Edgar Allan Poe

The master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe has inspired generations of horror writers with his chilling Gothic tales, and is also credited with inventing the detective fiction genre in The Murders in the Rue Morgue.

This radio collection features five of his classic tales - The Pit and the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Oblong Box, The Fall of the House of Usher and The Masque of the Red Death.

Also included is his renowned poem The Raven, read by Patrick Romer. Here, too, are adaptations of Poe's suspenseful story of piracy and slavery, The Gold Bug, starring Clarke Peters and Rhashan Stone, and his pioneering mystery story The Murders in the Rue Morgue, starring James Fleet and Andrew Scott.

The horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, with its dungeon of death, and the overhanging gloom on the House of Usher demonstrate unforgettably the unique imagination of Edgar Allan Poe. Unerringly, he touches upon some of our greatest nightmares – premature burial, ghostly transformation and words from beyond the grave. Written in the 1840s, they have retained their power to shock and frighten even now.

A riveting story, told in the first person. It tells of a disastrous sea voyage involving storms, mutiny, starvation, thirst - and a mysterious conclusion.

A selection of chilling tales and poems from the master of the supernatural. Also includes a specially commisioned biography outlining the tragedies that marked so much of Poe's fiction.