Selected Tales

This collection gathers ten tales by Poe, from houses eaten away by their past to the confessions of murderers who think themselves sane. It includes the fall of the House of Usher, the masque of the red death, the tell-tale heart, and the first case of Chevalier Dupin. Each turns on a narrator caught between reason and terror, and a tension that tightens to the last line. Together they explore guilt, madness, death and the limits of the mind observing them. Poe here shapes the lasting form of both the horror tale and detective fiction.