Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.

In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?

The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme. Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature.

Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made. If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something.

These novelists burst with a literary energy that is hard to contain. They cover a myriad of styles and themes, narratives packed full of fully-formed characters in powerful tales that have become an essential and integral part of our literary heritage.

01 - The Top 10 - The Classic Novelists - An Introduction

02 - Transcendental Wild Oats by Louisa May Alcott

03 - The Signalman by Charles Dickens

04 - The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fyodor Dostovesky

05 - Bernice Bobs Her Hair by F Scott Fitzgerald

06 - The Sexton's Hero by Elizabeth Gaskell

07 - The Dead by James Joyce

08 - How Much Land Does A Man Need by Leo Tolstoy

09 - Malachi's Cove by Anthony Trollope

10 - Eve's Diary by Mark Twain

11 - Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf