Great tales and poems

Edgar Allan Poe's tales of the macabre have long thrilled readers of all ages, and his poems remain among the best-loved in American literature.

This selection of eleven stories and eight 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 "The Philosophy of Composition," an essay deseribing his writing method. Poe's vivid and intense imagination exerted a major influence on writers who came after him, and the best of his work both in prose and verse has the power to haunt us still.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) was born Edgar Poe in Boston and took the name Allan from his foster parents. Though he achieved instant fame with his poem "The Raven," Poe struggled to make a living from his writing and met a mysterious death in Baltimore at the age of forty.