Sometimes the mere thought can set off the feeling. Sadness…..something lost or maybe not attained. Sadness can bring loneliness, a need to be with others. It can be difficult to explain, it takes time to navigate through. It may leave us or it may deepen into something darker, more tenacious.

Sadness can be about so many things from places to people, from thoughts to actions.

Our classic authors including Arnold Bennett, James Joyce, Willa Cather, Joseph Conrad, Ivan Turgenev and many others use their pens and stories to demonstrate the many ways this feeling can take a hold of lives and its consequences.

1 - Short Stories About Sadness - An Introduction

2 - The Dead by James Joyce

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

4 - Life of Ma Parker by Katherine Mansfield

5 - A Dark Brown Dog by Stephen Crane

6 - Aloysha the Pot by Leo Tolstoy

7 - The Lagoon by Joseph Conrad

8 - Adventure by Sherwood Anderson

9 - Vanka by Anton Chekhov

10 - Odour of Chrysanthemums by D H Lawrence

11 - Paul's Case by Willa Cather

12 - Silence by Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev

13 - The Fly by Katherine Mansfield

14 - The Gift of the Magi by O Henry

15 - The District Doctor by Ivan Turgenev

16 - The Matador of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett

17 - Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne

18 - An Honest Thief by Fyodor Dostoyveskey

19 - Desiree's Baby by Kate Chopin

20 - The Interlopers by Saki the pseudonym for H H Munro

21 - A Piece of Steak by Jack London

22 - About Love by Anton Chekhov

23 - Lost in a Pyramid (or the Mummy's Curse) by Louisa May Alcott writing as A M Bernard

24 - The Stones of the Village by Alice Dunbar Nelson

25 - Hide and Seek or Pliatki by Fyodor Sologub

26 - Hands by Sherwood Anderson

27 - Misery by Anton Chekhov

28 - The Quadroons by Lydia Maria Child

29 - The Servant by S T Semyonov

30 - The Furnished Room by O Henry

31 - Twenty-Six Men and a Girl by Maxim Gorky

32 - Two Little Soldiers by Guy de Maupassant

33 - The Horse Dealer's Daughter by D H Lawrence

34 - Springtime a la Carte by O Henry

35 - The Canary by Katherine Mansfield

36 - Roger Malvin's Burial by Nathaniel Hawthorne

37 - Volodya by Anton Chekhov

38 - To Build a Fire by Jack London