A collection of classic works by Edgar Allan Poe, American author, poet, editor, and literary critic. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

Beware the black cat. Good luck escaping the pit. Don’t go to that party without your masque. Delight in these and many more stories and poems from the master of dark prose, Edgar Allan Poe. This collection has been specially curated and performed by award-winning audiobook narrator Joe Arden. Dive in to the darkness.

One Voice Recordings presents amazingly versatile voice actor David Ian Davies performing three of Edgar Allan Poe's most famous short stories: "Oblong Box", "The Pit and the Pendulum", and "The Black Cat".

This volume features William F Harvey's original undead hand story "The Beast with Five Fingers" that sparked many movies including Sam Raimi's "The Evil Dead". Poe's classic "The Tell Tale Heart" is joined by Lovecraft's creepy tale of alienation "The Outsider", and a chilling Dickens ghost story "The Signalman".

This is a story from the Murders in the Rue Morgue (The Dupin Stories) collection. Auguste Dupin, investigator extraordinaire, was the remarkable creation of Edgar Allan Poe. Written in the 1840s, Poe presented the acutely observant, shrewd but idiosyncratic character who, with his chronicler, provided the inspiration for the more famous Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

This is a story from the Fall of the House of Usher collection. The horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, with its dungeon of death, and the overhanging gloom on the House of Usher demonstrate unforgettably the unique imagination of Edgar Allan Poe. Unerringly, he touches upon some of our greatest nightmares: Premature burial, ghostly transformation, words from beyond the grave. Written in the 1840s, they have retained their power to shock and frighten even now.

Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is a realistic yet romantic nautical adventure about a young stowaway on the high seas. One day in 1827, Arthur Gordon Pym escapes his dreary life in New Bedford and hides on the Grampus, where he befriends the captain's son, Augustus. The two boys witness and participate in a dazzling series of adventures, including shipwreck, famine, rescue, and voyages all over the world.

Each story explores a different twist of madness, murder, and melancholy, from the horror of being buried alive in "The Fall of the House of Usher" to the desperate case of two gruesome killings in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." The heartbeat of paranoia in "The Tell-Tale Heart," the razor-sharp claustrophobia in "The Pit and the Pendulum," and a mourner's torment in "The Raven" reveal - and revel in - life's creepiest and craziest. These tales are not for the faint of heart or the thin of skin.

It was the eye. The dull, sightless, vulture's eye that shredded his final nerve. But the murder was done so carefully, so perfectly, that only one thing could reveal the whereabouts of the body. B. J. Harrison gives a masterful reading of the famous murder that wouldn't keep quiet. This audiobook was the #3 best-selling audiobook in 2008 at the iTunes Music Store!

“I was sick, sick unto death with that long agony,” begins one of the most famous tales from the master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. Through the tortures of the Spanish Inquisition, we follow the straying mind of the unnamed prisoner in his quest for hope in a world of darkness and despair. This episode skyrocketed The Classic Tales Podcast to number 3 on iTunes’ Top 100 Podcasts chart.

Prince Prospero invites several dozen of the local nobility to his castle for protection against an oncoming plague, the Red Death. Prospero orders his guests to attend a masked ball and, amidst a general atmosphere of debauchery and depravity, notices the entry of a mysterious hooded stranger dressed all in red.

A collection featuring three classic horror stories, read by actor Earl Hammond: "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Cask of Amontillado", and "The Black Cat".

A prisoner, sentenced to death during the Spanish Inquisition, finds himself trapped in a lightless cell to contemplate his fate. Will he die by falling helplessly into a deathly, yawning pit in the center of the room? Or will the deadly, razor-sharp pendulum slowly descending from the ceiling be the cause of his demise? This enhanced audiobook - with music and sound effects - is an unabridged copy of the classic story by the master of horror, Edgar Allan Poe.

Dickensen Academy isn’t a typical boarding school. The faculty is hiding an unbelievable secret within their fine arts program. When Autumn Mattison receives an invitation to attend the high school, she yearns to escape her overbearing father yet remains reluctant to leave her mother and brother. Her doubts fade away when a vivid dream convinces her she belongs there.

Lucinda Hamilton settles down in sleepy Reverie, South Carolina, because she's running from the troubles of her past. But when her dangerous ex-husband evades law enforcement, she fears that no amount of running will ever make her safe again. Two women are determined to keep Lucinda's past at bay - the mysterious young nurse living on the other side of Lucinda's duplex, who won't even tell Lucinda her name, and Ardie Brown, an ex-marine who's recently moved back to Reverie herself. It's hard for Lucinda to trust either one; it's even harder to admit that she's falling for both of them.

This is a story from the Fall of the House of Usher collection. The horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, with its dungeon of death, and the overhanging gloom on the House of Usher demonstrate unforgettably the unique imagination of Edgar Allan Poe. Unerringly, he touches upon some of our greatest nightmares: Premature burial, ghostly transformation, words from beyond the grave. Written in the 1840s, they have retained their power to shock and frighten even now.

The best and most revered works of famed poet and author, Edgar Allen Poe.

This dark psychological fantasy is more than a moral tale. It is also a product of its time, drawing on contemporary theories of class, evolution and criminality, and the secret lives behind Victorian propriety, to create a unique form of urban Gothic.

This volume features William F Harvey's original undead hand story "The Beast with Five Fingers" that sparked many movies including Sam Raimi's "The Evil Dead". Poe's classic "The Tell Tale Heart" is joined by Lovecraft's creepy tale of alienation "The Outsider", and a chilling Dickens ghost story "The Signalman".

Young, impressionable Aubrey is fascinated by the enigmatic Lord Ruthven, and accompanies him on a tour to Europe. But Aubrey develops a growing distaste for Lord Ruthven’s sinister and grotesque conduct - especially as it concerns human blood. This novella, penned during that tempestuous night in Switzerland amongst such notables as Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and Mary Shelley, served as the great inspiration for Bram Stoker to create Dracula.

A prisoner, sentenced to death during the Spanish Inquisition, finds himself trapped in a lightless cell to contemplate his fate. Will he die by falling helplessly into a deathly, yawning pit in the center of the room? Or will the deadly, razor-sharp pendulum slowly descending from the ceiling be the cause of his demise? This enhanced audiobook - with music and sound effects - is an unabridged copy of the classic story by the master of horror, Edgar Allan Poe.

An unprecedented historical and literary event, this tale written in the 1850s is the only known novel by a female African American slave, and quite possibly the first novel written by a black woman anywhere. A work recently uncovered by renowned scholar and professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., it is a stirring tale of "passing" and the adventures of a young slave as she makes her way to freedom.

The Monk is a violent tale of ambition, murder, and incest. The great struggle between maintaining monastic vows and fulfilling personal ambitions leads the monk Ambrosio, into temptation and the breaking of his vows, then to sexual obsession and rape, and finally to murder in order to conceal his guilt. Written when Matthew Lewis was only 19, The Monk was criticised when first published in 1796 for its lewdness and impiety, but this criticism only added to its popularity.

In a dingy apartment on the Passage du Pont-Neuf in Paris, Thérèse Raquin is trapped in a loveless marriage to her sickly cousin, Camille. The numbing tedium of her life is suddenly shattered when she embarks on a turbulent affair with her husband's earthy friend, Laurent. But their passion for each other soon compels the lovers to commit a crime that will haunt them forever.

This was the most popular novel of Radcliffe's time; Radcliffe's portrayal of her heroine's inner life raised the Gothic romance to a new level. The atmosphere of fear and the gripping plot continue to thrill today. This is the story of the orphaned Emily St Aubert, who finds herself separated from the man she loves and confined within the Castle of Udolpho by her aunt's new husband Montoni. Here she must cope with an unwanted suitor, Montoni's threats, and the wild imaginings and terrors which threaten to overwhelm her.

In the late seventies an extraordinary document came to light which for fifty years had been held on deposit by the bankers of the deceased John Herbert Watson MD - better known to devotees of Conan Doyle as Dr Watson. A continuous narrative in the doctor’s own hand, the story opens in the East End of London in 1888. Three women have been savagely murdered by Jack the Ripper.

Les Misérables emphasizes the three major predicaments of the 19th century, each symbolized by a major character: Jean Valjean represents the degradation of man in the proletariat, Fantine represents the subjection of women through hunger, and Cosette represents the atrophy of the child by darkness.

Two student anatomists purchase the remains of humanity in the small hours of the morning. The shadowy men who bring the bodies seldom speak, and the suspicions of the students are never spoken aloud. Until one morning when the drapery is lifted from the face of a new acquisition, and one student recognizes it as the face of a dear friend, alive and well only yesterday.

One of the most important novels in classic literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter tackles the subject of adultery, with the notorious Hester Prynne at the forefront of the scandal in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the beginning of the novel, Hester is serving time in prison for having a child out of wedlock and is forced to wear a scarlet A on her clothing at all times, so she cannot run from her sin no matter where she goes.

In his perceptive and moving depiction of Ivan Ilych, a worldly careerist facing his own mortality in the midst of a self-absorbed family and indifferent colleagues, Tolstoy provides one of literature's greatest and most memorable reflections on the meaning of the good life and on life as preparation for death.