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The Complete Tales and Poems

4.36 of 5 stars 4.36 · rating details · 102,703 ratings · 1,267 reviews

Edgar Allan Poe is credited with having pioneered the short story, having perfected the tale of psychological horror, and having revolutionized modern poetics. The entirety of Poe's body of imaginative work encompasses detective tales, satires, fables, fantasies, science fiction, verse dramas, and some of the most evocative poetry in the English language. This leatherbound...more

Leather Bound, 1023 pages

Published March 30th 2008 by Barnes and Noble (first published 2006)

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The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

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The Complete Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe

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May 11, 2009 Suvi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: _book-shelf, short-stories, poetry, _1001-before-you-die, 1800-1849, novels, _favorites, horror, _north-america

Me and Edgar first encountered each other in seventh grade, when I was 13. I think it was love at first sight when we read one of the short story collections. Not only they were morbid and depicted the horrible nature of evil I thought he himself was like one of his tragic characters. This edition was a great chance to finish the rest that I hadn't come across. Illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley, Harry Clarke etc.

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Jan 04, 2008 Mark rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone wanting to know exhilaration without being immersed in disgust.

Shelves: poetry, fiction, fun-and-play

How could I not love this book? Shortly after reading Poe's complete works as a teenager, my family was transferred to Fort Monroe in southern Virginia. While waiting for permanent housing, I ended up staying in the house (and the very bedroom) that Poe had been in while he served on the base. Pulling out this book and reading it in the very space where Poe had suffered through depression and anxiety was exhilarating. While I realized the morbid nature of my glee, it somehow seemed appropriate a...more

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Nov 25, 2008 Bailey Jane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: teens, young adults, college, men, women, adults

Recommended to Bailey Jane by: Jane Sherry

Definitely not light reading, but perfect for the fall and winter. My grandmother bought this leatherbound collection for me when I was 12 or so and it took me 5 years or so to read it in its completion. I have to be in the mood to read Poe, but when I am it's the best reading in the world. Very dark and poetic. Great stories, and each story is just short enough to maintain attention span. I recommend this to anyone who appreciates a challenging read.

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Oct 20, 2012 Henry Avila rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Edgar Allan Poe, is best known for the Raven,still the greatest and most famous American poem ever written(in my opinion).Inventor of the detective story, master of the short story, especially the macabre, writer,editor , critic,essayist,gambler,beggar, drunk,drug user,widower, and manic depressive.In other words, an American original. Poe's only novel,in 1838, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, is included in this book.Young Pym befriends Augustus, the son of a sea captain. Wantin...more

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May 25, 2008 John Wiswell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Horror readers, horror writers, poetry readers, gothic readers

Holy crap, it’s a brick of brilliance! This doorstop-sized volume contains the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe. The poetry, the essays, the short stories – you got it here.

Holy crap.

Pick this up and skim a few of his works and you’ll know whether or not you want it. If you’re studying authors, though, why wouldn’t you get this? It gives you unparalleled access to the complete artistic thoughts of one of America’s most important early writers.

In reading this I was surprised by how many good one...more

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Jan 08, 2012 Elizabeth Pyjov marked it as for-later · review of another edition

Shelves: american-lit

'' If I felt any emotion at all, it was a kind of chuckling satisfaction at the cleverness I was about to display in extricating myself from this dilemma; and I never, for a moment, looked upon my ultimate safety as a question susceptible of doubt''

♫ "He finally made me a low bow and departed, wishing me, in the language of the archbishop in "Gil Bias," beaucoup de bonheur et un peu plus de bon sens"

My favorite quotes about Edgar Allan Poe: (there are a lot, but I found them very interesting, wr...more

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Nov 30, 2007 Keely rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-story, horror, mystery, reviewed, gothic, poetry, american

Not many people outside of literary study or detective fiction fandom realize that the character of Sherlock Holmes was inspired by Poe's Dupin. Dupin was the brilliant and insightful idle noble who occasionally aided the authorities in particularly difficult cases. However, unlike Holmes, Dupin took it up merely as a hobby, mimicking Holmes' brother Mycroft.

I'm not fond of Poe's poetry. Emerson's leveling of 'Jingle Man' is appropriate. Poe puts sounds together, but usually says very little wit...more

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Feb 26, 2013 Zachary Johnson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ever since I became a slight reader, I had heard people talk of the Great and Horrid tales of a mad man at a typewriter. I always was told that I couldn't grasp the severity of the dark stories of this man. But, here I am. I have changed a lot since the times that I read books just to fill book reports. I feel bad about all of the times that I skimmed paragraphs of detail just to get to the dripping dialog. But here I am.

I know I sound like a drama queen in the paragraph above, but I feel like...more Ever since I became a slight reader, I had heard people talk of the Great and Horrid tales of a mad man at a typewriter. I always was told that I couldn't grasp the severity of the dark stories of this man. But, here I am. I have changed a lot since the times that I read books just to fill book reports. I feel bad about all of the times that I skimmed paragraphs of detail just to get to the dripping dialog. But here I am.

I know I sound like a drama queen in the paragraph above, but I feel like it is something that is deep and poetic but about something that shouldn't be poetic at all. It could be summed up in a sentence like, "I read Edgar Allan Poe, he is scary but a good writer." but why would I take the time to write that, Because those who can change things in writing to make them more interesting or engrosses the mind with detail is worth reading, in my book (Punn intended). That is why I like Poe, quite a lot. I always use to think that it was a ban wagon thing like, 'OMG! I love Edgar! He is so talented', kinda like going to indie concert with a boat load of hipsters and that one girl that no one knows who she is and only knows the one hit song they sang. And I didn't feel ready to look like one of those people but I can't help it. It was too darn Good. I loved how he could make something so bloody and awful so beautiful. Like in the telltale heart, how you felt that it made sense for him to kill the old man. But what I loved most was how he could build emotion for a character so quickly, in 30 small pages of the angel of odd and I thought I was going to die along with the poor drunk. genius. Just Genius.

I had never read poetry before in my life. And after reading this work, I think I will. The Raven was nice but what really hit me were poems like the Valley of Unrest. They are some full of ideas and imagery that when i read them before bed, It felt like I was dreaming with the lights on. I can't describe it. It was beautiful.

In short, Poe has/will have a deep place in my heart. I read a completion of his best works, so I am unsure of his lesser works but an artist is judged by his Masterpiece and Loved for his other works. I would and have suggested Poe to people and I think it was wasted on some because it is suggested so often that no one listens, they just take it as at base level. If you hated my review, how I wrote it, Or Grammar Nazi me, I accept it with open arms. Also suggestions on other poets would be great. (less)

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Jun 13, 2012 Miguel Soto rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Mucho tiempo tuve el deseo de poseer alguna colección de todas las narraciones de E.A. Poe. Cuando me encontré casi por casualidad este ejemplar, lo adquirí de inmediato. Tardé bastante tiempo en terminarlo, pero me parece justo no haber acelerado su lectura, sino realmente tomarlo cuando me daban más ganas de leerlo.

Generalmente se ubica a Poe como el creador del cuento policiaco, como maestro del suspenso y el horror, y la mayoría de las colecciones de sus relatos que encontramos bajo el títul...more

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Jun 21, 2008 Werner rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Fans of 19th century fiction

Shelves: classics, mystery-crime-fiction, science-fiction

My five-star rating only applies to Poe's fiction, which was the part of the book I read ten years ago; when I decided recently to review the book, I resolved to read the poetry as well, but a couple of sessions caused me to abandon that idea! I do appreciate "The Raven," and some of Poe's other shorter, mature poems; but I'm not a big fan of Romantic poetry, and in the main, Poe's work in that form has all the besetting faults of its school: opacity, overblown verbosity and sentimentality for i...more My five-star rating only applies to Poe's fiction, which was the part of the book I read ten years ago; when I decided recently to review the book, I resolved to read the poetry as well, but a couple of sessions caused me to abandon that idea! I do appreciate "The Raven," and some of Poe's other shorter, mature poems; but I'm not a big fan of Romantic poetry, and in the main, Poe's work in that form has all the besetting faults of its school: opacity, overblown verbosity and sentimentality for its own sake, an excessively self-referential quality, and a preference for style over objective substance. To me, it has more of a soporific effect than a sleeping pill; and when you have to fight sleep all the while you're reading a book, it's time to get a different book. Poe's fiction, though, is a very different matter!

A lot of popular perceptions about Poe are untrue; for example, he wrote very little supernatural fiction, and even some of that is tongue-in-cheek. That brings up another misperception: not all of his writing is grim and horrific. A fair amount of it is dryly humorous (though at times the humor is gallows humor); in that respect, he differs from the Romantic pure type, which was deadly serious. And his frequent evocation of situational horror in his writing was not the product of a distorted, morbid imagination, nor was he a deranged drug addict; though he did drink heavily at times, he was much more normal and well-adjusted than popular imagination gives him credit for, and his horrific themes were normal staples of Romantic fiction, employed by many authors of the day because of their ability to evoke strong emotion. (Poe just evokes it more effectively than most.) Nor was he an infidel; while not necessarily a Christian, he was definitely a theist and a believer in immortality, who sets forth his beliefs on these subjects in some detail in "Mesmeric Revelations." (The despair towards the idea of life after death in "The Raven" is the narrator's, not the author's, and a literary conceit for emotional effect.)

Only four of Poe's 62 short stories are mysteries (and one of those, "The Mystery of Marie Roget," is not as effective as the others, IMO) but those four essentially created the genre and established some of its basic conventions. The Dupin stories set the pattern for Doyle's Sherlock Holmes canon (though the description of the crime scene in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is not for the squeamish), and "The Gold Bug" is the first and one of the best hidden treasure type mysteries, even though marred by the racially insensitive and invidiously stereotypical treatment of the slave Jupiter.

His only long fiction, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, and a fair number of his stories are in the science fiction genre; his work in this mode is presented with careful "verisimilitude" and attention to cutting edge science of his day, and he found scientific concepts handy vehicles both for satiric humor and more often for horror. Some of the ideas he employs are a lunar voyage by means of a balloon, mesmerism, psychic survival of death, destruction of the earth by a comet, the world of the far future (2848), Egyptian mummification as suspended animation, and the theory of a hollow earth with openings at the poles. (The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym treats this theme; and without engaging in a "spoiler," my opinion is that the ending is NOT abrupt and incomplete, but rather exactly as Poe wanted it to be for the effect he meant to create.)

Many of Poe's general fiction stories find the everyday world a source of profoundly terrifying situations: murder, insanity, premature burial, the tortures of the Inquisition, deadly epidemic disease, the life-threatening, heart-stopping experience of being sucked into a whirlpool. Stories like "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Black Cat," "Berenice," and "The Pit and the Pendulum" are some of the most powerful and unforgettable works in this vein ever penned.(less)

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Oct 27, 2007 Donald rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

Edgar Allan Poe was probably the first writer to truly fascinate me. I remember reading "The Black Cat" and "The Tell Tale Heart" as a youngster and feeling as excited as I felt when watching a classic horror movie like "Dracula" or "King Kong." I'd never read anything like Poe, and I couldn't stop until I'd read all his stories. As an adult, I still enjoy Poe's stories, but understand that he had weaknesses as a writer (little characterization, sense of morbidity and foreboding that demands a f...more

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May 15, 2012 Amanda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have only gotten through a handful of the poems and stories and will finish the others as soon as I get a chance. But as much as I have read, I absolutely love Poe. If you can come to grasp his crude writing style and place it into his life and the events within, you will most likely find his style of writing as wonderful and beautiful as I do. His life was very tragic in many respects, losing both of his parents and being adopted by a family where he felt his father never really, truly loved...more

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Oct 21, 2011 Norma Christensen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Edgar Allan Poe is certainly an interesting character and I rather enjoying reading his macabre tales. I read The Telltale Heart, which seemed to be much scarier when I was young. I had also read The Murders in the Rue Morgue when I was young, but I had always thought the Rue Morgue was a morgue and didn't realize until now it was a place. Then I read The Fall of the House of Usher, which I liked okay and finished with The Black Cat, which was absolutely horrid and very scary. Great Halloween st...more

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Mar 29, 2011 Mike (the Paladin) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, classics, classic-horror

This is sort of a "what more can you say" book, it's Poe. I was introduced to Poe when I was around 11 by a (young) school teacher. I suppose I never looked back and in a way it effected my taste in literature as I still like most types of fantasy reads and enjoy what is usually (somewhat loosely) called "weird" literature.

Edgar Allan Poe, a man who carved out the classic short story, the classic detective story all the while telling blood chilling stories that have been copied ever since. I hav...more

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Mar 13, 2013 Frederick rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poe, stories, poetry

I've read some of these stories. I haven't actually read them in THIS edition. I've generally read them in a multi-volume edition published in the 19th century. They certainly printed durable volumes then. The pages had twilight-blue borders. Among the stories I've read are:
"The Murders In The Rue Morgue"
"The Tell-Tale Heart"
"The Black Cat"
"The Cask of Amontillado"
"The Masque of the Red Death."
Poe is entertaining. On top of this, he was an innovator. He not only, essentially, invented the detect...more

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Feb 28, 2009 Jackson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

While I haven't read the entire book, I have ventured through most of his works. I think Poe makes it safe to say that the usage of opium is sure to create some interesting situations.

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Jan 05, 2009 Tom rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe is a compilation of 66 short stories and some 50 poems. I seldom start a book that I don’t finish but continued reading was too oppressive…..

Eagerly I wished the morrow; and hope to end my borrowed sorrow
Eventually my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer
For the fact that I was napping in the throes of boring sagas
Gave me cause to cease my reading of this author’s dismal stories
Alas, I felt my mood improving as I discontinued reading
Then...more

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Oct 11, 2010 Amy McCauley rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bathroom-reads

I am perpetually reading this book, it used to have a big sign on it that said "for really big poops" but it got lost along the way. Although, the spirit of the book still remains and it lives in the bathroom with its other toilet brethren.

All that aside, this book is awesome, it has the good and the bad in one easy to read volume. The poems were stellar, but the stories that are unpopular are that way for a reason. They drag on seemingly endlessly, but I can't give all of them a negative review...more

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Jun 02, 2011 Sarah rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Let me clarify: some of the stories totally deserve four or even five stars. The Raven, The Black Cat, The Tell-Tale Heart. These are all famous for a reason. They're fantastic. But let me tell you, the stories you haven't heard of--they are, likewise, unknown for a reason. Oy, the tedium. Poe really really really liked to describe things. And sometimes that's literally all that he did. No plot, no characters, just descriptions. And because he does the macabre so well, it was a shock to the syst...more

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Apr 22, 2013 Amber Adams rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reading-like-a-writer

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.'

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Austin Farwell rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The narrator in the beginning is sentenced to death by unknown voices. Bound by fate, he imagines death and then soon looses consciousness. The narrator wakes in a dungeon of stone accompanied by rats. He regains consciousness and explores the cage of stone. While walking, he trips on a robe and falls again into deep sleep. The narrator then awakes to discover that he is strapped to a wooden frame. Remarking on his surroundings, he notices a swinging pendulum dangling from the ceiling. Remaining...more

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Oct 06, 2012 Alec Glazier rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I found this book a great contrast to many others because it is very dark. I always was scared to go to bed because of some of the most horrific visions kept popping up in my head. One part that there were amazing influences is in Chapter 5- The Premature Burial. It is very original, and yet terribly scary. Another scary part was Chapter 15- The Masque of the Red Death, when the Red Death, a hideous creature hides in Prince Prospero's abbey. There is a plague that says that he is going to be kil...more

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Sep 13, 2012 Lois Tucker rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Blah blah, he's a classic.

What I don't get is why more people don't know WHY he (and Magritte and Stephen King) write or paint what they do. And that is why everyone should read psychiatrist Lenore Terr's book, Too Scared to Cry. The last chapter is about artists who offer a demonstration of her research and examples about how childhood traumas are held firmly in mind, forever, by the child.

In Poe's case, he was locked into a boarding house room with his prostitute mother for several days afte...more

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Feb 20, 2012 Milja rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, posessions

Poe has been my ultimately favorite writer since the young age and i can say with a 100% certainty that he will remain that forever.
His work even influenced my life, my art, i could even say way of living and the way i look at people to some extent. I literally don't know the exact number of how many times i read but i can tell you that it reached a doble-digit number.

I am not sure how you review an entire collection, but this is an absolute must read. If you love romance, if you like bizarre, i...more

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Feb 03, 2012 Nenia Campbell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books, rhymes-with-orange, are-you-afraid-of-the-dark-yet, x-1830s, reviewed, ye-olde-booke-shelffe, crème-de-la-crème, i-collect-short-stories, goth-goth-baby, victoriana

I bought my copy at a boot sale in Scotland! It was one of the first horror novels I read that wasn't Stephen King when I was going through my Stephen King phase. Looking back, I think it's amazing how modern he is. Despite writing in the nineteenth century, his stories are just as spine-chillingly creepy as they were more than one hundred YEARS ago!

My favorites (in order): The Masque of the Red Death, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Black Cat (although this one made me very sad - poor kitty!), and The...more

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Aug 30, 2011 Inder rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 19th-century, fiction, northeast, short-stories

I haven't read this whole book, but I did finally get around to reading "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Pit and the Pendulum" this past week. This is part of my half-hearted and slow-going effort to read some of the things I would have read in high school, had I stayed in high school rather than dropping out early to start community college.

My reactions:

(1) Wow. That is some F---ed Up S--t. Who knew? (Actually, anyone who attended all four years of high school, but anyway.)

(2) The ma...more

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Jan 25, 2010 Larry rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fans of gothic horror,antiquarian and good writing!

Interestingly I have this book although mine is called The Penguin Tales and Poems,published by Bloomsbury Books. I entered my ISBN and got this edition, oh well…
Anyway I've only read a few stories so far but what I've read I've enjoyed. Not everyone will want all the poems or non-horror tales like Von Kempelen and His Discovery which is rather long winded and tedious but on the whole, great stuff! Pit and the Pendulumn, The Raven, Leonore and The Tell-tale Heart are superb pieces!

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Oct 16, 2009 David rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I must admit to having a soft spot for Edgar Allan Poe. He was the boon companion of my adolescence. Whilst others of my generation were developing the herd mentality and lavishing their time on football, chopper bikes and the Bay City Rollers, I was poring over The Pit and the Pendulum, The Fall of the House of Usher and The Masque of the Red Death. Call me underdeveloped, call me what the hell you like, but to my mind I was developing a taste for quality literature. And Poe is, whatever you ma...more I must admit to having a soft spot for Edgar Allan Poe. He was the boon companion of my adolescence. Whilst others of my generation were developing the herd mentality and lavishing their time on football, chopper bikes and the Bay City Rollers, I was poring over The Pit and the Pendulum, The Fall of the House of Usher and The Masque of the Red Death. Call me underdeveloped, call me what the hell you like, but to my mind I was developing a taste for quality literature. And Poe is, whatever you may have gleaned about him from cheap movies and comic book adaptations, a thoroughly top-notch writer in the Romantic tradition.

He doesn’t really fit comfortably into the classic Gothic genre, though many regard him as one of its late and finest flowerings. For me, Gothic means Ann Radcliffe and Matthew ‘Monk’ Lewis. It means wild landscapes, maidens in distress, magnificently evil villains, ghosts and ghouls, deserted castles in the mountains and haunted chambers. Poe’s terrors are more psychological. The House of Usher seems like a physical house, but it is really a tainted bloodline reaching its diseased end in Roderick Usher, and a sick brain splitting down the middle. Madeleine Usher, buried alive by her neurotic brother, has more to do with Freud than with a penny dreadful. Poe’s castles and dungeons, maelstroms and cities under the sea are like Kafka’s Castle: in the mind, and all the more terrifying for that.

He draws heavily on the unconscious, is one of those in whom the divide between that and its conscious counterpart is a very permeable one to say the least, and you can see how he had such an influence on Baudelaire and just about every modern writer of horror. But he was also the inventor of the modern detective story and wrote a good deal of poetry. He was like a battlefield: he liked to think of himself as logical and calculating, but all the time this great underground current of dark forces was heaving against his early Victorian world of science and progress, and making life pretty difficult. He certainly suffered for his art, and it’s just as well that he didn’t want to achieve immortality simply through not dying, like Woody Allen.

But his influence since his death has been enormous. Rachmaninov wrote ‘The Bells’ in homage, and more recently Roger Corman made films loosely based on his tales and starring the likes of Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. He has inspired rock albums and graphic art, and more than his share of bad imitators.

Poe’s is a world of strange lights and deep shadows, but I find it comforting as well as unnerving. I can remember where and when I read most of his tales and poems, and when I read them now the past comes gently tapping at my own chamber door.

(less)

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Sep 26, 2009 Craig rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Poe is so focused that every one of his short stories, as well as his detective novels, create the same dominant impression -- beautiful gloom. Whether its a novel like Murders in the Rue Morgue, or poetry like The Raven, or one of his gorgeous short stories like "The Tell-tale Heart" or "The Fall of the House of Usher," Poe's writing works as well today as in the mid 1840's when he wrote it.

My personal favorite is "Masque of the Red Death." Here, Poe not only creates an amazingly intricate, vi...more

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Apr 04, 2013 Mark rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I haven't read every word in here, but what I have read is nothing short of fantastic. Poe was undoubtedly ahead of his time.

He was one of the first to write the "detective fiction" story. "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Purloined Letter", and "The Mystery of Marie Roget" are his tales of what is often called his " tales of ratiocination" (detective stories). All three have the genius character of C. Auguste Dupin making fools out of the others investigating the cases. The first two tales...more

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Read My Poetry	8	29	Mar 03, 2013 09:12pm
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About Edgar Allan Poe

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 hundr...more 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.

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The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales

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