"The Fall of the House of Usher" recounts the terrible events that befall the last remaining members of the once-illustrious Usher clan before it is―quite literally―rent asunder. With amazing economy, Poe plunges the reader into a state of deliciously agonizing suspense. It's a must-read for fans of the golden era of horror writing.
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in Graham's Magazine in 1841. It has been claimed as the first detective story; Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of ratiocination".
"Ligeia" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1838. "Ligeia" is widely considered to be one of the top 100 greatest books of all time. The story follows an unnamed narrator and his wife Ligeia, a beautiful and intelligent raven-haired woman.
The story is set in a nameless Italian city in an unspecified year and is about a man taking fatal revenge on a friend who, he believes, has insulted him.
The blackness of eternal night encompassed me. The intense darkness oppressed and stifled me so that I struggled for breath.Having been condemned to death by the Spanish Inquisition, the narrator descends into a kind of hell. Dizzy with weakness and fainting with fear, he experiences such torments that death itself would be welcome. What troubles him most is the eternal question: how will he die?Toledo Prison is notorious for the torture of the c
"The Purloined Letter" is a short story by American author Edgar Allan Poe. It is the third of his three detective stories featuring the fictional C. Auguste Dupin, the other two being "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt". These stories are considered to be important early forerunners of the modern detective story.
In "The Masque of the Red Death" Edgar Allan Poe writes as no one else ever has of creeping, mounting terrors – of the deadly approach of a terrible pendulum, of the awful end of an ancient and noble house, and of the impossible beating of a dead heart.
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1843. It is told by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of his sanity, while describing a murder he committed. (The victim was an old man with a filmy "vulture-eye", as the narrator calls it.) The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer hides the body by dismembering it and hiding it under the floorboards. Ultimately the narrator's guilt man
"Eureka" (1848) is a lengthy non-fiction work by American author Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) which he subtitled "A Prose Poem", though it has also been subtitled as "An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe". Adapted from a lecture he had presented, Eureka describes Poe's intuitive conception of the nature of the universe with no antecedent scientific work done to reach his conclusions. He also discusses man's relationship with God, whom h
"The Mystery of Marie Rogêt", often subtitled A Sequel to "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe written in 1842. This is the first murder mystery based on the details of a real crime. It first appeared in Snowden's Ladies' Companion in three installments, November and December 1842 and February 1843.
This rousing sea adventure follows a New England boy, Pym, who stows away on a whaling ship with its captain's son, Augustus. The two boys, who find themselves repeatedly on the brink of discovery or death, witness many hair-raising events, including mutiny, savagery, cannibalism, and frantic pursuits.
