Old Stories

Classic short stories and short fiction in the public domain in convenient, easy to enjoy packaging. Take an old story with you wherever you go and discover more here every weekday.

A Piece of Red Calico

February 28, 2019 By Frank Richard Stockton in Old Stories Tags: commerce, marriage, Frank Richard Stockton

I was going into town one morning from my suburban residence, when my wife handed me a little piece of red calico, and asked me if I would have time, during the day, to buy her two yards and a half of calico like that. I assured her that it would be no trouble at all; and putting the sample in my pocket, I took the train for the city. In the preface to the collection of Frank R. Stockton’s stories that contains this one (A Chosen Few: Short Stories, hosted at Project Gutenberg), the editors remark that Stockton’s story [Read More]

The Notary of Périgueux

February 27, 2019 By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in Old Stories Tags: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wine, death, illness

Do not trust thy body with a physician. He’ll make thy foolish bones go without flesh in a fortnight, and thy soul walk without a body in a se’nnight after. Shirley You must know, gentlemen, that there lived some years ago, in the city of Périgueux, an honest notary public, the descendant of a very ancient and broken-down family, and the occupant of one of those old weather-beaten tenements which remind you of the times of your great-grandfather. He was a man of an unoffending, quiet disposition; the father of a family, though not the head of it—for in that [Read More]

Sun Dried

February 26, 2019 By Edna Ferber in Old Stories Tags: writing life, new york, Edna Ferber

There come those times in the life of every woman when she feels that she must wash her hair at once. And then she does it. The feeling may come upon her suddenly, without warning, at any hour of the day or night; or its approach may be slow and insidious, so that the victim does not at first realize what it is that fills her with that sensation of unrest. But once in the clutches of the idea she knows no happiness, no peace, until she has donned a kimono, gathered up two bath towels, a spray, and the [Read More]

Easy Money

February 25, 2019 By W. W. Jacobs in Old Stories Tags: W.W. Jacobs, marriage, scams, young love, sailors

A lad of about twenty stepped ashore from the schooner Jane, and joining a girl, who had been avoiding for some ten minutes the ardent gaze of the night-watchman, set off arm-in-arm. The watchman rolled his eyes and shook his head slowly. English writer W.W Jacobs is best known for his story The Monkey’s Paw. This tale of sailors and their money turns on their prejudices — and ours. You can find it, and others like it, in Jacobs’ collection Night Watches, at Project Gutenberg. Nearly all his money on ‘is back, he said, and what little bit ‘e’s got [Read More]

How I Came to the Plough

February 22, 2019 By Peter Rosegger in Old Stories Tags: Peter Rosegger, family, austria, rural life

This is one of the very shortest, but also one of the most important chapters in my story. It takes me out of my first childish youth and my herding time, and brings me to the days of my young manhood and of work filled with conscious purpose. Peter Rosegger grew up on a 19th century Austrian mountain farm but a weak constitution led him to a literary life. Even so, he was never far from his roots in the soil. This little coming of age story is found in a collection of his translated works “The Forest Farm: Tales [Read More]

Possessing Prudence

February 21, 2019 By Amy Wentworth Stone in Old Stories Tags: Amy Wentworth Stone, bible, lies, abominations

I ‘A lie’s an abomination unto the Lord a hundred and twenty-four, a lie’s an abomination unto the Lord a hundred and twenty-five, a lie’s an abomination unto the Lord a hundred and twenty-six,’ recited Prudence Jane, and paused. ‘Go on,’ said Aunt Annie, looking up from her sewing and fixing her eyes severely on the small blue back across the room. Prudence Jane, with the heels of her little ankle-ties together and her hands clasped tightly behind her, was standing in the corner, saying what was known in the family as her punish-sentence. Whenever she had been unusually naughty [Read More]

A Night Among the Horses

February 20, 2019 By Djuna Barnes in Old Stories Tags: horses, modernist fiction, Djuna Barnes

Toward dusk, in the summer of the year, a man dressed in a frock coat and top hat, and carrying a cane, crept through the underbrush bordering the corral of the Buckler farm. Djuna Barnes’ A Night Among the Horses first appeared the famous Modernist journal The Little Review. The version here is from The Best American Short Stories of 1919, available at Project Gutenberg. As he moved small twigs snapped, fell and were silent. His knees were green from wounded shrubbery and grass, and his outspread hands tore unheeded plants. His wrists hurt him and he rested from time [Read More]

My Wonderful Adventures in Skitzland

February 19, 2019 By Charles Dickens in Old Stories Tags: Charles Dickens, center of the earth

I am fond of Gardening. I like to dig. If among the operations of the garden any need for such a work can be at any time discovered or invented, I like to dig a hole. This fun little tale first appeared in Dickens’ weekly journal Household Words. The version of it here is from an anthology of pieces from the journal published in America as Pearl-Fishing; Choice Stories from Dickens’ Household Words, which is hosted at Project Gutenberg. On the 3d of March, 1849, I began a hole behind the kitchen wall, whereinto it was originally intended to transplant [Read More]

A Snapshot at the President

February 18, 2019 By O. Henry in Old Stories Tags: O. Henry, holidays, politics, presidents

(It will be remembered that about a month ago there were special rates offered to the public for a round trip to the City of Washington. The price of the ticket being exceedingly low, we secured a loan of twenty dollars from a public-spirited citizen of Austin, by mortgaging our press and cow, with the additional security of our brother’s name and a slight draught on Major Hutchinson for $4,000. This is not quite a story, but instead an editorial O Henry (William Porter) published in an Austin, Texas weekly he founded called the The Rolling Stone. The copy presented [Read More]

Pig-Headed Sailor Men

February 15, 2019 By George Lewis Becke in Old Stories Tags: trading, George Lewis Becke, south seas, sailing

Crossing from Holyhead to Ireland one night the captain of the steamer and myself, during an hour’s talk on the bridge, found that we each had sailed in a certain Australian coasting steamer more than twenty years before—he as chief officer and I as passenger; and her shipwreck one Christmas Eve (long after), which was attended by an appalling loss of life, led us to talk of “pig-headed” skippers generally. His experiences were large, and some of his stories were terrible even to hear, others were grotesquely humorous, and the memory of that particularly pleasant passage across a sea as [Read More]

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