Selected Tales | Edgar Allan Poe | Penguin Books

Under the Penguin Popular Classics series, Penguin Books published a selection of tales written by Edgar Allan Poe (19 Jan 1809 - 7 Oct 1849) "Selected Tales".  

There were 25 short stories and I've read the 1st 10 of them:

1. The Duc de L' Omelette: I re-read this very short story quite a few times before realising that the Duc had died and went to Hell where he cheated the Devil at a game of cards.
2. MS. found in a Bottle: This fairly short story is told from the perspective of a sailor where his vessel was in the end being pulled towards a whirlpool.  Which, I found incredible because, did the sailor die at sea - in which case how did his story become known to others? Or, did the sailor survive - in which case the tale then serves to enthrall listeners, much like Sinbad's tales of his voyages?
3. The Assignation: This is, again, a story which despite re-reads, I could not understand.  I even had to look up the meaning of "assignation" - 1. an appointment to meet someone in secret, typically one made by lovers.  2. the allocation or attribution of someone or something as belonging to something.  Not a word that is commonly seen! 
4. Ligeia: This appears to me a story told from the perspective of a madman married to one woman but obsessed with another.
5. How to write a Blackwood Article: This is considerably more light-hearted compared to the earlier stories and written with wit and sarcasm.
6. The Fall of the House of Usher: This is quite a horror story of a man who placed his dying but still alive sister in a coffin and nailed it.
7. William Wilson: This protagonist of this story most likely suffered from schizophrenia, as hinted by this sentence "I am the descendent of a race whose imaginative and easily excitable temperament has at all times rendered them remarkable...".  
8. The Murders in the Rue Morgue: This story describes a brilliant detective solving a horrific double murder done by an orang utan, seemingly hinting at the fear of the barbaric by the civilised.  I wonder if Poe conducted research on the behavior of orang utans before penning one into this story.  I remember the guides at an orang utan sanctuary reminding visitors that orang utans have great strength and because the orang utans there were rescued, they could be aggressive if provoked by loud noises - which is exactly the provocation the orang utan in this story had to kill the mother and daughter. 
9. A Descent into the Maelstroem: The narrator tells the story of having survived being pulled towards the vortex of a whirlpool, which is truly terrifying, even for the reader.
10. The Island of the Fay: A fay is a fairy, and this short story is all prose and description and very unlike the usual gothic stories that Poe writes.  It is even almost difficult to understand this story.