Spine Chillers

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 884, 13 July 1956, Page 23

Spine Chillers

EXT week's ZB Sunday Showcase, on July 22, is not for the fainthearted. In it will be heard two stories and two poems by that master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe, which will be read by Basil Rathbone. The stories

are The Masque of the Red Death and The Black Cat, and the poems, Eldorado and Annabel Lee. — The American critic Van Wyck Brooks gives an interesting account of the strange life and character of Edgar Allan Poe in his study, The World of Washington Irving. Poe was the son of

itinerant actors and was orphaned very young. He was taken in by the Allans, a wealthy Southern family, spending the early years of his life in England. While Poe was at University, the widowed Mr. Allan cut him off completely. He gambled unsuccessfully, joined the Army under an assumed name, then went to West Point. He was dismissed from there and started on his literary career. : Poe was an intellectual prodigy, well versed in English, foreign and classical literatures, and in the natural sciences as well. His mental life became disorganised early and the poverty and sadness he endured as a young man caused him great distress. The haunting poem Annabel Lee was written not long after the death of his young cousin-wife. She cied in their poor cottage, wrapped in his old black military cloak on a mattress of straw and hugging the tortoiseshell cat to keep her warm. ’