The Imp of the Perverse
Classic Literature on Radio
von Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Imp of the Perverse” explores a disturbing impulse: the urge to do what one knows will bring ruin. The story follows a man whose carefully concealed crime seems secure until an inexplicable compulsion begins to unsettle his confidence and drive him toward confession.
Presented as a radio adaptation of Poe’s tale, this is a compact work of psychological suspense, centered less on outward action than on the narrator’s reasoning and mounting inner turmoil. The listener is drawn into a first-person account that shifts from cool argument to increasingly urgent self-examination.
Poe’s dark, unsettling tone makes the story a natural fit for dramatic radio. Its tension comes from the clash between deliberate calculation and an irrational force within, leaving the listener with a chilling portrait of guilt and self-destruction.
This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.