"After Dark" by Wilkie Collins is a collection of six short stories first published in 1856. The tales are united by a framing narrative: a portrait-painter forbidden from working must rely on his wife to transcribe his stories for publication to avoid destitution. Each story—featuring terribly strange beds, stolen letters, and mysterious masks—comes from a different narrator, creating a tapestry of suspenseful tales originally published in Charles Dickens's magazine Household Words. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
These books are free to read. Each is in the public domain in the United States; check your own country's rules before you copy or share one.