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Stories for Young People: Edgar Allan Poe
A popular spin-off from the Poetry for Young People series introduces children to America’s master of the spooky story: Edgar Allan Poe. Unabridged and fully illustrated, it’s the perfect collection to establish a life-long love of literature.
Edgar Allan Poe’s brooding tales of murder, madness, and revenge still grab today’s readers. Here are five of his finest, presented and fully annotated by Andrew Delbanco, a much-honored professor of humanities at Columbia University whom Time magazine called “America's Best Social Critic.” And throughout, chilling and evocative illustrations by renowned artist Gerard Dubois enhance the stories—among them a devilish, skull-like face to accompany “Masque of the Red Death” and an appropriately foreboding view of the House of Usher. The collection includes “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Oval Portrait”—and as always features an author biography, introductions to every story, and definitions of unfamiliar vocabulary.
Edgar Allan Poe’s brooding tales of murder, madness, and revenge still grab today’s readers. Here are five of his finest, presented and fully annotated by Andrew Delbanco, a much-honored professor of humanities at Columbia University whom Time magazine called “America's Best Social Critic.” And throughout, chilling and evocative illustrations by renowned artist Gerard Dubois enhance the stories—among them a devilish, skull-like face to accompany “Masque of the Red Death” and an appropriately foreboding view of the House of Usher. The collection includes “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Oval Portrait”—and as always features an author biography, introductions to every story, and definitions of unfamiliar vocabulary.
48 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2006
About the author
Edgar Allan Poe
10.2k books29.1k followersThe 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...
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...
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 29, 2023
Note before I begin: Goodreads has this listed as 48 pages, but its 80 pages. Meh.
I haven't gone near any of Poe's works since sophomore
English class 20ish years ago. I'm so glad I decided to pick this up so I could read The Masque of the Red Death before starting an ARC of Mara Rutherford’s upcoming “A Multitude of Dreams”.
If my 16 year old self could know that an author I struggled to decipher would someday enthrall me, well, I think she would be proud, but also make snarky comments about why we couldn’t endure it when the grades mattered.
At first, while reading The Fall of the House of Usher, I felt like I was being hazed. Poe’s writing style in his 30th year was overly verbose, circular, and my ADHD had a hard time focusing on the track. Eventually, though, I was able to get through the story and somewhat enjoy it.
I was NOT prepared for how all-consuming The Masque of the Red Death would be for such a short story. It was imaginative, atmospheric, creepy, and excellent social commentary. (Side note: the illustrations in this collection are utterly terrifying for this story)
The Tell-Tale Heart was so much shorter than I remembered. The narrator was batshit crazy. Methinks the not-lady doth protest too much about his sanity.
The Cask of Amontillado had been on my mental and digital tbr for years. I truly don’t remember why or how it had landed on my radar… perhaps because it was a story about wine and revenge? Who knows. Also the titular cask/pipe is 130 gallons of wine?! WHAT?! Revenge is a dish best served in a cask, right?
I have questions about The Oval Portrait… what happened to the painter? Is the painting haunted? Did the initial narrator and his valet survive the night? I hope someone does a retelling of this story and elaborates.
All in all, the end of every story had me saying “what was that?!”
Edgar, you were a weird dude, but man you could spin a YARN. CHEERS TO YOU! No, I will not venture through your catacombs to drink special wine. I don’t trust you enough for that. 🍻 🍷 🍾
I haven't gone near any of Poe's works since sophomore
English class 20ish years ago. I'm so glad I decided to pick this up so I could read The Masque of the Red Death before starting an ARC of Mara Rutherford’s upcoming “A Multitude of Dreams”.
If my 16 year old self could know that an author I struggled to decipher would someday enthrall me, well, I think she would be proud, but also make snarky comments about why we couldn’t endure it when the grades mattered.
At first, while reading The Fall of the House of Usher, I felt like I was being hazed. Poe’s writing style in his 30th year was overly verbose, circular, and my ADHD had a hard time focusing on the track. Eventually, though, I was able to get through the story and somewhat enjoy it.
I was NOT prepared for how all-consuming The Masque of the Red Death would be for such a short story. It was imaginative, atmospheric, creepy, and excellent social commentary. (Side note: the illustrations in this collection are utterly terrifying for this story)
The Tell-Tale Heart was so much shorter than I remembered. The narrator was batshit crazy. Methinks the not-lady doth protest too much about his sanity.
The Cask of Amontillado had been on my mental and digital tbr for years. I truly don’t remember why or how it had landed on my radar… perhaps because it was a story about wine and revenge? Who knows. Also the titular cask/pipe is 130 gallons of wine?! WHAT?! Revenge is a dish best served in a cask, right?
I have questions about The Oval Portrait… what happened to the painter? Is the painting haunted? Did the initial narrator and his valet survive the night? I hope someone does a retelling of this story and elaborates.
All in all, the end of every story had me saying “what was that?!”
Edgar, you were a weird dude, but man you could spin a YARN. CHEERS TO YOU! No, I will not venture through your catacombs to drink special wine. I don’t trust you enough for that. 🍻 🍷 🍾
November 4, 2023
Φοβερή illustrated έκδοση με 5 ιστορίες του Edgar Allan Poe που απευθύνεται σε παιδιά (?), μιας και σε σημεία υπάρχει επεξήγηση δύσκολων λέξεων (μου ήταν και εμένα φυσικά πολύ χρήσιμο αυτό, μιας και αυτές οι αγγλικές λέξεις ήταν αρκετά παλιακές και δεν χρησιμοποιούνται πια, οπότε δεν ήμουν εξοικειωμένη) .
Οι ιστορίες παρατίθονται χωρίς καμία αλλοίωση στο περιεχόμενο ή στις λέξεις, κάτι που εκτίμησα πολύ και είναι οι εξής:
"The fall of the house of Usher", "The masque of the Red Death", "The tell-tale heart", "The cask of Amontillado", "The oval portrait".
Βρήκα την εισαγωγή πάρα πολυ επεξηγηματική, πολύ ωραία δοσμένη σε ένα άτομο που ακόμα δεν γνωρίζει το έργο του συγγραφέα, τα illustrations πάρα πολύ σωστά, και στα σωστά σημεία, χωρίς υπερβολή, όπως και την επιλογή των ιστοριών πολύ έξυπνη, μιας και αποτελούν χαρακτηριστικό δείγμα της δουλειάς του συγγραφέα.
Το καλύτερο; Το βρήκα στο second hand βιβλιοπωλείο του Princeton με 2 δολλάρια, απίστευτο!
Πάω να δω το "The Pale Blue Eye" στο netflix τώρα, για περισσότερη δόση Poe!
Οι ιστορίες παρατίθονται χωρίς καμία αλλοίωση στο περιεχόμενο ή στις λέξεις, κάτι που εκτίμησα πολύ και είναι οι εξής:
"The fall of the house of Usher", "The masque of the Red Death", "The tell-tale heart", "The cask of Amontillado", "The oval portrait".
Βρήκα την εισαγωγή πάρα πολυ επεξηγηματική, πολύ ωραία δοσμένη σε ένα άτομο που ακόμα δεν γνωρίζει το έργο του συγγραφέα, τα illustrations πάρα πολύ σωστά, και στα σωστά σημεία, χωρίς υπερβολή, όπως και την επιλογή των ιστοριών πολύ έξυπνη, μιας και αποτελούν χαρακτηριστικό δείγμα της δουλειάς του συγγραφέα.
Το καλύτερο; Το βρήκα στο second hand βιβλιοπωλείο του Princeton με 2 δολλάρια, απίστευτο!
Πάω να δω το "The Pale Blue Eye" στο netflix τώρα, για περισσότερη δόση Poe!
June 22, 2010
This book is an excellent book that includes an auto biography of Edgar Allan Poe. Another excellent thing the author did was he broke down the poems in order for the young reader to understand what he or she are reading. The book contains five of his poems. Another good thing the author did was that he created a thesaurus within his book to be able to define words that might be difficult for children to read. I must say that Edgar Allan Poe writing is very depressing and dark. I know that many times we want to protect our children from this reality but the fact of the matter is that even if we keep them from reading this we can not keep them from the reality of life. Edgar Allan loved his poetry and it is always good to exposed our children to this type of literary material. The main character of his poems typically carry a negative feel to them. The illustration in this book also do the writing justice it matches up perfectly.
August 12, 2016
The book was very well done with an excellent Introduction and helpful definitions for the younger reader, easily earning 5 stars. Horror is not my genre and I did not enjoy the book.
September 8, 2018
4.0/5, Ghastly articulate
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews