‘Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque’ is a collection of short stories including the ‘Fall of the House of Usher’ by the American author, poet, editor, and literary critic Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849). Poe’s gothic stories of mystery and the macabre formed part of the American Romantic Movement, and he was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story, and is generally considered the inventor of the genre of detective fiction, and an important contributor to the emerging genre of science fiction. The collection which had previously been printed as separate stories, were published in 1840.