Short Story Haven

reviews, descriptions, and backgrounds for short stories

[shortstorycottage]

Reading Short Stories for Free Online

(a constantly updated list)

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor

"A Perfect Day for Bananafish" by J. D. Salinger

"Children of the Corn" by Stephen King

"Herbert West: Reanimator" by H. P. Lovecraft

"How to Get Back to the Forest" by Sofia Samatar

"One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts" by Shirley Jackson

"Premium Harmony" by Stephen King

"Signs and Symbols" by Vladimir Nabokov

"The Body Snatcher" by Robert Louis Stevenson

"The Boogeyman" by Stephen King

"The Call of Cthulhu" by H. P. Lovecraft

"The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe

"The Cathedral" by Raymond Carver

"The Door in the Wall" by H. G. Wells

"The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe

"The Garden Party" by Katherine Mansfield

"The Human Chair" by Edogawa Ranpo

"The Haunter of the Dark" by H. P. Lovecraft

"The Landlady" by Roald Dahl

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson

"The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe

"The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka

"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell

"The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant

"The New Dress" by Virginia Woolf

"The Pedestrian" by Ray Bradbury

"The Possibility of Evil" by Shirley Jackson

"The Scarlet Ibis" by James Hurst

"The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin

"The Summer People" by Shirley Jackson

"The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe

"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

[shortstorycottage]

Shirley Jackson-- Her Short Stories (read them for free online)

These stories are completely free to read! Unless otherwise specified, they are in text format. Obviously, Jackson has far more stories and novels, but these are what I've found.

"Afternoon in Linen" (audio)

"Charles"

"One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts"

"Paranoia" (This is from the New Yorker, which after a few articles will make you subscribe.)

"The Beautiful Stranger" (YouTube audio)

"The Bus"

"The Daemon Lover"

"Home" (YouTube audio)

"The Lottery"

"The Man in the Woods" (This is from the New Yorker, which after a few articles will make you subscribe.)

"The Possibility of Evil" (text)

"The Possibility of Evil" (YouTube audio)

"The Summer People" (text)

"The Summer People" (YouTube audio)

"The Witch"

"Trial by Combat"

[shortstorycottage]

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson: Summary

"Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box."

Published: June 26th, 1948, by the New Yorker

Exposition: The featured town of the story is small with under three hundred people. It is the warm morning of June 27th.

Conflict: Every year, each of the nearby towns has some kind of lottery, though it is not mentioned what the lottery is for.

Rising Action: The townsfolk prepare for the lottery. Everyone seems happy. Boys pile rocks in corners, and the black box with slips of paper is brought to the town center. The people decide who from each family will be drawing from the box. The Hutchinson family draws the unlucky slip of paper. Each person from the Hutchinson family then draws another slip. Mrs. Hutchinson ("Tessie") draws the unlucky slip this time, the paper with a dark mark on it.

Climax: The other townsfolk gather around Mrs. Hutchinson and prepare to stone her.

Falling Action: None.

Resolution: Mrs. Hutchinson is stoned to death while she cries that it isn't fair.

Read this story for free here

[smokefalls]

“She was struck dumb by the swiftness with which people could leave. How used to doors closing a person could get, to saying good-bye or not saying it at all and wishing later that you had.”

— Dantiel W. Moniz, “The Hearts of Our Enemies” from Milk Blood Heat

[vixvaporub]

The Human Chair by Junji Ito (Art) and Rampo Edogawa (Original Story)

[shortstorycottage]

We eat the year away. We eat the spring and the summer and the fall. We wait for something to grow and then we eat it.

Shirley Jackson; We Have Always Lived in the Castle

[shortstorycottage]

I forgot you. Forgetting isn’t so wrong. It’s a Life Skill.

Sofia Samatar, "How to Get Back to the Forest"

[wilburwhateley]

The Unfortunate Mr. Samsa by Rich Johnson

[thebookquotes]

Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

— Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

[shortstorycottage]

Fear and guilt are sisters…

Shirley Jackson; The Haunting of Hill House

[shortstorycottage]

Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death," read by Rebekah M. Longworth.

[shortstorycottage]

I have seen beyond the bounds of infinity and drawn down daemons from the stars. . . I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness...

H. P. Lovecraft; "From Beyond"

[shortstorycottage]

On the moon we wore feathers in our hair, and rubies on our hands. On the moon we had gold spoons.

Shirley Jackson; "We Have Always Lived in the Castle"

[shotsofhorror]

Stephen King’s Children of the Corn, 1984, dir. Fritz Kiersch.

[weirdlandtv]

The Masque of the Red Death. Illustration by Harry Clarke for Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1923).

[shortstorycottage]

There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'.

Virginia Woolf; The Waves

[shortstorycottage]

They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

Edgar Allan Poe; The Tell-Tale Heart