Oscar Wilde's madcap farce about mistaken identities, secret engagements, and lovers entanglements still delights readers more than a century after its 1895 publication and premiere performance. The r…
In these four stories, Kate Chopin subtly captures the intricate interior lives of a generation of women. From the famous proto-feminist tale "The Story of an Hour" to the subtly sexy "A Respectable W…
Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston, Massachusetts, during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an affair and will not reveal her lover’s identi…
"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is a short story by American author Ernest Hemingway, first published in Scribner's Magazine in 1933; it was also included in his collection Winner Take Nothing (1933).
"I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history," Arthur Miller wrote of his classic play about the witch-hunts and …
Hunters in the Snow is a classic short story by Tobias Wolff centered around the suburbs of Spokane and featured in In the Garden of the North American Martyrs. The story deals with three characters h…
“The Fly,” written in February 1922, primarily concerns the loss of a young British soldier in World War I and the effects of his death on his father. The story was published the following month in Th…
"Paul's Case" was first published in 1905 in Willa Cather's first story collection, The Troll Garden, which began her literary career. When the story was printed in McClure's magazine in May of the sa…
"A Perfect Day for Bananafish" is a short story by J. D. Salinger, originally published in the January 31, 1948 issue of The New Yorker. It was anthologized in 1949's 55 Short Stories from The New Yor…
'Little Girls Wiser Than Men' is a short story by Russian authorLeo Tolstoy first published in 1885. It takes the form of a parable about forgiveness. The story opens at the beginning of Holy Week, wh…
Jim and Irene Westcott live contentedly on the 12th floor in an apartment building with their two children near Sutton Place (their city of residence is not mentioned, but Sutton Place is in New York …
No play in the modern theater has so captured the imagination and heart of the American public as Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie. As Williams's first popular success, it launched the brillia…
In a small American town, the local residents are abuzz with excitement and nervousness when they wake on the morning of the twenty-seventh of June. Everything has been prepared for the town’s annual …
