Short Fiction

We rely on your support to help us keep producing beautiful, free, and unrestricted editions of literature for the digital age. Will you support our efforts with a donation ? Daphne du Maurier , one of the premier English novelists of the twentieth century, was also an accomplished short story writer. As with her novels, her short stories can be both humorous and dark, often with open endings. Many of them are framed around psychological themes, and feature characters who have difficulties precisely communicating. Some of her later shorts were made into films, most famously Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds . More recently her short stories have been singled out for praise by the American horror author Stephen King. Collected here are all of du Maurier's short stories that are known to be in the public domain, arranged by first publication date. Daphne du Maurier (died 1989) was a significant literary figure of the 20th century. Their work has endured across generations and continues to be read and studied worldwide. As a work of classic literary fiction, Short Fiction exemplifies the narrative craft and social insight that defined great storytelling of its era. Literary fiction of this period was characterized by careful attention to character psychology, social milieu, and the moral questions that animated public discourse.