The story shelf
Follow your curiosity.
A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
Herman MelvilleA Wall Street copyist answers every request with "I would prefer not to" — and never leaves.
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Jack LondonTwo Klondike partners buy a handsome sled dog who refuses to pull and keeps finding them whenever they leave him behind.
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James JoyceA mother manages her daughter’s concert engagement and presses the organizers to honor their contract.
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James JoyceAfter clashing with his boss, a Dublin clerk looks to an evening of drinking to restore his pride.
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Kate ChopinA plantation worker sets out for a week of visiting and stops at a sick boy's cabin.
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O. HenryA shopgirl living on six dollars a week faces the glittering promise of dinner and the danger hidden behind it.
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O. HenryA struggling typist finds spring, memory, and a lost love hiding among the daily dishes on a restaurant menu.
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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.
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O. HenryTwo confidence men corner a flood-bound town, but their monopoly faces an unexpected challenge from inside the partnership.
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O. HenryA relentlessly busy Wall Street broker finally pauses long enough to make a romantic gesture to his quiet stenographer.
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O. HenryTwo struggling women share a makeshift stew, while a mysterious stranger arrives carrying the one ingredient they lack.
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O. HenryTwo working New Yorkers spend a week pretending to be wealthy guests at a Broadway hotel and find an unexpected kindred spirit.
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Philip K. DickWhen soldiers on a remote asteroid declare themselves plants, a psychiatrist enters the woods to find who taught them.
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Robert SheckleyA man surrounded by labor-saving luxuries begins to question the debts that control his family’s future.
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Ryūnosuke AkutagawaYears after leaving school, a former pupil remembers the aging English teacher his class turned into an object of relentless laughter.
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