When he read the poetry, it seemed he was reading so fast that - before I could think about what he was saying he said something else. You should get this if you're not really interested in the entertainment value over just listening to some Poe and visualising his stories. It's "generic," yet good listening.

Edgar Allan Poe is the Nietzsche of literature world

I had to read it for class. But, I really enjoyed it

I learned a lot! Really happy with this purchase.

When read by Basil Rathbone, these Poe stories are better heard than read -- if that is possible. The many other available readings of Poe stories (and poems) appear risible by contrast. Rathbone's reading of "The Tell-Tale Heart" is a nuanced lurch through Hell that should not be missed by anyone for whom literature has any meaning whatsoever.

this is a good collection for younger readers who have not been intoduced to poe- there are side notes that define the out-of-date words and a summary at the beginning of each story excert/poem. There are illustrations for each piece of work as well that help younger persons visualize as well.

This is a spectacular multi-story book. It has a wonderful variety of excitement, adventure and a lot of horror. i really enjoyed this exclusive group of books. I kept my nose in it as long as possible each time I read this book. I recommend this to any reader who enjoys horror and many other genres

Mystery, terror, suspense... it's all here. Just look at all the classic stories in this one volume: The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-Tell Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, and his masterpiece the Gold Bug. This is required reading for any fan of Poe, or classic writings in general.

This is a very good book to read at night or while camping. This is my favorite book because it has lots of stories in it and it keeps you from buying all the books seperately.And if you have a report to do and you need illistrations this has one on everypage.

A very readable story with vivid characters which manages to be both disturbing and entertaining in a quirky way. What I liked about it was the psychological complexity- people have both good and bad qualities in them ( even the protagonists) and nothing is as black or white as it seems. I was very touched by the description of the persecution of a young Wiccan woman by a town of basically good people who just don't understand- this subject is *real* and I personally know people who have been there. Very few authors ( Richard Grant is the only other one I can think of in his "Land of Winter" ) have been willing to tackle this controversial subject. The young Wiccan girl is a *person* rather than a "comic book character" like many Wiccans in books, a human being with both faults and good qualities, not a misunderstood angel or a veiled demon. As a Wiccan teacher and Elder who has been in the position of screening potential students, I have seen some of the issues ( abuse, for example ) that sometimes push people onto Our Path ( though many abused people become Born Again Christians, too- ). Mr. Poe does an excellent job with both the persecution issues and the complexities and motivations that make up even "simple small town people", who are often portrayed as one dimensional, cookie cutter characters, especially Southerners. Though it can not be described as a "Wicca positive" book, it is not negitive either- is a realistic look at some of the more wounded people who find themselves on our Path, and the abominable way they can be treated by "good folks" who need to grow and learn a little compassion and tolerance. I would recommend it to any Wiccan who plans to go into teaching- you'll eventually meet someone like Julie.
A very good effort at a difficult subject, and a great story too!

This book, although based upon a fairly old story, is exciting even now. I'm not easily disturbed, but this book had me on the edge. I had to read it through a couple of times to get the full effect, because after the first time so many things near the beginning of the story made sense. I would reccomend this book to anyone that likes thrillers and definately to a Poe fan.

I wish I could meet Mr. Poe. He sounds really hot, and I like his book. I wonder if he has a cat. Is it black? Maybe it's name is Theo just like me! I have some similar characteristics like Poe's witch in the Black Cat. I like to dance around naked too! Mr Poe, I wanna meet you.

Poe is rightly acknowledged as the granddaddy of detective fiction and collected here is the proof. In these stories he gave us the basic devices of an entire genre: the genius detective and his sidekick, the locked room mystery, cyphers, royal spies, and the rigorous logic of arm-chair detection. However, the problem with pioneering a genre is that, forever after, your pioneering work is going to look rather amateurish. And this, unfortunately, is the case with Poe: his Auguste Dupin stories may well have given birth to modern detective fiction, but alongside the works they inspired they are little more than historically interesting artifacts - and ultimately rather dull ('The Murders in the Rue Morgue' excepted). It is simply not possible for us to experience these stories today with anything like the freshness they would have had for their original readers. So if you're looking for really great stories, look elsewhere. But if, on the other hand, you're seeking the historical origins of detective fiction, then your mystery has just been solved.

"The murders in the Rue Morgue" is the first of three Poe's stories featuring his famous detective, C. Auguste Dupin. The setting is Paris, and the story goes on mainly at night and in Dupin's apartments. This leaves the reader with a sense of darkness and a little claustrophobia, adding to Poe's great style.

Dupin is able to solve the murders of two women by just visiting the crime scene once and thinking a lot. After reading lots of books by Conan Doyle, Maurice Leblanc, Agatha Christie and P.D. James the fact of the murders itself and the kind of solution given to them may seem a little simple, but we have to remember that this may be considered one of the first "detective stories" of all times. Conan Doyle was obviously inspired in some parts of Dupin's character and reasoning to create Sherlock Holmes.

And the noir atmosphere is, as always, great. This is, appearently, not a story to be seen as "horror", but proves that Poe is one of the great authors of all time.

Grade 8.6/10

The best book in the world

This mystery opens with a young boy viewing the murder and suicide of a baby and its young mother. Another body is discovered and the story begins. Resolution of the mystery surrounding the death of shopgirl Mary Rogers is augmented by the telling of the relationship between street urchin Augie and Edgar Alan Poe. It's rare to find a mystery where the reader is so taken in by the characters...a very worthwhile read.

In the summer of 1840 a New York street urchin witnesses a young woman throw her baby, then herself, into the murky Hudson River. Making a few pennies recounting the tragedy, ten-year-old Augie Dubbins meets an impoverished young journalist, Edgar Allan Poe.

Together they discover the body of another young woman caught under the docks and embark on an investigation which takes them from the squalor of the Five Points slums to the glitter of Fifth Avenue, where Augie learns that ruthless depravity thrives at all levels of society.

Narrated by Augie many years later "On Night's Shore" seamlessly incorporates elements of Poe's later tales into the narrative - "The Mystery of Marie Roget," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Black Cat" - without overreaching. Poe is a gloomy, driven man whose genius is beset by poverty, nagging self-doubt and bouts of drunkenness. Augie, brutalized, clever, and resourceful ("in calamity, opportunity"), attaches himself to Poe as a father figure, enchanted by his family circle of consumptive, gentle wife and strong, generous mother-in-law.

Despite occasional backsliding into, respectively, despair and opportunism, Poe and Augie bring out the best in one another and together they delve into Mary Rogers' working class life, shattering several official versions of the murder on their winding path into the bastions of city power. Atmospheric and suspenseful, Silvis' ("An Occasional Hell," "Excelsior") character-driven story brings the city to life in all its cruelty and grandeur and the writing - mannered, gritty and eloquent - evokes the voice and sensibility of the time.

By MARILYN STASIO

The vibrant panorama of New York City in 1840 that Randall Silvis spreads before our eyes in ON NIGHT'S SHORE (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's Minotaur...) bears little resemblance to the flat, static scenes that unroll like so much wallpaper in most historical mysteries. Even more arresting is his sleuth, a wild-eyed newspaper journalist who signs himself E. A. Poe and makes his meager living peddling sensational crime stories like the one that captures his imagination here -- the murder of a shopgirl, Mary Rogers, whose bloated body is discovered in the Hudson River by Augie Dubbins, a 10-year-old ragamuffin who narrates the tale from the vantage of an old man.

The lively investigation conducted by this oddly matched pair of sleuths is interesting in its own right, providing rich background on the seminal short story (''The Mystery of Marie Rogt'') that helped establish Poe as the father of ratiocinative detective fiction. But let's give Silvis his own creative due. Despite his mannered tendency to ape what Augie calls Poe's ''funny way with words,'' Silvis delivers pungent impressions of the living city, exploring its mansions, slums, morgue, prisons, poorhouses and opium dens for all the ambient sounds and smells that define the character of a busy, brawling, unwashed metropolis.

When I received this book, its pages stuck together and it was damaged. The "leather" doesn't even look or feel like leather. There's gold tint on the outside of the pages, and the gold rubs off on your hands and clothes when you're reading the book.

--This is THE best and most complete collection of Poe's work you will find anywhere. Not only is it everything he's published in the order it was published, it also includes the first versions of works he later altered and otherwise removed passages from. There are pieces here that I've been unable to find anywhere else after years of searching. Poe often included phrases in other languages in his stories and they are all translated here in brackets. Easy to read print and a pleasure to hold. (Plus, the new gold-leaf is fun to crack when you first open it.)
--If I have to say anything negative about this, it's the illustrations (which is quite trivial, really) which appear one to the beginning of each story. They seem to be inked in ball-point pen and the artist doesn't quite have a knack for figure drawing. Other than that, my only gripe is that the picture heading off his most famous murder mystery, depicts the murder in-progress. But again, it's trivial.
--Overall, it is the definitive collection of Poe's work to own, bound in a handsome volume for a lifetime of reading.

This is the litmus test that all other Poe books are measured by. This book has ALL of Poe's poems,stories, mysteries ect. all in chronological order, so you can see before your very eyes, the development of a pure genius. With his early writings you can see exactly how his path takes him from POEtry (the true art form, Poe's own words) to the more popular short story of his time (more profitable at the time). The stories and poems go from the popular (The Raven) to the obscure (Lines on Ale). He even shows you a side of himself that the majority of people never knew existed in his scathing reviews of other author's work. This book is not for the wishy-washy reader who is interested in nothing more than to produce a book report. It's for the bare knuckles,in from the rain, out of the storm, hide the kids, take the phone off the hook and turn out the lights because I wanna read until my hair stands on end, and I want my mommy cause I outta my mind with horror, kind of reader. It's bursting with many different types of stories and reflections. I absolutely loved this book and constantly find myself finding new parts of the book that I haven't read yet. It's easy to lose yourself in this book (over 1100 pages) and never have to worry again about missing another Poe story for the rest of your sleepless nights. Don't be mistaken about this book, if you don't have it, you haven't really read Poe. Quoth the Raven "Nevermore"!

this is a really wonderful collection of readings from e. a. poe's oeuvre. all of them are clear and clean recordings, and the articulation in the readers' voices is superb -- it makes me wish i could have experienced radio plays as a child (unfortunately i had to make do with atari and nintendo). oh well. NOTE: this is a very generous package as well. i thought i was going to get one cd for [$]: i got FIVE. there are HOURS of readings on these discs, and everything i've heard is wonderful. i recently used this collection for a show i produced for my students: if you are a sound engineer it will be very easy for you to sample these recordings, because there aren't any soundeffects or music in the background (which i prefer, because then the acting really shines through -- there's no production getting in the way of what you hear). i ripped "the mask of the red death" for a dance concert, applied different filters to the portions of the track i needed, added my own effects and music, and presto i have exactly what i need: a soundscore based entirely on the spoken word (but you'd never know it to hear it!). highly recommended

The reviewers for this audio box set of Edgar Allan Poe's most famous works of fiction are absolutely right. There is perfection in this product. The talented Vincent Price and Basil Rathborne lend their voices to the narration of the classic tales of horror and suspense. This is an antique. It is valuable and very reminiscent of the old World War II days of radio-plays sponsored by soap companies. This same style was responsible for the popularity of H.G. Well's "War of the Worlds". When Orson Welles narrated the story, his voice and the drama of the radio was so convincing, people actually believed flying saucers were invading American cities. The power of radio was very strong in the time before television media. At any rate, my point is that this same magnetism is felt in the drama that Vincent Price and Basil Rathborne provide to the original master of horror pre-Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe.

Poe was responsible for creating the detective story, some would say the short story, American Gothic, macabre tales that gripped readers with haunting melancholia, dread and superstition. It was as if he took drugs and hallucinated and wrote down what he saw. Among his most famous tales, of which Vincent Price and Basil Rathborne perfectly read with powerful narration are "The Cask Of Amontillado", "The Fall of the House of Usher", "The Mask Of The Red Death," "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Tell-Tale Heart" and the "Black Cat". It is unfortunate that they did'nt include selections from "Tales From The Rue Morgue". Among the poems that are read and made Poe quite a literati are "The Raven" and "Annabel Lee".

With all the well-constructed suspense and literary Gothic, poetic romanticism, the tales of Edgar Allan Poe are suddenly alive and fresh in the old radio style. This is truly a great gift for fans of Gothic storytelling, and most specifically, for fans of Edgar Allan Poe. Not only is a great gift, a great audio treasure, but a perfect compliment to homework. Your high-school age son or daughter will benefit immensely from hearing these classic short stories, narrated dramatically by these old "mystery" movie actors from the 50's, a more pleasurable, but nonetheless educational experience.

This 5 disk collection of Edgar Allen Poe's works is one of the best audio collections I have ever heard. Generally, I am a fan of the "radio play" style of spoken audio, with a full cast and appropriate sound effects. Yet, Poe's work (especially on the represented stories) tends to be from a single point of view, and largely take place in the mind of the main character. This first person style lends itself well to a single narrator. I could not imagine two better chosen narrators.

The heritage of radio shines in there performances. These are two actors who cut their teeth in radio, in shows such as "Suspence," "Inner Sanctum" and "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." Voice acting is almost a lost art. It is amazing, the sheer richness that comes from hearing Poe's words manipulated by such talented voices.

Vincent Price, famous for his sinister voice, is a natural for Poe. He does fewer pieces, voicing "Ligeia," "The Imp of the Perverse," "Morella," "Berenice" and "The Gold Bug." All of them are well done, with "Ligeia" being a stand out.

Basil Rathbone does the lion's share of the CD set. As I was not as familiar with him, I was a little disappointed about this. Then I heard him speak. Wow. His voice is superb, and obviously highly-trained. I prefer him to Price on the recordings, and I am thankful that he voices my favorite pieces. He slips easily between prose and poetry, and has a voice full of both emotion and cold regard. Rathbone lends his tenor to "The Tell-Tale Heart," The Fall of the House of Usher," The Black Cat," "The Cask of Amontillado," The Masque of the Red Death," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Haunted Palace," "The Bells," "The Facts of the Case of M. Valdemar," "The Raven," "Annabel Lee," "Eldorado," "To--," "Alone" and "The City in the Sea."

Are there flaws to the set? Sure. The long tracks mean you have to listen to each story in one go. There are some abridgments, if you follow along with the books. However, the talent of the narrators combined with the respect for the words being spoken outweigh any flaws. This is a truly exceptional collection.

A meticulous and massive work that piles fact upon fact. This is a reprint of a 1941 work, and the author, Quinn, was born in 1875. He is concerned to defend Poe's reputation against charges of immorality. More background about the marriage to Virginia would have been interesting. How common were such marriages in Virginia at that time? Was the full age of 21 claimed on the marriage bond legally necessary? I don't know if Silverman's 1992 biography has this, I might try it, but 750 pages on Poe is enough for now. If you really need to see an exact reproduction of the title page of Poe's textbook of conchology, this is the book for you.

This book is comprehensive and accurate in detailing the life of Poe. It is by far the most factual, accurate, comprehensive, and illuminating biography we have on Poe. All of the recent biographies of Poe pale by comparison, and are either flawed with incomplete information, or worse yet, full of inaccuracies.

Arthur Hobson Quinn's biography of Poe has almost all of the information we have on Poe's life... all it is lacking are some new facts about Poe that we have learned since 1941, when the book originally came out. Even though this book was first published in 1941, it STILL has the most information, and the most accurate information of any biography to date, on the great writer, Edgar Allan Poe.

I highly recommend this book to everybody.

This is the best biography about Edgar Allan Poe I have ever seen. Meticulous and clear, Arthur H. Quinn take us to the real world that E.A.POE lived and show us with facts that Poe was more than a writer, a Genius.

Edgar Allen Poe is a very eccentric and dark writer. Most of his writings have to do with lots of drama; therefore some of them are murder stories. He uses very big words, and most of his sentences are very poetic. He brought his nightmare-visions to vivid, dramatic life in his classic tales. This book brings out some of his darkest and richest thoughts.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue, was a story of two ladies that lived in a house and kept to themselves. None of their neighbors knew who they were. They had their groceries and other things brought straight to the house. They never came out. One day all of the neighbors heard terrible screams coming from the house. They broke in to find out what had happened. When they were finally in, they ran up the stairs to find the house a complete mess. It appeared that someone was looking for something. The neighbors found the daughter shoved up the chimney. She was dead of coarse. The mother was found outside, and she was dead also. The whole neighborhood was trying to find who had done it.

I thought that this book might be more for an older generation that would love to read very poetic stories. I personally didn't care for the book that much, because of his style of writing poetry. It was very hard to understand some sentences and I had to read them twice. Some of Poe's stories are well based and have a good plot. If you are a well educated person, you may like this book.

The Fall of the House of Usher was a dark, morbid, and absolutely creepy short story. It's a tale about a visit to the decaying House of Usher, a house haunted by the Ushers' past evil. In the end, their evil past ultimately becomes to great for the house to hold. Of course some might not agree with me; the story is up to a good deal of interpetation. The story emphasizes the gloomy, foreboding, atmosphere with great detail that never becomes too tiresome. The suspense was excellant. At the climax the reader is given hints at what is to happen, but still the reader is forced to hold his or her breath until it finally falls through. As in most short stories, the actual climax and resolution seemed to be too shortly written. Thus leaving the reader wishing for more detail and depth. The rest of the stories in this book weren't nearly as good, but still they had the gloomy suspense and horror associated with Poe.

Poe truly travels into the dark night of the soul. I first became acquainted with the works of Poe in my ninth grade honors English class. I've been wondering about Poe ever since. I have gotten a morbid sense of humor and laughed aloud at some of the stories, but of nothing evil. The book arranges Poe's works rather well, beginning with stories of being at sea and each story progresses into something deeper. The Pit and the Pendulum, the Mask of the Red Death, the Black Cat, were all good. One can never forget Dupin. That's some wild psychology there, but it worked. I'm just beginning my sojourn into the works of Poe (that stuff they gave me in high school English classes just wasn't enough). These stories haven't made me scared yet.