To Build a Fire

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 young couple with one dollar and eighty-seven cents each sell their most precious possession to buy the other a Christmas gift. O. Henry's best-loved story and the classic example of the ironic twist.

O. Henry

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