Poe, Price, and Rathbone

Deepest apologies for this lazy, lazy post, but I wanted to share this old article about the works of Poe being read by Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone. Hours of it, for free!

Click on the pic or link for the article!

Basil Rathbone, Vincent Price and Edgar Allan Poe

It's been a bit over 165 years since one of America's great writers passed, but we still talk about him. We still quote him. We are still fascinated by the darkness he explored and brought to light in haunting poems and unsettling stories.

Edgar Allan Poe. 

His work goes beautifully with this time of the year. This time, when the year is slowly dying and we hear the bones clacking in the windswept trees and the leaves scuttling down the street.

And we can hear those works read by greats like Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone!

Click here to start listening on Spotify.

Edgar

A darkly beautiful piece by artist Arnaud de Vallois.

The Tell-Tale Heart

It was one of my very first exposures to Edgar Allen Poe; The Tell-Tale Heart. Of course, when you're a child, you're probably not able to grasp why the narrator is a madman, or the graceful nuances of storytelling Poe used. You may even be tempted to sort of agree with the narrator, for a bit, because he sounds so reasonable.


At first. And then, the heartbeat, and the murder.

I've made a playlist of several different interpretations of this chilling tale, and one musical interpretation of which I'm fond. I hope you enjoy them! Click on the pic to watch...

Quoth the Raven-

Poe funny! Somewhere on I Can Has Cheeseburger? Literary kitteh is fun!

A Dream Within a Dream

When I was a kid, my mother got us into ice skating, of all things. My brother was made into a freestyle skater (which is where they do all the jumps), and there ensued a constant search for music for his routines for competition. It was then I was introduced to one of my very favorite albums of all time: Alan Parsons Project-Tales of Mystery and Imagination, which was vetted and rejected for one of his routines.

The album got me interested in the works of Poe, and may have been instrumental in my buying the album, Famous Ghost Stories! With Scary Sounds. That album had a version of "The Tell-Tale Heart" which scared me and thrilled me all at once, and taught me the meaning of terror for the very first time. Alan Parsons Project did a great version (in my opinion) of that murderous madman's story, and introduced me to other grand stories of Poe's imagination.

I found the first two tracks on YouTube, the first of which has a delightful narration by Orson Welles. Click on the pic to get to the list, then click, "Play All."



Valentine's Poe-m

Click on the pic to watch.