Product Description
The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Edgar Allan Poe is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Edgar Allan Poe then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

NO Poems in this edition!!!
Unless I've missed something there are NO Poems actually present in this edition.The titles, sure, but not the text.
Good thing it was free... this way the only thing this edition cost me, was my time trying to find the poems!!!

Almost there
The free kindle version seems to be missing the poems. Gutenberg has the full text.

Content listing.
Digger's Domain (Amazon Reviewer) was so helpful with his (or her) previous reviews and listing of contents for volumes 1 through 4, but he did not get to volume 5, it seems, so here is the listing of the contents of this Poe work:

Philosophy of Furniture
The Sphinx
Hop-Frog
The Man of the Crowd
Never Bet the Devil Your Head
Thou Art the Man
Why the Little Frenchman Wears his Hand in a Sling
Some Words with a Mummy
The Poetic Principle
Old English Poetry (*)
Poems
... Read more

Product Description
The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Edgar Allan Poe is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Edgar Allan Poe then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Table of Contents here
I write blog reviews for The Kindle Blog Report, and am branching out into reviewing books available for Kindle.

Since the publishers of this ebook don't list its contents I'll list them for you here (I THOUGHT this and the other books had hotlinked TOCs, but I was wrong. THey have an underlined TOC, but you cant' do anything with it):

The Devil in the Belfry
Lionizing
X-ing a Paragraph
Metzengerstein
THe System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether
How to Write a Blackwood Article
A Predicament
Mystification
DIddling
THe Angel of the Odd
Mellonta Tauta
The Duc de L'omelette
THe Oblong Box
Loss of Breath
The Man that was Used Up
THe Business Man
THe Landscape Garden
Maelzel's Chess Player
THe power of Words
The Colloquy of Monos and Unas
The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion
Shadow, A Parable
... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Authors, American; Short stories, American; American poetry; Fiction / Classics; Literary Collections / General; Fiction / Short Stories; Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Horror; Fiction / Literary; Fiction / Short Stories; Juvenile Fiction / Horror ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

If you're buying a Paper Book, check the publisher carefully - the General Books LLC version is total rubbish
Perhaps unfortunately, Amazon associates reviews for a book with many of the different versions of the book available. When you're looking to buy a copy of "The Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume 1", check the edition and publisher carefully.

The version of "The Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume 1" published by General Books LLC is a poor quality, automated reproduction with no index, no illustrations and quite a number of typos. The one star review applies to this edition only. Note that the poor quality comment does NOT apply to the Kindle edition (different publisher) or to Nabu Press / Dodo Press, who have reprinted Facsimile Versions rather than the OCR Scan that General Books LLC uses.

To quote a few specifics from the General Books LLC web site:
"We created your book using OCR software that includes an automated spell check. Our OCR software is 99 percent accurate if the book is in good condition. However, with up to 3,500 characters per page, even one percent can be an annoying number of typos....

After we re-typeset and designed your book, the page numbers change so the old index and table of contents no longer work. Therefore, we usually remove them. Since many of our books only sell a couple of copies, manually creating a new index and table of contents could add more than a hundred dollars to the cover price....

Our OCR software can't distinguish between an illustration and a smudge or library stamp so it ignores everything except type. We would really like to manually scan and add the illustrations. But many of our books only sell a couple of copies....

We created your book using a robot who turned and photographed each page. Our robot is 99 percent accurate. But sometimes two pages stick together. And sometimes a page may even be missing from our copy of the book. We would really like to manually scan each page and buy multiple copies of each original. But many of our books only sell a couple of copies....."

The owners of General Books LLC, VDM Publishing, are flooding Amazon with these low quality publications (450,000 listed under General Books LLC) and, unfortunately, many of them have the reviews associated with the original or with better quality imprints associated with them. While the price is at least reasonable, the product description is totally misleading for the buyer that's not aware of this publisher.

IMHO this is unethical marketing.

Jason - in reponse to your comment (sorry, Amazon has never restored my ability to Comment and hasn't replied to my requests so I've given up on that one): check the General Books LLC website - it's the same wording as Books LLC / LLC Books and if you recall some of the early Alphascript Product Descriptions, they talked about the "Million Books Club" thing and "free content update" - seems far to close to be a coincidence. The General Books LLC / Books LLC websites contain absolutely NO info about the Publisher and I haven't been able to ttack ANYTHING on them down. Right now, I'm working the the assumption that, based on the modus operandi and the wording used, it's VDM Publishing, or at least the same people.

And to J. Pendris, thx for the kind words. However, you may wish to pay a little more attention to detail before launching insults at people. The PAPER version from General Books LLC, which is what my review was about, costs real money. The Kindle version's are from different publishers. The paperback reprints are from 2 different publishers, General Books LLC and Nabu Press (another Print on Demand Publisher) and the Hardback reprint is from yet another Publisher (Benediction Classics). It's all in the details with these reprints.

Table of contents here
I write blog reviews for The Kindle Blog Report, and am branching out into reviewing books available for Kindle.

Since the publishers of this ebook don't list its contents I'll list them for you here (The book itelf does have the TOC hotlinked):

Edgar Allan Poe (bio)
Death of Edgar Allan Poe (bio)
The Unparalleled Adventures of one Hans Peall
The Gold Bug
Four Beasts in one - the homo-camel-leopard
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
THe Mystery of Marie Roget
THe Baloon-Hoax
Ms Found in a Bottle
The Oval Portrait ... Read more

Product Description
The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Edgar Allan Poe is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Edgar Allan Poe then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Table of contents here
I write blog reviews for The Kindle Blog Report, and am branching out into reviewing books available for Kindle.

Since the publishers of this ebook don't list its contents I'll list them for you here (The book itelf does have the TOC hotlinked:)

Narrative of A. Gordon Pym
Ligeia
Morella
A Tale pof the Ragged Mountains
The Spectacles
King Pest
Three Sundays in a Week ... Read more

Product Description
The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Edgar Allan Poe is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Edgar Allan Poe then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

He was the master...
Ever since being exposed to Edgar Allan Poe in the ninth grade, I've enjoyed being scared out of my wits.This collection is one that I can (and do) read over and over, whenever the mood strikes me.He surely doesn't need my advocacy, but Edgar Allan Poe could use a little respect from present day readers...

No list of contents, so let me provide one for you
I write blog reviews for The Kindle Blog Report, and am branching out into reviewing books available for Kindle.

Since the publishers of this ebook don't list its contents I'll list them for you here (The book itelf does have the TOC hotlinked:

The Purloined Letter
THe Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade
A Descent into the Maelstrom
Von Kempelen and his Discovery
Mesmeric Revelation
The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar
The Black Cat
The Fall of theHouse of Usher
SIlence - a fable
The Masque of the Red Death
THe Cask of Amontillado
The Imp of the Perverse
THe Island of the Fay
The Assignation
THe Pit and the Pendulum
THe Premature Burial
The Domain of Arnheim
Landor's Cottage
William Wilson

... Read more

Product Description
Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Edgar Allan Poe is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Edgar Allan Poe then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Poe = 5 stars, this ebook = 1 stars
Poe deserved better. There's no table of contents, there's no line breaks so all of Poe's poems are essentially a run-on sentence. Yes, it's free, but it's worth spending the money for a properly laid out book.

Great Body of Work
I love the imagery Poe conjurs. I love the dark psychological revelations experienced by the characters. Dark, intelligent, and at times underrated. Poe is probably one of the best poets/writers from his time. Died way too soon. His body of work is a must have for anyone interested in classic and intelligent literature. The same things that drew me to the Twilight Zone series, also draws me to Poe's work. They both use their respective mediums to showcase human nature in an abstract way. His writings depicted very real characters and subjects, at times dark but always cleverly written. Some of classic literature from this time seemed a bit dry and unwelcoming, Poe's work in contrast tends to dare you to take the first step into unfamiliar territory, knowing that the journey will both enrich and challenge the reader. For anyone either new to Poe's work or simply looking for something new and challenging to read, I'd recommend this.

Everyone should read Poe at least once....
Having studied Poe in High School I have always had a soft (dark) spot for his works. Even if you only read The Raven, this download is worth it.

What. The. Cluck.
Of course, I can't be explicit in my review, so please take it for what it's worth. Buy the real thing, not this.

ZERO formatting for the poetry.IT WASN'T EVEN POEMS. IT WAS NARRATION. It has the words, so unless you're using this for some sort of speech memorization competition (even then you'd want a better book to pace your self), don't even approach this. Please.

Almost unreadable. Not worth it.
They could have at least formatted the poetry with line breaks. It's almost completely unreadable, and I'd rather have a lot less biographical information to wade through before getting to the poetry. ... Read more

Product Description
This title has fewer than 24 printed text pages. The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition - Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Edgar Allan Poe is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Edgar Allan Poe then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Contents
I decided to write a review of this "book" just because a friend of mine asked a question to me about it, the question he asked is "how do you read it?" So now i answer; This is in fact, not a book but just the table of contentsand index of all 5 volumes of "the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe" for your reference purposes.I hope this is helpful, Enjoy. ... Read more

Product Description
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

This single volume brings together all of Poe's stories and poems, and illuminates the diverse and multifaceted genius of one of the greatest and most influential figures in American literary history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (76)

*No* Table of Contents - Active or Inactive
Poe's terrific, of course, and I was looking forward to having this collection on my newly received Kindle.But, unfortunately, despite the claim of an active TOC for this collection - there is *no* TOC, of any kind, essentially rendering the collection useless.

Sure, a single buck is just a single buck, but this is simply false advertising, petty theft, and a great disappointment.The publisher and Amazon ought to be ashamed of themselves here.What both do by this sort of practice, or lapse, or oversight, is simply generate distrust.

No Proper Table of Contents
This book does not have a proper Kindle-compliant table of contents.This makes it difficult to navigate. I guess it's worth a dollar, but unless you are devoted to buying only the cheapest version of Poe's works, I would purchase another.

THE Master of Horror
Edgar Allen Poe is THE master of horror-hands down. His dark tales of horror graced my literature books in high school and college, and continue to resonate with me to this day. Poe was a very troubled man--deranged, if you will, but I think that that's almost a prerequisite when it comes to writing the stuff of genius. His life was never truly happy, and it showed in his work. Poe is best known for his poem, THE RAVEN, but there's so much more that is appealing to the lover of the horror genre. Poe was a master of the psychological aspect of horror. Sheer madness was a central theme to so much of his work. He left his writings to the imagination of the reader, instead of offering an abundance of tangibles. I particularly enjoy THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, THE TELL-TALE HEART, MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, THE BLACK CAT, and THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM. His tales of grief and horror have inspired movies, music, and perhaps redefined Halloween, to some extent. Edgar Allen Poe is a tragic character--he could've easily been one of his own characters. All of the great horror writers of today will admit that they owe a debt of gratitude to the greatest of them all- the great Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849).

PURE READING PLEASURE NOT TO BE MISSED OR NOT TO BE REVISITED
I am forced here to eco the thoughts and feelings of several other reviewers here, "what can you say? It's Poe."To doa critical analysis of this work, in particular by a non-Poe scholar such is myself, would be the height of arrogance on my part; pontificating on a subject of which so many, many others are more qualified would come across as, well...pompous and in many ways laughable.I seriously doubt if I could come up with bits of criticism or accolades others have not been hammering away at for the past one hundred years or so.

Poe though is one of my favorite short story authors and indeed, one of my favorite poets.I have been reading him for well over fifty years now and his work is as bright and fresh to me now as when it was first read to me as a child.There are a few things to note though, and a couple of comments the reader needs to be aware of concerning this particular edition.

First, this work has not been annotated nor has it been translated (French).I note that on this site and several others that this has thrown some into a hissy fit state.Good grief!This lack of translation does not distract from the story a bit.In addition, with the most simplest of computers it only takes a snap or two on the mouse to come up with the translation of not only French, but just about any other languageyou might come across...stop being so lazy!Having to research it yourself is the best way to learn!If you have problems understanding what he is writing of; again, there are literally thousands of sites that would love a visit from you...many of them are quite good! No computer?Not problem!They actually have books at your local library with the same information in them!

Secondly, I have noted that on this site and several others that there seems to be a bit of whining about Poe's vocabulary, i.e. he uses "big words."Folks, if you read 90 percent of the popular fiction books being cranked out today and pay very, very close attention, you will find that they have been dumbed down.They are ALL written at a 7th or 8th grade level!If you must use a dictionary a bit (which I fully and proudly admit to being forced to use each time I read Poe), then so much the better!Learning a new word and its usage is actually a good thing! I promise you that you will not suffer any permanent physical or mental damage.

Thirdly, I note that on this site and several others it has been mentioned, and again whine about the fact that Poe tends to use a prose style that is no longer is use.Good grief.I suppose we should have his entire works purged of such and bring it all up to date...Hey Reader's Digest...you are falling down on the job! You are missing out on the chance to befoul yet another masterful bit of writing!This of all the complaints has to be the most asinine. I almost have to cry when I read such gibberish, yet at the same time feel a certain degree of pity for those that make such statements.

Fourthly, it should be noted that Poe is actually the Great Grand Daddy of the detective novel or short story and was at least a generation ahead of Doyle.There are some great detective stories in his body of work and should not be missed my any lover of this genre.

Fifthly, it may come as a shock to some, but Poe did write more than just "The Raven."

If you have not read Poe...you should.If it has been years since you visited him...get off your duff and set down with a cup of tea, and your pipe, if so inclined to participate in that nasty habit, and do some rediscovering.If you are in school, i.e. of the younger set, read him.I promise you will learn much of writing, story telling, emotions and actually yourself.

Do yourself a big time favor and get a copy of this particular edition, or any other edition for that matter, and get reacquainted with this genius.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks

Great book
I agree with V. Patel. "I think Peo's genius hardly needs discussion on this forum.
So, I offer a small review on the physical book itself."

I think the price is very cheap for what you get for his entire tales collection and poems. My only concern is that I wish this version was annonated. And I wish the text was a bit larger.

But really, I'm very pleased with my purchase. My order arrived in great condition. ... Read more

Product Description
This beautiful volume showcases the full range of Poe's genius--from "The Raven" and terrifying tales like "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Fall of the House of Usher," and "The Masque of the Red Death," to humorous sketches, the very first detective stories, early works of science fiction, and literary criticism. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (44)

POE
I had a book years ago with some of Poe's selections.This is even better..sicne I lost the copy I originally bought.The book arrived in excellent shape.Great reading!

Amazing
I bought this book because i wanted to have all of Edgar Allan Poe's stories and poems. From what i know this really is all of them, there is even a few critic reviews he wrote. Most likely the best book of all his writings out there. The binding is strong and the book isn't heavy at all. Was really surprised with how fast shipping was (got to my house a day before it said it would). I would highly suggest this to anyone wanting all his works in one volume.

Enjoyable
I read this book to get inside the head of Edgar Allan Poe.It was like eating corn chips, one story leads to another.Especially enjoyed the Mask of the Red Death and Eleonora.What is amazing is the extensive vocabulary of this master writer.This is a great book to have for those stormy winter nights with your fireplace crackling.

It's poe!
one of the better collections of Poe's work. Havent had a problem with the binding that tends to happen with the bigger books. I suggest getting this over the other copies available. Great addition to any book shelf and its also a great source of "alternative" literature for my 8yo neice who is tired of reading about "hank the cowdog."

Great for collection
This is great for any Poe fan, has his complete works. My kids love it when I read the stories from it. ... Read more

Product Description
Enduring Literature Illuminated By Practical Scholarship

A collection of the Gothic master's classic works in prose and verse.

This Enriched Classic Edition Includes:

• A concise introduction that gives the reader important background information
• A chronology of the author's life and work
• A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context
• An outline of key themes and plot points to guide the reader's own interpretations
• Detailed explanatory notes
• Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work
• Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
• A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience

Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Great book
This book is what I needed in teaching my class.Has all the writings and more.Good book for reading and resource.

GREAT, MOST OF THE BEST ONES
I got this book because I wanted to read certain of the Poe stories, such as THE BLACK CAT, PURLOINED LETTER etc. This book is just right for that intended purpose as it contains most of his most famous ones. Also my eyes are old & I was happy that the print is a reasonable size. Great book if you are interested
in the stories it contains. If you want to read all of his stories,
"complete stories" books are also available.

Poe is the best
Edgar Allen Poe is the essential for any horror enthusiast. He was the true master of the macabre and his stories have a truth about them that reaches into everyone's mind and soul. If you are a student of horror then you need to take the time to research Poe. Every story and poem of his is a classic to be admired for the ages. Poe has undoubtedly unlocked realms he was not sure existed until his mind explored them. From his detective which started a new age of police work to the inner workings of ones mind that gave away his deep routed secrets.
The Raven is a piece of work that no matter who you start to speak the beginning to they will know the poem. The Murder of the Rue Morgue was a brilliant way to drag you through the crime scene and how he worked out the problem was intriguing. The Tell Tale Heart was a great way to interpret the way you are not safe even with ones own mind. The Pit and the Pendulum was his best way to keep you on the verge of suspense.
I would recommend that you read everything that Poe has written and that you read it more then once. ... Read more

Product Description
C&C brings you our complete collection of Edgar Allan Poe short stories, comprised of over 60 classic short stories, by one of the most influential writers of the romantic genre. Selections includes, but not limited to the following:"A Tale of Jerusalem" (1832),"Bon-Bon" (1832),"Loss of Breath" (1832),"Metzengerstein" (1832),"The Duc de L'Omelette" (1832),"Four Beasts in One" (1833),"MS. Found in a Bottle" (1833),"The Assignation" (1834),,"Berenice" (1835),"King Pest" (1835),"Lionizing" (1835),"Morella" (1835),"Shadow" (1835),"Mystification" (1837),"A Predicament" (1838),"Ligeia" (1838),"Silence" (1838),"The Devil in the Belfry" (1839),"The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839),"The Man That Was Used Up" (1839),"William Wilson" (1839),"The Business Man" (1840),"The Man of the Crowd" (1840),"A Descent into the Maelström" (1841),"Eleonora" (1841),"Never Bet the Devil Your Head" (1841),"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841),"Three Sundays in a Week" (1841),"The Gold-Bug" (1842),"The Landscape Garden" (1842),"The Masque of the Red Death" (1842),"The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" (1842),"The Oval Portrait" (1842),"The Pit and the Pendulum" (1842),"A Tale of the Ragged Mountains" (1843),"The Black Cat" (1843),"The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843),"Mesmeric Revelation" (1844),"Thou Art the Man" (1844),"The Angel of the Odd" (1844),"The Balloon-Hoax" (1844),"The Oblong Box" (1844),"The Premature Burial" (1844),"The Purloined Letter" (1844),"The Spectacles" (1844),"The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" (1844),"Some Words with a Mummy" (1845),"The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" (1845),"The Imp of the Perverse" (1845),"The Power of Words" (1845),"The Cask of Amontillado" (1846),"The Domain of Arnheim" (1846),"The Sphinx" (1846),"Hop-Frog" (1849),"Landor's Cottage" (1849),"Mellonta Tauta" (1849),"The Light-House" (1849),"Von Kempelen and His Discovery" (1849), ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Great book @ a great price!
I've been reading this book every night for the past week. Edgar had some pretty good stories, I just wish his poems were also included. The table of contents work fine on my 3rd generation Kindle. Great book!

Fantastic Anthology of Gothic Romance Tales
This a great collection for the price. Poe, oft considered to be the father of the Gothic movement in Romanticism, and none more apparent than seen in the "Tell-Tale Heart". Vivid, yet dark imagery, characters that maintain suspicion, often appealing to the psychology of the reader. All classic elements that build suspense! This quote from "Tell-Tale Heart" sums up Poe's genius, "I gasped for breath--and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly--more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men--but the noise steadily increased".

Darkest stories
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 "Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Short Story Collection" brings together all of his short stories into one volume.

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.

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 "Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Short Story Collection" 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.

"Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Short Story Collection" is a must-have for anyone with an appreciation for great literature and beautiful, dark writing.

Very Nice!
I think this is a great collection.I've been reading Poe for weeks now.I like the cover too.

Great Collection!
This anthology is a thorough body of work by Edgar Allan Poe, consisting of all his great early detective and Gothic horror stories, including my personal favorite "Tell-Tale Heart". The beating of the heart beneath the floor and the crazed main character. It's a story that capture and embraces ones cynical side of the psyche. This collection includes all of Poe's short stories. For the price, it is a great and highly recommended investment. A+. ... Read more

Product Description
A sweet little cat drives a man to insanity and murder....

The grim death known as the plague roams a masquerade ball dressed in red....

A dwarf seeks his final revenge on his captors....

A sister calls to her beloved twin from beyond the grave....

Prepare yourself. You are about to enter a world where you will be shocked, terrified, and, though you'll be too scared to admit it at first, secretly thrilled. Here are four tales -- The Black Cat, The Masque of the Red Death, Hop-Frog, and The Fall of the House of Usher -- by the master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. The original tales have been ever so slightly dismembered -- but, of course, Poe understood dismemberment very well. And he would shriek in ghoulish delight at Gris Grimly's gruesomely delectable illustrations that adorn every page. So prepare yourself. And keep the lights on. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

A good book for teenager
My 17 year old son wanted this book. He was well satisfied. The seller was all and all.

Tales of Mystery and Madness
I have never been a fan of Gris Grimly's writing -- his rhyming poetry is truly and deeply cringe-inducing, as evidenced in these samples from his book Wicked Nursery Rhymes:

'After his instruction's through, he leaves to go find someone new.
When he chooses to meander, he flies away upon his gander.'
-- from the poem Father Grim


'She would scream, curse, spit, and swear.
She said things children wouldn't dare.
To other classmates, she would be cruel,
And so she made no friends at school...'
-- from the poem Miss Muffet


'Jill would jab him with a pin
While she bared an evil grin.
Jack would bash her on the head,
Without guilt, until she bled.'
-- from the poem Jack and Jill

(If you're looking for a book of rhyming poetry, skip Grimly's Wicked Nursery Rhyme series and check out J.T. Holden's Alice in Verse: The Lost Rhymes of Wonderland instead -- at times wicked, always clever, and thoroughly engaging, the poetry of Alice in Verse is galaxies beyond Grimly's pedestrian jingles...and Holden wisely leaves the illustrations to Andrew Johnson, whose art brings the characters of Wonderland to life in truly stunning halftones.)


That said, Grimly's artwork is another matter altogether. What he lacks in skill with the pen, he more than makes up for with his brush. With Tales of Mystery and Madness, Grimly has wisely chosen to leave the writing to a professional and concentrate his effort on what he does best. Leaving little to the imagination (and that's a good thing here), Grimly paints a stark and vivid backdrop for the classic spine-tinglers of Edgar Allen Poe. With his trademark burnt browns and gloomy amber backgrounds, Grimly sets precisely the right tone for the tales contained in this book: The Mask of the Red Death, The Black Cat, Hop-Frog, and The Fall of the House of Usher. With deciduous branches, blooded moons, spindly limbs, flourishing quills, and skewered framing, Grimly's art is woven into each tale in a manner so seamless as to suggest the art and text are one.

Highly recommended for fans of both Poe's Prose and Grimly's art.

Amazing Artwork
As so many others have said, the pictures are what make this book.The illustrations are simply phenomenal and hysterical.In the interest of full-disclosure, I was expecting simplified versions of the stories, and that is not at all what this is.But, the illustrations make it easy for anyone--child or adult--to understand some of the more archaic words.

Absolutely fabulous.I would not hesitate to recommend this book.

Wonderful Book
This book is a wonderfully illustrated book of 4 short stories by Edgar Allen Poe.I would highly suggest getting it if you like either illustrations of the author.I wouldn't necessarily call it a children's book but it's wonderful to look at for anyone old enough.

Wow!
I love Edgar Allan Poe, and I love art. That is why I bought this book. I had never even heard of this artist before, but now I am definitely a fan. His illustrations are dark and creepy, just like the poetry. It is a quick read, but I go back to look at the images every once in a while. The style of art is perfect for the subject matter, and if Gris Grimly did another book like this I would definitely buy it! Highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
A fully revised collection of Poe’s work

The first new edition of this landmark anthology since 1945 presents a more complicated, perverse, and culturally engaged Poe. Along with the author’s familiar masterworks in poetry and fiction, this new Portable Poe includes satirical tales that reflect his critique of American culture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

excellent poe
if you want an overview of the work of poe this is the book!!!it has a comprehensive selection of his work and also criticism. a good way to get started knowing this strange, enigmatic writer.good price too.

What can I say?It's Poe.Love him as you tremble.
I've read about a dozen pieces so far for a gut-gripping course I'm enjoying.My favorite tale of enjoyable shivers (frisson?) was when I finished The Black Cat at midnight and then turned to the light by my bed and thought, you mean I have to turn it out after finishing that story?!?I may be in my 50s but that packed a wallop.
He's as good or better than you may remember.
The two detective stories I've read a pretty good but a bit long and labored.And I just started the critical articles with The Short Story (appropriately three pages long) and it was very good.He made his interesting point about as succinctly as could be done.
The biographical intro is interesting because the editor (and my teacher) are convinced that he wasn't the complete, miserable wretch that his literary executor made him out to be.He appeared to have trouble with shooting himself in his perverse foot, though.And, in my opinion, he could be a bit of a drama queen in his letters but a ghastly wretch?Well, maybe he wasn't as far gone as was supposed for a long time.(And that apparently is a story in itself.)
He's still another "don't miss" author that I've rediscovered.
Thank you, Mr. Poe...sleeplessness, notwithstanding.

Always a great book...
All I can say is that this is a nice nearly complete compilation of his work.A must read in my educated opinion.

Poe was a genius
This volume contains Poe's most important works. The books starts out with his letters, which are of historical interest and also contain some fine philosophizing. The stories, of which many are included, are grouped sensibly by genre or subject. What can I say of them? They are superb, the meat of his works, and all fascinating, whether lunatic (The Cask of Amontillado, for example) or coolly ratiocinative (the Dupin stories). Poe's mastery and manipulation of the human psyche is really extraordinary, and the quality of the prose, I need scarcely mention, is extremely high. His works are classics for a very good reason.

This book concludes with essays, articles, and poems. 'The Raven', of course, is most famous, but most of the other pieces are quite interesting. In particular, Poe's ability for expressing extremely abstract concepts and chains of reasoning, in his essays, is enviable. I finished this anthology awed, with that peculiar feeling, like that of static electricity, of having touched a man of genius -- a bit mad, yes, but a genius indeed.

The essential Poe
This volume contains the essential Poe, the stories and poems for which he is most well- known.
Like all American schoolchildren I had to read Poe when I was quite young. And I remember how his tales did not provide the kind of pleasure and insight I had found in other literature. "The Gold Bug" confounded me , and "The Tell- Tale Heart" frightened me, and the truth is even in adult years I have never taken much delight in the reading of the fictions of Poe.
The horror of real life has always seemed to me more than enough, and I have never particularly enjoyed the mood and tone of Poe's fictions.
I must admit too that Poe always seemed to me even when reading him as a child , 'extremely weird' to use a children's word. And ' weird' not simply with the connotation of ' strange' but of 'frighteningly so'.
In any case there is a Poe that I have treasured. It might not be in the whole of the poem, but in the rhythmn of 'Nevermore' there did strike a kind of fascinating note. And there are in the poetry of Poe great lines, 'the beauty that was Greece, the glory that was Rome'. And a sadness and a feeling of tragedy in some of the love- poetry.
Poe is of course much else to most other readers than to me, and the lovers of mystery stories, and detectives, of fictional conundrums tending toward horror, and of strange obsessions with beauty that dies young, will find more than they ask for in this anthology. ... Read more

Product Description
A classic collection

From the exquisite lyric “To Helen,” to the immortal masterpieces “Annabel Lee,” “The Bells,” and “The Raven,” The Complete Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe demonstrates the author’s gift for the form. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

This is a great book
I enjoyed the intro and the afterward of this book.I needed this book as part of a class so they helped greatly.
This book includes all of the author's POEMS chronologically.Is small enough to carry in a pocket. (Which I did.)
Very good book.
Poe is an American treasure.

What a world of solemn thought
Most people know that Edgar Allen Poe wrote poetry. Of course, you'd be hard-pressed to make them quote a line that doesn't involve ravens.

Well, it's time for some poetry homework -- "The Raven" is neither Poe's most beautiful nor his most striking poem. That is reserved for other, more obscure works in Poe's "Complete Poetry" -- and while one might expect the ghostly or macabre to be all throughout his work, it's also filled with transcendent beauty, wistfulness, and some truly amazing wordwork.

Over his lifetime, Poe tried out many styles -- there are sonnets, short hymns, long rambling odes written in dramatic, vaguely Shakespearean style ("O, human love! thou spirit given/On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!"), acrostics, little exercises in self-reflection, a lyrical song or two, and some haunting stories rendered in verse like the bittersweet "Annabel Lee."

And the content of these poems is just as diverse. Some of them are distinctly dark -- sunken cities, tolling bells, haunted palaces, thoughts on the lingering spirits of the dead, abandoned valleys, and loved ones that have been stolen away by death (" I pray to God that she may lie/For ever with unopened eye/While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!"). And yes, it has the one about a midnight dreary, and a creepy raven with eyes like "a demon's that is dreaming."

And there are a lot of moments of beauty -- lush descriptions of nature, bittersweet dreams, love for a beautiful girl, and elfin odes to those who "put out the star-light/With the breath from their pale faces/About twelve by the moon-dial..." But in many of these, Poe manages to add a melancholy atmosphere -- just look at "Bridal Ballad," whose narrator assures us that she is happy, but who is haunted by the "dead who is forsaken," her former lover.

Yeah, Poe's verse tends to be about as cheerful as his best known fiction, and often with some of the same preoccupations. He was a little less successful in verse at times, as occasionally you get some very strained verse schemes, like the terribly awkward "Eulalie" ("Now Doubt - now Pain/Come never again/For her soul gives me sigh for sigh").

But like his stories, Poe's poems are spun out of exquisite, dreamlike words that can sometimes evolve into nightmares. This guy could evoke everything from ghosts to fairy-tales, brides to wormlike horrors. Even the more sentimental moments have a dark edge ("Oh, may her sleep/As it is lasting, so be deep!/Soft may the worms about her creep!"). And he also wraps his verse in some truly beautiful natural metaphors -- ancient forests, flowers, misty moons, and many other beautiful touches.

And Poe's poetry even allows a window into his own mind at times, most painfully expressed as "from childhood's hour I have not been/As others were -- I have not seen/As others saw -- I could not bring/My passions from a common spring..." and the "mystery which binds me still."

For anyone who can appreciate his exquisite use of words, the "Complete Poetry of Edgar Allen Poe" is a must-read -- full of dark, meditative little gems and exquisite language. ... Read more

Product Description
One of the greatest of all horror writers, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) also composed pioneering tales that seized upon the scientific developments of an era marked by staggering change. In this collection of sixteen stories, he explores such wide-ranging contemporary themes as galvanism, time travel and resurrection of the dead. "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfall" relates a man's balloon journey to the moon with a combination of scientific precision and astonishing fantasy. Elsewhere, the boundaries between horror and science are elegantly blurred in stories such as "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar", while the great essay "Eureka" outlines Poe's own interpretation of the universe. Powerfully influential on later authors including Jules Verne, these works are essential reading for anyone wishing to trace the genealogy of science fiction, or to understand the complexity of Poe's own creative vision. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A Vast Imagination Takes Us to Remote and Shadowy Places!
This book is a marvel. Even the cover picture is brilliantly chosen. No other writer I have come across has captured that awesome, lonely sense of vastness in the most remote wildernesses of science better than Edgar Allan Poe. "The Unparralled Adventure of One Hans Phfall" is my favorite of all the tales, filled as it is with strange imagry and unexpected observations. The "Eye Balloon" on the front of the book easily becomes the vehicle in which the explorer Hans Phfall ventures into the those silent, rarified regions of lonely atmosphere beyond the reach of ordinary men. "Descent into the Maelstrom," a second story, is another example of the vastness and strangeness of nature, and the method of the sailor's escape from the vortex of thundering water is inspired. All the tales contain this sweeping sort of genius, and the whole book is without a doubt one of the greatest complilations of stories anywhere, and certainly one of the strangest. There is a certain fascination in the cold, rational extrapolation of Poe's seemingly dry, technical sentences, and the icy discipline he uses in analysing the incredible and bizarre places and things in the stories becomes entrancing.

Behind Verne and Wells stands the amazing Poe
As a book-loving child, I always took it as an article of faith that Jules Verne and H.G. Wells were the two great pioneers of modern science fiction. But "The Science Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe," edited and with an introduction by Harold Beaver, well demonstrates that Poe was the pioneer who preceded those two giants of the genre. In fact, in his introduction Beaver notes that "Jules Verne himself acknowledged his debt to Poe." This book brings together a good selection of Poe's writings, with extensive endnotes.

The book as a whole is a mixed bag. Some of the pieces strike me as experiments which don't quite hold up. But the best of these pieces superbly showcase Poe's wit, descriptive skill, and active imagination. My favorite pieces are as follows:

"The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall": the story of a fantastic balloon journey; filled with clever details. "A Descent into the Maelstrom": an adventure story about an encounter with a horrific whirlpool. "Some Words with a Mummy": a humorous satire about an Egyptian mummy revived scientifically. And "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar": a creepy tale about death and "Mesmerism" (i.e. hypnosis); this story has the most in common with Poe's famous canon of horror tales.

Other selections in the book include "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion," "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains," "The Balloon-Hoax," "The System of Dr Tarr and Prof. Fether," and some others. The longest piece in the book (at about 100 pages) is "Eureka: An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe." It's rather tedious and dated; in it Poe discusses such topics as the formation of the solar system, the age of the stars, and the nature of the human soul.

The best pieces in this book are truly remarkable. If you want to trace the genealogy of science fiction, don't miss this collection.

Discover the *real* world of Edgar Allan Poe
Many people believe that Edgar Allan Poe was merely a horror writer whopenned his dark tales while under the mind-warping influence of laudanum(opium).What is misunderstood, underestimated or perhaps disregardedaltogether is the greatness of Poe's philosophical mind and the genius ofhis theories about reality and existence.In the Science Fiction of EdgarAllan Poe his philosophical prowess is evident, most notably in 'Eureka,'where he lays out his intense -- certainly somewhat surreal -- but alwaysfascinating interpretation of the universe and the nature of humanexistence. For those readers who want to go beyond the traditional canon ofPoe works and discover the incredible range and depth of this man's writingand the substance of his philosophy, this is the book for you. ... Read more

Product Description
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the indisputable greats of American literature. Part of the American Romantic movement, his horror stories are known the world over and have become classics. Meanwhile, stories like The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Mystery of Marie Roget helped found the detective novel genre, that would later come into its own with the likes of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, half a century later.

This fabulous collection includes 69 short stories -- absolutely all of the stories Poe is known to have written -- making this the most complete Poe collection for Kindle. The handy interactive table of contents lists the stories by date of publication, as well as alphabetical order, and includes alternative titles. If you are a Poe aficionado, you will love this book.

This material was NOT merely scanned from an ink-and-paper book, like many Kindle e-books are. All e-books offered by Di Lernia Publishers are hand-edited and checked for spelling and punctuation errors. ... Read more

Product Description
Poe's complete poetry and fiction, collected for the first time, including his remarkable and haunting poems, his classic tales of mystery, horror, and suspense, and his humorous sketches. Includes famous stories such as "The Fall of the House of Usher," and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," along with his most popular poems such as "Annabel Lee," "The Raven," and lesser-known works, and his unusual prose-poem "Eureka." This volume displays Poe's extraordinary range and technique, as well as his gift for revealing the darker possibilities of human experience. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Southern?I don't think so
Since when does being born in Boston, living in Philly and NYC, but dying in Maryland make you a Southern writer?GREAT author no doubt, but don't agree about the "Southern" angle.

Passion within the Pen
The Raven and Annabel Lee:These two poems were my favorites of the Poe Collection and the reason was clear - I'm an impossible romanticist.These two beautiful, sensitive poems resonate with soul-wrenching passion, grief, agony.They play with the mind, they pass the word games around between the subject and the reader; they are designed to be read many times over, searching for one more clue as to their depth of meaning - truly the signature of the master craftsman - the defining moment between talent and genius.

Poe did have that genius, and his imagination took him one step beyond - the emotions of the mind betraying any promise of healing that an aching heart struggled to achieve; the dark, dismal abyss opening beneath, wholly possessing it's victim.

The Raven:Symbolism at it's finest, the "black bird of despair" perches ominously above the door of his psyche, tenaciously haunting every corner of his lonely room; striking down any emerging dim hope of recovery with one firm and final wordstroke, "Nevermore".

He tries valiantly to make sense of it and gain control; he thinks he finally has it, and he cries -
"Desolate, yet all undaunted,
on this desert land enchanted
-on this home by horror haunted
- tell me truly, I implore -
is there - is there balm in Gilead? (**to make the wounded whole)
Tell me, tell me, I implore!"

The Raven fixes him with an unfeeling eye and squashes his glimmer of light once and for all - "it's not going to happen.She is gone, and you will not forget." (Nevermore)

*******

Annabel Lee - much along the same lines as the Raven, it denotes a lover pining for his beautiful lost love, Annabel Lee - her voice is softly alive in the sound of the sea, the beloved face forever passing through the recesses of his mind, ever present, preventing healthier thoughts from prevailing against the power of his mourning.His desire to find her again is all-consuming; his longing bordering on the verge of insanity.

These two poems, open to intense interpretation by each individual reader, were likely born of a personal observation somewhere in his life or in the life of someone close to him, will be the literary objective of the heartseekers theme papers forever.

Well, as I said.I was always somehow taken by the idea of the absolutely unattainable; the impossible tale of sorrow and of faded love.

Edgar Alan Poe----Master of Claustrophobia
Edgar Alan Poe is responsible for so many things in the world of literature. It was he who laid down the first guidelines for the short story. The detective story traces its lineage to him. And mystery and horror story fans can thank Edgar Alan Poe for popularizing these forms of literature. Now, on to the quality of his work.
What is so captivating about the literature he wrote? It is his descriptive power--his ability to make commonplace items ominous, or inanimate objects personal, or terrifying scenes real. His writing has a nightmarish tone that absorbs the reader into the horror. And yet it is not because he uses overtly graphic violence (although violence and torture do find its way into many of his stories), but because he draws you into the mind of the character described in the story, until your heart literally pounds against your chest, and your lungs struggle for breath. In The Pit and the Pendulum, you feel as if you really are a prisoner of the Inquisition, waiting for death. After reading his stories, you will find that you do not need a movie filled with horrible blood and gore to make you terrified. These stories are terrifying! And then there are his poems. Amazing! Melodic meters, pleasing rhymes, and eerie themes. Their rhythm stays in your head, haunting your thoughts

Well, as you can see, I am a big fan of Edgar Alan Poe. Anyone who enjoys reading, and has not read any of his works, is missing out on some enormous entertainment. Just read one of his stories or poems, and you will probably fall into the same snare I have fallen in, constantly looking for more from this pioneering author.

Ryan Robledo
Author of the Aelnathan:

Poe-EAP's complete works and poems
My Niece will be thrilled to recieve this book for Christmas! The Book is quality and very well made and the contents will surely make her happy!

STOP YOUR SEARCH- You've found the definitive Poe collection
There's no point whatsoever in reviewing the work of Poe. As you know, or soon will know, it is the work of genius & above reproach, particularly from a mere mortal Amazon reviewer like myself.

So instead I am reviewing this collection of his works specifically. Safe to say there a hundreds of books out there containing his work, many of which are misleadingly titled 'the complete...' or 'the definitive...'. Nonsense. None of these books have been anywhere near complete. On top of that, few, if any, are attractively presented or pieced together with some logical thought process evident.

This thick, hefty (but not large-sized) 1984 Library of America edition tips the scales at over 1500 pages(!) and has all of his mesmerising short stories, all of his fascinating poems, and his other sought after works which other reviewers here detail more closely. Better yet, for once they are in chronological order, which gives the reader the opportunity to follow Poe's own development.

Yes, it is expensive, but this is an absolute essential for your library, and assuming you bring up your children to love reading, will be in your family for many generations. This is not an expensive book, this is an investment for you and your family that will give you decades of pleasure (150 years after his death and we're still reading Poe!)

THIS my friends, is the absolute and comprehensive collection of the works of Poe, contained within a beautiful and fittingly gothic-styled hardback. Don't sell yourself short and look for a cheaper & inferior book, snap up one of the remaining copys of this book, it will outlive you... ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
C. Auguste Dupin, investigator extraordinaire, was the remarkable creation of Edgar Allan Poe. Written in the 1840s, Poe presented the acutely observant, shrewd but idiosyncratic character who, with his chronicler, provided the inspiration for the more famous Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Here are the three Dupin stories together on one AudioBook release. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The First Unofficial Detective
In these 3 short story, Poe introduces to the world for the first time the way of logical deduction, and applies it to an actual ambiguous case.

He seems to place much importance in mathematics as being the best exercise for analytic reasoning. Similar thing is seen in Doyle's Holmes, for Doyle asserts that Moriarty, the arch enemy of Sherlock Holmes, is in fact a mathematician.

Well aside from that he places much importance on meditation, a habit that is very unfamiliar in most of the world.

In the course of the first story, "The Murders of Rue Morgue," the French detective, Dupin, surprises his companion by interfering in his thoughts, an act that was criticized by Holmes in the novel "A Study in Scarlet," and that was practiced by him in some other short story of his.

The mystery, on the other hand, was a new one, not a simple one, and the deductions of Dupin were very logical and intriguing.

In the second story, "The Mystery of Marie Roget," Poe reconstructs a real crime by merely building up from the newspaper clips he collected over the span of time. He finally solves the mystery in the person of his detective Dupin. Close analysis had showed that the answer provided by Poe was actually the right one.

In the third story, "The Purloined Letter," Dupin solves a very easy mystery that puzzled the police force of paris.

This book is not at the same level of Doyle's writing, it is a little simpler, but is a nice read, though. That might be true because Doyle had based his detective, Holmes, on Dupin, and had actually attained the fame that forced him to dedicate some of his time for his mysteries. ... Read more

Product Description
"With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion."–Edgar Allan Poe. Containing such famous works as "The Raven", "Lenore", "Annabel Lee", and "To Helen", this complete collection of poetry by Edgar Allan Poe encapsulates the career of one of the best-known and most read American writers. Laden with tones of loneliness, melancholy and despair, the poetry contained in this volume exerted great influence on the American Romantic and the French Symbolist Movements of the nineteenth century. Today, Poe's poetry is appreciated for its literary genius, not only because of his command of language, rhythms and dramatic imagery, but also because of its emotional insight into a beautiful and tormented mind. His propensity towards the mysterious and the macabre, as well as an ardent preoccupation with death, has led centuries of scholars and readers to enjoy these poems of love, death, and loneliness. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Great Collection, Incredible Value
Edgar Allan Poe is rivaled only by Walt Whitman as America's most famous and popular poet, and he remains one of the best-known, widest read, and frequently discussed poets worldwide in an era when poetry is becoming ever less popular. Much of this is because of his near-legendary life and all the melodramatic events surrounding it. This often makes it hard to separate fact from fiction, but far more importantly, it sadly overshadows his work's greatness. Poe is one of the greatest American poets and one of the few to have entered world literature, but unavoidable pre-conceptions and expectations makes it very difficult to take his poems on their own terms or see their inherent quality. This was true of Poe even in life; "The Raven" made him world famous, but critics and writers fiercely debated its merits and his other poems', many lauding him as a revolutionary genius but at least as many dismissing him as a superficial hack. The former are clearly now in the majority, and Poe's standing only continues to rise, but the latter remain a vocal minority.

The ambivalence stems mostly from Poe's highly distinct content and form. The former famously - or infamously - focuses on life's dark side and often tends toward the macabre; gloom, doom, hell, and death dominate, and dark overtones of blighted fatalism, self-destruction, and other unsavory elements permeate. Those who dislike depressing art are thus understandably wary, though it is easy to exaggerate this aspect. Poe in fact has several poems of sublime beauty; some are even celebratory, especially in regard to love. Anyone scared off by his reputation or casual experience with his poems should thus read more deeply before dismissing him.

Poe's techniques have also always been controversial; few poets have relied so heavily on form or drawn such attention to it. Those who value poetic simplicity and/or think emotional immediacy should dominate will never put Poe with the greats. It is easy to call him flashy, but he is certainly not a poet who uses form for form's sake; he always strives to make form integral, tying it with subject matter to make the combination seem natural, even inevitable. This distillation is the essence of his genius to some, but others will still not be satisfied. In any event, though, even Poe's detractors must admit that his contributions to and influence on form are almost unequaled in English. He was the first to fully explore rhyme, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and other effects, using them for inherent qualities rather than from obligation. Many have imitated this, but few, if any have equaled him. All this is even more remarkable when we realize that Poe actually wrote very little poetry; no other modern poet even comes close to his outsized influence.

As always in such cases, the best - nay, the only real - way to choose which side of the proverbial fence to be on is to read the works. Many, many editions of Poe's verse exist, but this is one of the most widely available and certainly the most inexpensive, especially considering content. It has most of the poems - forty-one spread across forty-five pages -, excluding only his three long verse works ("Tamerlane," "Al Aaraaf," and Politian") and what the head note calls "some of the weakest juvenilia and a number of novelty and light occasional items." A few may disagree with the decisions made in regard to this last, but virtually all the short poems anyone could want are here, including all well-known ones.

Like other Dover Thrift Editions, this has minimal supplemental material:a short head note, a table of contents, title and first line indices, and a very few notes. Binding and design are also quite cheap. Anyone wanting a more lavish edition will certainly have to look elsewhere, but this will suffice for most. The only problem at all likely to be common is the dearth of notes; Poe had a very eccentric vocabulary and made numerous references to semi-obscure historical figures, meaning that much will be lost on the average reader unless he or she is willing to use dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc. fairly frequently. Readers wanting the complete poems will also have to pass, though they will miss very little in regard to short poems. Some may also want Poe's fiction along with the poems, and there are many such editions. However, anyone wanting an introduction to the poems - or even a collection that is comprehensive by nearly all standards - and cares little for extra material could do no better. The price is almost unbelievable, and most think the content is great; even those who will not agree must find out for themselves, making this book ideal in contrast to more expensive ones.

Other Books
Portentous crow dudes, and others.For fans of the horror end of comics, as well as The Raven and its Crow like links, this collection of Poe poetry also includes The Conqueror Worm. Out- out are the lights- out all! And, over each quivering form, The curtain, a funeral pall, Comes down with the rush of a storm, While the angels, all pallid and wan, Uprising, unveiling, affirm That the play is the tragedy, "Man," And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart?
Edgar Allan Poe's poetry has been roundly criticized for it over-emphasis on rhyme, its artifice, and its lack of substance. Nonetheless, after more than 150 years Poe's poetry continues to attract new readers. Its unique, peculiar quality - a pervasive melancholy and gloominess, a longing for an unobtainable love, and a preoccupation with dreams and death - remains fascinating today.

This inexpensive, paperback Dover Thrift edition (The Raven and Other Favorite Poems) is a nearly complete collection. It is missing only two longer narrative poems (Tamerlane and Al Aaraaf), the verse play Politian, and a few lesser poems.

Throughout his life Poe continually revised, reworked, and improved his poems. Final versions were sometimes quite different from his early versions. On occason Poe even renamed some poems. Today, most anthologies - like this collection from Dover - arrange his poetry chronologically based on the earliest publication date for a poem, but almost invariably print the final version.

His most popular poems make substantial use of patterns, cadence, rhythm, and rhyme. The Raven, Eldorado, and Annabel Lee are good examples.

And neither the angels in heavens above,
Nor the demons under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE.

Poe's dark, haunting imagination is well illustrated by The Conqueror Worm (from his story, Ligeia), The Haunted Palace (from The Fall of the House of Usher), and the highly original poem, The City in the Sea.

And the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy "Man"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

A Dream, Dreams, A Dream within a Dream, and Dream-Land obviously have some commonality, and indeed there is some overlap in phrasing and style. The following dark, sobering verse is from Dreams:

Yes! Tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
'T were better than the cold reality of waking life

Spirits of the Dead, The Sleeper, Lenore, and For Annie reflect Poe's preoccupation with death and dying.Who, but Poe, could have written this verse?

The sickness--- the nausea---
The pitiless pain---
Have ceased with the fever
That maddened my brain---
With the fever called "Living"
That burned in my brain.

Poe's more personal poems often use a first person narrative style to describe lost, or unobtainable love. Good examples include: I saw thee on thy bridal day; To Helen, To One in Paradise, and Helen. Other poems describe his deep appreciation and love for his wife's mother (titled To My Mother) and his thankfulness to a nurse that helped him through a serious illness (To M.L.S.).

Sonnet---To Science is a personal plea for a more romantic, more humanistic view of nature:

Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?

During his life Poe's poetry was published in four overlapping collections: Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), Manuscript Collection (1828), Poems by Edgar A. Poe (1831), and The Raven and Other Poems (1845).

Definite Keeper for the Poe Enthusiast
This book is excellent, especially for the Poe connoisseur. It contains many of his poems, such as The Raven, Annabelle, and Bells, Bells, but also many of his lesser known poems. If nothing else, this book provides a great sense of showing Poe's ability to put together some great works of poetry.

The poems contained definitely have an overall theme of mourning, loss and lamentation with a sense of supernatural elements. If you have read "The Raven" you know about how the speaker sees a raven and believes it could be his lost lover reincarnated. Many of the poems follow this same type of feel. For instance, in "The Valley of Unrest", the speaker comments how inhuman objects are personified, crying at the prospect of nameless, anonymous graves.

Poe has a way of capturing not only the feelings of strong emotion, but anxiety that comes with the passages of death. The nervousness in the speaker in "The Raven" and "Annabelle" comes from the hopes of getting back the feeling of love that the speaker had when his lover was alive. Poe is able to convey a feeling of mystery, and supernatural elements seem to play upon the speaker's minds in many of his works.

A great book to check out, and the great thing about Dover books is that they are very inexpensive.

Once more- Nevermore
Poe is a poet of great intensity and music, of haunting rhythm and obsessive feeling. This collection contains the lyrics he is most known for including the title- piece, his most famous work, the haunting 'The Raven'. But the rhythms of loss and longing and lament which play such a great part in his invocation of ' Lenore' who he will see nevermore, are also present in his 'To Helen' and his 'Annabel Lee'. And there will be other memorable lines as "The glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome " which will refrain in the reader's mind . Poe makes his readers sense an echo effect , and we hear and hear again his deep- beating lines.
And with them there comes too a sense of deep disturbance, a disquiet that is at the heart of America's strangest and most hauntingly gloomy great poet. ... Read more