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The Purloined Letter and Berenice / La Lettre volée et Bérénice
- GenresShort StoriesClassics
78 pages, Paperback with Audio CD
First published January 1, 1835
2 people are currently reading
14 people want to read
About the author
Edgar Allan Poe
9,875 books28.8k 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 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 17, 2022
Es un pequeño compendio de historias cortas de Edgar Allan Poe:
La primera de ella es "The Purloined Letter" o "La carta robada", una historia detectivesca donde la dualidad del ser humano se hace patente. Está bien, aunque tampoco creo que sea algo que recuerde en unas semanas, así que le daría un 50/100.
Sin embargo, la segunda de ellas, "Berenice" sí que me ha gustado mucho más. Es un relato de terror, mucho más asociado a lo que se espera un lector de Edgar Allan Poe. Te atrapa desde un primer momento. Aunque desde un inicio, "sabes" qué va a pasar, el final no deja de ponerte los pelos de punta. Le daría un 80/100.
La primera de ella es "The Purloined Letter" o "La carta robada", una historia detectivesca donde la dualidad del ser humano se hace patente. Está bien, aunque tampoco creo que sea algo que recuerde en unas semanas, así que le daría un 50/100.
Sin embargo, la segunda de ellas, "Berenice" sí que me ha gustado mucho más. Es un relato de terror, mucho más asociado a lo que se espera un lector de Edgar Allan Poe. Te atrapa desde un primer momento. Aunque desde un inicio, "sabes" qué va a pasar, el final no deja de ponerte los pelos de punta. Le daría un 80/100.
February 13, 2025
Lo tremendamente buen escritor que era Poe por favor.
Dos historias se cuentan en este libro y las dos son tremendamente diferentes.
En La Carta Robada nos encontramos con Dupin resolviendo un caso de la forma en la cual nos tiene acostumbrados, explicando todo desde la comodidad de su sillón. Me divertí mucho con la forma en que esta narrado y como deja como estúpidos a la policía.
Por otro lado, Berenice es un poema, si es que podemos llamarlo poema, que muestra la narrativa mas oscura de Poe, con una prosa que te atrapa y te engancha. La forma de describir es explicita y eso te mete prácticamente dentro de la historia. El final fue impactante
Dos historias se cuentan en este libro y las dos son tremendamente diferentes.
En La Carta Robada nos encontramos con Dupin resolviendo un caso de la forma en la cual nos tiene acostumbrados, explicando todo desde la comodidad de su sillón. Me divertí mucho con la forma en que esta narrado y como deja como estúpidos a la policía.
Por otro lado, Berenice es un poema, si es que podemos llamarlo poema, que muestra la narrativa mas oscura de Poe, con una prosa que te atrapa y te engancha. La forma de describir es explicita y eso te mete prácticamente dentro de la historia. El final fue impactante
November 9, 2025
Dos piezas que revelan el pulso oscuro y brillante de Poe. La carta robada desliza su inteligencia como un susurro entre sombras, mientras Berenice nos enfrenta a la obsesión y al abismo del deseo. Ambas narraciones invitan a mirar lo oculto, lo que se esconde a plena vista o en la profundidad del alma. Una lectura breve pero intensa, ideal para ritualizar el misterio y la perturbación.
March 12, 2018
The purloined letter: 3/5
Berenice: 2/5
Berenice: 2/5
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews