Edgar Allan Poe: Selected Tales (Cuentos clásicos del Norte) for Spanish learners: level, words and how to read it

What the book is about

In “El barril de amontillado” a man lures his enemy into the wine cellars during carnival. In “El gato negro” a drunkard’s cruelty to his cat leads to murder, and in “La ruina de la casa de Úsher” a visitor watches the last of an old family collapse with their house. “Ligeia” and “La máscara de la muerte roja” are dark, dreamlike tales of death that cannot be kept out.

“El escarabajo de oro” is a treasure hunt built on a secret cipher, “El crimen de la Rue Morgue” is the first detective story ever written, with Auguste Dupin, and in “Un descenso por el Maelström” a fisherman survives a giant whirlpool. The book also has a short biography of Poe and an introduction by John Erskine of Columbia University.

Themes

• Fear and madness. Narrators who insist they are sane while telling you how they killed.
• Death and return. Dead women who come back, walls that hide bodies, a plague no palace can stop.
• Reason. Dupin and Legrand solve mysteries by pure logic, decoding clues step by step.
• Atmosphere. Every detail of a room, a sound or a colour is chosen to create one effect.

How hard is Edgar Allan Poe: Selected Tales to read in Spanish?

How many unknown words will you meet? With a vocabulary of about 2,000 words, roughly 20 in every hundred, since those words cover 80.4% of the text. With 5,000 words it is about 12 in a hundred, with 10,000 about 8. Character names are not counted.

Measured by vocabulary alone, the book is C1: that is the level at which almost every word is already familiar (why 98% matters). Tap-to-translate covers the rest, so you can start at B2. On our list it sits between A Christmas Carol, which is a little easier, and Ratón Pérez, which is a little harder.

What is hard: Poe’s vocabulary is rich and Gothic (aposento, ébano, catacumba, lúgubre), sentences are long, and characters often use the old vosotros forms (habíais, conocéis). Some stories, like “Ligeia”, are more atmosphere than plot. What helps: the translation uses almost modern spelling (only a few fué), each story is complete in 2,000 to 13,000 words, and the plots of the most famous ones are short and simple.

Our take: B2 with tap-to-translate (C1 by vocabulary). Start with the short, plot-driven tales and keep the dreamlike ones for later.

Words to know before you start

The book’s own vocabulary: frequent in this text, much less common elsewhere. Ten minutes with this list makes the opening chapters smoother.

How to read it in Spanish

1. Start with “El gato negro” or “El barril de amontillado”. Both are short and grip you from the first line.
2. Read “El escarabajo de oro” with a pencil. You can try to solve the cipher with Legrand.
3. Leave “Ligeia” for last. It is the most poetic and the hardest of the eight.
4. Read at night. Poe wrote for a single sitting; half an hour in a quiet room is ideal.

The first line

Había soportado lo mejor posible los mil pequeños agravios de Fortunato; pero cuando se atrevió a llegar hasta el ultraje, juré que había de vengarme.

Edgar Allan Poe, Cuentos clásicos del Norte

soportadoendured

verb

Tap a highlighted word

“I had borne as best I could the thousand small injuries of Fortunato; but when he dared to go as far as insult, I vowed revenge.” The opening of “The Cask of Amontillado”. In one sentence the narrator gives the motive, the decision and the tone of the whole story. The Spanish había de vengarme is an older, more solemn way of saying “I would take revenge”.

Frequently asked questions