An evocative anthology for Christmas. This collection contains complete versions of old favourites such as 'The Little Match Girl', 'The Night Before Christmas', and 'Christmas Day in the Workhouse'. Other extracts include a sermon by Lancelot Andrews, an account of Christmas under the Puritans and a Mummer's Play.

These stories, all written between 1929 and 1954, all share the themes that feature so strongly in Graham Greene's novels: humour and violence, pity and hatred, betrayal and pursuit. Comic, sad, shocking and tragic, they recount the tales of Mr Maling's loud stomach, destructive gangs of children, indiscretions revealed and secrets uncovered. CONTA...

This collection of short stories, previously published in anthologies and newspapers, consists of miniature studies of the endless absurdity of human behaviour. It includes 'Our Lives Are Only Lent To Us', discovered amongst the author's papers after her death.

Solving the mystery of the Primrose Path Home proves to be the first of a collection of great new cases, as Rumpole defies hospital and returns triumphantly to defend the innocent - and the not-so-innocent.The stories contained within are: 'Rumpole and the Primrose Path', 'Rumpole and the New Year's Resolutions', 'Rumpole and the Scales of Justice'...

A collection of love stories including: 'The Sphinx Without a Secret' by Oscar Wilde; 'For Better or Worse' by W.W Jacobs; 'Angela' by W.S Gilbert; 'Mr & Mrs Dove' by Katherine Mansfield'; 'Georgie Porgie' by Rudyard Kipling; 'Genefer' by Sabine Baring-Gould; 'The Singing Lesson' by Katherine Mansfield; 'The Patch on the Quilt' by Sapper; 'The...

Our narrator is sent on an errand to visit an old man, Simon Wheeler by a friend to find an old acquaintance of his. This is clearly a joke, because once our narrator gets there and asks about the acquaintance, Wheeler immediately begins to tell a long, boring, droll story about Jim Smiley. Jim Smiley is addicted to gambling. He bets on anything fr...

A political discussion piece, this story sees political canvassers in Ireland discussing the merits of their candidates and the advantages and pitfalls of their positions, including whether or not they are to be paid. Also concerned with allegiances and tensions between nationalists and loyalists, this story from 'Dubliners' is historically interes...

A foolhardy mouse named Mervyn with great faith in his own courage and invincibility, sets off to antagonize the household cat, Pouncetta. His family and friends fear the worst and lament his untimely demise, they may be surprised by the strange turn of events, facilitated in part to a perhaps unduly paranoid feline...

Our narrator stays on a Mediterranean island much longer than he intended to for a number of reasons. One reason is to prove his mother and his girlfriend wrong, who both say that to decamp to an island for a whole winter to write a novel is melodramatic and rather a clich‚. Most nights, to abate loneliness and pass the time, he talks to the...

One of the Runagates Club stories, where members of a dinner club take it in turns to relate a tale to the other guests. A man is shipwrecked on a desert island in the Archipelago. He has heard that either he will find nothing to eat or else he will be eaten by the local savages. Either way things don't look too promising. He is, in fact, captured...

Published in 1899, in "Grey Weather", a collection of short stories and poems by the author, Buchan.

After a six-year hiatus, a man and a woman who used to be lovers or close friends meet in a caf‚. An insightful study of relationships and nostalgic ideals, this story also looks at the difference money, or the lack of it, can make, especially if one half of a couple (romantic or otherwise) is financially better off than the other.

Loretta, Mary, Anne and Sylvia are four young women who belong to a sisterhood composed of superior women, who for various reasons, determine to remain single and devote themselves to earnest work. They, do not rush into marriage recklessly like other young girls, who fear being single and perhaps penniless or uncared for. They enjoy their liberty...

Nunzia's sister keeps birds in a cage outside the bedroom that they share. Nunzia herself cares not at first for the birds, but all the same keeps her own secret locked in a cage inside her. What is the secret that makes the bird inside her flutter around her chest excitedly? And why does her secret result in her half-starving her family with doubt...

This story of obsession and loss is set in the thespian world. When a figure from the past comes back to retrieve something he lost, a pair of lovers are thrown into turmoil. The strange and powerful person has a story to tell.but what will the ending be?

Set in the gold and quartz-mining community, this queer and amusing little vignette explains why Dick Baker's cat, who always had such a propensity for finding the premium gold-panning plots, takes strongly against quartz mining and never is to be swayed otherwise. A sweet, funny and well-written short, that showcases Twain's wit and skill brillian...

Our narrator tells the sad tale of her marriage, marred by a husband who breaks her heart spending his money in disreputable establishments, while she, Barbara, slowly withers away. Her beauty fading, she moves inevitably closer towards her only form of escape, her death. A melancholy and tragic tale, masterfully told.

Dr Heidigger's Experiment is a short story by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, about a scientist who claims to have been sent water from the Fountain of Youth. He calls together his old friends and invites them to taste the waters. The tale explores the transience of youth, and the desires that many have but few acknowledge.

This ghostly story by O.Henry tells the tale of Danny, on his first day away from home, in the 'Big City'. Looking around his new apartment, he begins to discover hints of who the previous occupant could have been. This story about beauty, warmth, loneliness and regret will touch the heart of any who read it.

Bingo Little, friend of butler Jeeves' master Bertie Wooster and a member of the Drones Club, is also a hopeless romantic. Our heroes Jeeves and Wooster often try to help him into or out of romantic entanglements but to little avail, or at least they often make matters worse! Sublime comedy from the master of humor.

Richard "Bingo" Little falls in love with the daughter of a left-wing (probably communist or socialist) leader called Charlotte Corday Rowbotham. In an attempt to get close to her, Little joins the group, called the Heralds of the Red Dawn, whose aims are to "massacre the bourgeoisie, sack Park Lane and disembowel the hereditary aristocracy". This...