An astonishing collection of fifty of the greatest short stories ever written by some of literature's most highly acclaimed writers.

1. "Odour of Chrysanthemums" by D. H. Lawrence

2. "Miss Harriet" by Guy de Maupassant

3. "Twenty-six Men and a Girl" by Maxim Gorky

4. "Hot Potatoes" by Arnold Bennett

5. "Rats" by M. R. James

6. "Zodomirsky’s Duel" by Alexandre Dumas

7. "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin

8. "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe

9. "The Encased Man" by Anton Chekhov

10. "A Candle" by Count Leo Tolstoy

11. "Malachi’s Cove" by Anthony Trollope

12. "Nine O’Clock" by Wilkie Collins

13. "The Drover’s Wife" by Henry Lawson

14. "The Mines of Falun" by E. T. A. Hoffmann

15. "The Marquise" by George Sand

16. "Lost in a Pyramid" by Louisa May Alcott

17. "The Pistol-Shot" by Alexander Pushkin

18. "The Three Strangers" by Thomas Hardy

19. "The Boarded Window" by Ambrose Bierce

20. "Spindleberries" by John Galsworthy

21. "The Chaplet" by Saki

22. "In the Reign of Terror" by Anatole France

23. "Portrait of a Lady" by Jerome K. Jerome

24. "The Venturers" by O. Henry

25. "Mons. Cassecruche’s Inspiration" by George Walter Thornbury

26. "A Witch in the Peak" by R. Murray Gilchrist

27. "The Brown Wallet" by Stacy Aumonier

28. "The King of the Golden River" by John Ruskin

29. "The Reverend Father Gaucher’s Elixir" by Alphonse Daudet

30. "The Honest Thief" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

31. "The Model Millionnaire" by Oscar Wilde

32. "The One Million Pound Bank Note" by Mark Twain

33. "The Monkey’s Paw" by W. W. Jacobs

34. "The Man with the Watches" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

35. "A Poor Gentleman" by George Gissing