This treasury of one hundred tales offers students and other readers of short fiction a splendid selection of stories by masters of the form. Contributors from around the world include Edgar Allan Poe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Guy de Maupassant, Charles Dickens, Anton Chekhov, Mark Twain, Saki, Luigi Pirandello, Kate Chopin, and Ring Lardner....

First published in 1897, \\\"The Invisible Man\\\" ranks as one of the most famous scientific fantasies ever written. Part of a series of pseudoscientific romances written by H.G.Wells early in his career, the novel helped establish the British author as one of the first and best writers of science fiction....

In \\\"The Lower Depths\\\", his dramatic masterpiece of 1902, Gorky presented a grimly realistic view of a desperate circle of lost souls....

The ten ghost stories reprinted here were first published in England and America between 1864 and 1912, a half-century that represents the golden age of this endlessly entertaining branch of popular fiction....

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the most popular American poet of his time, and one of the most famous American poets of all time. It has been said that certain of his poems-the long narratives Evangeline and The Song of Hiawatha most notably-were once read in every literate home in America....

English novelist, historian and science writer Herbert George Wells abandoned teaching and launched his literary career with a series of highly successful science-fiction novels. \"The Time Machine\" was the first of a number of these imaginative literary inventions....

Outraged by the sexual perversity of this one-act tragedy, Great Britain"s Lord Chamberlain banned "Salome" from the national stage. Symbolist poets and writers - Stephane Mallarme and Maurice Maeterlinck among them - defended the play"s literary brilliance....

Five stories that epitomize Jack London’s mastery of the adventure story. \"The White Silence,\" \"In a Far Country,\" and \"An Odyssey of the North\" bring the harshness of the frozen North powerfully to life. \"The Seed of McCoy\" reflects London’s experiences as a sailor in the South Seas....

Undoubtedly the best-known detective in literature, Sherlock Holmes was the creation of British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who endowed his super sleuth with an extraordinary facility for solving crimes....

Writing in wonderfully descriptive and fluent prose, Sarah Orne Jewett, best-known for "The Country of the Pointed Firs", was early encouraged by her father to write not about things, but to "write the things themselves just as they are"....

Renowned as the author of such popular adventure stories as "Kidnapped" and "Treasure Island", Robert Louis Stevenson also wrote gripping tales of terror and the supernatural. Stevenson"s considerable gifts as a teller of tales shine brightly in this choice collection of three of his best short stories....

The first great Russian writer to emerge from the ranks of the proletariat, Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) was born into poverty and orphaned at an early-age. Entirely self-taught, he experienced firsthand the suffering, injustice, and despair which permeate his tales....

In his stories and in such landmark novels as "Sister Carrie" and "An American Tragedy", Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) defied literary propriety and broke new ground in American fiction by focusing on life as it is, rather than as it ought to be....

Recognized today as the undisputed master of the American Gothic horror story, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) revealed his genius in tales of death, terror, evil and perversity....

One of the foremost dramatists of the nineteenth century, Russian author Anton Chekhov created a body of work noted for its realistic dialogue and keen insights into human relationships. This collection of five one-act plays-in the celebrated Constance Garnett translations-shows Chekhov at his witty best....