Edgar Allan Poe Collection

Start-to-Finish: Gold The Start-to-Finish Gold collection is a high-interest considerate reading series designed to promote independent reading for struggling readers aged 9 to 17 years but reading at the 2nd-3rd grade level. Each set consist of a paperback book, a computer CD ROM book, an audio book and a teacher's guide. NOTE: A portable USB DVD writer is available for loan if your computer system does not have a CD/DVD drive. This collection consists of two stories by Edgar Allan Poe: The Gold Bug: On an island off South Carolina, the narrator meets Legrand and his servant Jupiter. Once rich, now poor, Legrand develops grand ideas of newfound riches when he is bitten by a gold bug he finds near a treasure map. The map leads the trio to a skull in a tree, below which they unearth the treasure of Captain Kidd. This is a humorous, quirky story, packed with tension and adventure. The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The narrator’s brilliant friend Dupin reads a newspaper story of the murders of two women in an apartment in the Rue Morgue (Morgue Street), Paris. Much smarter than the police, Dupin makes amazing deductions about what kind of creature must have committed the gruesome killings and escaped from a locked upper flat. He proves that the villain was a sailor’s terrified pet orangutan. This was the first detective story ever. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson were modeled on Poe’s pair of sleuths.