Edgar Allan Poe : Poetry and Tales (Library of America)

Rating:
Summary: For the SERIOUS Poe lover.
Review: If you want the real Poe, the Library of America version of Poe's Poetry and Tales is the best bargain going. This volume should give either a lover of Poe or a serious scholar a handy volume of the Poe canon. I am not going to extol the virtues of Edgar Allan Poe. He was one of our most important national authors and an innovator of forms and genres. Master of the macabre, inventor of the detective story, explicator of the psychotic soul-Poe was the father of psychological horror literature as well as an accomplished satirist, critic and poet. If you want all of the poems and tales all in one place, go buy this book. Apparently the two volume Borzoi Poe (Knopf) edited by Arthur Hobson Quinn and Edward H. O'Neill is out of print. That was certainly a respectable edition of the poems and stories, and it included, the marvelous metaphysical Eureka as well as all the tales and poems and a respectable cross-section of the criticism in a handsome two-volume edition. The Modern Library and Doubleday complete Poe's are good enough to read for pleasure. But if you want a version of Poe that can be used as a reading text as well as a scholarly resource (meaning serious stuff) then this Library of America volume is just the thing for you. It is edited by Patrick Quinn, a highly respected Poe scholar, and its texts are good-and you get all of them. It's certainly a bargain when compared to the Thomas Ollive Mabbott/Burton Pollin variorum edition, a multi-volume extravaganza. And most of us don't need all that detail anyway. This is a nice volume because it encapsulates the canon of the fiction and poetry-clean and compact. Here you get all the poems and tales (short stories) as well as The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, the timely Poe version of Lewis and Clark called The Journal of Julius Rodman, the cosmological extravaganza/ metaphysical tour de force that Poe called Eureka. This is all of Poe that you might want to read. And the texts are all derived from the real authoritative readers' texts defined by the best Poe scholars. There is a second volume in the series that contains criticism that brings it all back home.

Rating:
Summary: The best Poe book available
Review: There are few american authors as good as Edgar Allen Poe. From the grotesque to the sublime his poetry is among the most enjoyable ever written. His tales continue to excite both young and old alike. One of the things that I enjoy most about Poe is that many of his tales are designed not only for suspense but also to challenge the intellect of the reader. This edition of Poe is one of the finest available. It is made to Library standards and is the version of choice for all who want to enjoy Poe's writings over a lifetime. In addition to the books superior binding and quality it includes the works not commonly found among other so called complete editons. They include: The unparalled Adventure of One Hans Pfall, The Journal of Julius Rodmen, and Eureka:Aprose poem. The book also includes a complete index of titles and of first lines, and notes on the text. For anyone looking for a definative edition on Poe I couldn't make a stronger recommendation.