In this representative volume, "The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories" the reader will find twenty-four of Mark Twain's best shorter works. Classic and unforgettable tales that span the author's career are included, such as "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", which is Twain's most famous short story and was his first great success as an author. It is the unforgettable tale of Jim Smiley, the gambler who will bet on anything including...

From "the original master of horror," a 1927 short story about an artist banished for his ghoulish paintings and the supernatural secret behind his art (Publishers Weekly). In this classic short story from H. P. Lovecraft, enter the gothic world of Pickman, a painter notoriously banned from the Boston Art Club for his grotesque images. But once inside the artist's studio in the slums of the North End, the mystery behind Pickman's artistic choices...

Britain's most popular nineteenth century playwright Oscar Wilde was born in Ireland in 1854. He dabbled in several different forms of writing, as is exemplified in his best known work, the novel entitled "The Picture of Dorian Gray." He also wrote in the form of short fiction stories, like "The Canterville Ghost." In this tale, a family of proud Americans come into possession of a historic English mansion. However, the mansion is haunted by murderous...

Two European siblings travel to New England to meet their American cousins in this classic satire. Henry James's short novel The Europeans, which made its debut in serial form in the Atlantic Monthly, is the beloved tale of Eugenia Münster and her brother, Felix Young, who travel to Boston after having spent most of their lives in France, Italy, Spain, and Germany. At the heart of the story rest the concerns that most intrigued the iconic author:...

Mortal Coils Aldous Huxley - Mortal Coils is a collection of five short fictional pieces written by Aldous Huxley in 1921. As a Hollywood screenwriter Huxley used much of his earnings to bring Jewish and left-wing writer and artist refugees from Hitler's Germany to the US. He worked for many of the major studios including MGM and Disney. In 1953, Huxley and Maria applied for United States citizenship. When Huxley refused to bear arms for the U.S....

A short story bubbled up from the grim and violent mean streets of 1990's Los Angeles, as the protagonist explains, sweat from the Southern California heat dripping onto his Glock, "I have never murdered, and I have never been murdered. But, I have dreamed of both."

"Dagon" is a 1917 short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. One of the first stories he wrote as an adult, it centres around the recollection of a tortured, morphine-addicted narrator who was captured by a German ship during World War I. After escaping his captors, he drifted for many miles before winding up stranded in a hellish place littered with rotting carcasses and home to an ancient horror. A chilling tale by a master story-teller, "Dagon"...

"The millions of readers of Amor Towles are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories set in New York City and a novella in Los Angeles. The New York stories, most of which are set around the turn of the millennium, take up everything from the death-defying acrobatics of the male ego, to the fateful consequences of brief encounters, and the delicate mechanics of comprise which operate at the heart of modern marriages. In...

Published in 1875, this generous collection of sixty-three sketches and short stories includes the classic "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," as well as other standouts like "To Raise Poultry," "How the Author Was Sold in Newark," and "My Bloody Massacre."

In the degenerate, unliked backwater of Dunwich, Wilbur Whately, a most unusual child, is born. Of unnatural parentage, he grows at an uncanny pace to an unsettling height, but the boy's arrival simply precedes that of a true horror: one of the Old Ones, which forces the people of the town to hole up by night.