Complete Short Stories

Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories gathers together in one magnificent volume all of Agatha Christie’s short stories featuring her beloved intrepid investigator, Miss Marple. It’s an unparalleled compendium of murder, mayhem, mystery, and detection that represents some of the finest short form fiction in the crime fiction field, and is an essential omnibus for Christie fans. Described by her friend Dolly Bantry as “the typical old maid of fiction,” Miss Marple has lived almost her entire life in the sleepy hamlet of St. Mary Mead. Yet, by observing village life she has gained an unparalleled insight into human nature—and used it to devastating effect. As her friend Sir Henry Clithering, the ex-Commissioner of Scotland Yard, has been heard to say: “She’s just the finest detective God ever made”—and many Agatha Christie fans would agree.

The complete stories of a 20th century master of fiction Affairs, obsessions, ardors, fantasy, myth, legends, dreams, fear, pity, and violence—this magnificent collection of stories illuminates all corners of the human experience. Including four previously uncollected stories, this new complete edition reveals Graham Greene in a range of contrasting moods, sometimes cynical and witty, sometimes searching and philosophical. Each of these forty-nine stories confirms V. S. Pritchett’s declaration that Greene is “a master of storytelling.” This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by Pico Iyer. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction, these thirty-one powerful and disturbing stories cement Flannery O'Connor as one of the preeminent fiction writers of the twentieth century. This collection includes twelve stories that did not appear in the two story collections O'Connor put together in her lifetime. This collection includes the following short stories: "The Geranium" "The Barber" "Wildcat" "The Crop" "The Turkey" "The Train" "The Peeler" "The Heart of the Park" "A Stroke of Good Fortune" "Enoch and the Gorilla" "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" "A Late Encounter with the Enemy" "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" "The River" "A Circle in the Fire" "The Displaced Person" "A Temple of the Holy Ghost" "The Artificial Nigger" "Good Country People" "You Can't Be Any Poorer Than Dead" "Greeleaf" "A View of the Woods" "The Enduring Chill" "The Comforts of Home" "Everything That Rises Must Converge" "The Partridge Festival" "The Lame Shall Enter First" "Why Do the Heathen Rage" "Revelation" "Parker's Back" "Judgement Day" Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.

First in a two volume collection of short stories by the acclaimed author of Empire of the Sun, Crash, Cocaine Nights and Super-Cannes.

From the cruel irony of ‘A member of the Family’ to the fateful echoes of ‘The Go-Away Bird’ and the unexpectedly sinister ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me’, in settings that range from South Africa to the Portobello Road, Muriel Spark coolly probes the idiosyncrasies that lurk beneath the veneer of human respectability, displaying the acerbic wit and wisdom that are the hallmarks of her unique talent. The Complete Short Stories is a collection to be loved and cherished, from one of the finest short-story writers of the twentieth century.

The Complete Short Stories of Roald Dahl in the first of two unsettling and sinister volumes. 'They are brutal, these stories, and yet you finish reading each one with a smile, or maybe even a hollow laugh, certainly a shiver of gratification, because the conclusion always seems so right' Charlie Higson, from his introduction. Roald Dahl is one of the most popular writers of the modern age, effortlessly writing for children and adults alike. In this, the first of two volumes chronologically collecting all his published adult short stories, we see how Dahl began by using his experiences in the war to write fiction but quickly turned to his powerful and dark imagination to pen some of the most unsettling and disquieting tales ever written. In 27 stories, written between 1944 and 1953, we encounter such classic tales as 'Man from the South', featuring a wager with appalling consequences; 'Lamb to the Slaughter', in which a wife murders her husband yet has a novel idea for throwing the police off the scent; and in 'The Sound Machine', the horrific truth about plants is revealed. Enter the sinister, twisted world of Roald Dahl: whether you're young or old, you'll never want to leave. 'Roald Dahl is one of the few writers I know whose work can accurately be described as addictive' Irish Times 'The great magician' Spectator Look out for Volume Two, introduced by Anthony Horowitz Roald Dahl, the brilliant and worldwide acclaimed author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, and many more classics for children, also wrote scores of short stories for adults. These delightfully disturbing tales have often been filmed and were most recently the inspiration for the West End play, Roald Dahl's Twisted Tales by Jeremy Dyson. Roald Dahl's stories continue to make readers shiver today.

Best known for his witty, ingenious novels, Ronald Firbank began his literary apprenticeship as a writer of short stories (or "contes," as he called them), all of which are gathered here for the first time. They were written at a time when the literature of the decadent 1890s was maturing into the modernism of the early twentieth century, a growth reflected here as Firbank works through a variety of styles, genres, and voices, both imitating and subverting the literary models of his day. Written between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two, they are, properly speaking, his juvenilia, and are not to be judged by the standards of his mature work. All the seeds of the later work, however, were planted in this early work, and it is instructive and entertaining to observe Firbank as he tends his literary garden.Ranging from impressionistic prose poems and allegories to sardonic vignettes of high-society life, they all display Firbank's satiric eye and stylistic flair. Only a few of the stories were published commercially; most have been available only in expensive, limited editions, and four stories are published here for the first time from Firbank's manuscripts. Included in a appendix are two other pieces Firbank wrote at the same age--the poem "The Wind & the Roses" and his only venture into art criticism, "An Early Flemish Painter"--and detailed textual notes that give the publishing history for all the works.