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.

A new century dawns, but old suffocating ideas live on. Society seems wary of change until it is forced upon it. But Europe's authors seem to have no fear. They move in relentless pursuit with an energy that must at some near future point challenge everything. The World begins it short march to catastrophe.

1 - The Top 10 - The 1900's - The Europeans - An Introduction
2 - The Informer by Joseph Conrad
3 - Silence by Leonid Nikolaevich Andreyev
4 - Tomato Sauce by Hanns Heinz Ewers
5 - Putois by Anatole France
6 - The Devil's Horse by Ion Luca Caragiale
7 - How Treason Came to Russia by Rainer Maria Rilke
8 - The Duel by Nikolai Teleshov
9 - Cuchulain of Muirthemne. The Only Son of Aoife by Lady Augusta Gregory
10 - A Dry Spell by Eimar H Kvaran
11 - The Salvation of a Forsythe - Part 1 by John Galsworthy
12 - The Salvation of a Forsythe - Part 2 by John Galsworthy