The Best Stories Ever Told

Length Index Added

Now you can choose a story based on length--great when you're pressed for time, or when you have a long quiet evening ahead of you.

Check it out here!

Third Batch of 22 Stories Added

Twenty-two stories were added as a group on July 7-9, 2025.

Included here are:

the (year of publication)
the word count, and
the approximate reading times (silent/aloud)

"Araby" by James Joyce (1914) 2,330 words, 12/18minutes
"Bartleby the Scrivener" by Herman Melville (1853) 14,460 words, 1:12/1:50 hours:minutes
"Bernice Bobs Her Hair" by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1920) 8,790 words, 44/68minutes
"The Emperor's New Clothes" by Hans Christian Andersen (1837) 1,870 words, 10/15 minutes
"The Happy Prince" by Oscar Wilde (1888) 3,470 words, 17/27 minutes
"Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway (1927) 1,460 words, 7/11 minutes
"Iron Hans" from Grimm's Fairy Tales (1812) 3,210 words, 16/25 minutes
"The Lady or the Tiger?" by Frank R. Stockton (1882) 2,700 words, 14/21 minutes
"Landing in Luck" by William Faulkner (1919) 2,180 words, 11/17 minutes
"The Lottery Ticket" by Anton Chekhov (1887) 1,870 words, 9/14 minutes
"The Man who Never Laughed During the Rest of His Days" from The 1,001 Nights (1882) 2,530 words, 13/19 minutes
"Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka (1915) 22,010 words, 1:50/2:50 hours:minutes
"The Monkey's Paw" by W. W. Jacobs (1902) 3,940 words, 20/30 minutes
"The Open Window" by Saki (1911) 1,210 words, 6/9 minutes
"A Pair of Silk Stockings" by Kate Chopin (1897) 1,900 words, 10/15 minutes
"The Pardoner's Tale" by Geoffrey Chaucer (1400/1904) 1,620 words, 10/16 minutes
"The Pied Piper" by Robert Browning (1842) 2,080 words, 10/16 minutes
"The Rocking Horse Winner" by D. H. Lawrence (1923) 5,580 words, 28/43 minutes
"The Three Hermits" by Leo Tolstoy (1884) 2,610 words, 13/20 minutes
"A White Heron" by Sarah Orne Jewett (1886) 4,260 words, 21/33 minutes
"The Wooing of Olwen" from The Mabinogion (c 1100; trans c 1840) 3,530 words, 18/27 minutes
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892) 6,140 words, 31/47 minutes

"The Door in the Wall" Added

On July 6, 2025, I added "The Door in the Wall" by H. G. Wells.

Included here is the (year of publication), the word count, and the approximate reading times (silent/aloud).

"The Door in the Wall" by H. G. Wells.(1906) 6,920 words, 35/53 minutes

Second Batch of 14 Stories Added

Fourteen stories were added as a group on June 30, 2025.

Included here are:

the (year of publication)
the word count, and
the approximate reading times (silent/aloud)

"The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" by Stephen Crane (1898) 4,350 words, 22/33 minutes
"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" by Mark Twain (1865) 2,570 words, 13/20 minutes
"Momotaro, or the Story of the Son of a Peach" by Yei Theodora Ozaki (1908) 4,400 words, 22/34 minutes
"The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant (1884) 2,850 words, 14/22 minutes
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce (1890) 3,760 words, 20/29 minutes
"Oshidori (The Mandarin Ducks)" by Lafcadio Hearne (1904) 590 words, 3/5 minutes
"The Outcasts of Poker Flat" by Bret Harte (1869) 4,030 words, 20/31 minutes
"The Penance of Magdalena" by J. Smeaton Chase (1915) 5,380 words, 27/41 minutes
"Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" by Rudyard Kipling (1894) 5,920 words, 30/46 minutes
"Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving (1819) 6,890 words, 34/53 minutes
"The Soul of a Regiment" by Talbot Mundy (1912) 5,000 words, 25/38 minutes
"The Speckled Band" by Arthur Conan Doyle (1892) 9,820 words, 49/76 minutes
"Susannah and the Elders" from The Bible (2nd c BCE, trans. 1611) 1,450 words, 7/11 minutes
"Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1835) 5,240 words, 26/40 minutes

Reading Times

The reading times given at the start of each story are only approximate. The values given (already highly variable, depending on your reading speed) have been rounded to the nearest minute.

They are calculated at:

200 words a minute for reading silently
130 words a minute for reading aloud

Your reading speed--and thus your reading time--may vary!

First Batch of 5 Stories Added

These 5 stories were actually created for the original "Best Stories" website, and were moved here from there on June 22, 2025.

Included here are:

the (year of publication)
the word count, and
the approximate reading times (silent/aloud)

"Acoma," from Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather (1927) 5,310 words, 27/41 minutes
"The Caballero's Way" by O. Henry (1914) 4,650 words, 23/36 minutes
"The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe (1846) 2,345 words, 12/18 minutes
"Childe Rowland" by Joseph Jacobs (1890) 1,840 words, 9/14 minutes
"Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" by M. R. James (1904) 7,990 words, 40/61 minutes