Audio Books Anyone??? Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Short Stories

I recently decided to give audio books a try, and my first choice, Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Usher, was a huge success.  I finished it quickly and immediately started looking for something else.  I was looking at the classics on itunes when I came across Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Short Stories...16 hours of short stories for $2.95.  I decided to download it.

Source:  http://www.amazon.com/

The past two weeks I've listened while I mowed the yard, and I have to say that even in the broad daylight I find these stories spooky and sometimes gross.  I can't imagine listening to the haunting voice of the narrator telling theses stories on a dark night.  I'm easy to scare anyway.

This was a good choice for me as far as audio books go.  These are short stories that I probably would never have read on my own.  That's why I like audio books.  It's a way to get more books in while you're doing other things.  Plus it has made the time mowing go by much faster.

Here are the short stories I've listened to so far...

"The Angel of The Odd"

"Berenice"

"The Black Cat"

"The Cask of Amontillado"

"The Maelstrom"

"Eleanora"

"The Facts in the Case Of M. Valdemar"

"The House of Usher"

Other short stories in this collection include...

"Hop Frog"

"Imp of the Perverse"

"Island of the Fay"

"Ligiea"

"Man of the Crowd"

"Message in a Bottle"

"The Masque of the Red Death"

"Mesmeric Revelation"

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue"

"Never Be the Devil Your Head"

"The Oval Portrait"

"The Pit and the Pendulum"

"The Premature Burial"

"The Purloined Letter"

"Silence - A Fable"

"Some Words with a Mummy"

"The Spectacles"

"The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Feather"

"The Tell Tale Heart"

"William Wilson"

"The Raven"

________________________________________

Edgar Allan Poe
Source:  www.ushistory.org



Edgar Allan Poe is the author of such classics as: "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Raven", and "The Fall of the House of Usher".  His works have been in print since 1827, and he is believed by many to be the inventor of the modern detective story.

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809.  His first book, Tamerlane, was published when he was just 18 years old, and by 1831 he had enlisted and been discharged from the army and thrown out of West Point.  He married his 13 year old cousin, Virginia Clemm in  1836.  He was 27 years old.

In 1835 he took a job at the Southern Literary Messenger where he made a name for himself as a harsh critic, and made a future enemy in the anthologist, Rufus Griswold.  In 1838 his only novel was published and he moved to Philadelphia.  Later in 1840 his first book of short stories, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, was published, and he received 25 free copies as his only pay.  "The Raven" was published in 1845, and his wife died two years later of tuberculosis.  Poe himself died to years after her under mysterious circumstances on October 7, 1849.  He was 40 years old.

His last words were, "Lord, help my poor soul."

Rufus Griswold hated Poe, and according to www.poemuseum.org, Griswold wrote a book about Poe in which he described Poe as "a drunken, womanizing, madman with no morals and no friends."

(Source:  www.poemuseum.org)

Griswold also wrote a vindictive and some say inaccurate obituary about Poe that would influence how people would view Edgar Allan Poe for decades.  Recent research has shown what some say is a more balanced and accurate account of Poe's character and life.

(Source:  www.uvamagazine.org)

Source:  www.uvamagazine.org

"From childhood's hour I have not been as others were"

--Edgar Allan Poe