Major Tales and Poems

Bound and helpless, the narrator of "The Pit and the Pendulum" watches the blade arc ever closer to his chest: "The sweep of the pendulum had increased in extent by nearly a yard.... But what mainly disturbed me, was the idea that it had perceptibly descended. I now observed... that its nether extremity was formed of a crescent of glittering steel, about a foot in length from horn to horn... and the under edge evidently as keen as that of a razor.... It was appended to a weighty rod of brass, and the whole hissed as it swung through the air." The ghastly scene resembles dozens of others in Poe's fiction in which characters are dismembered, buried alive, and bricked up in cellars. Besides writing unforgettable horror tales, Poe invented the detective story. His sleuth C. Auguste Dupin unravels mysteries in such classics as "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Purloined Letter." Since Poe also wrote excellent poetry, he is justly considered one of the most versatile of America's greatest writers.