Project Gutenberg's The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, by Edgar Allan Poe

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Title: The Works of Edgar Allan Poe
Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

Release Date: May 19, 2008 [EBook #2148]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE ***

Produced by David Widger

THE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLEN POE

VOLUME II

The Raven Edition

[Redactor's Note--Some endnotes are by Poe and some were added by
Griswold. In this volume the notes are at the end.]

Contents:

The Purloined Letter
The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherezade
A Descent into the Maelstroem
Von Kempelen and his Discovery
Mesmeric Revelation
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
The Black Cat
The Fall of the House of Usher
Silence--a Fable
The Masque of the Red Death
The Cask of Amontillado
The Imp of the Perverse
The Island of the Fay
The Assignation
The Pit and the Pendulum
The Premature Burial
The Domain of Arnheim
Landor's Cottage
William Wilson
The Tell-Tale Heart
Berenice
Eleonora

THE PURLOINED LETTER

Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio.

_Seneca_.

At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18-, I was
enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a meerschaum, in company
with my friend C. Auguste Dupin, in his little back library, or
book-closet, au troisieme, No. 33, Rue Dunot, Faubourg St. Germain. For
one hour at least we had maintained a profound silence; while each, to
any casual observer, might have seemed intently and exclusively occupied
with the curling eddies of smoke that oppressed the atmosphere of the
chamber. For myself, however, I was mentally discussing certain topics
which had formed matter for conversation between us at an earlier period
of the evening; I mean the affair of the Rue Morgue, and the mystery
attending the murder of Marie Roget. I looked upon it, therefore, as
something of a coincidence, when the door of our apartment was thrown
open and admitted our old acqu