31 Free Great Short Stories That Will Blow Your Mind

If you have a short attention span like me, short stories always do the work when you’re craving for a quick read. In this compilation, we’ve covered over 31 free great short stories from various genres, including sci-fi, fantasy, fiction, poetry and a majority of them from the public domain. If you need a break from your longer reading session, these short stories could be your short escape to soldier on the bigger battles. Some of the popular authors that you may find in this list are H.P. Lovecraft, Donald Barthelme, Jerome David Salinger, David Foster Wallace and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. to name a few.

While browsing this list, you may notice that some of the titles might ring a bell or two, or you may even have read them in the past. Nonetheless, we’re pretty sure there’ll be some short stories which you haven’t gotten your eyes on. Additionally, feel free to let us know if you know any other free short stories out there which we’ve not listed here. Happy reading and don’t forget to be our patreon.

Without further ado, here’s the list:-

1. A weekly magazine of and about speculative fiction. by Strange Horizons – They publish fiction, poetry, reviews, essays, interviews, roundtable discussions, and art.
2. All written work by Donald Barthelme
3. Full Texts and Ghost Stories by Montague Rhodes James
4. Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Borges
5. Moxon’s Master by Ambrose Pierce
6. Bears Discover Fire by Terry Bisson
7. 112 Stories by H.P. Lovecraft
8. The Laughing Man by Jerome David Salinger
9. Sleep by Haruki Murakami
10. Good Old Neon by David Foster Wallace
11. The Depressed Person by David Foster Wallace
12. A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury
13. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
14. Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
15. The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell
16. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
17. To Build a Fire by Jack London
18. 30 Short Stories by Edgar Allan Poe
19. Dubliners by James Joyce
20. The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville
21. The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain
22. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
23. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce
24. The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
25. Mosses from an Old Manse, and Other Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne
26. Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne
27. The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne
28. The House of Souls by Arthur Machen
29. The Open Boat by Stephen Crane
30. The Blue Hotel by Stephen Crane
31. The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky by Stephen Crane