Great Detective Stories.

by Edgar Allan Poe

This material is an excellent support material not only for the teacher new to the classroom, but also gives a strong support for the experienced teacher making the life in the classroom more convenient with a better subject basis.

Genres: Mystery, Short Stories, Fiction, Classics

Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

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

[qoheleth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This small book contains five short mystery stories, one of which was a Sherlock Holmes. My favorite was “ A Bracelet at Bruges.” Not that it was a great mystery, but I liked the author’s writing style. I am going to track down some novels by Arnold Bennett because of this story.

[Shanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clever mysteries + creative resolutions + classic literary style = intelligent, intriguing, satisfying.

1. Arthur Conan Doyle “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” 1891 ****
2. S. T. Meade and Robert Eustace “Mr. Bovey’s Unexpected Will” 1899 ***
3. Arnold Bennett “A Bracelet at Bruges” 1905 ****
4. Baroness Orczy “Who Stole the Black Diamonds?” 1905 ***
5. R. Austin Freeman “The Blue Sequin” 1909 *****

[Erik · Rating 2 out of 5]

The stories and resolutions are clever but always solved by the most impossibly minute details.

[Gale · Rating 3 out of 5]

DEATH, STOLEN GOLD AND JEWELS IN EDWARDIAN ENGLAND

Here we have five short stories in one slim volume—mysteries penned by British authors. With a sketch of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson on the cover readers can expect a literary treat. “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” takes the duo out to the country to solve a foul murder. Holmes proffers his sleuthing philosophy: a warning against being swayed by circumstantial evidence; he asserts that obvious facts can be deceptive (a case of false accusation. Once again he demonstrates that his craft is “the observation of trifles.”

Dual-authored “Mr. Bovey’s Unexpected Will” concerns the brazen theft and clever hiding place of a fortune in gold. Narrated in the first person by a doctor-observer/confident this story presents a female detective who gleefully undertakes “tasks both herculean and ghastly.”

“Arnold Bennett’s “A Bracelet at Bruges” offers an intriguing
theft of a costly bracelet on the Continent. American movie stars’ outrageous behavior is depicted, as the amateur sleuths are pitted against a pair of crafty European grifters.

Jewels are again featured in Baroness Orczy’s “Who Stole the Black Diamonds?” The impoverished monarchs of a European country called “Bohemia” offer a priceless PARURE (matched set of necklace and tiara) which is mysteriously stolen from a country home during a glittering party--and later shows up on the lovely person of a rich American widow. (All Americans seem to be fabulously wealthy—a common misconception by early 20th century British writers.)

Lastly another “colorful” mystery serving up death on the railway, “The Blue Sequin” is presented in the first person by a diffident, observer/companion. Is it murder, with the usual False Accusation--or a case of Death by Misadventure? How could ox gall help settle the issue? As usual the constabulary gets it all wrong…

September 29, 2014

[Vrsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic writers always end up impressing us...

[Neer · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting mix of five stories by different authors (and not merely Doyle)

More here:

http://inkquilletc.blogspot.in/2013/1...

[Molfry · Rating 4 out of 5]

need to take out of library and start listening at 50 min mark