The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales of Mystery and Imagination
Written by Edgar Allan Poe
Narrated by William Roberts
4/5
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About this audiobook
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston in 1809. His parents, both touring actors, died before he was three. He was raised by John Allan, a prosperous Virginian merchant. Poe published his first volume of poetry while still a teenager. He worked as an editor for magazines in Philadelphia, Richmond and New York, and achieved respect as a literary critic. In 1836, he married his thirteen year-old cousin. It was only with the publication of The Raven and other Poems in 1845 that he achieved national fame as a writer. Poe died in mysterious circumstances in 1849.
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Reviews for The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales of Mystery and Imagination
21 ratings10 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Included in this collection: 10 novellas and short stories: * The Pit and the Pendulum * The Tell Tale Heart * The Masque of the Red Death * Ligeia * The Raven * The Cask of Amontillado * The Fall of the House of Usher * The Black Cat * The Premature Burial * The facts in the Case of M. ValdemarSome interesting common themes seem to emerge in this collection: premature burial; murders where bodies are walled up; murders committed by the narrator who is then betrayed by his own imagination or by spirits coming from the world of the dead.The readings are well done. There is suitably spooky music between stories.I hadn't realised The Raven was actually poetry (basically rhyming couplets). The stories I liked the best were The Tell-Tale Heart in which the beating of the heart comes back to haunt a murderer; The Masque of the Red Death (which sound s a bit like the modern ebola virus); and The Black Cat.It is a long time since I have read any Poe. The language of the stories is a bit dated. However the article in Wikipedia says: Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I've read two stories from this collection for the 1001 books to read before you die list. The first one "The Purloined Letter" sucked. I DNF because it was so boring and really too much information to get through just to find out how he got his hands on the letter. However, the second story "The Fall of the House of Usher" was more of the Poe writing that I enjoy. It's about a haunted house with a poor man who is going crazy inside it. Ending was strange and left it to the reader's imagination what happened to Usher.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Balloon-Hoax - Wow. That was really boring.Ms. Found in a Bottle - Good suspense, but the ending confused me.A Descent into the Maelstrom - Not too memorable.The Murders in the Rue Morgue - A rather silly Holmes-esque mystery tale.The Purloined Letter - Not bad, but far too wordy.The Black Cat - Deliciously disturbing.The Fall of the House of Usher - Not as interesting as his others, but good atmosphere.The Pit and the Pendulum - A delightful tale of suspense.The Masque of the Red Death - Meh. Weird for no reason and kind of boring.The Cask of Amontillado - I think makes Poe so memorable is his vivid first-person accounts from the point of view of a killer.The Assignation - I couldn't follow this one. What did the drowning child and the art aficionado have to do with one another?The Tell-Tale Heart - Funnier than I'd remembered. One of my all-time favorites.Diddling - A random essay on swindling.The Man That was Used Up - Silly, amusing, but ends a bit too abruptly.Narrative of A. Gordon Pym - Some good bits, but I think I just don't like maritime fiction.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oh. So Poe's not just a writer for goth teens? Whoa. I mean.. that stuff was good. Like... whoa.
Incredible, grab-your-bandaids-because-your-cuticles-will-be-bleeding-after-this, terrifying, and utterly thrilling horror! There were a few bland bits throughout but what Poe did well he did shockingly well.
Whoa. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This collection, which also features The Tell Tale Heart, The Masque of the Red Death, Ligeia, The Raven, The Cask of Amontillado, The Black Cat, The Premature Burial and The facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, was a great introduction into the macabre world of Edgar Allan Poe. For years, I had stayed away thinking that his stories would be nightmare-inducing, and I suppose they would have been in my younger day, since they don't lack in morbid and grisly details, to which I suppose I've become more or less desensitized over the years. What makes these tales so memorable is that Poe imbues every aspect of his short stories with a sense of doom and despair, making even the pictures on the walls, the draperies and window panes and books and plants and stones sound ominous, and elevates murder, cruelty and various manners of dying, to an art form. Perhaps because I'm such an animal lover, I found The Black Cat, in which the hateful protagonist describes the various manners in which he tortured his cat, difficult to stomach. My favourite story was The Fall of the House of Usher, which with poetic prose builds up nicely to the inevitable catastrophe, and in this case does not involve sadistic and cruel schemes, or hardly, by comparison. Overall, I found the recurring themes of the stories too repetitive to my liking, but I'm sure I'll be reading more Poe in future all the same.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I'd never read Poe before when I bought this book. I usually hate florid writing (basically, anything before the late 19th century) and a quick glance at the prose made me a little worried about whether I would even be able to make sense of it. However, I persevered and now I've finished all the stories and am sad cause I know there's no more to read.Poe understands horror and suspense to perfection. He also understands a lot of other things which nobody seems to appreciate anymore, IMO. Some of the more surreal stories in this collection reminded me strongly of Gogol. I'm not really a fan of surreal writing, but many of the other stories - especially the 'futuristic technology' ones - reminded me of some of Conan Doyle's stories, which is some of the highest praise I could give an author.In particular, I'm indebted to Poe for inspiring Conan Doyles's Sherlock Holmes, one of my favorite literary protagonists of all time. I actually think the Sherlock Holmes stories are better developed than Poe's detective tales, but one can forgive him since he pioneered the detective genre.My favorite story, by far, was 'Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym'. I love a good adventure story, and this was an epic that just went on and on and oooon....in a very good way. It also showed how incredibly educated the author was on everything from the breedings habits of sea-birds to handling a ship. I learnt so much about random subjects from this story.I was going to try to list some of my other favorites, but there are just too many so I'm leaving it at this.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I like the book because is very intereting
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My first collection of the maestro's work. Inexorably moody.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Edgar Allan Poe was the inventor of the thriller and made an very chilling work of his story "The Fall of the House of Usher". Being my favorite work of his besides "The Raven", I would recommend it to anyone. However, his stories all together are a bit too grim and gruesome for my taste.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is very thrilling story.I was interested in his book because Japanese famous writer Ranpo Edogawa is made by changing Edgar Allan Poe.The story is nice.But a little dreadful