Edgar Allan Poe (Who Wrote That?)

Edgar Allan Poe not only wrote such dark and uncanny works as "The Raven," "The Tell-Tale Heart," and "The Fall of the House of Usher," but also lived a tragic and similarly gloomy life. Credited as the father of the modern horror story and the first detective novel, Poe still inspires legions of fans to this day.

The plea came to Malcolm Ross the very night he'd offered to help. The time has come sooner than I expected. But he is quite unconscious. "The doctors and police have been sent for; but there is no one here whom I can depend on. Come at once, if you are able to; and forgive me if you can. I suppose I shall realize later what I have done in asking such a favor; but at present I cannot think. Come! Come at once!" And what could he do, once he'd read that note? The only thing that any man would do. Malcolm Ross went to face the trial that waited in the Trelawny home. And because he did ...

This work dissects popular examples from the gothic literary and cinematic canon, exposing the inverted comic paradigm within each text. Rooting his study in comedy as theoretically conceived by Suzanne Langer, C.L. Barber and Mikhail Bakhtin, Morgan analyses the physical and mythological nature of horror in inverted comic terms, identifying a biologically grounded mythos of horror. Motifs such as sinister loci, languishment, masquerade, and subversion of sensual perception are contextualized here as embedded in an organic reality, resonating with biological motives and consequences.

Hot Fudge Monday

Since its initial publication in 1993, this entertaining grammar book has helped thousands of middle school teachers teach even the most reluctant learners using lessons that de-emphasize rote learning and treat the parts of speech as building blocks for crazy writing assignments. Prompts include using at least 10 prepositional phrases from a list to write a scene from the new vegetable horror novel Squash Cemetery, and using lively verbs to write the monologue of a soda can telling his miserable life story to a psychologist. 

The phenomenally popular Book of Lists series has sold millions of copies from coast to coast, enthralling trivia aficionados with fascinating infobits about simply everything! Now the latest edition turns an evil eye toward the strange, the blood-curdling, and the macabre with spine-tingling fun facts from the dark side of entertainment.