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The Raven: Tales and Poems
Part of a new six-volume series of the best in classic horror, selected by award-winning director Guillermo del Toro
The Raven: Tales and Poems is a landmark new anthology of Poe's work, which defied convention, shocked readers, and confounded critics. This selection of Poe's writings demonstrates the astonishing power and imagination with which he probed the darkest corners of the human mind. 'The Fall of the House of Usher' describes the final hours of a family tormented by tragedy and the legacy of the past. In 'The Tell Tale Heart,' a murderer's insane delusions threaten to betray him, while stories such as 'The Pit and the Pendulum' and 'The Cask of Amontillado' explore extreme states of decadence, fear and hate. The title narrative poem, maybe Poe's most famous work, follows a man's terrifying descent into madness after the loss of a lover.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 49), was born in Boston, USA. He was a short-story writer, editor and literary critic, and is considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor the detective-fiction genre.
The Raven: Tales and Poems is a landmark new anthology of Poe's work, which defied convention, shocked readers, and confounded critics. This selection of Poe's writings demonstrates the astonishing power and imagination with which he probed the darkest corners of the human mind. 'The Fall of the House of Usher' describes the final hours of a family tormented by tragedy and the legacy of the past. In 'The Tell Tale Heart,' a murderer's insane delusions threaten to betray him, while stories such as 'The Pit and the Pendulum' and 'The Cask of Amontillado' explore extreme states of decadence, fear and hate. The title narrative poem, maybe Poe's most famous work, follows a man's terrifying descent into madness after the loss of a lover.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 49), was born in Boston, USA. He was a short-story writer, editor and literary critic, and is considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor the detective-fiction genre.
312 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1849
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629 people want to read
About the author
Edgar Allan Poe
9,796 books28.7k followersThe 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...
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...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
March 2, 2020
[3.5] I read this Penguin Horror selection - edited by Guillermo del Toro and S.T. Joshi - in parallel with the Oxford World's Classics Selected Tales. The collections share fifteen stories. I found The Raven: Tales and Poems the weaker of the two in some ways.
Most importantly, as I prefer classics thoroughly annotated, The Raven: Tales and Poems was lacking that. To quote David van Leer, editor of the Oxford, "Poe's tales abound in recondite references, some of which seem chosen primarily for their mellifluous obscurity". Poe may be seen as pulpy, and not in the first rank of classics (as van Leer is almost counterproductively keen to emphasise, but in that respect he is also just similar to the majority of SFF fans I know, long-tired of the historic undervaluing of the genre by the literary world and liable to mention it frequently) - but frankly Poe's work needs annotations to get the most out of it, if you aren't acquainted with most of the French and German authors and philosophers, Arab antiquarians, Classical writers and 18th-century vocab he pulls in. A few reviews of this collection are from readers who struggled with references - notes would have helped them.
I also thought this collection suffered, both as a one-volume introduction to Poe, and in my own enjoyment levels, for not including any of the Auguste Dupin detective stories, especially 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue'. In the Oxford, I found myself reading this most quickly of any of the stories I hadn't previously read, which in probably reflects my preference for crime fiction over horror, and that I was a big Sherlock Holmes fan when I was younger. And surely anyone who is reading one book of selected Poe stories, and may not read another, should be given the opportunity to read that, one of his three best-known? (I had read the other two, 'The Masque of the Red Death' and 'The Fall of the House of Usher', years ago - probably the only Poe stories I'd read prior to autumn 2019.)
Among my main reasons for bothering with both collections was to get a flavour of Poe's poetry in this one. Early 19th-century poetry with line-end rhymes is not a favourite style of mine (I gave a volume of Keats 3 stars on here FFS), so you should look elsewhere for a less biased view on Poe's poetry. I tend to find poetry of this style and era emotionally unengaging, with its airy fantasy imagery, and so it was with most of these. Poe's rhymes were often heavily weighted towards end-stops, and I would cringe and think, perhaps unfairly, of McGonagall. He also repeats words too frequently; it is easy to imagine the poetaster stumped for rhymes and resorting to reusing the same word as the only way to keep going - or shoehorning in obscure names for the sake of a rhyme. A few of the more egregious lines:
For that wide circumference
In easy drapery falls
Drowsily over halls —
Over ruin’d walls —
Over waterfalls,
(Silent waterfalls!)
O'er the strange woods — o’er the sea —
Alas! over the sea! (from Fairy-Land)
Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides! (from 'The Valley of Unrest')
And, Guy De Vere, hast thou no tear?—weep now or never more!
See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!
(from 'Lenore')
I don't mind this as much though:
Their still waters—still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.
This sort of thing arguably prefigures the flowers out of season that set the scene for Dorian Gray, even if this instance is clumsy.
The two sonnets here, To Science and 'Silence' seemed decent, however, and did not provoke and cringing. In the most famous poems such as 'The Raven' itself, there was a lot more enjambment and, in general, a more sophisticated structure, although there were still a few rhymes I found overly obvious and clunky. But then, as I said, I am not an impartial judge of this sort of poetry.
(For all that Poe sometimes opposes Science and Poetry, 19th-century science, especially the amateur gentleman scientist, and medicine, are major themes of his, and mesmerism a particular motif. He seems to find it fascinating, though only infrequently do his narrators praise rationality outright, like the narrator of 'The Premature Burial', who is changed by a sort of accidental exposure therapy. So even whilst his sonnet is largely anti-science in sentiment, to decry the destruction of myth and mystery, the very idea, writing a sonnet to science, when sonnets often praise, is nonetheless apt.)
As I finished the Oxford collection, a couple of days after this one, another difference emerged. (I went back to the Oxford to read the stories not shared between the two collections - other than 'Rue Morgue' and 'Marie Roget', which I read alongside the shared tales.) It's probably nigh on impossible to present a feminist Poe via a substantial selection of his stories - but it is, on this evidence of these two books, possible to present one with minimal problematic racial stereotyping. While reading the selection used in The Raven: Tales and Poems, it seemed to me that Poe was less given than most white 19th century authors to slighting characterisations of people from other races - even if this was simply due to omission, as the stories were nearly all about white American or European characters. (Other than a resurrected Egyptian mummy, who is the intellectual and technological superior of his 19th-century interlocutors.) However, three of the tales in the Oxford that are not in The Raven: Tales & Poems could be objected to for race representations which are a significant part of each story, though there is worse out there from authors of this vintage - and two are open to more than one interpretation on disability issues, but have scope to be be taken as problematic by readers who were already finding Poe objectionable. For readers who want to avoid this type of content, The Raven: Tales & Poems is a better bet. However, the omissions could give a slightly misleading impression of Poe's modernity on these topics.
The last paragraph relates to contemporary American definitions to race in literature. Poe's settings in this collection still capitalise overwhelmingly on stereotyped characterisations of some European countries. The Black Legend of Spain is the engine behind one ('The Pit and the Pendulum'), and a few others make use of the old trope of Eastern Europe and the Austro-Hungarian Empire as exotically spooky and perhaps backward places, something I'd also just been hearing about in a Great Courses audio, History of Eastern Europe. (The best-known example for most people is Dracula.) But then kind of everywhere is spooky for/in Poe: also the English countryside, London, Norway, and numerous locations on the US Eastern Seaboard. Poe is altogether a very tropey writer. There are so many motifs and scenarios he repeats that they could justify a small site of poetropes, like tvtropes. Reading a lot of the stories in one go, as I hurried to finish these in the last days of October, emphasised the extent of the repetition.
It wasn't until I read Adam Thorpe's introduction to Zola's Thérèse Raquin - luckily, about a month before this book - that I heard about Poe's longstanding popularity in France and his influence on the Symbolists, as well as on Zola himself. If I hadn't known that going in to this collection, I may have been blindsided by the resemblance of these stories to the 1880s-1890s decadent and aesthetic movement, and not quite known what to make of it. There are numerous descriptions that felt more like Huysmans than anything I expected from a mid-19th century American. And altogether it often felt like something from 40-50 years after it was written: even before I'd read Rue Morgue, Poe's London felt like the London of Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper; several of the weird horror tales in their fascination, description and their skew-whiff structures that don't quite fit literary ideas of good taste, reminded me of British writers of the late 19th century, such as Arthur Machen. Only occasionally here does he indulge more characteristically American themes: sea voyages are one of those, anticipating Melville among others.
I find Poe's influence eerie: he's been lurking behind numerous works I've loved, some for over 30 years, and I had absolutely no idea until now - other than with the most obvious example, childhood favourite the Arabel and Mortimer stories by Joan Aiken, featuring a comedy pet raven who says 'Nevermore'. (However, I still haven't read any 18th-century gothic novels - only a parody in Northanger Abbey, and that not since my teens, nor E.T.A. Hoffman, - so there's an older lineage whose detail is still unfamiliar to me.) Years ago, I was fascinated by places I was at a loss to describe, and which, I now see, would have been best compared to a room from a Poe story. The youthful fascination with beguiling friends more interesting than oneself (or very occasionally the role is reversed, as in his stories, when one suspects one is like that to somebody else)… As a student and in my twenties I was looking for people like in The Secret History but not murderous, or in Brideshead but no need to be as rich or posh. That's a Poe thing, like some other aspects of those books, especially The Secret History: in Poe it's actually closer to the way I used to mean. If I'd known, I would have said I wished there were girls around who were as interesting and intellectual as Morella or Ligeia, because I was the sort of teenager who'd think, and possibly say a thing that, if there was anyone who'd get it actually to say it to. Poe was there in Wilde, in R.L. Stevenson, in later discoveries like Neil Gaiman, Le Grand Meaulnes, or, especially in some of his more sugary moments, Catherynne M. Valente, whose books I didn't like much. Maybe even The Royal Tenenbaums. I'd have said the perfume Black Orchid - before it became bafflingly ubiquitous - smelt like I'd always imagined the homes of certain of his characters to smell. The Anna Sui perfume bottle looked like something that would have been *in* their homes. (even if the scent was disappointingly dull.) Did he invent, or just repeat, those elaborate moving wall apparatuses seen in traps and tombs in adventure films and which used to be a favourite mental metaphor of mine? He even, in two stories here, shows intense interest in natural disasters - a whirlpool and a comet impact - and since I was a kid, historical natural disasters and extreme weather have been a periodic interest of mine. (If only Poe had lived long enough to see the Carrington Event, I bet he would have written an amazing account of it.) I never expected to see this kind of thing alongside all this ornate decadence. There's even time travel of a sort (in 'Some Words with a Mummy') - a favourite theme I rarely seem to indulge these days. And much of Poe's prose is, frankly, camp, and that was something I always loved too.
That all sounds like the conclusion to a five-star review, but as well as the poetry, there was also a fair bit in the stories that bored me: the long passages that sound like dusty old Victorian non-fiction essays, some of the metaphysical stuff; and though I see that some stories' odd, seemingly unfinished or storyless structures can be appreciated in the context of more recent experimental writing, I had a repeated "was that it?" feeling in response to several. Poe uses some utterly groanworthy comedy names; not OTT like Dickens, just bad-bad: for instance, the Egyptian mummy is named Allamistakeo. 'The Black Cat' was just really nasty in a bad way, and 'The Imp of the Perverse' annoyed me as an apparent overgeneralisation of Poe's own personality; I wondered whether, if he had lived longer, he might have conquered the perversity a bit. I can't quite decide whether I wish I'd read his stories in my teens, or if I'm glad I didn't until now: they would have given me metaphors I would instead grasp around for for decades, and meant I had another thing in common with full-scale goths; on the other hand, if I'd read these when I was younger, they would probably have exacerbated some dramatic tendencies that were bad enough already.
His influence and connection seemingly continues to extend. He can be linked to each of the three books I picked up since finishing this one. The day after, I started Gogol's Dead Souls. (Poe leading up to Hallowe'en, Dead Souls at All Saints and All Souls.) Poe and Gogol were both born in the same year, and died within three years of each other; I will have noticed these two bits of info before and made a connection subconsciously, but I didn't consciously know it at the time I decided to sequence the books. Then in a Gogol introduction I found a whole couple of paragraphs about further parallels between them, from dress sense to interests to personality traits and behaviours. (Someone should write an alternative history about what if they met - Gogol travelled plenty after all - and became BFFs and this meant they both lived longer.) It's obvious why an intro to The Scarlet Letter might mention Poe - both time and place of the authors is very close. But even one to Samuel Richardson's Pamela? He and Poe shared an interest in philosophical questions of identity, including the theories of John Locke. Coincidences, and disquisition upon them, are another favourite trope of Poe's (sadly he didn't use the lovelier word synchronicity) - so he would probably approve.
Most importantly, as I prefer classics thoroughly annotated, The Raven: Tales and Poems was lacking that. To quote David van Leer, editor of the Oxford, "Poe's tales abound in recondite references, some of which seem chosen primarily for their mellifluous obscurity". Poe may be seen as pulpy, and not in the first rank of classics (as van Leer is almost counterproductively keen to emphasise, but in that respect he is also just similar to the majority of SFF fans I know, long-tired of the historic undervaluing of the genre by the literary world and liable to mention it frequently) - but frankly Poe's work needs annotations to get the most out of it, if you aren't acquainted with most of the French and German authors and philosophers, Arab antiquarians, Classical writers and 18th-century vocab he pulls in. A few reviews of this collection are from readers who struggled with references - notes would have helped them.
I also thought this collection suffered, both as a one-volume introduction to Poe, and in my own enjoyment levels, for not including any of the Auguste Dupin detective stories, especially 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue'. In the Oxford, I found myself reading this most quickly of any of the stories I hadn't previously read, which in probably reflects my preference for crime fiction over horror, and that I was a big Sherlock Holmes fan when I was younger. And surely anyone who is reading one book of selected Poe stories, and may not read another, should be given the opportunity to read that, one of his three best-known? (I had read the other two, 'The Masque of the Red Death' and 'The Fall of the House of Usher', years ago - probably the only Poe stories I'd read prior to autumn 2019.)
Among my main reasons for bothering with both collections was to get a flavour of Poe's poetry in this one. Early 19th-century poetry with line-end rhymes is not a favourite style of mine (I gave a volume of Keats 3 stars on here FFS), so you should look elsewhere for a less biased view on Poe's poetry. I tend to find poetry of this style and era emotionally unengaging, with its airy fantasy imagery, and so it was with most of these. Poe's rhymes were often heavily weighted towards end-stops, and I would cringe and think, perhaps unfairly, of McGonagall. He also repeats words too frequently; it is easy to imagine the poetaster stumped for rhymes and resorting to reusing the same word as the only way to keep going - or shoehorning in obscure names for the sake of a rhyme. A few of the more egregious lines:
For that wide circumference
In easy drapery falls
Drowsily over halls —
Over ruin’d walls —
Over waterfalls,
(Silent waterfalls!)
O'er the strange woods — o’er the sea —
Alas! over the sea! (from Fairy-Land)
Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides! (from 'The Valley of Unrest')
And, Guy De Vere, hast thou no tear?—weep now or never more!
See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!
(from 'Lenore')
I don't mind this as much though:
Their still waters—still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.
This sort of thing arguably prefigures the flowers out of season that set the scene for Dorian Gray, even if this instance is clumsy.
The two sonnets here, To Science and 'Silence' seemed decent, however, and did not provoke and cringing. In the most famous poems such as 'The Raven' itself, there was a lot more enjambment and, in general, a more sophisticated structure, although there were still a few rhymes I found overly obvious and clunky. But then, as I said, I am not an impartial judge of this sort of poetry.
(For all that Poe sometimes opposes Science and Poetry, 19th-century science, especially the amateur gentleman scientist, and medicine, are major themes of his, and mesmerism a particular motif. He seems to find it fascinating, though only infrequently do his narrators praise rationality outright, like the narrator of 'The Premature Burial', who is changed by a sort of accidental exposure therapy. So even whilst his sonnet is largely anti-science in sentiment, to decry the destruction of myth and mystery, the very idea, writing a sonnet to science, when sonnets often praise, is nonetheless apt.)
As I finished the Oxford collection, a couple of days after this one, another difference emerged. (I went back to the Oxford to read the stories not shared between the two collections - other than 'Rue Morgue' and 'Marie Roget', which I read alongside the shared tales.) It's probably nigh on impossible to present a feminist Poe via a substantial selection of his stories - but it is, on this evidence of these two books, possible to present one with minimal problematic racial stereotyping. While reading the selection used in The Raven: Tales and Poems, it seemed to me that Poe was less given than most white 19th century authors to slighting characterisations of people from other races - even if this was simply due to omission, as the stories were nearly all about white American or European characters. (Other than a resurrected Egyptian mummy, who is the intellectual and technological superior of his 19th-century interlocutors.) However, three of the tales in the Oxford that are not in The Raven: Tales & Poems could be objected to for race representations which are a significant part of each story, though there is worse out there from authors of this vintage - and two are open to more than one interpretation on disability issues, but have scope to be be taken as problematic by readers who were already finding Poe objectionable. For readers who want to avoid this type of content, The Raven: Tales & Poems is a better bet. However, the omissions could give a slightly misleading impression of Poe's modernity on these topics.
The last paragraph relates to contemporary American definitions to race in literature. Poe's settings in this collection still capitalise overwhelmingly on stereotyped characterisations of some European countries. The Black Legend of Spain is the engine behind one ('The Pit and the Pendulum'), and a few others make use of the old trope of Eastern Europe and the Austro-Hungarian Empire as exotically spooky and perhaps backward places, something I'd also just been hearing about in a Great Courses audio, History of Eastern Europe. (The best-known example for most people is Dracula.) But then kind of everywhere is spooky for/in Poe: also the English countryside, London, Norway, and numerous locations on the US Eastern Seaboard. Poe is altogether a very tropey writer. There are so many motifs and scenarios he repeats that they could justify a small site of poetropes, like tvtropes. Reading a lot of the stories in one go, as I hurried to finish these in the last days of October, emphasised the extent of the repetition.
It wasn't until I read Adam Thorpe's introduction to Zola's Thérèse Raquin - luckily, about a month before this book - that I heard about Poe's longstanding popularity in France and his influence on the Symbolists, as well as on Zola himself. If I hadn't known that going in to this collection, I may have been blindsided by the resemblance of these stories to the 1880s-1890s decadent and aesthetic movement, and not quite known what to make of it. There are numerous descriptions that felt more like Huysmans than anything I expected from a mid-19th century American. And altogether it often felt like something from 40-50 years after it was written: even before I'd read Rue Morgue, Poe's London felt like the London of Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper; several of the weird horror tales in their fascination, description and their skew-whiff structures that don't quite fit literary ideas of good taste, reminded me of British writers of the late 19th century, such as Arthur Machen. Only occasionally here does he indulge more characteristically American themes: sea voyages are one of those, anticipating Melville among others.
I find Poe's influence eerie: he's been lurking behind numerous works I've loved, some for over 30 years, and I had absolutely no idea until now - other than with the most obvious example, childhood favourite the Arabel and Mortimer stories by Joan Aiken, featuring a comedy pet raven who says 'Nevermore'. (However, I still haven't read any 18th-century gothic novels - only a parody in Northanger Abbey, and that not since my teens, nor E.T.A. Hoffman, - so there's an older lineage whose detail is still unfamiliar to me.) Years ago, I was fascinated by places I was at a loss to describe, and which, I now see, would have been best compared to a room from a Poe story. The youthful fascination with beguiling friends more interesting than oneself (or very occasionally the role is reversed, as in his stories, when one suspects one is like that to somebody else)… As a student and in my twenties I was looking for people like in The Secret History but not murderous, or in Brideshead but no need to be as rich or posh. That's a Poe thing, like some other aspects of those books, especially The Secret History: in Poe it's actually closer to the way I used to mean. If I'd known, I would have said I wished there were girls around who were as interesting and intellectual as Morella or Ligeia, because I was the sort of teenager who'd think, and possibly say a thing that, if there was anyone who'd get it actually to say it to. Poe was there in Wilde, in R.L. Stevenson, in later discoveries like Neil Gaiman, Le Grand Meaulnes, or, especially in some of his more sugary moments, Catherynne M. Valente, whose books I didn't like much. Maybe even The Royal Tenenbaums. I'd have said the perfume Black Orchid - before it became bafflingly ubiquitous - smelt like I'd always imagined the homes of certain of his characters to smell. The Anna Sui perfume bottle looked like something that would have been *in* their homes. (even if the scent was disappointingly dull.) Did he invent, or just repeat, those elaborate moving wall apparatuses seen in traps and tombs in adventure films and which used to be a favourite mental metaphor of mine? He even, in two stories here, shows intense interest in natural disasters - a whirlpool and a comet impact - and since I was a kid, historical natural disasters and extreme weather have been a periodic interest of mine. (If only Poe had lived long enough to see the Carrington Event, I bet he would have written an amazing account of it.) I never expected to see this kind of thing alongside all this ornate decadence. There's even time travel of a sort (in 'Some Words with a Mummy') - a favourite theme I rarely seem to indulge these days. And much of Poe's prose is, frankly, camp, and that was something I always loved too.
That all sounds like the conclusion to a five-star review, but as well as the poetry, there was also a fair bit in the stories that bored me: the long passages that sound like dusty old Victorian non-fiction essays, some of the metaphysical stuff; and though I see that some stories' odd, seemingly unfinished or storyless structures can be appreciated in the context of more recent experimental writing, I had a repeated "was that it?" feeling in response to several. Poe uses some utterly groanworthy comedy names; not OTT like Dickens, just bad-bad: for instance, the Egyptian mummy is named Allamistakeo. 'The Black Cat' was just really nasty in a bad way, and 'The Imp of the Perverse' annoyed me as an apparent overgeneralisation of Poe's own personality; I wondered whether, if he had lived longer, he might have conquered the perversity a bit. I can't quite decide whether I wish I'd read his stories in my teens, or if I'm glad I didn't until now: they would have given me metaphors I would instead grasp around for for decades, and meant I had another thing in common with full-scale goths; on the other hand, if I'd read these when I was younger, they would probably have exacerbated some dramatic tendencies that were bad enough already.
His influence and connection seemingly continues to extend. He can be linked to each of the three books I picked up since finishing this one. The day after, I started Gogol's Dead Souls. (Poe leading up to Hallowe'en, Dead Souls at All Saints and All Souls.) Poe and Gogol were both born in the same year, and died within three years of each other; I will have noticed these two bits of info before and made a connection subconsciously, but I didn't consciously know it at the time I decided to sequence the books. Then in a Gogol introduction I found a whole couple of paragraphs about further parallels between them, from dress sense to interests to personality traits and behaviours. (Someone should write an alternative history about what if they met - Gogol travelled plenty after all - and became BFFs and this meant they both lived longer.) It's obvious why an intro to The Scarlet Letter might mention Poe - both time and place of the authors is very close. But even one to Samuel Richardson's Pamela? He and Poe shared an interest in philosophical questions of identity, including the theories of John Locke. Coincidences, and disquisition upon them, are another favourite trope of Poe's (sadly he didn't use the lovelier word synchronicity) - so he would probably approve.
August 13, 2016
The Raven debuted in 1845 to instant success, thanks to some smart circulating moves by Poe, himself. It put Poe in the center of the public eye after years of floundering, and into what we would describe today as "pop culture" celebrity.
It is a narrative in verse, telling the story of a black bird that sought shelter from tumultuous weather. It flew into a student's bedroom, frightening him from his sorrowful memories of his deceased mistress. The inconsolable lover curiously asked the bird's name to which it replied, "Nevermore." The lover soon realized that "what it utters is its only stock and store", but in his misguided desire for self torture, and driven by a superstitious sense, he continued to bombard the bird with questions that would only bring more suffering. The Raven is said to have its origins in myth- a messenger of bad news, referring to biblical text of a white bird turning to black when it failed to bring back its messages, or for that matter, "good" messages.
Every genuine author in a greater or lesser degree leaves in his works, whatever their design, traces of his personal character.
Poe confessed that the bird's master is a reflection of himself:
"Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore-
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never- nevermore'."
Poe was a huge admirer of Elizabeth Barrett (not yet Browning), so enthusiastic as to echo the complex rhyme and rhythm of her work. He praised Barrett's The Drama of Exile and Other Poems in his review published in The Broadway Journal in January 1845. On receiving a dedicated copy of The Raven from him, Barrett stated:
"Receiving a book from you seems to authorize or at least encourage me to try to express what I have long felt before- my sense of high honour you done to me in your country and mine, of the dedication of your poems..
Your "Raven" has produced a sensation, a "fit horror," here in England. Some of my friends are taken by the fear of it and some by the music. I hear of persons haunted by the " Nevermore."... think you would like to be told our great poet, Mr. Browning...was struck much by the rhythm of that poem."
The Raven was viewed with mixed reception by many of Poe's contemporaries. William Butler Yeats harshly described it as "insincere and vulgar."
The Southern Quarterly Review wrote in July 1848 that insignificant "rapping" on a door or a "fluttering" curtain would only affect "a child who had been frightened to the verge of idiocy by terrible ghost stories". Even in death, Poe was accused of plagiarism by his own friend Thomas Holley Chivers, who went so far as to say that the repeated mantra "nevermore" was of his own making.
For all its controversial beginnings, The Raven has been parodied in the silly and equally serious adaptations in all of media industry; it has been an enduring, iconoclastic work that has influenced the imaginations of the biggest writers of horror genre. It is one of the most memorable achievements of Edgar Allan Poe and probably the most contributory to his legacy.
full poem of The Raven posted at http://nicoleiam.booklikes.com/post/6...
It is a narrative in verse, telling the story of a black bird that sought shelter from tumultuous weather. It flew into a student's bedroom, frightening him from his sorrowful memories of his deceased mistress. The inconsolable lover curiously asked the bird's name to which it replied, "Nevermore." The lover soon realized that "what it utters is its only stock and store", but in his misguided desire for self torture, and driven by a superstitious sense, he continued to bombard the bird with questions that would only bring more suffering. The Raven is said to have its origins in myth- a messenger of bad news, referring to biblical text of a white bird turning to black when it failed to bring back its messages, or for that matter, "good" messages.
Every genuine author in a greater or lesser degree leaves in his works, whatever their design, traces of his personal character.
Poe confessed that the bird's master is a reflection of himself:
"Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore-
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never- nevermore'."
Poe was a huge admirer of Elizabeth Barrett (not yet Browning), so enthusiastic as to echo the complex rhyme and rhythm of her work. He praised Barrett's The Drama of Exile and Other Poems in his review published in The Broadway Journal in January 1845. On receiving a dedicated copy of The Raven from him, Barrett stated:
"Receiving a book from you seems to authorize or at least encourage me to try to express what I have long felt before- my sense of high honour you done to me in your country and mine, of the dedication of your poems..
Your "Raven" has produced a sensation, a "fit horror," here in England. Some of my friends are taken by the fear of it and some by the music. I hear of persons haunted by the " Nevermore."... think you would like to be told our great poet, Mr. Browning...was struck much by the rhythm of that poem."
The Raven was viewed with mixed reception by many of Poe's contemporaries. William Butler Yeats harshly described it as "insincere and vulgar."
The Southern Quarterly Review wrote in July 1848 that insignificant "rapping" on a door or a "fluttering" curtain would only affect "a child who had been frightened to the verge of idiocy by terrible ghost stories". Even in death, Poe was accused of plagiarism by his own friend Thomas Holley Chivers, who went so far as to say that the repeated mantra "nevermore" was of his own making.
For all its controversial beginnings, The Raven has been parodied in the silly and equally serious adaptations in all of media industry; it has been an enduring, iconoclastic work that has influenced the imaginations of the biggest writers of horror genre. It is one of the most memorable achievements of Edgar Allan Poe and probably the most contributory to his legacy.
full poem of The Raven posted at http://nicoleiam.booklikes.com/post/6...
November 3, 2015
I love reading Edgar Allan Poe's stories and poems; I also loved how this anthology fit together wonderfully!
December 4, 2023
Whenever the subject of literary horror comes arises the name Poe is sure to follow. For good reason. The guy's writing is creepy as hell.
Poe's language is florid and ornate as was the literary fashion of the time. But instead of being tedious or boring Poe's prose never fail to engage the reader with his ever present gloom. Gothic horror abounds with lots of fog, old castles, and strange noises. Plus, as any reader will note, Poe's affinity for deathly ill, pale, frail, and fading, young women is on full display.
The stories vary in their impact. Some end predictably but still grimly. Most are great gothic horror stories created to creep you out. And to this very day they still succeed.
Poe's language is florid and ornate as was the literary fashion of the time. But instead of being tedious or boring Poe's prose never fail to engage the reader with his ever present gloom. Gothic horror abounds with lots of fog, old castles, and strange noises. Plus, as any reader will note, Poe's affinity for deathly ill, pale, frail, and fading, young women is on full display.
The stories vary in their impact. Some end predictably but still grimly. Most are great gothic horror stories created to creep you out. And to this very day they still succeed.
October 28, 2024
this was an interesting collection, especially since there was a mix of works by poe i had read and ones i hadn't (or... you know, i haven't read poe extensively, so i guess it's more works i've heard of and ones i hadn't?) but i do wish there were annotations in this. poe, of course, nails atmosphere and his work just feels so gloomy, though i admit there were a couple of the short stories where i felt a little lost (again, i think this is because i would have benefited from having a copy with footnotes and annotations). regardless, i thought this was a good collection, and the introduction from del toro is fun
November 4, 2023
After recently watching Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher on Netflix, I was eager to pick up this anthology again. It’s been several years since I last read Poe’s poems and short stories, but they still thrill me after all this time! Wonderfully spooky and simply beautiful all around.
October 13, 2018
I’ve been enjoying this slowly over the last couple of weeks. I scheduled it so I would be reading it the anniversary of Poe’s death on the 7th.
I’ve probably read most of these pieces dozens of times but one of the things I love about re-reading excellent literature is that one gets something different from it with each reading. One’s frame of mind, age, and place in life all play a part in affecting one’s perception of the work. On this reading, I was especially struck by the poem, [Alone]. I also enjoyed the tale, Eleonora, more than ever before.
Poe remains one of the greats. It is sometimes difficult to believe he was writing almost 200 years ago. I identify so closely with his work as a 21st century human. It is timeless.
I’ve probably read most of these pieces dozens of times but one of the things I love about re-reading excellent literature is that one gets something different from it with each reading. One’s frame of mind, age, and place in life all play a part in affecting one’s perception of the work. On this reading, I was especially struck by the poem, [Alone]. I also enjoyed the tale, Eleonora, more than ever before.
Poe remains one of the greats. It is sometimes difficult to believe he was writing almost 200 years ago. I identify so closely with his work as a 21st century human. It is timeless.
January 8, 2026
DNF 😔
Edgar Allan Poe is incredibly deep! I must start with that. I must give the granddaddy of horror his flowers; he deserves it and more. I didn’t think his stories would be as effective as they were; being written in the 1800s. I was pleasantly surprised; “The Black Cat” had me choking up, “The Fall of the House of Usher” had me creeped out, and “The Pit and the Pendulum” left me cringing. Of course, “The Raven” is an absolute classic, and I can see why.
Unfortunately, in the middle of “The Premature Burial” I just gave up altogether. Some stories were awesome, while others left me begging him to get to the point! The old English too was sometimes hard to follow. I’ve spent eight days reading this book but it’s felt like it’s been forever!
I’m bummed this anthology is one I wasn’t able to get through.
One day, I will definitely come back to it and finish the last 4-5 stories, but right now, I have two other books that I’m so ready to move on to.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Edgar Allan Poe, but some stories were A LOT better than others.
Edgar Allan Poe is incredibly deep! I must start with that. I must give the granddaddy of horror his flowers; he deserves it and more. I didn’t think his stories would be as effective as they were; being written in the 1800s. I was pleasantly surprised; “The Black Cat” had me choking up, “The Fall of the House of Usher” had me creeped out, and “The Pit and the Pendulum” left me cringing. Of course, “The Raven” is an absolute classic, and I can see why.
Unfortunately, in the middle of “The Premature Burial” I just gave up altogether. Some stories were awesome, while others left me begging him to get to the point! The old English too was sometimes hard to follow. I’ve spent eight days reading this book but it’s felt like it’s been forever!
I’m bummed this anthology is one I wasn’t able to get through.
One day, I will definitely come back to it and finish the last 4-5 stories, but right now, I have two other books that I’m so ready to move on to.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Edgar Allan Poe, but some stories were A LOT better than others.
September 18, 2023
My introduction to Poe as a kid was a short story collection which contained only 3 of his stories - The Tell Tale Heart, The Fall of the House of Usher and The Cask of Amontillado. Now I know why. Because the rest of his work, including his poems are just slightly varied versions of the same tale over and over and over again - women dying and something weird/possibly supernatural happening out of it. Come to think of it, Usher falls into the same trope as well. New favorites - The Black Cat and the poem The Raven. Poe's work is full of triggers and if I wasn't trying to finish my TBR pile I would have stopped reading this almost as soon as I started. My aforementioned 3 short stories continue to remain my all time favorites.
October 31, 2025
This is such a mixed bag. This collection contains a multitude of short stories and poems - some I clicked with, others not so much. Poe is at his best exploring new themes and developing atmosphere, but his writing can be indulgent with run-on sentences. There also are a lot in here that tackle the same themes over and over again, making it repetitive.
Still, there are some GREAT ones in here:
Stories
- Morella, Ligeia, House of Usher, William Wilson, Eiros and Charmion, Masque of Red Death, Tell Tale Heart
Poems
- To Science, City in the Sea, Lenore, The Raven, The Bells, For Annie, Annabel Lee
Still, there are some GREAT ones in here:
Stories
- Morella, Ligeia, House of Usher, William Wilson, Eiros and Charmion, Masque of Red Death, Tell Tale Heart
Poems
- To Science, City in the Sea, Lenore, The Raven, The Bells, For Annie, Annabel Lee
January 8, 2020
Once in a while I like to revisit the works of Poe, and it had been several years since I had read anything by him. This volume contains some of his best-known stories ("The Tell-Tale heart," "The Black Cat," "The Pit and the Pendulum,""The Cask of Amontillado," "The Premature Burial") as well as some of his less famous ones ("Shadow - A Parable," "The Imp of the Perverse," "Ho-Frog" to name a few). Plus a nice selection of his poems. And this edition (part of the Penguin Horror six-volume set) is quite attractive.
October 30, 2020
This was very enjoyable for me. As its a collection of short stories it is difficult to give the whole book 5* as not every story was a 5*. I enjoyed that 13/25 story were brand new to me and I had never come across them when reading other Edgar Allan Poe. Some stand outs for me were, 'MS. Found in a Bottle, Silence - A Fable, The Pit and the Pendulum and The Black Cat'. They ranged from murder, ghosts to storms at night. I loved EAP's writing style, interesting stories, great atmosphere, amazing. Overall I will absolutely be continuing to read other EAP's other works.
October 6, 2025
3.5 stars. Yes, I know Poe is objectively a good writer and yes it’s probably the quintessential modern gothic but this was a tedious and unfun read. His poems and short stories that are well known are well known for good reason, the others….
Baring the odd revisiting of certain stories, I think I am finished with Poe.
“Poor Edgar Allan Poe suffered so much, now we’ve all got to suffer with him.”
Baring the odd revisiting of certain stories, I think I am finished with Poe.
“Poor Edgar Allan Poe suffered so much, now we’ve all got to suffer with him.”
July 7, 2022
I own the entire penguin horror book collection. Must buy! Guillermo del Toro's writing style (in the introduction) is incredibly absorbing. It flows and is detailed, yet concise. I'm going to give ratings with the other books, including this message.
Read
October 31, 2022DNF 20%
Bon...... 😬
Quelle déception. Quelle perte de temps. Quelle perte d'énergie. Silence, a fable; The fall of the house of Usher et The tell-tale heart sont super, mais le reste c'est chiant. Désolé Poe, c'est juste chiant ce que tu racontes.
Bon...... 😬
Quelle déception. Quelle perte de temps. Quelle perte d'énergie. Silence, a fable; The fall of the house of Usher et The tell-tale heart sont super, mais le reste c'est chiant. Désolé Poe, c'est juste chiant ce que tu racontes.
October 11, 2020
Overall I thought this was a pretty good collection. I enjoyed some of his more well known stories and poems. I'd be interested to read more of his work.
November 1, 2022
How can you pass up some Poe?!
May 3, 2023
Review is coming, probably. Be patient.
//
Recensione in arrivo, probabilmente. Abbiate pazienza.
//
Recensione in arrivo, probabilmente. Abbiate pazienza.
November 2, 2023
the poetry gets a collective 5/5 because i'm feeling nice.
3/5 stars
3/5 stars
December 25, 2023
Edgar Allan Poe is a great author with stories and poetry. He creates illusion with mysterious effects on the readers on how people think critically.
June 2, 2023
Never have I analyzed a writer as much as I did this month for Poe. And it was necessary: if I hadn't, most of the stories would simply go above my head.
Finding that sweet spot in the day to read this was hard, because after work and before bed, the book was simply too difficult. This lead to mostly me reading this in weekends. And even then I relied on audio samples during, to keep me focused, and Sparknote analyses afterwards, to make me comprehend. On top of this, I also read about Poe's life and death to comprehend where the stories align with his personal toils.
My favorite stories: The Black Cat, The Telltale Heart, Berenice, The mask of the Red Death, Eleonora
My favorite poems: Science - a sonnet, Annabel Lee and of course
The Raven, which truly shows Poe's poems pwns posers. I highly recommend Christopher Lee's reading of this art piece on Youtube. Hauntingly beautiful.
I am happy I got to know Poe during the span of a month. But being such a reading chore to get through, I have to say it feels aged. And the themes tend to align after a while: a dying/dead woman and a premature burial. Will I ever read this book again?
Quoth the raven
I don't know, probably not
Finding that sweet spot in the day to read this was hard, because after work and before bed, the book was simply too difficult. This lead to mostly me reading this in weekends. And even then I relied on audio samples during, to keep me focused, and Sparknote analyses afterwards, to make me comprehend. On top of this, I also read about Poe's life and death to comprehend where the stories align with his personal toils.
My favorite stories: The Black Cat, The Telltale Heart, Berenice, The mask of the Red Death, Eleonora
My favorite poems: Science - a sonnet, Annabel Lee and of course
The Raven, which truly shows Poe's poems pwns posers. I highly recommend Christopher Lee's reading of this art piece on Youtube. Hauntingly beautiful.
I am happy I got to know Poe during the span of a month. But being such a reading chore to get through, I have to say it feels aged. And the themes tend to align after a while: a dying/dead woman and a premature burial. Will I ever read this book again?
Quoth the raven
I don't know, probably not
February 6, 2018
About:
The Raven Tales and Poems is a collection of short stories and poetry written by Edgar Allen Poe. Everything in this collection was written between the years 1827 and 1849. Poe was a master of the macabre and all of these stories and poems have something creepy about them in one way or another.
Did I Like It?:
Yes I did. I didn’t love it, but I found most of these stories to be quite interesting and never really found myself bored at any point. This collection was mostly made up of short stories and there really wasn’t that much poetry. That’s a good thing, because while I found his stories interesting I wasn’t actually a big fan of Poe’s poems. Poe’s stories were all well constructed and atmospheric though.
Favorite Stories:
My two favorite stories were Ligeia and The Fall of the House of Usher. Ligeia is a bit of a creepy love story with it’s main theme being ‘the will to live’. I won’t say more, but it had that gothic atmosphere and yet an interesting and profound topic. The Fall of the House of Usher was wonderfully atmospheric as well and I liked the ambiguity of it. Ms. Found in a Bottle is another story I liked, an earlier one of Poe’s with a touch of seafaring adventure that had something in it that reminded me a bit of Pirates of the Caribbean. I also liked the ‘doppelgänger’ story of William Wilson. The Masque of the Red Death was a little on the shorter side, but had wonderful atmosphere and description. Some Words with a Mummy I found to be a surprisingly comedic story with a bizarre premise. The last story that stood out to me was The Cask of Amontillado. On a surface level I don’t find it that interesting, but reading it as Poe grappling with his alcoholism, I found made me question it more and find it interesting.
Do I Recommend It?:
Yes, if this sounds like something of interest. If you like gothic fiction/ horror and are particularly desirous of reading classics of those genres, I think you should pick this up. I also really liked this edition. It had all Poe’s most famous stories along with some other ones and a taste of poetry. I thought it was a well compiled edition.
The Raven Tales and Poems is a collection of short stories and poetry written by Edgar Allen Poe. Everything in this collection was written between the years 1827 and 1849. Poe was a master of the macabre and all of these stories and poems have something creepy about them in one way or another.
Did I Like It?:
Yes I did. I didn’t love it, but I found most of these stories to be quite interesting and never really found myself bored at any point. This collection was mostly made up of short stories and there really wasn’t that much poetry. That’s a good thing, because while I found his stories interesting I wasn’t actually a big fan of Poe’s poems. Poe’s stories were all well constructed and atmospheric though.
Favorite Stories:
My two favorite stories were Ligeia and The Fall of the House of Usher. Ligeia is a bit of a creepy love story with it’s main theme being ‘the will to live’. I won’t say more, but it had that gothic atmosphere and yet an interesting and profound topic. The Fall of the House of Usher was wonderfully atmospheric as well and I liked the ambiguity of it. Ms. Found in a Bottle is another story I liked, an earlier one of Poe’s with a touch of seafaring adventure that had something in it that reminded me a bit of Pirates of the Caribbean. I also liked the ‘doppelgänger’ story of William Wilson. The Masque of the Red Death was a little on the shorter side, but had wonderful atmosphere and description. Some Words with a Mummy I found to be a surprisingly comedic story with a bizarre premise. The last story that stood out to me was The Cask of Amontillado. On a surface level I don’t find it that interesting, but reading it as Poe grappling with his alcoholism, I found made me question it more and find it interesting.
Do I Recommend It?:
Yes, if this sounds like something of interest. If you like gothic fiction/ horror and are particularly desirous of reading classics of those genres, I think you should pick this up. I also really liked this edition. It had all Poe’s most famous stories along with some other ones and a taste of poetry. I thought it was a well compiled edition.
May 23, 2017
Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories and poems master language and tone, producing vivid complex characters who withdraw from the world--literally, psychologically, and/or emotionally--resulting in their own self-destruction through isolation and loneliness. Poe's attention to detail (via environment, subject matter, and action) summon internal conflicts (manifested through narrative description) revealing fantastical dark worlds residing within the heart and psyche. This edition--including a brilliant and insightful introduction by Guillermo Del Toro--presents this writer’s legacy as a Gothic Innovator who placed the castles, abbeys, and corridors within the human mind spearheading Detective Fiction (a world of individuals balancing infatuation and aversion for the disturbed).
Want to read
February 13, 2017There are a thousand collections of Poe's work out there, and now I own 2 copies. And while I have misplaced the first, I absolutely adore it, as it's over 100 years old.
This work is the second copy I own, but it's absolutely gorgeous, and as soon as I saw it, I new I needed to own it, absolutely HAD to have it. This volume of Poe's work is absolutely gorgeous, with the black leafing on the page edges, and the gorgeous matte cover, even the title headings on the pages is set in a type face I love.
This book is just gorgeous. I'm in love with it.
Now if only I could find that edition I have from 1892...
This work is the second copy I own, but it's absolutely gorgeous, and as soon as I saw it, I new I needed to own it, absolutely HAD to have it. This volume of Poe's work is absolutely gorgeous, with the black leafing on the page edges, and the gorgeous matte cover, even the title headings on the pages is set in a type face I love.
This book is just gorgeous. I'm in love with it.
Now if only I could find that edition I have from 1892...
October 31, 2017
It breaks my heart to say it but I didn't love this as much as I'd hoped I would! I really liked Poe's poetry but I struggled with some of his stories; the language was quite difficult and a lot went way over my head at times. I think trying to read all of Poe's work in one go was the wrong approach and that a better way to go about it would be to try it in small chunks at a time. However, there were some gems in there; I loved Hopfrog and obviously the titular poem is fabulous. I'll try to come back to this in the future.
January 28, 2015
I didn't expect to actually understand most of what I read, and I didn't. What I did understand was pretty interesting, but (maybe it's the not understanding or the fact that it's not the 1800's anymore) I didn't find it scary or disturbing. I was hoping the "horror" part of Penguin Horror would be a lot scarier. Hoping to have better results with other books in the series.
July 2, 2016
I struggled with the stories in this book. Maybe if you read them analytically they have hidden messages, but just reading them for the sake of reading was hard. I found most of them odd and sort of pointless. That said, I loved the poetry. I have never had much exposure to EAP's poetry, and I am officially a fan.
November 4, 2016
I had intended to read this in its entirety, but after a few of the short stories, I quickly realized I don't really enjoy Poe's writing all that much. It's quite long winded, so while I enjoy the more popular stories, the lesser knowns are now fine for me to leave off. I like the book itself, with black edging that ombres the pages. It has his poetry at the end as well, which is enjoyable.
February 20, 2018
I've always admired and loved and have been haunted by Poe's horror tales. Rarely had I read any of his stranger, metaphysical tales and seeing them collected into a single volume is illustrative of how unique a writer he was. Not everything hits with everyone and some of the "weirder" tales feel stuffy, but Poe has no equal.
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