Selected Shorts: Let Us Tell You a Story-Poe! By Edgar Allan Poe

Gr 7 Up—Recorded before a live audience and performed by several actors of stage, television, and film, including Terrence Mann and René Auberjonois, eight of Edgar Allen Poe's most famous stories and works of poetry are presented. The stories include "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Pit and the Pendulum," and "The Black Cat." The poems featured are "The Raven," "The Bells," and "Annabel Lee." The readers are excellent. Each actor shows a depth of understanding of Poe's work and is able to bring that appreciation to light for the audience through pacing, voicing of the characters, and strong narration skills. Many of Poe's stories involve a certain degree of madness and the shrill tones, stops, and starts of the narration help listeners imagine the wild-eyed, over-the-edge characters. A fine addition to a unit on Poe.—Ann Brownson, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston