Published in time for Halloween, this supernatural collection inspired by Edgar Allan Poe is good for year-round frights. In addition to Poe's essential poems and stories, the book includes Wharton's masterly story, "Afterward", O. Henry's "The Boarded Window", and more.
The third in the Modern Library's series of original compilations, The Raven and the Monkey's Paw is a collection of classic tales and poems to engage our fear-seeking senses. The beauty of these stories and poems lies in their readability: ideal for sharing aloud around the campfire or for a quick, thrilling dip . . . under the covers with a flashlight. The writing itself sends as many awe-inspired shivers down the spine as do the ghosts and goblins on these pages.

Edgar Allan Poe, the master of the horror story and the chiming lyric poem, opens the volume with his best-loved stories: The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Black Cat, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Premature Burial, The Tell-Tale Heart, Berenice, and Ligeia. Every bit as chilling now as on the day they were written, these tales retain their power to stir the reader again and again. Poe, who was as well known for his poems as for his stories, is also represented by such verse standards as The Raven, Lenore, To Helen, Ulalume, and Annabel Lee, among others.

Numerous other practitioners of the supernatural story are included: Edith Wharton, with her gripping Afterward; Charles Dickens and his famed ghost story The Signalman; W. W. Jacobs, with this compilation's inspiration, The Monkey's Paw. Also here are Saki's engrossing Sredni Vashtar; O. Henry's story of love lost and hopes dashed, The Furnished Room; Wilkie Collins's lively A Terribly Strange Bed; and The Boarded Window, Ambrose Bierce's tale of the bizarre.

A year-round collection for reading aloud--and frightening your friends--The Raven and the Monkey's Paw will gratify all manner of thrill-seekers.