HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart - one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which gives direction to the character of Man. Including Poes most terrifying, grotesque and haunting short stories, Tales of Mystery and Imagination is the ultimate collection of the infamous authors macabre works. Considered to be one of the earliest American writers to encapsulate the genre of detective-fiction, the collection features some of his most popular tales.The Gold-Bug is the only tale that was popular in his lifetime, whereas The Black Cat, The Pit and the Pendulum and The Murders in the Rue Morgue became more widely read after his death. Focussing on the internal conflict of individuals, the power of the dead over the living, and psychological explorations of darker human emotion that appear to anticipate Sigmund Freuds later theories on the psyche, Poes Gothic terror stories are considered masterpieces the world over.
