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Looking for a steady supply of historical fiction short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

3280+ Historical fiction Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. Whether you’re looking to step back into ancient civilizations, the 19th-century, or anywhere in between, our collection of historical fiction stories is here to keep you riveted.

Historical fiction Short Stories – Page 112 of 219

A RIP in the Seam

Submitted to Contest #123

September 21st 1882- The Day After It wasn’t visible from where I sat in the balcony the previous day, but when you are standing in the middle of the stage, looking down into the pit, they are unmistakable.  Hundreds of tiny droplets of dried blood. They are sprayed across the floor like a galaxy of crimson stars, practically glittering from the candle trembling in my hand. To my left, I can see fresh discoloration of the wood. Two dark splotches stretched across the surface. The larger one looked vaguely familiar. It’s shaped like a si...

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Mary's Girl Child

Submitted to Contest #124

Sept, 1983Mary Richardson stood at her kitchen window watching the evening sun play on the leaves of the grove of poplar that screened her house from the road. It was late September, the leaves were in their full autumn glory - for the first time in her life, she felt at peace. Slowly going over in her mind all the things that had led her to this place.Raised on a farm just outside Val Marie, Saskatchewan, the only child of a family broken by years of drought. Pregnant at an early age, moving to Lethbridge Alberta in 1947 after losing the ba...

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Sam`s Obsession

Submitted to Contest #124

Sam’s Obsession It was the week-end and Sam McAuley sat in his rocking chair in front of the big open fire. On the back of an old envelope he jotted notes with the stub of a pencil which he licked from time to time. Eventually he laid the pencil down and stuck the the notes in his hip pocket. Leaning back into the rocking chair he stretched his gangling arms up towards the smoke-stained ceiling of the old farmhouse. The newspaper slipped off his knees unnoticed as he rocked back and forth deep in thought. Aft...

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HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY

Submitted to Contest #123

HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY ___________________________________________ This quote is beholding to a few gentlemen, many, many years ago, who are remembered for stating these mindful words. Benjamin Franklin comes to mind first and foremost, as he used them in moments of sound reflection of the meaning. I admired his spirit to honor to our homeland, the United States of America, as he did more than many to pave the way in seeing this great nation come to its fruition of becoming the land of the free and the home of the brave. I needed to refl...

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The Foxy Footman

Submitted to Contest #123

The Foxy Footman Copyright 2021, All rights reserved Carole Penfield Bart Just look at me, standing on this stage waiting for the curtain to open, dressed in a footman costume! If only poor Aunt Mary had lived to see this day, she would have been so proud. I remember her taking me to see my first play on her half-day off from work. She saved enough from her pittance wage as lady’s maid to get us each a standing place in the pit. I was awestruck by actors strutting across the boards. “One day, you’ll be a wunnerful actor, Bart,” she ha...

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Oscar's Final Bow

Submitted to Contest #123

The silent emptiness that now filled the room was deafening in comparison to the meager roars of the participatory and rowdy audience had offered only an hour or so before. Oscar, Clown No. 3 and Pirate No. 4 scanned the ornately dilapidated hall, taking in that emptiness and the ruin left by the participatory and rowdy audience mentioned above. “The patrons favored bananas this evening”, Oscar mumbled to himself. Half-dressed in the silky pantaloons of an oriental pirate and still donning the elaborate clown face of the penultimate and dram...

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Doctor Frickle’s Mysterious Cabinet of Transmogrify

Submitted to Contest #123

Gentlemen, I observed my audience looking positively frabjous in their waiting that night; yes, I took a little peek from the red velvets right before showtime. Curiosity killed the cat, and my magic proficiency cannot hold a candle to Carroll's 71’-word invention of frabjous. What a wordsmith as his reading audience fell for his poppycock hook line and sinker; the same will be valid for me, the magician. I pulled my red velveteen curtain open and hooked it to the left. I began my well-rehearsed opening pat...

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Night at the Ballet

Submitted to Contest #123

The overture is chaotic and is thick in the theatre. From the ground level seats, it is overwhelming but the nosebleed seats allow it to be quieter and drummed out. The box overlooks the stage in a regal way. The stage itself is lit with the vibrancy of the gold and red curtain. The columns in the ballet itself are grand and secure. The onlooker seems far away from the very small performers that will soon enter the stage. As though the man had paid to be royalty for a night and ruled over the rest of the cast members of the ballet, he pats t...

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The Cattle Call

Submitted to Contest #123

“‘Tis true my form is something odd But blaming me is blaming God… Could I create myself anew I would not fail in pleasing you. If I could reach from pole to pole Or grasp the…” One steamy summer day in Boston, Jared Mann stared into the mirror and practiced a poem for his audition. He managed to sail through the first stanza, but for some reason, blanked out halfway through the second. “Damn!” He closed his eyes and tried again. If I could reach from pole to pole Or grasp the ocean with my span…” Good! He was home free. “I would...

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The head of Johhny Burns

Submitted to Contest #122

We knew we were in the right place when we pulled up to a Shelby Cobra in the drive-way and what looked like a time-capsule for a house. My business partner, Josie, was unimpressed but he was new to the scene of these types of antiquity situations. It wasn’t an original Shelby Cobra, mind you, but that’s what made it special. When we got out and sized it up, it was signed by Caroll Shelby himself. Once Josie saw that, his eyes glazed over. We were in the right place after hours of searching the L.A. hills. I was excited the second ...

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The Package With The Amulet

Submitted to Contest #122

It looked like a perfectly ordinary cardboard box. Just sitting there on the floor in the barracks. There was nothing strange or suspicious about it. What was suspicious was the fact that it was there. Its mere existence was strange, and Sergeant Plundell was only just starting to get used to the fact that this place was indeed very strange.What made things stranger was that the box had his name on it. There couldn’t be any other Sergeant Plundells, could there? And there weren’t any other prisoner-of-war camps with the same number.Every sol...

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Vemork & Hitler's Atomic Bomb

Submitted to Contest #121

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends(John 15:13)The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. - Wilfred OwenDedicated to the 42 men who gave their life on this mission.The BombThey had no idea why, but in early 1941 the Norwegian Resistance was asked to report on the production of heavy water, at the In Vemork Norsk Hydro near Rjukan. In early June 1942 reports showed a marked increase of heavy water being stockpiled at the plant. The Resistance was asked to immediately start planning fo...

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Seriously, thanks, a lot!

Submitted to Contest #121

Thanks, a lot, for having access to every thing modern medicine and alternative medicine have to give but not succeeding in making it work for you. All I can think is that you must have drunk an awful lot of coffee, as you somehow got yourself a coffee shop for twenty years, one you hung onto with both hands, come hell or highwater. What do I know, though? The ex-best friend, who was deemed unfit to let to stay indoors, in your house, when you left the country. The betrayal, woman, woman corpse. I have no one to talk to about this. No one ca...

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Better a live doggerel than a dead Lake Poet

Submitted to Contest #121

Pa pushed another heft of carcass into my unripe arms. I staggered down to the cellar, burdened the bloody mass to the butchering table and turned about for the next.I tramped back and forth through that sawdust twenty times and more a day, carrying quartered animal parts. I helped him split the cuts, salt the joints and take the meat back upstairs to hook on the brass rail at the front of the shop.The regulars came in cheerfully to purchase their victuals, gesticulating at the counter and passing the time of day. After they headed home I'd ...

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Death Did Us Part

Submitted to Contest #121

This story is a retelling of the tale of Echo from Ovid’s Metamorphosis book III.Not even the withered roses could understand my anguish, not even did the forlorn rain begin to fathom out how unloved I felt, and neither did the forsaken Juno begin to grasp my melancholy. I am of the echoing voice, who cannot be silent when others have spoken, nor learn how to speak first myself. I speak of myself in the past tense, for I am dead. My sleepless thoughts waste my sad form, and my body’s strength vanished into the air.And the only thing left is ...

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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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