The story shelf
Follow your curiosity.
A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
Recurring elements in the story’s premise.
7 stories · Selected from the catalog
Anton ChekhovOn Christmas Eve, a resentful shoemaker meets a strange customer and gets a chance to trade poverty for wealth.
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A cook who considers himself a great philosopher receives a visit from the Devil and tries to bargain away his soul.
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Toby Dammit's habit of betting the Devil his head becomes literal when a stranger accepts the wager at a covered bridge.
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A vain French duke dies over a badly served delicacy and challenges the Devil to a card game for his freedom.
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A Norman peasant explains how Saint Michel acquired the Devil’s rich farmland through bargains, crops, and local cunning.
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Exiled by his own pride, a reckless nobleman accepts a stranger's miraculous bargain.
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When a devil disguised as a missionary plants a mysterious crop in sixteenth-century Japan, one cattle dealer makes a wager to learn its name.
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