Acclaimed novelist Mat Johnson is the winner of the prestigious Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. After being sacked, American literature professor Chris Jaynes discovers a slave manuscript that seemingly confirms the existence of an “island of pure and utter blackness” as described in Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Soon Jaynes and a rag-tag crew embark on an epic adventure to discover the truth.

This rousing sea adventure follows New England boy Pym, who stows away on a whaling ship with its captain’s son, Augustus. The two boys repeatedly find themselves on the brink of death or discovery and witness many terrifying events, including mutiny, cannibalism and frantic pursuits. Poe imbued this deliberately popular tale with such allegorical richness, biblical imagery and psychological insights that the tale has come to influence writers as various as Melville, James, Verne and Nabokov.

Ten classic books for your listening pleasure.

One Voice Recordings presents amazingly versatile voice actor David Ian Davies performing three of Edgar Allan Poe's most famous short stories: "Oblong Box", "The Pit and the Pendulum", and "The Black Cat".

The best and most revered works of famed poet and author, Edgar Allen Poe.

Edgar Allan Poe elevated the gothic story, developed the unreliable narrator, recast psychological terror, and reveled in both the horror and the supernal beauty of death. From Poe's rich, unrivaled imagination comes a collection of his most masterful works, including "The Black Cat", "The Fall of the House of Usher", and, of course, "The Tell-Tale Heart". Each story explores morbid themes of grief, greed, fear, and guilt, and together they embody Poe's grotesque obsessions...even the dread of being buried alive.

Each story explores a different twist of madness, murder, and melancholy, from the horror of being buried alive in "The Fall of the House of Usher" to the desperate case of two gruesome killings in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." The heartbeat of paranoia in "The Tell-Tale Heart," the razor-sharp claustrophobia in "The Pit and the Pendulum," and a mourner's torment in "The Raven" reveal - and revel in - life's creepiest and craziest. These tales are not for the faint of heart or the thin of skin.

Prince Prospero invites several dozen of the local nobility to his castle for protection against an oncoming plague, the Red Death. Prospero orders his guests to attend a masked ball and, amidst a general atmosphere of debauchery and depravity, notices the entry of a mysterious hooded stranger dressed all in red.

All of Edgar Allan Poe’s great short stories in one 16-hour collection.

A collection featuring three classic horror stories, read by actor Earl Hammond: "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Cask of Amontillado", and "The Black Cat".

During his twilight years, the French author Jules Verne (1828-1905) wrote two original sequels to books that had fired his own youthful imagination but which he felt to be incomplete: Johann Wyss's Swiss Family Robinson and Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Arthur Gordon Pym (1845) was only one of many Poe stories which Verne admired; no other single author had more impact on his writing.

One of the most important novels in classic literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter tackles the subject of adultery, with the notorious Hester Prynne at the forefront of the scandal in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the beginning of the novel, Hester is serving time in prison for having a child out of wedlock and is forced to wear a scarlet A on her clothing at all times, so she cannot run from her sin no matter where she goes.

Herman Melville is one of the greatest figures in literary history. His classic Moby Dick is generally considered the finest novel ever written by an American. Yet in Melville’s day, Typee was a far more popular book. Largely autobiographical, this classic adventure story is set in the South Seas, where a runaway sailor is captured by the Typees. Described as “a fierce and unrelenting tribe of savages," the islanders have no intention of letting their captive go.

An immensely persuasive work of literary criticism that opens a new chapter in the American dialogue on race - and promises to change the way we listen to American literature. Morrison shows how much the themes of freedom and individualism, manhood and innocence, depended on the existence of a black population that was manifestly unfree - and that came to serve white authors as embodiments of their own fears and desires.

For the first time ever, the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has produced an audio recording of all of Lovecraft's stories. These are not dramatizations like our Dark Adventure Radio Theatre - rather, this is an audiobook of the original stories, in all-new, never-before-heard recordings made by the HPLHS' own Andrew Leman and Sean Branney exclusively for this collection. This collection spans his entire career from his earliest surviving works of childhood to stories completed shortly before his death. All tales include original music by HPLHS composer Troy Sterling Nies.