Around this time of year I pull out my copy of The Edgar Allan Poe Audio Collection (2000) and enjoy some classic Poe stories. This set provides 6 hours of spooky stories narrated by two of the best chilling voices ever. Here are my favorites:
Vincent Price performs “The Gold Bug,” “The Imp of the Perverse,” and “Ligeia.”
Basil Rathbone performs “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and “The Raven.”
If you want to get into the Halloween mood, these stories will take you there! Are you an Edgar Allan Poe fan? GRADE: A
TRACK LIST:
| 1-1 | To-Narrator – Basil Rathbone | 1:48 | |
| 1-2 | Alone Narrator – Basil Rathbone | 1:01 | |
| 1-3 | The City In The Sea Narrator – Basil Rathbone | 3:01 | |
| 1-4 | The Fall Of The House Of Usher Narrator – Basil Rathbone | 22:57 | |
| 1-5 | The Haunted Palace Narrator – Basil Rathbone | 2:15 | |
| 1-6 | The Pit And The Pendulum Narrator – Basil Rathbone | 30:27 | |
| 2-1 | The Masque Of The Red Death Narrator – Basil Rathbone | 16:25 | |
| 2-2 | The Tell-Tale Heart Narrator – Basil Rathbone | 13:40 | |
| 2-3 | The Black Cat Narrator – Basil Rathbone | 25:57 | |
| 3-1 | The Raven Narrator – Basil Rathbone | 8:15 | |
| 3-2 | The Facts Of The Case Of M. Valdemar Narrator – Basil Rathbone | 16:15 | |
| 3-3 | The Cask Of Amontillado Narrator – Basil Rathbone | 15:45 | |
| 3-4 | The Bells Narrator – Basil Rathbone | 4:02 | |
| 3-5 | Annabel Lee Narrator – Basil Rathbone | 2:03 | |
| 3-6 | Eldorado Narrator – Basil Rathbone | 0:39 | |
| 4-1 | Ligeia Narrator – Vincent Price | 47:03 | |
| 4-2 | The Imp Of The Perverse Narrator – Vincent Price | 14:06 | |
| 4-3 | Morella Narrator – Vincent Price (2) | 14:45 | |
| 5-1 | Berenice Narrator – Vincent Price (2) | 23:50 | |
| 5-2 | The Gold Bug Narrator – Vincent Price (2) | 53:50 |
Price and Rathone are the perfect narrators for Poes tales and poems.
Halloween at your house must be a lot of fun, George.
Jerry, we live on a long, straight street with houses fairly close together…perfect for Trick-or-Treating! Vans full of kids from Elsewhere show up and our Halloween candy goes fast.
I have never done this. Have to give it a try.
Patti, Diane and I listen to audio books–usually as we have lunch. We get through a chapter or two of a novel or a short story if we’re listening to an anthology or collection. But, it all depends on the narrator!
And you can listen to them on your road trip to Boston! Have fun, by the way.
Yes, I like Poe. AS a kid I loved “The Raven” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” and “The Pit and the Pendulum.” Later I read the Dupin stories.
Jeff, I had a teacher who read “The Gold Bug” to the English class I was taking. I was hooked on Poe after that!
Have to find fault with these two narrators.
I don’t read Halloween mysteries for the holiday the way I try to do with Christmas.
Maybe I’ll pull out one of my spookier short story collections to get me in the mood.
Someone here at the office just floated the idea of dressing up for the 31st. Not happening.
That should be “hard to find fault.”
I’m an idiot.
Beth, we all fumble around these days!
Beth, Diane did NOT like Halloween when she was a teacher. She said the kids went wild on Halloween. I suggested they were on a sugar high!
I agree, the choice of narrators is brilliant.
I used to love dressing up on halloween at work, and parties. I have most of another costume but no parties or work to wear it at, and would probably not be recognized by many people. A Reacher T shirt, Fatigue Jacket, toothbrush and dog tags. A hat might make it more accurate, but never saw one. The rest was given to me at Reacher Creature parties.
Maggie, I would be hard pressed to pass myself off as Reacher (even less successful than Tom Cruise). But, I can impress people when I wear my sorcerer’s robe!
I have these CDs as well as a Caedmon vinyl copy of the Rathbone recordings that I picked up around 1979. No Halloween is complete without them. Ditto a watch of Price’s “An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe,” his one-man Poe stage show from 1970. Great stuff.
Byron, I’ll have to check out AN EVENING OF EDGAR ALLAN POE. Poe’s work is very appealing this time of year!
I listened to the library copies of the Caedmon vinyl. Still surprised, if not very much, by how little of Caedmon’s library has been made available by Penguin, or Random House before RH was sold to them. Never have cared for “The Gold Bug” (you want to speak of Bad Attitudes that don’t read well today), but am certainly a fan of Poe. Rather difficult to like fantastic literature and not be.
Here’s an old link to Vincent Price recordings in bulk, for Caedmon and their even less-well-preserved competitors.
https://socialistjazz.blogspot.com/2015/11/vincent-price-dramatic-readings-audio.html
Sieve memory strikes again. It was HarperCollins, no Penguin/RH, which hoovered up Caedmon eventually, and has trickled out their archives since, usually less-well=packaged. Now if only someone would do some of Spoken Arts and relatively small collections such as Prestige Spoken Word.
Todd, thanks for the link! I’m always amazed at the amount of recording Vincent Price did!`
I know those two only as great actors, they did a lot of movies.
So how did they find the extra time to read stories aloud?
Actors often find themselves At Liberty, and find other sources of income never a bad idea.
Wolf, there are a handful of audio book narrators who have a loyal following of listeners (and buyers!). Some actors also narrate books between acting gigs and movies.