Edgar Allan Poe is strongly commended to your attention by three facts: he was a brilliant writer, his writing is almost without exception short, and he’s been dead long enough for the copyright to lapse on his work.
That makes Poe’s stories perfect for Halloween. They’re a great experience whether you’re reading them by yourself or aloud to a group. And thanks to Project Gutenberg, the price is hard to beat.
To be sure, his oh-so-19th-century writing style may be a bit baroque for some modern audiences, particularly the maturity-challenged. And a dictionary is a handy thing to have nearby. On the other hand, Poe is one of a small number of authors who require patience to read and actually reward the effort.
I suppose I’d look more sophisticated if I populated this list with the author’s more obscure tales, long discourses with mummies about modern technology and the like. But his more famous tales are beloved for a reason: in addition to their literary merit, they’re good fun. Or at least good chills.
The Cask of Amontillado – Of all the revenge stories I’ve ever read, this is the revenge-iest. Poe gives us no indication what “the thousand injuries of Fortunado” might have been, but they must have been some bad stuff to merit walling the guy up alive. Still, who among us hasn’t secretly entertained the desire to do something really nasty to one of the jerks in our lives? In addition to the chilling deed itself, this tale also features some of the author’s legendary dry wit (such as the jerk’s repeated insistence that “Luchesi couldn’t tell amontillado from sherry”).
The Pit and the Pendulum – On the other hand, being on the receiving side of the torturer’s art isn’t so great. Poe’s version of the Spanish Inquisition is more artistically inclined – or at least more elaborate – than the real thing. For a short story, this does an excellent job of capturing the “long agony” of waiting to die, sweetened and poisoned by the faint hope that there might be a way to escape the relentless inevitable.
The Imp of the Perverse – Okay, here’s one brief nod to Poe’s more obscure, philosophical stuff. The piece ends with a brief, mediocre tale of a murderer undone by his own weakness. But the rest of the text discusses the peculiar human tendency to do the wrong thing simply because it’s the wrong thing to do. And what a great name for this tricky phenomenon.
Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether – Yeah, this is the original poster child for tales in which the reader figures out what’s going on well before the characters in the story tumble to the truth. Nonetheless, it’s still a bit of good fun. The inmates taking over the asylum, indeed.
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar – Of all Poe’s many weird scenarios, this is one of the weirdest: what would happen if you hypnotized a guy right before he died? This was probably even scarier back when “mesmerism” was new and poorly understood. Because if Valdemar’s awful fate was actually plausible …
Hop-Frog – Misfits of the world, fear no longer. This is the forerunner of “Spurs” (the tale that gave birth to Freaks), all tales of innocent folks picked on by “normal people” for being different. Unlike Fortunado, here we know exactly what the bad guys did to deserve what they get. And boy do they ever get it.
The Tell-Tale Heart – Once again the tables turn. The nameless narrator murders his housemate merely because he can’t stand the old guy’s filmy eye (in the killer’s defense, Poe’s description of the eye does make it sound pretty gross). But then our old friend the Imp starts whispering in his ear.
The Masque of the Red Death – This is hands-down my favorite piece of Poe, the one I would turn into a movie if I had the time and resources. The obnoxious rich jerk who needs a good come-uppance. The bizarre, colorful chambers of the prince’s palace. And of course the Red Death. This is over-wrought gothic prose-poetry at its finest.
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