Book picks similar to
The Devil by Guy de Maupassant


short-stories
horror
fiction
classics

John Charrington’s Wedding


E. Nesbit - 1891
    It was written in 1891 and is included in Nesbit's 1893 anthology Grim Tales. The story's title character is a man who somehow always seems to get what he wants. John makes up his mind to marry May Forster, the prettiest young woman in the village. After John asks her to marry him several times, May finally agrees. John says that his love for May is so great that he would come back from the dead if that was what she wanted him to do. Two days before his wedding, John leaves to visit his seriously ill godfather. May begs him not to go because she has a feeling that something bad will happen. John reassures her that nothing will prevent him from arriving at his wedding on time.

Paris Spleen


Charles Baudelaire - 1869
    Published posthumously in 1869, Paris Spleen was a landmark publication in the development of the genre of prose poetry—a format which Baudelaire saw as particularly suited for expressing the feelings of uncertainty, flux, and freedom of his age—and one of the founding texts of literary modernism.

A Terribly Strange Bed


Wilkie Collins - 1852
    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

The Heart of a Broken Story


J.D. Salinger - 1941
    

Beauty and the Beast


Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont - 1756
    This is the best known version of the original story that inspired Walt Disney’s classic and has been retold countless times and adapted for screen, stage, prose, and television.

Beyond the Bayou


Kate Chopin - 1893
    Written in 1891 and published in Youth's Companion in 1893, it was later included in Chopin's collection of stories Bayou Folk in 1894.

The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Ghost Stories


Rudyard Kipling - 1888
    Works from the well known British author and poet and creator of 'The Jungle Book'.

Les Chants de Maldoror


Comte de Lautréamont - 1869
    It is a long narrative prose poem which celebrates the principle of Evil in an elaborate style and with a passion akin to religious fanaticism. The French poet-critic Georges Hugnet has written of Lautréamont: "He terrifies, stupefies, strikes dumb. He could look squarely at that which others had merely given a passing glance."Little is known of the author of Maldoror, Isidore Ducasse, self-styled Comte de Lautréamont, except that he was born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1846 and died in Paris at the age of twenty-four. When first published in 1868-9, Maldoror went almost unnoticed. But in the nineties the book was rediscovered and hailed as a work of genius by such eminent writers as Huysmans, Léon Bloy, Maeterlinck, and Rémy de Gourmont. Later still, Lautréamont was to be canonized as one of their principal "ancestors" by the Paris Surrealists.This edition, translated by Guy Wernham, includes also a long introduction to a never-written, or now lost, volume of poetry. Thus, except for a few letters, it gives all the surviving literary work of Lautréamont.

The Book of Wonder


Lord Dunsany - 1912
    Tolkien--from which almost all fantasylands have devolved--also took shape and flower from Dunsany's example." --The Encyclopedia of Fantasy Most fantasy enthusiasts consider Lord Dunsany one of the most significant forces in modern fantasy; his influences have been observed in the works of H.P. Lovecraft, L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, and many other modern writers. The Book of Wonder is Dunsany at his peak of his talent. The stories here are a lush tapestry of language, conjuring images of people, places, and things which cannot possibly exist, yet somehow ring true. They are, in short, full of wonder. Together with Dunsany's other major collections, A Dreamer's Tales and Tales of Three Hemispheres, they are a necessary part of any fantasy collection.

The Crystal Crypt


Philip K. Dick - 1954
    For the black-clad Leiters were on the prowl ... and the grim red planet was not far behind. First published in 1954.

A Merry Christmas and Other Christmas Stories


Louisa May Alcott - 1875
    Deeply influenced by real-life events, including characters based on Alcott's family members and drawing from her experiences participating in the suffrage and abolitionist movements, these stories have the authentic texture and detail of Christmas in nineteenth-century America.Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1832. Her family later moved to Concord, Massachusetts, where Alcott was influenced by their neighbours Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. At a young age, Louisa took on some of the family's financial burdens, working as a domestic, a teacher, and a writer. In 1868 and 1869, fame and fortune came with the publication of Little Women. The author of many novels and an active campaigner for temperance and women's suffrage, Alcott died in 1888.

The Graveyard Rats


Henry Kuttner - 1936
    they had other plans... (note: very short story!)

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow


Jerome K. Jerome - 1886
    This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is that when you get tired of reading 'the best hundred books, ' you may take this up for half an hour. It will be a change." (from the Preface to "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow by Jerome Jerome)

The Torture Garden


Octave Mirbeau - 1899
    Entranced by a resolute Englishwoman whose capacity for debauchery knows no bounds, he capitulates to her every whim amid an ecstatic yet tormenting incursion of visions, scents, caresses, pleasures, horrors, and fantastic atrocities.

Juliette


Marquis de Sade - 1797
    Mlle. De Maupin, Lolita, Candy—all pale beside Juliette.”—Library Journal