Showing results by publisher "Simply Media" in Anthologies & Short Stories

Willa Cather was perhaps most famous for her great novels such as My Antonia and Death Comes to the Archbishop. However, her short stories were enchanting and practical, local and cosmopolitan. Of the great American writers of the early part of the twentieth century she stood alone in her vision. No American writer ever had her breadth of experience and knowledge of people and places, relating to farmers in Nebraska, to barons in New York, and artists in Paris.

The brilliance of this story is in how a normal bureaucrat, a judge in this case, has a small accident that winds up gradually taking his life. As he deals with this incident, with hope at first and then despair, he comes to terms with his family, his life, and the mediocrities that we all suffer with, except for the exceptional few. This story rings a particularly poignant note for those in early middle age facing the next part of their lives. This story is considered Tolstoy's best.

Plato's Allegory of the Cave is what many believe to be the foundation of Western Philosophy. It addresses what is visible and invisible, seen and observed versus intuited and imagined, and what is public versus private and just versus unjust. It also concerns the meaning and importance of education, the state of the soul, the conflict between truth and beauty, animal urges versus higher aspirations, knowledge versus ignorance, and on and on.

Mark Twain, America's acknowledged greatest writer of fiction, was a master of writing short stories as well as novels. Twain influence almost every subsequent American writer from Hemingway and Fitzgerald, to Cather and Robert Frost. These are four of his best short stories, starting with his most famous, "The Notorious Frog", and including three of his other favorites.

Ambrose Bierce brings to life the heart rendering stories of divided loyalties, splitting families, states, countries, and individuals. He writes of the glory in beginning and savagery in the doing. Here is a moving anti-war series of stories if ever there was one. A must read by all students of American History and Literature, though perhaps best understood by older adults.

"The Open Boat" is considered Stephen Crane's finest work and one of the great short stories of all time. The story begins with four men in an open boat, subject to the vagaries of the sea after their ship went down. The Captain, though injured, retains control over the boat and its occupants by force of habit and uncanny skills. In this trial, he proves his worth, putting his men first, guiding them at every step of the way.

"White Nights" is the third major Dostoyevsky short story that everyone should read or listen to, along with "A Faint Heart" and "The Christmas Tree and Wedding". The story contains a series of Winesburg, Ohio-like moments: a woman and man meet on the First Night; proceed to meet again on the Second and Third, almost fall in love, and at the last minute the former lover of the woman returns to take her away. But the point is that the man had a glorious moment....

Belfador is the single novella remaining of Machiavelli’s works. It was considered one of the finest of the period. Machiavelli was considered a skilled storyteller by all who knew him for, after all, stories form the basis of his most famous work, The Prince, "Belfagor" is a compact version of lessons from The Prince.

>"The Cop and the Anthem" may be the third most widely read O. Henry story in grammar, middle, and high school. "The Ransom of Red Chief" rates number one, "The Gift of the Magi" number two, and "A Retrieved Reformation" number four. Young readers enjoy this story a lot because of the hilarious plot of Soapy, the only named character, trying to get arrested so he can spend the winter in jail. Adults tend to like the ironic approach of Soapy’s potential victims....

Nine stories narrated by Pertie and one by Jeeves. In an American voice for easy listening by Americans with occasional American words used for more obscure English ones with a bit of the halting style of comic dialogue. Number two in the Jeeves series.

Presenting an American voice for this legendary Agatha Christie mystery with one of her best denouements. 

"Paul's Case" was first published in 1905 in Cather's first collection of short stories, titled The Troll Garden. Similar to "The Enchanted Forest" featured in her Nine Stories published by Simply, it is one of the great writer's stories accessible to most young people in high school and college. It relates to what they feel, think, and want to be. Perhaps just as importantly, it depicts young people upset by their current circumstances, their families, and the drabness they perceive in their own lives.

"To Be Read at Dusk" is one of Dickens better ghost/phantasm stories, complete with disappearances and people lost forever through other worldly influences or death. A story within a story told by couriers, go-betweens in the age of Dickens.

Spoon River has 244 accounts of the lives of people in the town that explain its goings on over a couple of centuries. Each free form verse is presented as an epitaph of one of the citizens delivered themselves, often criticizing the words said about them on their tombstone or the monument or stone left above them. The stories build on one another as well as reference various family members and others mentioned in other stories.

"The Monster" is considered one of Crane's top four stories, but is left out of many collections. Don't miss it. It's a wonderful telling about the town of Whilomville, in which Henry Johnson lives and other Crane stories are set as well, including "The Knife".

The story starts with the hotel owner trolling for guests at the train station and finding three: the Swede, the Cowboy, and the Easterner. As with many stories the personalities are known by their titles not their names; the two known by their names are the hotel keeper, Scully, and his son Johnny. The first major event is in a play for fun (no money) card game in which the Swede accuses Johnny of cheating. Johnny skillfully defends himself by saying he won't put up with the accusation, while side stepping the truth of the matter.

"The Holly Tree" is a warm Christmas story by Charles Dickens and a listening treat for adults during the holiday season or almost any time of year. Full of wonderful Dickensian words, phrases, and irony. The story contains a strain of great truth, and love for Americans, who Dickens depicts over-friendly but warm, kindly, generous, and warm hearted.

One of Oscar Wilde's most charming stories, combining art, painting, wit, love, romance, and generosity. English wit, American vigor, and Irish sentimentality too - all part of Wilde's makeup. Hard to hear without tearing up a bit at the end.

"The Ransom of Red Chief" may be the most widely read story in grammar, middle, and high school. Young people can relate to 10-year-old Red Chief, his father, who makes the kidnappers pay him back in order to take Red Chief off their hands....

God Sees the Truth, But Waits engages a subject that would have suited Dostoyevsky. But Dostoyevsky would have written it with a tone of fist-waving anger and frustration, while Tolstoy wrote this story with an accepting, non-violent attitude toward the grievances described. The protagonist has been wrongly accused of murder, separated from his family for 26 years, and by circumstance meets the real murderer in Siberia.