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Recommendations based on The Tell-Tale Heartby Edgar Allan Poe
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The Black Cat
by Edgar Allan Poe
A man's descent into madness and guilt, upon committing a heinous act.
One of Edgar Allan Poe's most memorable stories. The tale centers on two matters, a black cat and the deterioration of a man. The man is one who enjoyed family life with his wife and numerous pets, ... (Goodreads)
The Cask of Amontillado - an Edgar Allan Poe Short Story
by Edgar Allan Poe
A tale of revenge and retribution, forcibly trapping a foe in a ghoulish crypt.
The story's narrator, Montresor, tells an unspecified person, who knows him very well, of the day he took his revenge on Fortunato (Italian for "the fortunate one"), a fellow nobleman. Angry over ... (Wikipedia)
The Raven
by Edgar Allan Poe
A man is visited by a mysterious raven, leading him on a journey of grief and reflection.
In Gustave Doré, one of the most prolific and successful book illustrators of the late 19h century, Edgar Allan Poe's renowned poem The Raven found perhaps its most perfect artistic interpreter. ... (Goodreads)
The Lottery
by Shirley Jackson
A small village's annual lottery reveals a dark secret, with sinister implications.
Details of contemporary small-town American life are embroidered upon a description of an annual rite known as "the lottery". In a small village of about 300 residents, the locals are in an excited ... (Wikipedia)
The Yellow Wall-Paper
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
A woman's descent into madness due to oppressive social expectations.
A woman and her husband rent a summer house, but what should be a restful getaway turns into a suffocating psychological battle. This chilling account of postpartum depression and a husband's ... (Goodreads)
The Most Dangerous Game
by Richard Connell
A hunter's game of survival and strategy, as he pursues and is pursued by his prey.
Big-game hunter Sanger Rainsford and his friend, Whitney, are traveling to the Amazon rainforest for a jaguar hunt. After a discussion about how they are "the hunters" instead of "the hunted," ... (Wikipedia)
A Rose for Emily and Other Stories
by William Faulkner
Collection of short stories exploring the complexities of Southern life, often with dark and tragic themes.
The story opens with a brief first-person account of the funeral of Emily Grierson , an elderly Southern woman whose funeral is the obligation of their small town. It then proceeds in a non-linear ... (Wikipedia)
The Lottery and Other Stories
by Shirley Jackson
A collection of short stories exploring the dark side of human nature and society's norms.
The Lottery , one of the most terrifying stories written in this century, created a sensation when it was first published in The New Yorker . "Power and haunting," and "nights of unrest" were typical ... (Goodreads)
A Streetcar Named Desire
by Tennessee Williams
A woman's struggle to come to terms with her past and present in a post-war New Orleans.
After the loss of her family home to creditors, Blanche DuBois travels from the small town of Laurel, Mississippi , to the New Orleans French Quarter to live with her younger married sister, Stella , ... (Wikipedia)
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
by Ursula K. Le Guin
The inhabitants of a utopian society must decide if the cost of their ideal is too high.
The only chronological element of the work is that it begins by describing the first day of summer in Omelas, a shimmering city of unbelievable happiness and delight. In Omelas, the summer solstice ... (Wikipedia)
Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A collection of four works exploring the human psyche, morality, and existentialism through the lens of Russian society.
The story opens with the narrator wandering the streets of St. Petersburg . He is contemplating the ridiculousness of his own life, and his recent realization that nothing matters to him any more. It ... (Wikipedia)
The Importance of Being Earnest
by Oscar Wilde
A lighthearted comedy of manners, full of witty dialogue and satirizing Victorian society.
Oscar Wilde's madcap farce about mistaken identities, secret engagements, and lovers entanglements still delights readers more than a century after its 1895 publication and premiere performance. The ... (Goodreads)
The Road Not Taken and Other Poems
by Robert Frost
Collection of poems exploring the power of choice, the passage of time, and the beauty of nature.
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I– I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." These deceptively simple lines from the title poem of this collection suggest Robert ... (Goodreads)
A Doll's House
by Henrik Ibsen
A woman's struggle to break from societal expectations and find her own identity.
A Doll's House (1879), is a masterpiece of theatrical craft which, for the first time portrayed the tragic hypocrisy of Victorian middle class marriage on the stage. The play ushered in a new social ... (Goodreads)
Young Goodman Brown
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
A young man's journey into the forest leads him to question the morality of his Puritan community.
The story begins at dusk in Salem Village, Massachusetts as young Goodman Brown leaves Faith, his wife of three months, for some unknown errand in the forest. Faith pleads with her husband to stay ... (Wikipedia)
Brave New World / Brave New World Revisited
by Aldous Huxley
A futuristic dystopia of a world devoid of freedom and morality.
The novel opens in the World State city of London in AF (After Ford) 632 (AD 2540 in the Gregorian calendar ), where citizens are engineered through artificial wombs and childhood indoctrination ... (Wikipedia)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A man's journey through life in reverse, exploring the meaning of life and death.
In 1860 Baltimore , Benjamin is born with the physical appearance of a 70-year-old man, already capable of speech. His father Roger invites neighborhood boys to play with him and orders him to play ... (Wikipedia)
Animal Farm / 1984
by George Orwell
Two classic dystopian novels that explore the dangers of totalitarianism and the corrupting influence of power.
The poorly-run Manor Farm near Willingdon , England , is ripened for rebellion from its animal populace by neglect at the hands of the irresponsible and alcoholic farmer, Mr. Jones . One night, the ... (Wikipedia)
A Light in the Attic
by Shel Silverstein
A whimsical collection of poems, stories and drawings exploring life, love and the power of imagination.
Last night while I lay thinking here, Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear, And pranced and partied all night long, And sang their same old Whatif song:, Whatif I flunk that test?,Whatif green hair ... (Goodreads)
Pygmalion
by George Bernard Shaw
The transformation of a poor flower girl into an elegant society lady.
George Orwell claimed that "The central plot of Shaw's play, Pygmalion , is lifted out of Peregrine Pickle [by Tobias Smollett ], and I believe that no one has ever pointed this out in print, which ... (Wikipedia)
Les Fleurs du Mal
by Charles Baudelaire
Collection of poems exploring the beauty and depravity of human nature.
Charles Baudelaire's 1857 masterwork was scandalous in its day for its portrayals of sex, same-sex love, death, the corrupting and oppressive power of the modern city and lost innocence, Les Fleurs ... (Goodreads)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
by Robert Louis Stevenson
A man's internal struggle between good and evil forces, as he attempts to reconcile his dual personalities.
Gabriel John Utterson and his cousin Richard Enfield reach the door of a large house on their weekly walk. Enfield tells Utterson that months ago, he saw a sinister-looking man named Edward Hyde ... (Wikipedia)
Harrison Bergeron
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
A dystopian future where equality is enforced through handicapping citizens.
In the year 2081, the 211th, 212th, and 213th amendments to the Constitution dictate that all Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter, better-looking, or more physically able than ... (Wikipedia)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Other Stories
by Lewis Carroll
Follow Alice down the rabbit hole and into a world of absurdity, where nothing is quite as it seems.
Down the rabbit-hole and through the looking-glass! Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Other Stories features all of the best-known works of Lewis Carroll, including the novels Alice's Adventures in ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Pearl
by John Steinbeck
A poor diver's dream of wealth is dashed when his newfound riches ultimately bring unhappiness and tragedy.
Like his father and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor diver, gathering pearls from the gulf beds that once brought great wealth to the kings of Spain and now provide Kino, Juana, and their ... (Goodreads)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
by Tennessee Williams
A family struggling to confront hidden resentments and repressions that lurk beneath the surface.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is the story of a Southern family in crisis, especially the husband Brick and wife Margaret (usually called Maggie or "Maggie the Cat"), and their interaction with Brick's ... (Wikipedia)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
by Tom Stoppard
A humorous exploration of fate and free will, seen through the eyes of two minor characters in Shakespeare's "Hamlet".
Hamlet told from the worm's-eye view of two minor characters, bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Echoes of Waiting for Godot resound, reality and illusion mix, and where fate leads heroes to a ... (Goodreads)
A Hunger Artist
by Franz Kafka
A unique artist's exploration of suffering, as he strives to make his art ever more extreme.
"A Hunger Artist" is told retrospectively through third-person narration. The narrator looks back several decades from "today", to a time when the public marveled at the professional hunger artist. ... (Wikipedia)
