The Art of the Short Story

This is an anthology for people who love story-telling. Our one hundred classic masterpieces were selected purely for their capacity to delight, instruct and charm. In this collection, readers will encounter some of the finest writing in world literature.

We have chosen to arrange the stories thematically, dividing the anthology into ten parts as follows:
1) Characters
2) Animals
3) Epiphanies
4) Mystery and Adventure
5) Horror and Ghosts
6) Strange, Surreal and Fantastic
7) Humour, Satire and Tall Tales
8) Love
9) Summer Tales
10) Winter Tales

Please view the preview of this book for a full listing of contents.

We hope this arrangement will encourage readers to move between the different parts of the anthology as their interest takes them, discovering as they do so, the shared sensibilities of authors remote in time and place.

Though these stories vary enormously in theme, tone and setting—from Russian snow storms, to spiritual epiphanies in Winesburg, Ohio—each of them has enthralled readers across generations; is exemplary in its attention to detail and evocation of mood; resists all simplistic and univocal interpretations, and remains as fresh and penetrating today as when it was first written.

At Elsinore Books we pride ourselves on creating beautiful e-books, and devote great attention to formatting, and ease of navigation. This book contains a cleanly-styled contents page that permits easy movement between the stories.

Contents:

Part 1: Characters

Gusev — Anton Chekhov
Boule de Suif — Guy de Maupassant
Alyosha the Pot — Leo Tolstoy
Mateo Falcone — Prosper Mérimée
Little Brother — Mary E. Mann
Bartleby, The Scrivener — Herman Melville
The Lightning-Rod Man — Herman Melville
The Ambitious Guest — Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Darling — Anton Chekhov
A Simple Heart — Gustave Flaubert

Part 2: Animals

Sredni Vashta — Saki
Kholstomer, The Story of a Horse — Leo Tolstoy
A Dark-Brown Dog — Stephen Crane
Kashtanka — Anton Chekhov
The Cat That Walked By Himself — Rudyard Kipling
The Black Cat — Edgar Allan Poe
The Fly — Katherine Mansfield
The Boar-Pig — Saki
The Tiger Guest — Pu Songling
Jackals and Arabs — Franz Kafka

Part 3: Epiphanies

Araby — James Joyce
The Dead — James Joyce
The Strength of God — Sherwood Anderson
The Egg — Sherwood Anderson
A Death in the Desert — Willa Cather
Roman Fever — Edith Wharton
The Story of an Hour — Kate Chopin
Home Sickness — George Moore
The Madonna of the Future — Henry James
The Kiss — Anton Chekhov

Part 4: Mystery and Adventure

The Red-Headed League — Arthur Conan Doyle
The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle — Arthur Conan Doyle
The Arrow of Heaven — G. K. Chesterton
The Sign of the Broken Sword — G. K. Chesterton
The Purloined Letter — Edgar Allan Poe
The Master of Mystery — Jack London
The Problem of Cell 13 — Jacques Futrelle
The Three Stranger — Thomas Hardy
The Diamond as Big as the Ritz — F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Jury of Her Peers — Susan Glaspell

Part 5: Horror and Ghosts

The Body Snatcher — Robert Louis Stevenson
The Signal-Man — Charles Dickens
August Heat — W. F. Harvey
The Monkey’s Paw — W. W. Jacobs
“Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You my Lad” — M. R. James
The Phantom Coach — Amelia Edwards
The Horla — Guy de Maupassant
An Inhabitant of Carcosa — Ambrose Bierce
Schalken the Painter — Sheridan Le Fanu
The Cask of Amontillado — Edgar Allan Poe

Please “Look inside” to see the complete listing.