A Collection of Stories

by Edgar Allan Poe

TERROR HAS A NAME

His life was a nightmare as gruesome as any of his stories. And his stories are dark masterpieces of gut-wrenching horror….

Have you ever thought about being buried alive, trapped beneath the ground, covered with wet dirt, clawing your coffin, screaming? He did. Have you ever thought about being tortured, tied, in the dark, with rats and agony on all sides, knowing your enemies can watch you shriek? Have you ever thought the thing that most hates you is waiting inside the walls, under the floor? Have you ever thought about death and madness taking human form and coming after you? Have you ever thought about…He did. All this and more…and more…and more. Which is why the name of sheer, stark horror is…

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Horror, Classics

236 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published April 15, 1992

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

[Marda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely love his writing though the plots of the short stories do get a bit repetitious at times.

[Karson Hawkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful collection that spans a wider birth of genres than I thought Poe to be proficient in, this book is my first deep dive into Poe beyond what are simply his most famous works. While horror can be sometimes an exercise of childish morbid curiosity (and while it can be argued that even Poe presses the envelope on this matter) I, was pleased to see a greater nuance to his story-telling beyond this, with pleasure being able to be found throughout the stories beyond the sort of shock-value sometimes afforded by cheap horror. The strength of Poe's writing is not in its simple ability to confound and disturb: for such cheapnesses other authors can be found. Poe weaves psychologically creative and intellectually stimulating tales with the macabre as their flame, not their entirety. While some stories wrench the audience and deprive the prime sufferer of any mentioned release from their anguish ("The Black Cat" or "The Tell-Tale Heart"), many stories do the opposite and do not hold unwavering interest in the ultimate death or downfall of the protagonist ("The Pit and the Pendulum" or "The Fall of the House of Usher", along with his many detective stories) which I believe suggests Poe's sensibilities lied outside of the mere articulation of bleak and all-encompassing suffering that would, in its presence, lend an excessive shadow to his work. Something of him sought a "happy ending" or two amidst his generally macabre subjects which adds a certain depth I was not expecting to find to his writings and to the understanding of him as a person.

[Melting Uncle · Rating 4 out of 5]

After I kept seeing EAP references in places like Fernando Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet...
After becoming aware that Poe actually wrote many humorous stories...
After over a year of staying at home because of the pandemic and trying to read the books I’ve had for a long time but never gotten around to...
I reached for this selection of Poe’s short stories that somehow I acquired probably in the 90s or early 2000s when my parents bought it for me.

I have no memory of this book coming into my possession, it’s just always been eerily present on my bookshelves.
Anyway everybody knows this author but it was fun to try to approach the writing with eyes unclouded by preconceptions.

The stories here teem with originality, deep imagination, dark romance, the strange and the uncanny. The author left an indelible influence on not just horror but also science fiction and detective stories. Poe deserves his status as a legend. It’s surprising that his writing is sometimes associated with younger readers because it’s quite literary and heavy with allusion... I admit I found a few of the stories (“Ligeia”,”Masque of the Red Death”) pretty abstract and uneasy to read. On the other hand, stories “The Cask of Amontillado” or “Never Bet the Devil Your Head” were short and breezier.

Someday I’d like to read all of Poe’s stories and poems but I feel the need to warn my future self that in some of his more opaque moments, Poe can be fairly turgid going. Even so, the work of this original American freak should be remembered and celebrated.

[Roy Corry · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Tell Tale Heart" is among my favorite short stories. A true example of the macabre. There are many other classics in this collection. Well worth picking up.

[Mavis Hewitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of its time, in that the writing is wordy, some of the stories are classic, but easier to read in a less verbose version

[Xavier Patiño · Rating 4 out of 5]

My introduction to Edgar Allan Poe was, like I'm sure for many, The Raven. I think many of us read the gloomy poem in school. I don't remember reading any of his other works. College came along and The Tale-Tell Heart was required reading for a Literature course I was attending.

I immensely enjoyed the short story, and that was when I opened the dark wooden cellar door that was located in the cob-webbed, cavernous, moldy dungeon that is the world of Edgar Allan Poe.

This book holds 17 of some of the best tales that Poe has to offer, and some that for me, missed the mark. I don't want to rate each story individually because I feel it might deter others from reading those tales, and I believe everyone should go into this book with an open mind.

Out of the 17 tales, I found 11 of them to be great and entertaining. Some of them were very dark and macabre. Some, surprisingly, had a humorous tinge to it, albeit a dark comical aspect. There are two stories included that can be listed as a "whodunit", or a detective tale. Those were certainly something! I had no idea Poe had dipped into that genre.

I highly recommend reading this if you come across it. It was a wonderful introduction to Poe's short, glum tales. I look forward to reading more of his others and also delving into his poetry.

[Zach Vowles · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a difficult book to rate, because the stories are quite odd. Some seem, to me, to be completely off the mark of good writing, and often the stories have a big lead up to a disappointing conclusion. Some stories are so short that they seem almost pointless. There were a few, however, that I found quite enjoyable (despite the aforementioned problem with the stories' endings). Another redeeming characteristic of this book is the engaging language (although even this falls short at times).
My rating of each story:
Cover - 1 (awful, even for 1988)
Metzengerstein - 2
MS. Found in a Bottle - 2
Ligeia - 2
The Fall of the House of Usher - 2 (at this point of was feeling quite doubtful about finishing the book)
The Murders in the Rue Morgue - 4
A Descent into the Maelstrom - 3
Never Bet the Devil Your Head - 2
The Oval Portrait - 2
The Masque of the Red Death - 2
The Pit and the Pendulum - 4
The Tell-Tale Heart - 4
The Black Cat - 3
The Premature Burial - 3
The Purloined Letter - 4
The Sphinx - 2
The Cask of Amontillado - 2
Hop-Frog: or, ... - 4
Where a "2" signifies a story that I would recommend skipping over. On the whole, it was an average, if not disappointing read. 2.5/5

[MarytheBookLover · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the stories and some of them I read in school. I had a hard time with the language and had to stop to re read it in sections. In fact to take a break from thinking I read another book and then went back to Poe's writings. I did find them quite a marvel of his time. I can imagine how people of his time saw those writings as bewitching and scary. And mostly likely called him crazy for writing them.

Thumbs up.

[Tazar Oo]

i can't say yet.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of stories is hit and miss, but there are moments of brilliant spine tingling macabre atmosphere. Poe was mad as a snake which is what gives these their edge

[Shahd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Different, refreshing, heavy and surprisingly deep and reflective.. I'm so glad I read it

[Eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

The tale tell heart i think is really good. But actually i cannot read it without teacher s helping. The vocabulary are old and hard to use. The style is strange with quirky

[Renae · Rating 2 out of 5]

Aside from the obvious classics (Tell-Tale Heart, Amontillado, House of Usher), Poe's short stories range from okay to really not good. I'd already read all the ones worth reading again.

[Kendal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good Poe sampler. If you like this, dive into a full pool of his ouvre.

[Morgan Hood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gothic horror. Loved every story. Unbelievable the “ambience” that is created in each story.