"Edgar Allen Poe - The Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume 4" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

The Devil in the Belfry
Lionizing
X-ing a Paragrab
Metzengerstein
The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether
The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq.
How to Write a Blackwood article
A Predicament
Mystification
Diddling
The Angel of the Odd
Mellonia Tauta
The Duc de l'Omlette
The Oblong Box
Loss of Breath
The Man That Was Used Up
The Business Man
The Landscape Garden
Maelzel's Chess-Player
The Power of Words
The Colloquy of Monas and Una
The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion
Shadow.--A Parable

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THE DEVIL IN THE BELFRY

What o'clock is it? -- _Old Saying_.

EVERYBODY knows, in a general way, that the finest place in the world
is -- or, alas, was -- the Dutch borough of Vondervotteimittiss. Yet
as it lies some distance from any of the main roads, being in a
somewhat out-of-the-way situation, there are perhaps very few of my
readers who have ever paid it a visit. For the benefit of those who
have not, therefore, it will be only proper that I should enter into
some account of it. And this is indeed the more necessary, as with
the hope of enlisting public sympathy in behalf of the inhabitants, I
design here to give a history of the calamitous events which have so
lately occurred within its limits. No one who knows me will doubt
that the duty thus self-imposed will be executed to the best of my
ability, with all that rigid impartiality, all that cautious
examination into facts, and diligent collation of authorities, which
should ever distinguish him who aspires to the title of historian.

By the united aid of medals, manuscripts, and inscriptions, I am
enabled to say, positively, that the borough of Vondervotteimittiss
has existed, from its origin, in precisely the same condition which
it at present preserves. Of the date of this origin, however, I