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The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar - listen book free online

The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar is a short story by American author Edgar Allan Poe. While editor of The Broadway Journal, Poe printed a letter from a New York physician named Dr A. Sidney Doane that recounted a surgical operation performed while a patient was "in magnetic sleep." The letter served as inspiration for Poe's tale. Many readers thought that the story was a scientific report.... Read More

The Fall of the House of Usher - listen book free online

One of Poe’s most terrifying tales, The Fall of the House of Usher is narrated by a man who has been invited to visit his childhood friend Roderick Usher. The Fall of the House of Usher as a “novel.” However, despite the characteristic brevity of the narrative, the work deserves inclusion here, because it is simply impossible to imagine the modern novel without considering Poe’s masterful writi... Read More

The Tell-Tale Heart - listen book free online

The Tell-Tale Heart is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843. An unnamed narrator confesses that he has murdered an old man, apparently because of the old man’s ‘Evil Eye’ which drove the narrator to kill him. He then describes how he crept into the old man’s bedroom while he slept and stabbed him, dragging the corpse away and dismembering it, so as to concea... Read More

The Pit and the Pendulum - listen book free online

One of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous stories, The Pit and the Pendulum, a work of horror that achieves its effect through a description of the unnamed narrator’s experiences and internal feelings, was for its time remarkably innovative in its focus on sensations. At the beginning of the story, the narrator is explaining his reaction as he's sentenced to death by the inquisitors. Until that mome... Read More

The Murders in the Rue Morgue - listen book free online

Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories. The first of three of Poe’s tales involving Dupin, The Murders in the Rue Morgue is set in Paris, primarily on the fictional Rue Morgue. One evening, Dupin demonstrates his analytical prowess by deducing the narrator's thoughts about a particular stage actor, based on clues g... Read More

The Gold-Bug - listen book free online

The Gold-Bug is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in 1843. The story, set on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, is often compared with Poe's "tales of ratiocination" as an early form of detective fiction. Poe submitted The Gold-Bug as an entry to a writing contest sponsored by the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper. His story won the grand prize and was published in three instalments. The n... Read More

Berenice - listen book free online

Edgar Allan Poe was one of the most important and influential American writers of the 19th century. He was the first author to try to make a professional living as a writer. Much of Poe's work was inspired by the events that happened around him. Berenice is a short horror story. Egaeus grew up in a mansion with gloomy, solitary temperament and poor health. His favourite place is the library, th... Read More

The Imp of the Perverse - listen book free online

Edgar Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809. That makes him Capricorn, on the cusp of Aquarius. His parents were David and Elizabeth Poe. David was born in Baltimore on July 18, 1784. Elizabeth Arnold came to the U.S. from England in 1796 and married David Poe after her first husband died in 1805. They had three children, Henry, Edgar, and Rosalie. The Imp of the Perverse is a short story.... Read More

Morella - listen book free online

Morella is a short story in the Gothic horror genre. It was first published in the April 1835 issue of the Southern Literary Messenger, and a revised version was reprinted in the November 1839 issue of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. The first publication included a 16-line poem of Poe's called Hymn sung by Morella, later published as a stand-alone poem, A Catholic Hymn. There are a number of po... Read More

Ligeia - listen book free online

Edgar Allan Poe was an American short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor who is famous for his cultivation of mystery and the macabre. His tale The Murders in the Rue Morgue initiated the modern detective story, and the atmosphere in his tales of horror is unrivalled in American fiction. His The Raven numbers among the best-known poems in the national literature. Published in 1838, the stor... Read More

The Black Cat - listen book free online

The Black Cat is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The Black Cat is told from the perspective of an insane narrator who, in his own words, does not expect the reader to believe him. He tells the reader up front that he is scheduled to die the following day, but the reader doesn't find out why until the end of the story. After setting up his story from this perspective, the man t... Read More

Eleonora - listen book free online

Eleonora is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1842 in Philadelphia in the literary annual The Gift. It is often regarded as somewhat autobiographical. The unnamed narrator recollects two distinct periods or chapters in his life.  The first one ends with the premature death of his beloved cousin Eleonora.  The second one ends with his marriage to Ermengarde, his heartthrob of... Read More

The Oval Portrait - listen book free online

The Oval Portrait is a horror short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, involving the disturbing circumstances surrounding a portrait in a chateau. The narrator, wounded and delirious, has sought shelter in an old mansion with his valet or manservant, Pedro. He holes up in one of the rooms, and contemplates the strange paintings adorning the walls of the room, and reads a small book he ha... Read More

The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether - listen book free online

The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether is a dark comedy short story by the American author Edgar Allan Poe. The story begins with the narrator and his companion travelling through the countryside on horseback. As they travel, the narrator inquires about the Maison de Sante, which is a lunatic asylum. The asylum is a privately run institution under the control of Monsieur Maillard. The c... Read More

The Man That Was Used Up - listen book free online

Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and of American literature as a whole, and he was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story. He is generally considered the in... Read More

The Man of the Crowd - listen book free online

The Man of the Crowd is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe about a nameless narrator following a man through a crowded London. The story was first published simultaneously in the December 1840 issues of Atkinson's Casket and Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. The latter was the final issue of that periodical. The narrator perceives a crowd which is outside a London coffee shop through... Read More

MS. Found in a Bottle - listen book free online

In almost all of Poe's works, death is a central issue. Whether a tale of murder, a tale of horror, a Gothic horror romance, or an allegory, Poe's stories, by nature of his preferred genres, are full of death. Though many of his stories deal with either the murder of someone, the solving of a murder, or the supernatural resurrection of someone who has died, it is his allegorical look at mortali... Read More

Poirot's Early Cases - listen book free online

Agatha Christie's first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, introduced Hercule Poirot, her eccentric and egotistic Belgian detective. Christie’s first major recognition came with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which was followed by some 75 novels that usually made best-seller lists. In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master... Read More

The Mystery of the Blue Jar - listen book free online

Agatha Christie wrote her first short story, The House of Beauty while recovering in bed from an undisclosed illness. This was about 6,000 words on the topic of "madness and dreams", a subject of fascination for her. Biographer Janet Morgan commented that despite "infelicities of style", the story was nevertheless "compelling". In “The Mystery of the Blue Jar,” a pair of thieves utilize the cur... Read More

A Christmas Tragedy - listen book free online

A Christmas Tragedy is a short story in The Thirteen Problems collection, which was also published under the title The Tuesday Club Murders. The atmosphere of the on-coming tragedy was heightened when the hall porter died from pneumonia, followed soon after by one of the hydro's housemaids who died of blood poisoning. Miss Marple dates the tragedy from when Mr Sanders overheard her and two othe... Read More