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The Library
125 timeless public-domain stories — a new one every Monday, and every one of them yours to read anytime.
❤️
Love
🎁
The Gift of the Magi
O. Henry · 1905
A young couple, desperately poor, each secretly sells their greatest treasure to buy a gift for the other — an…
🐰
The Velveteen Rabbit
Margery Williams · 1922
A stuffed rabbit learns from a wise old horse what it truly means to become Real — it doesn't happen to those …
🕊️
What Men Live By
Leo Tolstoy · 1885
A cold, penniless shoemaker brings a stranger in from the snow. Years later he learns the stranger was an ange…
❤️
Love Is Patient — 1 Corinthians 13
The Apostle Paul · 55
The most beloved chapter on love ever written — read at more weddings than any other words in history, and sti…
🕯️
Where Love Is, God Is
Leo Tolstoy · 1885
An old shoemaker named Martin dreams that the Lord will visit him. All day he waits — and all day, one by one,…
🎨
A Service of Love
O. Henry · 1906
Two young artists in love are each secretly working hard so the other can paint. Their gentle deception is one…
🍎
Eve's Diary
Mark Twain · 1905
Adam and Eve's first days in the Garden, told in Eve's own loving, funny diary. Mark Twain's tender tribute to…
🕯️
What Christmas Is As We Grow Older
Charles Dickens · 1851
As we grow older, Christmas gains a tender sweetness it never had in childhood. Dickens' lovely meditation on …
💎
The Great Carbuncle
Nathaniel Hawthorne · 1837
Six pilgrims climb the mountain to find a fabled jewel that glows in the dark. Two of them, a young couple, di…
🐏
The Good Shepherd (John 10)
The Gospel of John · 90
'I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.' The tenderest self-portrait in scri…
🦢
The Wild Swans
Hans Christian Andersen · 1838
Eleven princes are turned into wild swans by their wicked stepmother. Only their sister Elisa can save them — …
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The Loveliest Rose in the World
Hans Christian Andersen · 1851
The queen lies dying, and only the loveliest rose in the world can save her — the rose that springs from a mot…
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Jorinde and Joringel
The Brothers Grimm · 1812
An old enchantress turns pretty maidens into birds — and Jorinde becomes a nightingale singing in a cage. Jori…
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The Six Swans
The Brothers Grimm · 1812
Six brothers are turned into swans. Their sister must sew six shirts of star-flowers and stay silent for six y…
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Beauty and the Beast
Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve · 1756
A merchant plucks a single rose for his daughter, and a terrible Beast demands a life in return. Beauty goes t…
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Mammon and the Archer
O. Henry · 1906
Old Anthony Rockwall, who believes money can buy anything, bets his son can win the girl he loves. The million…
🌅
Hope
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The Last Leaf
O. Henry · 1907
A dying artist counts the leaves falling outside her window, certain she will go when the last one falls. One …
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The Luck of Roaring Camp
Bret Harte · 1868
The roughest, most lawless mining camp in the West is transformed by the arrival of one small, helpless visito…
⭐
The Skylight Room
O. Henry · 1906
Miss Leeson rents a closet of a room with a skylight and names her favorite star. When fever takes her, the st…
👠
Cinderella
The Brothers Grimm · 1812
The most beloved rags-to-riches story ever told: a girl whose kindness to a hazel branch and to the birds brin…
🌱
Springtime à la Carte
O. Henry · 1906
Sarah, a typewriter who types restaurant menus, has lost her sweetheart to a job in the country. Spring comes …
🌄
The Enchanted Bluff
Willa Cather · 1909
Six boys on a sandbar at sunset talk about the Enchanted Bluff — a great rock in the desert none of them has s…
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Compassion
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The Happy Prince
Oscar Wilde · 1888
A golden statue and a little swallow give away every jewel and every feather to the poor — and discover that t…
🔥
The Little Match Girl
Hans Christian Andersen · 1845
On the coldest night of the year, a barefoot little girl strikes match after match to warm her fingers — and e…
🤝
The Good Samaritan
The Gospel of Luke · 90
A man lies beaten by the road. The priest and the Levite pass by. Then comes a Samaritan — the one everyone de…
👑
The Young King
Oscar Wilde · 1891
A shepherd boy discovers he is heir to a throne. On the night before his coronation, he dreams of the sufferin…
📜
The Idyl of Red Gulch
Bret Harte · 1870
A gentle schoolmistress arrives in a rough mining camp, and the camp falls quietly in love with her. But Miss …
🐑
The Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin (Luke 15)
The Gospel of Luke · 80
A shepherd leaves ninety-nine sheep to find the one that wandered. A woman lights a lamp to find one lost coin…
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Kindness
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The Selfish Giant
Oscar Wilde · 1888
A giant banishes children from his beautiful garden — and winter never leaves until he learns that every wall …
🏞️
The King of the Golden River
John Ruskin · 1841
Two cruel brothers guard a beautiful valley — and a river that turns everything it touches to gold. Only one w…
🧝
The Elves and the Shoemaker
The Brothers Grimm · 1812
A poor shoemaker cuts his last piece of leather and lays it out for the morning. When he wakes, the work is do…
🕯
The Candle
Leo Tolstoy · 1885
A gentle peasant is sent into the dark with a candle, though his cruel overseer wishes him ill. What the light…
🪶
Mother Holle
The Brothers Grimm · 1812
A good girl loses her spindle down a well, and must climb down after it into Mother Holle's world — where she …
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The Golden Goose
The Brothers Grimm · 1812
The youngest son, called Simpleton, shares his cake and beer with a little grey man in the forest — and receiv…
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Snow White and Rose Red
The Brothers Grimm · 1826
Two sisters — one gentle as a snowdrop, one bright as a rose — befriend a shaggy brown bear who comes to warm …
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The Queen Bee
The Brothers Grimm · 1812
Two clever brothers mock their 'silly' youngest brother — but it is he who spares the ants, the ducks and the …
🐍
The White Snake
The Brothers Grimm · 1812
A servant tastes the king's white snake and gains the language of animals. Because he spares a fish, an ant an…
🌲
The Three Little Men in the Wood
The Brothers Grimm · 1812
Sent out into the frozen forest in a paper dress, a good girl shares her bread with three little men and lets …
👴
The Old Man and His Grandson
The Brothers Grimm · 1812
A trembling old man is fed from a wooden bowl in the corner, until his little grandson starts carving a bowl o…
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Wisdom
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The Three Questions
Leo Tolstoy · 1885
A king seeks the answers to the three most important questions in life. He finds them not in a palace of learn…
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How Much Land Does a Man Need?
Leo Tolstoy · 1886
A peasant is promised all the land he can walk around in a day. He walks further and further, wanting just a l…
💤
David Swan
Nathaniel Hawthorne · 1837
A young man sleeps by the roadside while three lives — and three fortunes — pass within a hand's reach. Hawtho…
🥁
The Empty Drum
Leo Tolstoy · 1891
A kind laborer is promised freedom if he can beat a magic drum. Watch him outwit an emperor with nothing but g…
🦋
The Butterfly That Stamped
Rudyard Kipling · 1902
The wisest king in the world has a thousand wives — and one tiny butterfly wife who stamps her foot. How a but…
🎁
Giving
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Why the Chimes Rang
Raymond Macdonald Alden · 1906
The great chimes of the cathedral have not rung for a hundred years — they ring only when a gift of perfect lo…
⭐
The Star Money
The Brothers Grimm · 1812
An orphan girl gives away her last bread, her coat, and her little dress to those in need — and the stars them…
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The Imp and the Crust
Leo Tolstoy · 1885
A devil bets he can make a poor peasant angry — but the peasant keeps giving his bread away. Watching the devi…
🎁
The Seven Poor Travellers
Charles Dickens · 1854
On Christmas Eve in Rochester, a charity feeds six poor travelers — and the narrator becomes the seventh, only…
💰
The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25)
The Gospel of Matthew · 80
A master gives his servants talents before a long journey. Two invest and multiply; one buries his in fear. Th…
🪙
The Widow's Mite (Mark 12)
The Gospel of Mark · 70
The rich cast in much; a poor widow casts in two mites — all she had. And Jesus says she gave more than them a…
🎩
The Model Millionaire
Oscar Wilde · 1887
Poor Hughie Erskine, handsome and hopeless with money, gives his last sovereign to a shabby beggar posing for …
🦃
Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen
O. Henry · 1907
Every Thanksgiving, a ragged old gentleman treats a poor young man to a feast — their secret tradition for nin…
🎄
A Merry Christmas (Little Women)
Louisa May Alcott · 1868
Four sisters wake on Christmas morning with no presents but their mother's letter — and a breakfast they're ab…
🔥
Courage
🛡️
The Knights of the Silver Shield
Raymond Macdonald Alden · 1906
Every knight's shield grows bright with brave deeds — but only the truest of hearts earns the golden star. You…
🔥
The Man in the Arena
Theodore Roosevelt · 1910
The most quoted passage in the English language about courage — from a speech Roosevelt gave in Paris, about t…
🏹
The Story of Keesh
Jack London · 1902
A boy of thirteen whose father died hunting stands up in the council of the Eskimo elders and demands his shar…
🦔
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
Rudyard Kipling · 1894
A small, brave mongoose is washed into a garden and taken in by a family. When two cobras threaten the people …
🪨
David and Goliath
The First Book of Samuel · -1000
A giant defies an army for forty days. A shepherd boy arrives with a sling, five stones, and a faith that gian…
🎖️
The Steadfast Tin Soldier
Hans Christian Andersen · 1838
Five-and-twenty tin soldiers, all brothers — but one has only one leg. He stands guard over a paper ballerina …
❄️
The Snow Queen
Hans Christian Andersen · 1844
A splinter of a wicked mirror lodges in little Kai's heart, and the Snow Queen carries him off to her frozen p…
💧
The Water of Life
The Brothers Grimm · 1812
A dying king needs the Water of Life, hidden in an enchanted castle. Two proud brothers ride out and fail; the…
⚔️
The Valiant Little Tailor
The Brothers Grimm · 1812
A little tailor kills seven flies with one blow — and is so proud he stitched 'SEVEN AT ONE STROKE' on his bel…
🐎
The Maltese Cat
Rudyard Kipling · 1895
The Maltese Cat — a grey polo pony with a genius for the game — leads the British team in the biggest match of…
🏡
The Revolt of 'Mother'
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman · 1890
For forty years Father has promised a new house, and for forty years the family has lived in the old one while…
😊
Joy
😊
The Bag of Smiles
Raymond Macdonald Alden · 1906
A mysterious bag that fills with the sweetest of smiles — but only when they are given away, never when kept. …
🐆
The Princess and the Puma
O. Henry · 1907
On a Texas ranch, a quick-witted young woman faces down a puma with a six-shooter — or does she? A sparkling c…
😂
The Ransom of Red Chief
O. Henry · 1910
Two kidnappers snatch a ten-year-old terror for ransom and get far more trouble than they bargained for. The f…
⚖️
The Whirligig of Life
O. Henry · 1910
In a mountain courthouse, Justice Widdup handles divorces, fines, and the oddest cases of the human heart. Lif…
🐸
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Mark Twain · 1865
A stranger bets on a frog-jumping contest and hears about the celebrated jumper Dan'l Webster — and about the …
✨
A Christmas Tree
Charles Dickens · 1850
Dickens walks through a Victorian Christmas tree, unwrapping every ornament into a memory. A shimmering, nosta…
🎆
The Remarkable Rocket
Oscar Wilde · 1888
A firework so vain he thinks the wedding celebration is being held in his honour. He weeps, boasts, and gets d…
🍽️
The Brief Debut of Tildy
O. Henry · 1906
A flower of a girl works at Bogle's Chop House, but no man ever notices her — until one day a customer kisses …
😊
The Glad Game (Pollyanna)
Eleanor H. Porter · 1913
Orphaned Pollyanna arrives at her stern aunt's house with a game her father taught her: find something to be g…
🧡
Anne's Arrival (Anne of Green Gables)
L. M. Montgomery · 1908
Matthew Cuthbert goes to the station expecting a boy to help on the farm — and finds a skinny red-haired girl …
🦢
Belonging
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The Ugly Duckling
Hans Christian Andersen · 1843
Scorned by every creature in the farmyard, an awkward grey duckling endures a long, cold winter — until spring…
🐺
Mowgli's Brothers
Rudyard Kipling · 1894
A baby wanders into a wolf's den, and the pack takes him in as one of their own. The beginning of the greatest…
🏡
The Threefold Destiny
Nathaniel Hawthorne · 1852
A young man leaves home to find the three great things fate promised him: love, a treasure, and a life's work.…
🍇
I Am the Vine (John 15)
The Gospel of John · 90
'I am the vine, ye are the branches.' The beautiful image of how we draw life and love — abide in me, and bear…
🏔️
Up the Mountain (Heidi)
Johanna Spyri · 1880
Five-year-old Heidi is brought by her aunt to the loneliest hut in the Alps, to a grandfather nobody in the vi…
🙏
Gratitude
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The Lion and the Shepherd
Aesop · -600
A shepherd pulls a thorn from a lion's paw. Years later, in the arena, the same lion remembers the kindness — …
🦁
The Lion and the Mouse
Aesop · -600
A tiny mouse wakes a sleeping lion — and the lion, amused, lets it go. 'You may need me one day,' says the mou…
🦁
Androcles and the Lion
Aesop · -100
A runaway slave hides in a cave and finds a lion with a thorn in his paw. Androcles pulls it out — and years l…
🐜
The Ant and the Dove
Aesop · -100
A dove drops a leaf to save a drowning ant. Later, when the dove is in a hunter's snare, the ant bites the hun…
🪨
Perseverance
🥤
The Crow and the Pitcher
Aesop · -600
A thirsty crow finds water at the bottom of a tall pitcher. It cannot reach, cannot tip it — but it is not fin…
🐢
The Tortoise and the Hare
Aesop · -600
The fastest creature in the forest races the slowest — and takes a nap mid-way. The oldest lesson in the world…
🦭
The White Seal
Rudyard Kipling · 1894
A young seal named Kotick searches the wide ocean for a place where no man will ever come. His courage and stu…
🏡
Forgiveness
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The Prodigal Son
The Gospel of Luke · 90
A son demands his inheritance, wastes it all, and returns in rags expecting only scorn. His father sees him fr…
🕊️
God Sees the Truth, But Waits
Leo Tolstoy · 1872
A young merchant is wrongly imprisoned for a murder he didn't commit. For twenty-six years he endures — until …
🔥
A Spark Neglected Burns the House
Leo Tolstoy · 1885
A small quarrel between neighbors smolders into a feud that burns a family down. Tolstoy shows how one act of …
✨
Redemption
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A Retrieved Reformation
O. Henry · 1903
Jimmy Valentine, the smoothest safecracker in the Midwest, falls in love and swears off crime. Then a child's …
🌟
The Star-Child
Oscar Wilde · 1891
A child found in the forest with a star on his brow grows beautiful — and cruel. He scorns the beggar woman wh…
🙏
The Repentant Sinner
Leo Tolstoy · 1886
A man who has sinned all his life finally asks forgiveness, and heaven itself cannot agree on how to answer. A…
🎄
The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton
Charles Dickens · 1836
Gabriel Grub, the surliest sexton in England, hates Christmas and everyone who enjoys it. Then the goblins tak…
✨
Becoming
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The Great Stone Face
Nathaniel Hawthorne · 1850
A prophecy says one day a man will be born who resembles the great stone face on the mountain — a man of noble…
🌾
The Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13)
The Gospel of Matthew · 80
A sower scatters seed on four kinds of ground. Some falls on rock, some among thorns, some on good soil — and …
🚢
The Ship That Found Herself
Rudyard Kipling · 1895
A brand-new steamship goes to sea, her rivets and plates all quarrelling about which part of her is the most i…
✨
Wonder
🐟
The Magic Fishbone
Charles Dickens · 1868
A princess in a noisy, enormous family is given a magic fishbone by her fairy godmother — a wish that must be …
🚪
The Green Door
O. Henry · 1906
A handbill offering a green door and a new adventure lands in a hungry man's pocket. What he finds behind it m…
💷
The £1,000,000 Bank-Note
Mark Twain · 1893
A penniless clerk is handed a bank-note worth a million pounds — and forbidden to spend it. Watch how one piec…
🐘
The Elephant's Child
Rudyard Kipling · 1902
A curious baby elephant asks too many questions and gets his nose pulled — until the crocodile stretches it in…
🎨
How the Leopard Got His Spots
Rudyard Kipling · 1902
When the High Veldt becomes a forest, the leopard and the Ethiopian must learn to blend in. A hilarious tale o…
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The Snow-Image
Nathaniel Hawthorne · 1852
On a snowy afternoon, two children build a little snow-girl who seems almost alive. Their mother's tenderness …
🎶
The Nightingale
Hans Christian Andersen · 1843
The Emperor of China has the most exquisite palace in the world — but the loveliest thing in his empire is a p…
🖼️
The Enchanted Profile
O. Henry · 1906
Three friends at a café discover that one of them — plain, ordinary Katy — has the profile of a goddess when s…
🕊️
A White Heron
Sarah Orne Jewett · 1886
Sylvia, a shy country girl who has made friends with every creature in the woods, meets a young ornithologist …
🐉
The Book of Beasts
E. Nesbit · 1900
Little Lionel becomes king of the whole country — and opens the forbidden Book of Beasts, where the pictures a…
✨
Sacrifice
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The Nightingale and the Rose
Oscar Wilde · 1888
A student weeps for a red rose to give his love — and a nightingale hears him. There is one way to make the ro…
❄️
Master and Man
Leo Tolstoy · 1895
A greedy merchant and his gentle servant are lost in a blinding blizzard. In the snow, a man discovers what hi…
📅
Two Old Men
Leo Tolstoy · 1885
Two old friends set out together on a long pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Along the road, one keeps stopping to help…
✨
Friendship
🦆
The Devoted Friend
Oscar Wilde · 1888
Little Hans has a 'devoted friend' in the rich Miller — who talks endlessly of friendship, yet takes everythin…
🤝
After Twenty Years
O. Henry · 1906
Two friends part as boys, promising to meet in twenty years at the same spot. One keeps the promise; the other…
⛏️
Tennessee's Partner
Bret Harte · 1869
When his old friend Tennessee falls into trouble, his partner stands by him with a loyalty that shames the who…
🎻
The Bremen Town Musicians
The Brothers Grimm · 1812
A donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster — all too old to work, all about to be discarded — decide to run away tog…
🚣
The River Bank (The Wind in the Willows)
Kenneth Grahame · 1908
Spring-cleaning! 'Bother!' said the Mole, and simply walked out of his burrow — into the sunshine, the meadow,…
✨
Loyalty
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Ruth and Naomi
The Book of Ruth · -400
A widowed daughter-in-law refuses to abandon her grieving mother-in-law. 'Whither thou goest, I will go.' The …
🪿
The Goose Girl
The Brothers Grimm · 1812
A princess rides to meet her bridegroom, with a talking horse and a waiting-maid who steals her place. Strippe…
✨
Faith
⛪
The Three Hermits
Leo Tolstoy · 1886
A learned bishop sails out to visit three old hermits who know only one simple prayer. Their humble faith teac…
🚪
The Friend at Midnight (Luke 11)
The Gospel of Luke · 80
A man knocks at his friend's door at midnight for bread — and because of his importunity, the friend rises and…
🕯️
Peace
🕯️
Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled (John 14)
The Gospel of John · 90
'Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.' The farewell words of comfort — 'Peac…
🐭
The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse
Aesop · -100
The country mouse visits his cousin's fine town house and finds a feast — chased by dogs and cats. 'Better bea…