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Introducing the Vintage Collector’s Classics series

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A guide to Gothic literature

New Penguin Weird Fiction series of books

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Introducing the Penguin Weird Fiction series

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Beautiful horror books from our Clothbound Classics collection

Literature's strangest real-life mysteries 

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Literature’s biggest unanswered mysteries

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10 of the best Edgar Allan Poe quotes

The essential Halloween reading list in 10 books 

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8 classic and chilling tales

and Other Writings

The Fall of the House of Usher

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The 100th title in the much-loved Penguin Clothbound Classics series: a selection of stories, poetry and other writings from the master of Gothic horror, Edgar Allan Poe. 
 
This volume demonstrates the astonishing power and imagination with which Poe 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. This volume also includes the classic 'The Raven', among other poems and essays. 
 
This is the 100th volume in the Penguin Clothbound Classics series, designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith. These delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality, colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design, and this edition also includes special endpapers. 
 
Edited and with an introduction by the novelist, curator and academic David Galloway. 
 
'The most original genius that America has produced' 
Alfred, Lord Tennyson 
 
'Poe has entered our popular consciousness as no other American writer' 
The New York Times Book Review

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) was born in Boston and orphaned at an early age. Taken in by a couple from Richmond, Virginia, he spent a semester at the University of Virginia but could not afford to stay longer. After joining the Army and matriculating as a cadet, he started his literary career with the anonymous publication of Tamerlane and Other Poems, before working as a literary critic. His life was dotted with scandals, such as purposefully getting himself court-martialled to ensure dismissal from the Army, being discharged from his job at the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond after being found drunk by his boss, and secretly marrying his thirteen-year-old cousin Virginia (listed twenty-one on the marriage certificate). His work took him to both New York City and Baltimore, where he died at the age of forty, two years after Virginia.

This selection of Poe's stories, poetry and other writing demonstrates 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. 
 
This is the 100th volume in the much-loved Penguin Clothbound Classics series, designed by Coralie-Bickford Smith. These delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality, colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. 
 
This edition also includes an introduction by the novelist, curator and academic David Galloway.

Hop-Frog

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books 
 
Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories have lost none of their power to horrify. He remains a destabilizingly terse sketcher out of ideas, a writer who allows the reader to fill in the many ghastly blanks in his narratives of violence, retribution and animalism. It is hard to recommend Hop-Frog wholeheartedly (its original subtitle was: Or, The Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs) as it is such an affront to decency, but you will certainly never forget it.

Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories have lost none of their power to horrify. He remains a destabilizingly terse sketcher out of ideas, a writer who allows the reader to fill in the many ghastly blanks in his narratives of violence, retribution and animalism. It is hard to recommend Hop-Frog wholeheartedly (its original subtitle was: Or, The Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs) as it is such an affront to decency, but you will certainly never forget it.

The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Stories

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, USA, in 1809. Poe, short story writer, editor and critic, he is best known for his macabre tales and as the progenitor of the detective story. He died in 1849, in mysterious circumstances, at the age of forty.

A beautiful deluxe gift edition of Poe's most macabre and irresistible stories with foiled covers, marbled endpapers, sprayed edges, beautiful paper and finished with a silk ribbon. 
 
Edgar Allan Poe's stories uncover the deeply unnerving strangeness lurking within us all. His genius for horror and suspense went on to influence the world, from Freud to Hollywood. This complete collection of his best short stories contains the well-known works 'The Pit and the Pendulum' and 'The Tell-Tale Heart' alongside a wide range of delightfully terrifying tales to unsettle and enthrall. 
 
This hardback is part of VINTAGE COLLECTOR’S CLASSICS, a series of luxurious books especially crafted for collectors and fans of beautiful special editions. Sumptuous design meets the highest quality production. Discover timeless classics beautifully bound for every bookshelf.

The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Selected Stories

Poe's work as a whole is a series of haunting improvisations on themes from the macabre that are hard to categorise, dazzlingly original and posthumously influential on an extraordinary range of writers from Baudelaire and RL Stevenson to Yeats, Wilde and Borges

His work continues to enthral. His greatest tales (The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Pit and the Pendulum) radiate a dark humour and mockery that strike an oddly modern note

If genius is an exceptional capacity for imaginative creation, Poe had it in spades

His reputation as a master of the grotesque and macabre has veiled the real cause of his fame: an astonishing mastery of language and literary technique which made Arthur Ransome, himself no mean story technician and a considerable literary critic, liken his stories to rare coloured goblets or fantastic metalwork

VINTAGE CLASSICS' AMERICAN GOTHIC SERIES 
Spine-tingling, mind-altering and deliciously atmospheric, journey into the dark side of America with nine of its most uncanny classics. 
 
Edgar Allan Poe was a writer of uncommon talent; in The Murders in the Rue Morgue he created the genre of detective fiction while his genius for finding the strangeness lurking within us all has been an influence on everyone from Freud to Hollywood. This complete collection of all his short stories and novellas contains well-known tales 'The Pit and the Pendulum' and 'The Tell-Tale Heart' alongside hidden gems that both unsettle and enthrall the reader.

The Masque of the Red Death

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. 
 
Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil. 
 
Arguably America's most influential short story writer, Edgar Allan Poe's tales of suspense never fail to spook and amaze. Gathered in this selection are his very best horror stories, including the gothic tour de force 'The Fall of the House of Usher', the other-worldly 'The Masque of the Red Death', and the murderous 'The Tell-Tale Heart'. 
 
'The most original genius that America has produced' Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The most original genius that America has produced

Poe has entered our popular consciousness as no other American writer

Arguably America's most influential short story writer, Edgar Allan Poe's tales of suspense never fail to spook and amaze. Gathered in this selection are his very best horror stories, including the gothic tour de force 'The Fall of the House of Usher', the other-worldly 'The Masque of the Red Death', and the murderous 'The Tell-Tale Heart'.

16 BBC Radio full-cast dramas

The Rivals: Tales of Sherlock Holmes’ rival detectives

The complete collection of all 16 episodes from this gripping BBC Radio crime series 
 
Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard was made to look a fool in the Sherlock Holmes stories. Now he gets his own back, introducing sixteen tales of detectives whose abilities rival that of the great Sherlock Holmes. 
 
Starring James Fleet (Series 1, 3 and 4) and Tim Piggott-Smith (Series 2) as Lestrade, with casts featuring Andrew Scott, Paul Rhys, Anton Lesser, Honeysuckle Weeks, Rupert Vansittart, John Sessions, Marcia Warren and Tim McInnerny. 
 
Dramatised for radio by Chris Harrald, these stories are written by masters of the crime and thriller genre, all contemporaries of Arthur Conan Doyle. 
 
They include: 
The Murders on the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe 
The Problem of Cell 13 by Jacques Futrelle 
Murder By Proxy by Matthias McDonnel Bodkin 
The Mystery of Redstone Manor by Catherine Louisa Pirkis 
The Problem of the Superfluous Finger by Jacques Futrelle 
The Clue of the Silver Spoons by Robert Barr 
The Intangible Clue by Anna Katharine Green 
The Game Played in the Dark by Ernest Bramah 
The Kinght's Cross Signal Problem by Ernest Bramah 
A Snapshot by Matthias McDonnel Bodkin 
Seven, Seven, Seven - City by Julius Chambers 
The Moabite Cipher - by R Austin Freeman 
The Clairvoyants - by Arthur B Reeve 
The Stanway Cameo Mystery - Arthur Morrison 
The Secret of Dunstan's Tower - Ernest Bramah 
The Mystery of the Scarlet Thread - Jacques Futrelle 
 
Directed by Sasha Yevtushenko (Series 1) and Liz Webb (Series 2, 3, 4) 
 
 
(c) BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 2021 
(p) BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 2021

The complete collection of all 16 episodes from this gripping BBC Radio crime series 
 
Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard was made to look a fool in the Sherlock Holmes stories. Now he gets his own back, introducing sixteen tales of detectives whose abilities rival that of the great Sherlock Holmes. 
 
Starring James Fleet (Series 1, 3 and 4) and Tim Piggott-Smith (Series 2) as Lestrade, with casts featuring Andrew Scott, Paul Rhys, Anton Lesser, Honeysuckle Weeks, Rupert Vansittart, John Sessions, Marcia Warren and Tim McInnerny. 
 
Dramatised for radio by Chris Harrald, these stories are written by masters of the crime and thriller genre, all contemporaries of Arthur Conan Doyle. 
 
They include: 
 The Murders on the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe 
The Problem of Cell 13 by Jacques Futrelle 
Murder By Proxy by Matthias McDonnel Bodkin 
The Mystery of Redstone Manor by Catherine Louisa Pirkis 
The Problem of the Superfluous Finger by Jacques Futrelle 
The Clue of the Silver Spoons by Robert Barr 
The Intangible Clue by Anna Katharine Green 
The Game Played in the Dark by Ernest Bramah 
The Kinght's Cross Signal Problem by Ernest Bramah 
A Snapshot by Matthias McDonnel Bodkin 
Seven, Seven, Seven - City by Julius Chambers 
The Moabite Cipher - by R Austin Freeman 
The Clairvoyants - by Arthur B Reeve 
The Stanway Cameo Mystery - Arthur Morrison 
The Secret of Dunstan's Tower - Ernest Bramah 
The Mystery of the Scarlet Thread - Jacques Futrelle 
 
Directed by Sasha Yevtushenko (Series 1) and Liz Webb (Series 2, 3, 4) 
 
 
(c) BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 2021 
(p) BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 2021

The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart & other works

The Edgar Allan Poe BBC Radio Collection

Edgar Allan Poe's most celebrated stories, as heard on BBC Radio - plus bonus documentaries and two thrilling original dramas

Edgar Allan Poe's most celebrated stories, as heard on BBC Radio - plus bonus documentaries and two thrilling original dramas 
 
The master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe has inspired generations of horror writers with his chilling Gothic tales, and is also credited with inventing the detective fiction genre in The Murders in the Rue Morgue. 
 
This radio collection features five of his classic tales - The Pit and the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Oblong Box, The Fall of the House of Usher and The Masque of the Red Death, read by David Horovitch, Brian Gear, James Aubrey, Sean Barrett and Don Gilet. Also included is his renowned poem The Raven, read by Patrick Romer. 
 
Here, too, are adaptations of Poe's suspenseful story of piracy and slavery, The Gold Bug, starring Clarke Peters and Rhashan Stone, and his pioneering mystery story The Murders in the Rue Morgue, starring James Fleet and Andrew Scott. 
 
Radio 3's The Essay: Loving the Raven sees Poe enthusiasts Andrew Taylor, Joanne Harris, Louise Welsh, Mark Lawson and Kim Newman discussing the author's enduring legacy and cult status, while in Adventures in Poetry: The Raven, Peggy Reynolds explores Poe's most iconic work. 
 
Also included are two original dramas featuring Poe himself. Obsessed by a woman's unsolved murder, Edgar Allan Poe is presented with a disturbing revelation on the night before his death in Peter Mackie's The Real Mystery of Marie Roget, starring Ed Bishop. And in Christopher Cook's The Strange Case of Edgar Allan Poe, starring Kerry Shale and John Moffatt, Poe's famous detective C. Auguste Dupin investigates the bizarre death of his creator. 
 
Content warning: The Gold Bug is set in a time when slavery was still prevalent in America, and contains racist language from that era. 
 
Track listing: 
The Pit and the Pendulum 
The Tell-Tale Heart 
The Oblong Box 
The Fall of the House of Usher 
The Masque of the Red Death 
The Raven 
The Gold Bug 
The Murders in the Rue Morgue 
The Essay: Loving the Raven 
Adventures in Poetry: The Raven 
The Real Mystery of Marie Roget 
The Strange Case of Edgar Allan Poe 
 
©2020 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2020 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Edgar Allan Poe's most celebrated stories, as heard on BBC Radio - plus bonus documentaries and two thrilling original dramas 
 
The master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe has inspired generations of horror writers with his chilling Gothic tales, and is also credited with inventing the detective fiction genre in The Murders in the Rue Morgue. 
 
This radio collection features five of his classic tales - The Pit and the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Oblong Box, The Fall of the House of Usher and The Masque of the Red Death, read by David Horovitch, Brian Gear, James Aubrey, Sean Barrett and Don Gilet. Also included is his renowned poem The Raven, read by Patrick Romer. 
 
Here, too, are adaptations of Poe's suspenseful story of piracy and slavery, The Gold Bug, starring Clarke Peters and Rhashan Stone, and his pioneering mystery story The Murders in the Rue Morgue, starring James Fleet and Andrew Scott. 
 
Radio 3's The Essay: Loving the Raven sees Poe enthusiasts Andrew Taylor, Joanne Harris, Louise Welsh, Mark Lawson and Kim Newman discussing the author's enduring legacy and cult status, while in Adventures in Poetry: The Raven, Peggy Reynolds explores Poe's most iconic work. 
 
Also included are two original dramas featuring Poe himself. Obsessed by a woman's unsolved murder, Edgar Allan Poe is presented with a disturbing revelation on the night before his death in Peter Mackie's The Real Mystery of Marie Roget, starring Ed Bishop. And in Christopher Cook's The Strange Case of Edgar Allan Poe, starring Kerry Shale and John Moffatt, Poe's famous detective C. Auguste Dupin investigates the bizarre death of his creator. 
 
Content warning: The Gold Bug is set in a time when slavery was still prevalent in America, and contains racist language from that era. 
 
Track listing: 
The Pit and the Pendulum 
The Tell-Tale Heart 
The Oblong Box 
The Fall of the House of Usher 
The Masque of the Red Death 
The Raven 
The Gold Bug 
The Murders in the Rue Morgue 
The Essay: Loving the Raven 
Adventures in Poetry: The Raven 
The Real Mystery of Marie Roget 
The Strange Case of Edgar Allan Poe 
 
©2020 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2020 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Tales of Mystery and Imagination

Everyman's Children's Classics has more than 50 titles in print. It offers the finest editions currently available of the world's greatest children's books in handsome, full cloth hardcover bindings. 
 
The library brings back into print major illustrators such as Ivan Bilibin, Kate Greenaway, Arthur Rackham, Nicolas Bentley, Walter Crane, Aubrey Beardsley, Edward Ardizzone, W.Heath Robinson and Mervyn Peake.

On the 150th anniversary of artist Arthur Rackham's birth, a gorgeous hardcover - the only one in print - of his delightfully spooky illustrated edition of the tales of Edgar Allan Poe.

Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) was one of the leading illustrators from the golden age of British book illustration. Fairy-tale and fantasy were his forte and in later life he responded to the dark stimulus of Poe's gothic tales with gleeful appreciation of their macabre and otherworldly qualities, claiming afterwards that he had quite succeeded in frightening himself! For lovers of the thrilling and chilling, young and old, Poe's sensational stories cannot fail to hit the spot. This collection contains the best of his prose works, including of course the well-known masterpieces 'The Fall of the House of Usher' (the ultimate haunted house story), 'The Pit and the Pendulum', 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' (the very first detective story in fiction). First published in 1935 it has been redesigned, re-typeset and republished in a handsome edition which features all Rackham's original colour and black and white illustrations. A perfect gift  - though not for the faint-hearted!

A Modern Detective

He is fond of enigmas, of conundrums, hieroglyphics; exhibiting in his solutions of each a degree of acumen which appears to the ordinary apprehension praeternatural.

The Tell-Tale Heart

'Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was a groan of mortal terror ... the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul.' 
 
Stories about murder, mystery and madness, portraying the author's feverish imagination at its creative height. 
 
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. 
 
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). Poe's works available in Penguin Classics are The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings, The Masque of the Red Death, The Murders in the Rue Morgue and Other Tales, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Portable Edgar Allan Poe and The Science Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe.

Stories for Halloween

A selection of spine-chilling tales by the Godfather of Goth

For their supernatural grotesquerie and graveyard doom,[Poe's stories] foreshadow Stephen King and the "southern gothic" of Truman Capote... his work continues to enthral. His greatest tales radiate a dark humour and mockery that strike an oddly modern note.

The modern horror novel owes an enormous debt to Poe, and the novel of psychological horror owes him almost everything

If you love thrillers, you have to read these stories

The midnight hour approaches. You lie in bed and try to sleep, but there is the howling of the wind outside, the creak of a floorboard, the scream of a cat, the ticking clock... 
 
Your heart beats, your skin crawls, and despite yourself you reach for this book and enter a world like a nightmare, haunted by dark fears, guilty secrets and the bloody consequences of rage, revenge and obsession. 
 
You cannot tear yourself away, these tales will appall and yet enthrall you, for no mere mortal can resist the master of Gothic horror, Edgar Allan Poe.

The Raven

Part of a new six-volume series of the best in classic horror, selected by award-winning director Guillermo del Toro 
 
 The Raven: Tales and Poems is a landmark new anthology of Poe's work, which defied convention, shocked readers, and confounded critics. This selection of Poe's writings demonstrates 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 title narrative poem, maybe Poe's most famous work, follows a man's terrifying descent into madness after the loss of a lover. 
 
 Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 49), was born in Boston, USA. He was a short-story writer, editor and literary critic, and is considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor the detective-fiction genre.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue and Other Tales

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The Penguin English Library Edition of The Murders in the Rue Morgue and Other Tales by Edgar Allan Poe 
 
'... an agility astounding, a strength superhuman, a ferocity brutal, a butchery without motive, a grotesquerie in horror absolutely alien from humanity...' 
 
Horror, madness, violence and the dark forces hidden in humanity abound in this collection of Poe's brilliant tales, including - among others - the bloody, brutal and baffling murder of a mother and daughter in Paris in 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue', the creeping insanity of 'The Tell-Tale Heart', the Gothic nightmare of 'The Masque of the Red Death', and the terrible doom of 'The Fall of the House of Usher'. 
 
The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

Stop What You’re Doing and Read…Classic Crime: The Adventures And Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes & The Murders in the Rue Morgue

SHERLOCK HOLMES &amp; THE MURDERS ON THE RUE MORGUE: Two master detectives - Sherlock Holmes and Auguste Dupin - rub shoulders in these two collections of fiendishly clever, nail-bitingly suspenseful crime fiction

Arthur Conan Doyle is unique...Personally, I would walk a mile in tight boots to read him to the milkman

If genius is an exceptional capacity for imaginative creation, Poe had it in spades. With Dupin in The Murders In The Rue Morgue, he created the first detective story before the word 'detective' existed

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born on 22 May 1859 in Edinburgh. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and began to write stories while he was a student.Over his life he produced more than thirty books, 150 short stories, poems, plays and essays across a wide range of genres.His most famous creation is the detective Sherlock Holmes, who he introduced in his first novel A Study in Scarlet (1887). This was followed in 1889 by an historical novel, Micah Clarke. In 1893 Conan Doyle published 'The Final Problem' in which he killed off his famous detective so that he could turn his attention more towards historical fiction. However Holmes was so popular that Conan Doyle eventually relented and published The Hound of the Baskervilles in 1901. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died on 7 July 1930. 
 
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, USA, in 1809. Poe, short story writer, editor and critic, he is best known for his macabre tales and as the progenitor of the detective story. He died in 1849, in mysterious circumstances, at the age of forty.

To mark the publication of Stop What You're Doing and Read This!, a collection of essays celebrating reading, Vintage Classics are releasing 12 limited edition themed ebook 'bundles', to tempt readers to discover and rediscover great books. 
 
THE ADVENTURES AND MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES 
A collection of Sherlock Holmes's most memorable and intriguing cases, including adventures with mysterious masked strangers, ingenious heists, murderous plots and hidden jewels, which take the famous detective and his faithful sidekick Dr Watson from the streets of London and the English countryside to a chilling encounter at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland. 
 
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE 
Edgar Allan Poe invented the genre of detective fiction with these three mesmerising stories of a young French eccentric named C. Auguste Dupin: 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue', 'The Mystery of Marie Rogêt' and 'The Purloined Letter'. Poe's short mysteries inspired the creation of countless literary sleuths, among them Sherlock Holmes.Today the unique Dupin stories still stand out as utterly engrossing page-turners.

The Penguin Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (Author) Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) was born in Boston and orphaned at an early age. Taken in by a couple from Richmond, Virginia, he spent a semester at the University of Virginia but could not afford to stay longer. After joining the Army and matriculating as a cadet, he started his literary career with the anonymous publication of Tamerlane and Other Poems, before working as a literary critic. His life was dotted with scandals, such as purposefully getting himself court-martialled to ensure dismissal from the Army, being discharged from his job at the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond after being found drunk by his boss, and secretly marrying his thirteen-year-old cousin Virginia (listed twenty-one on the marriage certificate). His work took him to both New York City and Baltimore, where he died at the age of forty, two years after Virginia. Will Self (Introducer) Will Self is the author of many novels and books of non-fiction, including Great Apes, The Book of Dave, How the Dead Live, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel of the Year 2002, The Butt, winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction 2008, Umbrella, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2012, and Shark. His most recent novel, Phone, was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize. He lives in south London.

The Fall of the House of Usher, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Gold-Bug - some of the most famous tales of terror and the most macabre detective stories ever written. Acknowledged master of suspense, Poe was also a poet and - as his stories of mesmerism and time travel prove - a pioneer of science fiction. In this collection, probing to the depths of the human psyche, Poe's haunted genius will chill and enthral you.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 49), was born in Boston, USA. He was a short-story writer, editor and literary critic, and is considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor the detective-fiction genre.

Thirteen stories of horror, suspense and the supernatural. 'The Pit and the Pendulum', 'The Fall of the House of Usher' and 'The Black Cat' are just three of Edgar Allan Poe's most famous tales in this chilling collection.

The Essential Poe

The Pit and the Pendulum

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 Murders in the Rue Morgue

Poe's three classic tales of mystery and detection

The best detective in fiction...Dupin is unrivalled

Poe's blackly ingenious tale of brutal murder in 19th-century Paris establishes C. Auguste Dupin, a man of 'peculiar analytic ability', as the model for pretty much every intellectual detective to come

Thanks to Poe, we now have a Protector yet more powerful, a figure we can take to our hearts, or into our subconsciousnesses: the Great Detective.

If you love thrillers, you have to read these stories.

Famed for his macabre tales of Gothic suspense, Poe actually invented the detective fiction genre in 1841 with the creation of his brilliant  Partisan investigator Auguste Dupin.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MATTHEW PEARL 
 
Edgar Allan Poe invented detective fiction with these three mesmerising stories of a young eccentric named C. Auguste Dupin: 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue', 'The Mystery of Marie Rogêt' and 'The Purloined Letter'. Dorothy L. Sayers would later describe these tales as 'almost a complete manual of detective theory and practice'. Indeed, Poe's short mysteries inspired the creation of countless literary sleuths, among them Sherlock Holmes. Today the unique Dupin stories still stand out as utterly engrossing page-turners. 
 
This edition includes the definitive text of these stories and an introduction and appendix on 'The Earliest Detectives' by Matthew Pearl.

And Other Stories

Part of our Gothic Classics series - ten terrifying tales of the supernatural - eerie visitations, revenge from beyond the grave, vampire love and many other macabre manifestations from masters of the genre

In 'The Masque of the Red Death' and other tales of gothic horror, Edgar Allan Poe writes as no one else ever has of creeping, mounting terrors, of malevolent tormentors and of a mind's own sickening madness 
 
Outside the abbey's armoured walls, the common poor are ravaged by a grisly pestilence known as the 'Red Death', while within, safe and untroubled, the happy Prince Prospero hosts lavish entertainments. But, in their immodest comfort, the Prince and his guests are not as safe as they hope from the horrors of the outside world ...

However you try to escape it, horror is always there 
 
Outside the abbey&rsquo;s armoured walls, the common poor are ravaged by a grisly pestilence known as the &lsquo;Red Death&rsquo;, while within, safe and untroubled, the happy Prince Prospero hosts lavish entertainments. But, in their immodest comfort, the Prince and his guests are not as safe as they hope from the horrors of the outside world &hellip; 
 
In &lsquo;The Masque of the Red Death&rsquo; and other tales of gothic horror, Edgar Allan Poe writes as no one else ever has of creeping, mounting terrors &ndash; of torments of ingenious, malevolent tormentors and of a mind&rsquo;s own sickening madness.

Tales and Poems

Spirits of the Dead

A unique one volume collection of all Poe's best tales and poems. Full of variety, entries include The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget, The Purloined Letter - three classic detective stories - plus The Raven, one of his greatest poems. A wonderful selection of tales and poems that are representative of every genre written by Poe, from the macabre and horrifying to the humorous and purely descriptive.

Edgar Allan Poe

Puffin Clothbound Classics are stunning collectable hardback editions of some of the best-loved classics in the world - including this haunting edition of Tales of Mystery and Terror by Edgar Allen Poe. 
 
Enter the dark, doom-laden world of Edgar Allen Poe with a selection of some of his most chilling tales, chosen for children aged 10+. 
 
‘There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart' 
 
Revel in thirteen tales of horror, suspense and the supernatural by the inimitable Edgar Allen Poe. Featuring some of his most famous stories, including 'The Tell-Tale Heart', 'The Fall of the House of Usher' and 'The Masque of the Red Death', this chilling collection of short stories is the perfect way to introduce new readers to the long-lasting thrills and chills of outstanding horror writing – or to indulge in them yourself! 
 
Full of rich, atmospheric writing, haunting tales of murder and madness, and mysteries that baffle the mind, this beautiful hardback edition is the perfect gift for horror fans of all ages.

Tales of Mystery and Terror

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Edgar Allan  Poe

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Edgar Allan Poe

Books by Edgar Allan Poe

Articles featuring Edgar Allan Poe

Introducing the Vintage Collector’s Classics series

A guide to Gothic literature

Introducing the Penguin Weird Fiction series

Beautiful horror books from our Clothbound Classics collection

Literature’s biggest unanswered mysteries

10 of the best Edgar Allan Poe quotes

8 classic and chilling tales

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