Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author's brain, their soul and heart. A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.

In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted 'Top Tens' across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?

The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme. Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature.

Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made. If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something.

The Century moves on decade by decade. War once again scars Europe, in America wagons roll west. Social unrest continues even as conditions improve markedly for the few and only a little for the many. The list of problems and of challenges described by our authors is long and their stories once again full of valuable and telling insights.

01 - The Top 10 - The 1870's - The Men - An Introduction

02 - Bobok by Fyodor Dostevesky

03 - A Ghost Story by Mark Twain

04 - God Sees The Truth But Waits by Leo Tolstoy

05 - Dickon the Devil by Sheridan Le Fanu

06 - The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller by Gustave Flaubert

07 - A Strange Story by Ivan Turgenev

08 - A Lonely Ride by Bret Harte

09 - Coward by Vsevolod Garshin

10 - The Man Without a Body by Edward Page Mitchell

11 - The Vampire by Jan Neruda