A Divine Gesture
Ernest HemingwayIn a garden cluttered with bathtubs and boot jacks, a very busy God tries to keep order.
3 min · Humorous
The story shelf
Follow your curiosity.
A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
Banal Story
Ernest HemingwayA writer reads a magazine’s promises of Romance while, far away, a famous bullfighter dies and is reduced to souvenir pictures.
3 min · Humorous
Che Ti Dice La Patria?
Ernest HemingwayA road trip through Italy becomes a tour of suspicious officials, theatrical hospitality, and the small absurdities of a country under Fascism.
15 min · Humorous
Mr. and Mrs. Elliot
Ernest HemingwayA young Harvard poet and his older bride cross the Atlantic determined to begin a perfect marriage, but Europe has other distractions.
7 min · Humorous
Today Is Friday
Ernest HemingwayAfter the crucifixion, three Roman soldiers drink, joke, and circle the question of what it means to endure suffering.
5 min · Bleak
Conscience in Art
O. HenryTwo veteran swindlers target a Pittsburgh millionaire’s passion for antiquities, while one partner tries to keep his conscience intact.
10 min · Humorous
Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet
O. HenryA traveling medicine seller uses personal magnetism to outwit a town's mayor, its doctor, and the law itself.
11 min · Humorous
The Ethics of Pig
O. HenryA traveling swindler recruits a mountain hog thief, only to discover that even a comic partnership has its own ethics.
16 min · Humorous
The Handbook of Hymen
O. HenryTwo snowbound prospectors educate themselves with very different books, then put their new knowledge to work in a small Montana town.
20 min · Humorous
The Man Higher Up
O. HenryJeff Peters explains the ethics of graft after teaming up with a burglar and a ruined financier in a town with one tempting bank.
23 min · Humorous
The Octopus Marooned
O. HenryTwo confidence men corner a flood-bound town, but their monopoly faces an unexpected challenge from inside the partnership.
12 min · Humorous
The Pimienta Pancakes
O. HenryA sidelined cowboy asks his camp cook for pancakes and hears the wild story of a recipe, a romance, and a very successful deception.
17 min · Humorous
The Ransom of Red Chief
O. HenryTwo bungling kidnappers discover that their captive is far more trouble than the ransom is worth.
19 min · Humorous
Tobin’s Palm
O. HenryA grieving Irishman treats a palmist’s predictions as a treasure map and pursues the stranger meant to bring him luck.
13 min · Humorous
A Little Journey
Ray BradburyAfter a Mars-based spiritual grifter strands a group of elderly women, their leader decides they will take the promised journey anyway.
11 min · Bittersweet
The Fight of the Good Ship Clarissa
Ray BradburyA Venus-bound rocket crew blunders into battle in a delirious send-up of space-adventure pulp.
3 min · Humorous
Lice
Ryūnosuke AkutagawaOn a crowded war-bound ship in 1864, a plague of lice gives two samurai factions something more urgent to fight about.
9 min · Humorous
The Nose
Ryūnosuke AkutagawaA Buddhist priest’s determined campaign to shorten his extraordinary nose brings him the attention he thought he wanted—and a new humiliation.
13 min · Humorous
18 stories