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.

In this volume the decade of World War and its consequences overwhelms many nations. For the British author, including Arnold Bennett, Bram Stoker, Virginia Woolf, D H Lawrence and many others writing is a way to examine and also to escape this new landscape. Genius with every name.

1 - The Top 10 Short Stories - The 1910's - The British - An Introduction

2 - The Horror of the Heights by Arthur Conan Doyle

3 - Mary Postgate by Rudyard Kipling

4 - Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf

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

6 - Odour of Chrysanthemums by D H Lawrence

7 - The Room in the Tower by E F Benson

8 - The Judge's House by Bram Stoker

9 - The Second Generation by Algernon Blackwood

10 - August Heat by W F Harvey

11 - The Matador of the Five Towns - Part 1 by Arnold Bennett

12 - The Matador of the Five Towns - Part 2 by Arnold Bennett