Metzengerstein

In a Hungarian castle, between two families of ancient and inexplicable enmity, a prophecy is working itself out through the body of a young baron who inherits a fortune and immediately demonstrates the capacity for spectacular cruelty. The Berlifitzing stables burn, and from somewhere — perhaps the old tapestry, perhaps the stables themselves — a horse arrives with branded initials that no one can explain. Poe's earliest published story is already fully formed: the aristocratic setting, the supernatural suggestion, the moral certainty that fate has its own geometry.

Cathy Dobson narrates this short piece with the Gothic formality the period demands — Poe's prose is architectural, and Dobson honors the structure. The runtime is very short, appropriate for a story designed to deliver its effect efficiently. For listeners approaching Poe through audio, this early work demonstrates how completely the Gothic framework arrived in his imagination before it was refined in the later masterworks.