Product Description

"Entire Tales & Poems of Edgar Allan Poe: Photographic & Annotated Edition" brings Poe to life as never before. It contains a great foreword by Andrew Barger and includes his annotations, word definitions, foreign language translations, and background information about Poe's stories and poems that provide insight into their underlying meaning. Photographs of Poe's many loves and the literary figures he satired in his stories are included. Poems sent to Poe by his many romantic interests and his poems in response are also provided. These are very telling about the man who was engaged three times and married to his thirteen-year-old first cousin. The poems are set forth so that readers can see the exchange of poetry from and to Poe as it unfolded a century and a half ago. Also included are five little-known Poe tales: "[The Bloodhounds]," "Cabs," "Morning on the Wissahiccon," "[The Rats of Park Theatre]," "Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison House," and "The Swiss Bell-Ringers." Here is but a sampling of the other remarkable tales and poems included: "Annabel Lee," "The Bells," "The Black Cat," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Conqueror Worm," "A Descent into the Maelstrom," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Gold-Bug," "The Haunted Palace," "Lenore," "The Masque of the Red Death," "MS. Found in a Bottle," "Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Oblong Box," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Premature Burial," "The Purloined Letter," "The Raven," "Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison House," "Some Words with a Mummy," "The Swiss Bell-Ringers," "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether," "The Tell-Tale Heart," "Thou Art the Man," and "Ulalume." If you are new to Edgar Allan Poe or already have a compilation of his sitting on your bookshelf, here is an opportunity to uniquely experience the poems and stories of the author who invented the mystery genre and defined the horror genre. Read the works of America's most brilliant and mysterious author as you never have before. Experience the Poe revival firsthand.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #508965 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

Customer Reviews

Our most misunderstood genius in a complete volume
Of course, as a student in middle school and high school, I read Poe in English class; The Purloined Letter, The Tell-Tale Heart, and my creepy-sinking-feeling-in-the-stomach favorite The Pit and the Pendulum. I was such a Poe fan that I memorized several poems including "Annabelle Lee" and "The Raven." Poe was a huge favorite also because he resided during the most influential period of his life in our own Philadelphia. Despite his ignominious death almost literally in a Baltimore gutter, he was kind of a local literary hero.

This book has not only the complete works, it has background interesting to the scholar or student; there is much background on the women to whom he wrote poetry. Stories are annotated, there are photos, and a very worthy foreward by Andrew Barger. While not a dry, heavily researched treatise, this book is a valuable reference and study on the entire works of Poe and if you were going to get a collected works of Poe, I'd recommend this above all others.

My only criticisms; I would have liked to have had a really in-depth biographical section and...the print is very small. While the volume is quite handy in size, the print for my (middle-aged) eyes is just hard to read, even with ye olde bifocals to read for pleasure. And I intend to re-read this book with much pleasure. It's plain after all these years that Poe is one of our greats, and deserves to be read and read often.

A few minor flaws, but overall a great collection
I don't think I need to actually review the works of Poe himself, as there is no doubt he was a literary genius.

I would have given this book 5 stars had it not been for 2 factors:

1) There are a few typos. Well, more than a few. In just flipping through the book, I came across several. Most notably in the introduction to "The Cask of Amontillado." Nothing too major, but annoying none the less.

2) The paper on which the book was printed is rather cheap. When I got it brand new in the mail, viewing the pages from the side, they almost looked warped as if they got damp. Again, not a major problem, but disappointing considering I paid over $30 for this book.

On the upside, this is an incredible collection of stories and poems of one of my personal favorite writers. The notes and back-stories to his works are interesting and insightful to say the least. They add so much more to the story.

Despite the 2 minor flaws of the book as mentioned above, it was well worth buying.

*Edit* Addressing some of the problems other reviewers had:

1) The print is rather small, but since I have 20/20 vision, it's not a problem for me, but it should be considered for people who aren't as lucky.

2) I agree with the review above. Calling it "photographic" is misleading. There are no high-gloss full-page photographs, just small (think thumbnail size on a computer) pictures that are of VERY low quality. The largest photo is of the editor on the dust cover. I wish I was joking.

The works themselves get a 5/5. The editing gets a 2/5, which as I mentioned above is a shame when you consider the cost of this tome.

Quoth the raven, evermore
I've always had a liking for Edgar Allan Poe, with his tales of horror, mystery and suspense, done in the atmospheric prose of a master writer. Since I live close enough, I've even made some trips to his gravesite, a place that is always surrounded by a sense of sadness.

Poe was a tormented genius who died young, under mysterious circumstances, and at the time of his death he wasn't deservingly popular. Certainly his work was not cute romances for the masses -- he explored the darkness of the human heart, love, satire, and the earliest whodunnit stories. And "Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe" brings together all of his poetry and writings in one book.

Poe's fiction writings include short stories and novellas, which tend to be rather weird -- a treasure-hunt and a golden insect, a ship caught in a whirlpool, a hypnotized man talks about the universe, and stories of despair, madness, and occasionally beauty. There is also his trilogy of Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin stories, which were the first to feature a brilliant detective solving an impossible crime.

Most people know about "The Raven" (which even has the Baltimore Ravens named after it) but Poe actually wrote a lot of poetry, most of which readers never heard of. Sometimes dark, or whimsical, or even both. "By a route obscure and lonely/Haunted by ill angels only/Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT/On a black throne reigns upright..."

And, of course, the horror. This is what Poe is best known for, including such well-known stories as "The Fall Of The House Of Usher." But there are also lesser-known gems -- tales of a plague invading a party, being buried alive, a portrait that siphoned the life out of its subject, and a nightly visit to an Italian crypt leading to madness.

Don't read "Complete Stories and Poems" all at once. It's too intense. It's better to soak it in a little at a time, so that you can get a better feel for the different kinds of writing that Poe did, and how he excelled at pretty much everything he put down on paper. Most great writers can't boast of that much.

Poe's writing is what makes even his least story or poem come alive -- he brought a gothic, misty vibrancy to his stories, and could make his quiet dialogue seem utterly chilling (" "I have no name in the regions which I inhabit. I was mortal, but am fiend..."). It's not hard to see why he was an influence on authors such as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Conan Doyle and Franz Kafka.

"Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe" is a must-have for anyone with an appreciation for great literature and beautiful, dark writing.