Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) holds a unique place in American literature. Famous as a poet, he also penned short stories that are masterpieces of terror and suspense, infused with the horror and dread he knew from his feverish dreams and persistent fears of death. Fortunately for lovers of mystery, Poe was attracted by logic and analysis as well as fantasy. Fascinated by the narrative possibilities of tracking the perpetrator of a crime, he invented the modern detective story.This...
"The Essential Tales and Poems" is a large, yet thorough, collection of the poems and stories written by horror master Edgar Allen Poe. Admirers will be happy to see Poe's most famous works present in the collection: «The Fall of the House of Usher,» «The Pit and the Pendulum,» «The Tell-Tale Heart,» and «The Cask of Amontillado.» These works have struck fear in audiences for generations, solidifying Poe's place in the American literature canon. Fans of Poe will not be...
"TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?" And so begins «The Tell-Tale Heart», that compressed tale of Gothic composition. The characters and images that Edgar Allan Poe has gifted us are plentiful. Hugely influential to the short story genre, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) remains a lion of American letters. His morose explorations of human depravity render his tales exceptionally captivating. Here, in Volume I of II, is contained...
"TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?" And so begins «The Tell-Tale Heart», that compressed tale of Gothic composition. The characters and images that Edgar Allan Poe has gifted us are plentiful. Hugely influential to the short story genre, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) remains a lion of American letters. His morose explorations of human depravity render his tales exceptionally captivating. Here, in Volume II of II, is contained...
Readers will recognize their favorite horror stories in the collection «The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings.» Edgar Allen Poe was a master of suspense, horror, and mystery, and his stories, while truly terrifying, are also delightfully entertaining. In «The Tell-Tale Heart,» the narrator has just killed a man and buried him under his floor. As he sits right above the body, he begins to hear the dead man's heart thumping loudly in his ears. Guilt and paranoia flood the narrator, and the...
This volume contains a collection of some of the best short stories ever written by Edgar Allan Poe. A master of the macabre, Poe exhibits his literary prowess in these classic short stories. Contained within this volume are the following: The Gold-Bug, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Balloon-Hoax, The Purloined Letter, A Descent into the Maelström, The Black Cat, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Masque of the Red Death, The Cask of Amontillado, The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Tell-Tale...
A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by John Escott. Everybody has bad dreams. Horrible things move towards you in the dark, things you can hear but not see. Then you wake up, in your own warm bed, and turn over to go back to sleep. But imagine that you wake up on a hard floor, in a darkness blacker than the blackest night. You listen to the silence, and smell a wet dead smell. Death is all around you, waiting…In these stories by Edgar Allan Poe,...
First published in a 1839 edition of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, The Fall of the House of Usher is the story of the declining physical and psychological health of the residents of the House of Usher-and the way in which the house itself reflects that. Gothic in theme and style, the story is an exemplar of Poe's philosophy of composition, which dictates that literary works should be short, methodological, and have a unity of effect wherein all the elements of the story are...
First published in a 1841 edition of Graham's Magazine, The Murders in the Rue Morgue is often cited as the first modern detective story. The first of three stories to center around C. Auguste Dupin, Poe's fictional detective, The Murders in the Rue Morgue involves Dupin's investigation of two women's murders. Establishing many of the tropes that would later become common to detective fiction, the story begins with an explanation of Dupin's theory of ratiocination, a...
This hair-raising collection presents some of Edgar Allan Poe's most ingenious and gripping tales, notably "The Tell-Tale Heart," in which the guilt-ridden narrator recounts his compulsion to commit murder. Other captivating stories include "The Fall of the House of Usher," concerning a most unnerving visit to the home of an old friend; "The Cask of Amontillado," a parable of an attempt at revenge that goes way too far;...
This summer, during these strange strange times, immerse yourself in words that have touched all of us and will always get to the core of all of us, of every single person. Books that have made us think, change, relate, cry and laugh: Leaves of Grass (Walt Whitman) Siddhartha (Herman Hesse) Middlemarch (George Eliot) The Madman (Kahlil Gibran) Ward No. 6 (Anton Chekhov) Moby-Dick (Herman Melville) The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde) Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky) The Overcoat...
Invest your time in reading the true masterpieces of world literature, the great works of the greatest masters of their craft, the revolutionary works, the timeless classics and the eternally moving poetry of words and storylines every person should experience in their lifetime: Leaves of Grass (Walt Whitman) Siddhartha (Herman Hesse) Middlemarch (George Eliot) The Madman (Kahlil Gibran) Ward No. 6 (Anton Chekhov) Moby-Dick (Herman Melville) The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde) Crime...