Story summary
Resumen de Biblioteca de los mejores relatos de misterio y detectives del mundo
- 8 min de lectura
- 10 parts
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A clerk's wife borrows a diamond necklace for one glittering ball and loses it before dawn.
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Biblioteca de los mejores relatos de misterio y detectives del mundo de un vistazo
Resumen: 8 min de lectura
- Tiempo de lectura
- Unas 6 h 30 min5 h 10 min fast, 7 h 40 min slow
- Duración
- 92.400 palabras
- Nivel en la biblioteca
- Mediano longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Cuánto se tarda en leer los clásicos · Actualizado
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Biblioteca de los mejores relatos de misterio y detectives del mundo in short
This book is a tour of mystery in many forms. Some tales are crimes and trials, some are ghost stories, and some are bargains with power or fate. One satire, Zadig, shows a reader of clues who is punished for his skill.
What Biblioteca de los mejores relatos de misterio y detectives del mundo is about
A woman looks into her mirror after a ball and finds her neck bare. The diamond necklace she borrowed is gone, and her husband must now decide how a poor clerk can pay for it. That is the first tale in this collection, and it shows what the whole book offers: a short scene, a hidden fear and a turn you do not expect.
Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories was put together by the editor Julian Hawthorne. It gathers about twenty pieces from many lands, by Maupassant, Balzac, Voltaire, Alarcon, Apuleius and others. What links them is a puzzle, a watcher and a moment when the facts do not fit what everyone believed.
Para quién es. Readers who like short stories with a sting, ghost tales told by firelight, clever judges and sleuths, and a trip through many countries and centuries. It suits anyone curious how the mystery tale began.
The story in 10 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A borrowed necklace costs a poor couple everything
In The Necklace, the pretty Mathilde Loisel is married to a minor official. She feels she was born for luxury and suffers over her shabby walls, worn chairs and ugly curtains. Her husband is happy with a plain pot of stew.
One evening he brings home an invitation to a ball at the Ministry. She weeps over having nothing to wear, so he gives her four hundred francs, the sum he was saving for a hunting gun. Then she needs jewels, and she borrows a diamond necklace from her rich friend Madame Forestier. At the ball she is prettier than every other woman, and she dances until four in the morning.
At home she looks in the mirror and the necklace is gone. Her husband searches the streets and finds nothing. They buy a matching necklace for thirty-six thousand francs and borrow half the price from lenders. One night of vanity becomes a debt that will rule their lives. The wish to look rich can cost far more than being poor.
- 2Empieza gratis para leer
Suspicion can fool a clever mind
In The Man with the Pale Eyes, the examining magistrate de Vargnes embodies dignity and propriety.
- 3Empieza gratis para leer
Fear works best on what we cannot see
In Ghosts, a young man tells the chief of police that his father plans to leave everything to the Jesuits.
- 4Empieza gratis para leer
A last night can hold a heavy secret
The Confession is one scene at a deathbed.
- 5Empieza gratis para leer
A diary records a mind losing its footing
The Horla by Maupassant is told as a diary that begins on May 8.
- 6Empieza gratis para leer
Strange tales that mock belief and wonder
Pierre Mille's The Miracle of Zobéide is a comic piece set in Damascus.
- 7Empieza gratis para leer
Two German tales about watching and waiting
The Invisible Eye is told by Christian, a painter so poor that he lives in an attic in Nuremberg.
- 8Empieza gratis para leer
Bargains with power and a mother's long wait
Balzac's Melmoth Reconciled follows Castanier, a former dragoon who holds the keys of a Paris bank.
- 9Empieza gratis para leer
A wise man is punished for reading clues
Hawthorne's preface says that Voltaire wrote the first detective story in modern literature, though he meant it as a satire.
- 10Empieza gratis para leer
Courts, crimes and ghosts from Spain to Rome
Alarcon's The Nail is told by a traveler named Philip.
Read all 10 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Mathilde Loisel A clerk's pretty wife who longs for luxury and borrows a diamond necklace for one ball.
- Pierre Agénor de Vargnes A dignified examining magistrate who is told to remember a stranger's pale eyes.
- Castanier A bank cashier and former dragoon who forges a signature to win a life of ease with his mistress.
- Melmoth A pale, red-lipped Englishman who appears in a counting house and seems to read every mind.
- Zadig A Babylonian sage who reads clues from tracks and dust and pays dearly for being right.
- Astarte The queen of Babylon, loved by Zadig, who must hide from her jealous husband.
- Judge Zarco A criminal judge who finds a skull with a nail and swears to catch the murderer.
- Madame de Dey A widowed countess who waits through three nights for her only son to come home in disguise.
How it ends (spoiler)
Many of these endings turn on a hidden fact. In The Man with the Pale Eyes, the magistrate cannot force a confession. Zadig wins the throne and Astarte. In The Nail, the judge pardons the woman but she dies. In The Three Robbers, the dead men are inflated wineskins used for a festival joke, and the town laughs.
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Preguntas sobre Biblioteca de los mejores relatos de misterio y detectives del mundo
What is Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories about?
It is a collection of about twenty mystery, ghost and detective tales from many countries and ages. They include The Necklace, The Horla, Melmoth Reconciled, Zadig the Babylonian, The Nail and a ghost letter by Pliny the Younger.
Who wrote the stories in this book?
Julian Hawthorne edited the volume. The authors include Guy de Maupassant, Honoré de Balzac, Voltaire, Erckmann-Chatrian, Villiers de l'Isle Adam, Pierre Mille, Pedro de Alarcon, Luigi Capuana, Apuleius and Pliny the Younger.
Why is Zadig counted as a detective story?
Zadig reads small clues, such as paw prints and dust on leaves, to describe an animal he never saw. The editor's preface says this made Voltaire an early author of the detective tale, though his aim was satire.
Are the stories true?
Most are fiction, written between ancient times and the nineteenth century. Pliny's letter is a real letter that retells ghost stories he heard, and The Horla is a made-up diary that reflects the author's own fears.
Is it easy to read one story at a time?
The collection brings together detective stories and tales of mystery and horror, with selections such as Fear and The Nail.
Cita esta edición
Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/library-of-the-worlds-best-mystery-and-detective-stories.
Library of the world's best mystery and detective stories. (2026). Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/library-of-the-worlds-best-mystery-and-detective-stories
Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/library-of-the-worlds-best-mystery-and-detective-stories.
@book{anonymous2026library,
title = {Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/library-of-the-worlds-best-mystery-and-detective-stories}
}
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