'Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! —do you mark me well? I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror.'
The melancholy, brilliance, passionate lyricism and torment of Edgar Allen Poe are all well represented in this timeless collection. Here, in one volume, are his masterpieces of mystery, terror, humour and adventure, including stories such as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, The Black Cat, The Masque of the Red Death, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, and The Pit and the Pendulum, and his finest lyric and narrative poetry -The Raven and Annabel Lee, to name just a few - that defined American romanticism and secured Poe as one of the most enduring literary voices of the nineteenth century.