Macabre Tales

Some of the best-known of Poe's short stories are included in this edition. These include The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, the story of a mesmerist who, as an experiment, puts a dying man under hypnosis, keeping him in a state of suspended animation, until finally his body collapses into decomposition.

The Fall of the House of Usher, where the writer visits the ancestral home of an old friend.

This man's sister ostensibly dies and is entombed, only to re-emerge, followed by the death of both herself and her brother, and the collapse of the old house.

The Masque of the Red Death, concerning an eccentric duke and his followers who isolate themselves in the luxury of his castle to escape the ravages of a plague But this so-called red death gains entrance in the form of a mysterious masked reveller, bringing about their demise.

The Black Cat, the tale of a cruel wife murderer who is finally brought to justice by his hated cat.

The Pit and the Pendulum, concerning a man undergoing torture during the Inquisition, finally rescued at the last moment. The Murders in the Rue Morgue is an early detective story in which a young man solves the mystery of two brutal murders and uncovers the somewhat unlikely perpetrator.

The Purloined Letter, another mystery solved by the same young intellectual, this time involving scandal in high places.

Ligeia, a weird story in which the writer's much loved wife dies.

He marries again, but does not greatly care for this second spouse.

She also ostensibly dies, but rises from her death bed and appears to take on the identity of his first love.

A Descent into the Maelstrom, The story of a fisherman trapped by a horrendous whirlpool off the Scandinavian coast.

Finally, Morella, the brief tale of a spouse for whom the writer has respect but no love.

In the throes of death she gives birth to a baby daughter, on whom he lavishes the love he should rightly have shown to the mother.

As an extra, the book includes the weird poem The Raven, often quoted as 'pure Poe': "Quoth the raven, 'Never more'."