Here are eight stories from master American writers of the nineteenth century. They vary from sinister tales by Ambrose Bierce – why is that window boarded up? – and a reflective moment in the life of a woman without children, forced to look after children, to classic short stories by O. Henry and Stephen Crane. There is even an elegiac description of an eclipse by James Fenimore Cooper, author of The Last of the Mohicans. Read with sensitivity and skill by Garrick Hagon and Liza Ross.