Poe's short stories are among the most exciting and haunting stories ever written. They range from the poetic to the mysterious to the darkly comic, yet all possess the genius for the grotesque that defines Poe's writing. They are peopled with neurotics and social outcasts, obsessed with nameless terrors or preoccupied with seemingly unsolvable mysteries. 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and 'The Fall of the House of Usher' are key works in the horror canon, while in the 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' we find the origins of modern detective fiction. Collectively, these tales represent the best of Edgar Allan Poe's prose work before his premature death in 1849.
