Beyond the Wall
Ambrose BierceA man hears a familiar tapping in a room where no one else can be.
15 min · Melancholy
More details
- Themes
- Love · Class & poverty · Guilt
- Style
- Ornate
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story
The story shelf
Follow your curiosity.
A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
What would you like to read about?
A Joke
Anton ChekhovA young man hides declarations of love inside the roar of a sled ride, leaving a frightened girl unsure whether hope or the wind is speaking.
7 min · Bittersweet
More details
- Themes
- Love · Unrequited love · Memory
- Settings
- Villages & small towns
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Lyrical · Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
About Love
Anton ChekhovA solitary landowner explains how love entered his friends’ household and remained unspoken while duty and hesitation consumed the years.
18 min · Romantic
More details
- Themes
- Love · Duty · Courage & cowardice
- Settings
- Country houses & estates · The city
- Tone
- Earnest
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story
After the Theatre
Anton ChekhovAfter an opera, a sixteen-year-old tries to turn two admirers into the material for her first grand romantic sorrow.
5 min · Playful
More details
- Themes
- Coming of age · Self-deception · Love
- Settings
- The home
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Plain
- Pace
- Brisk
- Written for
- For adults
An Artist’s Story
Anton ChekhovAn idle landscape painter befriends two sisters and finds love complicated by a fierce argument over art, work, and social duty.
33 min · Melancholy
More details
- Themes
- Art & artists · Duty · Love
- Settings
- Country houses & estates · The countryside
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Lyrical · Descriptive
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
Ariadne
Anton ChekhovOn a Black Sea steamer, a disillusioned landowner recounts how his worship of a beautiful neighbor drew him across Europe.
48 min · Reflective
More details
- Themes
- Self-deception · Appearance vs reality · Love
- Settings
- Country houses & estates · The city
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Conversational
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story
- Motifs
- Love triangle
Love
Anton ChekhovA man tries to explain why the ordinary habits that once irritated him become forgivable when they belong to the woman he loves.
11 min · Romantic
More details
- Themes
- Love · Marriage · Appearance vs reality
- Settings
- The home
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Conversational
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Vignette & sketch
The Darling
Anton ChekhovOlenka can live only through someone else’s passions, adopting each beloved’s work, worries, and opinions as her own.
22 min · Tender
More details
- Themes
- Identity · Love · Parenthood
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Plain
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Vignette & sketch
The Kiss
Anton ChekhovOne accidental kiss awakens a shy officer’s hope that his ordinary life might contain love after all.
34 min · Bittersweet
More details
- Themes
- Isolation · Self-deception · Love
- Settings
- Country houses & estates · The countryside
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Descriptive
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
The Lady with the Dog
Anton ChekhovA practiced seducer meets a married woman at a seaside resort and discovers that their affair has become more serious than either expected.
30 min · Romantic
More details
- Themes
- Love · Marriage · Self-deception
- Settings
- The city
- Tone
- Detached
- Style
- Plain · Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
Eleonora
Edgar Allan PoeAfter promising his dying cousin that he will never love again, a grieving man leaves their hidden valley and faces a second love.
11 min · Romantic
More details
- Settings
- Wilderness · The city
- Tone
- Sentimental
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
The Assignation
Edgar Allan PoeAfter saving a child from a Venetian canal, a mysterious man keeps a final appointment with the child's married mother.
20 min · Romantic
More details
- Settings
- The city
- Tone
- Sentimental
- Style
- Ornate · Descriptive
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
- Motifs
- Love triangle
The Colloquy of Monos and Una
Edgar Allan PoeTwo reunited lovers discuss humanity's collapse and what one of them experienced as his body died, decayed, and lost its senses.
16 min · Reflective
More details
- Themes
- Death · Love · Science & progress
- Tone
- Earnest
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Told in dialogue
The Power of Words
Edgar Allan PoeTwo newly immortal spirits cross the stars while one explains how every word and action continues to shape the universe.
6 min · Reflective
More details
- Themes
- Science & progress · Art & artists · Love
- Settings
- Space & spacecraft
- Tone
- Earnest
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Told in dialogue
Three Sundays in a Week
Edgar Allan PoeA young couple uses two sailors' conflicting dates to satisfy an uncle's impossible demand that three Sundays fall in one week.
11 min · Humorous
More details
- Settings
- The home
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Conversational
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
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
More details
- Themes
- Love · Betrayal · Fate & chance
- Settings
- The city · The battlefield
- Tone
- Detached
- Pace
- Brisk
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Vignette & sketch
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
More details
- Themes
- Love · Women’s independence · Self-deception
- Settings
- The countryside
- Tone
- Detached
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Told in dialogue
- Motifs
- Journeys & quests
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
More details
- Themes
- Love · Isolation · Self-deception
- Settings
- Wilderness
- Tone
- Detached
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Told in dialogue
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
More details
- Themes
- Love · Friendship · Self-deception
- Settings
- The home · The countryside
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Conversational · Plain
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Told in dialogue
A Cock Crowed
Guy de MaupassantA daring flirt makes her persistent admirer earn his chance during a wild-boar hunt at a Norman château.
8 min · Playful
More details
- Themes
- Love · Marriage · Temptation
- Settings
- Country houses & estates · The countryside
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Descriptive · Plain
- Pace
- Brisk
- Written for
- For adults
- Motifs
- Wagers & gambles · Love triangle
A Country Excursion
Guy de MaupassantA Parisian family’s summer outing opens a brief, charged interval between ordinary life and a happiness that cannot last.
20 min · Bittersweet
More details
- Themes
- Love · Marriage · Fate & chance
- Settings
- The countryside
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Descriptive · Lyrical
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
A Grandmother’s Advice
Guy de MaupassantAn eighteenth-century grandmother hears modern tales of jealous revenge and gives her sheltered granddaughter a scandalous lesson about love and marriage.
7 min · Reflective
More details
- Themes
- Love · Marriage · Women’s independence
- Settings
- Country houses & estates
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Conversational
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Told in dialogue
A New Year’s Gift
Guy de MaupassantOn New Year's Eve, a married woman asks her lover to prove whether his promises can survive a choice with real consequences.
9 min · Romantic
More details
- Themes
- Love · Loyalty · Appearance vs reality
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Conversational
- Pace
- Measured
- Occasion
- New Year
- Written for
- For adults
Are We to Teach Latin?
Guy de MaupassantA schoolboy's joke links a lonely Latin master with a laundress and gives a lesson no classical text can provide.
13 min · Humorous
More details
- Themes
- Work & labor · Transformation · Love
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Conversational
- Pace
- Brisk
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story