Fiction

A young man seems certain to be arrested and hanged for the murder of a retired builder but Sherlock Holmes believes he is innocent. Can he save him? (4,500 words)

A young girl wants her father to tell her a story so he tells her one about the little girl who asked Father Christmas to make it Christmas every day. He agrees but the result does not make the little girl as happy as she expected! (1,875 words)

In this story, Sherlock Holmes tries to understand why a man pays a music teacher double the usual salary to teach a small girl but also wear someone else’s clothes and cut her hair short. Can it be that her employer’s wife is so strange that she can only be with someone dressed like this or is there a deeper mystery that only the legendary detective can solve? (4,275 words)

This tragic tale describes the remorse that a young widow feels when she looks back on how she treated her husband and her regret at having longed for another man. It is moral tale, subtly weaved together, that suggests we do not always benefit from what we crave. (5,310 words)

In this story, the great Russian socialist writer, Maxim Gorky tells us the surprising tale of a student living in the same house as a sex worker. Although she is very hard and rude, Gorky lets us know a secret about her: she writes letters to a boyfriend back in her hometown. But who is this young man that she loves so much? (1,500 words)

Katherine Mansfield lost her brother in The First World War and this story explores the feelings of two fathers whose sons were killed in that terrible conflict. She considers their different reactions and uses the struggles of an unlucky fly to make her dramatic point. (1,860 words)

Always a subversive who tried to undermine upper middle class life in the early twentieth century, Mansfield here looks at a successful businessman and head of a seemingly happy family, one evening late in his life. As we learn more about his aims and his disappointments, we start to question whether he has achieved all he set out to gain or lost too much trying. (2,000 words)

In the early twentieth century, a woman who could not find herself a husband in England was not complete. In this typical Mansfield story, a teacher who is engaged to a younger man gets a letter from him containing unexpected bad news. (1,510 words)

This very short story by the feminist American writer, Kate Chopin, examines the awakening of hope in a young, but sick, married woman, when she believes that the death of her much-loved husband in a train accident will allow her to live her own life. 'The Story of an Hour’ is also available at pre-intermediate level (930 words).

Guy de Maupassant is France’s greatest writer of short fiction. This powerful story is about an old woman whose son is killed and who promises him that she will get revenge. But how can she? She is old and cannot fight a young murderer. But then she has a terrible and very clever idea (1,200 words).

Henry Lawson is regarded as one of Australia's greatest writers. In this tragic and powerful story, a teacher's misjudgement leads to events that end in the accidental death of a child. (810 words)

An interesting story for every language student and teacher. A Frenchman who meets and falls in love with an English girl and decides to marry her. Some time later he meets an old friend on a boat full of English tourists and starts complaining about them and his wife. His friend doesn't understand but, as he explains, it’s all because of language! (960 words)

A young widow puts all her energy into her baby son and making the money needed for them to eat. Help comes from an old bachelor who marries her but is jealous of the smiles she only gives her son. He gives her a new child but she dies soon after his birth. Years of unfair treatment follow but eventually the first child proves his worth. (3,930 words)

Chekhov looks at the poverty and ambition of a clerk in this short story. He spends an evening in a depressing office when he should be out in the streets enjoying himself. To pass the time, he writes a letter asking for a slightly better job, complimenting a powerful man he hates and wonders how he can get a better man’s job. At the same time, he looks at an insect running around on his writing table … (1,090 words)

This story is about a man driven by an artist's desire perfection. He loves watching the girls as they collect strawberries and stop to drink at his farm. He notices the ever-changing colours of the clay where the plants grow and decides to make a jug as beautiful as the girls he sees and the one he has lost. (1,210 words).