Short Stories

The Most Dangerous Game. Leiningen versus the Ants. The Open Window. Lamb to the Slaughter. The Gift of the Magi. The Tell-tale Heart.

Short stories. More than that, excellent short stories. I remember each of these well. I read some of them in school, others before or since. Each left a clear memory.

It takes a special gift to write a good short story — to include characterization, plot, conflict, and resolution in such a small space and to do it well. Some authors, such as O. Henry, specialized in this format.

Fewer and fewer people these days read short stories. This is unfortunate--so few will ever experience the joy that reading such fine work can give. The goal of this site is to give a nice cross section of short stories in the hope that these short stories will excite these people into rediscovering this excellent source of entertainment.

[from classicshorts.com]

Are you interested? You could scan your local library or bookstore for anthologies. Or, you can look on the web. Many fine short stories are out of copyright and available online for your reading pleasure!

• Classic Reader. At Classic Reader, you'll find not only a broad selection, but also three background articles: History of the Short-Story, Qualities of the Short-Story, and Composition of the Short-Story.

• Classic Short Stories is a web site "dedicated to the short story and to those interested in reading light prose."

• Short Stories at East of the Web divides its offerings into nine genres, from children's to humour to science fiction.

• Story Bytes presents the Internet's (and the world's) shortest stories - fiction ranging from 2 to 2048 words.

This is, of course, only a short (:-) list of available sites and stories. I expect if you look around, you'll find more.

Have fun reading.

Short Stories ( in category Books, Movies, Music ) - posted at Tue, 24 Jan, 20:19 Pacific | «e»