The Top 10 Short Stories - The 18th Century

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.This century of literature reveals bold strides in the art of story telling. Characters and narratives begin a wonderful journey that express themselves on a wider canvas, a more global landscape. The people and the societies they represent are easily recognisable in our more modern times.01 - The Top 10 - The 18th Century - An Introduction2 - Directions to Servants by Jonathan Swift3 - Jeannot and Colin by Voltaire4 - The Apparition of Mrs Veal by Daniel Defoe5 - The New Paris by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe6 - The Female Husband by Henry Fielding7 - The White Pigeon by Maria Edgeworth8 - The Criminal from Lost Honour by Friedrich Schiller9 - The Story of Sir Bertrand by Anna Laetitia Barbauld10 - Betty Brown, the St Giles Orange Girl by Hannah More11 - Fantomina or Love in a Maze - Part 1 by Eliza Haywood12 - Fantomina or Love in a Maze - Part 2 by Eliza Haywood