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A short story for every year from 1880 to 1960. See the difference in language and focus over time. Gothic tales and war stories become romances and science fiction.

1960 – August — A quiet, introspective portrait of memory, routine, and emotional distance in an ordinary life. Science Fiction

1959 – The Landlady — A cheerful boarding house conceals a chilling and lethal secret. Thriller

1958 – The Feeling of Power — In a computerized future, a forgotten human skill becomes dangerously powerful. Science Fiction

1957 – The Fly — A grieving man projects his cruelty onto a trapped insect. Science Fiction

1956 – The Last Question — Humanity repeatedly asks a supercomputer about the fate of the universe. Science Fiction

1955 – The Star — A triumphant scientific discovery carries an unbearable moral cost. Science Fiction

1954 – The Cold Equations — A man must decide between the life of a young woman and the life of an entire planet. Science Fiction

1953 – The Hanging Stranger — A man notices a corpse that no one else seems willing to see. Science Fiction

1952 – The Birds — A farmer finds the birds attacking him and his family. Thriller

1951 – The Pedestrian — A solitary walker becomes a criminal in a conformist future society. Science Fiction

1950 – The Veldt — A virtual nursery reveals the deadly consequences of technological indulgence. Science Fiction

1949 – The Lottery — A small town’s tradition culminates in ritualized violence. Dystopian

1948 – Asleep in Armageddon — A man awakens alone on Earth after humanity’s apparent extinction. Science Fiction

1947 – Zero Hour — Children unknowingly assist an alien invasion adults dismiss as play. Science Fiction

1946 – Beware of the Dog — A wounded pilot discovers he may be in the wrong war—and the wrong time. Mystery

1945 – The Aleph — A single point in space contains all places and all moments simultaneously. Science Fiction

1944 – The Story-Teller — After an Aunt fails to engage three children with stories of good little children living happily, a stranger volunteers his own story with a twist. Comedy

1941 – The Thing in the Moonlight — A seaside walk slips into cosmic dread and unease. Horror.

1940 – Freedom’s a Hard-Bought Thing — Resistance demands sacrifice under the pressures of occupation. Drama.

1939 – Into Egypt — A soldier marches a group of people out of his country. Drama.

1938 – Azathoth — Fragmentary visions hint at a blind, indifferent cosmic god. Horror.

1937 – By the Waters of Babylon — A forbidden journey reveals the ruins of a lost technological world. Fantasy.

1936 – The Blood of the Martyrs — A man is dragged in front of a dictator and asked to lie on behalf of his country. Drama

1935 – Rogues in the House — Political intrigue and swordplay collide in a violent power struggle. Fantasy.

1934 – The Plutonian Drug — A man uses a drug that allows him to see time in two-dimensions and is able to see his own fate wtihout realising. Science Fiction.

1933 – A Clean Well Lighted Place — Loneliness and despair surface in a late-night café. Drama.

1932 – The Tailor of Gloucester — A poor tailor is given the chance to make a coat for the Mayor of Gloucester, but he is down to his last skein of cherry-coloured twist. Childrens.

1931 – Elaine's Tomb — Two lecturers go on an expedition to examine bodies found in Egypt that have been perfectly preserved for thousands of years. Science Fiction.

1930 – A Portrait — A poem on an unstable romantic life. A fleeting moment exposes youthful vanity and insecurity. Drama.

1929 – The Disintegration Machine — A journalist and a scientist investigate a man who has claimed to invent a machine that can disintegrate and subsequently reintegrate anything put in its view. Science Fiction.

1928 – The Law Beaters — Two men discuss the law while drinking, and compare their past nefarious escapades. Mystery.

1927 – Hills Like White Elephants — A couple’s restrained dialogue masks a life-changing decision. Drama.

1926 – The Parasitic Hand — A severed hand appears to act with a will of its own. Science Fiction.

1925 – The Pearl of Love — A fable on a man that builds an enormous monument to his deceased princess. Fantasy.

1924 – The Sensible Thing — George O’Kelly wants the hand of the beautiful Jonquil Cary, but has become insecure about his unstable career path and the boys she surrounds herself with. Drama.

1923 – The Adventure of the Cheap Flat — An attractive apartment conceals a criminal scheme. Mystery.

1922 – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button — A man lives his life aging backward. Comedy.

1921 – A Haunted House — A ghostly presence reflects enduring love. Horror.

1920 – The Bookshop — A man spots a quaint bookshop that seems out of place amongst the cheap and convenient shops nearby which people rush in and out of. Drama.

1919 – A Country Doctor — A country doctor is desparate for a horse to make it to a dying patient when a pair of horses and a groom appear in his house out of nowhere. Drama.

1918 – The Black Bull of Norroway — A humble young girl claims she would be happy to marry even the ‘Black Bull of Norroway’. Soon after a bull turns up at her house asking for her hand. Childrens.

1917 – The Detective Detector — A criminal makes the preposterous claim of being able to track down a New York detective. Comedy.

1916 – Cain — A Russian captain of a punitive expedition is visited in the night by a man he has sentenced to death without cause. War.

1915 – A Sea of Troubles — Mr Meggs’s decides to end his life and divide his money up to several of his friends, but his act of charity insults one of them. Comedy.

1914 – Confessions of a Humorist — A clerk earns popularity as the towns humourist after a successful speech and a string of clever quips. Comedy.

1913 – The Feast of Nemesis — After Mrs. Thackenbury complains of the difficulties of gift giving holidays, her nephew Clovis postures the idea of a holiday of the reversed kind. Where you give to people you loathe, negative gifts. Comedy.

1912 – How the Whale Got His Throat — A playful myth explaining a whale’s anatomy. Childrens.

1911 – The Deferred Appointment — A photographer is closing up shop when a local bookseller turns up out of the blue to sit down for a portrait without saying a word. Horror.

1910 – The Gateway of the Monster — Science brushes against something monstrously unknown. Fantasy.

1909 – A Piece of Steak — An aging boxer confronts hunger and decline. Drama.

1908 – The Fortress Unvanquisable, Save for Sacnoth — Intelligence triumphs over brute force in fantasy warfare. Fantasy.

1907 – Pictures — A vagrant travels from place to place comparing the quiet calm of some places with the brutality of others and with the joy of others yet. Drama.

1906 – Hunting the Deceitful Turkey — A comic frontier pursuit spirals into chaos. Comedy.

1905 – Anathema — A deacon who loves reading fiction as well as church literature finds himself ordered by the church to denounce the author of one of his favourite novels. Drama.

1904 – Eveline — The young Eveline contemplates breaking her promise and running away from home. Drama.

1903 – Work, Death and Sickness — God introduces struggle to mankind in an attempt to force them to live in peace. Drama.

1902 – A Self-Made Man — Stephen Crane gives his guaranteed method to get rich in the form of a story. A man struggling to find work comes across a man in desperate need of someone trustworthy to read a letter for him. Comedy.

1901 – The Loaded Dog — A slapstick mishap escalates into disaster. Comedy.

1900 – The Darling — A woman shapes her identity around the men she loves. Drama.

1899 – A Reflection — The narrator contemplates the ability of those more fortunate to stay in line with the procession of life. Drama.

1898 – The Man in a Case — A schoolteacher tells of a colleague he once had who lived his life as if ‘in a case’. Drama.

1897 – The Eyes of the Panther — A woman tells a story to explain why she can’t marry a man. Horror.

1896 – A Black Affair — After a ship crew’s favourite cat is under threat of being thrown overboard by the skipper, the cook hatches a plan. Comedy.

1895 – The Inmost Light — A man introduces to his old friend a mystery of a missing woman with a potentially supernatural explanation. Fantasy.

1894 – The Doer of Good — Moral righteousness masks hypocrisy and harm. Drama.

1893 – Miss Harriet — A lifetime of unreturned love ends in quiet tragedy. Drama.

1892 – The Yellow Wallpaper — Enforced domestic confinement drives a woman into madness. Gothic.

1891 – Luck — A man tells of an officer that keeps failing his way upwards. Comedy.

1890 – An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge — A condemned man imagines escape in his final moments. War.

1889 – A Bottomless Grave — After a father dies, not because he was poisoned by the mother, a family buries him in the garden, not because anything suspicious happened... Comedy.

1887 – The Kiss — A soldier accidentally kisses a woman at a house and can't move on. Drama.

1886 – A Tale of Negative Gravity — A scientific man invents a machine to store up a force opposite to gravity. Comedy.

1885 – Three Questions — A king asks all his subjects three questions: What is most important, who to listen to, and when to begin? Drama.

1884 – My Uncle Jules — A heroic family myth dissolves into disappointment. Drama.

1883 – A Vendetta — A mother enacts ruthless revenge for her son. Drama.

1882 – The Transferred Ghost — While waiting to ask a young woman for her hand, a man meets a ghost who is interested in his plans. Fantasy.

1881 – What Men Live By — Compassion, not wealth, sustains humanity. Drama.

1880 – Dead Woman’s Secret — A hidden truth is revealed from beyond the grave. Drama.