The Works of Edgar Allan Poe

by Edgar Allan Poe

In the preface of his poems, Edgar Allan Poe claimed that 'With me, poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion' and that 'I think nothing in this volume of much value to the public, or very creditable to myself'. Generations of poetry lovers would disagree.
The haunting and melancholy cadences of The Raven, Annabel Lee, To Helen and The City in the Sea hav entered the canon of truly memorable poetry whenever English is spoken. Poe's short and tragic life ended before he achieved the recognition that was his due; he was dismissed by Emerson as 'the jingle man', and in spite of his influence on poets such as Bierce, Crane, Rossetti and Swinburne, his reputation has to wait until the twentieth century before he was properly described by Yeats as 'always and for all lands a great lyric poet'.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Classics, Horror, Fantasy

106 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1995

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

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfortunately if you read this book in order front to back it leaves a bad taste in your mouth because the final section is Poe’s “novels” (only the Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is actually long enough to be considered a novel) and they are easily his worst works. All 3 are unbelievably boring and I couldn’t see the point of them, they each didn’t even really have a story (also 2 out of 3 of them were super racist.) Poe was definitely at his best when he stuck to short stories and poetry—definitely a writer that thrives on brevity. There are exceptions of course but I think in general with Poe’s work there’s a direct correlation between length and quality, with his shortest works being his best.

[Hellena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nagyon érdekes volt eredetiben Poe-verseket olvasni. Mindegyiket áthatja az a sajátos melankolikus hangulat, amelyet A hollóból már ismerhetünk. A nyelvezet időnként óangolba hajlik, már csak emiatt is különleges. A megértést nálam nem zavarta, de tény, hogy rá kell állni az ember agyának. Külön talán csak a színdarabot emelném ki, ezt is inkább azért, mert nekem Shakespeare jutott eszembe róla.

[David Donaghe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the third volume of The Works of Edgar Allan Poe that I have read. Everyone seems better than the last. All though Poe is known for his dark tales, I also enjoy his description and his sense of humor.

[Susan]

Classic.

[keong nakal · Rating 4 out of 5]

look for annabelle lee...

so deep...