For nearly a century, the work of O. Henry has delighted readers with its humor, irony and colorful, real-life settings. The writer's own life had more than a touch of color and irony. Born William Sidney Porter in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1862, he worked on a Texas ranch, then as a bank teller in Austin, then as a reporter for the Houston "Post." Adversity struck, however, when he was indicted for embezzlement of bank funds. Porter fled to New Orleans, then to Honduras before he was tried, convicted and imprisoned for the crime in 1898. In prison he began writing stories of Central America and the American Southwest that soon became popular with magazine readers. After his release Porter moved to New York City, where he continued writing stories under the pen name O. Henry. Though his work earned him an avid readership, O. Henry died in poverty and oblivion scarcely eight years after his arrival in New York. But in the treasury of stories he left behind are such classics of the genre as "The Gift of the Magi," "The Last Leaf," "The Ransom of Red Chief," "The Voice of the City" and "The Cop and the Anthem" — all included in this choice selection. A selection of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

    First published in 1759, it was an instant bestseller and has come to be regarded as one of the key texts of the Enlightenment. What Candide does for chivalric romance, the other tales in this selection--Micromegas, Zadig, The Ingenu, and The White Bull--do for science fiction, the Oriental tale, the sentimental novel, and the Old Testament. The most extensive one-volume selection currently available, this new edition includes a new verse translation of the story Voltaire based on Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Tale: What Pleases the Ladies and opens with a revised introduction that reflects recent critical debates, including a new section on Candide.

    In both prose and verse, Pushkin was one of the world’s great storytellers: direct and dramatic, clear-sighted, vivid, and passionate.This new and expanded Everyman’s edition of his stories includes all the mature work. In addition to such novella-length masterpieces as The Captain’s Daughter and The Tales of Belkin the collection now contains many more short pieces and the masterly History of Pugachev, a powerful account of the man who rebelled against Catherine the Great.

    Sagan's second novel tells the story of Dominique, a bored twenty-year-old law student at the Sorbonne in mid-1950's Paris, who embarks on a love affair with a middle-aged man.

    The authors represented range from Hawthorne, Maupassant, and Poe, through Henry James, Conrad, Aldous Huxley, and James Joyce, to Hemingway, Katherine Anne Porter, Faulkner, E.B. White, Saroyan, and O'Connor. The variety in style and subject is enormous, but all these stories have one point in common—the enduring quality of the writing, which places them among the masterpieces of the world's fiction.Garden party / Katherine Mansfield --Three-day blow / Ernest Hemingway --Standard of living / Dorothy Parker --Saint / V.S. Pritchett --Other side of the hedge / E.M. Forster --Brooksmith / Henry James --Jockey / Carson McCullers --Courting of Dinah Shadd / Rudyard Kipling --Shot / Alexander Poushkin, translated by T. Keane --Graven Image / John O'Hara --Putois / Anatole France, translated by Frederic Chapman --Only the dead know Brooklyn / Thomas Wolfe --A.V. Laider / Max Beerbohm --Lottery / Shirley Jackson --Masque of the Red Death / Edgar Allan Poe --Looking back / Guy de Maupassant, translated by H.N.P. Sloman --Man higher up / O. Henry --Summer of the beautiful white horse / William Saroyan --Other two / Edith Wharton --Theft / Katherine Anne Porter --Good man is hard to find / Flannery O'Connor --Man of the house / Frank O'Connor --Man who shot snapping turtles / Edmund Wilson --Gioconda smile / Aldous Huxley --Curfew tolls / Stephen Vincent Benet --Father wakes up the village / Clarence Day --Ivy Day in the committee room / James Joyce --Chrysanthemums / John Steinbeck --Door / E.B. White --Upheaval / Anton Chekhov --How beautiful with shoes / Wilbur Daniel Steele --Haunted house / Virginia Woolf --Catbird seat / James Thurber --Schartz-Metterklume method / H.H. Munro --Death of a Bachelor / Arthur Schnitzler --Apostate / George Milburn --Phoenix / Sylvia Townsend Warner --That evening sun / William Faulkner --Law / Robert M. Coates --Tale / Joseph Conrad --Girl from Red Lion, PA / H.L. Mencken --Main currents of American thought / Irwin Shaw --Ghosts / Lord Dunsany --Minister's black veil / Nathaniel Hawthorne --String of beads / W. Somerset Maugham --Golden honeymoon / Ring Lardner --Man who could work miracles / H.G. Wells --Foreigner / Francis Steegmuller --Thrawn Janet / Robert Louis Stevenson --Chaser / John Collier

    Her father, a famous musician, dies, and she is raised in the Paris Opera House with his dying promise of a protective angel of music to guide her. After a time at the opera house, she begins hearing a voice, who eventually teaches her how to sing beautifully. All goes well until Christine's childhood friend Raoul comes to visit his parents, who are patrons of the opera, and he sees Christine when she begins successfully singing on the stage. The voice, who is the deformed, murderous 'ghost' of the opera house named Erik, however, grows violent in his terrible jealousy, until Christine suddenly disappears. The phantom is in love, but it can only spell disaster.Leroux's work, with characters ranging from the spoiled prima donna Carlotta to the mysterious Persian from Erik's past, has been immortalized by memorable adaptations. Despite this, it remains a remarkable piece of Gothic horror literature in and of itself, deeper and darker than any version that follows.

    D. Salinger published in April 1953. It includes two of his most famous short stories, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and "For Esmé – with Love and Squalor". (Nine Stories is the U.S. title; the book is published in many other countries as For Esmé - with Love and Squalor, and Other Stories.)The stories are:"A Perfect Day for Bananafish""Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut""Just Before the War with the Eskimos""The Laughing Man""Down at the Dinghy""For Esmé – with Love and Squalor""Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes""De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period""Teddy"

    With the exception of his three novels, the whole of Kafka’s narrative work is included in this volume. --penguinrandomhouse.comTwo Introductory parables: Before the law --Imperial message --Longer stories: Description of a struggle --Wedding preparations in the country --Judgment --Metamorphosis --In the penal colony --Village schoolmaster (The giant mole) --Blumfeld, and elderly bachelor --Warden of the tomb --Country doctor --Hunter Gracchus --Hunter Gracchus: A fragment --Great Wall of China --News of the building of the wall: A fragment --Report to an academy --Report to an academy: Two fragments --Refusal --Hunger artist --Investigations of a dog --Little woman --The burrow --Josephine the singer, or the mouse folk --Children on a country road --The trees --Clothes --Excursion into the mountains --Rejection --The street window --The tradesman --Absent-minded window-gazing --The way home --Passers-by --On the tram --Reflections for gentlemen-jockeys --The wish to be a red Indian --Unhappiness --Bachelor's ill luck --Unmasking a confidence trickster --The sudden walk --Resolutions --A dream --Up in the gallery --A fratricide --The next village --A visit to a mine --Jackals and Arabs --The bridge --The bucket rider --The new advocate --An old manuscript --The knock at the manor gate --Eleven sons --My neighbor --A crossbreed (A sport) --The cares of a family man --A common confusion --The truth about Sancho Panza --The silence of the sirens --Prometheus --The city coat of arms --Poseidon --Fellowship --At night --The problem of our laws --The conscripton of troops --The test --The vulture --The helmsman --The top --A little fable --Home-coming --First sorrow --The departure --Advocates --The married couple --Give it up! --On parables.

    Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. Generations of readers have been enchanted by Dickens’s A Christmas Carol—the most cheerful ghost story ever written, and the unforgettable tale of Ebenezer Scrooge’s moral regeneration. Written in just a few weeks, A Christmas Carol famously recounts the plight of Bob Cratchit, whose family finds joy even in poverty, and the transformation of his miserly boss Scrooge as he is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future.From Scrooge’s “Bah!” and “Humbug!” to Tiny Tim’s “God bless us every one!” A Christmas Carol shines with warmth, decency, kindness, humility, and the value of the holidays. But beneath its sentimental surface, A Christmas Carol offers another of Dickens’s sharply critical portraits of a brutal society, and an inspiring celebration of the possibility of spiritual, psychological, and social change.This new volume collects Dickens’s three most renowned “Christmas Books,” including The Chimes, a New Year’s tale, and The Cricket on the Hearth, whose eponymous creature remains silent during sorrow and chirps amid happiness.Katharine Kroeber Wiley, the daughter of a scholar and a sculptor, has a degree in English Literature from Occidental College. Her work has appeared in Boundary Two and the recent book, Lore of the Dolphin. She is currently working on a book on Victorian Christmas writings.

    ‘Rashōmon’ and ‘In a Bamboo Grove’ inspired Kurosawa’s magnificent film and depict a past in which morality is turned upside down, while tales such as ‘The Nose’, ‘O-Gin’ and ‘Loyalty’ paint a rich and imaginative picture of a medieval Japan peopled by Shoguns and priests, vagrants and peasants. And in later works such as ‘Death Register’, ‘The Life of a Stupid Man’ and ‘Spinning Gears’, Akutagawa drew from his own life to devastating effect, revealing his intense melancholy and terror of madness in exquisitely moving impressionistic stories.A WORLD IN DECAY- Rashōmon- In a Bamboo Grove- The Nose- Dragon: The Old Potter's Tale- The Spider Thread- Hell ScreenUNDER THE SWORD- Dr. Ogata Ryōsai: Memorandum- O-Gin- LoyaltyMODERN TRAGICOMEDY- The Story of a Head That Fell Off- Green Onions- Horse LegsAKUTAGAWA'S OWN STORY- Daidōji Shinsuke: The Early Years- The Writer's Craft- The Baby's Sickness- Death Register- The Life of a Stupid Man- Spinning Gears

    Originally printed in publications as diverse as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and The Atlantic Monthly, these superb stories share Vonnegut’s audacious sense of humor and extraordinary range of creative vision.Alternative cover edition here

    These stories about love and death, truth and lies, myth and reality range across many epochs and settings. Brilliantly combining fact and fiction, epic and miniature, horror and comedy, this was Danilo Kiš final work, published in Serbo-Croatian in 1983.Kiš is one of the great European writers of the post-war period - GuardianCompulsively readable - Daily Telegraph Fantasy chases reality and reality chases fantasy. Pirandello and Borges are not far away. But these names are intended as approximate references. Kiš is a new, original writer - Times Literary Supplement Intense and exotic, his mysteries hint at unspeakable secrets that remain forever beyond the story-teller's grasp - Boyd TonkinDanilo Kiš was born in the then Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1935. After an unsettled childhood during the Second World War, in which several of his family members were killed, Kiš studied literature at the University of Belgrade where he lived for most of his adult life. He wrote novels, short stories and poetry and went on to receive the prestigious NIN Award for his novel Pešcanik. He died in Paris in 1989.

    The five other chilling stories in this collection echo a sense of dislocation and mock man's dominance over the natural world. The mountain paradise of 'Monte Verità' promises immortality, but at a terrible price; a neglected wife haunts her husband in the form of an apple tree; a professional photographer steps out from behind the camera and into his subject's life; a date with a cinema usherette leads to a walk in the cemetery; and a jealous father finds a remedy when three's a crowd . . .

    Soon realizing that success can only be achieved by adopting the subtle code of hypocrisy by which society operates, he begins to achieve advancement through deceit and self-interest. His triumphant career takes him into the heart of glamorous Parisian society, along the way conquering the gentle, married Madame de Rênal, and the haughty Mathilde. But then Julien commits an unexpected, devastating crime - and brings about his own downfall. The Red and the Black is a lively, satirical portrayal of French society after Waterloo, riddled with corruption, greed, and ennui, and Julien - the cold exploiter whose Machiavellian campaign is undercut by his own emotions - is one of the most intriguing characters in European literature.

    But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience, when, owing to a case of mistaken identity, another man is arrested in his place; and by the relentless investigations of the dogged Inspector Javert. It is not simply for himself that Valjean must stay free, however, for he has sworn to protect the baby daughter of Fantine, driven to prostitution by poverty.