The Works of Edgar Allen Poe - The Complete Tales of Mystery and Imagination; the Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, the Raven and Other Poems (Complete and Unabridged)

by Edgar Allan Poe

Librarian's this is an alternate cover edition - ISBN 10: 0706415523This edition first published in the United States of America in 1984 by Octopus Books LImited.This edition reprinted 1985.Copyright (c) 1981 Introduction, arrangement and illustrations Octopus Books Limited.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Horror, Poetry, Anthologies, Short Stories, Mystery

782 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1981

About the author

The name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and The Fall of the House of Usher. This versatile writer’s oeuvre includes short stories, poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe’s reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry.

Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.

The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...

Reviews

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally, after owning this book for 28 years, I worked my way through all of Poe's works -- and love him more now than ever before.

I now recognize his brilliance in a different way. Yes, there are the wicked, macabre tales that are classic Poe. But, he also was a maestro of sci-fi, mystery, adventure and romance. And talk about humor -- The Spectacles is now one of my favorites!

[MaterialistAtheist · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poe has such a great writing style. He is probably the greatest short story writer of all time. My favourites are his detective stories which directly inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. If you are a fan of 19th century literature, then I highly recommend this collection of his short stories.

[Ana Belén · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poe jamás decepciona, sin embargo, debo admitir que me costó un poco terminar este libro, no disfruté de todos los datos referentes a la navegación y navíos y eso disminuyó mi interés. Calificación final: 3.4

[Dirk Grobbelaar · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's nothing I can say about Poe that hasn't already been said. Some of these stories are obviously quite dark, but I was surprised at the amount of hilarity he managed to inject in others.

Not sure if anybody could ever rival Poe for sheer intensity.

[emi · Rating 1 out of 5]

plictisitor prost scris si enervant (+ ORIBIL de rasist)

[Joy]

Henry James said, "An enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection." I think it is the primitive nature of Poe's writing that captures readers. He reaches 'back to the basics' if you will. He realizes that the mind and the body are connected and man can never escape the animal instinct so many authors are trying to hide.

Poe's willingness to enter into the realm of the grotesque and the way in which he presents his characters make his works creepy, even though modern audiences seem to be jaded by all the gratuitous horror movies.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read: The Raven and Other Poems - 4 stars, Annabel Lee definitely my favourite. 6 March 2009.

[Monk Fish · Rating 4 out of 5]

excellent variety

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so much fun to read! I recommend this to anyone who's a Poe fan.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great stories in a great format.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-visiting a dear old friend.

[HiBa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A novel consistiny of short stories with sequential events and easy language, I personally liked it and the member of stories included in it, it can be finished in just one sitting.