The Best Short Stories of Edgar Allan Poe

by Edgar Allan Poe

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 Maelstrom, 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 Heart."

Genres: Classics, Short Stories, Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Gothic, Poetry

116 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1833

About the author

The 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...

Reviews

[Hache · Rating 5 out of 5]

The original EMO ha ha

[Haley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edgar Allan Poe is definitely depressing. I was really interested in the quotes starting each story. Fortunately, I was able to translate some of it; however, it was pretty confusing, so I had to research the rest. In the end, I found that the quote before The Pit and the Pendulum says, “Here an unholy mob of torturers, with an unquenchable thirst for human blood, once fed their long frenzy. Our homeland is safe now, the baneful pit destroyed, and what was once a place of savage death is now a scene of life and health.” What a happy start to the story!

Poe does give a lot of detail. What’s interesting, though, is that in almost all if not all his stories, Edgar Allan Poe seems to start right in the action. He doesn’t explain what in the world is going on until later, which is when the details come in.

In the beginning of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, there was that sinister feeling, knowing absolutely nothing about the characters, Roderick Usher and narrator, other than the fact that they were close friends as young boys. He left a really eerie feeling with his vagueness. I kept wondering, who was this Roderick Usher? The narrator obviously knew him, yet somehow happened to know basically nothing about him. Something else I thought was interesting was that Edgar Allan Poe took quite a while at the start of his story merely to explain the creepy aura of the old house.

Poe’s writing was definitely freaky. For some reason, I always read books like they’re a movie, sometimes with some sort of dramatic music in the background. Yet, this time, I pictured it with utter silence, which is often way more terrifying. For a moment, I was there, walking towards this house, known for it’s terrifying history. With a rustling of the leaves and the wind pushing me forward, I felt like I was at the house of Usher.
However, although Poe is vague and eerie as many people say, his writing style is very intriguing to me. He tells me just enough to leave on the edge of my seat, wondering what’s next.
So, although he is slightly creepy, as he is well known for, I did enjoy his writing.

[Ruth York · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have finally (I think) figured out a way for me to rate a book of poetry or short stories. I decided I would rate each individual entry and determine the average score. So that is how I arrived at the "3" rating for this book. It was the first time I have read Poe, despite being fascinated by him since a child. Sad to say, I found his writing a bit tedious. (And I will be looking for a fun, easy read for my next book.) The ratings for the individual stories are as follows:
The Gold-Bug: 3*
The Murders in the Rue Morgue: 4*
The Balloon Hoax: 1*
The Purloined Letter: 2*
A Descent into the Maelstrom: 3*
The Black Cat: 4*
The Fall of the House of Usher: 3* (I remember seeing the movie when younger, which is why I wanted to read Poe to begin with.)
The Masque of the Red Death: 2*
the Cask of Amontillado: 3*
The Pit and the Pendulum: 4*
The Tell-Tale Heart: 3*

Poe is very descriptive. Many of these stories could have been shortened by removing some of the overly descriptive words. Other than that, the stories were "ok."

[Miçi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tregime shume interesante. Do veçoja disa qe me pelqyen me shume.
1-Vrasjet ne rrugen Morg
2- Njeriu i turmes
3- Nje tregim i maleve te thepisura.
4- Zbulese mesmerike

[Promethea · Rating 5 out of 5]

You and me could have a bad poemance 🎀😘

[Amanda Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read all the stories in one night...What fun Mr.Poe and I have!
It is 2:45 am and time for me to turn out the light...I guess I will find out just how much fun it truly was or how frightening.
I have a feeling it will be the latter!
As long as I don't think about the cat I should survive the night.....fingers crossed!

[Zoe · Rating 1 out of 5]

You know a book's bad when you can't even bring yourself to speed read it

[Douglas Fugate · Rating 5 out of 5]

We all have our favorites.

[Chloe · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF - disappointing

[Arty · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this and would read again. - Will do a better review later.

[Macy]

The Tell Tale Heart is a story from this collection that would work well in an 8th grade classroom. It involves a speaker justifying his recent murder of a man with an unusual eye. It could work in tandem with The Landlady in an investigation of the horror literary genre. Instead of using The Tell Tale Heart as a model text for student work, students could do a Text Reformulation of the story. Most effectively, students could do an illustration or a graphic novel type reformulation to imagine how different elements of the story might look in real life. The illustration aspect would highlight the imagery in the story and help readers to discern what is real for the narrator and what is imagined. In a classroom focusing on the concept of interdependence, this can help students investigate how the narrator depends on both what is real in his world and what is imagined, and how those distinctions are debatable based on the readers' interpretation of the text. If each student is tasked to make a representation of the story individually before discussing the content with peers and the full class, their own interpretation will shine through. This will uncover the interdependence not only between what is real and imagined in the world of The Tell Tale Heart, but also how a reader and a text depend on one another to communicate a main idea, message, and content. This activity would be multi-faceted and stretch students' imaginations while also helping them to understand the reliance within and between text and reader.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

part of the joy of teaching literature is that i get to choose the literature we read and study! in our study of short stories, i, of course, had to cover Poe. inadvertently ended up reading a bunch of his short stories prior to teaching about him, which was fun. Poe will forever be one of my favorite authors. ended up covering The Tell-Tale Heart in class and all my students loved it.

[maryyy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edgar Allan Poe kinda popped off with this one

[cami · Rating 4 out of 5]

opowiadania niezwykle klimatyczne, jestem pod ogromnym wrażeniem! (4,5⭐️)

[murmurelabaleine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Actually, I listened to it on Spotify and it was perfectly enthusiastic, read by Basil Rathbone and Vincent Price👌 I even didn't know some of them so the discovery of the mystery was very dramatic I loved it!

[Laura]

The Masque of the Red Death - read 3rd Oct 2020

The Gold-Bug - read 17th-18th April 2012

This is such an effortless, fluent, fantastically formed short story. A curious story about a hunt for treasure, and a code-breaking pirate map. Great detail has gone into the execution of the tale, and I have just read that it was the apparent inspiration of R. L. Stevenson's 'Treasure Island' which I had no idea about, but is easy to see why!

The Murders In The Rue Morgue read 7th May 2012

'The first detective story'
Truly fascinating, this short story is clearly the inspiration for Conan Doyle's Study In Scarlet - "As the first true detective in fiction, the Dupin character established many literary devices which would be used in future fictional detectives including Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. Many later characters, for example, follow Poe's model of the brilliant detective, his personal friend who serves as narrator, and the final revelation being presented before the reasoning that leads up to it." (wikipedia) - In fact Dr Watson even compares Sherlock to Dupin in 'Scarlet', ("You remind me of Edgar Allen Poe's Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did exist outside of stories...") to which, as you would expect, Holmes replies with chagrin that Dupin was inferior, showy and superficial...
But really 'Rue Morgue' is very similar to 'Scarlet', the eccentric detective, the baffled inspector, and the companion as narrator, in awe of it all. Loved this (but glad that Conan Doyle didn't resort to a Orang-Utan...!)

[Leif · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book when I was a teenager and have been wanting to go through it again, Poe is simply amazing. I teach creative writing, and I try to never let a student take my classes without reading them "The Raven" Poe's poetry has a special place in my heart because of the rhythm, the rhyme, the structure and the narrative stories they tell. I love his short stories for similar reasons, they just seem to flow. One time as a young boy I read one of these stories where a man practices slowly inching his way into his victim's bedroom as they sleep, moving slower than the clock's minute hand. As a joke, I snuck into my sister's room one night and hid under her bed and let her get into her PJs, get comfortable, and lay down with one of her horror novels, and jumped out just as she was feeling safe and comfortable enough to sleep and screamed at her. She screamed back of course, and I was forever a fan of Edgar Allan Poe. I learned a lot of amazing things about him, like the fact that he was in the US Army and quickly rose through the ranks to Sergeant Major. He practically invented the modern short story, and as this is my own genre, in a way, I feel related to this man almost. There is just one more thing I want to add, when I find my students get bored of the length of "The Raven" poem, I go into YouTube and play them the Homer Simpson version, it gets laughter every time.

[campanillo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creo que es primordial pensar la época en la que Poe escribe sus cuentos. Algunos de los temas que trata pueden parecer muy vistos ya, pero claro, Poe fue uno de los padres del género, mucho tiempo antes de que se usasen tanto ciertos tópicos.
El terror psicológico que trabaja hace en ocasiones que te estremezcas, así como su forma de contar y describir ambientes, personajes... crea una sensación de oscuridad y agobio que si te gusta el género te va a encantar.

[Evin Mosley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorite line was from A Descent into the Maelström: “It may look like boasting -but what I tell you is truth- I began to reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in such a manner, and how foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a consideration as my own individual life, in view of so wonderful a manifestation of God’s power..”

[Nalini · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short and satisfying read. With Poe's obsession with the subject of death, this never seemed dull. There is more than one premature burial. The characters are, let's just say, 'unusual'. Unlike some of the most memorable characters who are dead, this book has a pulse.

[Ron · Rating 2 out of 5]

So, many, commas.

[Arcadia · Rating 3 out of 5]

ummmmmmm, i guess i just got into the emo mood with the two last stories. the narrative lost me sometimes. i really really liked 'the tell-tale heart'.
review to be revised upon studying in class :)

[Avishek Das · Rating 4 out of 5]

As usual it was short but not w=sweet...there is an amazing balance of pain & pleasure!

[Damaris Vargas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could say Poe was one of the first ones in the terror genre. He really knows how to keep everything so creepy and in suspense.

[Mboconnor31 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scary but fun. Go for it. Today, I enjoyed five short stories plus The Raven poem for a 1.5 hour seminar with Professor Luzzi of Bard College on the Hudson River.
Notes:

1. ✅Fall of the House of Usher - riding his horse on a dull, dark, and soundless Autumn day, as evening comes, he comes upon the House of Usher in a dreary tract of land, which made him gloomy. Tarn = small mountain lake or pool (Norse word for pool) and importunate = Persistent to point of intrusion or annoyance ex. Debt collectors. His friend, Roderick Usher's sister Madeline is dying. They paint, play guitar, and read a lot of old books, like by Machiavelli. Then prepare for her entombment as she passes. But he wanted to wait a fortnight before such. Roderick is consumed with a battle with the grim phantasm FEAR. Her vault was in a donjon (=main tower in a medieval castle= dungeon in English) beneath Poe’s sleeping arts.
2. ✅The Mask of the Red Death - = a pestilence devastating the country. Avatar= Prince Prospero secluded himself for 6 months & then invited 1,000 friends to a masked ball. Then called the Duke, who loved bizarreness as his place rooms indicated. 7 rooms that rather than opened upon each, had small turns w/ odd Gothic red paned windows, like blood. A clock rang strangely each hour, even the orchestra paused to hear it. At midnight, and before the last of the 12 strokes chimed, there was silence, as all saw an odd masked person was in the room! Terror & disgust ensued. The Prince says who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? This phantasm who neither had either or propriety. A stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. He had "out-heroded Herod." The Prince says: Unmask him! And runs through the six chambers with a dagger. Then the Prince dropped to his death. People then chased the corpse masked figure and grabbed violently its intangible form. Aka The Red Death, like a thief in the night had come and each reseller dropped! Even the ebony clock went out. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all. Avatar= 1. An electronic image, e.g., in a computer game; 2. Incarnation on earth of a deity or release of a soul 3. Avatar as in another iteration or version
3. ✅The tell-Tale Heart - he kills old man but cannot get heart beating out of his mind and admits his act!
4. ✅The Purloined Letter - as usual unknown narrator is with Dupin in his library in Paris, on St. Germaine. When a Monsieur G, Parisian in prefect of the police calls for his help. The thief is Minister D, a royal, who stole a letter and Dupin tries to locate it. Analyzing psychology of thief. Retrieval depends on reward, which had already been doubled, not on acumen but care & patience of the seekers. The Prefect searched the premises to no avail. The felon foils them b/c he thinks differently. The Prefect has dismissed the felon's intellect b/c he is a Poet. But this felon is both a poet & a mathematician. If he were just a mathematician he would lack the skills! Duplication n suggests the letter is right before our eyes, such that none would consider it. Simile re: street signs. Hence, intrusiveness is overlooked. Dupin figures it out & replaces the letter with a fake with words: @They are to be found in Crebillin's de Thyrste."
5. ✅The Cask of Amontillado - Poe is pissed after a 1,000 injuries from Fortunato. So he asks him to discern the value of some amontillado (18th c. dry sherry from amontillado region of Spain) he purchased. 18th c. Roquelaure or roquelaire is a knee length cloak - so he takes him into a catacombs and plaster him in there for eternity Ends: In pace requiescat, RIP.
6. * The Raven - raven taps on his door & he misses Lenore but quite the Raven " Nevermore" nepenthe = Greek myth orig. from Egypt means a drug of forgetfulness for one's sorrow; Gilead = biblical name for north Jordan

[Zora L. Kastner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm re-reading Poe after 10 years and I obviously was way too hyped about it (I must have been more excited about this 10 years ago somehow to not remember the quality well enough). The name Poe is just ringing so many bells and you instantly think of him as a literary genius who became famous for... well... reasons I guess. There must be reasons, right?

But what I'm reading here now looks more like the writings of a school boy. There is no finesse in it and he doesn't leave out a single thing that completely destroys a good story. There is absolutely no discipline in his writing. Even a light campfire-read needs a bit of structure to work.

He is planting Chekhov's gun, just to not let it go off in the end (I'm speaking about the Tell-Tale-Heart in particular, where he raves on about this eye, just to give it zero meaning in the end.) and the term "Kill your darlings" seems to mean nothing to him. Pages of pseudo-science in a story that is actually about a balloon-vouyage or endless explanations about cyphers in a treasure hunt. It just absolutely doesn't work. His stories usually have a nice idea in mind but he is completely ruining every single one of them with a topic that interested him immensely at the time but does no good for the story itself.
I totally see his worth for what came after him. He obviously has fueled so many other stories from later writers with ideas and he was the first in many regards, but that doesn't make a good story per se. They're clumsy and rough and not thought through. He is constantly loosing himself in unnecessary explanations that would have made great non-fiction books (at that time at least, maybe), but which leave his horror-and fantasy stories crippled and disrupted.
I constantly readied myself for some horror or adventure, just be be thrown out of the mood by random stuff.
There is also the problem that most of his stories are extremely impersonal. Most characters hardly get a name, their characteristics are just way too strange and sometimes have nothing to add to the story (in the mummy story the protagonist comes back from some binge drinking and Poe explains long and wide what a hangover he has and how he deals with it (or not), just to instantly throw this all out of the window and let the guy get up and about again as if the drinking never happened. Why mentioning it in the first place?)

I can't get my head around it. I'm grateful that Poe birthed Hitchcock and Jules Verne and Doyle, but his own stories have no particular worth for me. A slightly creepy read for Halloween to amuse your kids? Yes, why not. A light and overly romantic half hour on a rainy day when you have absolutely nothing better to do? Maybe. But nothing more really.

Though that's all of course purely subjective and I want to state here that I'm writing all my reviews mostly for myself, to remember the books in my past better and have it all in one place here. Very practical.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the unsettling, disturbing, heart-pounding story of "The Tell-Tale Heart" to the ghoulish mystery of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," each story in this assemblage is precisely crafted to grasp the reader and leave an ineradicable impression. Poe’s ability to syndicate byzantine plotlines with upbeat, atmospheric detail is matchless. His employment of language is both poetic and precise, creating a forcefully attractive reading experience that remains long after the concluding page. This all-time favourite masterful anthology that showcases the literary virtuosity of one of the world’s most iconic writers, is marked for his ground-breaking work in gothic fiction, mystery, and psychosomatic horror, this compilation captures the spirit of Poe’s ability to probe the darker corners of the human soul and reconnoiter themes of death, love, insanity, and the supernatural. For instance, "The Tell-Tale Heart", a psychological tour de force, delves into the mind of a murderer who insists on his saneness even as he is consumed by guilt and obsession. "The Fall of the House of Usher" is an archetypal gothic tale, which examines themes of decay, madness, and the supernatural through the lens of a disintegrating mansion and its mysterious inhabitants. In "The Cask of Amontillado" we get an unsettling narrative of revenge and infidelity. This story’s securely intertwined plot and grey humor are unforgettable. "The Masque of the Red Death" is a dark allegory on the inevitability of death, this story is ironic in allegory and uncanny imagery. Poe’s stories are characterized by their exploration of the macabre and the mysterious, often blending reality with elements of the surreal. His ability to evoke dread and suspense is heightened by his use of unreliable narrators, rich symbolism, and gothic settings. Each story is a study in the extremes of human emotion, from unrelenting guilt to obsessive love. This anthology is not merely a collection of horror tales but a profound examination of human nature and the subconscious. Poe’s work laid the basis for contemporary detective fiction and psychological whodunits, influencing generations of writers, all the way from Arthur Conan Doyle to Stephen King. The Best Short Stories of Poe is a must-read for aficionados of gothic literature and anybody looking for a deeper understanding of the origins of modern horror and mystery. Poe’s ageless tales remind us of the power of storytelling to induce both terror and wonder. Whether you are new to Poe or reentering his work, this collection is an essential addition to any literary library.

[Itami · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ich habe das erste mal von Poe gehört, als ich als Kind die Simpsons Halloweenfolge gesehen habe, in der Poes Gedicht „The Raven“ vorkommt. Später sah ich ebenfalls bei den Simpsons, wie Lisa ein Diorama zu Poes Erzählung „Das verräterische Herz“ gebastelt hatte. Seitdem war mir Poe ein Begriff – wie so ziemlich jedem Menschen früher oder später. Man kennt Poe, aber hat man Poe gelesen? Nachdem ich „Der Untergang des Hauses Usher“ auf Netflix gesehen hatte, dachte ich, ich müsse meine Wissenslücke schließen und habe mir daher unter gefühlt 1000 Poe-Sammlungen diese hier rausgesucht, da sie neben „Usher“ auch die drei Dupin-Geschichten enthielt (...und da sie mit 5 Euro echt günstig ist ngl). Dupin ist übrigens die Vorlage für Sherlock Holmes gewesen, daher hatte ich an ihm besonderes Interesse. Ich las also erst „Usher“ – und war maßlos enttäuscht. Diese kurze Geschichte hatte so ziemlich gar nichts mit der grandiosen Netflix-Serie zu tun, mehr noch, ich fand die Story wirklich mies. Dann auf zum ersten Fall von Dupin („Doppelmord in der Rue Morgue“), welche im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes einfach nur Banane war… und dann zu zweiten Fall („Der Geheinis der Marie Rogêt“), welchen ich abbrach, weil er keine Geschichte ist, sondern ein staubtrockener Aufsatz. Kurz gesagt: Ich war enttäuscht. Das sollte Poe sein? DER Poe?
Das Buch lag ein Weilchen hier rum, während ich andere Sachen las, und es ist reiner Zufall, dass ich es schließlich doch wieder in die Hand nahm. Aus einem Sketch von Monty Python (den ich ebenfalls als Kind gesehen hatte) war mir der Name „Amontillado“ im Kopf geblieben und da eine der Geschichten so hieß, war ich neugierig genug sie zu lesen. Und sie war gut. Nicht nur, weil ich erkannte, dass sie in der Netflix-Serie verarbeitet worden war, sondern weil sie an sich gut war. Ich las daraufhin „Das ovale Portrait“ und auch das gefiel mir. So las ich mich also von Geschichte zu Geschichte und erkannte zum einen, dass die Netflix-Serie eine große Liebeserklärung an Poes Werk ist, und zum anderen, dass ich Poe halt einfach mag. Einzig „Die schwarze Katze“ habe ich überspringen müssen, weil ich ein großes Problem mit Gewalt an Tieren habe (looking at you, Sturmhöhe!), und nun, da das Buch zu Ende ist, habe ich vor, mir auf Projekt Gutenberg weitere von Poes Kurzgeschichten durchzulesen.

Tja, dann ist wohl die Moral von der Geschicht: Danke Simpsons, danke Netflix, danke Monty Python!

[Eszti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ez volt az elő találkozásom Poe munkásságával. Érdekesek a történetek és külön tetszenek, hogy rövidek és így gyorsan lehet velük haladni és a figyelmemet is jobban fenntartotta. Szerintem még fogok Poe-t olvasni a későbbiekben is :)

_A Morgue utcai kettős gyilkosság_
Az első novellám. Sehogy sem tudtam rájönni a gyilkosság kimenetelére és lássuk be erre nem is lehetett következtetni [spoiler], hogy nem ember, hanem egy orángután volt a tettes [/spoiler]. Ezt leszámítva érdekes volt, egyedül az elején találtam kissé hosszúnak és unalmasnak a bevezetőt.

_A fekete macska_
Kissé hátborzongató volt, mint félelmetes. Egyáltalán nem tetszett egy állattal való kegyetlenkedés ötlete. [spoiler] A feleségét befalazó rész is ismerős volt, viszont az tetszett, hogy az új macskát is befalazta és ez buktatta le a rendőrök előtt a tettét. [/spoiler]

_Egy hordó amontillado_
Kissé semmilyen volt ez a novella, teljesen felejthető az egész. [spoiler] Itt is megjelent a befalazós rész, egy köteten belül két ilyen eset nem túl izgalmas.[/spoiler] Az egész leírása sem volt érdekes.

_Az ellopott levél_
Ez is érdekes volt, de az előző Dupin történet sokkal érdekesebb volt. Hiányzott, hogy igazából semmit nem tudtunk meg a levél tartalmáról, így kicsit átverve éreztem magam.

_A vörös halál álarca_
Tetszett, főleg a mondanivalója miatt fogott meg, hogy nem lehet elkerülni a végzetet. Itt is leginkább a hogyan kérdésének megválaszolása hiányzott. [spoiler] Hogyan és miért éppen a bálon tűnt fel a halál? Miért várt annyi évet, hogy lesújtson a fekete halál a kastélyban elrejtőzőkre? [/spoiler]

[jordan mcintire · Rating 4 out of 5]

i read a different version of his short stories that i can’t find but man, it’s hard to get into edgar poe (as he prefers to be called) at first but once you’re in poe’s flow you’re in it. his horror is not like most modern horror - which i do enjoy - where the main objective is to strike you with visceral reactions to emotion provoking situations. poe took horror and used it to shed light on the human condition. many of his tales discuss the fading of beauty over time and the strong negative emotions it summons as we selfishly hate and fear the ugly. also, in “the tell-tale heart”, he was very astute on his observations of the ego and how it interacts with guilt. rip poe, you would’ve loved ap psych.
also, i must say that “the masque of the red death” aged like fine wine after covid when most of the elite only protected and cared about themselves. it caused many of us to gain class consciousness. unfortunately though, masquerades are pretty obsolete now so that does not translate as well into our modern world. we should bring them back though, they’re really cool.
on a final note, “the murders in the rue morgue” being one - if not the first piece - of detective fiction is so fascinating. poe was an absolute visionary.