Famed Anglo-Irish author, Lord Dunsany (1878-1957), was a short story writer, playwright, poet, essayist and autobiographer whose works earned him notoriety as one of the most significant contributors to the modern fantasy genre. His short stories, especially, were widely popular with audiences who enjoyed his formulated mythologies, his examination of the nature of time and human existence, and his satiric, and often anti-industrial, views on t ...
"The Aspern Papers" is the story of an unnamed narrator who travels to Venice in search of some letters by Jeffrey Aspern, a famous and now dead American poet. Inspired by a true story about a fan of the poet Shelley who sought out similar papers, «The Aspern Papers» is one of Henry James's more popular novellas. It is included in this volume with the following three shorter works by Henry James: «The Private Life», «The Middle Years», ...
H. G. Wells (1866-1946) is widely considered the father of the science fiction genre. His stories examine space and time travel, alien worlds, and the destructive potential of modern technology. Wells' influence is far reaching and remains potent today. «The Country of the Blind and Other Stories» collects thirty-three of Wells' most renowned short stories. In «The Country of the Blind,» perhaps his most famed shorter work, Nunez the m ...
Henry James (1843-1916) was an America-born English writer whose novels, short stories and letters established the foundation of the modernist movement in twentieth century fiction and poetry. His career, one of the most significant and influential in English literature, spanned over five decades and resulted in a body of work that has had a profound impact on generations of writers. Born in New York, but educated in France, Germany, England and ...
Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was a master of the short story. The son of a former serf in southern Russia, he attended Moscow University to study medicine, writing short stories for periodicals in order to support his family. What began as a necessity became a legitimate career in 1886 when he was asked to write in St. Petersburg for the Novoye Vremya (New Times), owned by millionaire magnate Alexey Suvorin. Chekhov began paying more attention to h ...
Stephen Crane, an American writer and journalist, is best known for his critically acclaimed Civil War novel «The Red Badge of Courage». In addition to this remarkable work, Crane also wrote many short stories about the Civil War, among other subjects. His best short stories are collected here in this volume and include the following tales: The Open Boat, The Blue Hotel, The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky, The Monster, Death and the Child, The Pace o ...
"TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?" And so begins «The Tell-Tale Heart», that compressed tale of Gothic composition. The characters and images that Edgar Allan Poe has gifted us are plentiful. Hugely influential to the short story genre, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) remains a lion of American letters. His morose explorations of human depravity render his tales exceptionally ca ...
Born and educated in Dublin, Ireland, William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) discovered early in his literary career a fascination with Irish folklore and the occult. Later awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, Yeats produced a vast collection of stories, songs, and poetry of Ireland's historical and legendary past. Red Hanrahan is a character that Yeats returned to frequently, his creation influenced heavily by Celtic folklore. In this ...
Nikolai Gogol, an early 19th century Ukrainian-born Russian novelist, humorist, and dramatist, created some of the most important works of world literature and is considered the father of modern Russian realism. Gogol satirized the corrupt bureaucracy of the Russian Empire through the scrupulous and scathing realism of his writing, which would ultimately lead to his exile. Among some of his finest works are his short stories. Together in this co ...
