LitReading - Original Short Stories and Classic Tales

Note from Don: Listening back to this story before posting it, I have to say that it moved me more than most – and I spent a few days reading, narrating, and editing it. "The Rocking Horse Winner" entered the public domain at the beginning of 2022 and is considered one of the all-time best stories. It’s about a young boy’s dysfunctional relationship with his parents, under stress for living well b...

Mankind has always loved to explore sometimes crossing great wildernesses, but more often just poking around in our own backyards. This light-hearted tale is about a group of men who decide to investigate a local cave and literally stumble across a huge surprise. Stephen Crane was born years after the US Civil War ended, but is best known for his stirring 1895 Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Cou...

A fleeting glimpse in the pines, a photograph stolen from a friend’s mantel, and a correspondence born from mistaken identity—The Girl and the Photograph by Lucy Maud Montgomery is no simple tale of memory. It’s about the way chance, error, and destiny conspire to test a heart’s fidelity. What begins as a love nurtured by letters and a photograph turns into a crisis of identity, and then, at the l...

Life has a nasty habit of throwing us curves that we can either cause us long-term misery or force us to make the best of a bad situation as illustrated in this very short tale. Anton Chekhov was undoubtedly brilliant. A physician by trade, his premier talent was writing. Chekhov had a unparalleled gift for understanding the depths of human emotions and sharing them first through his short stories...

Virginia Woolf demonstrates how simply focusing on one thing has the power to unleash torrents of thoughts and memories. Born Adeline Virginia Stephen in 1882, British author Virginia Woolf went on to become an icon of modern 20th century literature. We are so honored to have been featured by Apple Podcasts as a great source for summer stories. If you don't want to miss our future stories, please...

There are those for whom work becomes an obsession to the detriment of their personal lives. The businessman in our next story gives new meaning to the modern term “workaholic.” William Henry Porter, better known as O. Henry led a short albeit intriguing life. Before he died in New York City in 1910 at age 47, Porter was a pharmacist, sheep ranch hand, draftsman, banker, and prolific author of sho...

We aren't the first generation to be frustrated by advancing technology. More than a century ago, new fangled products were making people crazy like this gentleman who supposedly related our next hilarious tale Mark Twain. Mark Twain (the pen name of Samuel Clemens) had an unmatched knack for taking a normal story and turning it into a hilariously funny tall tale. We are so honored to have been fe...

We have been sharing stories with each other since the beginning of time. On occasion these tales have been known to grow a bit tall, as was the case when four elderly seamen spent an evening with a widow sharing a variety of yarns each one wilder than the next. Then the wood adds a tale of her own. Frank Stockton was a 19th century author and humorist with an uncanny knack for poking fun a human...

Racism has always been an ugly part of the human condition. Yet, the horrors of racism in America are most undeniably illustrated by the treatment of African-Americans, particularly in the South. Here is just a small example of the pain caused by racial hatred in antebellum Louisiana. I have presented the story exactly as written, as the author, Kate Chopin, lived during this terrible period in US...

The lure of an illicit affair is not a new facet of human nature. People have been both tempting and tempted throughout time. But for a sudden twist of fate, our next story might have ended badly for everyone involved. Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was a 19th-century French author considered one the era greatest short storyist spinning realistic tales of the human condition We are so honored...

Most stories for children try to teach a lesson—this one tries to blow them up. In  The Storyteller  by Saki, an overstuffed train car, three fidgety kids, and one very unconventional tale collide in a wickedly sharp jab at moralistic storytelling. It’s short, twisted, and just the kind of thing you’d expect from an author who clearly didn’t have much patience for either sanctimony or sm...

Our second tale in this story series by a young Ernest Hemingway picks up a few months after our last story, "The End of Something," which you might want to hear before listening to this tale. A few month's after his breakup, Nick visits his friend Bill as a fall storm hits the Horton’s Bay region. Our second tale in this story series by a young Ernest Hemingway picks up a few months after our las...

This story is part of a series of tales written by a young Earnest Hemingway. It’s a “slice of life” story about the conflicting emotions in a relationship between a young couple. “The End of Something” was written when Hemingway was in his early 20s and features a recurring semi-autobiographical character, Nick Adams. The story had its roots in an early romance that began when Hemingway was in hi...

When the plans for a top-secret British defense project are stolen and the apparent thief is found dead, the government turns to legendary detective Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery and find the documents. We are so honored to have been featured by Apple Podcasts as a great source for summer stories. If you don't want to miss our future stories, please Follow or Subscribe. Also, we have over 1...

Marriage takes the simple concept of procreation and turns it into a lifelong commitment that can, at times, lead to unexpected anger and resentment. As Mark Twain once said, "God's great cosmic joke on the human race was requiring that men and women live together in marriage.” Anyone who has ever been married will see parallels to their own partnerships. Despite the fact that Edna Ferber never ma...

How times have changed. Just over a century ago, women were still fighting for the right to vote and the prevailing belief among men was that they were too emotional and fragile to do so. Our next story takes place, ironically, in a fictional Britain in the wake of a great plague. Join me as we travel back to a very different world in Hermann the Irascible by Saki Saki was the nome de plume of Bri...

Women’s health issues have long been explained away as emotional issues due to their role as the “weaker sex.” Serious illnesses were diagnosed as nothing more than hysteria and rest was prescribed. This ignorance of women’s real health problems is brilliantly portrayed in this haunting tale of a woman driven to the brink. The author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman actually suffered a horrible case of p...

This witty tale is about a veritable snake-oil salesman who uses his wares to help win the love of a beautiful young ward of an English Baronet. British author P. G. Woodhouse was one of the mid-20th century’s most popular humorists – on both side of the Atlantic. He was also a lyricist and screenwriter. While living in France a the beginning of World War II, he was imprisoned by Germany, for whom...

How can we best learn life’s secrets during our short lives? Is the best student the one with eyes fixed on the words in a book or focused on the world around them? That is the fundamental question of this profound short tale. Often, it is the shortest stories that impart the most profound notions. This tale is one of many thoughtful, brief short stories penned by late 19th-century American femini...

Life in the ancient world was often brutal and cruel. Resources were often limited leading to leaders ruthless edicts. In this old Japanese folktale, a young peasant is faced with an impossible decision. Matsuo Basho, one of Japan’s most famous poets, was born 1644 and is known for creating the poetic style that eventually evolved into what are now known as haikus. We are so honored to have been f...

Human cruelty is nothing new. It has been a demon we have had to battle since the dawn of our kind. Yet, we also have the capacity to defeat our callousness and inhumanity (a term that drips with irony). This short powerful short story illustrates the depth our inner evil. Note: while this story shares a name with a Disney animated movie they are in no way related. One of the true masters of the s...

This tale flips the traditional "boy meets girl" fairy-tale narrative by introducing a strong-willed nature loving girl who puts her own desires and beliefs ahead of those of a young man she meets in the woods. The child of a rural family doctor in Maine, Sarah Orne Jewett was writing short stories professionally from age 18. Most of her work was purchased by The Atlantic magazine, with the glarin...

Here is a story for those times when you only have a few minutes for a story. While not long itself, this incredibly Kafkaesque parable may leave you pondering its meaning long after you have listened to "Before the Law." Bohemian author Franz Kafka is considered one of the greats. Few storytellers have had their names turned into adjectives. Orwellian, maybe Hitchcockian come to mind. But the bes...

For almost a century, the profound words of The Prophet have stirred the hearts and moved the souls of millions of readers around the world. We are so honored to have been featured by Apple Podcasts as a great source for summer stories. If you don't want to miss our future stories, please Follow or Subscribe. Also, we have over 100 stories in our back catalog. Enough stories to keep you entertaine...

Here is the second half of Kahlil Gibran's global bestselling book with sage advice on pain and pleasure, good and evil, and the inevitability of death. We are so honored to have been featured by Apple Podcasts as a great source for summer stories. If you don't want to miss our future stories, please Follow or Subscribe. Also, we have over 100 stories in our back catalog. Enough stories to keep yo...