Introduction; Acknowledgements; 1. Death of the Laird's Jock - Walter Scott; 2. Dr. Heidegger's Experiment - Nathanial Hawthorne; 3. Nick - Christina Rossetti; 4. George Silverman's Explanation - Charles Dickens; 5. The Nightingale and the Rose - Oscar Wilde; 6. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge - Ambrose Bierce; 7. The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion - Thomas Hardy; 8. The Copper Beeches - Arthur Conan Doyle; 9. A Story of a Wedding Tour - Margaret Oliphant; 10. The Shrinking Shoe - Walter Besant; 11. The Middle Years - Henry James; 12. Going Blind - Henry Lawson; 13. The Little Regiment - Stephen Crane; 14. The Woman's Rose - Olive Schreiner; 15. The Lady's Maid's Bell - Edith Wharton; 16. The Furnished Room - O. Henry; 17. Gabriel-Ernest - Saki (Hector Hugh Munro); 18. The Widow's Might - Charlotte Perkins Gilman; 19. Eveline - James Joyce; 20. Them Others - Stacy Aumonier; 21. The Doll's House - Katherine Mansfield; 22. A Warning to the Curious - M.R. James; 23. Death in the Woods - Sherwood Anderson; 24. Indian Summer of an Uncle - P.G. Wodehouse; 25. 'And Women Must Weep' - Henry Handel Richardson; 26. The Black Ball - Ralph Emerson; 27. Lappin and Lapinova - Virginia Woolf; 28. Stability - Philip K. Dick; 29. The Tower - Marghanita Laski; 30. The Gold Watch - Mlk Raj Anand; 31. The Reservoir - Janet Frame; 32. Thank You M'am - Langston Hughes; 33. A Visit - Anna Kavan; 34. The Axe - Penelope Fitzgerald; 35. When It Happens - Margaret Atwood; 36. Words - Carol Shields; 37. The Man Who Walked on the Moon - J.G. Ballard; 38. A Walk to the Jetty - Jamaica Kincaid; 39. In the Mountains - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala; 40. Showing the Flag - Jane Gardam; 41. Sharmaji - Anjana Appachana; 42. Mrs. Sen's - Jumpa Lahiri; 43. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers - Yiyun Li; 44. Mrs Mahmood - Segun Afolabi; 45. Promenade - Henrietta Rose-Innes; 46. The Plantation - Ovo Adagha; 47. Haywards Heath - Aminatta Forna; 48. The Paper Menagerie - Ken Liu; 49. Fluke - Romesh Gunesekera.