The following section consists of samples of short fiction by famous authors which are currently in the public domain. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), was a famous American writer who excelled in dramatic works of horror, and also proved himself in the fledgling genre of the detective story. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), who wrote the novels The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, was one of the great figures of 19th-century American literature and letters, along with the likes of Melville, Whitman, Emerson and Thoreau. His short stories were often splendidly imaginative, and permeated with a spiritual sensibility which should especially appeal to New Age audiences. HG Wells (1866-1946), was, of course, the brilliant British thinker and writer best remembered for his great works of science fiction, which explored themes such as imperialism and powerlessness (The War Of The Worlds); the socioeconomic division of mankind and the redemptive quality of compassion and love (The Time Machine); the morally corrosive nature of power (The Invisible Man); and the danger of Man stepping into the shoes of God, as well as the struggle between the values and ideals of our civilization and the legacy of our primal heritage with which it must contend (The Island of Dr. Moreau). In these fantastic tales, our world with all of its challenges, possibilities, and possible disasters, was very much present, and the heart of the matter. Wells also produced a number of interesting short stories. The Story Of The Late Dr. Elvesham, one of them, frightened me terribly as a child, so beware! Perhaps, in its way, it is a warning to the young not to let their youth and destiny be kidnapped by the old. Richard Connell (1893-1949), an American writer and journalist, is fondly remembered for his most successful tale of adventure, «The Most Dangerous Game», which inspired several movie versions. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) stands out in our minds as the inventor of Sherlock Holmes, the brilliant detective whose adventures were recorded in several novels and a host of short stories. Included, here, is a story which Conan Doyle, himself, chose as one of his favorites; it is also held in high regard by his fans. O. Henry was a pseudonym for William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), a very popular and successful American story writer of his day. The Gift Of The Magi is his best-known work, especially cherished for its irony and surprise ending, which for most of you, will probably no longer be a surprise! Seumas MacManus (1869-1960) was a wonderful Irish writer and cherisher of his native land and culture. I love him particularly for his splendid history of Irleand, Story of the Irish Race. The story included here comes from a collection of fairy tales (Donegal Fairy Tales) directed at younger readers, but entertaining for all ages (in a bit of a cynical and dark way, but then, these are the things that injustice prompts). James Joyce (1882-1941), was one of Ireland’s great writers, though his relationship with his homeland was difficult and he spent much of his life abroad. He is known particularly for his great, technically revolutionary novel Ulysses, as well as for Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Dubliners, the collection of short stories from which «The Dead» is drawn. Jack London (1876-1916), the author of The Call of the Wild, as well as an extremely successful story writer for magazines, was an American legend, a determined fighter in life who wrote himself out of poverty and seemed to his times to represent the spirit of overcoming any obstacle. He ended up a curious mix of advocate of the downtrodden, and individualist pursuer of fame and fortune. His stories abound with adventure, struggle, and nature. Mikhail Lermontov (1814-1841) was a Russian poet and contemporary of Pushkin, known for his passionate, romantic, and spirited existence. As a Russian, he drew inspiration from the physical ruggedness and cultural distinctness of the Caucasus «frontier region», where he spent much of his life. True to form, he perished in a duel. The story here was taken from the novel A Hero Of Our Time, which actually consists of a string of connected tales, each of which is able to stand on its own. Franz Kafka (1883-1924), ethnically German-Jewish, was born in Prague and made scarcely a dent as a writer during his lifetime. But after his death, loyal admirers made the effort to bring his work before the public’s eye. The results were two novels, The Trial and The Castle, a classic novella entitled The Metamorphosis («Gregor Samsa awoke one morning after a night of anxious dreaming to discover he had been transformed into a giant insect», a work which many years later would inspire Gabriel Garcia Marquez to turn his pen towards «magical realism»), and a batch of interesting and idiosyncratic short stories. Kafka excelled in the intense landscape of subjective psychological reality, bringing to life inner states such as alienation, self-loathing, self-denial, paranoia, and the sense of helplessness we sometimes feel, as well as powerfully conveying many of the indifferent aspects of society, which wound and bewilder the sensitive soul. Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), is considered one of the greatest of many great Russian writers. Besides a few famous plays such as The Cherry Orchard and The Seagull, he is especially renowned for his masterful and impactful short stories, which prove capable of covering surprising amounts of human ground in a very little space. The translations into English reproduced here are by the brilliant translator of Russian literature, Constance Garnett, who worked on a large number of Chekhov’s stories between 1916-1922.