A short story is a ‘moment’s monument’. It is a curious thing, indeed, for a truly well-told short story leaves the reader at once satisfied and eager for more of the same.

In this anthology, writer and ace editor Terry O’Brien has brought together forty-one short stories from around the world, each one a masterpiece. Selected for their imagination and style, subject matter and richness of language, these are stories that broke new ground and shaped the literature of our time. It is a collection that is varied and diverse, tied together through exemplary writing.

Every writer here is a master of the form: from American poet-writer Edgar Allen Poe to Nobel laureate Ernest Hemingway; from English authors Somerset Maugham and Virginia Woolf to French naturalist and writer Guy de Maupassant and his American counterpart O. Henry; from horror and fantasy writer M.R. James to Jungle Book creator Rudyard Kipling; from Russian playwright Anton Chekhov to Colombian legend Gabriel García Márquez. The Best Short Stories Ever is a definitive collection of the finest short stories ever written.