Un cuento de las Montañas Escabrosas

by Edgar Allan Poe, Julio Cortázar (Translator)

Suspense, fear and the supernatural provide the center for this tale by the master prose writer.

Genres: Short Stories, Classics, Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Science Fiction, Fantasy

25 pages, Unknown Binding

First published March 3, 1843

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

[Francesc]

Inquietante relato. Poe mezcla el mundo del alma, extracorpóreo, con el de la realidad.

Disturbing story. Poe mixes the world of the soul, extracorporeal, with that of the reality.

[Jess the Shelf-Declared Bibliophile]

A Rip Van Winkle-esque story that didn’t totally make sense to me. Very odd.

[Quirkyreader]

This one reminded me of many of Kipling’s horror stories set in India.

[Aishu Rehman]

It's a very mysterious and original story. Even though everything in this story is supernatural it's believable and real being told from the narrator. Poe may be describing the nature quality of 'Ragged Mountains" to the "Blue Ridge' mountains of Virginia. The ending was a little confusing to me and maybe a little random with the leeches and I also want to know if Dr. Templeton was punished for his mistake. A delightful thrilling read.

[فايز Ghazi]

- هل هذه الفصة عن حلم يترآى لمن يصاب بمرض عصبي؟! ام هي احدى آثار التنويم المغنطيسي! ام هي هلوسات تحت تأثير الأفيون!! او هي حلم يقظة او تقارب عقول (نسخ احداث من عقل الى عقل) او تقارب ارواح؟! ربما لا شيئ منها وربما هي مجتمعة!! حتى ادغار في آخر الرواية تركنا في تناقض الإسم بين بيدلو ومقلوب الإسم "ولديب".

- على الهامش، هناك قصة حقيقية موثقة في امريكا تقترب جداً من مفهوم هذه القصة، وبطلها يدعى "إدغار كايسي" اذا احب احد الإطلاع على قصة هذا الإنسان.

[Fernando]

Cuento dotado de la temática del doble y de un marcado surrealismo.
Las vivencias contadas por el señor Bedloe llevan al lector a tener que desdoblarse también en el presente y el pasado.
La percepción de dos vidas transmutadas a través del tiempo, hacen que este cuento escrito por Poe tome ciertas notas esotéricas y a la vez, nos planteen la pregunta acerca de cómo está hecha nuestra alma.

[Natalie]

Getting back to my quest of reading all of Poe, I started with this short story and midway through noticed that I'd already made highlights in my kindle. Even though I vaguely remembered reading it last year, it had been so long, I decided to keep going, and honestly, I think I enjoyed it more the second time.

A Mr. Bedloe is quite sickly but still somehow manages to take jaunts into the mountains (???). While on one of these romps he enters some strange hallucination or dream or something. He experiences a strange incident that happened to someone else.

As Poe stories go, this one is not awful. I think the ending was meant to be more startling than it actually was, but that's Poe for you. There's much talk of mesmerism and this idea of magnetic relation . If you are familiar with many of Poe's other short stories, you'll know that this is one of his most fave topics. Taking a line from the book: All was rigorously self-consistent

Losing so many people he loved to early deaths probably influenced his obsession (I think I can call it that) with the "other side." (Though I have no idea where his mania for hot air balloons came from, Lord save us all from the hot air balloon short stories.)

There are some wonderful descriptive paragraphs in this one. I especially like the ones describing Mr. Bedloe and the city.

...His limbs were exceedingly long and emaciated...His complexion was absolutely bloodless. He mouth was large and flexible, and his teeth were more wildly uneven, although sould, than I had ever before seen teeth in a human head.

The houses were wildly picturesque. On every hand was a wilderness of balconies, of verandas, of minarets, of shrines, and fantastically carved oriels.

This is the year I make it through Poe. I'm so close! Some of it has been unbearingly painful which is why I took such a long break, but I'm back now! I'm determined to make it through!

[Jessica]

Once again, Poe has stumped me with his stories. I needed my dictionary constantly, because there are a few dated words, but other than that, I found the story interesting enough to continue my read.

[نورة]

"إننا نكون قد قاربنا أن نستفيق حين نحلم أننا نحلم"
*نوفاليس.

[Abby]

This was an interesting story about reincarnation or something. I was a little confused to be honest.

[Mary Ellen]

Not one of Poe's best, but I'm glad I read it.

[Tom]

3.5 Stars rounded up to 4 Stars.
In this tale Poe gives the reader a beautiful dreamlike quality with his descriptive prose. It was as if Poe was trying to transfer to the reader a mesmerizing experience through the use of his written words.

[Juna Jo]

Nos fumigan con 5G y hago un viaje astral

[Jenna]

A lot of people hate this because of the confusion, but in my opinion, being confused is what helps make this story so much more interesting. The coincidences are a bit too convenient, but it doesn't really matter to me. The ending was quite the plot twist and it was fascinating to me.

Also, I read "Mesmeric Revelation" a while ago before this and I think that helped me in understanding/appreciating this a bit more than somebody who hasn't.

[Kevin Hull]

Weird short story that hints at reanimation and reincarnation, among other things. Solid ideas but unfortunately the writing style is so vague and choppy that it's hard to figure out what even happened.

[Lee Foust]

This one fell flat for me--the revelation of the information seemed forced to get the "wow" from the reader, just didn't reveal itself naturally. A bit too much of Poe the professional writer and not enough of Poe the genius.

[Ginny]

terrifying,mysterious and suspensful!

[Melanti]

Not as good as his more well-known stories but decent enough.

[Allison Faught]

A lot to question! I hated that it left so abruptly with so many questions but I loved it at the same time to let my imagination and wonder soar!

[Nicolás Guasaquillo]

Un hombre sufre de una afección neurálgica que está siendo tratada por un médico amigo suyo. Un día, desaparece a tempranas horas de la mañana sin dejar rastro. Ya entrada la noche aparece irrumpiendo repentinamente en el salón de su casa, donde expectantes e inquietos lo esperan sus cuidadores. Expone la razón de su extravío y narra su aventura por las montañas Ragged, un escenario de exuberancia natural en donde, además de hallarse una ciudad hindú, tendrá lugar un viaje en el tiempo y en el espacio.

[Ivanko]

Pekulijarno! Tipičan Poe (u svome čudnjikavom ruhu). Ne možeš ovo napisati a da nisi pod utjecajem nečega ili potpuno mačan. Deskripcija je Poeu uvijek jača strana, prvotno opis "creepy" staraca, a onda i uvrnutih snova koji sugeriraju vrstu reinkarnacije ili opsjednutosti? Što se događa? Zanimljivo...

[Mathew]

I think I would like this story more if it had a tedious, but neatly tied up "Morphine made me do it" rather than the long line of far fetched coincidences that just happen to weave the tale together. The story is a very good example of orientalism if you happen to be looking for one. Poe's use of vocabulary, especially surrounding mesmerism, is deliciously archaic.

[Rayene Ziadi]

Also read other short stories that were included in my copy:
- Eleonora
- The Assignation
- The spectacles

[Naya]

Loved it. Loved the narration and the open ending and characters. Just wish it was scarier

[Tony Ciak]

great story by the master.

[Timothy McNulty]

This is a weaving tale that has many twist and turns to be no longer than it is. To try to understand it's meaning is pointless, it is my assumption that there is none to be found.

[Javier Muñoz]

La técnica de poe para encarnar un narrador nervioso es impecable.

[Дмитрий]

зачитаешься :)
как бледно выглядит язык Лоуренса на фоне роскошной прозы Эдгара Аллана По.

[Federico DN]

Meh.

It was ok, but not worth reviewing.

For the moment at least.

It’s public domain. You can find it HERE.

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PERSONAL NOTE :
[1843] [24p] [Horror] [1.5] [Not Recommendable]
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Meh.

Estuvo ok, pero no vale la pena reseñarlo.

Al menos por ahora.

Es dominio público, lo pueden encontrar ACA.

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NOTA PERSONAL :
[1843] [24p] [Horror] [1.5] [No Recomendable]
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[Courtney Ramos]

This story was strange but not as dark as Berenice. In the beginning Poe is describing Augustus to looking basically like a corpse to help set the tone for what will happen later in the story. It's a very mysterious and original story. Even though everything in this story is supernatural it's believable and real being told from the narrator. Poe may be describing the nature quality of 'Ragged Mountains" to the "Blue Ridge' mountains of Virginia. The ending was a little confusing to me and maybe a little random with the leeches and I also want to know if Dr. Templeton was punished for his mistake. A delightful thrilling read.