Writing by Poe / Translation by Baudelaire: A French/English Dual-Language Book

by Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire (Translator)

This dual-language book includes works of Poe and translations by Baudelaire on facing pages, with paragraphs aligned, so it is easy to read the English and French translation at the same time. French critics have long considered Edgar Allen Poe one of the greatest writers in the English language—and that may be because they read his works in translations by one of the greatest writers in the French language, Charles Baudelaire. Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849) was an American poet and story writer, known for poems like “The Raven” and stories like “The Pit and the Pendulum,” both of which are included in this book. He is one of the inventors of the horror story and of the mystery story. On October 3, 1849, he was found wandering the streets of Baltimore raving deliriously and wearing clothes that were not his own; he died four days later. Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) was one of the most important nineteenth-century French poets, famous for Fleurs de Mal (Flowers of Evil) , a collection of his lyric poems, and for other poems and prose-poems. In 1847, he discovered Poe’s works, which he said had long existed in his own mind but which he had never written. During the next eighteen years, he spend much of his time translating Poe. By 1859, his health had declined because of his use of opium, his excessive drinking, and stress from his financial difficulties. He had a stroke in 1866 and was paralyzed until his death in 1867.

Genres: Classics, Short Stories, Fiction, Horror, Novels, Mystery Thriller

146 pages, Paperback

First published April 27, 2012

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

[Fanny · Rating 4 out of 5]

"sei que a perversidade é um dos instintos primitivos do coração humano - uma das faculdades ou sentimentos primários indivisíveis que orientam o caráter do homem"

Esse foi o meu primeiro contato com o Edgar, e nossa, que leitura INCRÍVEL, e a escrita mais ainda, estou apaixono pelo modo como ele escreve, foi uma leitura muito boa e satisfatória. 🥰🥰🥰🥰

[hernán gómez · Rating 1 out of 5]

Libro mal estructurado

Es lamentable la configuración del libro, se repiten muy seguido los mismos títulos. Se debe tener cuidado para la venta, es falta de respeto considero.

[Schawn schoepke · Rating 3 out of 5]

You know I read many of these in high school and I liked them then much more than I did this time around. I had forgotten some of the stories but feel in my older age they could have been culled down. Dont get me wrong though I still enjoyed most of them......