Our Collection | The Short Story Project

UK

The first time I ever met Mr. Tallent was in the late summer of 1906, in a small, lonely inn on the top of a mountain. For natives, rainy days in these places are not very...

Mr. Tallent’s Ghost

Mary Webb

17 min

UK

Well, as I was saying, the Emperor got into bed. “Chevalier,” says he to his valet, “let down those window-curtains, and shut the casement before you leave the room.” Chevalier did as he was told, and...

Napoleon and the Spectre

Charlotte Brontë

4 min

UK

It was during the Retreat of the Eighty Thousand, and the authority of the Censorship is sufficient excuse for not being more explicit. But it was on the most awful day of that awful time, on...

The Bowmen

Arthur Machen

4 min

UK

All over the pavement of the church spread the exaggerated cross-hatching of the old pews’ oak, a Smithfield market of intersecting lines such as children made with cards in the old days when kings and knaves...

The Marble Child

Edith Nesbit

14 min

UK

This slender narrative has no pretensions to the regularity of a story, or the development of situations and feelings; it is but a slight sketch, delivered nearly as it was narrated to me by one of...

The Invisible Girl

Mary Shelley

22 min

UK

BY A PARTIAL, PREJUDICED, AND IGNORANT HISTORIAN. To Miss Austen, eldest daughter of the Rev. George Austen, this work is inscribed with all due respect by THE AUTHOR. N.B. There will be very few Dates in...

The History of England

Jane Austen

14 min

UK

“My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel,” said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; “in the meantime you must try and put up with me.” Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which...

The Open Window

Saki

4 min

UK

Katherine Farquhar was a handsome woman of forty, no longer slim, but attractive in her soft, full, feminine way. The French porters ran round her, getting a voluptuous pleasure from merely carrying her bags. And she...

The Border-Line

D.H. Lawrence

36 min

UK

Between the silver ribbon of morning and the green glittering ribbon of sea, the boat touched Harwich and let loose a swarm of folk like flies, among whom the man we must follow was by no...

The Blue Cross

G.K. Chesterton

29 min

UK

The King’s son was going to be married, so there were general rejoicings. He had waited a whole year for his bride, and at last she had arrived. She was a Russian Princess, and had driven...

The Remarkable Rocket

Oscar Wilde

17 min

UK

“Halloa! Below there!” When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole. One would have...

The Signal-Man

Charles Dickens

20 min

UK

“In the year 17__, having for some time determined on a journey through countries not hitherto much frequented by travellers, I set out, accompanied by a friend, whom I shall designate by the name of Augustus...

Fragment of a Novel

Lord Byron

7 min

UK

Prison more like, said Madeleine. Come now, said Mr Kramer. If I run away they bring me back, said Madeleine. Yes but, said Mr Kramer. Mr Kramer often said, Yes but to Madeleine. Something...

Asylum

David Constantine

12 min

UK

This, you know, is the beginning of the story about sprites and goblins which Mamilius, the best child in Shakespeare, was telling to his mother the queen, and the court ladies, when the king came in...

There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard

M.R. James

5 min

UK

He happened to be building a Palace when the news came, and he left all the bricks kicking about the floor for Nurse to clear up–but then the news was rather remarkable news. You see, there...

The Book of Beasts

Edith Nesbit

18 min

UK

There was once a lady who found herself in middle life with but a slight income. Knowing herself to be insufficiently educated to be able to practise any other trade or calling, she of course decided,...

Fortunatus Rex and co

Edith Nesbit

20 min

UK

In the cool blue twilight of two steep streets in Camden Town, the shop at the corner, a confectioner’s, glowed like the butt of a cigar. One should rather say, perhaps, like the butt of a...

The Invisible Man

G.K. Chesterton

25 min

UK

It all began with Effie’s getting something in her eye. It hurt very much indeed, and it felt something like a red-hot spark – only it seemed to have legs as well, and wings like a...

The Deliverers of Their Country

Edith Nesbit

19 min

UK

Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnam Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly. Father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed ideas about...

The Monkey’s Paw

W.W. Jacobs

15 min

UK

When the porter’s wife (she used to answer the house-bell), announced “A gentleman—with a lady, sir,” I had, as I often had in those days, for the wish was father to the thought, an immediate vision...

The Real Thing

Henry James

42 min

UK

There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck. She married for love, and the love turned to dust. She had bonny children, yet she felt they...

The Rocking-Horse Winner

D.H. Lawrence

21 min

UK

{ Excerpts from Seven Pillars of Wisdom } By November, 1917, Allenby was ready to open a general attack against the Turks along his whole front. The Arabs should have done the same in their...

Blowing Up Trains

D.H. Lawrence

15 min

UK

Hear and attend and listen; for this befell and behappened and became and was, O my Best Beloved, when the Tame animals were wild. The Dog was wild, and the Horse was wild, and the Cow was...

The Cat that Walked by Himself

Rudyard Kipling

16 min

UK

More than a thousand years ago, in a country quite on the other side of the world, it fell out that the people all grew so very polite that they hardly ever spoke to each other....

A Toy Princess

Mary de Morgan

12 min