Book review
Written by Edgar Allan Poe
Illustrated by Gris Grimley
Simon & Schuster paperback
Release date Out now

Four classic Poe stories with added illustrations…

Poe’s seminal tales of gothic terror have been the source of many adult-orientated movie adaptations (see Lucio Fulci’s The Black Cat and Stuart Gordon’s The Pit and the Pendulum, amongst others), but this release from Simon & Schuster presents four of his stories for younger readers.

The upshot of this is that the macabre tales have been abridged to make them more suitable for children, but the atmosphere and brilliant storytelling of the original versions remains intact.

The stories included here are The Tell-Tale Heart (probably Poe’s best known tale), The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, The Oblong Box, and The Facts in the Case of M.Valdemar. All of these are accompanied by suitably ghoulish illustrations from Californian artist Gris Grimly (think a more gothic Gerald Scarfe), who previously provided illustrations for Neil Gaiman’s picturebook The Dangerous Alphabet. James Skipp

VERDICT: 7/10
A valiant attempt to make the horror legend’s work appeal to younger readers.