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Tales of mystery and imagination | |
Penguin readers
Authors: Edgar Allen Poe/Roland John
£4.80
ISBN 582 498058
With Halloween taking place this evening, this seems an appropriate moment to review Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Edgar Allen Poe's masterpiece is now over 150 years old, but his stories of horror and supernatural events are still disturbing, and definitely not suited for younger readers. However, as well as tales of madness and unnatural deeds, readers will also be introducted to C. Auguste Dupin in the Murders of the rue Morgue and The Stolen letter (the Purlioned Letter in the original). Dupin is one of the world's first fictional detectives, and a character whom the character and stories of Sherlock Holmes closely resemble.
This set of stories has been adapted for upper intermediate readers by Roland John for Penguin Easy readers. Upper intermediate Easy Readers are about 2500 words long. The text of all Easy Readers is simplified from the original. The most simple of the Easy Readers are Easy start (level 1) and the most complicated are Advanced (level 6) The ten stories in this book have been considerably shortened and simplified, so that some of the stories are only a few pages long. In the process, the original language has been changed considerably, particularly with the removal of what we would regard today as over-dramatic English, but with an obvious effort being made to keep the original sense of gothic horror in the stories. At the end of the book there are a set of short exercises which are mainly to get the reader to focus on key vocabulary and events in each text. As none of these exercises give away too much of the suspense, it is worth reading these before starting each story.
Who is this book for? Teachers should use this book with care - there is plenty here to give a sensitive child nightmares. However, if you are studying alone and want to practice your English with a really classy set of horror classics, then this book is good value for money. Also, if you like the style of the books, it is worth remembering that Penguin have almost two dozen others on their list. To see what these are look at www.penguinreaders.com
Verdict: Good for a certain type of student
Assessment7/10