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.
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
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
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
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 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
The Revolutionist
Ernest HemingwayA young Hungarian revolutionary crosses postwar Italy with no money, a party credential, and an unwavering faith in the world revolution.
2 min · Adventurous
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
A Service of Love
O. HenryTwo young artists quietly sacrifice for each other when money runs out and their shared creative life is threatened.
10 min · Tender
After Twenty Years
O. HenryTwo old friends keep a twenty-year appointment, but the lives they built have carried them to opposite sides of the law.
6 min · Bittersweet
Hearts and Hands
O. HenryOn a train crossing the West, a chance reunion forces a young man to choose between truth and the image he once hoped to become.
4 min · Bittersweet
One Thousand Dollars
O. HenryA carefree young heir must explain how he spends a thousand-dollar bequest before learning what the money may truly be worth.
10 min · Bittersweet
The Brief Debut of Tildy
O. HenryA plain waitress mistakes one impulsive kiss for her long-awaited entrance into the glamorous world of romance.
10 min · Bittersweet
The Cop and the Anthem
O. HenryA homeless New Yorker tries every trick he can think of to secure a warm winter bed behind bars.
10 min · Humorous
The Duplicity of Hargraves
O. HenryA proud former Confederate officer is offended when an actor turns his old-fashioned manners and clothes into a theatrical sensation.
22 min · Bittersweet
The Gift of the Magi
O. HenryDella has one dollar and eighty-seven cents, and one day left to buy her husband a Christmas present worth giving.
9 min · Tender
The Last Leaf
O. HenryIn a Greenwich Village artists' colony, a gravely ill young painter ties her fate to the last leaf on a neighboring vine.
11 min · Bittersweet
The Pendulum
O. HenryWhen his wife unexpectedly leaves for the night, a bored husband discovers how much of his ordinary life he has taken for granted.
8 min · Humorous
The Third Ingredient
O. HenryTwo struggling women share a makeshift stew, while a mysterious stranger arrives carrying the one ingredient they lack.
21 min · Tender
The Trimmed Lamp
O. HenryTwo young working women pursue very different futures in a city where wages, style, and marriage all promise escape.
20 min · Bittersweet
Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen
O. HenryEvery Thanksgiving, a wealthy old man takes a homeless stranger to dinner, preserving a private tradition neither can bear to break.
9 min · Tender
Witches’ Loaves
O. HenryA lonely baker imagines that a quiet customer is a struggling artist and finds a tender way to help him.
6 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
Mōri Sensei
Ryūnosuke AkutagawaYears after leaving school, a former pupil remembers the aging English teacher his class turned into an object of relentless laughter.
25 min · Bittersweet