This book is a compilation of classic short stories by the world's greatest writers. The stories have been carefully chosen to showcase the authors' versatility and skill as storytellers. The collection covers an extraordinary range of themes, styles and settings, allowing the reader to get a glimpse of another world gone by. Yet, these stories seem timeless, and the characters in them show the same foibles, fears and hopes as people in the brave new world of the 21st century. This collection includes works by:

E.M. Forster, Walter de la Mare, Joseph Conrad, Mulk Raj Anand, Katherine Mansfield, Anatole France, Karel Capek, Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Pushkin, Hans Christian Andersen, Giovanni Boccaccio, Nizami, Edith Wharton, Edgar Allan Poe, "Saki", W. Somerset Maugham, R.L. Stevenson, Liam O'Flaherty, Guy de Maupassant, Anton Chehov, Maxim Gorky, Miguel Cervantes, Luigi Pirandello, Richard F. Burton, O. Henry and Ernest Hemingway