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The 10 Creepiest Edgar Allan Poe Stories
Top 10 Creepiest stories by Edgar Allan Poe. Includes such favorites as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, The Cask of Amontillado, Black Cat, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Hop-Frog, The Masque of Red Death and more!
- GenresClassicsShort Stories
114 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 29, 2011
About the author
Edgar Allan Poe
10.3k books29.1k followersThe name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and The Fall of the House of Usher. This versatile writer’s oeuvre includes short stories, poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe’s reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry.
Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.
The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...
Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.
The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 8, 2022
I haven't read Poe in a long time and so was surprised how difficult his prose can be to read. While the stories themselves are mostly enthralling, his prose is dense and populated with difficult vocabulary. "The Fall of the House of Usher" was especially difficult to make sense of in sections because of words like "tarn," "munificent," "enunciation," and "cataleptical," as well as some I knew such as "trepidancy," "vivacious," and "wanness."
Many of his stories are creepy from start to finish. He was an early master at setting an ominous tone. I think his best stories in this collection are
"The Tell-Tale Heart"
"Masque of the Red Death"
"Hop-Frog"
I read that his other works are not as good as his most popular pieces. It was a fun Halloween read!
Many of his stories are creepy from start to finish. He was an early master at setting an ominous tone. I think his best stories in this collection are
"The Tell-Tale Heart"
"Masque of the Red Death"
"Hop-Frog"
I read that his other works are not as good as his most popular pieces. It was a fun Halloween read!
September 22, 2022
I found it a bit tedious to read. This is my first Poe book so I can’t say if this is his style or if it is just this particular collection, but I can’t really give it more than 3 stars at most. It is just not my cup of coffee.
April 19, 2023
It has been a long time since I read anything by Edgar Allan Poe, and was only familiar with a couple of his stories. These ten stories are truly creepy, disturbing, and haunting. The vocabulary definitely was sometimes challenging. I am glad I read through these tales, just to remind me of Poe and his talent and writing style.
January 8, 2016
Classic
This was a great collection of classic stories by Edgar Allan Poe. It even features links to free audio book recordings of each story toward the end of the book. Perfect for getting into the Halloween spirit!
This was a great collection of classic stories by Edgar Allan Poe. It even features links to free audio book recordings of each story toward the end of the book. Perfect for getting into the Halloween spirit!
June 7, 2014
Good
Five ***** stars it's an okay book I love to read now and I used to hate to read but now I love too
Five ***** stars it's an okay book I love to read now and I used to hate to read but now I love too
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews