'The Hour-Glass' is a mysterious ghost story. An avid antique collector buys an ancient and defective hourglass from a curiosity shop. When he takes it home and starts to examine...

"The Parrot" is the tale of a newly-wed couple. Soon after the marriage, the husband must go away on business, so he gives his wife a parrot to keep her company while he is away....

"The Bronze Ring" is a story in which a princess falls in love with the son of the palace gardener, although her father wishes her to marry the son of his prime minister. The king...

Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (1812-1885) was a Norwegian writer, scholar and collector of traditional folktales.The Cormorants of Udröst is one of the stories he collected. It...

Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was a Scottish poet and novelist, best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales.The Stonecutter is a fairy tale he collected in Japan. A stonecutter...

Mary Eliza Isabella Frere (1845–1911) was an English author of the first English-language field-collected book of Indian folk tales."The Alligator and the Jackal" is the story...

Maurice Baring (1874-1945) was an English short story writer, children's writer, novelist, travel writer and war correspondent during the First World War. The Silver Mountain is a...

Maurice Baring (1874-1945) was an English short story writer, children's writer, novelist, travel writer and war correspondent during the First World War.The Glass Mender is a...

E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822) was a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror as well as a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist. His stories were highly...

Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction and a close associate of D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. Millie is a countrywoman who is left...