The Tell-Tale Heart an...

by
Edgar Allan Poe

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

read book* *Different edition

The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings by Edgar Allen Poe

by Edgar Allan Poe

4.12 of 5 stars 4.12 · rating details · 102,713 ratings · 656 reviews

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

Paperback, 419 pages

Published February 1983 by Demco Media (first published 1843)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Favorite classics books

123rd out of 133 books — 7 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Nov 04, 2012 K.D. Oliveros rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, crime, 1001-core, tfg-100, classics, collection

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 na...more

32 likes · like · see review

Feb 04, 2012 Nicholas Armstrong rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 be...more

9 likes · like · see review

Apr 13, 2012 Eyehavenofilter rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 mer...more

4 likes · like · see review

Jun 27, 2009 Mel Vincent rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

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 d...more

4 likes · like · see review

Apr 01, 2012 Prashant rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: e-book

"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...more

4 likes · like · see review

Dec 21, 2008 Brucie! rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

VERY creepy! We were forced to read it in English... AHH!!!

5 likes · like · see review

Sep 05, 2008 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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...more 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.
(less)

6 likes · like · see review

Nov 05, 2012 Maritza rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Después de un tiempo de no estar leyendo me encuentro este pequeño relato del escritor Edgar Allan Poe
donde nos narra la historia de un sirviente con un don (para muchos podría significar que esta loco) en escuchar hasta el más mínimo ruido. Así como su odio por su amo y que lo llevara a cometar un crimen pero éste no lo dejará estar en paz.

Otras historia que he leído de Poe son:
*El cuervo
*Los crímenes de la calle Morgue
*La Mascara de la Muerte
*Enterrado Vivo

1 like · like · see review

Apr 04, 2011 Amanda L rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, anthology, hs, favorites

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 th...more

4 likes · like · see review

Jan 29, 2013 Gregory Wong rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Tell-Tale Heart was written by Edgar Allen Poe in 1843 during the Dark Romanticism American Movement, when men are seen to be inherently sinful and nature is a dark and mysterious force. The main characters of the book are the Narrator, the main protagonist that tells the story in his account in first person and loses his insanity to an old man with an “evil eye” thus murdering him in his bed and the Old Man who was killed by the narrator because of he is afraid of his “evil eye.”
One signi...more The Tell-Tale Heart was written by Edgar Allen Poe in 1843 during the Dark Romanticism American Movement, when men are seen to be inherently sinful and nature is a dark and mysterious force. The main characters of the book are the Narrator, the main protagonist that tells the story in his account in first person and loses his insanity to an old man with an “evil eye” thus murdering him in his bed and the Old Man who was killed by the narrator because of he is afraid of his “evil eye.”
One significant conflict/dilemma in the text during the entire story is that the narrator is conflicting with himself for the negative emotions such as fear, guilt, and anxiety. Fear can cause people have impaired judgment and on higher levels sometimes make them insane just like the narrator in the Tell Tale Heart. The story was written to show readers with a short story how the nature of man is imperfect and sometime fear can get the better of us. By reading the Tell Tale Heart, people will learn that if you purposely do something morally wrong and try to hide it, guilt will bite you back in the end. This theme relates to the modern day lives of people because there will be times where getting away with things will not work anymore and the individual may receive much more than they bargained for.
In the Tell Tale Heart, I liked how Poe could create a dark and creepy setting using descriptive diction and tone. I also liked how the story started quietly inside the Old Man’s bedroom, and then quickly escalated during his murder and finally the narrator crying out in terror to the police, creating a powerful climax. I did not like how sometimes Poe is sometimes hard to understand using complicated literary devices, as well as needing to really have a psychological understanding in order to unravel Poe’s message. I would recommend this book to younger teens because they might not understand the messages Poe gives throughout the story, but they will find resemblance to some instances such as lying, cheating, and stealing which they'll need to grow out of at their age. I believe this story has let me understand that no good can come from hiding the hurtful truth and that people should not have ill intentions in the first place.(less)

like · see review

Nov 07, 2012 Hannah Morgan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Tell-Tale Heart is a very interesting book that I enjoyed greatly. It is the type of book that keeps you wanting to read more. Also this book is very mysterious and leaves out alot of things for the reader to figure out themselves, or for the reader to use their imaginations to make things up. For example, Poe didn't give a whole lot of detail about the neighbor who called the police, so as a reader you have a wonderful opportunity to make up something about the neighbor that wasn't mentioned i...more

like · see review

May 21, 2012 Krista rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Oh, The Tell-Tale Heart one of my favorite stories by Edgar Allan Poe. Why is it my favorite? In one word, CRAZY. Poe writes things in a way that makes you unsure of yourself. In liking this story does it make me odd? If so, its OK to be a little odd. Does it make me morbid, a little I think. Does it make me a reader of literary genius, YES!

The Tell-Tale Heart for those who have not read it is a story about a man who lives with an older man, the older man happens to have a "creepy" eye. By sayin...more

like · see review

Feb 25, 2012 Ensiform rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, stories

"The Cask Of Amontillado.” A man takes cold, calculated revenge on a noble whom he perceives has insults him, walling the poor guy up in a catacomb. Very creepy, especially the part where he echoes the noble’s screams. [read three times]

"The Tell-Tale Heart.” A elderly man with a cloudy eye is murdered by (presumably) his caretaker. This reading really brought home how bat-shit insane the murderer is: he takes a full hour to put his head in the door. The themes of guilt and paranoia run deep her...more "The Cask Of Amontillado.” A man takes cold, calculated revenge on a noble whom he perceives has insults him, walling the poor guy up in a catacomb. Very creepy, especially the part where he echoes the noble’s screams. [read three times]

"The Tell-Tale Heart.” A elderly man with a cloudy eye is murdered by (presumably) his caretaker. This reading really brought home how bat-shit insane the murderer is: he takes a full hour to put his head in the door. The themes of guilt and paranoia run deep here. Deservedly a classic. [read twice]

"The Fall of the House Of Usher.” A new Poe story to me. A man comes to visit a childhood friend, Roderick Usher, and finds him suffering from a possibly mental illness that makes him react in horror to most light and sounds. His twin sister is also suffering from catalepsy. She dies, and they entomb her in the house, but that’s when the really morbid stuff starts happening. This story is just pure Gothic horror. There doesn’t seem to be any kind of allegory or meaning here, just a portrait of supernatural fear (the house seems to be almost sentient). It’s written in an extremely lofty style, making it rather inaccessible to the casual reader, so it lacks the emotional punch of the previous two stories. Still, it’s a spooky tale.

"The Black Cat.” A man, once known for his kind disposition, is corrupted by drink and kills one of his pets, a cat. Disaster and murder follow, capped by an ending very similar to “The Tell-Tale Heart,” except with a more gruesome twist. Though this story isn’t narratively tight as the former, I found it just as compelling. It talks of the overpowering spirit of perverseness, doing “wrong for the wrong's sake only,” in all people. It mixture of the fantastic (the cat’s shadow on their burned house) and the mundane (drunken dissolution) is also appealing. Terrific and creepy as hell.

"Berenice.” Possibly the most pointlessly gory of Poe’s tales. A man suffering from spells of obsession on minor details becomes fixated on the teeth of his cousin, Berenice, who, though once athletic and merry, has succumbed to a degenerative disease. So he removes them while she’s still alive. Apparently, Poe himself said this story crossed the line of good taste.

“The Man Who Was All Used Up.” A rather humorous piece; the narrator meets a general famed for his bravery and is foiled at every turn when he tries to find out details. Finally, he goes to the general himself, only to find that scalping and the removing of limbs was only the start of what those savages did to him. Not brutally told, this is a light story, and it was amusing, thought he constant repetitions of the interlocutors grated after a bit.
(less)

1 like · like · see review

Jan 16, 2012 Scott Reighard rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There is no denying that Poe is a fascinating, if not disturbed individual. The morbid approach to the macabre gives Poe his place in literary lore, and I neither love nor hate the man's writings.

Poe is considered an American Romantic, and compared to other American Romantics, or British Romantics, I feel as though Poe is somewhat misplaced. Many will disagree, I am sure, but he is just too dark for me. Almost nothing he writes celebrates life; all is in death. Yes, he exhibits some attributes...more

1 like · like · see review

Oct 23, 2011 シグネ (Signe) added it · review of another edition

The narrator of The Tell Tale Heart practically admits that he’s a madman, but he says that he’s wiser than a madman, trying to use this reasoning to prove that he isn’t. He brags so often that he’s not mad that we can’t help but wonder if maybe he’s actually aware of the fact that he’s mad. He denies that he’s mad before the thought even crosses our minds! In fact, his constant denial of being mad only makes us suspect his madness even more. His reasoning behind his belief that he is not mad is...more

2 likes · like · see review

Sep 20, 2011 Phyllis rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I absolutely love this short story, it does things to me as most of Poe's works seem to, to strike something exciting inside my mind. I think this is one of the better known of Poe's works, something like The Raven or The Pit and the Pendulum. Poe does a very good job of making you invested in the characters and the plot in a very short amount of time, as always, and gets your heart rising at the apex, which quickly falls to a satisfying insanity.
The man from whose perspective the story is told...more

2 likes · like · see review

Apr 29, 2011 Pegah Espantman added it · review of another edition

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
The old man's eye is blue with a "film" or "veil" covering it. This could be a medical condition, like a corneal ulcer, but symbolically it means that the characters have issues with their "inner vision"
Setting
We don't know where the narrator is while he's telling the story of the old man's murder.The "ideal" bedroom is supposed to be a fairly private place where we can rest and recuperate without fear. The narrator completely violates the sanctity of the bedroom in t...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 21, 2011 Earl Grey Tea rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american-literature, short-stories, horror

I picked up this book to get some exposure to literature beyond my time period. I do have to say that the range of writings by Poe was quite extensive. By comparison to modern standards, the “horrors” that he wrote about were not so greatly intense to me, though a few lines here or there could be a tad gruesome.

For educational purposes, I have to say that this book quite interesting and I was able to come away felling a bit more cultured. It was nice to discuss some of his stories with some lear...more

1 like · like · see review

Jul 29, 2012 David jones rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Upon finishing The Raven, a really good poem, one of my favorites, I finished The Tell-Tale Heart. I had started this story yesterday, and would've finished it, but I was just too tired so I went to bed. Now this morning when I got up I finished it. And it was really good. I had read it in school (perhaps it was 8th grade? 9th?) I can't even remember what year. It liked it then. And I like it now. It is superb. The character development is great, and this story is really chilling. I like how it...more

like · see review

Nov 29, 2010 Robben Wainer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

That Poe believed he was the image of Annibel Lee imposed an eerie intrigue, One that may have led to a forelone truth unlike most boulevard nights. While Poe retains an ostentacious reprieve of notoriety, his chosen captivity to be rid of endless jests and charm, perhaps is his motive for ensuing his idyllic ambivalence in a love that aspires to a futile rationale, and further ineptness for posterity. Annibel is as clever as he is in a more desireable pursuit, yet Poe makes only another dismiss...more

like · see review

May 27, 2012 Christopher Rex rated it 3 of 5 stars

This isn't the exact collection of stories I read (I couldn't find the one I did read), but I presume that one collection is, more or less, the same as the next.

Poe is nutter. Brilliant, disturbed and nutter. Worth reading if you like going to the "dark side" from time to time. Also worth reading if you want to see what a healthy dose of paranoia, szchizofrenia (spell) and bipolar can be like when combined with copious amounts of opium and booze.

The great part about Poe is that despite his addi...more

like · see review

Jan 05, 2009 Mandabearrr3 added it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

1 like · like · see review

May 26, 2012 MI-A rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I know I like something when I got scared, excited, thrilled or intimidated by it. The tell-tale heart was one of those book that made me questioned my own sanity, which made it the book I love.
I have a pet peeves, or habit, whatever, that my room needs to be as dark and as quiet as humanly possible for me to get to sleep. I hate the ticking sound of the clock. When I was little I would climb up on a ladder in thr middle of the night just to get the clock and yank the batteries out of it so it...more

1 like · like · see review

Nov 08, 2012 Chrispybacon99 rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe is a very immersive and mysterious book. Throughout the book readers may become confused due to the dialect used in the story because it was written a while ago, but the sensory details in the story that Poe uses paint an incredible picture in your own mind on what is going on. Also though out the story there are many opportunities for deeper thinking and comprehension questions to ask yourself. The story may not be appealing to the squeamish type of people...more

like · see review

Oct 24, 2012 Moataz Muhammad rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm gonna talk about the story that's so close to me, it's THE TELL TALE HEART. It's a short story about pure insanity.. Some guy who lives with an old man, they live happily and they treat each other good. The old man is so nice to him. But what bothers the guy is the old man's eye. It's blue with a grey film. He feels so exposed and naked in front of this eye. So, out of total insanity of course, he resigns to killing the old man. But the guilt of the act, though so hidden under the thick grey...more

1 like · like · see review

Nov 08, 2012 Kileyallen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was very different from any other book I have read. It had a lot of features that struck me hard and either creeped me out, amazed me or impressed me. One of the features that really stood out to me is the creepiness of the plot. I am usually not the type of person who is into madman murder stories, but A Tell-Tale Heart really intrigued me with the narrator's scheme to rid the old man just to get rid of his 'evil vulture eye'. Another thing that stood out to me is the amazing descript...more

like · see review

Jun 11, 2012 Kara Collins rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Even though this is one of Poe's shortest stories, it is nevertheless a profound and, at times, ambiguous investigation of a man's paranoia. The story gains its intensity by the manner in which it portrays how the narrator stalks his victim — as though he were a beast of prey; yet, at the same time, elevated by human intelligence to a higher level of human endeavor, Poe's "murderer" is created into a type of grotesque anomaly. In a sense, the narrator is worse than a beast; only a human being co...more

2 likes · like · see review

Feb 06, 2012 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

As a child of 8 or 9, I picked up a book by Poe that likely belonged to my father. I cannot remember which book it was and to be honest, it doesn't matter because I quickly devoured everything by Poe I could get my hands on in quick succession. Thus began my love affair with the dark world of the macabre and Poe. I remember my teacher and the school librarian both being quite alarmed at my choices of reading material. Thankfully, I was raised by parents who believed that one should never discour...more

1 like · like · see review

Nov 02, 2010 Crixly Viera rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This short story by Edgar Allen Poe is probably one of my all time favorites. As a reader I absolutely loved the suspense of it all. As a writer looking back I’m able to see the amazing construction of it all. The details in the story are placed strategically so that the actual details help us to envision what’s going on but also the lack of details at specific moments create that suspense that really captures us. I learned to choose my words wisely. It’s not necessary to have a 500 page story j...more

like · see review

Aug 09, 2009 Tara rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009

There are, of course, many wonderful and creepy things to say about all the well-known short stories and poems of EAP. I personally really enjoyed revisiting "The Black Cat," mostly because I want a kitty and I will treat it much better. But what I really want to touch on briefly is Poe's one and only full-length novel. Well, I'd probably call it a novella, but now we're splitting hairs. It was verbose, and pessimistic, so in that regard very Poe-ish. I found myself thinking that it was like a c...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
What's The Name o...: Book starts off in third person, talking about how a man is really nervous because he keeps hearing things and imagining things [s]	5	125	Sep 18, 2012 05:49pm

combine
Other Editions (20)

More editions...

Genres

Classics

1,516 users

Horror

587 users

Short Stories

320 users

Poetry

145 users

Literature

112 users

Mystery

88 users

Academic > School

64 users

Gothic

60 users

Classics > Classic Literature

43 users

Academic > Read For School

39 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

The Most Dangerous Game
by Richard Connell
The Lottery and Other Stories
by Shirley Jackson
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
by Bo Hampton (Adapter, Illustrator)
The Monkey's Paw
by Diane Mowat
An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge
by Ambrose Bierce

About Edgar Allan Poe

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 hundr...more 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...(less)

More about Edgar Allan Poe...

Books by Edgar Allan Poe

The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About The Tell-Tale Hea...

10 trivia questions

More quizzes & trivia...

Quotes from The Tell-Tale Heart, P...

“Now this is the point. You fancy me a mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded...” — 259 people liked it

“Villains!' I shrieked. 'Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! Tear up the planks! Here, here! It is the beating of his hideous heart!” — 67 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings by Edgar Allen Poe
avg rating	preview: The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings by Edgar Allen Poe Goodreads rating: 4.12 (102713 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8435665-the-tell-tale-heart-and-other-writings-by-edgar-allen-poe?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]/assets/nocover/111x148.png[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8435665-the-tell-tale-heart-and-other-writings-by-edgar-allen-poe?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings by Edgar Allen Poe by Edgar Allan Poe[/url]

The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings by Edgar Allen Poe

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website