"One of the most original American writers, Edgar Allan Poe shaped the development of both the detective story and the science-fiction story. Some of his poems--"The Raven," "The Bells," "Annabel Lee"--Remain among the most popular in American literature. Poe's tales of the macabre still thrill readers of all ages. Here are familiar favorites like "The Purloined Letter." "The Fall of the House of Usher," and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," together...

The need for love-obsessive, self-destructive, unpredictable-takes us to forbidden places, as in the chilling world of Give Me Your Heart, a new collection of stories by the inimitable Joyce Carol Oates. In the suspenseful "Strip Poker," a reckless adolescent girl must find a way of turning the tables on a gathering of increasingly threatening young men-can she "outplay" them? In "Smother!" a young woman's nightmare memory of childhood brings trouble...

A collection of 34 detective stories, tracing the development of the genre from Edgar Allen Poe's The Murder in the Rue Morgue, through William Faulkner's An Error in Chemistry, up to the present.