For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet,… Read More ›
Gothic horror
In a Smile of Peculiar Meaning: Edgar Allan Poe’s “Berenice”
In 1835, the Southern Literary Messenger published a short story so shocking, so graphic and ghastly, that outraged letters poured into the office of editor Thomas W. White. Written by a relatively unknown Edgar Allan Poe, the story, Berenice, tells of Egaeus, a young man of family and… Read More ›
It Was His Devil Twin: The Peculiar Tale of Edward Mordake
The above black and white picture has been making the rounds of social media lately, a startling image of a man with two faces, one handsome, one wizened. The image is occasionally accompanied by text that purports to tell the odd… Read More ›