The Gift of the Magi

A murderer swears he is sane while the beating of a dead man's heart grows louder under the floorboards. Our own Project Aldus edition of Poe's most famous tale, short enough to read in ten minutes.

Edgar Allan Poe

A cursed paw grants three wishes, and a quiet family learns too late to be careful what they ask for. Jacobs's 1902 tale still tops almost every list of the greatest short stories ever written.

W. W. Jacobs

A man stands on a railroad bridge with a rope around his neck, and then the rope breaks. Bierce's Civil War story holds one of the most famous twist endings in fiction.

Ambrose Bierce

A newcomer to the Yukon ignores the old-timers' warning and sets out alone at seventy-five below zero, with only a dog for company. Jack London's tense survival story, read in classrooms for over a century.

Jack London

Fifteen stories of ordinary Dublin lives, closing with The Dead, often called the finest short story in the English language. Joyce's first book and a landmark of modern short fiction.

James Joyce