"The Trial for Murder," written in 1865, is a short story by Charles Dickens. It is one of Dickens' ghost stories, and is perhaps the best known outside of "A Christmas Carol."

“The Judge’s House” is a classic ghost story by the Irish author Bram Stoker, of Dracula fame.

The story of Tom Walker is a variation on the legend of Faust, a 16th-century magician and astrologer who was said to have sold his soul to the devil for wisdom, money, and power. Washington Irving reinvented the tale, setting it in the 1720s in an area of New England settled by Quakers and Puritans. In Irving’s comic retelling of the legend, the writer satirizes people who present a pious public image as they “sell their souls” for money.

In “The Nightingale and the Rose,” the conflict between science and faith that so marked Oscar Wilde’s own era is mirrored in the conflict between love and philosophy as a young man tries to fulfill his dreams.

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (1890) is a short story by the American writer and Civil War veteran Ambrose Bierce. The story, which is set during the American Civil War, is known for its irregular time sequence and twist ending. Bierce's abandonment of strict linear narration in favor of the internal mind of the protagonist is an early example of the stream of consciousness narrative mode.