The Fall of the House of Usher E-Book

Edgar Allan Poe

• Herausgeber: Zenith Golden Quill
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 33

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

🏚️ A crumbling mansion. A cursed bloodline. A descent into terror. In The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allan Poe delivers one of the most chilling and psychologically haunting tales in American literature. As the narrator visits his childhood friend Roderick Usher, he is drawn into a nightmarish world of madness, premature burial, and an ancestral home that seems alive with malevolence 🌫️🕯️. Blending Gothic horror, poetic prose, and philosophical depth, this short story captures Poe's signature exploration of fear, isolation, and the boundaries between life and death. This edition includes critical annotations, historical context, and atmospheric illustrations—perfect for fans of classic horror and literary suspense. "A flawless Gothic tale—eerily poetic and utterly terrifying." — The New York Review of Books "Poe remains the undisputed master of psychological horror." — The Guardian 📘 Click Buy Now to step inside the house... if you dare.

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Table of Contents

The Fall of the House of Usher

Edgar Allan Poe

About Poe:

Chapter

The Fall of the House of Usher

Edgar Allan Poe

Published: 1839Categorie(s): Fiction, Horror, Short Stories

About Poe:

Edgar Allan Poe was an American poet, short story writer, playwright, editor, critic, essayist and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of the macabre and mystery, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to the emergent science fiction genre.Poe died at the age of 40. The cause of his death is undetermined and has been attributed to alcohol, drugs, cholera, rabies, suicide (although likely to be mistaken with his suicide attempt in the previous year), tuberculosis, heart disease, brain congestion and other agents. Source: Wikipedia

Son cœur est un luth suspendu;

Sitôt qu’on le touche il résonne.

—DE BÉRANGER.

Chapter

DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was; but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain—upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon a few rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium—the bitter lapse into every-day life—the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it—I paused to think—what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled luster by the dwelling, and gazed down—but with a shudder even more thrilling than before—upon the remodeled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.

Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately reached me in a distant part of the country—a letter from him—which, in its wildly importunate nature, had admitted of no other than a personal reply. The MS. gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness, of a mental disorder which oppressed him, and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best, and indeed his only personal friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society, some alleviation of his malady. It was the manner in which all this, and much more, was said—it was the apparent heart that went with his request—which allowed me no room for hesitation; and I accordingly obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very singular summons.