Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. A story within a story, also rendered story-within-a-story, is a literary device or conceit in which one story is told during the action of another story. Mise en abyme is the French term for a similar literary device (also referring to the practice in heraldry of placing the image of a small shield on a larger shield). A story within a story can be used in novels, short stories, plays, television, films, poems, music, and even philosophy. A 1903 work is entitled A Story Within a Story.