Contents:
The Tell-Tale Heart
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Pit and the Pendulum
William Wilson
The Black Cat
The Cask of Amontillado
Eleonora

Re-read a few Poe stories to celebrate his birthday. Masque of the Red Death, a favorite, reminded me why I like his writing so much.

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

me right now because i thought it would be fun to read every poem and story by edgar allan poe at 3 am in the morning!!

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.

10000/10

Poe’s writing has a way of making me feel true trepidation and anxiety, and something I rarely experience in books unless they are particularly well-constructed and written. This, to me, is personal confirmation that Poe’s ability is entirely worthy of its reputation and that his work is seriously enjoyable. This might sound basic or conceited on my part, but this book truly lived up to its expectations.

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.

Once a reader understands Poe's obsession with trying to evoke the sublime (uncontrolable emotion, such as horror or love) in his writing, a reader of a Tell-tale will see how masterfully Poe evokes these emotions. The art in Poe's writing is how deeply he connects inevitable emotion of the human experience to the meaning of words through the pacing and rhythm of his writing.

This short story is a must read. If once can let go of there attachments to the world around them and be swept into the emotional reality that Poe creates.

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.

This collection had three tales: The Telltale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, and The Black Cat.

If you are unfamiliar with these classics, you should really read them. They are old-school horror, served chilled.

They're all creepy as hell - Poe depicted narrators going completely mad better than just about anyone else, including florid ol' Lovecraft. This would be fine listening on a dark Halloween night.

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.