The Top 10 Short Stories - British Women: The top ten short stories of all time written by British female authors.

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.

Here, in this volume, precious gems of work shine, unequalled in their brilliance. Their own literary lives may have been, in most cases, uphill and hard fought for in a society that found it hard to value their worth. Their talents ensured the permanence of their work.

1 - The Top 10 - The British Women - An Introduction

2 - The Unfortunate Bride by Aphra Behn

3 - Her Murderer by Mary Cholmondeley

4 - Irremediable by Ella D'Arcy

5 - Sophie Mason Comes Back by E M Delafield

6 - Rhapsody by Dorothy Edwards

7 - The Lifted Veil by George Eliot

8 - Sextons Hero by Elizabeth Gaskell

9 - Passed by Charlotte Mew

10 - The Mourner by Mary Shelley

11 - Solid Objects by Virginia Woolf