Roger Corman: cinema's pulp genius whose talent to shock was rocket fuel
Peter Bradshaw
Roger Corman: a career in pictures
October 2023
TV review
The Fall of the House of Usher review – a gleefully terrifying take on Edgar Allan Poe
Halloween is saved! Spookmaster Mike Flanagan’s final Netflix offering is a spooky, grisly, sumptuously gothic treat
February 2022
Edgar Allan Poe’s pocket watch among donations to museum
Owned by the author while he was writing The Tell-Tale Heart, in which a ticking timepiece drives his narrator mad, the bequest also includes a fragment of Poe’s original coffin
April 2021
Honkaku: a century of the Japanese whodunnits keeping readers guessing
These fiendishly clever mystery novels have spawned pop culture icons, anime and a museum. And, best of all, honkaku plays fair – you have the clues to solve the crime
February 2021
How we made
How we made: Jane Asher and Roger Corman on The Masque of the Red Death
‘I hated the bath scene. They stuck awful little modesty circles on my nipples and they kept floating off’
January 2021
The Masque of the Red Death review – horribly apt Poe adaptation
Roger Corman’s 1964 cult classic about a medieval pestilence closing in on a decadent count played by Vincent Price has uncomfortable resonance
June 2020
Steven Berkoff's Tell Tale Heart review – voraciously hammy gothic
There are fine grisly moments and a creepy score, but Berkoff’s lurid performance stymies the horror of Poe’s murder tale
April 2020
Margaret Atwood to showcase gothic puppet show for Mary Beard
Author will present her unique take on an Edgar Allan Poe tale on Beard’s BBC Two arts show
November 2019
Eminent Victorians: 19th-century celebrity portraits – in pictures
As a new picture of Billy the Kid goes on sale for $1m, these photographs showcase some of the most significant people of the 19th century to be captured on camera
June 2019
Top 10s
Top 10 houseguests in fiction
Visits are great engines for storytelling – and from Jane Austen to Ali Smith, here are some of the best
December 2018
The Tell-Tale Heart review – Poe story becomes brilliantly creepy stage shocker
Anthony Neilson’s adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story has a sexual frisson, schlocky gore and a shape-shifting set
October 2018
Clear White Light review – Edgar Allan Poe meets the NHS
A fantastical reworking of The Fall of the House of Usher set in a Tyneside psychiatric ward hits all the right notes
Clear White Light review – a gem of psychiatric gothic-horror folk-rock
The Fall of the House of Usher is restaged in a Tyneside mental hospital in a poignant and politically charged musical
A Midnight Visit review – Australia's take on Sleep No More is more theme park than theatre
Sydney’s new Edgar Allen Poe-themed warehouse is a large-scale immersive experience that borrows heavily from its influences
May 2018
Books interview
Michael Chabon: ‘Parent properly and you’re doing yourself out of a job’
The Pulitzer prize-winner on combining writing with raising kids, his freakozoid tendencies and the authors he returns to
April 2018
Names in the news
Game on for Ian Dallas, a man who tells a good tale
Rebecca Nicholson
The creator of Bafta award winner Edith Finch is pushing the boundaries of storytelling
January 2017
Top 10s
Top 10 unreliable narrators
From Edgar Allan Poe to Gillian Flynn, storytellers who cannot be trusted are great devices for writers, and a compelling challenge for readers
December 2016
Measure for measure: a history of booze in books
From Brideshead Revisited to James Bond, alcohol plays a key role in fiction. Henry Jeffreys distils the best sozzled scenes – and the worst hangovers
May 2016
Children's books
10 songs you didn't know were inspired by literature
From David Bowie’s 1984 to Firework by Katy Perry, art imitates art in this selection of literature-inspired songs
