The Oval Portrait The Oval Portrait "The Oval Portrait" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe involving the disturbing circumstances surrounding a portrait in a chateau. It is one of his shortest stories, filling only two pages in its initial publication in 1842. The tale begins with an injured narrator (the story offers no further explanation of their impairment) seeking refuge in an abandoned mansion in the Apennines. The narrator spends their time admiring the paintings that decorate the strangely shaped room and perusing a volume, found upon a pillow, that describes them. Upon moving the candle closer to the book, the
The Lady in the Morgue The Lady in the Morgue The Lady in the Morgue (1936) is one of the novels by Jonathan Latimer featuring private detective William Crane. The lady of the title is a female corpse which is stolen from a Chicago morgue before the dead woman's identity can be established. The book is to a large extent a send-up of the hardboiled school of crime writing. Crane is depicted as an ambivalent figure. Although he is tough and eventually solves the case through reasoning and cunning strategy, he is also a heavy drinker and ever so often prefers taking a nap to