From the mad imagination of 19th-century gothic master of horror and suspense Edgar Allan Poe comes this deliciously gripping CD from the acclaimed Selected Shorts series that will leave listeners breathless and happily terrified. The creepy, breathtaking, and soulful classic tales include: "The Masque of the Red Death," the terrifying and ironic story of a nobleman who attempts to seal himself and his friends away from a terrible plague raging outside, performed by Fionnula Flanagan; "The Pit and the Pendulum," a hair-raising, first-person account of a man in a torture chamber during the Spanish Inquisition, performed to a fare-thee-well by Stephen Lang; "The Black Cat," in which a man's dead pet comes back to haunt him, performed by Tony Award-winner Rene Auberjonois. Plus there are dreamy, mesmerizing, and haunting readings of Poe's wonderfully atmospheric best-loved poems, "The Bells," "The Raven," and "Annabel Lee."