Tales of Mystery and Imagination

Imagine you are in an old house by a lake. It is night and there is a wild storm outside, the wind screaming around the grey stone walls. Far below the house, in a gloomy vault, lies the dead body of the Lady Madeleine in her coffin. In the room with you is her brother, looking at you with wild, mad eyes. Imagine this … and you are in the House of Usher.

Turn the page, and a Black Cat is hanging by its neck from a tree. Turn another, and you will hear music as a thousand people sing and dance at a wonderful masked ball. You are now in the castle of Prince Prospero. Inside, all is light and life and pleasure, but outside the castle walls walks the terrible masked figure of the Red Death …

These stories will take you into the shadowy world of the imagination, into a land of terror and dreams and madness.

Don’t read them alone!

It was a grey autumn day and the sky was full of large black clouds. All day I had ridden through flat and uninteresting countryside, but at last, as it began to grow dark, I saw the end of my journey.

There, in front of me, stood the House of Usher. And at once – I do not know why – a strange feeling of deep gloom came down on me and covered me like a blanket. I looked up at the old house with its high stone walls and narrow windows. I looked around at the thin dry grass and the old dying trees, and an icy hand seemed to take hold of my heart. I felt cold and sick, and could not think of one happy thought to chase away my gloom.

Why, I wondered, did the House of Usher make me feel so sad? I could find no answer.

There was a lake next to the house and I rode my horse up to the edge and stopped. Perhaps from here the house would not seem so sad, so full of gloom. I looked down into the mirror of dark, still water, and saw again the empty, eye-like windows of the house and the dying trees all around it. The feeling of gloom was stronger than ever.

It was in this house that I was going to spend the next few weeks. Its owner, Roderick Usher, had been a good friend of mine when I was a boy. I had not seen him for many years, but recently he had sent me a letter – a sad and terrible letter. He wrote that he was ill, ill in body and ill in mind; that he wanted and needed to see me. I was his only friend, the only person who could help him in his illness.

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