Featured Stories

A Fish Story

A Fish Story: Australian folktale from Andrew LangAlthough this story was described as an “Australian” folktale when published in 1910, Australia is too young a nation to have folktales of its own. This is an adaption of an Australian aboriginal myth. Like those of many ancient cultures, it tries to explain the meaning of every-day things: in this case, how fish got into rivers and why rivers always feel warmer if you swim in them on a cold day. According to the story, fish used to live and hunt on the land and only came to live underwater because of an accident lighting a fire.

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The Learned Adventure of the Dragon’s Head

The Learned Adventure of the Dragon's Head: Novelette by Dorothy SayersLord Peter Wimsey, Dorothy Sayers’s eccentric amateur sleuth, is saddled with his ten-year-old nephew while his parents are away overseas. As the two browse an antiquarian bookshop, the boy is attracted to the maps and pictures in a badly damaged copy of Cosmographia Universalis, an early description of the world. He buys the book, and shortly afterwards a strange man visits and offers Wimsey two hundred times what the boy paid. This leads to a “Boys Own” type adventure involving attempted robbery, Scotland Yard and a riddle leading to buried pirate treasure. Themes include curiosity, greed, mystery, deception, and philanthropy.

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Spunk

Spunk: Short story by Zora Neale HurstonIn Zora Neale Hurston’s Spunk, a mild-mannered man (Joe) is killed when he bravely but foolishly confronts his cheating wife and her macho lover. The story raises some interesting questions. Did Joe act out of love for his wife, or shame because she had humiliated him? Why did he stop at a store on the way? Was he hoping the “loungers” would talk him out of going, and too weak to back down when one of them encouraged him? Finally, who or what caused Spunk to fall into the saw? Themes include love and passion, courage and fear, the supernatural.

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Flowers for Algernon

Flowers for Algernon: Short story by Daniel KeyesThis touching short story from Daniel Keyes is about a mentally handicapped man who undergoes experimental surgery to enhance his intelligence. The operation’s initial success highlights an interesting aspect of intelligence: the very gifted can be as out of touch with reality and friendless as the intellectually challenged. The story raises an important issue: How far should medical science go in tampering with nature or, as some would say, the will of God? Perhaps the answer lies in Charlie’s ultimate fate, ironically going backwards in intelligence rather than forwards. Other themes include innocence, friendship, compassion, bullying and sacrifice.

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The Nightingale

The Nightingale: Children's story by H. C. AndersenIn this story by Hans Christian Andersen, a nightingale living near the palace of the Chinese Emperor sings so beautifully that it becomes famous all over the world. The Emperor loves the nightingale’s song so much that he makes a home for it in the palace. One day the Japanese Emperor sends him a mechanical bird covered in jewels that can sing as well as the nightingale. He replaces the live bird with the mechanical one, and does not come to appreciate the love of the real nightingale until close to death. Themes: artificial vs. natural beauty, friendship, betrayal, loyalty.

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A. V. Laider

A. V. Laider: Short story by Max BeerbohmThis story by Max Beerbohm raises the philosophical themes of faith vs. reason and free will vs. fate in the context of a conversation between the narrator and a stranger about palmistry. The stranger, a self-proclaimed amateur palm reader, relates how he once failed to prevent a train crash predicted in the palms of four fellow passengers. Too weak-willed to intervene, he let fate take its course and now feels guilty of murder. The sympathetic narrator writes him a consoling letter and, when the two meet again a year later, receives a nasty shock. Other themes include insecurity, guilt, fabulism.

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The Witch

The Witch: Short story by Shirley JacksonAlthough very short (just over 1,400 words), there are enough dark elements in this Shirley Jackson story to unsettle most readers. An imaginative four-year-old travelling on a train with his mother and infant sister attracts the attention of a man who recounts how much he loved his own sister. The man then relates how, after killing and dismembering his sister, he fed her head to a bear. The story turns on who or what the man is, and what effect his story may have on the boy. Themes include parental inattention, boredom, imagination, witchcraft, innocence and its possible manipulation, violence.

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Shooting an Elephant

Shooting an Elephant: Short story by George OrwellThis story by Eric Arthur Blair (aka George Orwell) is a narrative essay in which the thesis is the wrongs of British Imperialism. A young officer in the British Colonial Police in the early 1920’s describes an experience with an elephant that had killed a villager. He tells how he felt pressured into shooting the animal, even though he knew this to be unnecessary. His fellow Europeans had mixed opinions but fortunately, none of them guessed the real reason for the shooting. Themes include culture clash, prejudice, the need to maintain authority, and moral conscience vs. pride/”face”.

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