español · English · C1–C2
Advanced Spanish stories, with the English alongside (C1–C2)
Poe, Bierce, Hawthorne, Melville and Twain in Spanish: dense, stylish prose, with the English original there for the sentences worth a second look.
10 free advanced stories in Spanish
Each one opens in your browser with no account, the Spanish and the English side by side, paragraph by paragraph, shortest first. Every story is also a free Spanish–English ebook for Kindle, Kobo or any e-reader: downloading needs a free account, no payment (which file to pick).
ES
El retrato oval
Edgar Allan Poe
The Oval Portrait
C1Edgar Allan Poe · Spanish · 10 min
ES
El corazón delator
Edgar Allan Poe
The Tell-Tale Heart
C1Edgar Allan Poe · Spanish · 15 min
ES
El barril de amontillado
Edgar Allan Poe
The Cask of Amontillado
C1Edgar Allan Poe · Spanish · 15 min
ES
La máscara de la Muerte Roja
Edgar Allan Poe
The Masque of the Red Death
C1Edgar Allan Poe · Spanish · 15 min
ES
La célebre rana saltarina del condado de Calaveras
Mark Twain
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
C2Mark Twain · Spanish · 15 min
ES
Tobermory
Saki
Tobermory
C1Saki · Spanish · 20 min
ES
El experimento del doctor Heidegger
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment
C1Nathaniel Hawthorne · Spanish · 25 min
ES
Un suceso en el puente sobre el río Owl
Ambrose Bierce
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
C1Ambrose Bierce · Spanish · 25 min
ES
La bella durmiente del bosque
Charles Perrault
The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood
C1Charles Perrault · Spanish · 25 min
ES
El gato negro
Edgar Allan Poe
The Black Cat
C1Edgar Allan Poe · Spanish · 25 min
What advanced Spanish stories are like
Advanced stories are dense on purpose: Poe’s narrators circle their own guilt, Bierce bends time, Melville’s Bartleby prefers not to. The Spanish carries that style with long sentences, rare words and a literary register.
At this level you rarely need the English for the plot. It is there for the phrases that are hard to pin down, and for comparing how the same effect is achieved in two languages.
How to read Spanish at C1–C2
Read the Spanish as literature
Read at your normal pace and let unfamiliar words go when the meaning is clear. Stop only where the style or a turn of phrase interests you.
Use the English for nuance
When a word could mean two things, the English shows which one the story needs. That is where advanced readers still learn the most.
Read aloud
Literary Spanish has rhythm. Reading a paragraph aloud, then checking its English, trains your ear as well as your eye.
More on the method in how to read a parallel text.