In this selection from the Spencer Library of Literary Classics, we present a story written in 1839 by that master of gothic horror, Edgar Allan Poe. A writer capable of mesmerizing readers with lyrical description, Poe has the power to evoke an increasingly foreboding sense of inescapable horror through detailed description of mood.

Tragically his life and his death would parallel his writing. Considered the creator of the modern detective story, he would himself die in circumstances shrouded in mystery. On October 7 th in 1849 four days after being discovered writhing in delirium outside a tavern in Baltimore, Poe died and was buried in a local cemetery. Nevertheless his work lives on and even though his corpse is securely
entombed, Edgar Allan Poe retains the ability to chill the blood of a willing audience…as he does in this story told by a traveler on horseback, the sole witness to The Fall of the House of Usher.