...showcasing the world's best short stories for learning and reading pleasure

  • Home
  • Short Stories
  • Younger Readers
  • Folklore
  • Contact
  • About / Privacy

Sidebar

Share the joy of reading...

Approximate Reading Times

Quick Read: under 5 minutes
Short Story: 5 to 30 minutes
Novelette: 30 to 90 minutes
Novella: 1.5 to 2.5 hours

Some Other Stories You May Like

See top menu for all 1,500+ stories

  • Dead Stars

    Short Story by Paz Marquez Benitez. Set in a culture and time where honor outweighs love, a young lawyer delays marrying his fiancé because it doesn’t feel right. Although he falls in love with another woman, he keeps his word, marries the fiancé, and dreams of the other.

  • Barney

    Quick Read by Will Stanton. A scientist conducts a bizarre experiment to increase the intelligence of a very special rat. The animal becomes increasingly humanized (it even enjoys flipping through books in the scientist’s library!) until one day, a poorly controlled scientific experiment threatens the world.

  • Escapes

    Short Story by Joy Williams. A woman relates her experiences as a young girl living with her alcoholic mother. She recounts how her father left them due to her mother’s drinking, her mother’s frequent mention of the escape artist Houdini, and an embarrassing incident at a magic show.

  • Prayer for the Living

    Short Story by Ben Okri. Amid the mass starvation caused by the Nigerian Civil War, a man who hasn’t eaten for three weeks walks among corpses scattered in an unnamed town. His purpose… to make sure that his family and lover are dead before finding “happiness” in his own death.

  • The Sparrows

    Short Story by K. A. Abbas. An embittered Indian man is left alone in the world after his constant ill-treatment of his wife and sons drives them from his home. In his misery, he finds solace and redemption through a family of sparrows nesting in the roof of his hut.

  • Patriotism

    Novelette by Yukio Mishima. A young Japanese army officer must choose between duty and loyalty to his friends. His only honorable way out is seppuku (harakiri). The story’s lovemaking scenes are tastefully erotic, and the description of seppuku is gruesome in its detail. Not for easily offended or queasy readers!

  • The Water of Life

    Grade 5-6 Story by Howard Pyle. A princess vows to marry whoever brings her water from the “Fountain of Life”. A king sends a servant to get some, and falsely claims the prize. The doubtful princess sets him two more tasks, one of which requires cutting off the servant’s hand.

  • Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot

    Short Story by Robert Olen Butler. A jealous husband who did not communicate his love or concerns enough is resurrected as a parrot and purchased as a pet by his recently widowed wife. Ironically, he now realizes how much he loves her, but doesn’t have the vocabulary to tell her.

  • Karma

    Short Story by Khushwant Singh. A high-ranking Indian official has rejected his heritage and aspires to identify with the British ruling class. Humiliating treatment on a train (being unceremoniously thrown out of his first class carriage by two drunken soldiers) highlights the dark side of the world he aspires to.

  • Hermann the Irascible (Story of the Great Weep)

    Quick Read by Saki. A story about the fight for women’s right to vote that provides a classic example of the use of reverse psychology to achieve a desired result. By making the need to vote so onerous, a clever king has women “weeping” to be stripped of the entitlement.

  • All Over the World

    Short Story by Vicente Rivera Jr. A friendship between a protective young man and eleven-year-old girl is put on hold as they go their separate ways during World War 2. The friendship is important to both, and their parting is particularly bitter as neither has a chance to say goodbye.

  • Camp Cataract

    Novella by Jane Bowles. A middle-aged spinster is holidaying in a Camp Cataract cabin to escape the toxic atmosphere in the apartment she shares with her two sisters. When one of them turns up uninvited, they arrange to meet the next day. Madness intervenes, and only one survives the day.

  • Strawberry Spring

    Short Story by Stephen King. A serial killer stalks a small college community. Set in a rare false (strawberry) spring, thick fog provides perfect cover for the killer. When the weather breaks, the murders stop. Eight years later, during the next strawberry spring, they begin anew.

  • The Sky is Gray

    Novelette by Ernest J. Gaines. During a trip to see a dentist on a freezing winter morning an eight-year-old African-American boy experiences the humiliation of segregation, is inspired by a debate in the dentist’s waiting room, and experiences compassion and kindness on the “white” side of town.

  • The Monkey’s Paw

    Short Story by W. W. Jacobs. A classic horror story about fate, and what can happen if you try to change it using black magic. A man makes a wish upon an enchanted monkey’s paw with disastrous results. Things get worse when his family try to reverse the spell.

  • Stones in My Passway, Hellhound on My Trail

    Short Story by T. C. Boyle. A fictionalized account of the mysterious death of American blues musician Robert Johnson, who was rumoured to have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for musical prowess. The story suggests that rather than the devil, a jilted woman brought about his demise.

  • The Pearl

    Novella by John Steinbeck. A Mexican-Indian pearl diver from a poor fishing community outside a Spanish town dreams of a better life for his family after discovering a pearl “as large as a sea-gull’s egg” on the ocean floor. Unfortunately, his dream turns into a tragic nightmare.

  • Rex Ex Machina

    Quick Read by Frederic Max. A letter from a dying man to his only son explains something he has been hiding for almost forty years. It tells how he had once been a spy and was sent on a top-secret mission to destroy a machine that threatened the free world.

  • Diamond Cuts Diamond

    Thai Folktale. A poor man has only plain rice to eat. He smells some delicious curry being cooked for a rich man's lunch, and enjoys the plain rice more than ever because he imagines eating it with the curry. The rich man tries to make him pay for the smell.

  • The Kiss

    Short Story by Anton Chekhov. A mistaken kiss in a darkened room temporarily transforms the life of a shy, insecure army officer. He returns to duty on a high, fanaticizing that he could be as successful in love and life as his fellow officers. Shortly afterwards, his dream is shattered.

Stories by Author    Latest Stories

Featured Stories

Share the joy of reading...

Stories by Author

Authors by Region / Ethnicity

Abbas (Ghulam) Abbas (Khwaja) Achebe Acker Adams Adichie Agualusa Agüeros Aichinger Aickman Aidoo Aiken (Conrad) Aiken (Joan) Aksyonov Akutagawa Alcock Alden Aldrich Alexander (Lloyd) Alexander (Sue) Alexie Alfon Allen Allende Alvarez Ambai Anand Anaya Andersen Anderson Andric Appachana Appelfeld Archer Arguilla Arimah Arreola Asimov Astley Atmowiloto Atwood Averchenko Avi Azzam Babel Bagdasarian Baida Bailey Baldwin (James 1841-1925) Baldwin (James 1924-1987) Ballard Balzac Bambara Banaphool Bandi Barnard Barrett Barthelme Basheer Bates Bauer Baum Baynton Beattie Beaumont Beckett Bedi Beerbohm Bei Dao Bellow Bender Benedetti Benitez Benét Berlin Berriault Bethancourt Bierce Birch Bisson Bjørnson Blackwood Block Bloom Blyton Bolano Bond Borges Borowski Bosman Bowen Bowles (Jane) Bowles (Paul) Boyle (Kay) Boyle (T. C.) Bradbury Brett Brillantes Broun Brown (Fredric) Brown (Jason) Buck Bulawayo Bulosan Bunin Burke (Norah) Butler (Octavia) Butler (Robert) Buzzati Böll Callaghan Calvino Camus Capote Carey Carlson Carter Carver Cather Cavanaugh Chandra Cheever Che Huna Chekhov Chesnutt Chiangkun Chin Chong Chopin Christie Chughtai Cisneros Clarke Cofer Coleridge Colette Collier (Eugenia) Collier (John) Connell Conrad Cooper Coppard Cormier Cortázar Crane Crutcher Daguio Dahl Dalisay Danticat Das (Kamala) Das (Manoj) Daudet Davies (Peter Ho) Davis Davis (Rebecca) Day de Mille Desai de Vet Devlin Diaz (Junot) Diaz (Rony) Dick Dickens Dinesen Divakaruni Doerr Dostoevsky Doyle Dubus du Maurier Dunbar Dybek Edwards (Kim) Eisenberg El-Bisatie Eliot Ellis Ellison (Harlan) Ellison (Ralph) Enriquez Erdrich Estrada Far Farizan Faulkner Feng Ferrell Finlayson Finney Fish Fitzgerald Fitzpatrick Flaubert Foer Forster Fox Freeman Fuentes Gaiman Gaines Gaitskill Gallant Galsworthy Gardner (John) Gardner (Mona) Gaskell Gatbonton Gibson Gilchrist Gilman Glasgow Glaspell Gogol Gonzalez (Néstor) Gordimer Gorodischer Grace Grahame Greene Gurley Gustafsson Ha Jin Hamilton Hannah Hap Harrison Harte Haslett Hawthorne Head Heinlein Heker Helmer Helprin Hemingway Hemon Hempel Hendel Heym Highsmith Hoch Hopkinson Hoshi Houston Howells Hughes Hurst Hurston Huxley Høeg Ihimaera Irving Ishiguro Jackson Jacobs (W. W.) Jacobson James (Henry) James (M. R.) Jen Jennings Jewett Jie Jiménez Joaquin Johnson (Charles) Johnson (Dana) Johnson (Denis) Johnston Jones (Raymond) Jones (Thom) Joyce Kafka Kantor Kawabata Keret Keyes Khamhom Khan (Anwar) Khin Mya Kincaid King Kipling Kiš Kohler Kundera Lagerlöf Lahiri Lang (John) Lardner Lavin Lawrence Lawson Leacock Lee (Don) Lee (Krys) Le Fanu Leffland Le Guin Lessing Lewis Li Lim Linn Lispector Liu Lively Llana Lobato London Long Lovecraft Machado de Assis Mahapaoraya Mahfouz Malamud Malouf Mann Mansfield Manto Marechera Marquez Marshall (Paule) Mason Matheson Maugham Maupassant Max Mazer McCorkle McCracken McCullers McGahern McPherson Meinke Melville Minco Mishima Mistry Moe Moe Moore Morrell Morrison Mosca Mphahlele Mukherjee Munro Murakami Murnane Myers Mérimée Nabokov Namioka Naoya Narayan Nayeri Newman Ng Northcutt Nye Nyi Pu Lay O'Brien (Tim) O'Connor (Flannery) O'Connor (Frank) O'Flaherty O. Henry Oates Ocampo Ochsner Ogot Okri Olsen Orringer Ortiz Orwell Ozick Packer Paley Parker Paterson Paulsen Paz Peck Perrault Phillips Pirandello Plath Poe Porter (Katherine) Potok Powell Pramoj Premchand Proulx Proust Pushkin Pyle Quan Quiller-Couch Quiroga Rajaratnam Rangkuti Rao Reyes Reynolds Richards Rivera (Beatriz) Rivera (Tomás) Rivera (Vicente) Rivera-Ford Robbe-Grillet Rojas Roth Rotor Roy Rulfo Rushdie Rylant Sait Faik Saki Salih Salinas Salinger Salter Santos Saramago Sargeson Saroyan Sartre Saunders Sayers Scott Shanmughalingam Sharma Sher Silko Silver Silverstein Singer Singh Sleator Slesar Smiley Sneve Solzhenitsyn Sorrentino Soto Spark Sperry Stafford Stanton Steinbeck Stephenson Stern Stevenson Stewart Stockton Strasser Sun-won Surangkhanang Tagore Tan (Amy) Tan (Lucy) Taylor Thiong'o Thomas Thurber Tien Toer Tolstaya Tolstoy Toomer Toudouze Trevor Turgenev Twain Tyler Téllez Uchida Unamuno Upadhyay Updike Valenzuela Valgardson Vargas Llosa Vedol Villa Villanueva Vivante Vonnegut Walker Wallace Warren Warung Waters Weber Weir Wells Welty Wetherell Wharton White Wideman Wilde Wilkinson Williams (Joy) Williams (Margery) Wilson (Budge) Winton Wodehouse Wolf Wolfe Wolff Woolf Wright (Judith) Wright (Richard) Xun Yamamoto Yates Yep Yezierska Yolen Yoshimoto Zweig

Stories by Genre / Topic

  • Adventure
  • Christmas
  • Crime
  • Detective
  • Dystopia
  • Fantasy
  • Ghost
  • Historical Fiction
  • Horror
  • Humor
  • Magical Realism
  • Mystery
  • Psychological Realism
  • Romance
  • Science Fiction
  • Social Commentary
  • Superstition/The Supernatural
  • Survival
  • War
  • Western
© 2008-2025 xpressenglish.com