A Light Sleeper
Ambrose BierceA widower notices that his wife's body has changed position after its long journey home.
2 min · Chilling
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 Nervous Breakdown
Anton ChekhovA sensitive law student joins two friends on a tour of Moscow brothels and finds himself unable to accept their practiced indifference.
40 min · Unsettling
More details
- Themes
- Class & poverty · Autonomy & control · Madness
- Settings
- The city
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Interior monologue
Sleepy
Anton ChekhovA thirteen-year-old servant forced to work without sleep drifts between chores, memories, and visions as a baby cries through the night.
10 min · Bleak
More details
- Themes
- Work & labor · Class & poverty · Madness
- Settings
- The home · Offices & workplaces
- Tone
- Detached
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Interior monologue
The Yellow Wallpaper
Charlotte Perkins GilmanPrescribed total rest in a nursery with barred windows, a young wife begins to study the wallpaper.
28 min · Unsettling
More details
- Themes
- Women’s independence · Madness · Confinement & escape
- Settings
- The home · Country houses & estates
- Style
- Spare
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
- Motifs
- Forbidden room
Berenice
Edgar Allan PoeA reclusive scholar's fixation on his cousin's teeth grows stronger as illness changes her body and mind.
15 min · Chilling
More details
- Settings
- Country houses & estates
- Tone
- Earnest
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
The Fall of the House of Usher
Edgar Allan PoeA man answers a childhood friend’s urgent summons and enters a decaying estate where the house and its last family seem bound together.
33 min · Foreboding
More details
- Settings
- Country houses & estates
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Descriptive · Symbolic
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
- Motifs
- Haunted house
The Imp of the Perverse
Edgar Allan PoeA condemned man argues that people are sometimes driven to do what they know will destroy them.
11 min · Unsettling
More details
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Dense · Conversational
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
- Motifs
- Inheritance & wills
The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether
Edgar Allan PoeA curious traveler visits a private asylum and joins an elegant dinner where every guest seems slightly out of place.
31 min · Humorous
More details
- Themes
- Appearance vs reality · Madness · Autonomy & control
- Settings
- Prisons & asylums · Country houses & estates
- Tone
- Darkly comic
- Style
- Ornate · Conversational
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
The Telltale Heart
Edgar Allan PoeA murderer explains how he killed an old man, then hears a sound that destroys his confidence when police arrive.
10 min · Chilling
More details
- Settings
- The home
- Style
- Conversational · Spare
- Pace
- Brisk
- Written for
- For adults
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
More details
- Themes
- Madness · Isolation · Friendship
- Settings
- Wilderness
- Tone
- Detached
- Style
- Plain · Conversational
- Pace
- Brisk
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Told in dialogue
A Christmas Tale
Guy de MaupassantA skeptical country doctor recalls the Christmas night when fear, faith, and illness combined to produce what others called a miracle.
9 min · Eerie
More details
- Themes
- Superstition · Faith & doubt · Madness
- Settings
- The countryside · Villages & small towns
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Occasion
- Christmas
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story
A Divorce Case
Guy de MaupassantIn court, a wife's plea for divorce reveals a husband whose worship of ideal beauty has become a fevered obsession.
11 min · Unsettling
More details
- Tone
- Moralizing
- Style
- Ornate · Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story · Epistolary & diary
A Madman
Guy de MaupassantAfter a revered judge dies, his private papers expose a lifelong authority’s hidden appetite for killing.
12 min · Chilling
More details
- Themes
- Madness · Law & justice · Appearance vs reality
- Tone
- Detached
- Style
- Plain
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
A Woman’s Hair
Guy de MaupassantA visitor to an asylum reads the journal of a collector whose antique cabinet concealed a relic that consumed his mind and desire.
12 min · Eerie
More details
- Settings
- Prisons & asylums · The home
- Tone
- Earnest
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story
Doctor Heraclius Gloss
Guy de MaupassantA learned provincial doctor finds a manuscript that seems to settle the mystery of the soul—and lets one doctrine consume his reason and household.
73 min · Humorous
More details
- Themes
- Obsession · Madness · Self-deception
- Settings
- The city · Prisons & asylums
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Ornate
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
He?
Guy de MaupassantA confirmed bachelor plans to marry a near stranger because one empty armchair has made solitude unbearable.
13 min · Chilling
More details
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Conversational
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
- Motifs
- The mysterious stranger
Letter from a Madman
Guy de MaupassantA man asks his doctor whether reason has led him to an invisible world—or into madness.
9 min · Chilling
More details
- Themes
- Madness · Obsession · Appearance vs reality
- Settings
- The home
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Dense
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
Little Roque
Guy de MaupassantAfter a murdered child is found in a village wood, the mayor leads a search that finds no culprit but cannot quiet the countryside.
59 min · Chilling
More details
- Themes
- Guilt · Law & justice · Madness
- Settings
- Villages & small towns · The countryside
- Tone
- Detached
- Style
- Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
Mad?
Guy de MaupassantA man who fears his own hands demonstrates a power over minds and objects that leaves his friend unsure whether either of them is sane.
10 min · Chilling
More details
- Themes
- Madness · Autonomy & control · Science & progress
- Settings
- Country houses & estates
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Conversational · Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story
Mad?
Guy de MaupassantA jealous man insists he is sane while recounting the obsession that made him turn against his lover and her horse.
6 min · Chilling
More details
- Settings
- The countryside
- Style
- Descriptive
- Pace
- Brisk
- Written for
- For adults
Mademoiselle Cocotte
Guy de MaupassantA kindhearted coachman adopts an unwanted dog, but her devotion and unruly habits bring him to an impossible choice.
9 min · Tragic
More details
- Settings
- Prisons & asylums · The countryside
- Tone
- Detached
- Style
- Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story
- Motifs
- Homecomings
Night
Guy de MaupassantA lover of darkness wanders through Paris as the familiar city falls silent and dawn seems to recede beyond reach.
9 min · Chilling
More details
- Themes
- Isolation · Madness · Appearance vs reality
- Settings
- The city
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Lyrical · Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Interior monologue
The Dead Hand
Guy de MaupassantA law student turns a murderer’s preserved hand into a bell pull, dismissing every warning until terror enters his locked room.
9 min · Chilling
More details
- Themes
- Death · Madness · Superstition
- Settings
- The city · Villages & small towns
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
The Horla
Guy de MaupassantA country gentleman records the invisible presence that seems to drain his strength, command his will, and turn his home into a prison.
44 min · Chilling
More details
- Themes
- Madness · Autonomy & control · Appearance vs reality
- Settings
- The home · The countryside
- Tone
- Earnest
- Style
- Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary