Edgar Allan Poe's Tell Tale Heart...Holy crap!

I was just bored in school,went to the library and got a book of poe's work.( which by the way I think is wonderfull) So I read a tell tale heart. I love this story. The killer is so freaky. And the writing is eriely accurate, If you havent read it, i highly recommend reading it,here's a link to it...

www.online-literature.com...

burn person with the evil eye! BURN!

Yeah I've read that plus numerous other Poe things for school and I have to say that I do like them, even though I don't... Which pretty much means that he's good, but I just don't really like his writing. I totally respect how amazingly awesome he was as a writer, I just don't particularly enjoy it... Keep reading Poe- It gets creepier.

Edgar Allan Poe did more for the short horror story than any author that has come after him.

Try 'The Cask of Amontillado', 'The Raven', 'The Black Cat', and 'The Pit and the Pendulum'. Poe has a lot to offer, and his writing is just as good now as it was over a century ago

Originally posted by Alcor
Yeah I've read that plus numerous other Poe things for school and I have to say that I do like them, even though I don't... Which pretty much means that he's good, but I just don't really like his writing. I totally respect how amazingly awesome he was as a writer, I just don't particularly enjoy it... Keep reading Poe- It gets creepier.

yea,my mom feels the same way about poe.

Originally posted by The Parallelogram
Edgar Allan Poe did more for the short horror story than any author that has come after him.

Try 'The Cask of Amontillado', 'The Raven', 'The Black Cat', and 'The Pit and the Pendulum'. Poe has a lot to offer, and his writing is just as good now as it was over a century ago

Thanks for the suggestions,i have read the crow...freaky

[edit on 8/26/05 by cheesy1907]

You're more than welcome. If you find yourself finished with Poe and looking for some more excellent horror stories in the same vein, try H.P. Lovecraft, Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Machen, and Algernon Blackwood... I could go on for hours about old-school horror authors.

Try Stephen King's short stories too-- his book "Skeleton Crew" has dozens of excellent works.

Sorry for the huge pile of recommendations, but I love horror, and I love sharing it with other people-- everything I know I've learned from reading, and I know from experience that public schools rarely hand out anything really interesting.

Yeah, Poe has some really freaky and dark stories out there. My personal favorites have to be The Pit and the Pendulum, The Fall of the House of Usher and the Black Cat. Man, the end of the Black Cat just gives you chills. In my opinion, he paved the way for most of the horror writers that followed, including those of today. I have to say though, that his addiction to opium most likely helped him get into the frame of mind to create these dark short stories.

Actually Skychief, it was the death of his wife that caused the addiction to opium that caused the writing or the numbing sensation that allowed the writing. He was haunted forever more by her death and I think it inspired the worst (meaning best) horror he could think of. I love Poe and I particularly love the poem he wrote to his deceased wife. Here is a portion of it and link below for full lovely (but chilling) poem.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

(oops forgot link)
Annabel Lee

[edit on 6-10-2005 by nikelbee]

For those who like Poe, I suggest the Alan Parsons Project's Tales of Mystery and Imagination album (excuse me, CD. I'm showing my age, huh?)

Poe's most popular works put to music by the same guy who produced Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon.

Definately worth checking out.

"True. Nervous. Very, very dreadfully nervous I had been... and still am. But why will you say that I am mad?"

Poe was a wonderful writer, but he was not universally accepted in his time. Emerson referred to him as the "jingle man" because of his rhyming schemes.

www.kirjasto.sci.fi...

Strange; I was thinking about Poe earlier today, about trying to write a short story kinda in the same vein as him...

If I may throw in a recommendation myself, The Premature Burial always freaked me out. Reading that tipped the scales on being an organ donor, and also made me seriously consider being cremated--I'd rather the doctors and morticians make sure I'm gone than take the chance.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, Poe was kind of the grandfather to the mystery/detective genre as well, and also tried his hand at humor. He'd never put Doyle to shame by any stretch of the imagination, and I wasn't terribly impressed with his humor, but they do make for some interesting reads when you get tired of reading the creepy stuff.

If the book you have has the poem "Valentine" (?) in it, preferably without any kind of an explanation, it's a riddle you might want to try and figure out as well--the name of the person it's written for is "hidden" in the poem.

"The Fall of the House of Usher" always kind of creeped me out... But I suppose that's what it was more or less meant to do. There's one story I read Sophomore year about these two guys and the carnival and how one gets buried behind the wall, but I can never remember the name of it. THAT one I liked. A lot. I'm not all to sure why. I actually did an illustration on the board for my class for that story; it was strange to say the least- I don't draw...

Anybody know the name of the story? It drives me insane- I talk about it an someone tells me, and then I forget again... :bnghd:

Originally posted by Alcor
There's one story I read Sophomore year about these two guys and the carnival and how one gets buried behind the wall, but I can never remember the name of it.
...
Anybody know the name of the story? It drives me insane- I talk about it an someone tells me, and then I forget again... :bnghd:

I believe you're thinking of The Cask of Amontillado (spelling?)

Is that it? You'd probably know better than I would. I know the title so I'm sure I've read it, but not sure if that's the story. You're probably right. Thanks.

Yeah, that's the one, just not sure on spelling. That's how the narrator lures the other guy--Montresor?--down into the basement, by saying he has a cask of amontillado. They're wine connoisseurs, and that was supposed to be a great wine.

"Holy crap" is right. Sad that he died drunk and penniless and unrecognized.

As an "oldster" here, I think it's great to hear from "youngsters" discovering Poe and Lovecraft and others with such enthusiasm. Especially since it's close to Halloween. My university English department holds a Poe reading in an "on campus" cemetery in October. At night of course.

I am going to find the Parson's Project album too. Thanks for the tip.

See kids. You never get too old for discovering cool stuff.

[edit on 8-10-2005 by 2nd Hand Thoughts]

Originally posted by MCory1
Yeah, that's the one, just not sure on spelling. That's how the narrator lures the other guy--Montresor?--down into the basement, by saying he has a cask of amontillado. They're wine connoisseurs, and that was supposed to be a great wine.

Yep that's the one... Amontillado... Now I just have to burn it into my brain... Thanks.

If you like Poe a lot also try reading some H. P. Lovecraft...(as mentioned earlier)

Lovecraft wrote in the early 1900s in new england. If you like "The Telltale Heart" you should read Lovecraft's short story "The Rats in the Walls".

Lovecraft picked up the torch after Poe. He was a strange guy and an outsider who didn't make any money or get recognition for his writing. He was really into science and astronomy and all things weird.

Lovecraft's spin was to write more mythologically or larger than life and made his evils often godlike and related to outer space and ancient civilizations and the occult and like Poe he often wrote in the first person in a detective sort of way and gothicaly as well. Usually the the narrator is a professor studying strange phenomena. Kind of an early day X-Files style.

He's responsible for slimy monsters with eyes all over and tentacles that are also sometimes worshipped by people. Kind of like the aliens in the Simpsons or the monsters in John Carpenter's "The Thing". Good stuff.

Arkaham Asylum in the Batman universe is derived from Lovecraft as well as the Necronomicon from the Evil Dead movies so you know he's good.

I got into Lovecraft back in the days after finding out that Metallica (when they were good) wrote Call of Ctuhluh (sp?) after Lovecraft's story.

Lovecraft still isn't given his due props in American literature courses.

[edit on 8-10-2005 by 2nd Hand Thoughts]

The thing I like most about Lovecraft is the cohesiveness of the mythos he established over the course of his career; he had a complete and wildly intricate fictional worldview plotted out, one in which humans ranked somwhere between cattle and inanimate objects. Each of his stories gave us only a tiny glimpse at this mythos, but taken in aggregate one can clearly see the mad genius at work behind the whole thing.

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons, even death may die

[edit on 8-10-2005 by The Parallelogram]

Originally posted by Ambient Sound
For those who like Poe, I suggest the Alan Parsons Project's Tales of Mystery and Imagination album (excuse me, CD. I'm showing my age, huh?)

I got the ALan Parson's Project: Tales of Mystery and Imagination at a library today. It's cool. I like the mix of styles from rock to the orchestra pieces. The Orsen Wells bits are icing on the cake.

***********

Parallelogram:

Have you ever had a chance to look at the H.P. Love biography? He had well-documented eating habits. Seems like he was a real life mad-scientist what with his interests in chemistry and astronomy.