What are the free alternatives to Olly Richards’ Short Stories in Spanish?
No free book matches it exactly: a modern A2–B1 story collection with controlled vocabulary. The closest free substitutes are old Spanish readers for English-speaking students on Project Gutenberg, with notes or questions and a vocabulary at the back. After those come public-domain stories such as Horacio Quiroga’s.
Reading Companion is not affiliated with StoryLearning or Olly Richards. We name the books only to describe and compare them. Their levels are quoted from the publishers’ and authors’ pages, and we do not rate them.
What does Olly Richards’ book give you that a free text has to replace?
Short Stories in Spanish for Beginners (Teach Yourself) is a set of eight short stories written for learners. Its publisher describes four things a free replacement would have to provide:
- A stated level. A2–B1 on the CEFR scale. That means learners who already know the basics, not someone on their first day of Spanish.
- Controlled vocabulary. The language is kept to a level that includes the 1,000 most frequent words.
- Help inside the book. A glossary for the words in bold, a bilingual word list, a plot summary and comprehension questions.
- Short pieces. Eight stories in one book, each one short enough to finish.
The series goes on with a second beginners’ volume and an intermediate one. The author’s site lists the second volume as A2–B1 and the intermediate book as B1–B2. The UK publisher’s page maps the second volume to A2–B2.
No free book does all four of these things. Old school readers give you help inside the book and short pieces, but no CEFR level and no frequency list. Online graded texts give you a stated level, but as single texts rather than a book. Original stories give you real literature with no control at all. The sections below take each kind in turn.
Which free Spanish readers come closest to a graded reader?
The closest are readers made for American students of Spanish in the early twentieth century. They are free on Project Gutenberg. Each was written or edited for learners, and each ends with a vocabulary of the words in the text. None of them has a CEFR level, because the CEFR did not exist yet. We put them in order using the audience each editor states: from first-term books to books for “after a beginners’ book”.
| Book | What is inside | Who the editors wrote it for | Help in the book |
|---|---|---|---|
| A First Spanish Reader Erwin W. Roessler and Alfred Remy, American Book Company; no year on the title page | 68 short selections: 56 in prose, 7 poems and 5 songs | For use “almost at the very beginning” of a Spanish course. The first 23 selections use only the present tense. | Questions (Preguntas) and a vocabulary |
| An Elementary Spanish Reader Earl Stanley Harrison, Ginn and Company, 1912 | 21 selections: stories, anecdotes and riddles, plus six fables by Tomás de Iriarte | The language is simplified so that reading can start “at a very early stage” | A vocabulary that lists every verb form in the text; no notes |
| Spanish Tales for Beginners Edited by E. C. Hills, Henry Holt, revised edition 1919 (first 1909) | 18 tales by nineteenth-century writers, among them Emilia Pardo Bazán, Armando Palacio Valdés and Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, plus 13 poems | A beginners’ book | Notes, direct-method exercises and a vocabulary |
| Lecturas fáciles con ejercicios Lawrence A. Wilkins and Max A. Luria, Silver, Burdett and Company, 1916 | Short stories and readings in two sections, the second called Panamericana | The second and third semesters of high school, or the first and second of college | Questions in Spanish after most stories, other exercises, and a Spanish–English vocabulary |
| Spanish Short Stories Edited by E. C. Hills and Louise Reinhardt, D. C. Heath, 1910 | 14 stories by Spanish and Latin American writers, among them Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, Benito Pérez Galdós and Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, arranged “so far as possible, in the order of difficulty” | To be read “immediately after a beginners’ book” | Notes and a vocabulary |
These books are old, and it shows. Expect spelling and vocabulary from a century ago, school-style exercises, and notes in English. They are not graded to a word list the way modern readers are. But like Olly Richards’ book they were made for learners, and the vocabulary at the back does the job of a glossary. They are in the public domain in the United States. If you live elsewhere, check your country’s copyright rules.
Where can I read free graded Spanish texts online?
Several sites give modern texts with a CEFR level for free. They are single texts, not books. Two of the three use CEFR levels, the same scale as Olly Richards’ book.
- Lingua.com lists 310 Spanish texts, 27 of them free: 2 at A1, 8 at A2, 13 at B1, 3 at B2 and 1 at C1. Each has a short quiz. The rest need a Premium account.
- Kwiziq Spanish readers have texts from A1 to C1 by native teachers, most with audio. You need a free login. In September 2026 Kwiziq said the readers would stay free, and that from 15 October its comprehension exercises would move to the paid plan, apart from a free selection.
- Lecturas paso a paso from the Instituto Cervantes has 34 readings: 11 at inicial, 11 at intermedio and 12 at avanzado. Each has activities before and after the text. It is free, and the material is older.
More free Spanish sources, and the same kind of list for French, German and Italian, are on Free graded readers in Spanish.
Which public-domain Spanish stories can I read after a graded reader?
When the readers above start to feel easy, move on to stories written for Spanish readers. These four are in our table of free books, and each links to a free edition on Project Gutenberg. The level of each was set by hand by our team. We counted the words.
| Book | Form | Level | Words | Different words | Reading time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fábulas literarias Tomás de Iriarte | fables in verse | A2 | 14,714 | 3,959 | 1–2.5 h |
| Lecturas fáciles con ejercicios Lawrence A. Wilkins | reader for learners | A2 | 61,857 | 11,961 | 5–10 h |
| Cuentos de amor, de locura y de muerte Horacio Quiroga | short stories | B1 | 49,907 | 8,186 | 4–8.5 h |
| Cuentos de amor Emilia Pardo Bazán | short stories | B1 | 64,095 | 12,491 | 5.5–11 h |
Compare the vocabulary. Olly Richards’ book keeps its language to a level that includes the 1,000 most frequent words. Quiroga’s collection uses 8,186 different word forms. That is not a like-for-like count, because every Spanish verb has many forms. Still, the gap explains why a reader of the beginners’ book should not expect to open Quiroga and read without stopping.
Lecturas fáciles is the one book that appears in both tables. It is a school reader with exercises, so it works as a bridge between the two. Fábulas literarias is short but written in verse, so some lines will feel harder than the word count suggests.
For a gentler first original, Quiroga also wrote Cuentos de la selva, animal stories set in the jungle of Misiones and written for children. The City of Buenos Aires offers it as a free ePub. It is not in our table, so we have no word count for it.
How we counted. Words and different words were counted from the text of each Project Gutenberg edition, without the Gutenberg licence and front matter. A word is any run of letters, including accented letters. Different words are distinct word forms, ignoring capital letters, so habla and hablaba count as two. Reading time is the word count divided by 200 and by 100 words per minute. Where those speeds come from is on How long does it take to read a book? The method behind the levels is on the About page.
Can I read Olly Richards’ book itself for free?
Only by borrowing it. Your public library may have the paperback, the e-book or the audiobook, so search its catalogue before you buy. Holdings differ from library to library. When we searched OverDrive’s public catalogue on 26 October 2026, it did not list Short Stories in Spanish for Beginners, but it did list two of Olly Richards’ 101 Conversations books. Copies offered as free downloads elsewhere are almost certainly unlicensed, because the book is in copyright.
Which paid books are at the same level?
If you decide to pay, these are the usual alternatives. Each line gives the level as its publisher or author states it:
- Lingo Mastery, Spanish Short Stories for Beginners: 20 stories, recommended for A2+.
- Paco Ardit, Spanish Novels: short novels with the author’s own labels, five titles at A1 and five at A2.
- Difusión, Lola Lago: detective novels, each with its own level, from A1 to B1.
- McGraw Hill, Easy Spanish Reader: no CEFR level. The publisher describes it as suitable for anyone from “a brand-new beginner” to “an advanced-beginning learner”.
Titles, levels, and a side-by-side table of Lingo Mastery and Olly Richards are on Which Spanish graded readers are really A1, A2 and B1? What graded readers are, and how the big English series map to CEFR, is on What are graded readers?
Which free option should I start with?
The steps below are our suggestion, based on what each editor says the book is for. Nobody has tested these old books against the CEFR, so treat the levels as a guide.
- If Olly Richards’ book would be too hard for you (around A1): the free A1 and A2 texts on Lingua.com, then the first 23 selections of A First Spanish Reader, which use only the present tense.
- At the level the book is written for (A2 to low B1): An Elementary Spanish Reader or Spanish Tales for Beginners, then Lecturas fáciles con ejercicios.
- When those feel easy (B1): Spanish Short Stories, which the editors meant for “after a beginners’ book”, then Quiroga and Pardo Bazán from the table above.
Whatever the level on the cover, the test is a page of the book. Read one full page and count the words you could not translate, not counting names. For easy reading in quantity, Nation and Waring set the limit at three or four unknown words a page. If you stop more often than that, go one step back. The full test is on Is this book right for my level?
Sources
- Hachette. Short Stories in Spanish for Beginners by Olly Richards, Teach Yourself, publisher’s description and UK price, checked 26 October 2026. The A2–B1 mapping is on Hachette India’s page. hachette.co.uk, hachetteindia.com
- Hachette. Short Stories in Spanish for Beginners, Volume 2, publisher’s description, checked 26 October 2026. hachette.co.uk
- StoryLearning. Books: Spanish, with levels, checked 26 October 2026. storylearning.com/books
- Title pages, prefaces and contents of five Project Gutenberg readers: Roessler and Remy, A First Spanish Reader (PG 15353); Harrison (1912), An Elementary Spanish Reader (PG 22065); Hills (1909, revised 1919), Spanish Tales for Beginners (PG 36805); Wilkins and Luria (1916), Lecturas fáciles con ejercicios (PG 24250); Hills and Reinhardt (1910), Spanish Short Stories (PG 33406). Read in the Internet Archive’s mirror of Project Gutenberg, checked 26 October 2026. archive.org/details/gutenberg
- Lingua.com. Spanish reading texts, counts by level, checked 26 October 2026. lingua.com/spanish/reading
- Kwiziq blog, 15 September 2026, on the readers staying free and the new comprehension exercises. spanish.kwiziq.com
- Centro Virtual Cervantes, Lecturas paso a paso. The number of readings per level is from the Wayback Machine index of the site’s reading pages, checked 1 October 2026. cvc.cervantes.es
- Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Clásicos digitales: Cuentos de la selva, ePub download, checked 26 October 2026. buenosaires.gob.ar
- OverDrive, public catalogue search for “Short Stories in Spanish for Beginners Olly Richards”, 26 October 2026. overdrive.com
- Lingo Mastery, Spanish Short Stories for Beginners; Paco Ardit, Spanish Novels, A1 and A2 titles; Difusión, Lola Lago catalogue pages; McGraw Hill, Easy Spanish Reader, Premium Fourth Edition (2020), description in the Porchlight Book Company listing. Checked 7 October 2026. lingomastery.com, spanishnovels.net, difusion.com, porchlightbooks.com
- Nation, P. and Waring, R. (2013). Extensive Reading and Graded Readers. erfoundation.org
Next: Which Spanish graded readers are really A1, A2 and B1?