The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings

by Edgar Allan Poe

Suspense, fear and the supernatural provide the center for these tales by the master prose writer.

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

414 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 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

[Federico DN · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pure Classicness.

A collection by legendary Edgar Allan Poe. What is there to say? You can’t get any more classic than this; which is good, and bad, depending on how you want to look at it. Must say Poe is consistently good, yet rarely awesome, at least in my experience. I hate poetry, hence my rating for the poems; if you are fond of the genre you might enjoy them though.

Go for the Best, consider the Good, whatever the Meh.

The Best :
★★★★☆ “The Black Cat.”
★★★★☆ "The Fall of the House of Usher." [3.5]
★★★★☆ “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.” [3.5]

The Good :
★★★☆☆ "The Tell-Tale Heart."
★★★☆☆ “Ligeia.”
★★★☆☆ “The Cask of Amontillado.”
★★★☆☆ “The Masque of the Red Death.”
★★★☆☆ “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar.”
★★★☆☆ “Eleonora.”
★★★☆☆ “The Premature Burial.”
★★★☆☆ “The Pit and the Pendulum.” [2.5]
★★★☆☆ “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” [2.5]
★★★☆☆ “A Descent into the Maelström.” [2.5]
★★★☆☆ “The Purloined Letter.” [2.5]
★★★☆☆ “MS. Found in a Bottle.” [2.5]

The Meh :
★★☆☆☆ “William Wilson.”
★☆☆☆☆ “Silence—A Fable.”

POEMS :
★★☆☆☆ "The Raven."
★★☆☆☆ “Annabel Lee.” [1.5]
☆☆☆☆☆ “Stanzas, Romance, To Helen, Israfel, The City in the Sea, The Sleeper, The Valley of Unrest, Lenore, A Valentine, Ulalume—A Ballad, For Annie, The Bells, Alone.”

It’s public domain. You can find it Vol 1. HERE, and Vol 2. HERE, and Vol 3. HERE.

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PERSONAL NOTE :
[1843] [448p] [Collection] [Partly Recommendable]
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★★★☆☆ The Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
★★☆☆☆ The Complete Stories and Poems
★★★☆☆ The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings
★★★☆☆ The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales
★☆☆☆☆ The Raven and Other Poems

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Puro Clasicismo.

Una colección por el legendario Edgar Allan Poe. ¿Qué hay para decir? No se puede ser más clásico que esto; lo cual es bueno, y malo, dependiendo del ojo con que quieras verlo. Debo decir que Poe es consistentemente bueno, aunque raramente genial, al menos en mi experiencia. Odio la poesía, por ello mi calificación para los poemas; aunque si te gusta el género seguramente podrías disfrutarlos.

Ir por lo Mejor, considerar lo Bueno, loquesea lo Meh.

Lo Mejor :
★★★★☆ “El Gato Negro.”
★★★★☆ “El Hundimiento de la Casa de Usher.” [3.5]
★★★★☆ “La Narrativa de A. Gordon Pym.” [3.5]

Lo Bueno :
★★★☆☆ “El Corazón Revelador.”
★★★☆☆ “Ligeia.”
★★★☆☆ “El Barril de Amontillado.”
★★★☆☆ “La Máscara de la Muerte Roja.”
★★★☆☆ “El Caso del Señor Valdemar.”
★★★☆☆ “Eleonora.”
★★★☆☆ “El Enterramiento Prematuro.”
★★★☆☆ “El Pozo y el Péndulo.” [2.5]
★★★☆☆ “Los Crímenes de la Rue Morgue.” [2.5]
★★★☆☆ “Un Descenso Dentro del Maelstrom.” [2.5]
★★★☆☆ “La Carta Robada.” [2.5]
★★★☆☆ “Manuscrito Hallado en una Botella.” [2.5]

Lo Meh :
★★☆☆☆ “William Wilson.”
★☆☆☆☆ “Silencio—Una Fábula.”

POEMAS :
★★☆☆☆ "El Cuervo."
★★☆☆☆ “Annabel Lee.” [1.5]
☆☆☆☆☆ “Stanzas, Romance, Para Helen, Israfel, La Ciudad en el Mar, El Durmiente, El Valle del Malestar, Lenore, A Valentine, Ulalume— Una Balada, Para Annie, Las Campanas, Solo.

Es dominio público, lo pueden encontrar Vol 1. ACA, y Vol 2. ACA, y Vol 3. ACA.

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NOTA PERSONAL :
[1843] [448p] [Colección] [Parcialmente Recomendable]
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[هدى يحيى · Rating 5 out of 5]

I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth.I heard many things in hell.


دوم.. دوم.. دوم
أهي دقات طبول الحرب أم نبضات بشري مسكين..؟

دوم.. دوم.. دوم
قوية ..جحيمية..مرعبة

دوم.. دوم.. دوم
لا تفارق عقل المجانين في دنيا العقلاء

دوم.. دوم.. دوم
ستسمعها طوال القراءة
وسترتعد كلما طرق أحدهم لأي سبب بجوارك

دوم.. دوم.. دوم
هي جحيم بو.. وبطله.. وجحيمك أنت أيضا طالما تقرأ
!


::::::::::

القلب الواشي هي أول قصة أدرسها في حياتي على الإطلاق
كنت في عامي الأول بالكلية حينما تعرفت للمرة الأولى على ‏هذا الإسم
إدجار آلان بو

ومن يومها صار إدمانا لا أريد له علاجا ولا دواء

::::::::::

بو سحرني من السطر الأول
فتنني قدرته العجيبة على ابتداع مواقف كابوسية كلها جدة ‏وتفرد
استخدامه للغة كان غريبا
لم أكن قد قرأت بالإنجليزية وقتها الكثير
فلم أدرسها بتمعن قبل الجامعة

وبرغم تجربتي القاصرة وقتها
إلا أنني لفتني أسلوب بو في صياغة العبارة بشدة

بهرت كل شيء
اللغة وتقطيع العبارة وطريق السرد وقدرة بو المبهرة‏
على التوغل في أنفس بشرية\ شيطانية بهذه الطريقة‏

توحدت تماما مع هذا الفتى الغريب
رأيت عين العجوز المغشاه بالماء الأزرق
شهقت وأنا أراها واضحة متجلية تنظر إلي
حينما سقط عليها شعاع الضوء الوحيد

واستمتعت جدا وجدا بالنهاية التي ابتدعها بو

::::::::::

القلب الواشي كانت البداية
بداية تعرفي إلى قاص وشاعر عشقته للنخاع

ذلك الذي أصر على اقتحام عالمي الساكن ‏
بكوابيسه التي لا تنتهي
وشعره الأرق من الرقة

“Villains!' I shrieked. 'Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! Tear up the planks! Here, here! It is the beating of his hideous heart!”

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عن عوالم بو كنت أتحدث

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published in 1850, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart is one of the best known and most memorable short stories ever written. Since there are dozens of commentaries and reviews here and elsewhere on the internet, in the spirit of freshness, I will take a particular focus: obsession with an eye or eyes and compare Poe’s tale with a few others.

In The Painter of Eyes by Jean Richepin, we encounter an obscure artist who sells his soul to the Devil in order to paint at least one masterpiece. There is a bit of writing attached to the corner of his great painting that reads: “The Devil has informed me as to the secret of painting eyes. That secret consists of decanting the life from the models one wishes to represent and fixing that life on the canvas. In doing that, one slowly kills the people whose portrait one paints. It is sufficient for me to know that I have made this masterpiece. I commend my soul to the prayers, in case the Evil One does not leave me the time.” The writing ends abruptly since death strikes the artist in mid-sentence - his masterpiece is a self-portrait.

In The Gaze another story by Jean Richepin, the narrator peers through the window of a cell at a madman holding his arms spread, head uplifted, transfixed by a point on a wall near the ceiling. The doctor-alienist relates to the narrator how this inmate is obsessed with the gaze of eyes from an artist's portrait. "For there was something in that gaze, believe me, that could trouble not only the already-enfeebled brain of a man afflicted with general paralysis, but even a sound and solid mind." Turns out, the narrator discovers the doctor is also driven mad by these eyes. So much so, the doctor took a scissors to the painting. We read: “In front of me, a fragment of a painting, cut out of a canvas with scissors, showed me a pair of eyes: the eyes of the portrait that the alienist said that he had lacerated, the eyes darting that famous gaze – in which, indeed, the very soul of gold was alive.”

The Enigmatic Eye by Moacyr Scliar is a most imaginative tale of a wealthy old man who becomes infatuated with a portrait of an aristocratic gentleman in the town’s museum. And what makes this portrait so infatuating? Why, of course – the gaze of the right eye, which is truly enigmatic. The old man has his close friend steal the portrait from the museum so he can put it in his attic and sit in front of the painting, pondering the enigmatic gaze round the clock. The servants think the old man mad but he could care less – he has exactly what he wants – the portrait with its enigmatic eye right in his very own attic. Unfortunately, something unexpected happens. Due to the attic’s heat and light, the painting begins to fade and then, over time, vanishes. The old man concludes there is only one thing for him to do – he buys some brushes and oils and begins re-painting the portrait, starting with the enigmatic eye.

Turning now to Poe’s tale, the narrator insists he should not be taken for a madman; rather, he is dreadfully nervous causing his senses, especially his sense of hearing, to be heightened and sharpened. He goes on to convey how once the idea of killing the old man of the house entered his brain, he was haunted by the idea day and night. And why would he want to kill this old man, a man who never wronged him? We read, “I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture – a pale blue eye, with a film over it.” What is it about a human eye, painted or real, when seen by someone who is mentally unstable? Perhaps part of the answer is given by contemporary Argentine author, Ernesto Sabato, when he says that hell is being the object of the gaze of another.

Every one of Poe’s sentence is sheer perfection, building tension and suspense. For example, we read how the narrator, lantern in hand, secretly peers in at the sleeping old man at midnight. But then, one night, a noise wakes the old man and he sits bolt upright in bed. And what does the narrator do? We read, “I resolved to open a little – a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it – you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily – until, at length a single dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye. It was open – wide, wide open – and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness – all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow of my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man’s face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.”

Anybody familiar with the story knows the narrator’s actions and emotions escalate from this point. What I find particularly fascinating is how the narrator’s obsession and fixation with the eye, once there is no more eye to fixate upon, quickly shifts into a heightened sense of feeling and, of course, heightened hearing. What a tale; what an author – a masterpiece of suspense and horror.

*The quotes from the two tales by Jean Richepin are taken from The Crazy Corner a collection of stories translated by Brian Stableford and published by Black Coat Press.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once a year, if you observe the horror holiday Halloween, you should read one or more of Poe’s chilling stories. Why not “The Tell Tale Heart”? I just this evening heard my neighbor Ann read it aloud before a gathering of block party neighbors in my street.

“True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will say that I am mad?! The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute.”

The incomparable Vincent Price reading the story in its entirety:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTxyN...

“And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses? --now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.”

Here’s the 1960 film version of the story:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x19bn1a

“I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief --oh, no! --it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart.”

You want to read it for yourself or frighten your friends and family? Here you go:

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/poe...

When I was first a high school English teacher I used to tape poster board over my classroom windows to keep the light completely out, dress in a long black choir robe, dab dark makeup near my eyes and read it over a single candle. Boo! Happy Halloween!

[Apatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I had always felt aversion to my uncourtly patronymic, and its very common, if not plebeian praenomen.”

“It was night, and the rain fell; and falling, it was rain, but, having fallen, it was blood. And I stood in the morass among the tall and the rain fell upon my head—and the lilies sighed one unto the other in the solemnity of their desolation.”

Say what?? Is it rain or is it blood, or is it a plebeian praenomen? And WTF is a praenomen anyway?

Edgar Allan Poe is not the easiest author to get on with. From time to time he lapses into writing weird indecipherable passages like the ones above. People often accuse H.P. Lovecraft of writing purple prose, but Lovecraft has nothing on Poe whose prose is so purple he is probably Prince’s (RIP) favorite author*. Still, the stories in this collection are mostly great if you can get through “the language barrier”. Certainly for Halloween you would be hard pressed to find a better anthology.

When professional reviewers review an anthology they don't normally review each story in the book. Fortunately I am not a pro and this is how I like to do it, so here we go:

1. The Tell-Tale Heart
One of Poe’s best known stories. Our unreliable narrator decides to kill his granddad because he has an annoyingly weird eye. That is just the beginning of the story, what transpires is literally insane and quite disturbing.


2. The Black Cat
Another unnamed psychotic narrator /protagonist kills his pet cat and later his wife. Trouble starts for him when he attempts to kill a second cat.

The most violent story in the book, lots of madness, mayhem, and spooky felines. Gives me the willies. An excellent Halloween read.

3. The Cask of Amontillado
A story of revenge for unknown offences. Whathisname lures his friendenemy to his creepy wine cellar with the promise of a cask of vintage Amontillado.

Interestingly this story seems to have brought Poe back into vogue with the Tumblr generation. The Cask of Amontillado has become a meme! (Thank you, Cecily for the info).

4. Fall of the House of Usher
Probably as famous as The Tell-Tale Heart. Quite sane unnamed protagonist visits his almost sane friend Roderick Usher at his creepy creaky and cracked in the middle house, where he lives with his dying sister Madeline. The poor lady soon dies and things go from bad to…. OMG! That ending!


Read twice for full effect.

Don’t miss hilarious Thug Notes Summary & Analysis of this story (Youtube clip)

5. The Masque of the Red Death
One of Poe’s more overtly supernatural stories (most of them seem to be psychological horror). Prince Prospero throws a masquerade ball during a time when the “Red Death” plague has gone more viral than Rick Rolling. Different coloured rooms, a creepy clock that chimes every hour and unfailingly stops all the partiers in their track as they can never get used to it. At midnight, as the party is in full swing, a mysterious hooded figure in a horrible robe and wearing a scary mask gatecrashes…


Very spooky.

6. The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
“My attention, for the last three years, had been repeatedly drawn to the subject of Mesmerism; and, about nine months ago it occurred to me, quite suddenly, that in the series of experiments made hitherto, there had been a very remarkable and most unaccountable omission:—no person had as yet been mesmerized in articulo mortis.”

LOL! Well, that is going to work out well for him – not! Some people just have very strange hobbies. Our unnamed narrator is very much into hypnotism and conducts an experiment on his pal M. Valdemar who is literally at death’s door. The results are unexpected and horrifying.



7. Ligeia
A bit of a long-winded ghost story. Opium-fueled hallucination or supernatural shenanigan. You decide!

8. The Murders in the Rue Morgue
Aha! Surely you have heard of this one! Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin, prototype pre-Holmes ace detective investigates an impossible murder in Paris while mocking the The Parisian police for their lack of imagination.

“The Parisian police, so much extolled for acumen, are cunning, but no more. There is no method in their proceedings, beyond the method of the moment.”

Inspector Lestrade probably has a cousin working there. There is even a prototype Watson narrating the story, unfortunately he is a Poe narrator so he does not get a name. Dupin is awesome but a very long-winded fellow. His elaborate explanations go on and on and Watson his sidekick should have said “My dear fellow! TMI!”. Still a great story, though and more violent asnd graphic than any Holmes or Poirot adventure. I was going to post a nice picture to illustrate this story a bit but they are either spoilers or not very good, so no pics.

9. The Purloined Letter
Dupin is back! (and he barely just left)

“That is another of your odd notions," said the Prefect, who had a fashion of calling every thing "odd" that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of "oddities." ” Burn! A story of a stolen important letter that can be used for blackmail purposes and destroy careers of public figures. It is not very fast-paced and Dupin is even more long-winded here. Excellent denouement, though. Clever stuff and quite entertaining, Dupin’s super long-winded expositions notwithstandiung.

The old "look over there!" trick from sneaky Dupin

Conan Doyle's tribute to Poe is Holmes dissing Dupin!†

10. A Descent into the Maelström
A stunningly boring tale of a whirlpool, it sucked me down its vortex and left me unconscious on my chair for at least 15 minutes. An excellent soporific.

In all fairness you may enjoy it, I just find an entire story based on a whirlpool very dull.

11. The Pit and the Pendulum
Our unnamed narrator finds himself—quite unexpectedly—in the clutches of the Spanish Inquisition.


OK, got that out of my system! Alas, no comfy chair for the poor fellow. More this sort of thing:

No sexy girlie to watch over him, though (damn Hollywood!)

A fantastic and very visceral story, beautifully constructed and the creepiness builds and builds. You can just about feel the pendulum’s blade swishing over your chest.

12. MS. Found in a Bottle
I thought it was going to be about a genie in a bottle, turned out to be a dull ghost ship story. How can a ghost ship story be dull? Poe was so versatile and talented he could do anything; including writing dull ghost ship stories.

13. The Premature Burial
A weird story about our unnamed narrator’s obsession with being buried alive by mistake. The narrative starts with Whathisname regaling the readers with documented cases of people being buried in error when they were still alive. The narrator suffers from a rare (of course) disorder that puts him into a state of death-like catalepsy. So his biggest fear is becoming cataleptic in places where he is not known, he imagines that he may one day wake up to find himself six feet under, struggling to get out.

(not a spoiler)
Great story!

14. William Wilson
A bizarre Twilight Zone-ish story. I did not like it to begin with, as Poe was rambling again earlier on, but I quickly changed my mind when weirdness ensues. A strange, possibly allegorical story of a doppelganger. Supernatural or psychological? Again, you decide! I tend to favor the supernatural explanation because that is the kind of guy I am!

15. Eleonora
A fable with an unexpected non-twist. WTF? LOL! Poe got me there, I find it kind of hilarious when I got to the end (not sure if that is the effect Poe has in mind).

16. Silence - A Fable
Mine eyes glazed over this story from beginning to end, and I can’t really tell you anything about it. Read my friend Glenn's erudite review of this story instead.

17. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
This is Poe’s only full length novel. I have not read it yet, I am sorry to say. I suspect Poe – like Lovecraft - is better in small doses. I may get around to it one day. You will be the first to know (well, top ten at least!)



As mentioned earlier Poe prose is sometimes hard to read, or even downright impenetrable. He often starts his stories with pages of rambling to set the scene to his stories. Fortunately, the stories often take wing after he is done setting the scene. Occasionally that does not happen and he just rambles on until the end.

At his best, his stories are fascinating and often horrifying. The images that his best stories conjure up are indelible in my mind. Better still, the very best ones can be read again and again; sometimes even immediately after having just read them. It is all too easy to miss details on the first read because his prose is often convoluted> However, rereading these stories often yields greater understanding and appreciation.


* He is a much better prose stylist then Lovecraft, though. Poe is naturally eloquent whereas I feel Lovecraft tries too hard and often end up with verbiage.

I have not reviewed the poems in this book because I have not yet read them (except The Raven, which is awesome). I don’t think I should attempt reviewing poems, I will leave that to my friend Cecily.

Spooky Quotes:
“It was not a groan of pain or of grief—oh, no!—it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe.”

“That perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart—one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not?”

“He who has never swooned, is not he who finds strange palaces and wildly familiar faces in coals that glow; is not he who beholds floating in mid-air the sad visions that the many may not view; is not he who ponders over the perfume of some novel flower—is not he whose brain grows bewildered with the meaning of some musical cadence which has never before arrested his attention.” (WTF?)

† External quote: Sherlock Holmes dissing Dupin:
“No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin,” he observed. “Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends’ thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour’s silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine.”
From A Study In Scarlet

[David Putnam · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are great stories and scared the heck out of me when I was a kid. The title story especially, The Tell-Tale Heart. Later, when I was older I had the LP with the story told by Vincent Price. He had the voice that could make Mary had a little Lamb sound scary. One Halloween I dressed like a vampire (makeup the whole shebang) and and built a coffin, set it out in the front yard to scare the little trick or treaters. I played that LP with Vincent Price's voice over and over again. Lots of kids came by but at the end of the night I had a lot of candy left over as most ran away.
David Putnam author of The Bruno Johnson series.

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first time to read and finish a collection by Edgar Allan Poe and I was just blown away. This was one of my two Halloween reads this year and it made my long Halloween weekend truly worth remembering.

Here are my reactions to each of the 32 writings included in the book by Edgar Allan Poe.

STORIES

1) The Tell-Tale Heart. 3 STARS
Quite scary. The narrator murders his or her (there is no pronoun used) master who has a "vulture-like" eyes. The narrator admits the crime at the beginning of his narration but what he or she is trying to prove is his or her sanity. EAP has the ability to vividly describe his milieu and draws you in immediately right from the first paragraph of the story.

2) The Black Cat. 4 STARS
I find this better-written and more complex than the first story. A man and his wife are fond of animals and they have a black cat named Pluto (Roman God of the underworld). They love the cat until the man becomes alcoholic. One evening, he plucks out the eye of the cat and hangs the poor animal by the tree. Critics say that this is the darkest among EAP's tales.

3) The Cask of Amontillado. 4 STARS
Very simple story yet it can send chills to your nerves. Just the mention of catacombs and niche in the kind of prose only EAP can write makes this reading truly apt for this season of Trick or Treats. The fact that there is no clear given reason why Montresor is leaving Fortunato alive inside the catacomb makes the story fresh and very inventive that is different from what I normally expect or demand from the contemporary crime novels.

4) The Fall of the House of Usher. 5 STARS
I was reading this late last night and I could not sleep because I got scared. The narration comes alive and the images are playing in my mind. Madeline, the sister, entombed alive by Roderick Usher, his brother. The gothic scenes: the castle, the lighting, the eerie song. Unbelievably scary! I have never read a novel (or a short story) that can keep you awake until it is really really time for you to sleep because it is 1am and you have work or school to attend to in a few hours.

5) The Masque of the Red Death. 4 STARS
A real treat but less scary. It seems to tell us the inevitability of death as symbolized by the many rooms and the different colors of the costume. The Red Death is like the Boogeyman who "gets" Prospero and his guests and as they fall or die one-by-one, it just mimics that happens in real life. EAP's prose is just exceptional. There is nothing like his play of words to impart the eerie but still really beautiful stories.

6) The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar. 4 STARS
Very interesting. The use of hypnosis to a dying man. At first, I did not know what was going on until I realized that the narrator was conducting an experiment by using magnetism to hypnotize Mr. Valdemar who kept on saying "I'm dying" or "Dead, dead, dead." I could not imagine this happening in real life. It is too unkind. But this is a Halloween read but if Madeline was entombed alive by her brother, this is nothing.

7) Ligeia. 3 STARS
Seems to me like a wishful thinking kind of story. When the man's first wife dies, he imagines the second one to be the reincarnation of the first. Opium was probably not prohibited during that time and it was even considered as an over-the-counter medicine so the grieving man who is taking care of his first wife drugs her for a painless death. The second half of the story seems like a hallucination.

8) The Murders in the Rue Morgue. 3 STARS
This one feels like a Sherlock Holmes short story rather than Edgar Allan Poe's. I have read the whole Holmes canon and I liked it but I prefer EAP to be himself and his forte is horror. There is a certain EAP touch on this though, the double murder is more gruesome than any of the Holmes'.

9) The Purloined Letter. 3 STARS
C. Aguste Dupin is back. Hay, it's good that the 3rd story, "The Mystery of Marie Ruget," is not in this collection. Again this story is a detective instead of a horror story. The story revolves around a stolen letter that is being used by the powerful thief to blackmail an influential woman in the society. The letter contains some juicy information about her. It is up to Dupin to bring the bribing thief into open by wearing a green Ray-Ban.

10) A Descent into the Maelstrom. 4 STARS
A story within a story and it is refreshing because it is not a horror story but a science fiction! I did not know that EAP wrote a sci-fi. I could imagine him writing a detective story because the movie "The Raven" starring John Cussack that I saw a couple of weeks back was really a detective story similar to those of Sherlock Holmes. Here in A Descent into the Maelstrom, there is a theory that the bigger or heavier body descends faster into the whirlpool. Also, this made me remember the instant graying of the hair when subjected to too much stress. I heard that story from my high school history teacher who was a fan of Edgar Allan Poe.

11) The Pit and the Pendulum. 4 STARS
Very much like the movie series "Saw." Or it even pales in comparison because in Saw, the prisoners have to saw off their limbs to have the chance to escape. However, this story should be credited for two things: Poe's narrative is just wonderful. The first half of the book focuses on the prisoner's fears in reaction to what he sees, feels and hears. The swinging of the pendulum producing swish-swish sound, the darkness, and the sight of the rats.

12) MS. Found in a Bottle. 3 STARS
This is said to be the story that launched Edgar Allan Poe's career. It won in a contest for short stories. It is about a man who survives a shipwreck and found a new one manned by an elderly crew. The survivor finds writing journal and egins writing a manuscript that he plans to toss into the sea afterwards.

13) The Premature Burial. 3 STARS
Like #2 "Amontillado" and #3 "Usher" above, this story is about a man getting buried alive. During Poe's time, public was fascinated about vampirism so dead people are buried right away as they might turn into vampires. This is a bit passe now considering that particularly here in the Philippines, wakes last from 3 or more days prior to interment.

14) William Wilson. 4 STARS
OMG. I heard this word "doppelgänger" from a teenager girl while nightswimming with her last Thursday, Nov 1st. When I heard that word, I asked what does it mean. She explained that it is having some kind of spirit mimicking you by looking and acting like you. I said, "wow, I learned something from a very young person like you."

15) Eleonora. 4 STARS
Said to be the story that EAP wrote to alleviate the guilt that he felt falling in love with another woman after his first wife died. What makes this short story different from the rest of his stories is that this is basically autobiographical and has an relatively happy ending.

16) Silence - A Fable. 4 STARS
A short piece, only a couple of pages long, it is more like a dream than a story with real characters. It is full of symbolism and rich imagery. Very deep, very intense. I'd like to know what Poe was thinking when he wrote this. Was he trippin?

NOVEL

17) The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nuntucket. 4 STARS
The only novel in this collection. It involves shipwreck, mutiny and cannibalism. The narrator, Arthur Gordon Pym, is saved by Dirk Peters and the narrative continues when they land but get into conflict with black native men. They go back to the sea and the narrative ends while they are heading to the South Pole. This novel is partly adventure, partly sci-fi, party travelogue, partly gruesome and macabre. I liked the first-person narrative. That distinct voice that only EAP has is very evident and enjoyable when he is using first-person narrator. It feels creepy and classy. I enjoyed his better than Nathaniel Hawthorne's. Also, this is said to have inspired the works of Herman Melville and Jules Verne.

POEMS

18) Stanzas. 4 STARS
The power of the moonlight. The mystic energy that comes from the sun. I remember a Tagalog song from my childhood that is a song about the moon: "O maliwanag na buwan / Nakikiusap ako / Ang aking minamahal / Sana ay hanapin mo. // Tadhana ma'y magbiro / Araw man ay magdaan / Ang pagibig ko sa kanya / Ay hindi magbabago / Magpakaylan pa man."

19) Romance. 4 STARS
A poem about looking back (first stanza) and regret (second stanza). The narrator used to love romance that he compares to a bird: "to lisp my very earliest word" and I also remembered that when I was a young man, I just lie down on the grass covered earth and think about the future. Now, I don't have time for that anymore akin to the feeling of the narrator: "I have no time for idle cares" and so he regrets the lost of his younger years.

20) To Helen. 4 STARS
An obvious reference to Helen of Troy because of the use of classical beauty: "Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face." This poem is EAP's tribute to female beauty similar to Pablo Neruda's "Ode to a Beautiful Nude" where Neruda describes the nude female body. I enjoy this kind of poem because poetry itself is like a female body, it is smooth, soft and invigorating to the senses.

21) Israfel. 4 STARS
Quite different from the other poems and works of EAP. This is cheery, positive and inspiring. The title comes from the Islam angel Israfel who will show up during the Second Coming playing the trumpet. She plays very well so everyone will be looking and hearing her every note. Nice to read something not only different from most of the works in this collection but also appreciate EAP when he talks about angels rather than demons or supernatural beings.

22) The City in the Sea. 3 STARS
This is what I am saying in #21. This poem is the classic usual EAP. I mean this is gothic through and through. It talks about a city that is ruled by demons. The city is by the sea and it is in the west of it and when that is the scenario, the city is said to be doomed. It is good that Manila is in the east although it is surrounded by China Sea and Pacific Ocean. Hmmm.

23) The Sleeper. 4 STARS
EAP proudly claimed that this his is best poem. Better than "The Raven." It is about the death of a lovely woman and goes with the woman is his love. A melancholy and painful poem to read but nevertheless very beautiful.

24) The Valley of Unrest. 3 STARS
The speaker in the poem asks if all lovely things are far away. It mentions (again) a woman called "Helen" that according to critics was Jane Stannard, EAP's first love and the mother of a friend. It also talks about the valley that is partly Satan, angel and also a large part broken heart. This is another sad poem in this collection.

25) Lenore. 4 STARS
Unlike #23, #24 and his other works with dying or dead beautiful woman, in this poem, EAP talks about the possibility of meeting the woman in paradise (after life). Here the Lenore's (the dead woman) fiance, Guy de Vere, says that they should not be sad because she will soon be very happy with the angels in heaven.

26) The Raven. 5 STARS
The best (so far) poem in this collection. It is many things to me: it is painful and sad (the speaker is lamenting the lost of his love Lenore - see #25) yet it is musical and not really gloomy, overall. The verses are playful and you can imagine the raven flying in the air, through the window, and settling on the statue. The raven also talks - it keeps on saying "Nevermore" - and it adds to the childlike playful prose. It is sad yet it is happy (in a way). However, the playful scene ends when the speaker begins to talk to the raven while sitting on the statue of Pallas. He asks if he is to be reunited with Lenore and when the raven says "Nevermore," he gets angry and the feeling of doom dawns on the poem.

27) A Valentine. 5 STARS
EAP is a women's guy. His writings are mostly about death, life, love and...women! In this poem, you can find the name of his girl, Frances Sargent Osgood. To find the name, take the first letter of the first line, then the second letter of the second line, then the third letter of the third line, and so on. (Source: Wiki). I did see it! Very clever.

28) Ulalume - A Ballad. 5 STARS
Almost put tears to my eyes while reading. This is similar to the other works of EAP that talk about a death of a woman he loves. Just how many deaths did EAP experience in his life? I know his wife died and he remarried. But I guess even the loss of his many girlfriends (he was a playboy, wasn't he?) became like death to himself. The setting of this poem is by the lake on a moonlit night and with tears in his eyes, he stumbles the grave of his loved one, Ulalume. Very sad.

29) For Annie. 5 STARS
A dying man gives thanks that his "lingering illness," life, is finally over. He is now beyond pain and suffering. But no one, he says, should think pityingly of him. After all, everyone will lie in the same bed he does. Moreover, his death is not final. As his lover, Annie, looks on him and cries because she thinks he is dead, he declares that his heart and his thoughts are more alive than ever, for they are filled with the sight of Annie's love. Though dead, he lives on because of her love. Is there any other poem sadder than this?

30) Annabel Lee. 5 STARS
This is the only poem of EAP that I still remember reading during my school days (not sure whether in elementary or high school). This poem is very romantic compared to the dark gloomy ones that he wrote particularly #28 and #29 above. This talks about him missing his beautiful woman named of course, Annabel Lee while he is in his room (unlike #28 that has a setting by the lake). Short and sweet yet of course sad. If I will be asked to choose one poem by him, now I do not know which one to choose: this or "The Raven."

31) The Bells. 4 STARS
What amazed me here is the use of the word "bells" to mimic the actual sound when a bell rings. The repeated use of that word: bells, bells, bells, bells,... in the lines just did not remind me of the ringing of bells but also what those ringings signify to us in different points in our lives. When I was baptized, for example, the church bells rang. When I got married, they also rang. When I will die, they will also ring for the last time. These different stages in man's life is also captured in the use of the bells from the start to the end of the poem. The mood becomes gloomier and gloomier.

32) Alone. 4 STARS
Simply beautiful. It tells us that no matter what we went through in life, we will always end up by ourselves. Alone. We were born to this earth alone (unless you a twin) and we will all die alone (unless you die with a mass of people like in a battle or a catastrophe). What a nice poem to cap this beautiful beautiful collection.

I think I prefer Edgar Allan Poe as a poet rather than a short story writer or a novelist. However, I rarely read poems so maybe that's the reason why I particularly enjoyed very much the poems in this collection. I had no expectations about his poems prior to this.

This book made my Halloween this year truly memorable. Priceless read.

[Ginger · Rating 5 out of 5]

You might think you’re Marilyn Manson gothic…



But are you Edgar Allan Poe gothic. I don’t think so!


I'm going with 5 STARS for this compilation.
Edgar Allan Poe has influenced so many writers along with culture that it's hard not to give him all the stars.

He's a master of the topics of greed, lust and power. You can’t get more dark, twisted and deep than this cat.
Not even six feet deep in a cozy coffin deep.

So glad to finally read most of his stories and poems. A few short stories were a bit long winded and took some time to get through. I still enjoyed the dark madness of Poe’s mind as I read along.

My favorites and in no particular order were…

The Valley of Unrest

The Black Cat (damn homeboy)

The Masque of the Red Death
**Side note: The short story is referenced in the book The Terror so it was a sentimental favorite of mine.

The Raven

A Valentine (you sly dog Edgar)

The Pit and the Pendulum

And of course one of the most famous, The Tell-Tale Heart.
Just as amazing as the last time that I read this short story!
In fact, this was a better reading experience while being older. Huh, not sure what that means?! 🧐🤣

Recommended to anyone loving classics and horror genres!

[nastya · Rating 4 out of 5]

What?? Me, liking a short story collection? Impossible!
What can I say that you've not already heard before? You know the guy.
This time while reading this collection I was impressed by his range. Yes, I know, there's a lot of dead young beautiful women, but then he himself also lost his young wife and according to what I've read, her death destroyed him and inspired all these stories. Yes, there's a lot of tropes but he is the creator of a lot of them.
It's very interesting to read the author that paved the way to whole genres, you should never forget that he was one of the firsts. Also even though writing itself was verbose it was quite beautiful and evocative.
Did I love his Dupin Investigates more than Sherlock? No, but he was one of the fathers of classical detective genre.
Did I like The Balloon-Hoax? Not really but it inspired Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days.
Did I adore William Wilson story? Maybe not, but he inspired Dostoevsky's The Double (this one I just plucked from the air, no idea if it's true). Oh, I will say it inspired Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan. My take, I discovered it, please quote me on this!

[Kimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfection.
I listened to the audiobook for this one and it made the experience so much more intense. Listen to it here


If you're looking for a creepy read, give this one a go!

[Dean · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have only this one to say:

Come and see the master of gothic horror novel at work!!!
If you dare..

Simple The Best!!!!

Great stories..
By the very master itself..
And by the way, a very good choosen collection indeed!!

Poes life and literary work is a mystery to me:
Nobody does it better and you have to experience it for yourself..

Dean;)

[Nayra.Hassan · Rating 4 out of 5]

لو عرف المجنون انه مجنون..اذن فهو عاقل

ا{و عرفت انه أنين الرعب و الهلاك..لا لم تكن هذه صرخة الم او حزن. .بل ذلك الانين الضعيف الذي ينبع من باطن الروح عندما تزيد رهبتها }ا
هذه القصة قوطية الطابع تتشابه كثيرا جدا مع القط الاسود ..
هي نموذج ممتاز للفصام الذهاني المتقدم..ممتزجا بالبارانويا في أسوأ صورها

ادجار الان بو/لافكرافت / ستيفن كينج / تولكين
هؤلاء الاربعة يتشاركون في شعرة من الجنون تظهر جلية في بعض أعمالهم..و تتوراي في بعضهما..لكن اذا راق لك يوما ان تفهم ماهي : الهلاوس و الضلالات..المخاوف الهيستيرية العصابية .فلتقرا لهؤلاء الاربعة

و لكن لنتذكر دايما ان الجنون يحتاج لضمير ميت
و هذا الراوي /المجرم كان للعجب يمتلك ضميرا/ إحساسابالذنب ..لذا رجح بعض النقاد ان عين النسر /دقات القلب اللحوحة ترمز للسلطة الأبوية

[Nicholas Armstrong · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know, I'm pretty sure most people like this (and Poe) for the kind of creepy slightly Gothic effect, but I think that is a very superficial and silly way to read it. The beating of the heart has absolutely nothing to do with redemption, nothing to do with guilt or anything, it has to do with the futility of existence. Read the story again and think of the mentions of heartbeat and pulse and think of the unreliability of the narrator.

It's not the pulse of the man he kills and it isn't the beating of the mans heart - its his heart and pulse.

Considering this is Poe's most famous work (discounting Raven) I'm a little depressed that it is so often read as just macabre and nothing more. I don't love Poe, but I love what he attempted to do. He makes narrators who try to convince you of one thing while he, as the author, has to try and convince you of the truth. It's really quite amazing to try and piece together each puzzle and see how good a job Poe actually did. Furthermore, it makes sense when one considers that Poe is the father of the detective novel. Oooooooooh! Right? See, it makes sense now.

[Lisa of Troy]

The Greatest 25 Short Stories of All Time According to Forbes - #2: https://www.forbes.com/sites/entertai...

Plus, I feel a bit guilty about not reading Annabel Lee after it was featured so prominently in Lolita by Nabokov.

[Michael Sorbello · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Tell-Tale Heart is the scariest of Poe's horror stories in my opinion. Poe effectively showcases the classic symptoms and behaviors of paranoia-induced insanity, a symptom that many violent serial killers display. Poe also shows an impressive knowledge and understanding of a deranged criminal's mind in a time when not too much was known about human psychology.

The disturbed protagonist shows psychotic symptoms including fixation, obsessiveness, dehumanization and paranoia, leading him to do something utterly despicable to an old man without any ulterior motives. He tries to justify his delusions by fixating on his victim's vulture-like eye, treating it as a separate entity from the old man so he doesn't have to experience the guilt of his terrible crime. His guilt eventually manifests in the sound of the old man's heart beating beneath his floorboards, driving him mad until he finally confesses to murdering and dismembering the old man for reasons he can't seem to properly explain. It's a disturbing look into the psychology of a severely troubled individual and an early study of criminal behavior.

There are many other fantastic tales from Poe in this collection such as The Fall of the House of Usher, The Cask of Amontillado, The Raven and Annabel Lee.

[Ｆｒａｎｋｈ · Rating 4 out of 5]

No other writer evokes horror in its rawest, most human form like Edgar Allan Poe. Sometimes his stories are a blunt force trauma while others are drilled into the mind using precision instruments of terror. His themes and depictions of people's greatest fears are very diverse and uniquely constructed, more visceral in some aspects but also cerebral in execution for a select few. This anthology The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings is comprised of his finest works in short story and poetry forms tackling what is readily terrifying, certain terrors that elude the psyche, and the unfortunate ways human beings transform into the very monsters they fear.

With seventeen gruesome tales and sixteen morbid poems, this anthology is a must-have for any aficionado of the genre. The prose that Poe crafts in each of his pieces is spellbinding; we get descriptive ramblings of mad men and women, psychologically layered instances and premonitions, and frightening yet subtle symbolisms plus debated interpretations of each work. Reading his short stories transport you right into the disturbed minds of irredeemable individuals who heed the call of misery and darkness, acting both predator and prey of their own machinations and failures.

His best pieces are those that make readers experience paranoia and dissociation themselves and such stories have become a classic for that very reason. The titular The Tell-Tale Heart is a brief yet searing account of a man haunted by his macabre misdeed while The Black Cat and The Cask of Armontillado have characters who commit murders for reasons somewhat hollow and petty; the former was discovered in the most absurd way possible while the other was successful in concealing it but is forever tainted after the fact. We also have allegorical pieces such as The Masque of Red Death, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, and A Descent in the Maelstorm which evoke a series of unavoidable misfortunes, marking its characters in blood and death.

And then we have tales that have more non-conclusive interpretations and resolutions such as The Fall of the House of Usher, Ligeria, The Pit and the Pendulumand The Premature Burial. All four of these stories are imaginative and insidious, dealing with fantastical elements and spine-tingling primitive fears that plague as all, only if we allow ourselves to contemplate deeper about them. A few other stories deal with catastrophic, life-altering conflicts which are found in Ms. Found in a Bottle and Silence--A Fable. And then we have the character-centric baffling accounts of William Wilson, Eleanora, and The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, the last of which has the most trying length.

Before there was ever a more defined detective genre and its formulaic elements, Poe has created C. Auguste Dupin, the first crime reasoner who used deductive reasoning in solving criminal cases that later on inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with his more famous great detective Sherlock Holmes. Dupin only appeared in two stories, The Murders in Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter which deserve multiple readings to be acquire a more nuanced appreciation for the groundwork and thought process that Poe has employed in characterizing his detective and resolving the plots.

After readers had their fill of his gripping short stories, they can move on to the assortment of his poems which offer a more economical way of slaking their interest and intrigue for the memorably horrific and sometimes even upsetting concepts regarding ailments and discord that people will always find themselves caught up in and often not overcoming. Poe's poetic style is refined and elegant in a lot of respects but there are moments of sporadic contemplations and truly intense retrospective epiphanies that will keep reeling readers in. I personally enjoyed Israfel, The City in the Sea, The Valley of the Unrest, The Sleeper, The Bells and Alone.

With a vigorous and daring marksmanship in which he penned his works with, Poe's prose is very much alive--rustling, palpitating, throbbing, moaning and groaning and every other vivid ways that may drive weaker minds mad upon reading. His tales are cavernous places, buried deep in the recesses of our minds we never fully acknowledge. But every so often we can hear them calling for us--like a bell tolling from a distance--or the low, persistent humming of a heartbeat; whether concealed in a crypt, lodged inside a bottle in the middle of an ocean or has made itself comfortable right under our very beds where we believe we are most safe when we really aren't.

RECOMMENDED: 9/10

DO READ MY REVIEWS AT

[Jessaka · Rating 3 out of 5]

How Poe Wrote the Tell-Tale Heart

It was All Hollow’s Eve and Poe was at his writing desk with a pen in hand. No, it must be a typewriter even though they were not invented at this time. So, he was sitting at his desk typing on his typewriter, typing out a story of a man who had given another man the evil eye. “I will kill this man who gives the evil eye,” he thought, but first I need to set the stage.

He realized that he was having problems writing on this dark and stormy night, so he went into the closet to look for a bottle of whiskey to loosen his mind from its tangles. When he opened the closet door, a dead mouse was on the floor staring at him, and it made him think of that evil eye again.

He went back to his desk and poured himself a drink, then another. Did Poe even drink? I don’t know, but this is my story, and so I am going to make up all kinds of scenarios. It was said in one biography that he was insane and on drugs. It has also been said that this was entirely wrong, so I will just allow him to drink some whiskey.

After a brief time, he began typing again, then he heard a knocking sound. He went to the door; it was his neighbor. Poe, you see, lived at a rooming house. His neighbor could hear everything in the room next to his. Poe asked, “Can I help you?” “Yes,” the man said, “Please stop typing. I can’t sleep!” Poe answered, “I need to write now because it is the witching hour, and that is the best time to write. I can give you some ear plugs if it will help.” His neighbor gave him the evil eye, so Poe slammed the door in his face and went back to typing.

After a half hour the knocking began again. It didn’t sound like the door, so he went to his window and there it was, a raven tapping at his window. He opened the window and the wind blew the rain into his room along with the raven who went right to his typewriter and began pecking at the paper in its roller. “Stop!” Poe yelled. The raven ignored him. He went to the closet to get a weapon, saw a dead mouse, picked it up, opened the door to the hallway and threw it into the hall. The raven just stared at the mouse, who then got up, gave Poe the evil eye and ran back into the room and into the closet. Poe closed the closet door and head downstairs to the kitchen to find a weapon.

In the meantime, his neighbor came back to Poe’s room and began to fiercely knock on his door. The door flew open, and his neighbor saw the typewriter on Poe’s desk, but it was typing all by itself. Then the raven flew at him, hitting him in the face.

Poe was on his way back up the stairs with a broom in hand, when he saw his neighbor flying down the stairs with a suitcase, the raven following.

When he came into his room his typewriter was sitting quietly on his desk. Ah, he thought, peace and quiet. He began typing again. Soon, he heard knocking sound coming from the closet.

[Danielle The Book Huntress · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this story, not the whole book. In my opinion, this is a masterpiece of suspense, and a powerful story about how a person's guilt will betray them in the end. I love the way Poe builds up the tension slowly but surely until the end, with a careful use of narrative. I believe this is the story that made me a Poe fan.

[Stephanie (Bookfever) · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorites:

🖤 The Tell-Tale Heart
🖤 The Cask of Amontillado
🖤 The Fall of the House of Usher
🖤 The Masque of the Red Death
🖤 Ligeia
🖤 The Pit and the Pendulum
🖤 The Raven

[Moché · Rating 4 out of 5]

RTC. Check out Federico who has a good review 🆙

[Eyehavenofilter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poor Edgar, always so sad, but he sure can write a terrifying story. I wonder if it was the drugs he was on, of if this state of mind made him turn to the drugs. Either way he was a master of the macabre, and he always caught your attention.
I think this is where my fascination with this type of literature began.
No one wrote like Poe. No one left you hanging, literally, walled in, literally,and figuratively, like Poe. He could tap into our basest fear, anger and regret.make victims, beg for mercy, and yet understand why people did the terrible things they did. Some have even tried to copy his methods, years, decades, centuries after his untimely death.
His paranoia became ours. His terror was so well crafted that it has satyed with for a lifetime. We don't forget his stories. EVER!

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of work by the illustrious deviant with the charming monogram E.A.P.

Let me begin by trying to be helpful for anyone out there looking to pick up a copy of Poe’s work: do NOT settle for this edition, for a few more bucks you can get the Complete Poe (several available editions). If you’d rather settle for this half-assed collection and a KFC Meal Deal instead of Poe’s unabridged output, be my guest, odds are I’ll be the guy behind you in line getting the Extra Spicy Chicken Sandwich and toting a haggard copy of The Incomplete Writings of Chekov.

So what does Bantam deliver in this collection? Seventeen stories (one being what the publisher calls Poe’s only Full Length Novel “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym” and another they describe as a Glorious Prose Poem “Silence-A Fable”) followed by sixteen poems.

While I usually enjoy reading collections of stories, I’ve noticed that I have a hard time rating them, much less providing a sensible review. Fear not; these things have never stopped me before, and certainly aren’t going to today.

The problem with providing a ‘rating’ or review on a collection (for me, at least) is that I’d prefer to rate each short story on its own merits and just be done with it. Of course, that would mean I’d be rambling on for thousands of characters for each short story, and nobody needs that. My biggest dilemma comes when I have to provide a single rating for the whole kit and caboodle, I start overanalyzing just what I’m attempting to do. Should I rate each story on a 1-to-5 scale and provide a Final Rating based on which was given most frequently? Should I take into consideration the percent of the total page count for each rating that was awarded and weigh it that way? These seem like practical things to do, but that would also entail employing what you might call mathematics, and if you think my writing is bad, you ought to have a look at my math skills, or lack thereof.

So, I’m just going to start typing and see where that leads me. This ought to be good……

“The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym” makes up the bulk of this book, and unfortunately, I think that this story sucks. I personally can’t confirm if this was Poe’s only novel-length work or not, but if it is, I can certainly see why he never went back to the novel. There were three things that I simply could not enjoy about Pym’s narrative, which I’ll try to tackle in order of their annoyance. Firstly, the story itself is just ass-bitingly boring; I didn’t find any of the events within exciting, for the most part, all they accomplished was allowing me to experience the tedium of 19th century sea travel; be it the initial drunken episode involving Arthur and his pal Augustus, Pym’s recounting his terror at being imprisoned within the belly of a boat during a mutiny, and finally, the completely grating voyage to the South Pole, which I can only compare to the latter half of Verne’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth” (which I consider hella boring). Secondly, the abrupt end of the story doesn’t provide anything resembling a decent conclusion and managed to wrangle the honors for Worst Ending from “The Stand” (at least the rest of “The Stand” was entertaining, where the narrative of Pym advances sluggishly throughout). Lastly, narrator Pym breaks from the story on several occasions to discourse at length on subjects which usually have little or no involvement with the story whatsoever, be it his informative rambling about various methods of freight stowage, his mind-boggling dialog on penguin and albatross roosts, and his need to expound on the controversies surrounding the discover dates of miscellaneous islands. All of these are beyond boring, and none do anything to advance the story one bit and the story stagnates while the narrator goes on these worthless tangents. As a last complaint, I couldn’t help thinking Poe was trying to emulate or one-up “Candide” by having the protagonist suffer an unbelievable chain of misfortunes.

I’ll quickly wrap up the other elements of the collection I didn’t enjoy. The poems did nothing for me, but I rarely enjoy poetry at all, so this wasn’t shocking and didn’t bother me much. I really couldn’t get into “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar”, especially since Lovecraft apparently ripped this story off and improved upon it. Both of Poe’s tales of love lost also failed to do anything for me, these being “Ligeia” and “Eleonora”. I can’t say that I took any pleasure in “Ms. Found in a Bottle” or the preposterous ‘prose poem’ “Silence-A Fable” either.

Perhaps what I liked least about this edition was that the poems and weak novel-length comprised the second half of the book, a very poor way to conclude; it’s entirely up to the first 200 pages of the book to showcase Poe’s brilliance as a short-story writer.

I personally found the highlights of the book to be the pair of stories involving the analytical mastermind C. Auguste Dupin, the stories included being “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Purloined Letter”, both of which kick ass and left me wanting more of these stories (if anyone out there can provide information on whether or not Poe wrote more involving Dupin, please let me know). Other stories which I liked included “The Black Cat”, “The Masque of the Red Death”, “William Wilson”, and perhaps my favorite story within was “The Cask of Amontillado”, which was also the only story which I found humorous.

The rest of the collection was decent, including his more well-known shorts such as “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, and “The Pit and the Pendulum”, none of which I enjoy as much as the stories mentioned just above. The other two stories within that I thought were only so-so were “A Descent into the Maelstrom” and “The Premature Burial.”

One thing which I found rather bothersome throughout was how similar some of the stories were, making me question whether I’d even want to bother with the other half of Poe’s work, as his range seems stunted. “Maelstrom”, “Ms. Found in a Bottle” and the Pym narrative all involve some sort of nautical mishap (usually a boat being sucked into an abysmal whirlpool), I couldn’t tell you what the difference between “Ligeia” and “Eleonora” is, and the recurring subject of premature burial comes up in the Pym narrative, “Black Cat”, “Amontillado”, “Pit & Pendulum”, and (no doubt) “The Premature Burial”. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, for some of the duds in the collection I was left thinking “Didn’t I just read this?” If this is what the other half of Poe’s output is like, perhaps I’m better off with this edition and some of Colonel Sanders finest after all.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read this for the 3rd time and finished 10/08/12.

Very good! I like Poe. This collection wasn't the best, though. For example, I wish Hop Frog was in it. I like that short story. I like Marie Roget, too, but I can see the editing of that from this book since we have two detective stories already.

The last story I finished in this book was The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Aside from the racism in the story (and Poe is now dead and he wrote in the 1800's, so nothing can now be done about that) it's an interesting narrative about a man on a boat heading to the Antarctic. There's perhaps too much seafaring detail in there for my tastes. The ending to that story is definitely unsatisfying. I also got a good sense of 19th values toward "conquering the world" reading this narrative.

It seemed like the majority of the stories mention the words "opium" and "ague" at least once. I got to the point where I started looking for the first mention of opium and ague every time I started a new story.

I also get the feeling that being buried alive was one of Poe's worst nightmares. I think that was a general feeling of the population during that time in history.

*****

I have just found out Jules Verne wrote a sequel to Arthur Gordon Pym called An Antarctic Mystery. I am glad. Very glad. I have requested it from the library and hope to read it sometime soon.

[Mel (Epic Reading) · Rating 5 out of 5]

You really can't go wrong with any collection of Poe's works. This one includes most of the biggest and best stories by Poe. A solid choice if you want to read a curated collection that doesn't get too far into the b-sides and science fiction pieces that Poe wrote.

Some reviews of a few of the stories:
The Pit and the Pendulum by Poe
Just wow. I’m slightly shivering after reading this. In my house, safe, my husband and 80lb pit-bull terrier in the room with me, it’s night which might add a bit of creep factor. It’s only as I finish this story I realize how rapt it had my attention.
Certainly as a teen I did not understand the true impossibility of the decision between the pit and the pendulum. I thought that the pit was always the better choice back then. Today I would merely say that both suck equally and as they both end in death then what real difference is there?

The Tell-Tale Heart by Poe
One Poe’s most famous short stories. In a mere 7 pages Poe manages to convince you that the killer was right. Perhaps I’m too jaded by todays media consumption but this feels tame compared with shows like GoT, Witcher, and other fantasy gothic movies like ‘Crimson Peak’.

Cask of Amontillo by Poe
I’m confident I’m going to hell. As I took great pleasure (and even kind of laughed) at the cleverness of each character that walls in the other in each story.
I enjoyed this story immensely. After reading all of the Poe stories in this anthology I can confidently say this is the best set of stories of them all. I love the revenge being so dark and dispicable; while also clever and concise.

The Oval Portrait by Poe
Feels like a bit of a Dorian Grey homage with the use of the painting. I don’t even know which came first! How embarrassing. Lol. I gotta say paintings can be both beautiful and haunting. Really liked this one.

The Masque of Red Death by Poe
A bit too flowery and lengthy in its descriptions for me; but the overall message to avoid greed is powerful.

The Fall of the House of Usher by Poe
A little bit anticlimactic as I’ve read many retellings including Silvia Morena-Garcia’s amazing novel, Mexican Gothic. That said, it is a clever story and adaptable in many ways. I love the biology used. Be it the mess incest makes of lineage, or the fungus that ultimately shadows everyone and thing in the House of Usher. I’m glad to have finally read the original.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Poe
Poe wrote an entire story basically about statistical probability with large numbers (aka: mathematical/scientific proof coincidences don’t exist).
The beginning was painful but the last half flew by as the murders motive, perpetrator, etc. were being revealed. It’s absurd and yet falls into place eloquently. Poe really was a very sharp, astute man.

[Amanda L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never have I encountered such uncanny description of acute insanity from the inside out. [Case in point, the opening lines: "TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily, how calmly, I can tell you the whole story."]

The tension mounts but along the way you'll surely identify with psychosis, sometimes unwittingly. A beautiful embodiment of the power of short story. Art truly mimics life.

[Mel Vincent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edgar Allan Poe is a unique and prolific writer. he delves into his writings in a way that it reflects his emotion and understanding of life. we all know he lived a very sorrowful life from start to end and by choosing a genre such a mystery and sorrow as his recurring motives he has defined and made it one of the best works since Shakespeare. I praise and admire his poetry and his stories which tell the readers that life isn't all pretty. and I'd like to think that E.A.P was the father of the detective stories which others are reluctant to give him the title.

[Jim Ef · Rating 5 out of 5]

9.1/10
Μπορείς να πεις ψέματα σε όλους τους άλλους, αλλά όχι στον εαυτό σου.
Τι μπορεί να σε προδώσει όταν έχεις διαπράξει τον τέλειο φόνο? Μα φυσικά οι ενοχές. Η μαρτυριάρα καρδιά μοιάζει αρκετά με την μαύρη γάτα, ταυτόχρονα όμως είναι εντελώς διαφορετική. Ενώ στην μαύρη γάτα ο πρωταγωνιστής πληρώνει την αλαζονεία του, εδώ είναι οι ενοχές του αυτές που τον οδηγούν στην τρέλα, και εντέλει στην ομολογία του φόνου

[Julie WB · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many brilliant stories, a few boring ones too. He really would’ve benefited from therapy.

[Prashant · Rating 5 out of 5]

"No, no, don't fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. You should have seen me."

I read this one story after hearing a lot of appreciation for it. Lately I have been reading Edgar Allan Poe's one work at a time and my gosh!, the genius keeps on getting better.

Here he tells a story of a young person(gender is not mentioned) who kills an old man in a cold and calculated manner. The way in which the story is told is simply magical. I could not peel my eyes away even for a moment. There is a new emotion and aspect unfolding in every line.

The killer took utmost precautions while performing the murder and getting rid of the body but the heart (ah! you heartless bitch!) still tells the tale.

[signe! · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is THE gothic story of gothic stories