Short Stories About Old Age: 10 Classics Explained
Quick answer: Ten classic short stories about old age, from The Law of Life and Misery to Miss Brill, A Simple Heart and Rip Van Winkle, summarised and compared for readers and writers.
Stories about old age are read by the old, who want to be seen accurately, and by the young, who want to be warned. The short story serves both because it can hold one afternoon in a park or one night by a fire, and the old have more of those than they have plots.
The collection begins with the end, moves through the Sunday afternoons and the drawing rooms, and finishes with two comedies of age reversed. Each title links to a page that summarises the story and explains its ending.
The stories
The Law of Life by Jack London. Old Koskoosh, blind and left behind by his tribe, sits by a small fire with a pile of sticks and reckons how long they will last. He remembers an old moose he once watched the wolves bring down.
Misery by Anton Chekhov. Iona, an old cabman whose son died in hospital that week, drives fares through the snow and tries to tell each of them. In the stable at night he tells the horse.
Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield. An ageing English teacher takes her fur out of its box for the season and spends Sunday in the park, where she feels herself part of a play in which everyone has a part. Two young people on her bench have a different view.
The Daughters of the Late Colonel by Katherine Mansfield. A week after their tyrannical father's death, Josephine and Constantia are unable to decide about anything, from the maid to the watch. A barrel organ starts in the street and one of them nearly says something.
A Simple Heart by Gustave Flaubert. Felicite serves one widow in a Normandy town for half a century, losing a sweetheart, a nephew and the girl she raised. In old age, deaf and half-blind, she has a stuffed parrot and a corner of a room.
The Last Leaf by O. Henry. Old Behrman, sixty and a failure as a painter, drinks gin downstairs from two young women and sneers at their fear over an ivy vine. He has been going to paint a masterpiece for forty years.
The Fly by Katherine Mansfield. The boss shows off his refurbished office to old Woodifield, who has had a stroke and is allowed out on Tuesdays. A chance remark about a grave in Belgium leaves the boss alone with an inkpot and a fly.
Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving. A henpecked Dutchman wanders into the Catskills, drinks with strangers at a game of ninepins and sleeps for twenty years. He comes down with a foot-long beard into a village that has fought a revolution without him.
Dr. Heidegger's Experiment by Nathaniel Hawthorne. An old doctor invites four aged friends to drink water from the Fountain of Youth and watches them grow young at his table. They dance, quarrel over the one woman, and knock the vase to the floor.
A Wagner Matinee by Willa Cather. Aunt Georgiana, who gave up a Boston music career for thirty years on a Nebraska homestead, comes east for a legacy and is taken by her nephew to a concert. When the music ends she will not get up.
Reading them together
The collection's argument is that old age in fiction is a matter of what remains: sticks for a fire, a fur, a parrot, one afternoon of music. London and Chekhov count the remainder without pity; Mansfield counts it with a savage tenderness and lets the old person almost notice. Flaubert is the exception who gives his old servant a vision, and it is the strangest happy ending here.
Rip Van Winkle and Dr. Heidegger's Experiment are the two comedies, and both are about the same wish: to skip the middle. Irving grants it and Hawthorne refuses, and neither man learns anything.
If you want to write about old age
What writers can take from this
- Read Misery and Miss Brill together; each is an old person trying to be heard on a single day.
- The Law of Life and A Wagner Matinee are both about a life recalled in one sitting; compare how much each writer lets the character remember.
- Mansfield has three stories here and they are best read in the order given.
- A Simple Heart is the longest and slowest; do not hurry the last two pages.
- Rip Van Winkle is a comedy about missing history; read it after any of the others as relief.
Try it yourself
Write a story in which an old character spends a single afternoon doing something they did every week for decades, and this is the first time they notice it is being watched.
Questions
What is the best short story about old age?
A Simple Heart is the most admired, and Misery the most quoted. Miss Brill is the most taught in schools.
Which short stories about old age are good for students?
Miss Brill, Misery, The Law of Life and Rip Van Winkle are short and clear. The Daughters of the Late Colonel suits older students who can follow Mansfield's shifts.
Which classic story about old age is the shortest?
The Law of Life and Misery are each under three thousand words. Miss Brill is shorter still, at about two thousand.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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