The Stories of Edgar Allan Poe are a macabre collection of tales involving murder, guilt, madness, and revenge. The most famous of these stories involve a man who tricks a supposed friend into a long, slow death; a prisoner being tortured by a slowly descending blade; a premature burial; and a guilty murderer who is convinced that he can hear his victim's heart still beating under the floorboards. Themes explored in these stories include sanity, madness, man's conscience, and the inevitability of death.
Stories of Franz Kafka is a collection of short stories written by Franz Kafka. Kafka's grotesque, gruesome and often darkly macabre stories depict a world with elements of fantasy and the absurd that have been seamlessly incorporated into a reality of satirized bureaucracy, "justice" and isolation of modern urban society. In his stylistically-modernist stories, Kafka presents themes of human alienation, power and oppression, family power dynamics, repression, horror and brutality. Some of his most famous stories include "The Metamorphosis," "In the Penal Colony" and "A Hunger Artist."
Chekhov Stories is a collection of short stories by the late 19th-century Russian author, Anton Chekhov. The stories generally revolve around the subtle personal aspects of unremarkable characters, oftentimes of a middle class or aristocratic background. His short, poignant and stylistically-polished stories present short vignettes dealing with themes of love, death, sorrow and desire, rarely providing them with unambiguous conclusions. One of his most famous stories, "Lady with the Pet Dog" chronicles the inconclusive affair between a two married people who fall in love while on vacation.
Melville Stories is a collected work of the author's short-form work. It includes several novellas and novelettes concerned with Melville's typical subject matter. Bureaucracy, record-keeping and the running of libraries, seafaring life, and exploration are dominant themes throughout the collection. Also prevalent is the concept of research and its inclusion in creative narratives. Whaling and life aboard whaling and merchant ships are also central symbolic systems around which many of Melville's stories turn.
The Metamorphosis and Other Stories is a collection of short stories written by Franz Kafka. "The Metamorphosis" centers on the story of Gregor Samsa, who wakes up one morning to find he has turned into a giant bug. After trying not to burden his family, Gregor eventually dies. Kafka's stories are grotesque and macabre, incorporating absurdity into the everyday and satirizing bureaucracy and urban life. Stories like "In the Penal Colony" and "The Judgment" present themes of human alienation, power and oppression.
O'Connor's Short Stories is a collection of short stories by the American writer Mary Flannery O'Connor. O'Connor's stories often involve elements of American regionalism, violence and the grotesque. Much of her writing reflects her Roman Catholic beliefs and tell stories of spiritual transformation and morality. One of her most famous stories, "A Good Man is Hard to Find," about serial killers who murder a family containing religious undertones and morbid themes.
Poe's Short Stories are a collection of the American Gothic author's short-form work. The stories dwell, as a body, on the macabre, handling themes of death, disease, despair, depression, and insanity. Classics like Ligeia and The Fall of the House of Usher reveal Poe's preoccupation with the decay of grandeur and the departure of beauty from the world, themes that reflect the hardships and loss he faced in his own life.
Bradbury's Short Stories are a collection of short fiction by science fiction and fantasy author Ray Bradbury. The collection includes notable stories like The Veldt, a reflection on television culture, the blurred edges between reality and fiction, and the senseless violence of youth culture. Other prominent stories like The Illustrated Man investigate classic Bradbury themes and settings such as desperation, growing to adulthood, and American carnival and circus culture in the first half of the 20th century.
Faulkner's Short Stories is a collection of short fiction by the famous Modernist Southern author William Faulkner. The stories are concerned mostly with life in the South during the Civil War and in the time surrounding that period. They paint a colloquial and literary portrait of Southern society and explore themes ranging from family, legacy, and class to war, slavery, isolation, and decay. The decline of the South in the wake of the war is perhaps the most relevant point.
The House on Mango Street & Woman Hollering Creek & Other Stories is a collection containing Sandra Cisneros 1984 novel and many of her short stories. The stories deal with issues of multiculturalism, examining the experience of Mexicans living in the United States, particularly women. The House on Mango Street is about a girl named Esperanza Cordero growing up in Chicago. The book is comprised of short poetic vignettes that depict her coming of age and her longing to leave her constricting life on Mango Street.