An early piece by Thomas Mann, who would go on to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature: “The Child Prodigy”

“Lobo, the King of Currumpaw,” the first story of Ernest Thompson Seton’s book, Wild Animals I have Known.

Two by Saki: The Open Door, Esmé

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic Sherlock Holmes tale, The Speckled Band

Born in 1905, still kickin' and stayin" in print: Ellis Parker Butler's "Pigs Is Pigs."

Maurice Leblanc's greatest creation is the gentleman thief and detective Arsène Lupin. Here he is in The Queen's Necklace.

Two pieces by the English author and playwright, W. Somerset Maugham: The Portrait of a Gentleman and The Ant and the Grasshopper

Sheer delight from Rudyard Kipling, author of the best bedtime stories ever: The Just So Stories.

Wit and economy in a tale of murder by Dorothy Sayers.

A selection of Aesop’s Fables from among my favorites.