Eight Tales of Edgar Allan Poe: Detective Stories, Riddles, Classic Adventure, Mystery, and Science Fiction.

The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Vol. I, Illustrated

De: Edgar Allan Poe, Alberto Llamas Conde

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Poe is widely known as a classic master of horror storytelling. His work has not been fully appreciated, neither during his lifetime nor now, as we approach the one hundred and seventy-fifth anniversary of his death. It is challenging for most of us to excel in even a single field in life, and Poe was an undisputed genius in all the fields of literature he worked on. Particularly noteworthy is his role in the construction of various genres.

Poe is the father of the detective novel. Few doubt that "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" from 1841 and "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" from 1842, both stories included in this book, are the foundational works of an entire genre. Auguste Dupin, the extremely perceptive detective with astonishing deductive abilities, who stars in these two stories alongside an unknown narrator, is the acknowledged inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle in creating his immortal Sherlock Holmes and his partner Dr. Watson, in 1887. The detective genre of the 20th century, as we know it, with authors like Agatha Christie and her investigator Hercules Poirot, might not exist without Edgar Allan Poe's Chevalier Dupin. Would private detectives in noir novels, such as Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe or Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade, be conceivable? Possibly not.

We cannot say that Poe is the father of horror stories, the field for which he is most well-known. This credit goes to the English Romanticism of authors like Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, or Mary Shelley, who were born in the century before Poe and evidently influenced him, as can be seen in "The Oval Portrait," (1842) a story published in this collection. However, Poe was indeed one of the great masters of the genre, adding a personal, tragic, and macabre tone to most of his stories, a tone lacking in the works of these earlier authors.

Let's now explore the adventure genre. "The Gold Bug" (1843), published here, is one of the earliest known works of puzzles and riddles. If we combine it with his work "Message in a Bottle" (1833), also included in this collection, and even with "Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" (1838), we might suppose that Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island" (1883) was strongly inspired by Poe. Poe, in turn, possibly drew inspiration from "Robinson Crusoe," a repentant castaway of his youth's sins created by Daniel Defoe (1719), which inherits certain supernatural aspects, and captures a certain sense of pilgrimage from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798).

And for those who know the master Poe, who knew that he was also a pioneer of science fiction? "The Unparalleled Adventures of Hans Pfaal" (1835) and "The Balloon-Hoax" (1844), published here, anticipated and likely inspired Jules Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon" (1865).

I have already mentioned Poe's influence in the horror, detective novel, adventure novel, science fiction, and short story genres. But what about his poetry? Poe would also be hailed as a master if he had only been a poet, with immortal contributions to poetry, with a gothic, romantic, melancholic, and macabre vision in poems like "The Raven" or "Annabel Lee."

This is a selection of short stories of Edgar Allan Poe, a timeless genious of literature. A perfect choice for having a smart read or to make a very original gift. It includes eight of his best tales:

1. THE UNPARALLELED ADVENTURES OF ONE HANS PFAAL
2. THE GOLD-BUG
3. FOUR BEASTS IN ONE—THE HOMO-CAMELEOPARD
4. THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE
5. THE BALLOON-HOAX
6. THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET
7. MESSAGE FOUND IN A BOTTLE
8. THE OVAL PORTRAIT