Short Story

"The Great Simoleon Caper" is a short story by Neal Stephenson that appeared in TIME Domestic SPECIAL ISSUE, Spring 1995 Volume 145, No. 12 (March 1, 1995). It deals with concepts familiar to Stephenson's fans: encryption, digital currency and distributed republic. It appears to be set in a United States that precedes the events in Stephenson's novel Snow Crash, using an early version of his Metaverse. Interestingly, simoleons are the currency used in Sim-series games, such as SimCity 2000 and...

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption (1982) is a novella by Stephen King, originally published in Different Seasons. The novella was adapted for the screen in the film The Shawshank Redemption. The story of Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption begins in 1948 when Andy Dufrene arrives at Shawshank prison. In contrast to most other convicts, Dufrene is not a hardened criminal but a soft-spoken young banker, convicted of killing his wife and her lover. His crime bears many similarities to the...

"Rip Van Winkle" is a short story by the American author Washington Irving published in 1819, as well as the name of the story's fictional protagonist. Written while Irving was living in Birmingham, England, it was part of a collection of stories entitled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon. Although the story is set in New York's Catskill Mountains, Irving later admitted, "When I wrote the story, I had never been on the Catskills." The story of Rip Van Winkle is set in the years before and...

"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1843. It follows an unnamed narrator who insists on his sanity after murder an old man with a "vulture eye". The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer hides the body by cutting it into pieces and hiding it under the floorboards. Ultimately the narrator's guilt manifests itself in the hallucination that the man's heart is still beating under the floorboards. It is unclear what relationship, if any, the old...

"The Pit and the Pendulum" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1842. The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, though Poe skews historical facts. The narrator of the story is deemed guilty for an unnamed crime and put into a completely dark room. He passes out while trying to determine the size of the room. When he wakes up, he realizes there is a large, deep pit in the middle of the room. He loses consciousness again and...

"William Wilson" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe with a setting inspired by Poe's formative years outside of London. The tale follows the theme of the doppelgänger and is written in a style based on rationality. It was first published in 1839, later appeared in the 1840 collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, and has been adapted several times. The story begins with the narrator, a man of "a noble descent" who calls himself William Wilson, denouncing his profligate past, although...

"Ligeia" is an early short story written by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1838. The story follows an unnamed narrator and his wife Ligeia, a beautiful and intelligent raven-haired woman. She recites "The Conqueror Worm" before she dies and suggests that life is sustainable only through willpower. After her death, the narrator marries the Lady Rowena. Rowena becomes ill and she dies as well. The distraught narrator stays with her body overnight when Rowena slowly comes back from the dead -...

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in Graham's Magazine in 1841. Today, it is considered the first detective story. Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of ratiocination". C. Auguste Dupin is a man in Paris who decides to solve the mysterious brutal murder of two women in that city after a suspect has been arrested. Numerous witnesses are quoted in the newspaper as having heard a suspect, though the witnesses each think it was a different...

"The Balloon-Hoax" is the title now used for a newspaper article written by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1844. Originally presented as a true story, it detailed European Monck Mason's trip across the Atlantic Ocean in only three days in a hot air balloon. It was later revealed as a hoax and the story was retracted two days later. The story now known as "The Balloon-Hoax" was first printed in The Sun newspaper in New York. It ran with the headline: The article went on to provide a...