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Robert Louis Stevenson, famed author of Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, continues to provoke both hatred and idolatry, and there are now well over a hundred biographical books and essays on Stevenson and his work. T

“The Lady or the Tiger?” is one of the most anthologized short stories for adolescents and teens, often appearing in literature collections and possessing a unique place in the short story genre: it leaves the ending to the reader, or the listener, in our case. The plot is left unresolved.

Today’s author, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, sought to demonstrate her values as a feminist.

Today’s selections, a group of twenty-five Christmas poems, come from some of the greatest poetic voices of the English language.

We return today to the fictional town of Jefferson, Mississippi, made somewhat famous by William Faulkner as the locus for many of his short stories.

Today we examine another one of the three hundred short stories written by the French author Guy de Maupassant, who is featured here on Just Listen several times already but a great favorite of this podcast and considered by many, still, to be the father of the short story.

Today’s author, Mary Lerner, had her 1916 story “Little Selves” published in the September issue of Atlantic Monthly.

"Mademoiselle Fifi" is a short story by Guy de Maupassant.

One of the things I most enjoy about presenting stories here is the great fun I find in discovering the personal lives of authors. Not only do our authors present us with brilliant literature, but they also give us glimpses into lives that are indeed majestic and fascinating. People like Jack London and Edith Wharton certainly come readily to mind, giants in their own time, and for me, H.G. Wells stands out among his peers for both the quantity of his work (over l00 books!) and for the human intricacies of his private life – as colorful as almost any of his books.

Today’s story, “The Ledge” by Lawrence Sargent Hall, won first place in the 1960 O Henry Prize Collection, and has appeared in more than 30 anthologies.

Today’s story, “The Farmer’s Children” by Elizabeth Bishop, an American poetry and short story writer, seems a showcase for the evil stepmother archetype.

Among the stories in the collection Bayou Folk by Kate Chopin is today's story, "Désirée's Baby," a tale of miscegenation in antebellum Louisiana, first published in 1893.

Through her different genres of work including children's stories, poems, and short stories, Mary Wilkins Freeman sought to demonstrate her values as a feminist.

Turning once again to one of America’s greatest fiction voices, we present today a story that displays Willa Cather’s keen observation and understanding of men, particularly when they are placed in a locus of trouble or consternation.

We are happy today to bring you our third Jack London story here.

Thomas Reid Pearson, aka T.R. Pearson, is fun, fun, fun to read. If you haven’t yet encountered this very imaginative author, you’re in for a treat today.

Today's story, by one of our foremost story contributors, Edith Wharton, has been the subject of scores of critical analyses and touches on numerous themes such as motherhood, aging, the accuracy of memory, and the search for truth, to name just a few.

Almost anyone could tell you the story of Rip Van Winkle in a sentence or three. Today we get to enjoy the tale in its entirety as presented by one of our favorite authors, Washington Irving.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, also known by her first married name Charlotte Perkins Stetson, lived from July 3, 1860 to August 17, 1935, and witnessed everything from the American Civil War to the Roaring Twenties to the Great Depression.

The characters in Kate Chopin’s stories are usually residents of Louisiana, and many are Creoles of various ethnic or racial backgrounds. Many of her works are set in Natchitoches in north-central Louisiana, a region where she lived.

Welcome back to our Christmas celebration of ghost stories by Edith Wharton. For the curious, alert, and not-too-easily frightened, we have several collections of Edith Wharton’s ghost stories here at the Nashville Public Library.

We are back with our old friend Oscar Wilde, who has several stories to hear here on Just Listen, with a didactic tale meant to be read to children called “The Devoted Friend.”

We welcome again our friend O. Henry, master short story author, poet, and newsman.

James Joyce was an Irish novelist, short story writer, poet, teacher, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century.

In our last episode, a group of wartime travelers attempts to escape the Prussian-occupied city of Rouen. They includea prostitute named Boule de Suif and are being held hostage at an inn by a Prussian officer who refuses to let them leave the town of Totes, where they are marooned after a snowstorm.

“Boule de Suif,” translated variously as "Dumpling," "Butterball," "Ball of Fat," "Tallow Ball," or "Ball of Lard," is a famous short story by the late 19th-century French writer Guy de Maupassant, first published in 1880.

Always one to point out the pretentions of the upper classes, Saki is also famous for usually giving us a wry twist to the endings of his stories.

With a youth full high jinks followed by travels through the Yukon and South Pacific, Jack London became during his lifetime one of the highest paid American writers. His stories are still loved all over the world.

“The Finish of Patsy Barnes” tells the story of the titular character, a poor young African-American boy, who enters a horse race in order to earn the money he needs to pay for his sick mother's treatment.

"The Catbird Seat" is a 1942 short story by James Thurber. The story first appeared in The New Yorker on November 14, 1942. The story was also published in the 1945 anthology The Thurber Carnival.

“Ashputtle,” is one of large number of fairy and folk tales published by the Brothers Grimm – Jacob and Wilhelm. The brothers were Hessian academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore during the 19th century.

“Two Friends,” by French short story maestro Guy de Maupassant, is a melancholic story about loyalty in which the characters Sauvage and Morissot share far more than a passion for fishing during wartime.

By the Waters of Babylon" is a post-apocalyptic short story by American writer Stephen Vincent Benét, first published July 31, 1937, in The Saturday Evening Post as "The Place of the Gods."

James Grover Thurber, born December 8, 1894, was an American cartoonist, author, humorist, journalist, playwright, and celebrated wit. He was best known for his cartoons and short stories, published mainly in The New Yorker and collected in his numerous books.

Sherwood Anderson was a very introspective and subjective writer, whose work was often loaded with personal experience.

“The Tapestried Chamber,” believed by many scholars to be the first “modern” ghost story, was first published in 1828.

The closing years of the French monarchy could scarcely have found a more faithful chronicler, or one better fitted for the task both by training and situation, than Madame Campan. Introduced into the Court of Louis XVas a young girl, she became one of the household of Marie Antoinette immediately after that princess came from Austria to wed the Dauphin, the King’s heir; and followed the fortunes of her royal mistress with unswerving devotion until the prison gates separated them.

"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is a long poem written by American poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892) as an elegy to President Abraham Lincoln. It was written in the summer of 1865 during a period of profound national mourning in the aftermath of the President's assassination on April 14 earlier that year.

Stephen Crane's short stories about the Civil War are stock items in student anthologies. They are often used to contrast Naturalism to Romanticism, which preceded it as an American literary genre.

Our final episode of English Romantic poetry - Poetry Panoply III.

Highly anthologized, “A Rose for Emily” begins with a title reminiscent of a lover’s offering and ends with a grisly reminder of the extent to which small town eccentricities can bloom into horror.

Poetry Panoply II continues our celebration of English Romantic Poetry.

The three Poetry Panoplies are comprised of English Romantic Poetry.

Today we examine excerpts from the writings of two famous Italian writers, whose works have influenced Western culture for over 600 years: Dante Alighieri and Giovanni Boccaccio.

Three poems full of suspense and excitement.

If you’ve never read or heard of the Japanese ghost stories of Lafcadio Hearn, you are in for a real ghost story lover’s treat.

Christina Rossetti's poem Goblin Market is one of her best known. Although it is ostensibly about two sisters' misadventures with goblins, critics have interpreted the piece in a variety of ways, seeing it as an allegory about temptation and salvation, a commentary on Victorian gender roles and female agency, and a work about erotic desire and social redemption.

Christina Georgina Rossetti, born on December 5, 1830, was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems. We begin today with a selection of devotional poems, then turn our attentions toward other topics—love, jealousy, and the burgeoning world of Victorian society.

Today we examine the work of two American poets, Sara Teasdale and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Both poets are featured in a new book by John Dizikes entitled Love Songs: The Lives, Loves, and Poetry of Nine American Women.

A short story cycle is a collection of short stories in which the narratives are specifically composed and arranged with the goal of creating an enhanced or different experience when reading the group as a whole as opposed to its individual parts. Today’s story from the Sherwood Anderson short story cycle Winesburg, Ohio, is entitled “Loneliness,” and concerns the character Enoch Robinson.