This page brings together free online books, topic searches and audiobooks into a library of short stories, including literary fiction, adventure, humor, mystery, and classic tales. The materials range from older copyright free short stories in the public domain to modern books.
The Topics section below helps readers find books within the huge Internet Archive collection. Each topic link generates an Internet Archive search focused on that subject. Browsing the topics and selecting those of interest is usually easier and more effective than searching Internet Archive directly.
Sections below Topics provide links to vintage books and audiobooks. See those sections for more information.
Topics – Library of Short Stories
The topic links below lead to the Internet Archive library search results for short stories. Each link opens a books-and-documents search focused on a particular topic.
Search results generally include fully readable books. For some subjects, Internet Archive also contains other media, such as images, audio, or video files. These can be selected from the media options above the search results. Filters on the left side of Internet Archive pages can help narrow search results by year, language, or related subjects.
Vintage – Classic Public Domain Short Stories
Vintage books were nearly always published before 1930 and are copyright free. They can be read online or downloaded.
Public Domain Short Stories – at Hathitrust in These Languages
Library of Public Domain Short Stories in Audio
These audiobook links lead to public domain short stories recordings from the LibriVox library at Internet Archive. The books recorded by Librivox volunteers were nearly all published before 1930. Recordings include story collections about Christmas, crime, ghosts, horror, humor, science fiction, and other themes.
All Librivox audiobooks are free and can be streamed online or downloaded for offline listening. See our page on Librivox Audiobooks for useful information and tips.
Collections of Short Audio Works
Links below open hundreds of collections with thousands of short stories that were selected and recorded by LibriVox volunteers over the past 20 years. As with all LibriVox recordings, you can listen online or download for free because they are in the public domain.
Short Stories by Author
These LibriVox collections of short stories by author are all in the public domain, and therefore free to download.
- A. A. Milne
- Ada M. Skinner
- Aesop
- Alexander Pushkin
- Algernon Blackwood
- Ambrose Bierce
- Anton Checkhov
- Arnold Bennett
- Arthur Scott Bailey
- Barry Pain
- Bram Stoker
- Bret Harte
- Charles Dickens
- Charlotte Bronte
- Clifton Johnson
- David Cory
- E. M. Forster
- E. Nesbit
- E. Phillips Oppenheim
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Edgar Rice Burroughs
- Edith Nesbit
- Edith Wharton
- Edna Ferber
- Edward Everett Hale
- Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Frances Trego Montgomery
- Francis J. Finn
- Frank Mundell
- Frank Tousey
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
- G. K. Chesterton
- George Gissing
- H. E. Marshall
- H. G. Wells
- Hamilton Wright Mabie
- Hans Christian Andersen
- Henry James
- Henry van Dyke
- Honore de Balzac
- Howard R. Garis
- Ivan Turgenev
- J. M. Barrie
- Jack London
- Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
- James Baldwin
- James Joyce
- Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
- John Breck
- John Buchan
- John Galsworthy
- John Kendrick Bangs
- Joseph Conrad
- Jules Verne
- Katherine Mansfield
- L. Frank Baum
- Lafcadio Hearn
- Laura Lee Hope
- Leo Tolstoy
- Louisa May Alcott
- Lucy Maud Montgomery
- M. R. James
- Margaret Sidney
- Mark Twain
- Mary Elizabeth Braddon
- Mildred A. Wirt Benson
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
- O. Henry
- Oliver Onions
- Oscar Wilde
- Owen Wister
- P.G. Wodehouse
- Pansy
- Rev. Gerald T. Brennan
- Richard Barnum
- Richmal Crompton
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Rudyard Kipling
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- Stephen Crane
- Susan Glaspell
- Thomas Hardy
- Thornton W. Burgess
- Victor Hugo
- W. Somerset Maugham
- Washington Irving
- Wilkie Collins
Related Pages on Century Past
See our Century Past directories for hundreds of webpages of Books; Magazines; Articles, maps, & photos; and Newspapers. You’ll find the same directories on the top Menu. Here are a few suggested pages: