The Complete Stories and Poems discussion

I've never read anything by Poe. I'm getting the Tell-Tale Heart and thinking of starting there.
Recommendations?

Anything by Poe is good. The Pit and The Pendulum, The Fall of the House of Usher. Just dive in and enjoy.

I love Poe. Find yourself a complete works collection and just start from the beginning.

Honestly The Raven is pure classic and is so eloquently written.

I second The Fall of the house of Usher.

The Tell-Tale Heart is by far my favorite; however, I enjoyed The Masque of Red Death as well.

It depends on what you want - detection or horror or a good suspense tale. For detection you can't beat The Purloined Letter. For horror, my favorite is the Fall of the House of Usher or The Black Cat. For good suspense, try The Cask of Amontillado.

I've gotten the Tales of Mystery and Terror!

Once you've finished with Poe, it's time to move on to H.P. Lovecraft.

Yeah? And what would you recommend?

Anything! At the Mountains of Madness is a good place to start.

At the Mountains of Madness and Other Tales of Terror

Will add it to my list!

I've always considered Poe to be a prelude to other authors. Good by itself, but it leads to better things in my opinion.

If you liked the horror tales, move on to Lovecraft. If you liked the detective stuff (The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Purloined Letter), move on to the Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Both Lovecraft and Doyle were heavily influenced by Poe by their own admission.

Poe is a gateway drug really :) Oh, and the French translations by Baudelaire are amazing. Better than the original if that's at all possible.

Reading this one right now too :) The Masque of the Red Death was gorgeous, very short, but powerful I thought. Of course The Raven and Annabel Lee too.

Do get a complete volume. Not only was Poe a master of horror, nuy he wrote some insanely funny stuff, too. Usher is kind of hard to start with though. I would jump in with something shorter and direct like Tell tale Heart, Cask of Amontillado, or Hop Frog.

The Tell-Tale Heart is a good place to start.

The Man Who Was All Used Up is good if you like being freaked out, though Poe's own life story, particularly its end, is a match for the macabreness of his fiction.

Berenice is my favorite by Poe. It has everything: Madness, obsession, love. It's a shorter one, but it absolutely does not disappoint. It's said that Poe had to revise and rewrite it because the original was too gruesome. I wish that I could have read that!

Masque of the Red Death and The Cask of Amontillado are my favorites. Not a word is wasted in either of those stories.

The Gold Bug is wonderful for a little different type of story. I remember seeing a television adaptation of this when I was a child and didn't remember it until I read the story.

From the poetry standpoint, of course The Raven. Annabell Lee is another that has really worked it's way into me.

Cask of Amontillado was on my freshman English reading list oh so many years ago and probably was my formal introduction to Poe. It still remains a favorite of mine. That's at least one thing I can thank my horrid high school for!

Anything, really! Both his poems and short stories are fantastic, and I think you can find some essays, literary criticism, and letters written by Poe as well, although I've never read any of those. His writing is fantastic!

A really interesting thing about Poe is that a number of his stories (and poems) are based on "perversity." It doesn't mean what we usually think. Perversity in Poe's stories relates to people being their own worst enemy. If you think about stories like The Tell Tale Heart and The Black Cat, in both, the murderer basically gives himself up because he can't keep his mouth shut. The best example is The Raven though. The narrator is convinced that the only thing the raven will say is "Nevermore," but each question he asks, if answered "nevermore" will make him unhappy. This idea shows up in lots of Poe's writing.

Fatin wrote: "I've never read anything by Poe. I'm getting the Tell-Tale Heart and thinking of starting there.
Recommendations?"
tell-tale heart is a good one."hop frog"
,try "the cask of amontiLLado" excuse spelling. then after those "the premature burial" like his poems? "THE CONQUEROR WORM" ITS IN THE STORY "LIGEIA" SOME BOOKS WILL HAVE IN WITH THE POEMS.YOU SHOULD GET THE COMPLETE WORK'S OF POE INSTEAD OF BUYING SINGLE STORIES