Books with title The Pit and the Pendulum

This award-winning collection of adapted classic literature and original stories develops reading skills for low-beginning through advanced students.Accessible language and carefully controlled vocabulary build students' reading confidence.Introductions at the beginning of each story, illustrations throughout, and glossaries help build comprehension.Before, during, and after reading activities included in the back of each book strengthen student comprehension.Audio versions of selected titles provide great models of intonation and pronunciation of difficult words.

The Pit and the Pendulum" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1842 in the literary annual The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1843. The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, though Poe skews historical facts. The narrator of the story describes his experience of being tortured. The story is especially effective at inspiring fear in the reader because of its heavy focus on the senses, such as sound, emphasizing its reality, unlike many of Poe's stories which are aided by the supernatural. The traditional elements established in popular horror tales at the time are followed, but critical reception has been mixed. The tale has been adapted to film several times.

The Pit and the Pendulum Edgar Allan Poe "The Pit and the Pendulum" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1842 in the literary annual The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1843. The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, though Poe skews historical facts. The narrator of the story describes his experience of being tortured. The story is especially effective at inspiring fear in the reader because of its heavy focus on the senses, such as sound, emphasizing its reality, unlike many of Poe's stories which are aided by the supernatural. The traditional elements established in popular horror tales at the time are followed, but critical reception has been mixed. The tale has been adapted to film several times.

Prepare for an audio-enhanced descent...into horror. A prisoner, sentenced to death during the Spanish Inquisition, finds himself trapped in a lightless cell to contemplate his fate. Will he die by falling helplessly into a deathly, yawning pit in the center of the room? Or will the deadly, razor-sharp pendulum slowly descending from the ceiling be the cause of his demise? This enhanced audiobook - with music and sound effects - is an unabridged copy of the classic story by the master of horror, Edgar Allan Poe, and produced by Fort Raphael Publishing, Chicago, Illinois.

The world's greatest classics retold for children. The blackness of eternal night encompassed me. The intense darkness oppressed and stifled me so that I struggled for breath. Having been condemned to death by the Spanish Inquisition, the narrator descends into a kind of hell. Dizzy with weakness and fainting with fear, he experiences such torments that death itself would be welcome. What troubles him most is the eternal question: how will he die? Toledo Prison is notorious for the torture of the condemned. What minds have dreamed up the terror of the pit in the centre of the cell? What is the significance of the painted figure of Time with his menacing pendulum? Why do the walls glow with heat? Experience with the narrator the intensity of his suffering when death seems inevitable but its form uncertain. Can anything, or anybody, help him?

A man is in a room without light. He attempted to figure out his rooms shape, and ended up almost falling down a pit. Later he was drugged by the food the captors have given him. He has ended up strapped to a table with a big pendulum holding a giant blade that was slowly descending. In order to save himself, he took the beef they have allowed him to have as a last meal, and smothered his bindings in their juices, prompting the rats to eat them. He was released just before the blade would have killed him, only the walls were moving towards the centre pit. He would have fallen in but a man had grabbed his arm. That man was an officer in charge of releasing all the prisoners at the end of the Inquisition.