Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Edgar Allan Poe

gar Allan Poe

      Tales of Mystery and Imagination

      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!

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DPOxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine VietnamOXFORD and OXFORD ENGLISH are registered trade marks of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countriesThis simplified edition © Oxford University Press 2008Database right Oxford University Press (maker)First published in Oxford Bookworms 19932 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1No unauthorized photocopyingAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the ELT Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address aboveYou must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirerAny websites referred to in this publication are in the public domain and their addresses are provided by Oxford University Press for information only. Oxford University Press disclaims any responsibility for the contentISBN 978 0 19 479132 8A complete recording of this Bookworms edition of Tales of Mystery and Imagination is available on audio CD ISBN 978 0 19 479103 8Printed in Hong KongTypeset by Wyvern Typesetting Ltd, BristolACKNOWLEDGEMENTSIllustrated by: Ian MillerWord count (main text): 11,960 wordsFor more information on the Oxford Bookworms Library, visit www.oup.com/bookwormswww.oup.com/bookworms e-Book ISBN 978 0 19 478660 7e-Book first published 2012

       The Fall of the House of Usher

      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.