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
- A Clean, Well-Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway
- The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
- The Killers by Ernest Hemingway
- Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway
- A Beneficiary by Nadine Gordimer
- Town of Cats by Haruki Murakami
- True Love by Haruki Murakami
- Amundsen by Alice Munro
- The Bear Came Over the Mountain by Alice Munro
- Beginners by Raymond Carver
- Why Don’t You Dance? by Raymond Carver
Source: Amazon
- So Much Water So Close to Home by Raymond Carver
- Cathedral by Raymond Carver
- Symbols and Signs by Vladmir Nabokov
- A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor
- Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor
- Revelation by Flannery O’Connor
- The Embassy of Camobdia by Zadie Smith
- The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson
- A Perfect Day for Bananafish by J. D. Salinger
Source: Amazon
- All at One Point by Italo Calvino
- Italy by Antonio Elefano
- In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka
- Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
- The Trial by Franz Kafka
- Gooseberries by Anton Chekov
- The Looking Glass by Anton Chekov
- The Nose by Nikolai Gogol
- The School by Donald Barthelme
- Debarking by Laurie Moore
- Orientation by Daniel Orozco
- Wants by Grace Paley
- The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin
- Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood
- A Worn Path by Eudora Welty
- The Fly by Katherine Mansfield
- A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Source: Amazon
- Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? By Joyce Carol Oates
- Lovely, Dark, Deep by Joyce Carol Oates
- D. by Joyce Carol Oates
- A Rose for Emily by William Faulker
- Barn Burning by William Faulker
- The $30,000 Bequest by Mark Twain
- Assimilation by E. L. Doctorow
- A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
Humor
- Six to Eight Black Men by David Sedaris
- Jesus Shaves by David Sedaris
- The Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris
Source: Amazon
- The Soul is Not a Smithy by David Foster Wallace
- How to Become a Writer by Lorrie Moore
- Some Of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby by Donald Barthelme
- A Lack of Order in the Floating Object Room by George Saunders
- Sea Oak by George Saunders
- The Dungeon Master by Sam Lipsyte
- How to Date a Brown Girl by Junot Diaz
Horror
- At The Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft
- The Call of Cthulu by H. P. Lovecraft
- The Colour Out of Space by H. P. Lovecraft
- The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft
- Survivor Type by Stephen King
- A Death by Stephen King
- Children of the Corn by Stephen King
Source: Amazon
- The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
- The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe
- The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe
- The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- The Lady of the Shroud by Bram Stoker
- Pigeons from Hell by Robert E. Howard
- Varney the Vampire by James Malcolm Rymer
- The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman
- A Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman
- Lost Souls by Clive Barker
- The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
Source: Amazon
- Trapped Inside the Stoker by Jack Ketchum
- The Last Man by Mary Shelley
- The Monkey’s Paw by W. W. Jacobs
- The Body Snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson
- The Willows by Algernon Blackwood
- The Repairer of Reputations by Robert W. Chambers
- In The Court of the Dragon by Robert W. Chambers
Science Fiction and Fantasy
- That Last Night of the World by Ray Bradbury
- The Veldt by Ray Bradbury
- A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury
- The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
- The Crystal Egg by H. G. Wells
- Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
- They’re Made Out of Meat by Terry Bisson
Source: Amazon
- The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Usula K. Le Guin
- Limited Edition by Tim Maughan
- Burning Chrome by William Gibson
- Johnny Mnemonic by William Gibson
- The Egg by Andy Weir
- Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
- The Last Question by Isaac Asimov
- Nightfall by Isaac Asimov
- The Bicentennial Man by Isaac Asimov
Source: Amazon
- The Hammer of God by Arthur C. Clarke
- The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke
- I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
- Second Variety by Philp K. Dick
What classic did we miss? Tell us in the comments!
YouTube Channel: PeruseProject
Featured image via Amy Harrop
