About this title: This collection of 73 short stories and 48 poems includes such masterpieces as The Fall of the House of Usher, The Purloined Letter, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and The Murders in the Rue Morgue.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Book Sales
Date Published: 2001-04
ISBN-13:9780785813507ISBN:0785813500
Description: Used-Very Good. VERY GOOD PLUS-Tight and solid. Ex-Library book with some library conventions, but very clean overall, text has no writing or highlighting. read more
Edition: Reissue
Binding: Extra Large Hardcover
Publisher: Book Sales, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780785814535ISBN:0785814531
Description: NEAR FINE. NEAR FINE DJ. Complete Works/excellent condition/no stamps/DJ is in excellent condition/dj is taped to the cover inside to hold it inplace. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: BOOK Sales Ltd., New York
Date Published: 2002
ISBN-13:9780785814535ISBN:0785814531
Description: Very Good in Very Good jacket. Fiction A very thick...(842 pages) copy of all Poe's works...very tight, clean & unmarked....slight edge wear to the dust cover edges. read more
Description: New in New jacket. pp. 842. The life of Edgar Allan Poe was characterized by a dramatic series of successes & failures, breakdowns & recoveries, personal gains & dashed hopes, despite which he created some of the finest literature the world has ever known. Poe perfected the psychological thriller, invented the detective story, & rarely missed transporting the reader to his own supernatural realm. Here, fans may indulge in all 73 of Poeís most imaginative short-stories, incl: ìThe Fall of the ... read more
Binding: Cloth
Publisher: Book Sales, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780785814535ISBN:0785814531
Description: Near Fine in Near Fine jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Light edge wear o/w very clean book with a library stamp of former owner on fep. read more
Description: Good; Collectible. 1938 Random House Modern Library hard cover edition-no dust jacket-slight stain to cover and page edge-tanning to page edge-slight ding to top of cover-otherwise binding very strong contents very clean. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Book Sales, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780785814535ISBN:0785814531
Description: Near Fine in Very Good + jacket. This 7 x 9.5 hardcover has 841 pages. there is some rubbing and light soil on the book. This is a complete collection of all the gruesome tales and poems of the classic author Edgar Allan Poe. read more
Description: Fine in Near Fine dust jacket. Hardcover. Castle Books, 2001. Reprint Edition. Fine Book in Near Fine Dust Jacket. Light shelf wear to Jacket. Overall, a clean and tight copy to add to a collection or read and enjoy. Dust Jacket protected with a new removable archival protector. Bubble wrapped and shipped promptly in a box. read more
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Book Sales, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780785813507ISBN:0785813500
Description: Very Good Plus. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" Very light edge wear and scuffing, previous owner's name on forward page, otherwise binding is straight and tight, text is bright and unmarked. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Castle Books
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780785814535ISBN:0785814531
Description: New in new dust jacket. bright shiny brand new, great gift. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 842 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Castle Books
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780785814535ISBN:0785814531
Description: Very Good+ in Very Good+ dust jacket. 9780785814535. Beautiful unclipped dust jacket shows standard shelf wear. Minor softening at spine ends. Otherwise the book is in pristine condition; pages are clean with NO markings, bindign tight. Literature. Pasadena's finest independent new and used bookstore.; 2.4 x 9.3 x 7.1 Inches; 842 pages. read 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."
"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, vivid, visceral setting (a masked ball held at an isolated medieval castle), but he also packs the story with eccentric and fascinating characters whose actions not only horrify and seduce the reader, but provoke contemplation and soul-searching afterward.
And isn't that the definition of a 'classic' -- a work that strongly moves you emotionally while you read it, but afterward you can't stop thinking about it?
By the way, when you read Poe, have a dictionary handy. He loves to embellish his tales with exotic language."
"Having read all the well-known stories and poems, I dug into this tome with anticipation, expecting many of his more obscure works to be fully as good. But I was vastly disappointed.
As we all know, his horror stories are real gems. There's a reason he's called a master of the genre. And I much enjoyed (re)reading them.
But the rest of this volume is filled with some of the dullest writings imaginable. Meandering, pointless, filled with useless tangents. Stories which skillfully build up suspense, only to end abruptly, often in the midst of the climax. Parodies of literary journals long since out of vogue. Impenetrable essays on the nature and rationale of poetry.
It surprises me that the same author can write a few stories that are so good, and many that are very bad, with almost no middle ground between.
My favorite stories remain The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar and The Cask of Amontillado; as for the poems, it amazes me that The Raven is so good, and everything else so bad."
"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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