Edgar Allan Poe’s writings have long been a perennial subject of adaptation to other media. Roger Corman’s B-movies of the 1960s, most starring Vincent Price, are nostalgic favorites for many horror fans, though all too often they bear little resemblance to their source material (in fact, Corman’s The Haunted Palace isn’t even based on Poe; it’s actually a retelling of Lovecraft’s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward). There have been countless TV episodes that draw from Poe’s tales; innumerable comics and graphic novels; many stage plays; even a few operas, including The Fall of the House of Usher by renowned composer Philip Glass.

While many of these works are interesting and creative in their own ways, one quality that most Poe fans—certainly including me—find they all share is that, somehow, not a single one is quite satisfactory.  None has ever really captured the elusive dark essence of Poe’s unique style and vision. Perhaps the author is so totally sui generis that it’s simply impossible. But there is one largely forgotten medium that even devoted followers of Poe adaptations rarely encounter anymore: radio drama. And, though few realize it today, it’s here that some of the finest of all Poe adaptations have been created.

It’s true that there are mountains of audio readings of Poe, performed by everyone from Christopher Lee and Basil Rathbone to the most obscure of internet webcasters, and the best of these are quite effective. Poe’s tales lend themselves to oral recitation, in part because of their super-dramatic story content but also because they are most typically written in first person, a narrative mode ideal for the human voice. A first-person tale read aloud isn’t just a story; the reading creates the illusion that the narrator, the “I,” is there with us, telling us about the single most memorable thing that ever happened to him (Poe’s narrators are always male).  But to adapt such a narrative to an audio drama format, with character interactions, music, and sound effects, presents serious challenges. Many Poe stories, after all, feature little or no dialogue; a piece like “The Tell-Tale Heart” is essentially a monologue. What’s more, Poe’s narrators are often nameless and virtually without characterization beyond some odd quirk of personality that drives the plot forward. The “over-acuteness of the senses” of the narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a perfect example; other than that single oddity, we know almost nothing about him. Such elements can work in an oral reading but are problematic for a full-cast drama.

The creators of the so-called Golden Age of American Radio—generally thought to have run from around 1930 through the mid- to late 1950s—took up the challenge of adapting Poe many times, on many different programs. Lots of these broadcasts still exist today, and they often make for compelling listening. I would go so far as to say that some vintage radio adaptations of Poe’s stories surpass, both in fidelity to the source material and overall dramatic effectiveness, any film or TV version ever done of them. It’s true that the acting styles as well as the music on these broadcasts can seem dated, but anyone who enjoys the movies of this era can enjoy the radio dramas too. Some feature well-remembered stars of the time, and the commercials for products like Camel Cigarettes and Carter’s Little Liver Pills just add to the fun.

From the dozens of surviving programs there are to choose from, here are a few of my own favorite Golden Age radio adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe.

Suspense – “The Pit and Pendulum” (broadcast November 10, 1957).  Suspense was the longest-running thriller series of the entire Golden Age, lasting from 1942 to 1962. This version of Poe’s classic stars Vincent Price in a script adapted by mystery fiction legend John Dickson Carr. The Suspense musical theme, with its haunting funereal bells, is by the equally legendary film composer Bernard Herrmann.

Escape – “The Fall of the House of Usher” (October 31, 1947). Also a CBS production, Escape was a more adventure-oriented companion series to Suspense which ran from 1947 to 1954. Less star-studded than its more famous sister show, Escape at its best was nonetheless one of the great radio series of its time. The script is by prolific radio and TV scribe Les Crutchfield. Fans of old movies may recognize the distinctively deep voice of Paul Frees as the story’s narrator.

Mystery in the Air – “The Black Cat” (September 18, 1947). Mystery in the Air was a short-lived summer replacement series on NBC which has remained close to the hearts of old radio buffs because, as one commentator has noted, “it was more or less based on the premise that it would be entertaining to listen to Peter Lorre go insane once a week.” This adaptation of “The Black Cat” by radio producer/director Tom McKnight gives the histrionic Mr. Lorre free reign.

Inner Sanctum – “The Tell-Tale Heart” (August 3, 1941). Boris Karloff stars in this episode from perhaps the most iconic radio horror series of all time. The creaking door, the over-the-top spooky organ music, the sardonic host who regales us with gallows humor about the gruesome events in that night’s story…these all come from NBC’s Inner Sanctum, which ran from 1941 to 1952. Frequent series contributor Robert Newman supplies the script for this episode.

CBS Radio Mystery Theater – “The Masque of the Red Death” (January 10, 1975). Properly speaking, CBS Radio Mystery Theater was not a Golden Age show; it premiered in 1974 and ran to 1982. But as produced by Himan Brown, the man behind Inner Sanctum, it emerged as an effective coda or epilogue to that era. Longtime radio and early TV writer George Lowther supplies a script that is a very loose adaptation of the Poe story, with entirely new characters and situations, showing that sometimes the best adaptations are not necessarily the most literal ones. And it’s set in the futuristic year of 1996!

I hope you give a listen to some of these delightfully horrific shows.

Christopher Conlon discovered Edgar Allan Poe and old-time radio drama at around the same time, when he was about twelve years old. He’s loved both ever since. Conlon won the Bram Stoker Award for editing He Is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson, while Paste Magazine called his novel Savaging the Dark one of the fifty best horror books of all time. His Poe-themed titles include Annabel Lee, a novel; The Tell-Tale Soul, novellas; and Poe’s Lighthouse, an anthology of two dozen writers completing an unfinished fragment of a Poe story.