In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart", the narrator tries to prove his sanity after murdering an elderly man because of his "vulture eye". His growing guilt leads him to hear the old man's heart beating under the floorboards, which drives him to confess the crime to the police.
The Tell-Tale Heart strips away myths that have grown up around the life of Edgar Allen Poe, providing a fresh assessment of the man and his work. Symons reveals Poe as his contemporaries saw him – a man struggling to make a living and whose life was beset by tragedy, such that he was driven to excessive drinking and unhealthy relationships.
A new selection for the NEA’s Big Read program A compact selection of Poe’s greatest stories and poems, chosen by the National Endowment for the Arts for their Big Read program. This selection of eleven stories and seven poems contains such famously chilling masterpieces of the storyteller’s art as “The Tell-tale Heart,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and such unforgettable poems as “The Raven,” “The Bells,” and “Annabel Lee.” Poe is widely credited with pioneering the detective story, represented here by “The Purloined Letter,” “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Also included is his essay “The Philosophy of Composition,” in which he lays out his theory of how good writers write, describing how he constructed “The Raven” as an example.
Poe's most famous tales and poems, including "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Fall of the House of Usher," and "The Raven," are collected in this edition that includes a reading group guide.
This selection of Poe's critical writings, short fiction and poetry demonstrates an intense interest in aesthetic issues and the astonishing power and imagination with which he probed the darkest corners of the human mind. The Fall of the House of Usher describes the final hours of a family tormented by tragedy and the legacy of the past. In the Tell Tale Heart, a murderer's insane delusions threaten to betray him, while stories such as The Pit and the Pendulum and the Cask of Amontillado explore extreme states of decadence, fear and hate.
The perfect Christmas gift! Curl up by the fire with this chilling collection of tales from one of the original masters of mystery and the macabre... 'Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! --do you mark me well? I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror.' The melancholy, brilliance, passionate lyricism and torment of Edgar Allen Poe are all well represented in this timeless collection. Here, in one volume, are his masterpieces of mystery, terror, humour and adventure, including stories such as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, The Black Cat, The Masque of the Red Death, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, and The Pit and the Pendulum, and his finest lyric and narrative poetry -The Ravenand Annabel Lee, to name just a few - that defined American romanticism and secured Poe as one of the most enduring literary voices of the nineteenth century.
An illustrated collection of some of Poe's sinister tales, including "The Black Cat, " "The Fall of the House of Usher, " "The Premature Burial, " and a few of his poems.
Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat" is a short story that explores themes of guilt and perversity. The narrator, haunted by cruelty to his black cat and acts of domestic violence, is consumed by paranoia and madness. His attempt to conceal a crime leads to his own disgrace.