100 Of The Greatest Short Stories You Can Read For Free Online

Novels seem to get all the attention, but short stories account for some of the greatest pieces of writing ever created. There’s something incredibly satisfying about sitting down with a work you can consume in a single sitting and devour from beginning to end.

The internet abounds with these stories, and a reader might never go hungry again if they feast their minds on the endless troves of short stories that you can read online right now, for free.

 

Literature

  1. A Clean, Well-Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway
  2. The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
  3. The Killers by Ernest Hemingway
  4. Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway
  5. A Beneficiary by Nadine Gordimer
  6. Town of Cats by Haruki Murakami
  7. True Love by Haruki Murakami
  8. Amundsen by Alice Munro
  9. The Bear Came Over the Mountain by Alice Munro
  10. Beginners by Raymond Carver
  11. Why Don’t You Dance? by Raymond Carver
    SOURCE: AMAZON

    Source: Amazon

     

  12. So Much Water So Close to Home by Raymond Carver
  13. Cathedral by Raymond Carver
  14. Symbols and Signs by Vladmir Nabokov
  15. A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor
  16. Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor
  17. Revelation by Flannery O’Connor
  18. The Embassy of Camobdia by Zadie Smith
  19. The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson
  20. A Perfect Day for Bananafish by J. D. Salinger
    SOURCE: MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS

    Source: Amazon

     

  21. All at One Point by Italo Calvino
  22. Italy by Antonio Elefano
  23. In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka
  24. Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
  25. The Trial by Franz Kafka
  26. Gooseberries by Anton Chekov
  27. The Looking Glass by Anton Chekov
  28. The Nose by Nikolai Gogol
  29. The School by Donald Barthelme
  30. Debarking by Laurie Moore
  31. Orientation by Daniel Orozco
  32. Wants by Grace Paley
  33. The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin
  34. Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood
  35. A Worn Path by Eudora Welty
  36. The Fly by Katherine Mansfield
  37. A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
    SOURCE: SPECULATIVE FICTION DATABASE

    Source: Amazon

     

  38. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? By Joyce Carol Oates
  39. Lovely, Dark, Deep by Joyce Carol Oates
  40. D. by Joyce Carol Oates
  41. A Rose for Emily by William Faulker
  42. Barn Burning by William Faulker
  43. The $30,000 Bequest by Mark Twain
  44. Assimilation by E. L. Doctorow
  45. A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

Humor

  1. Six to Eight Black Men by David Sedaris
  2. Jesus Shaves by David Sedaris
  3. The Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris
    SOURCE: AMAZON

    Source: Amazon

     

  4. The Soul is Not a Smithy by David Foster Wallace
  5. How to Become a Writer by Lorrie Moore
  6. Some Of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby by Donald Barthelme
  7. A Lack of Order in the Floating Object Room by George Saunders
  8. Sea Oak by George Saunders
  9. The Dungeon Master by Sam Lipsyte
  10. How to Date a Brown Girl by Junot Diaz

Horror

  1. At The Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft
  2. The Call of Cthulu by H. P. Lovecraft
  3. The Colour Out of Space by H. P. Lovecraft
  4. The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft
  5. Survivor Type by Stephen King
  6. A Death by Stephen King
  7. Children of the Corn by Stephen King
    SOURCE: AMAZON

    Source: Amazon

     

  8. The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
  9. The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe
  10. The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe
  11. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
  12. The Lady of the Shroud by Bram Stoker
  13. Pigeons from Hell by Robert E. Howard
  14. Varney the Vampire by James Malcolm Rymer
  15. The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman
  16. A Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman
  17. Lost Souls by Clive Barker
  18. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
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    Source: Amazon

     

  19. Trapped Inside the Stoker by Jack Ketchum
  20. The Last Man by Mary Shelley
  21. The Monkey’s Paw by W. W. Jacobs
  22. The Body Snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson
  23. The Willows by Algernon Blackwood
  24. The Repairer of Reputations by Robert W. Chambers
  25. In The Court of the Dragon by Robert W. Chambers

Science Fiction and Fantasy

  1. That Last Night of the World by Ray Bradbury
  2. The Veldt by Ray Bradbury
  3. A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury
  4. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
  5. The Crystal Egg by H. G. Wells
  6. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
  7. They’re Made Out of Meat by Terry Bisson
    SOURCE: AMAZON

    Source: Amazon

     

  8. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Usula K. Le Guin
  9. Limited Edition by Tim Maughan
  10. Burning Chrome by William Gibson
  11. Johnny Mnemonic by William Gibson
  12. The Egg by Andy Weir
  13. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
  14. The Last Question by Isaac Asimov
  15. Nightfall by Isaac Asimov
  16. The Bicentennial Man by Isaac Asimov
    SOURCE: MOBYGAMES

    Source: Amazon

     

  17. The Hammer of God by Arthur C. Clarke
  18. The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke
  19. I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
  20. Second Variety by Philp K. Dick

What classic did we miss? Tell us in the comments!

YouTube Channel: PeruseProject

 

Featured image via Amy Harrop

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