The Cask of Amontillado
Edgar Allan PoeA connoisseur leads his insulter down into the family catacombs to settle a score over a rare sherry.
11 min · Foreboding
The story shelf
Follow your curiosity.
A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
The Masque of the Red Death
Edgar Allan PoeA prince walls his court inside a castellated abbey to outparty a plague — through seven colored rooms.
11 min · Foreboding
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
A Divine Gesture
Ernest HemingwayIn a garden cluttered with bathtubs and boot jacks, a very busy God tries to keep order.
3 min · Humorous
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
A Very Short Story
Ernest HemingwayA wounded soldier and a nurse fall in love in wartime Milan, trying to make a future together before the front and the armistice pull them apart.
3 min · Tragic
An Alpine Idyll
Ernest HemingwayAfter the thaw, a peasant brings his wife’s body down from the mountains—and the villagers reveal the grotesque ritual he performed while waiting.
9 min · Chilling
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
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
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
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
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
In Another Country
Ernest HemingwayIn a Milan hospital after the fighting, wounded soldiers submit their bodies to machines while trying to imagine who they will be afterward.
10 min · Melancholy
In Our Time: Interchapters
Ernest HemingwayWar, revolution, bullfights, and executions flash past in hard-edged scenes where courage and brutality become nearly indistinguishable.
12 min · Chilling
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
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
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
Ten Indians
Ernest HemingwayA boy’s holiday glow collapses when his father reveals that the girl he loves has chosen someone else.
7 min · Melancholy
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 End of Something
Ernest HemingwayOn a moonlit fishing trip, Nick and Marjorie circle the quiet truth that their relationship has stopped being what it was.
7 min · Melancholy