Menu

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Featured stories
Activity feed

Discover weekly, the best short stories

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

150+ 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 2 of 10

Letters from Lucknow, 1886

Winner of Contest #310 🏆

“Intercultural Book Club. Join us! Every Sunday 6pm.”The poster hung alone on a blank wall in my dorm building. As someone who had just moved in and loved novels it seemed like an easy way to meet people. So that Sunday evening, I grabbed my current read and headed to the common room.A small group had already gathered, steaming cups of tea in hand despite the lingering summer heat.“Hi, I’m Louise. Is this the book club?”“Yes! Come in. Tea?”A girl with dark curls and round glasses smiled warmly. Without waiting for my answer, she handed me a ...

71 likes 44 comments 44
Read story

Of an Old Man, Golden SIlverware and The House That Looks Like a Boat

Submitted to Contest #310

The little bell stringed to the top of the door rang briefly when it opened. “Good morning, sir,” I greeted the old man entering my shop. “How may I help you today?” “My, my, what a place you got here,” he said, looking around the little room crammed with antique books on shelves and books stacked on top of each other in neat columns in the middle of it. “Thank you kindly,” I said, smiling. “What brings you in today?” “Oh, I was just passing through the main square when I noticed this store that wa...

15 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

The Ladies Literary Society

Submitted to Contest #310

My first meeting with the Ladies Literary Society was at the home of the head of the group, Susan Brooks. We first met on the New Haven/Bridgeport line one day in spring when we were both headed to NYC for some shopping. As the train clacked and rattled along its tracks we sat in the first class dining car enjoying our afternoon tea and cake.After exchanging our names and hometowns the topics spread out to our interests and hobbies. I shared that I enjoyed writing poetry. Haiku poems , to be exact, as I explained that I had lived and studied...

5 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Sweet as Honey, Bright as Dawn

Submitted to Contest #310

The postcard received with that morning’s delivery was still on Deb Mielke-Park’s mind as she started pedaling up 11th Street away from Spruce. She and Sue had lived in “the Gayborhood” for forty years, but she’d never heard of the place advertised on the mailer. She couldn’t figure out how she’d ended up on their list either: Sue was the one who’d read; Deb was a numbers girl. And it had been a year since that final heart-attack. The advertisement had been straightforward—she was invited to join an exclusive club at this bookstore, located ...

19 likes 11 comments 11
Read story

Jagodowa Czerwień

Submitted to Contest #309

TW: BloodSeptember 1st, 1939Zbąszynek, Poland Even on a day when war loomed on the horizon, all I could think about were raspberries. Morning sunlight filtered through the partially open window of the kitchen as I leaned against the table, rocking on my heels and watching the cellar door. The house was quiet except for the noise of Ciocia Joasia rummaging through the stuff in the cellar and the isolated song of a bird in the beech tree outside. “Here it is!” Ciocia Joasia exclaimed from inside the cellar before closing the door and bounding ...

4 likes 5 comments 5
Read story

The life and feats of the knight Josephine—dedicated to Selvatrice, esquired by she, published in anonymity

Submitted to Contest #309

Desidora sleeps in her gambeson. Skin hugging close to her bones, she reckons herself already dead, each breath she draws a promise to she of damnatio memoriae, whose scent fades from the gambeson each day, replaced by Desidora’s own. But what can she do? She cannot sleep without the thing wrapped around her skeletal frame, and she cannot eat those tasteless meals without knowing she has the gambeson to return to each night. In her paranoia, she checks on the article of clothing, wedged under her straw mattress, every afternoon between her d...

12 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Jenny

Submitted to Contest #309

The air in Haight-Ashbury vibrated with a thousand conversations, a symphony of strummed guitars, and the scent of patchouli and freedom. Jenny McCormick, her long, dirty blonde hair catching the afternoon sun, leaned against a weathered storefront, sketching in her notebook. Suddenly, a young man with eyes the color of a summer sky and a mop of unruly dark hair bumped into her, scattering her charcoal pencils. "Whoa, sorry!" he exclaimed, a grin splitting his face. "Heath's the name." "Jenny," she replied, laughing at the slight chaos. He h...

46 likes 24 comments 24
Read story

Happy Birthday Uncle Willy

Submitted to Contest #309

Uncle Willy walked down the rows of large cooking pots and giant skillets, some of them over wood fires, and some over gas burners, all emitting mouth watering aromas. “Get your fingers back, old man” Uncle Willy grinned into the laughing face of a middle aged woman holding a steaming platter.“If you didn’t hide the forks . . .” The woman handed him a fork with a piece of fried catfish on it. The man on the platform raised one white gloved hand above his head, and tapped the mic with the other. The crowd slowly quieted. “Now I present ...

4 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Eleanor

Submitted to Contest #309

It was slowly turning to winter, slowly turning to twilight, and Eleanor Graves was slowly being eaten alive.Her white fingers clenched at a battered June 1955 edition of the Australian Women’s Weekly, her eyes skimming over the same line that it had for the past hour. The twins sat at her feet whinging again, a haze of white noise; they would argue about anything if for the sole reason of annoying her. It was funny how much they took after her husband’s two great-aunts in that way. Charles Jr. was drawing with a stick in the mud again. Char...

2 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

A Saving Cup

Submitted to Contest #309

A Saving CupSimon and his new brothers landed in Egypt after enduring bad weather and abuse from the crew of the ship. The crowd at the dock looked at them suspiciously. Simon steered them to the far end of the pier to wait while he helped the crew unload the cargo. Eli, the youngest of the group, pitched in to help, and the captain complained when he paid him a small wage. But that gave them a bit of money to travel until they found other Christians to help them while they spread the good news.The captain looked at Simon and asked, “Why ...

3 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Anthony's Brew

Submitted to Contest #309

The snow came down like it meant something. Thick flakes spun under the streetlamps, catching in the cracks of brick facades and swirling down Allen Street in soft, bitter spirals. Most of the shops had long since closed. The galleries were dark, the cafés shuttered, and the tattoo parlor on the corner had its neon flickering like a heartbeat trying to quit.But halfway down the block, beneath a rusted iron sign that read Anthony’s Brew, a single window glowed gold.Inside, the bar smelled of cinnamon, molasses, and old oak. The kind of scent ...

8 likes 3 comments 3
Read story

TOSTIG'S REVENGE

Submitted to Contest #309

Note: This story is fiction, but based upon real historical events. Tostig Godwinson, the man who had been Earl of Northumbria, one of the most powerful men in England, lay dying on the battlefield, his household troops slaughtered around him. The battle still raged, but he knew the day was lost. His thoughts fled back to what led him to this. Regret for his shattered plans, for his sins which would now never be forgiven, because he would die unshriven with them heavy on his conscience. How had it all gone so wrong?‘Pride, my son,’ the Arch...

2 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Centurion

Submitted to Contest #309

Firelight glinted from the pommel of Marius’s sword, and he wondered how something so polished, could feel so dirty. He gripped the wooden handle, that he had also cleaned to a shine, and pinned the tip of its blade into the sand. A place it could do no more harm. His Gladius had survived every battle on the cursed trek through Arabia, and was beginning to show its tired age in the same way that he was. It had faded under the harsh sun, been abraded by the sand and was stained with gallons of blood that was wiped free, yet still remained to ...

18 likes 10 comments 10
Read story

The Reflection

Submitted to Contest #309

The white walls pressed in, a sterile embrace that offered no comfort, only a stark, unwavering presence. My finger traced the faint, almost invisible seam where two panels met, a ghost against the unyielding surface. Six feet by eight feet—this was my world. A bed, a sink, a toilet, a shower—all bolted down, all gleaming, all devoid of personality. No pictures to gaze at, no books to escape into. Just the relentless, unyielding white. I shuffled towards the mirror, a smooth rectangle of polished steel. It wasn’t glass, I knew that. They wou...

16 likes 16 comments 16
Read story

Exile of Argus MacGuire

Submitted to Contest #309

“Take one more step and I’ll blow ya to Kingdom come.” A red-bearded man dressed in a kilt with blue tartar held a musket aimed at some discarded crates a few feet from where I had landed my skiff. Using an eighteen-horse powered outboard motor, I navigated the choppy waters from the port of Tagharry to this unnamed jutting pile of rocks a few kilometers west of Deasker Island in the northern Atlantic Ocean.Standing with my hands in the air, not daring to move a muscle, the large man spoke again, “Don; t’ink I won’ pull the triggah. The be...

8 likes 2 comments 2
Read story
RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

Bring your short stories to life

Fuse character, story, and conflict with tools in Reedsy Studio. All for free.