The Best of Edgar Allan Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Cask of Amontillado, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Masque of the Red Death, The Black Cat, The Murders in the Rue Morgue

This carefully crafted ebook: “The Best of Edgar Allan Poe: The Tell-Tale
Heart, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Cask of Amontillado, The Pit and
the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Masque of the Red Death, The Black Cat,
The Murders in the Rue Morgue” contains the Best Tales of Edgar Allan Poe in
one volume and is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed
table of contents.

The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)
Is a short story told by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the
reader of his sanity, while describing a murder he committed. The murder is
carefully calculated, and the murderer hides the body by dismembering it and
hiding it under the floorboards.

Fall of the House of Usher (1839)
As in all of Poe’s short stories, “The Fall of the House of Usher”
concentrates on a “single effect”, in this case, the degeneration and decay of
the Usher house and family.

The Cask of Amontillado (1846)
The story is set in a nameless Italian city in an unspecified year and is
about the narrator's deadly revenge on a friend who, he believes, has insulted
him. The narrative revolves around a person being buried alive—in this case,
by immurement.

The Pit and the Pendulum (1842)
The short story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish
Inquisition, though Poe skews historical facts. The narrator of the story
describes his experience of being tortured. The story is especially effective
at inspiring fear in the reader because of its heavy focus on the senses, such
as sound, emphasizing its reality, unlike many of Poe's stories which are
aided by the supernatural.

The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)
It is told by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of his
sanity, while describing a murder he committed. The murder is carefully
calculated, and the murderer hides the body by dismembering it and hiding it
under the floorboards. Ultimately the narrator's guilt manifests itself in the
form of the sound — possibly hallucinatory — of the old man's heart still
beating under the floorboards.

The Masque of the Red Death (1842)
The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague known
as the Red Death by hiding in his abbey. He, along with many other wealthy
nobles, has a masquerade ball within seven rooms of his abbey, each decorated
with a different color. In the midst of their revelry, a mysterious figure
disguised as a Red Death victim enters and makes his way through each of the
rooms.

The Black Cat (1843)
It is a study of the psychology of guilt, often paired in analysis with Poe's
"The Tell-Tale Heart". In both, a murderer carefully conceals his crime and
believes himself unassailable, but eventually breaks down and reveals himself,
impelled by a nagging reminder of his guilt.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)
It has been recognized as the first detective story. C. Auguste Dupin is a man
in Paris who solves the mystery of the brutal murder of two women. Numerous
witnesses heard a suspect, though no one agrees on what language was spoken.
At the murder scene, Dupin finds a hair that does not appear to be human.

American author Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849) defined the genre of macabre
story-telling in the first half of the 19th century. Poe, known for
psychologically thrilling tales with morbid undertones, is generally
considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited
with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction.