For Reading Out Loud

Stefan Zweig’s powerful Novella “The Burning Secret.” Part one of four.

The game’s afoot. Introducing Violet Strange, debutante and discreet criminal investigator, in Anna Katharine Green’s “An Intangible Clue.”

Frank R. Stockton’s endlessly discussible “The Lady, or the Tiger?”

Ring Lardner at his amused and observant best: “Alibi Ike.”

One of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s unforgettable characters, Abel Armstrong embodies wonder, affirmation, and sweetness in the face of great personal loss, sharing generously with a young man experiencing his own unnamed troubles. “Abel and His Great Adventure.”

Two short stories by Kate Chopin: Desiree's Baby and A Pair of Silk Stockings

Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves (please don’t call him a butler; he is a gentleman’s personal gentleman) are in New York, somewhat on the lam from Aunt Agatha. But he can’t avoid her entirely when an imposing friend of hers shows up. Join the fun in P. G. Wodehouse’s “Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest.”

Cracking codes, fathoming a code maker. John Buchan’s “The Loathly Opposite.”

A compact story, taking on themes of guilt, atonement, and redemption.

In celebration of the return of spring, two short pieces by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Odell Shepard.

Just for the fun of it, one of P. G. Wodehouse’s beloved characters, Stanley Featherstonehaugh Urkidge, as always scheming to make a buck or a pound without actually working.

The second, concluding part of Nikolai Gogol’s “The Overcoat.”

An intriguing story that admits of various interpretations, the Ukrainian author Nikolai Gogol’s 1842 story “The Overcoat” influenced generations of writers.

St. Patrick’s Day is at hand, and so a couple of Irish fairy tales, collected by W. B. Yeats.

In A. J. Raffles, the amateur cracksman, E. W. Hornung created one of the mythic figures of modern crime fiction. Here is “A Trap to Catch a Cracksman.”

“The Last Class,” Alphonse Daudet’s elegiac story of the lives of ordinary people changing against the background of war with a foreign power.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s wise, compassionate, beautifully observed story of an overlooked member of a family: “The Bedquilt.”

‘What will Father say?’ I questioned. ‘Lots o’ things,’ conceded Aunt Philippa grimly. ‘But I don't see as it matters when neither you nor me’ll be there to have our feelings hurt.’ Sometimes speaking tartly but with no nonsense, Aunt Philippa is one of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s truly memorable creations. She never asks for our affections, but we are pleased to give them by the end.

P. G. Wodehouse’s beloved, exasperating character Ukridge. Always low on cash, never seeking an ordinary job that would involve actual work. Always on the lookout for a get-rich-quick scheme. Those fight manager fellows make a lot of money. If you knew the right fighter, you too could make a lot of money. It must be easy, right? “The Début of Battling Billson.”

Twice-divorced Alice Waythorn is seen through the eyes of her third husband, who is haunted, so to speak, by the unexpected appearances of his wife’s former spouses. An amused Edith Wharton offers an engaging portrait of a charming and fascinating woman.

The life of the rogue poet François Villon (1431-1463?) inspired this short story. Robert Louis Stevenson tells of adventures on a bleak and snowy night in Paris and goes on, in a witty but earnest dialogue, to talk of honor, social status, and the human instinct to survive.

Classic Conan Doyle, classic Sherlock Holmes: a neatly constructed adventure of the most famous of detectives and his friend and chronicler Dr. John H. Watson: Silver Blaze, from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

A touching story of plainspoken folk, sensitively narrated by the surprisingly versatile Bram Stoker.

Jack London takes Manhattan as he tells the story of a young woman from the Midwest determined to break into journalism in New York.

On Boxing Day, also called St. Stephan’s Day, two seasonal stories, one based on a medieval legend, the other based on imagined good old days.