The Fall of the House of Usher

A man rides through a gloomy autumn landscape to the house of his childhood friend Roderick Usher, who has written begging for his company. He finds Roderick nervous and ill, living in a decaying mansion with his twin sister Madeline, who is wasting away from a mysterious disease. When Madeline seems to die, the two men place her body in a vault beneath the house.

Published in 1839, this is Edgar Allan Poe's most famous tale of terror, in which the house itself seems to share the life of the family. Every detail builds toward its unforgettable final scene. Poe's tales shaped modern horror; read them beside Dracula and Frankenstein.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) was born in Boston to travelling actors and orphaned before he was three. Raised by a Richmond merchant who later disowned him, he lived by his pen as a poet, critic and magazine editor, always short of money. His young wife Virginia died of tuberculosis in 1847, and two years later Poe was found delirious in Baltimore and died days later, in circumstances that are still a mystery.

He made the short story an art of total effect, wrote tales of terror such as The Fall of the House of Usher, invented the detective story with 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' and wrote 'The Raven', one of the most famous poems in English. French poets led by Baudelaire honoured him before America did.