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The short story is considered to be one of the most challenging genres because of the need for compact plotlines and the ability to conjure up atmosphere and character in a few sentences and to engage the reader instantly. This collection presents 66 of the greatest examples of the genre - many of them well known, some hidden literary treasures, all of them exquisite examples of the short story at its finest.

Barry Eric Odell Pain (1864-1928) was an English journalist, poet, and writer. The End of a Show is a poignant tale of a quack showman and seller of dubious stomach pills who carries out what he believes to be his first-ever act of kindness - an act which horrifies and saddens in equal measure.

Percival Christopher Wren (1875 - 1941) was an English writer of adventure fiction mostly dealing with colonial soldiering in Africa. He is remembered best for Beau Geste, a much filmed book of 1924, involving the French Foreign Legion in North Africa. 'Presentiments' is the story of a legionnaire who knows he will be killed the following day but does not want to die without telling somebody about a set of terrible events which occurred in his childhood and which have overshadowed his life.

Barry Eric Odell Pain (1864-1928) was an English journalist, poet, and writer best known for his ghost and horror stories. "The Magnet" is the uncanny story of a very unusual copycat mass murderer.

Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard (1876-1922) was a writer, explorer, adventurer, cricketer and marksman who made a significant contribution to sniping techniques in the British Army during the First World War. Hesketh-Prichard and his mother wrote together under the pseudonyms H. Heron and E. Heron. Together they created a series of stories around the character Flaxman Low, the first psychic detective of fiction.

Captain Hugh 'Bulldog" Drummond', DSO, MC is a first world war veteran finding it difficult to adjust to life as a civilian in London. He is a trained soldier, a strong, brutal fighter who has honed his skills of stalking and the martial arts. Now that the war is over he is bored. He posts an advertisement in the newspaper, seeking for adventure... and immediately finds himself drawn into a web of intrigue involving an international gang of criminals whose aim is the destruction of Great Britain.

A British sniper is waiting in a shell-hole in no-mans land for his enemy. It is a battle of wits...the game of no mistakes. It takes the instinct of a hunter after a bear to spot the imperceptible movement, the chink of light and shift in the mud that reveals the movement of his enemy. A tense tale in which we sit alongside the sniper, watching with him as he waits to shoot his enemy.

A ghost story with a mysterious twist. Flaxman Low is summoned to Baelbrow, the ancestral home of the Swaffam family, to investigate a strange occurance. Although Baelbrow has long been known to be haunted, the family ghost had for centuries restricted itself to occasional rustlings on the stairs or sighs in the pantry. Suddenly the ghost has taken on a much more sinister and corporeal form. It lies in wait for people and attacks them viciously, leaving them unconscious and exhausted.

When young Gillian inherits a sum of one thousand dollars from his late uncle, with the condition that he should spend it and return to the lawyers' office with a detailed account of his expenditure, he is at a loss what to do with the money. He seeks ideas and advice from many...but eventually the solution dawns on him.

A remarkable short story by the Nobel Literature Prize winner W. B. Yeats, steeped in Irish magic and folklore. When Red Hanrahan, the itinerant schoolmaster, drops into a remote barn where Irish farm labourers are drinking and singing, he receives a message from his sweetheart to make haste to her. Her mother has died and she must marry at once or be turned out of her home. Red Hanrahan gets up to start immediately, but a strange old man sitting by the door delays him by starting a game of cards with him.

Forty breathtaking short stories of gripping adventures, secrets and strange conspiracies. 'The Dust That Was Barren' by P. C. Wren. 'The Deserter' by Stacy Aumonier. 'The Lighthouse on Shivering Sand' by J. S. Fletcher. 'The Secret of the Smoked Spectacles' by William Le Queux. 'The 39 Steps' by John Buchan. 'Three Pennyworth of Luck' by Basil Murray. 'The Secret of Dr. Vaux’s Intrigue' by William Le Queux. 'A Thread of Scarlet' by J. J. Bell. 'How I Became a Secret Agent' by Dr. A. K. Graves.

A fascinating collection of short stories by great writers that examine aspects of the first world war, from action in the trenches, to the psychological impact of war on individuals and their relationships, to heroic adventure stories, to ghosts and war graves. A wonderful collection!

Charles Lindley Wood, 2nd Viscount Halifax, was a collector of ghost stories. He assembled an extensive compilation of firsthand accounts of encounters with ghosts from all around the British Isles and abroad. The Man in the Iron Cage was one of Lord Halifax's favorites. It tells the story, from several sources, of a haunted house in Lille, France, with a gruesome secret in the attic.

A thoroughly engaging collection of classic short stories from some of the greatest writers who lived.

The Man Who Could Work Miracles is a story about Fotheringay, a very unexceptional man who discovers he has an exceptional talent. He can work miracles. He discovers this ability by accident during an argument in a public house - and narrowly avoids setting light to the pub. Some of his other experiments also go awry, and Fotheringay decides to consult the local minister. The latter immediately recognises the potential of this gift and eggs Fotheringay on to greater miracles - with ever greater consequences.

In The Adventure of the Speckled Band, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are faced with a most unusual case. Two years earlier a young woman died under mysterious and unexplained circumstances while alone in her locked bedroom. Her last words to her sister referred to a 'speckled band'. She had previously complained of hearing a strange whistling sound in the night. Now the sister is sleeping in the same room, and she too has heard the mysterious whistling. But what can it be? And what is the 'speckled band'?

A Vine on a House is a classic Gothic haunted house story. The old abandoned Harding house, which is now overgrown by an unusual vine, has a strange and sinister story behind it. Years before, the mother of the household disappeared suddenly. Two years later the family abandoned the house. More recent visitors have discovered the vine growing up the front of the house behaving very oddly. Finally the local authorities decide to dig up the vine....

Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole (1884-1941) was a New Zealand-born English novelist, famous for his skill at scene setting and vivid plots. He was a best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s and remains popular to this day. 'The Perfect Close' is the story of a 79-year-old man who realises one day that he is about to die. Seeing that he has only an hour or so left to live, he must decide how to spend his final moments. We accompany him on the last minutes of his life as he achieves his last couple of surprising but highly satisfying victories.

'A Little Cloud' is a brilliant and evocative short story from Joyce's collection Dubliners comparing the lives of those who escaped Ireland and travelled around Europe compared to the quiet, dull existence of those who remain at home. Thomas Chandler meets an old friend, Ignatius Gallaher, for a drink. Gallaher has made a name for himself in London and has been as far as Paris and Berlin. Chandler's life by comparison is unfulfilled. His job is boring, his marriage loveless and his soul weary.

Jules Gabriel Verne (1828-1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright who is sometimes credited as the original 'Father of Science Fiction'. Written in 1851, 'A Drama in the Air' is one of Verne's earliest and most seminal stories, telling the dramatic adventure of a balloonist suddenly confronted with an unexpected and unpredictable passenger who climbs into his balloon at the point of take-off. Many of the themes from this tale were expanded by Verne in his later and better known works about aerial journeys around the world or to the moon.