So the idea of Catherine Morland’s Reading List came mostly from the fact that I am a huge Gothic fiction/mystery fan. Before I met Jane Austen I devoured all these books that I know, if Catherine was alive, she would have been reading.
It started with reading one, and then before I knew it I had a list of thirty I was planning on eventually reviewing. What can I say…
And of course if you like Gothic fiction, one of the best is Edgar Allan Poe
This story The Tell-Tale Heart has been used/referenced a thousand times in literature and film. It is an amazing part of literature that if you haven’t read, you need to read it.
“The Tell-Tale Heart” from The Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allen Poe
This is one of those stories, no matter how many times you read it, it will always be as creepy and thrilling as the first time you read it.
Spooky…
One of things that makes it so spine-tingling is that it is told in first person, allowing the reader to become the character, and our hearts to beat in unison.
I can’t review it with proper justice, I swear it is one you have to read to get the full:
A man rents out a room from an older man and is intent on stealing from him. Every day the old man watches him and eventually the lodger decides to kill him.
“It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture –a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees –very gradually –I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.”
When he goes in to kill him, he hears the heart beat get louder and louder, a crescendo.
After he kills him, he cuts the body up and chops it into pieces and buries him under the floorboards.
But is it that easy? The heart, he can hear it-it calls to him.
Horrifying!
For more on Catherine Morland’s Reading List, go to Catherine Morland’s Reading List: The Murders in the Rue Morgue
For more gothic tales, go to Catherine Morland’s Reading List: The Inn at Half Moon Bay
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