Central Clemson Book Discussion

The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe

General book discussion of fiction and nonfiction as selected by the members. Newcomers are welcome; please see staff to reserve a copy of this month's title.

At the request of his good friend Roderick Usher, a visitor travels to the House of Usher where Roderick and his sister Madeline live. From the time the traveler first steps foot onto the Usher property, a mysterious and foreboding presence fills the air. Almost as if the house itself is alive.

Classic tales of mystery, terror, and suspense, including The Fall of the House of Usher—the inspiration for the Netflix series from Mike Flanagan, the director of The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass!

This volume gathers together fourteen of Edgar Allan Poe's richest and most influential tales, including: “The Pit and the Pendulum,” his reimagining of Inquisition tortures; “The Tell-Tale Heart,” an exploration of a murderer’s madness, which Stephen King called “the best tale of inside evil ever written”; “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Poe’s tour de force about a family doomed by a grim bloodline curse; and his pioneering detective stories, “The Purloined Letter” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” featuring a rational investigator with a poetic soul. Also included is Poe’s only full-length novel, Narrative of A. Gordon Pym.