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The American Experience: A Collection of Great American Stories
Ten classic stories from authors who have masterfully captured the American experience.Irving's incredible and amusing tale of the archetypal 'Rip Van Winkle' relates the story of a man who slept through history.Stephen Crane's 'The Red Badge of Courage' tells of a young soldier who must struggle with his conscience no matter what the consequences.'The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County' is Mark Twain's hilarious story of a contest to end all contests in the rowdy days of the Forty-Niners.Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Man of the Crowd' tells of one man's strange fascination with another.'The Ransom of Red Chief' is O. Henry's tale of a kidnapping that goes horribly, horribly, wrong.'Miss Tempy's Watchers' by Sarah Orne Jewett speaks of the power of friendship.Kate Chopin's lovely 'Desiree's Baby' tells the poignant story of one woman's search for her past.Jack London's acclaimed 'The Call of the Wild' is a thrilling adventure of nature and survival.Edith Wharton pens a chilling ghost story in the atmospheric 'The Eyes.'And 'Bernice Bobs Her Hair' is F. Scott Fitzgerald's wry and amusing tale of a young lady's struggle for social success.
- GenresFiction
MP3 CD
First published July 1, 2014
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About the author
Edgar Allan Poe
10.2k books29k followersThe 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...
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...
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June 14, 2020
A mixed bag. I hadn't read many of these "classic" short stories before now, but hearing them gave me an idea of what it must've been like to consume them as serials in the newspapers or on radio. Worth checking out overall.
Displaying 1 of 1 review