Selections from Poe

"You must get over these fancies," said the guide, "for I have brought you here that you might have the best possible view of the scene of that event I mentioned--and to tell yo...

It was in the blue room where stood the Prince, with a group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the direc...

We crossed the creek at the head of the island by means of a skiff, and, ascending the high grounds on the shore of the mainland, proceeded in a northwesterly direction, through...

"There was another circumstance which tended to restore my self-possession; and this was the cessation of the wind, which could not reach us in our present situation--for, as yo...

After a lapse of some months, spent at home in mere idleness, I found myself a student at Eton. The brief interval had been sufficient to enfeeble my remembrance of the events a...

"You remember," said he, "the night when I handed you the rough sketch I had made of the _scarabæus_. You recollect, also, that I became quite vexed at you for insisting that my...

"It left me also in the dark," replied Legrand, "for a few days; during which I made diligent inquiry, in the neighborhood of Sullivan's Island, for any building which went by t...

"D----," replied Dupin, "is a desperate man, and a man of nerve. His Hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his interests. Had I made the wild attempt you suggest, I m...

I would not, if I could, here or to-day, embody a record of my later years of unspeakable misery and unpardonable crime. This epoch, these later years, took unto themselves a su...

I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the auditory nerve which rendered all music intolerable to the sufferer, with the exception of certain effects of stringed instrum...

Hear the tolling of the bells, 70 Iron bells! What a world of solemn thought their monody compels! In the silence of the night How we shiver with affright At the melancholy mena...

"Why, a very great deal--a _very_ liberal reward--I don't like to say how much, precisely; but one thing I _will_ say, that I wouldn't mind giving my individual check for fifty...

Poe was also accused of untruthfulness, and this accusation likewise has a basis of fact. He repeatedly furnished or approved statements regarding his life and work that were in...

Edgar Allan Poe has been the subject of so much controversy that he is the one American writer whom high-school pupils (not to mention teachers) are likely to approach with read...

The breeze, the breath of God, is still, And the mist upon the hill Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken, 25 Is a symbol and a token. How it hangs upon the trees, A mystery of mysteries!

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I st...

Eldorado: a fabled city or country abounding in gold and precious stones, and afterward any place of great wealth. The word is often used figuratively. In a preface to an early...