Edgar Allan Poe was a 19th-century American writer known for stories of mystery, dread, and the strange workings of the mind. Here you’ll find his stories, from the unsettling “The Tell-Tale Heart” to the detective tale “The Purloined Letter,” and every story is free to read or listen to.
The Tell-Tale Heart
"True! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?"
The Cask of Amontillado
During carnival, Montresor lures the man who insulted him down into the family catacombs with the promise of a rare wine.
The Imp of the Perverse
Why do we do the very thing we know we must not? Poe names it the Imp of the Perverse, and then a murderer, who got away with it for years, tells how it undid him.
The Masque of the Red Death
While a plague rages through his country, Prince Prospero locks himself and a thousand friends in an abbey for a masked ball.
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
A man who studies mesmerism asks a dying friend to be put under hypnosis at the very moment of death.
The Man of the Crowd
Recovering from an illness at a London coffee-house window, the narrator watches the crowds go by until one old man's face makes him leave his seat and follow him…
The Black Cat
A man who once loved animals begins to drink, and turns on his black cat, Pluto.
MS. Found in a Bottle
A passenger on a merchant ship is swept alone into a typhoon, and then carried south aboard a vast black phantom ship, manned by silent old sailors who never see him.
The Premature Burial
Poe's narrator suffers from a terror of being buried alive, and he lists the real cases that justify it.
The Pit and the Pendulum
A prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition wakes in total darkness, and slowly discovers what his captors have prepared for him.
A Descent into the Maelstrom
An old Norwegian fisherman tells how his boat was sucked into the giant whirlpool, and how he alone came out alive.
The Fall of the House of Usher
A man visits his sick boyhood friend in a crumbling, gloomy mansion, and the house seems to be alive.
The Purloined Letter
The Paris police have searched every inch of a minister's rooms for a stolen letter.
William Wilson
At school a boy meets another with his own name, his own birthday and almost his own face.
The Gold-Bug
On a lonely island in South Carolina, William Legrand finds a strange golden beetle and a scrap of parchment, and becomes obsessed with Captain Kidd's buried treasure.
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
Two women are found brutally murdered in a locked room in Paris.
Can I read Edgar Allan Poe stories for free?
Yes. Every story on Pagehush is free to read, with no ads.
Can I listen to Edgar Allan Poe stories?
Yes. Any story on Pagehush can be read aloud in a natural voice, and you can read on your phone too.