Tales of Mystery and Imagination

By Edgar Allan Poe and Tony Allan

Book Overview

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.

'Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart - one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which gives direction to the character of Man.'

Including Poe's most terrifying, grotesque and haunting short stories, Tales of Mystery and Imagination is the ultimate collection of the infamous author's macabre works.

Considered to be one of the earliest American writers to encapsulate the genre of detective-fiction, the collection features some of his most popular tales.'The Gold-Bug' is the only tale that was popular in his lifetime, whereas 'The Black Cat', 'The Pit and the Pendulum' and 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' became more widely read after his death.

Focussing on the internal conflict of individuals, the power of the dead over the living, and psychological explorations of darker human emotion that appear to anticipate Sigmund Freud's later theories on the psyche, Poe's Gothic terror stories are considered masterpieces the world over.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0008699429
• ISBN13: 9780008699420
• Release Date: November 2024
• Publisher: William Collins
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.0" x 7.7"
• Age Range: 13 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 8 to 12

Customer Reviews

Imagination is more important than knowlege

The way of percieving things as they are is far away beyond reality, knowlege is limited, therfore there should be some kind of interpretaion for real life 'items and incidents'. The book is a real baseline for such kind of deep innerbeing emotional ties, and somthing to start with in the same streem.

E. A. Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination

Having never read Edgar Allen Poe I was quite pleased with his writing. One of my favorite stories out of the plethera of choices was the Gold Bug. At first I was relucant to continue with the book. It was going slow and was hard to interpret. Then in the middle of the story it picked up pace and had some mystery and magic in it. I became fixed with reading it and figuring out how they found the treasure and how it was all possible. The process of the way the treasure was found was fantastic. This book has many of Poe's greatest writings. And that is what made it great. You didn't ahve to get a lot of books to read many of his stories, you could simply just get one and read many. This book contained many great short stories. It is a must read.

One of the greatest books ever written!!

I read this book about a year ago and loved it. I'm the type of person who reads before they go to sleep and I had to put this book down because it was so frightening. I loved the way Poe drew me into the story and kept me begging for more. I was always curious to know what happened next, even if I was terrified. My favorite of all the stories was the "Cask of Amontillado". It was so creative how you became almost like a part of the story.

Truly a masterpiece! Full of horror and graphic imagination.

I felt chilled reading this collection of Poe's all time best stories. I especially loved the eerieness of The Cask of Amontialldo and the insanity of the narrator in the The Balck Cat, all so frightly believable. The illustrations top it off by adding a magical touch of frightful imagery to the collection.

Poe is a Master of Horror

This book had 25 of Poe's best short stories in it. He has a way of twisting reality. Poe is a great writer of short essays and can make a person feel like their going through an emotional roller-coaster in two pages. I highly recomend this book and would encourage anybody to read it.