Charles a n d m a r y lamb

‘Metzengerstein’ and ‘The Murders

in the Rue Morgue’

1 (a)

False. The Berliftitzings and

the Metzengersteins had been

fighting for centuries.

(b) True.

(c)

False. The horse had the

initials WVB on its head.

(d) True.

(e)

False. There was a fire in the

Palace of Metzengerstein.

2 (a) –– (iv)

(b) –– (v)

(c) –– (vi)

(d) –– (ii)

(e) –– (i)

(f) –– (iii)

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© Pearson Education 2001

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P e n g u i n   R e a d e r s   F a c t s h e e t s

l e v e l

UPPER

INTERMEDIATE

Tales of Mystery and Imagination

S U M M A R Y

The ten tales are stories of the supernatural,

of revenge, near-death experiences and some

of the very first detective stories. In William

Wilson a man is haunted in a strange way. In the

Gold-Bug is a search for buried treasure. The Fall of

the House of Usher has some very strange

happenings.  The Red Death happens in another

house. In The Barrel of Amontillado a death  brings

revenge. The Whirlpool describes a very frightening

experience. In The Pit and the Pendulum a suffering

man looks forward to death. In The Stolen Letter the

Paris police look for a letter which holds great power

and look for a mystery voice in The Murders in the

Rue Morgue. Two families in Metzengerstein suffer

deaths of men and their horses. 

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston in 1809. His

parents died when he was a baby and he was raised

by John and Frances Allan. Poe attended school in

England from 1815 until 1820. In 1826 he went to the

University of Virginia. He was a very good student but

he lost a lot of money playing cards. Allan refused to

pay his debts so Poe had to leave the university and

take a job as a clerk. He hated his job and soon gave

it up, against Allan’s wishes. Allan then got him into

the US Military Academy, but Poe was dismissed

after just a few months and Allan disowned him.

Poe went to live with his aunt, Marie Clemm and her

young daughter, Virginia. In 1835, he started work as

an editor for the Southern Literary Messenger. The

following year he married his cousin. For the next ten

years, during which time his wife was often ill, Poe

worked for various newspapers and magazines. He

also wrote the stories for which he is now famous,

though he did not always make a lot of money from

them. Also during this period, he began to drink

heavily and for the rest of his life he had problems

with alcohol. In 1847, Virginia died. Poe planned to

remarry but it was not to be. He died in October,

1849.

Though Poe is now most famous for his short

stories, his first published works were books of

poems. Collections of stories were published in 1840,

1843 and 1845. Poe continued to write poetry all his

life and his poem ‘The Raven’ has become one of the

most famous poems in American literature.

Poe’s stories are remarkable for their inventiveness,

their fine construction, their vivid descriptions and

their psychological insight. Since their first

publication, Poe’s powerful stories have captured the

imagination of generations of readers. Many of the

stories have been made into films or television

dramas or they have been the source of inspiration for

countless adaptations.

Poe’s fame nowadays rests more on his macabre

tales of mystery and horror than on his poetry or

literary essays. But he did not invent the horror story.

In Poe’s youth, one of the most popular types of

fiction was the gothic novel and his stories owe a lot

to the gothic style. These novels typically dealt with

mystery, horror, violence and the supernatural and the

stories often took place in dramatic, romantic settings

such as ruined castles. They were extremely popular

at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of

the 19th. Perhaps the most famous example of the

genre is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818).

In the gothic elements of his stories, Poe was

tapping into an existing tradition. However he can be

credited with creating the world’s first fictional

detective in the figure of C. Auguste Dupin. A number

of aspects of Dupin’s character (his methods of

deduction, his slightly eccentric personality and his

generally low opinion of the police force) have all

served as a model for many if not most detective

story writers ever since. 

One idea that obviously interested Poe is the power

of the imagination and how it can possess or haunt a

person. We see this theme developed in a number of

stories, particularly ‘William Wilson’, ‘The Fall of the

House of Usher’ and ‘Metzengerstein’. Poe was also

interested in analysing how a person (often a lonely

figure) reacts in moments of extreme terror or despair

facing death or torment. We see this in ‘The Pit and

the Pendulum’, ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ and

‘The Whirlpool’. Poe examines the themes of revenge

and punishment in ‘The Barrel of Amontillado’,  ‘The

Red Death’ and  ‘Metzengerstein’ while in the

detective stories his underlying theme is the power of

deductive reasoning to solve a seemingly

insurmountable problem.