As Halloween approaches we begin a time for scarier stories. For this short tale with a chilling twist we turn to prolific 19th century stories Ambrose Bierce for "A Wireless Message."

Ambrose Bierce is considered one of the 19th Century finest authors of shockingly realistic short stories. His most famous tale “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is one of our favorites and can be heard at Litreading.

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While Halloween is the season for scary stories, their popularity is timeless. That is why this dark tale of revenge still send chills down listeners spines after almost two centuries.

The Cask of Amontillado was first published in the November 1946 issue “Godey’s Lady’s Book” which demonstrates the universal fascination with scary stories. Poe understood humanity’s greatest fears and exploited them masterfully, making him the all-time master of the horror genre.

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Kate Chopin’s Doctor Chevalier’s Lie is a moving meditation on compassion in the face of tragedy. Set against the backdrop of a harsh and unforgiving city, the story turns on a doctor’s quiet decision: whether to report what he sees with unflinching honesty, or to soften the truth for the sake of those left behind. Chopin invites us to consider the value of mercy, the weight of dignity, and the moments when a carefully chosen falsehood can become an act of profound kindness.

Kate Chopin, born in 1850, was among the first American writers to explore the hidden truths of everyday lives. Living in Louisiana, she drew on its people and culture to shape her work. Her novel The Awakening shocked readers of her time but is now praised as a classic of American realism. In her short stories, like Doctor Chevalier’s Lie, she showed how even the smallest choices can carry profound humanity.

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Here’s a taste of the classic tales coming your way this October during Scary Story Season on Litreading.

Here is the perfect story for those times when you need to fill a few minutes with entertainment. This tale is a surreal story of a 19th century soldier traversing a dangerous section of the the Great Plains on foot to deliver dispatches from one Old West fort to another.

Having served in the Union Army, Ambrose Bierce was one of the greatest authors of short war stories and macabre tales. We feature a number of his stories here on Litreading, including his most famous, “The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”

In his search for new material about which to write, he crossed the border into Mexico during the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th Century and never returned.

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