Short Stories About Strangers: 10 Classics Explained
Quick answer: Ten classic short stories about strangers, from The Open Window and Dusk to The Three Strangers and Hearts and Hands, summarised and compared for readers and writers.
The stranger is the short story's favourite engine because a stranger arrives with no history the reader can check. The writers here, Saki and O. Henry above all, built whole stories on the gap between what a stranger says and what the last paragraph proves.
The collection begins with strangers who lie, moves through strangers who are mistaken for someone else, and ends with a stranger telling a story on a train. Each title links to a page that summarises the story and explains its ending.
The stories
The Open Window by Saki. A nervous man paying a courtesy call is entertained by a fifteen-year-old niece who explains why the French window is kept open in October, and what her aunt is waiting for. Then three figures cross the lawn.
The Three Strangers by Thomas Hardy. A shepherd's christening party takes in three strangers out of the rain, one after another, and the second sings a song about his profession. When the third arrives and sees the second, he runs.
Dusk by Saki. Norman Gortsby, on a park bench at twilight, listens to a young man's story about a lost hotel and a lost cake of soap, and disbelieves it until he looks under the bench. The old man who sat there earlier comes back.
While the Auto Waits by O. Henry. A girl in a park in grey tells a young man she is rich and weary of society, and he tells her he is a cashier at the restaurant across the street. A white automobile waits at the kerb for one of them.
Hearts and Hands by O. Henry. On a train a young woman recognises an old acquaintance, handcuffed to a glum man, and he explains he is a marshal taking a prisoner to Leavenworth. Two passengers nearby note which wrist the cuff is on.
The Third Ingredient by O. Henry. A sacked shopgirl with a piece of beef meets a stranger at the communal sink with a potato and no beef, and they combine forces. The onion belongs to a young man on the landing.
The Rattrap by Selma Lagerlof. A tramp is hailed at an ironworks by the owner as an old comrade, and the daughter drives out in the sledge to fetch him for Christmas. The mistake is discovered over breakfast.
Kabuliwala by Rabindranath Tagore. A tall Afghan with a bag comes to a Calcutta door and a five-year-old, frightened at first, becomes his daily companion. The father lets it go on because it amuses him, and learns much later what it meant.
Mr Know-All by W. Somerset Maugham. A man shares a two-berth cabin to Yokohama with a stranger who talks, argues and knows everything, and dislikes him from the first hour. At dinner the stranger bets a hundred dollars on a string of pearls and looks at a woman's face.
The Storyteller by Saki. A bachelor in a railway carriage listens to an aunt fail to interest three children, and offers a story of his own about a girl who was horribly good. The aunt says it is most improper.
Reading them together
The collection argues that a stranger is a story with the ending withheld, and the writer's craft is in choosing when to pay it. Saki pays late and cruelly; O. Henry pays late and kindly; Hardy pays in a song halfway through and lets the room work it out. Lagerlof and Tagore are the two who let the stranger stay long enough to become something else.
Dusk and While the Auto Waits are a matched pair: two strangers on two park benches, two lies, and in each case the person who believes they are seeing through the other is the one being read.
If you want to write about strangers
What writers can take from this
- Read The Open Window first; at twelve hundred words it is the perfect specimen.
- Saki has three entries here; read them in one sitting for a short course in cruelty.
- Hearts and Hands and While the Auto Waits are both under fifteen hundred words and both turn on a single object.
- The Three Strangers is long and slow to start; stay with it until the song.
- Kabuliwala and The Rattrap are the warm pair to finish on.
Try it yourself
Write a story in which a stranger tells a character a detailed story about themselves, and the character discovers in the last paragraph that one detail was true, which changes everything.
Questions
What is the best short story about a stranger?
The Open Window is the standard, and The Three Strangers the most admired for structure. Mr Know-All is the one that reverses the reader's judgement most completely.
Which short stories about strangers are good for students?
The Open Window, Dusk, Hearts and Hands and The Rattrap are short and clear and teach twist structure without cruelty. The Storyteller is a favourite for reading aloud.
Which classic story about strangers is the shortest?
Hearts and Hands, at about a thousand words, then The Open Window at twelve hundred.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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