Tales of Terror and Detection

by Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) holds a unique place in American literature. Famous as a poet, he also penned short stories that are masterpieces of terror and suspense, infused with the horror and dread he knew from his feverish dreams and persistent fears of death. Fortunately for lovers of mystery, Poe was attracted by logic and analysis as well as fantasy. Fascinated by the narrative possibilities of tracking the perpetrator of a crime, he invented the modern detective story.
This superb collection of five stories reveals Poe's virtuoso gifts for both crime fiction and the macabre. Two of his most famous tales, "The Mystery of Marie Roget" and "The Purloined Letter," recount the exploits of C. Auguste Dupin, the first important fictional detective. "William Wilson" is a chilling tale of crime and evil. The two remaining stories, "MS. Found in a Bottle" and "The Oblong Box," subtly but relentlessly convey a sense of unease, then dread, then outright terror.

Genres: Horror, Classics, Short Stories, Mystery, Fiction, Gothic, Detective

96 pages, Paperback

First published October 4, 1995

About the author

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...

Reviews

[Mayra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Can't...
Too boring.
Maybe will try again later.

[Kelly Lemieux · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally finished this slim volume of 91 pages filled with 5 scary stories told scary smart style by Poe and his often autobiographical main characters. Ratiocination is something Poe came up with for (fictional) detectives, advanced common sense that leads to contemporary art fare like the CSI cop investigators show and Benedict Cumberbatch's real career...Sherlock. ANd like J. Conrad and H. Melville, Poe often writes about sea voyages, especially to the Antarctic/Arctic.

[Catie Howitt · Rating 1 out of 5]

this was my first dnf in a long while, possibly years.... who knew horror could be so boring??

[Caitlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I had a hard time getting into a couple of the stories (I’d forgotten how descriptive/longwinded Poe can sometimes seem after not reading him for a while), but I loved the ideas behind them and look forward to reading/rereading in the future.

[Wils Cain · Rating 3 out of 5]

19th Century language and style of writing makes this a bit difficult to read so I felt like I lost the flow regularly. Still fun to read a little creepy, nothing terrifying though.

[Sekolah Cikal Surabaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I give 4 stars because it was very scary. There were many jump scares.

by Rasyid (Year 4)

[Jonathan Jerden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Five lessor short stories.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first story, MS found in a bottle. is easily the best. I’m partial to ghost ship stories though. The rest were decent as well, but didn’t quite grab me as much.

[Rach · Rating 3 out of 5]

MS. Found in a Bottle - 1.5/5
William Wilson - 3/5
The Mystery of Marie Roget - 3.5/5
The Oblong Box - 3/5
The Purloined Letter - 3/5

Mid across the board I'm afraid.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a hard collection to rate, mostly precisely because it was a collection. Two of the stories, The Oblong Box and The Purloined Letter, were definitely better than 3 stars. Most of us who have any interest in literature, have at least heard of The Purloined Letter, but the other stories in this collection may only be familiar to a die-hard Poe fan. There's a reason for that. The other stories (Message Found in a Bottle, William Wilson and The Mystery of Marie Rogêt) are just not quite up to snuff.

Message Found in a Bottle was OK. This is solidly 3 stars. A tale about a sailor trapped in a never-ceasing storm, he gets flung from his own ship to another one, where things are definitely not normal.

William Wilson. Ugh. I really struggled to get through this, and I'm not sure why. The premise was OK, but I feel like Poe didn't fully deliver. He's got this whole twin/split personality thing going on, like a truncated version of Jekyll and Hyde, which is perhaps why I didn't like Poe's attempt. I've just read better treatments of the premise.

The Mystery of Marie Rogêt. Oh my God. This just wouldn't end. This was the last of the stories I read (I read them out of order, but that is immaterial to the understanding of each of them), and I could not wait for it to just end. The story is based on a real-life murder that happened in NY, but Poe places the events in Paris. While this is sort of explained, it was also difficult to tell if this was really based on historical events, or if saying so was a literary device. (My mistrust may stem from having been of a particular age when I watched The Blair Witch Project.) Reading some analysis of the story cleared up some things for me. Doing so also revealed that critics find this to be the least effective of Poe's C. Auguste Dupin stories. Could not agree more. I mean the Dupin character is important to literary canon outside of this single story, as he predates Sherlock Holmes as a detective who bases his conclusions primarily on logic. In Dupin you find the basis for Holmes and also for Christie's Poirot. This importance, however, doesn't negate the fact that is just not a great detective story.

The Oblong Box. This was mostly what I expect from Poe. The only downside is that the resolution is pretty obvious from nearly the beginning of the story, which is a tad disappointing.

The Purloined Letter. Saving the best for last. This is also a Dupin tale, and a much better one. Here Poe lays out the methodology Dupin uses, his powers of observation and logic, without belaboring the point like he did in MR. Here I enjoyed seeing how the character thought, whereas in MR, I kinda just wanted to punch Poe and Dupin.

OK, so please read this with a dictionary of some sort nearby. I don't remember The Tell Tale Heart or Amontillado requiring so much in the way of vocab lessons, but it's helpful here. Of course, stopping to do this research does break your reading stride, but it can't really be avoided.

As someone who loves words, I found the spelling variations (klew instead of clue, connexion instead of connection) to be interesting little historical nuggets. But they also serve as reminders that these stories were written a long time ago, and in a style we don't encounter in most popular fiction. I love words, and there were still points in which I was like "why did you take so many words to get to the point."

There were a couple of interesting digressions into math and religion sprinkled throughout that I really enjoyed, outside of how those thoughts impacted the plot.

So overall, a three, because OB and PL were better than a three, whereas MR and WW weren't even a three, and MB was pretty much a solid three. Law of averages and all that. Plus, honestly, I'd really have a hard time giving Poe a two; that's just downright disrespectful.

[Fanda Kutubuku · Rating 1 out of 5]

Buku ini benar-benar melelahkan untuk dibaca. Sebagian besar kurasa karena penterjemahannya yang membuat tiap kalimatnya sulit dimengerti. Memang, aku hanya membaca 2 kisah: Misteri Marie Roget dan Surat Yang Hilang karena keduanya menampilkan si detektif C. Auguste Dupin. Entah apakah karakter Dupin yang bikin kedua kisah ini jadi membosankan ya? Karena di keduanya, Poe menitik beratkan proses pemikiran Poe terhadap misterinya, yang mengandalkan banyak logika dan sangat berbelit-belit. Terutama di kasus Marie Roget. Surat Yang Hilang masih lumayan karena ada dialognya, dan lumayan menarik cara Poe mengambil kesimpulan kasus itu.

Dari 2 kisah itu, aku merasa tak menemukan karakter yang kuat pada tokoh2nya. Lain dengan Hercule Poirot, detektif ciptaan Agatha Christie yang kita kenal sebagai sosok yang tinggi hati, menyombongkan kemampuannya, tapi memang sehebat apa yang ia sombongkan. Kita tahu sosoknya (kepala bulat telur, kumis kakunya) juga kebiasaan2nya, sehingga kita seolah mengenalnya. Kalo August Dupin? Aku cuma tahu: ia jenius. Aku merasa asing banget dengannya, dan ternyata setelah baca 2 kisahnya, aku gak kenal sama sekali pada Dupin.

Too bad, I must give this poor book one star only...

[Linda♥ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I haven't read much the book with this genre. It's classic, and two of the stories about detective which is involved Auguste Lupin in it. Things that bothered me so much is the translation. And of course the way the stories go. In Indonesia, we call it 'bertele-tele'. -_- Btw, ini kenapa jadi sok nginggris sih? *bingung sendiri* Apa mungkin bertele-tele memang khas klasik? Perasaan nggak juga.. Klasik memang kadang bertele-tele, tapi banyak buku genre klasik yang meskipun demikian masih enak dibaca.

Beda sama buku ini..

Entah kenapa pas baca buku ini lebih banyak garuk-garuk punggung sama kepala daripada mengagumi cerita-cerita Poe. Lebih parah, aku ngantuk dan ujung-ujungnya tidur. Untung pas baca di loteng nggak kebablasan tidur juga. Meskipun buku ini not my cup of tea banget, tapi ada juga dua kisah (dari lima kisah) yang jadi favoritku. Errrr.. sebenernya bukan favorit sih, lebih tepat disebut yang paling aku ngerti mhuahahaha. Dua kisah yang beruntung itu adalah dua kisah terakhir, Peti Oval dan Surat yang Dicuri. Mungkin karena dua kisah itu paling pendek kali ya..

Satu bintang untuk menghargai buku yang sudah ditulis Poe. Dan satu bintang lagi untuk dua cerita yang cukup bisa kumengerti. :p

[Aria Anggana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Akhirnya aku menamatkan buku ini juga. Setelah berjuang dengan pikiran sendiri bahwa aku, paling tidak, harus menamatian buku ini untuk mengenal penulisnya.

Ya, ini kali pertama aku membaca Edgar Allan Poe. Buku ini pemberian dari seorang teman di dunia maya, beberapa waktu lalu ketika ia mampir ke Jakarta.

Dari sekian banyak buku yang temanku itu bawa, aku memilih buku inin Pasalnya, jauh sebelumnya ada seorang teman, yang kita katakan saja, memberiku Kisah-Kisah Tengah Malam -- buku Edgar Allan Poe yang lain, namun aku menolaknya. Aku ingin tapi aku menolak.

Jadi, karna ini adalah pengamalan pertamaku berkenalan dengan Poe. Pada cerpen pertama di buku ini, aku mengalami kejutan yang luar biasa. Gaya bercerita Poe, yang njlimet-ruwet tidak aku temukan di bacaan manapun yang pernah aku baca.

Aku pada kesimpulan bahwa nungkin memang begitulah Poe, mengabaikan pemikiran bahwa 'kesalahan' penerjemahlah yang menyebabkan banyak sekali kata yang-dan dalam ceritanya.

Dan hasilnya, pada cerita kedua dalam buku ini aku sudah mulai bisa menikmati kecerewatan Poe dalam berkisah.

Sekarang aku penasaran dengan Kisah-Kisah Tengah Malam. Apa aku akan seteres saat membaca buku ini.

[Dominic Carlone · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a complete snoozer, but certainly inferior to Dover's other Poe story compilation, The Gold-Bug and Other Tales, which is solid from start to finish. The two closing stories are the best in this collection by far: The Oblong Box and The Purloined Letter. The rest is pretty dry, humourless and overly cerebral stuff. While Poe's Dupin mysteries deserve credit for setting the template for Sherlock Holmes, the blandness of the Marie Roget story makes it clear why Holmes enjoys much greater popularity.

[Jaime · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book had been on my shelf since college, purchased in a bookstore in Alexandria, Virginia, that featured a spinning turnstile of Dover Thrift Editions. I stacked them high and burned through the other selections, including Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground which remains high on my loved list. This one, though, I opened but never read. Unfortunately I was not missing much. These do feel like the early sketches of an artist, which I usually love, but here, not so much. Not scary enough to be grabbing, not edited enough to be educational.

[Diana Lynn VanderMeulen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe EAP just isn’t for me. This felt like the longest book in the world.

[Fa Fauzia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poe has unique point of view. He focused on detail that people might used to be ignored, it makes his every story different. Unexpected ending, feels like told us -the readers- not to act like you know it all.
But i think my mind is just too simple to digest his complicated tales, i am dizzy of it! Haha...

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow. It has been a long time since I have read Edgar Allan Poe. I remember I used to read everything of his. The very short book has his more cerebral writings and his more colloquial writings. The cerebral takes a bit more concentration to get through naturally, but it's still fun.

[Anneleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This man is a GENIUS.
His understanding of the criminal mastermind, is absolutely brilliant.
Sometimes, it's hard to follow every single step, but I'm completely blown away by his clever writing!

[Julaine · Rating 1 out of 5]

not so much. His writing is okay, but his stories are just bizarre and not all that interesting.

[Levi · Rating 2 out of 5]

meh. i got tired of it and other books pushed this one out of the way before i could finish it. i felt there was barely any terror or detection.

[Frederik · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic Poe; very entertaining...

[rati]

Terjemahan Indonesia

[Krista · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not interesting to me much. I like Poe's scary stories better.