Menu

More apps built by Reedsy

reedsymarketplace

Assemble a team of professionals

reedsystudio

The writing app for authors

reedsylearning

Writing courses, events and memberships

reedsydiscovery

Get your book reviewed

reedsyprompts

Weekly writing prompts and contests

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.

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 3

Eric and Peter

Jon Mantle

Weekly Contest #361

Dear Eric Sorry for approaching you out of the blue, especially as I’m about to ask a small but, hopefully not unpleasant, favour. My name’s Andrew Orton and my dad is Peter Orton. I think you were both history students together at Jesus college. He’s got vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s and there are certain memories that seem to have stuck with him particularly strongly and stories which recur when he talks about his youth. One of these stories concerns hitch hiking around Europe in the early 60s and I think that for at least part of the...

7 likes

Read story

The Summer the Lavender Came Early

Ann-Elizabeth Briars

Weekly Contest #361

The lavender came early that year, and Élise would always remember the summer by it. Not as the summer Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo—a distant city she could not have found on a map—but as the summer the fields above Valensole turned so deeply purple they seemed almost bruised, and Julien kissed her for the first time behind the Chapelle Saint-Roch, while bees droned around them, as though the whole world were humming a tune meant only for the two of them.She was nineteen. He was twenty-one with hair the color of sun-...

5 likes

Read story

The Griffon Gates

Daniel Hernandez

Weekly Contest #361

The little jeep rolled through the hilly Greek countryside. The footpaths it demolished were better suited to human and animal traffic than to motorized vehicles. Nonetheless, the machine pushed its way over the rocky terrain, smashing native thistle and grasses. Despite the interploping vehicle, it remained an idyllic sight. Birds flew overhead. Flowers bloomed in fields. On a nearby hill, an old shepherd tended to a flock.As Grant admired this view, he spouted to the driver, “Once again, thank you for allowing me to join you, Professor.”“W...

9 likes

Read story

A Summer Job in the Great American Desert

Vanessa Sperling

Weekly Contest #361

In June 1890, it would be wheat harvest time in the western Kansas part of the Great American Desert."It's winter wheat," Art explained. "They plant it in October.""And it grows all through winter?" I asked, incredulously.He laughed. "No. How could it grow when it's twenty below and with three to four feet of snow on top of it?" he smirked.I pressed my lips together. "Well, I think I can expect some grace considering it has the rather misleading name of 'winter' in its given title."Chuckling, he lightly punched my shoulder. "If I were you, I...

17 likes

Read story

Remembering the Red Sun: On the Road to Auxonne

Ted Hart

Weekly Contest #361

The fire had burned low in the hearth at Rosières, and the winter dark of 1830 pressed against the small windowpanes. The old man reached to the mantel, took down a tarnished brass button, and turned it once in his rough fingers, his thumb finding the worn numeral of the regiment. Then he began. Sit closer to the fire, Charles André. Your hands are cold, and there is wood enough tonight, so it will hold us a while. You asked me about the summer I came home from the war. You thought I would talk about the vineyard. Every other summer of my l...

9 likes

Read story

The Summer of '72

Kevin Lind

Weekly Contest #361

The padlock was nearly rusted shut. I worked the key back and forth a full minute letting out a series of exasperated grunts before it gave. Inside, the darkness smelled of cardboard and mustiness. I swatted around in the air at nothing before finding the pull-cord for the bulb on the fourth or fifth try. Unit 114. The number was painted on the cinderblock next to the door. Three rows of boxes against the back wall, a folded cot beside a push broom worn down to a wedge. Silas Krane lived a long life, but had packed the better part of it int...

8 likes

Read story

The Skeptical Children

Nick Matsas

Weekly Contest #361

A coiled mass of muscle whispered to one another beneath the canopy of the jungle. Images of home grew in the shade as the sun rose and tried to get a look at the starry-eyed soldiers who had fallen asleep during an artillery barrage. They spoke about their wives and girlfriends, and how easy life used to be. Both graduated from high school and played football. Both had never voted and had been drafted. Jacob said, “We’ll never be thanked for this,” and Robbie replied, “They never said there would be a reward.” They shared a kiss and stroked...

7 likes

Read story

The Summer She Came Home.

Ron Sewell

Weekly Contest #361

The Summer She Came Home. Alison Adams sat in her dark green Mini Cooper at the edge of Upton village, the engine ticking as it cooled. In her left hand, she held the estate agent’s directions, but they made little sense. Ahead was Upton, but she needed to find Lower Upton. Rascal, her shaggy companion, rested his chin on her thigh, sensing her anxiety. She stroked Rascal’s head. “We have two chances. Straight ahead, or we’re lost. The village lay quiet before her, a cluster of cottages huddled beneath a low grey sky. A...

3 likes

Read story

Cave Flowers in June

Weekly Contest #360

CW: Harsh realities of war are depicted, such as malnourishment, violence, children in warzones, war crimes, suicide, gore, death, and disease. This fictional story is dedicated to my late grandmother, who survived the Okinawa invasion. “Haruko! Don’t look! Eyes on Ama and Ne-Ne!” Yuina shielded her youngest from the carnage splattered all over the cave, and of those who had ingested the pills that the mainland officer distributed. The inquisitive girl did her best to abide by the firm command but couldn’t help herself from still trying to s...

40 likes

Read story

The Noble Thief

Weekly Contest #360

Ask any art thief which would be worse, reaching the trophy room only to find that the treasure they came for was already gone, or being caught red-handed after successfully obtaining the said treasure, and you’ll get a split response. It all depends on their motives. Are they doing it for the thrill? For pride? For clout? Or are they doing it because they’re desperate for the payout? The ones who want the glory would choose the first answer. Those in need of cash would no doubt go with the second. But what if the reason behind a heist was...

26 likes

Read story

The Devil in Gray

Weekly Contest #360

Automobiles blacker than the night pummel their way through the torrential downpour, their headlights burning through the midnight darkness.Peering through the window as my breath clouds the glass, I squint through the lenses of my owlish spectacles. The motorcade’s lead car splashes to a halt in the courtyard—reminding me of a beetle fresh from the mud banks of the lake I swam in as a boy—and for a moment I feel an invisible fist tighten around my throat.Sliding away from my window, I scoop up my manuscript from the desk and hold it dearly ...

9 likes

Read story

Courage Is Staying

Gina G

Weekly Contest #360

TW: Terminal illness, grief The letter arrived folded into thirds, its edges worn soft by many hands. It stretched across two pages, but Regina saw only seven words: Your mother is very sick. Come quickly. She stood by the factory window long after the whistle had blown, reading the sentence again and again, as if enough repetitions might turn it into something else. Outside, the Bronx moved with its usual impatience. Streetcars rattled past. Children darted between wagons. A man shouted in Yiddish from a pushcart overflowing with onions. In...

9 likes

Read story

I Am The Very Model of a Child Major-General

Vanessa Sperling

Weekly Contest #360

“Jarvis Merryman! What's all this?” Mr. Richard Barker bellowed as I blew in through the Savoy Theatre’s stage door with the remnants of 1884 and her December wind and fog residue on my cap and overcoat. “It's 5:30 a.m., lad! What in heaven's name you doin' here so early?”“Bother it all! Am I that late, Uncle Dick?” I groaned in mock dismay, wiggling out of my coat and shaking the wet from it. "I was aiming for 4:00. Be a chum and don't tell that old boss of the boards I had a lie-in."He huffed as only a stage manager can. "Cheeky boy. You k...

9 likes

Read story

A Boutique Relocation Service

Brana Nim

Weekly Contest #360

I stood by the farmhouse entrance and watched a lace curtain flutter past the second-floor window.I didn’t have time to wonder who was parting the curtains. Yanis had already arrived, moving with a speed uncharacteristic of someone his size. He held out his right hand, a heavy ring of keys dangling from a single index finger, keeping his arm fully extended and the keys as far from his body as possible.“Già sou, Eva.” Yanis’s face lit up.He was thrilled to see me, mostly because my presence meant he could stop touching the keys. I smiled back...

8 likes

Read story

Trying to survive

Jennifer Braveheart

Weekly Contest #360

I live close to Palm Springs California in a town called Indio; it was 121 degrees yesterday as my head hit the pillow to sleep.It was the end of July, and we will have to endure this god forsaken heat until September when our desert weather will begin to cool off. I was thinking about what to do tomorrow as I drifted off to sleep. The dream was floating, lazily along the recesses of my brain. It was rolling gently along the banks of my memory. It was fluttering as softly as butterfly wings delicately tapping on the windows of my soul tryin...

16 likes

Read story

‹ Prev Next ›