One of Twins
Ambrose BierceIdentical twins share more than a face as one brother’s engagement turns dangerous.
12 min · Eerie
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- Settings
- The city
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Conversational
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
The story shelf
Follow your curiosity.
A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
How the story is told.
The Damned Thing
Ambrose BierceA hunter dies after an attack by something his companion cannot see.
15 min · Chilling
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- Settings
- Wilderness
- Tone
- Detached
- Style
- Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story · Epistolary & diary
The Moonlit Road
Ambrose BierceA mother is murdered, a father vanishes, and three accounts tell different parts of what happened.
16 min · Eerie
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- Settings
- The home · The countryside
- Style
- Ornate
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
- Motifs
- Séances & spiritualism
From the Diary of a Violent-Tempered Man
Anton ChekhovA self-declared man of violent temper tries to study dog licences while a determined young woman assigns him a romance.
17 min · Humorous
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- Themes
- Self-deception · Marriage · Appearance vs reality
- Settings
- The countryside
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Conversational
- Pace
- Brisk
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
Vanka
Anton ChekhovOn Christmas Eve, a nine-year-old apprentice writes home for rescue from hunger, beatings, and sleepless work in Moscow.
7 min · Tragic
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- Themes
- Class & poverty · Work & labor · Isolation
- Settings
- The city · Offices & workplaces
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Plain
- Pace
- Measured
- Occasion
- Christmas
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
- Motifs
- Orphans & foundlings
The Yellow Wallpaper
Charlotte Perkins GilmanPrescribed total rest in a nursery with barred windows, a young wife begins to study the wallpaper.
28 min · Unsettling
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- Themes
- Women’s independence · Madness · Confinement & escape
- Settings
- The home · Country houses & estates
- Style
- Spare
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
- Motifs
- Forbidden room
MS. Found in a Bottle
Edgar Allan PoeAfter a storm destroys his ship, a skeptical traveler finds himself aboard an ancient vessel racing toward the South Pole.
19 min · Suspenseful
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- Themes
- Nature & wilderness · Fate & chance · Death
- Settings
- At sea
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Descriptive · Ornate
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
Mellonta Tauta
Edgar Allan PoeA bored passenger on a future balloon tour writes a letter full of confident errors about the nineteenth century.
25 min · Humorous
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- Themes
- Science & progress · Autonomy & control · Personhood
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Conversational · Dense
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
- Motifs
- Journeys & quests
A Cry of Alarm
Guy de MaupassantA self-styled naïve bachelor warns husbands after a lover's drunken confession unsettles his ideas about courtship.
10 min · Humorous
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- Themes
- Appearance vs reality · Self-deception · Marriage
- Settings
- The city
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Conversational
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary · Frame story
A Divorce Case
Guy de MaupassantIn court, a wife's plea for divorce reveals a husband whose worship of ideal beauty has become a fevered obsession.
11 min · Unsettling
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- Tone
- Moralizing
- Style
- Ornate · Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story · Epistolary & diary
A Madman
Guy de MaupassantAfter a revered judge dies, his private papers expose a lifelong authority’s hidden appetite for killing.
12 min · Chilling
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- Themes
- Madness · Law & justice · Appearance vs reality
- Tone
- Detached
- Style
- Plain
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
A Traveller’s Notes
Guy de MaupassantA sharp-tongued rail traveler records the sights, absurdities, and unsettling stories encountered along the French Riviera.
8 min · Humorous
More details
- Themes
- Hypocrisy · Appearance vs reality
- Settings
- The city · The countryside
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Descriptive · Conversational
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
- Motifs
- Journeys & quests
Caresses
Guy de MaupassantTwo lovers exchange letters over whether physical desire corrupts love or completes it.
7 min · Romantic
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- Themes
- Love · Temptation · Faith & doubt
- Tone
- Earnest
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
Correspondence
Guy de MaupassantA fashionable niece condemns modern manners, and her older aunt answers with a sharper lesson in observation.
8 min · Humorous
More details
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Conversational · Plain
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
He?
Guy de MaupassantA confirmed bachelor plans to marry a near stranger because one empty armchair has made solitude unbearable.
13 min · Chilling
More details
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Conversational
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
- Motifs
- The mysterious stranger
Hydrophobia?
Guy de MaupassantAn uninformed bride mistakes her wedding night for an attack, then becomes convinced a playful dog bite has doomed her honeymoon.
13 min · Humorous
More details
- Themes
- Marriage · Illness · Self-deception
- Settings
- Villages & small towns
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Conversational
- Pace
- Measured
- Occasion
- Weddings
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
Letter Found on a Drowned Man
Guy de MaupassantA confirmed skeptic of love recalls the moonlit boat ride that briefly unsettled all his carefully reasoned certainty.
9 min · Melancholy
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- Themes
- Love · Isolation · Self-deception
- Settings
- The countryside
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Conversational · Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
Letter from a Madman
Guy de MaupassantA man asks his doctor whether reason has led him to an invisible world—or into madness.
9 min · Chilling
More details
- Themes
- Madness · Obsession · Appearance vs reality
- Settings
- The home
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Dense
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
Marroca
Guy de MaupassantIn colonial Algeria, a traveler’s affair with a married woman leads him from sensual confidence into a reckless encounter under her husband’s roof.
16 min · Suspenseful
More details
- Themes
- Temptation · Betrayal · Empire & colonialism
- Settings
- The tropics & colonies
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Descriptive · Conversational
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
My Twenty-Five Days
Guy de MaupassantA forgotten spa diary records twenty-five days of treatments, flirtation, boredom, and selective moral philosophy.
12 min · Humorous
More details
- Themes
- Illness · Self-deception · Hypocrisy
- Settings
- The countryside · Villages & small towns
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Conversational · Descriptive
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story · Epistolary & diary
- Motifs
- Journeys & quests
Our Friends the English
Guy de MaupassantA French traveler among English hotel guests turns hymns, dancing, and Scripture into a private war.
12 min · Humorous
More details
- Themes
- Hypocrisy · Faith & doubt
- Settings
- The city
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Conversational
- Pace
- Brisk
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story · Epistolary & diary
Our Letters
Guy de MaupassantUnable to sleep in an old family bedroom, a guest discovers secret love letters hidden beneath its severe former occupant’s portrait.
9 min · Reflective
More details
- Themes
- Appearance vs reality · Betrayal · Memory
- Settings
- Country houses & estates
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Descriptive
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
Relics of the Past
Guy de MaupassantAlone in the house of her whole life, an elderly woman writes to a friend about memory, aging, and the objects that preserve vanished lives.
7 min · Nostalgic
More details
- Settings
- The home
- Tone
- Sentimental
- Style
- Lyrical · Descriptive
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
Suicides
Guy de MaupassantA man with no obvious catastrophe explains why thirty years of repetition and one drawer of old letters have made life unbearable.
8 min · Bleak
More details
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Lyrical
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story · Epistolary & diary