Fiction

An ancient family is haunted by a wizard's curse after the murder of his son in the thirteenth century. Hundreds of years later, the last Lord spends his life trying to find the secret of the curse and so prevent his death on his 32nd birthday. (2,557 words)

Chekhov is the greatest teller of short stories in Russian, maybe world, literature. This one is about a happily married couple who have a lottery ticket and (only half-) imagine they have won a lot of money. But their dreams of a rosy future are not as sweet as we might expect (1,600 words)

In the story, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the famous author of 'The Great Gatsby', tells us about a soldier who returns to the U.S. after The First World War. He is given a hero’s welcome, but unfortunately, he cannot get well-paid work and soon turns to crime (3,230 words)

This early science fiction story is about a kind of computer although it was written before they were invented. An American becomes involved in helping a Russian diplomat, when he is mistaken for a doctor. While he is giving him some medicine, he notices that his head is very unusual and sets out to learn his secret (2,510 words).

India’s Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore, wrote this sad story in Bengali about the son of a widowed mother, who struggles to take care of him and agrees to let her brother and his wife look after the lad. Far away from his family, the boy finds life without love in a strange house in the city much harder than he’d imagined. (2,050 words)

Conan Doyle’s legendary detective, Sherlock Holmes, has made us forget that the author wrote many more stories about crime where his creation plays no part. In this story, we learn about the disappearance of an entire train from the evil mastermind behind the mystery (4,700 words)

Stevenson is best-known for his children’s novel, ‘Treasure Island’, as well as his novella, ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’, but this horror story concerns a young man making a deal with the Devil after he commits a dreadful crime. He can escape with the help of Satan or face the hangman (4,420 words).

Chesnutt has never received the fame he deserves as an author. He was criticised first for his radical beliefs and then, when he was old, for being a racist himself. This comic story, tells how a slave got the better of his young master and an old one too. (3,975 words)

One of the first colour horror films, Poe’s story became a box office smash hit in 1960. It was already the author’s most famous work. In it, a young man visits his childhood friend, Roderick Usher, who is suffering from a mysterious disease of the senses, and his dying sister, Madeline. He watches as disaster seizes them and then one night there's a terrible storm... (2,825 words).

Oscar Wilde was as famous for his sense of humour as he was for his plays and novel. In this short story, he builds a beautiful romance where a nightingale is prepared to give her life for a student’s love for a beautiful girl. Sadly, things do not end as we might hope. (1,840 words)

This story is about an old prize fighter who needs to win against a much younger but less experienced opponent to pay off his debts and feed his family. The tension builds and as we follow the fighter through every punch and tactic, we get to know the man and hope that he will win. (5,200 words)

W. S. Gilbert’s story of a poor and sick man, living alone in Venice and looked after by a housekeeper, is a beautiful love story. Forced to spend his days lying down next to his window, he watches a young girl year after year in the reflection she makes in the water of one of Venice’s canals. Slowly, they become friends and the man starts to feel love for the girl – a love he believes she shares, despite everything (1,700 words)

Turgenev tells the tale of a provincial doctor who, glad of the chance of educated company in the village where he lives, tells his patient the tragic story of the love of his life (3,535 words).

Guy de Maupassant was a young man when Prussia (a part of what soon became Germany) attacked and defeated France in a few weeks. This story is one of many he wrote about that war and tells the story of two old fishing friends, who find themselves in deep trouble only because they decided to forget the war and enjoy their hobby for a few hours. (1,735 words)

Katherine Mansfield’s brother was killed in The First World War and, in this story, the writer shows the feelings of two fathers whose sons were also killed. She considers their different reactions and how they change as the years pass, and cleverly uses the struggles of an unlucky fly to make her ideas clearer to us (1,405 words).