Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They 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.

Human beings are, in the main, social animals, they like to gather, to herd together, to share experiences. But some do not. Either through choice or exclusion their way forward is difficult. In this volume our authors and their characters share their stories.

1 - The Top 10 Short Stories - Loneliness An Introduction

2 - The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol also known as 'The Cloak'

3 - A Painful Case by James Joyce

4 - Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield

5 - Vanka by Anton Chekhov

6 - The Outsider by H P Lovecraft

7 - Morphine by Mikhail Bulgakov

8 - Witch's Loaves by O Henry

9 - Hands by Sherwood Anderson

10 - Her Lover by Maxim Gorky

11 - A New England Nun by Mary E Wilkins Freeman