Edgar Allen Poe: Berenice: A creepy story about total obsession and teeth

Written by Edgar Allan Poe

Narrated by philip chenevert

The name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead What a scary read. Egaeus, the narrator, talks about his relationship to his cousin Berenice. He lives the life of a scholar, prefers the night and is quite sickly. Berenice is the counterpart until she fall ill an decays day by day. There are plans of marriage. Egaeus is obsessed by her teeth. When the day of her interment is over a shadowy shrouded figure is reported. What about the teeth? A very morbid story, full of decay, visions of grey and unsound living in the dark. Frightening and recommended!

Berenice" is a short horror story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1835. The story is narrated by Egaeus, who is preparing to marry his cousin Berenice. He tends to fall into periods of intense focus, during which he seems to separate himself from the outside world. Berenice begins to deteriorate from an unnamed disease until only her teeth remain healthy. Egaeus obsesses over them. When Berenice is buried, he continues to contemplate her teeth. One day, he awakens with an uneasy feeling from a trance-like state and hears screams. A servant reports that Berenice's grave has been disturbed, and she is still alive. Beside Egaeus is a shovel, a poem about "visiting the grave of my beloved", and a box containing 32 teeth.

Contemporary readers were horrified by the story's violence and complained to the editor of the Messenger. Although Poe later published a self-censored version of the work, he believed the story should be judged solely by how many copies it sold.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philip Chenevert
• Release date: Dec 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9798868693830

Edgar Allan Poe

New York Times bestselling author Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University, with appointments at the Fuqua School of Business, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, and the Department of Economics. He has also held a visiting professorship at MIT’s Media Lab. He has appeared on CNN and CNBC, and is a regular commentator on National Public Radio’s Marketplace. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife and two children.