Edgar Allan Poe - Short Stories

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, although puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture.

-Sir Thomas Browne, "Urn-Burial."

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The picture used is "The sailor's face flushed up; he started to his feet and grasped his cudgel" by Byam Shaw for "Selected Tales of Mystery" (London : Sidgwick & Jackson, 1909)

The game of draughts = checkers

Whist is a card game that was the precusor to present-day Bridge.

The French at the very end there: "de nier ce qui est, et d'expliquer ce qui n'est pas."

My reading pace might be a slight bit faster than desirable, but even so it is a very long story.

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2147/2147-h/2147-h.htm#chap07

A SEQUEL TO "THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE."

Es giebt eine Reihe idealischer Begebenheiten, die der Wirklichkeit parallel lauft. Selten fallen sie zusammen. Menschen und zufalle modificiren gewohulich die idealische Begebenheit, so dass sie unvollkommen erscheint, und ihre Folgen gleichfalls unvollkommen sind. So bei der Reformation; statt des Protestantismus kam das Lutherthum hervor.

There are ideal series of events which run parallel with the real ones. They rarely coincide. Men and circumstances generally modify the ideal train of events, so that it seems imperfect, and its consequences are equally imperfect. Thus with the Reformation; instead of Protestantism came Lutheranism.

—Novalis. Moral Ansichten.

The picture used is taken from "Tales of Mystery, Imagination, & Humour: And Poems By Edgar Allan Poe", printed and published by Henry Vizetelly, 1852.

A 'rod' is 16.5 feet, or 5 meters.

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2147/2147-h/2147-h.htm#chap08

My reading pace for this story is a touch hurried in spots, but even with the faster reading pace, this is still a very long story. The recording session for it lasted three hours. If the quality of my voice seems to deteriorate, that is not just your imagination, my voice really suffered. I am not one given much to talking at all, and certainly not for three hours uninterrupted. It was really tough on my voice.

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More Halloween fun! Horrifying story 2 of 3.

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2148/2148-h/2148-h.htm#chap2.7

What ho! what ho! this fellow is dancing mad!
He hath been bitten by the Tarantula.
-All in the Wrong.

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The picture used is "Eyed click beetle Alaus oculatus, Poolesville, Maryland, USA" by Henryhartley, licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en)

Dat Gullah accent, tho... What can I say, I am a white-boi Yankee by birth and never heard it growing up, so I don't really have any real-life reference point for it, only the phonetics of what Poe wrote into the text.

Swammerdam = Jan Swammerdam, a 17th century Dutch entomologist.

The Avoirdupois system of weights is the one the English-speaking world today is most familiar with, where 1 pound = 16 ounces. (To be contrasted with the less commonly used Troy system, where 1 pound = 12 ounces.)

Golconda is a city in India noted for its proximity to an extremely productive diamond mine that has produced many famous diamonds, not least of which the blue Hope diamond.

The cryptogram in the story, if you care to give it a try for yourself:

53‡‡†305))6*;4826)4‡)4‡);806*;48†8¶60))85;1‡(;:‡*8†83(88)5*†;46(;88*96*?;8)*‡(;485);5*†2:*‡(;4956*2(5*—4)8¶8*;4069285);)6†8)4‡‡;1(‡9;48081;8:8‡1;48†85;4)485†528806*81(‡9;48;(88;4(‡?34;48)4‡;161;:188;‡?;

‡ = diesis
† = obelus
¶ = pilcrow

Follow along at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2147/2147-h/2147-h.htm#chap05

I wasn't paying close attention when I first set about this story and it was a lot longer than I was expecting. A two-hour long recording session. That hurt. Will have to give my throat a rest day after this.

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And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.

-Joseph Glanvill.

The picture used is by Byam Shaw, serving as in illustration for the story in "Selected Tales of Mystery" (London : Sidgwick & Jackson, 1909) on the page to face p. 134, with caption "The thing that was enshrouded advanced boldly and palpably into the middle of the apartment"

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2149/2149-h/2149-h.htm#chap3.28

There are too many pops in this recording, but I have no idea what caused them. Nothing changed in my recording set-up, but it is irritating to me to hear in the editing, so I am sure it is annoying to you, the listener. I tried to edit at least some of them out, but I couldn't get all of them. Sorry about that. I'll have to noodle some on what the possible causes might be and how to avoid them in the future.

That said, I'm not entirely happy with the quality of this hardware, so I may switch back to what I was doing before buying this mic. Nowhere near as convenient or easy to record with, but the quality is definitely much better so I might have to just endure it.

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The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as our ways; nor are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the vastness, profundity, and unsearchableness of His works, which have a depth in them greater than the well of Democritus.
-Joseph Glanville.

The picture used is an illustration by Harry Clarke, published in 1919, for this very story.

Follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2148/2148-h/2148-h.htm#chap2.3

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To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25525/25525-h/25525-h.htm#chap2.20

Nil sapientiæ odiosius acumine nimio.
-Seneca.

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The third and final installment of the ratiocination series featuring Dupin.

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2148/2148-h/2148-h.htm#chap2.1

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Stay for me there! I will not fail.
To meet thee in that hollow vale.

(Exequy on the death of his wife, by Henry King, Bishop of Chichester.)

The picture used is "Il ponte dei sospiri" by nucce, licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2148/2148-h/2148-h.htm#chap2.14

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Qui n'a plus qu'un moment a vivre
N'a plus rien a dissimuler.
-Quinault—Atys.

New Holland is an old name for Australia, in use for roughly 200 years, until the mid-1850s.

The picture used is an illustration by "Wogel" in "The Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe with Biographical Essay" by John H. Ingram

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2147/2147-h/2147-h.htm#chap10

Concluding note, by the author:

The "MS. Found in a Bottle," was originally published in 1831, and it was not until many years afterwards that I became acquainted with the maps of Mercator, in which the ocean is represented as rushing, by four mouths, into the (northern) Polar Gulf, to be absorbed into the bowels of the earth; the Pole itself being represented by a black rock, towering to a prodigious height.

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What say of it? what say [of] CONSCIENCE grim,
That spectre in my path?
—Chamberlayne’s Pharronida.

The picture used is Byam Shaw's illustration for this story for "Selected Tales of Mystery" (London : Sidgwick & Jackson, 1909) on the frontispiece with caption "A masquerade in the palazzo of the Neapolitan Duke Di Broglio"

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2148/2148-h/2148-h.htm#chap2.19

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There are multiple ways to pronounce Berenice, including with a hard 'c' of the ancient Greek from which the name derives, and Poe gives no hints on what pronunciation he intended. The other character being named Egaeus also calls Greek to mind. Still, for the modern audience, a soft 'c' will likely sound the most correct, so that is what I went with.

There are quite a few poems and stories where the characters have weird, obscure names of uncertain pronunciation - I wish Poe had left behind some hints on what he expected for the pronunciations he had in mind. Ah well, we muddle long as best we can.

Also, Poe and his love of French. Grrrr!! There's also some Italian and Latin in there for which my pronunciation may be suspect...

Apparently this story generated a storm of complaints at the time it was published, about the violence implicit in the story. Mind you, just implied violence, not violence actually depicted. Still, when you contemplate the implied violence, it is extremely revolting, so I can understand the public disgust with it even without it having been explicitly written into the story.

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2148/2148-h/2148-h.htm#chap2.21

Son cœur est un luth suspendu;
Sitôt qu'on le touche il résonne.
-De Béranger.

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The picture used is an illustration from "The Works of Edgar Allan Poe", (1884) by Robert Swain Gifford

Well, I definitely got ennuyé wrong. What a word. Even the pronunciation by google translate sounded God-awful. I'd need to hear it in person from a native French speaker to have any chance at it.

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/932/932-h/932-h.htm

For those who ever played D&D way back in the day (as in, the old Moldvay red Basic book, and the Cook blue Expert book), you will recognize the ending having been used in the module X2, Château d'Amberville, although the male character in the module is named Charles instead of Roderick, while the female retains the name Madeline.

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The picture used is by Arthur Rackham for "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" (1935).

I had trouble consistently trilling the 'r' in the name 'Fortunato'. It's not really a name that rolls nicely off the tongue, and is used by Poe here only for the symbolism it brings to the story.

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1063/1063-h/1063-h.htm

Impia tortorum longos hic turba furores
Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit.
Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro,
Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent.

[Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to be erected upon the site of the Jacobin Club House at Paris.]

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To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25525/25525-h/25525-h.htm#chap2.15

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The picture used is an illustration by one Mr. Wogel for Poe's "Tales and poems - vol.2" (Philadelphia: G. Barrie).

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2149/2149-h/2149-h.htm#chap3.30

Ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir être seul.
-La Bruyère.

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The picture used is by Harry Clarke, as an illustration for Poe's "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" (1923).

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2151/2151-h/2151-h.htm#chap5.5

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Happy Halloween! MUAHAHAHAHA!!!

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2149/2149-h/2149-h.htm#chap3.29

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The picture used is by John Watson Davis, for "Mystery Tales of Edgar Allan Poe", pg 230, published in 1907.

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2151/2151-h/2151-h.htm#chap5.7

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The picture used is an illustration by Douglas Percy

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2150/2150-h/2150-h.htm#chap4.14

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Πυρ σοι προσοισω

I will bring fire to thee.
-Euripides-Androm.

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2150/2150-h/2150-h.htm#chap4.22

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Pestis eram vivus - moriens tua mors ero.
-Martin Luther

The picture used is "Fire horse - Nightmare - Speed photoshop" by RaquelBC, licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/)

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2150/2150-h/2150-h.htm#chap4.4

The two French sentences near the start of the story:
"vient de ne pouvoir être seuls."
and
"ne demeure qu'un seul fois dans un corps sensible: au reste-un cheval, un chien, un homme même, n'est que la ressemblance peu tangible de ces animaux."

Damn Poe and his love of French! :-P

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The picture used is "The Masque of the Red Death" by Melancholita, licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/)

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1064/1064-h/1064-h.htm

I have been wanting to do this one for a long time now, but given how politicized the current pandemic has been, I wanted to wait until the election drama in the USA was over before recording this one.

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It takes until half way through the recording to get to the actual story. But stick with it - there's a nice plot twist at the end :)

The picture used is by Harry Clarke, published in "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" in 1916.

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2148/2148-h/2148-h.htm#chap2.16

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The picture used is by Arthur Rackham, from "Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination" (1935).

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2148/2148-h/2148-h.htm#chap2.12