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 Edger Allan 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 Chekov to Colombian legend Gabriel García Márquez. The Best Short Stories Ever is a definitive collection of the finest short stories ever written.