A Canary for One
Ernest HemingwayOn a train to Paris, a proudly controlling mother carries a caged bird home while unknowingly passing the wreckage of her daughter’s love.
8 min · Bittersweet
The story shelf
Follow your curiosity.
A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
A Pursuit Race
Ernest HemingwayA failing advance man hides beneath a hotel sheet while alcohol and drugs turn his last escape into a grotesque pursuit he cannot outrun.
7 min · Bleak
A Simple Enquiry
Ernest HemingwayIn a snowbound military hut, a major’s seemingly casual questions expose the dangerous private anxieties beneath his authority.
5 min · Unsettling
Big Two-Hearted River
Ernest HemingwayNick Adams walks away from a burned town into the Michigan wilderness, building a camp and fishing the river one careful act at a time.
37 min · Reflective
Cat in the Rain
Ernest HemingwayIn a rainy Italian hotel, an American wife goes after a stray cat and discovers how many other things she wants.
5 min · Melancholy
Cross Country Snow
Ernest HemingwayTwo young friends race down an Alpine mountain, then linger over wine as marriage, school, and the end of freedom wait for them below.
8 min · Adventurous
Fifty Grand
Ernest HemingwayA veteran boxer plans to lose the fight that will end his career—but keeping the money may demand one last act of courage.
37 min · Suspenseful
Hills Like White Elephants
Ernest HemingwayWhile waiting for a train through Spain, a couple circles the life-changing decision neither can name directly.
7 min · Claustrophobic
Indian Camp
Ernest HemingwayA boy accompanies his doctor father across a dark lake to help a woman in labor, entering a night of pain, birth, and adult mystery.
7 min · Unsettling
My Old Man
Ernest HemingwayA boy follows his jockey father through the racecourses of Italy and France, learning to love the horses, the crowds, and the man who rides them.
27 min · Adventurous
Now I Lay Me
Ernest HemingwayA wounded lieutenant keeps vigil against sleep, replaying memory, prayer, and imagined trout streams to hold his soul together after the war.
14 min · Reflective
Out of Season
Ernest HemingwayA young couple follows a drunken local guide out of Cortina for an illegal trout-fishing trip that keeps slipping further out of reach.
10 min · Humorous
Soldier’s Home
Ernest HemingwayA veteran returns to his Oklahoma home after the war and finds that the town, his family, and the future they expect no longer fit him.
13 min · Bleak
The Battler
Ernest HemingwayAfter being thrown from a freight train, Nick Adams finds food and company beside a campfire—but the prizefighter waiting there is not safe.
13 min · Unsettling
The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife
Ernest HemingwayA doctor’s claim to some driftwood is challenged by the lumberman who knows exactly where the logs came from.
6 min · Unsettling
The Three Day Blow
Ernest HemingwayAs an autumn storm lashes Michigan, Nick Adams and Bill drink by the fire and talk around the breakup Nick cannot quite explain.
14 min · Melancholy
The Undefeated
Ernest HemingwayAn aging bullfighter takes a cheap night fight in Madrid, determined to prove that the old skill and courage are still in him.
47 min · Suspenseful
Up in Michigan
Ernest HemingwayIn a small Michigan town, Liz Coates builds a private romance around the blacksmith whose return from a hunting trip changes everything.
9 min · Melancholy
Bartleby, the Scrivener
Herman MelvilleA Wall Street copyist answers every request with "I would prefer not to" — and never leaves.
65 min · Melancholy
The Mourner
Mary ShelleyA prosperous man guards a grave whose story begins with a runaway schoolboy and a haunted young woman.
37 min · Melancholy
The Parvenue
Mary ShelleyA poor steward's daughter marries the lord who saved her from a burning home.
17 min · Melancholy
A Blackjack Bargainer
O. HenryA ruined lawyer is offered cash for his inherited feud, forcing an old mountain honor code into a startling new bargain.
25 min · Suspenseful
A Municipal Report
O. HenryA traveling journalist arrives in supposedly uneventful Nashville and discovers that its quiet streets conceal tangled loyalties and danger.
28 min · Humorous
An Unfinished Story
O. HenryA shopgirl living on six dollars a week faces the glittering promise of dinner and the danger hidden behind it.
11 min · Bleak