame,” sang Annette, scurrying back to her cooking. We carried our parcels into the dining-room. The table was laid. As always, the sight of the table laid for two

Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce: Oil of Dog

My name is Boffer Bings. I was born of honest parents in one of the humbler walks of life, my father being a manufacturer of dog-oil and my mother having a small studio in the shadow of the village church, where she disposed of unwelcome babes. In my boyhood I

H. P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft: The Outsider

That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe;And all his warrior-guests, with shade and formOf witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm,Were long be-nightmared. — Keats. Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness. Wretched is he who looks back upon lone hours in vast

Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov: Exile to Hell

“The Russians,” said Dowling, in his precise voice, “used to send prisoners to Siberia in the days before space travel had become common. The French used Devil’s Island for the purpose. The British sailed them off to Australia.” He considered the chessboard carefully and his hand hesitated briefly over the