Showing results by publisher "Dreamscape Media, LLC" in Short Stories

Written in seclusion following the intense negative public reaction to the publication of his novel Pierre, The Piazza Tales is Herman Melville's accessible and entertaining collection of short stories and novellas concerning love, labor, and loss. The collection includes his three most important achievements in the genre of short fiction: the short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener" and the novellas Benito Cereno and The Encantadas.

In "The Crystal Crypt", Earth and Mars are poised on the verge of war. On the last spaceship to leave Mars for Earth, law enforcement officials are looking for three fugitives who somehow made a great Martian city disappear. Unable to find the perpetrators, the officials allow the ship to disembark for Earth. A businessman named Thacher strikes up a conversation with a young woman and two men who reveal a very interesting secret to him about the mysterious case.

In "Piper in the Woods", an army doctor is asked to treat a soldier from Asteroid Y-3 who claims he is a plant. This wouldn't be a problem, but the soldier is incapable of any physical activity, preferring to stand still and point himself towards the sun. When more soldiers return from Asteroid Y-3 also claiming to be plants, Dr. Harris travels there to investigate. While there, he learns about a mysterious indigenous people living in the woods called "Pipers", who might be able to shed some light on the subject.

Originally published in the 1853 Christmas edition of Dickens' journal Household Words, "Nobody's Story" uses the differences between the Big Wig family and the Nobody family to call attention to class-based inequity. This version of "Nobody's Story" was recorded as part of Dreamscape's The Christmas Stories of Charles Dickens.

Originally published in the 1853 Christmas edition of Dickens's journal Household Words, The Schoolboy's Story recounts the tale of Old Cheeseman, a schoolboy who becomes the second Latin Master, and his former peers who consider him a traitor for doing it. This version of The Schoolboy's Story was recorded as part of Dreamscape's The Christmas Stories of Charles Dickens.

Originally published in the 1876 Christmas edition of The Graphic, Christmas at Thompson Hall is a Victorian tale concerning the proper Mr. and Mrs. Brown and their journey from southern France to Thompson Hall to celebrate Christmas with their relatives - a trip that becomes a comedy of errors once Mr. Brown's throat condition, a malady that almost prevented the trip entirely, worsens.

Originally published in Harte's 1875 short-story collection The Tales of the Argonauts, "How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar" is set in California in the early 1860s and, like the rest of the tales in that collection, features the gold-seeking Argonauts. In this tale, like many of Harte's others, the folly and grit of human existence balance any good intentions, good cheer, or hope, resulting in a more complicated and somewhat bleak ending than is commonly found in most Christmas tales.

Originally published in an 1896 edition of The Home Monthly, "The Burglar's Christmas" tells the story Crawford, a homeless man in Chicago who has not eaten recently and considers stealing food on Christmas Eve. Reminiscent of the parable of the prodigal son, this tale reflects on the nature of forgiveness. This recording of "The Burglar's Christmas" was recorded as part of Dreamscape's Classic Christmas Stories: A Collection of Timeless Holiday Tales.

When Sonia, the prominent wife of a local cemetery owner, is killed in the worst accident anyone can remember, Hartley Nolan, a lifelong teetotaler, is hardly the person that police expect to find behind the wheel. After all, Hartley is something of an inspiration in a town that hasn't seen much luck in decades-he's the local boy who made it big in Chicago without ever forgetting his struggling family back home. But Tower Hill, Illinois, is a close-knit community that's alive with old rivalries, making it fertile ground for resentments.

First published in an 1843 edition of The Pioneer, "The Tell-Tale Heart" is one of Poe's best-known stories. In it, an unreliable narrator is increasingly troubled by the clouded eye of the old man he lives with. Similar to "The Black Cat", "The Tell-Tale Heart" focuses on the effects of mental instability, crime, and guilt.

First published in an 1842 literary annual The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1843, "The Pit and the Pendulum" takes place during the Spanish Inquisition and follows the plight of a prisoner in a cell that has a pit and a pendulum. Unlike many of Poe's short stories, "The Pit and the Pendulum" does not rely on any supernatural elements to inspire fear but instead uses the narrator's heightened sensory experiences to do so.

First published in an 1843 edition of the Saturday Evening Post, "The Black Cat" tells the story of a man and his increasingly antagonistic relationship with his cat. Akin to "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Black Cat" investigates the psychological effects of guilt as well as the potentially destructive and violent consequences of alcoholism.

First published in an 1849 edition of The Flag of Our Union, "Hop-Frog" is a revenge tale akin to "The Cask of Amontillado". Told from the perspective of a crippled jester who was taken from his homeland and has been abused by the king he serves, the story focuses on the revenge Hop-Frog takes after the king strikes his fellow countrywoman and performer, the dancer Trippetta.

First published in an 1839 edition of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, "The Fall of the House of Usher" is the story of the declining physical and psychological health of the residents of the House of Usher - and the way in which the house itself reflects that. Gothic in theme and style, the story is an exemplar of Poe's philosophy of composition, which dictates that literary works should be short and methodological and have a unity of effect wherein all the elements of the story are related and relevant.

Always Happy Hour weaves tales of young women who are deeply flawed, intensely real, and who struggle to get out of their own way. These women love to drink and have sex; they make bad decisions with men who love them too much or too little; they haunt gas stations, public pools, and dive bars, seeking understanding in the most unlikely of places; and, although each shoulders the weight of different baggage, they all suspect they deserve better.

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, originally published in Colliers Magazine on May 27, 1922. The story follows Benjamin's life from his birth in 1860. However he is no ordinary child, as he has the appearance of a 70-year-old man, already capable of speech. His family soon realizes that Benjamin is aging in reverse, becoming younger as the years go by. The fascinating story looks at his triumphs and struggles as he slowly gains his youth.

Including stories first published in Cosmopolitan and the Saturday Evening Post, this best-selling collection follows the romantic escapades of Max Shulman's famed collegiate Don Juan. Like most undergraduates, Dobie Gillis is a bit scattered - sometimes he's as quick as a whip, other times dull as a doorstop, and his major keeps changing from chemistry to law to journalism. But no matter what subject he should be studying, Dobie always has a girl on his mind.

In four stories that are a deft amalgam of fact and fiction, Jay Cantor captures the reverberations of Kafka's influences on the lives of some of the friends and lovers who survived him. Here is Kafka's last lover, Dora Diamant: their love opening out with both passion and pathos as he succumbs to tuberculosis...

In New York's Catskill Mountains before the American Revolution, a Dutch American villager named Rip Van Winkle falls asleep and wakes up 20 years later without realizing how much time has passed. Unaware that the Revolutionary War has taken place, he must come to terms with the changes he encounters.

Jack London was one of the most notable authors of his time, and this collection showcases some of his most popular short stories. Filled with reflections on the human condition, our interactions with wilderness, and the chance of underlying magic that surrounds us all, these short stories offer a brief respite from the bustling world around us. This collection of short stories contains "A Thousand Deaths", "An Odyssey of the North", "A Relic of the Pliocene", "The Law of Life", "The Minions of Midas", "To Build a Fire", "Grit of Women", "That Spot", "Flush of Gold", and "Lost Face".