The Edgar Allan Poe BBC Radio Collection

The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Works

By: Edgar Allan Poe

Narrated by: Andrew Scott, Clarke Peters, full cast, James Fleet, Kerry Shale, Sean Barrett

Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Edgar Allan Poe's most celebrated stories, as heard on BBC Radio - plus bonus documentaries and two thrilling original dramas.

The master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe has inspired generations of horror writers with his chilling Gothic tales and is also credited with inventing the detective fiction genre in 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue'.

This radio collection features five of his classic tales - 'The Pit and the Pendulum', 'The Tell-Tale Heart', 'The Oblong Box', 'The Fall of the House of Usher' and 'The Masque of the Red Death', read by David Horovitch, Brian Gear, James Aubrey, Sean Barrett and Don Gilet. Also included is his renowned poem 'The Raven', read by Patrick Romer.

Here, too, are adaptations of Poe's suspenseful story of piracy and slavery, 'The Gold Bug', starring Clarke Peters and Rhashan Stone, and his pioneering mystery story 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue', starring James Fleet and Andrew Scott.

Radio 3's The Essay: Loving the Raven sees Poe enthusiasts Andrew Taylor, Joanne Harris, Louise Welsh, Mark Lawson and Kim Newman discussing the author's enduring legacy and cult status, while in Adventures in Poetry: The Raven, Peggy Reynolds explores Poe's most iconic work.

Also included are two original dramas featuring Poe himself. Obsessed by a woman's unsolved murder, Edgar Allan Poe is presented with a disturbing revelation on the night before his death in Peter Mackie's The Real Mystery of Marie Roget, starring Ed Bishop. And in Christopher Cook's The Strange Case of Edgar Allan Poe, starring Kerry Shale and John Moffatt, Poe's famous detective C. Auguste Dupin investigates the bizarre death of his creator.

Content warning: 'The Gold Bug' is set in a time when slavery was still prevalent in America and contains racist language from that era.

Track listing:

• 'The Pit and the Pendulum'
• 'The Tell-Tale Heart'
• 'The Oblong Box'
• 'The Fall of the House of Usher'
• 'The Masque of the Red Death'
• 'The Raven'
• 'The Gold Bug'
• 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue'
• The Essay: Loving the Raven
• Adventures in Poetry: The Raven
• The Real Mystery of Marie Roget
• The Strange Case of Edgar Allan Poe

©2020 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2020 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Edgar Allan Poe and others

This is not all Edgar Allan Poe or even all his work. This also has essays, and some dramatize stuff that is not actually by him. It is inspired by him. I didn’t love everything in this collection, but I liked enough of it. I would recommend it for anybody who is a serious lover of Edgar Allan Poe and his work.

Not Bad At All

BBC is missing a few Poe classics, but on the whole, we'll worth it.

3 hours of Poe, 4 hours of essays/adaptations

Take a careful look at the table of contents before spending on this recording. More than half the audiotape is either underwhelming essays on Poe, or stories written by completely different authors (in the same genre). There's a few genuine Poe stories (averaging 10-15 minutes each). But the only two that are substantial are Fall of the House of Usher (1 hr) and Murders in the Rue Morgue (30 min, which was performed well). You might think that the Gold Bug is included, however the story does not just dramatize but significantly re-writes this story (to the point of reversing the actual ending!). It is regrettable, because the Gold Bug actors reading for the story were the best part of this audiobook. But performance aside, the degree of liberty taken with Poe's content are such that it really should have been called an adaptation or "inspired by the story of Edgar Allan Poe.." Good or no, it's no longer Poe's work. The performances of other stories are ok , but not better than other recordings available. None of the essays were of any interest to me. This was a disappointment, I expected better from the BBC.