Collected Stories and Poems

Edgar Allan Poe

Jun 2006 · Spotify Audiobooks · Narrated by Ralph Cosham

About this audiobook

Hundreds of books and articles have been written about Edgar Allan Poe. Even so, no one is really sure who Poe was. Many people say that he was as crazy as the characters he wrote about. Others say that Poe was a driven man with a simple wish. He wanted to write and to make a living by his writing. Even though Poe lived a miserable life, he wrote some of the most interesting and original literature ever created.

Edgar Allan Poe was born in January of 1809, the son of Boston actors. He was orphaned before he was three and was taken in by his godfather, John Allan, a merchant of Richmond, Virginia. After incurring gambling debts at the University of Virginia, he joined the army where, at eighteen, he published his first poems. He was dismissed from West Point, and then worked for various literary magazines. In 1836, while living in Baltimore, he married his fourteen-year-old cousin. He achieved acclaim for the Raven in 1845; two years later his wife died. In October of 1849, shortly after his engagement to a love of his youth, Poe was found semiconscious in the streets of Baltimore. He died days later.

Stories and poems included in this collection are: "The Raven", "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Black Cat", "The Bells", The Fall of the House of Usher", "Manuscript Found in a Bottle", "The Sleeper", "The Man of the Crowd", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "Annabel Lee", "The Man That Was Used Up", "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether", "The Oval Portrait", "Eleonora", "The Facts in the Case of Monsieur Valdemar", "Berenice", and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue".

About the author

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809. In 1827, he enlisted in the United States Army and his first collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems, was published. In 1835, he became the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. Over the next ten years, Poe would edit a number of literary journals including the Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and Graham's Magazine in Philadelphia and the Broadway Journal in New York City. It was during these years that he established himself as a poet, a short story writer, and an editor. His works include The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget, A Descent into the Maelstrom, The Masque of the Red Death, and The Raven. He struggle with depression and alcoholism his entire life and died on October 7, 1849 at the age of 40.