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Summary: Giving It All To Us
Review: One of the downfalls most poets go through is that only one or two of their poems are regularly published in literature books leaving the others lost and forgotten. This book gives us a look at all of Poe's poems, the ones not published but equally as good as the others. There is nothing like snuggling up at night and being horrified by one of his tales. Poe's work is priceless and most of the time his excellent writing is all but forgotten in english literaure. It is a must in anyones collection...
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Summary: Poe, the Authority of Alarm, Anxiety, and Awe
Review: As a high school student, I have learned about many great authors and poets:Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Benjamin Franklin, to name a few. However, without a doubt and hands down, Edgar Allan Poe is by far the
greatest author. Poe has an amazing ability to catch his reader's attention, fulfill them during the story, and disappoint them at the ending. This disappointment is not because the story was unsatisfactory and dull, but because the reader craves more of Poe's phenomenal and entertaining writing. The first time I read Poe (The Tell-Tale Heart), I was fascinated with his ability to make me feel that I was caught up with Poe's insanity. His story was absolutely terrifying, yet there were no demons, devils, beasts, basilisks, or monsters involved. I was confused of where the disturbing terror was coming from. After reading many of his short stories and poems, I realized that the fear could not even be found in the story at all. It is found in the reader's soul, beliefs, and heart. This horror is not exposed every time you open a book by Poe. It is with you constantly, every day and second, as long as your heart is still beating...and perhaps even after.
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Summary: A Look into the Guilt ridden soul
Review: If you are into scary nights and guilty plaguing consciences, this is the collection of stories that will thrill you and incite you to the wee hours of the night. Edgar Allan Poe is a genius in writing and content. His vision into the depths of the guilty soul and to the murderous soul is unbelievably scarily seemingly truthful. His stories, like the Raven, Tell-Tale Heart, and The Black Cat will keep you engaged and will promote your brain to think if ever human nature is like that, if ever you could be like that. Poe is a desperately depressive man whose dark nature shins through in his superb writing style. I definitely recommend any of Poe's material. Read this if you dare to think.
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Summary: The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe
Review: I am a great admirer of Edgar. I find him to be an exceptional talent in a time that did not appreciate his self torment and work. He was bi-polar, and must have had a terrible time relating to people who had no clue what was wrong with him. But in his darkness, he wrote. He is an excellent writer who can express the very essence of his poetry. He wrote down his pain in a venting bonanza. As a eulogy of his pain and life struggle, he should in the very least of the least get 5 stars. Thanks, Ed.His works are frighteningly excellent. His style is beautiful and captures the moment. His complete works are a classic and a must read for every literature buff!
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Summary: All she had expected and more.
Review: My Daughter had mentioned that she would like a book containing all of Edgar Allan Poes stories for Christmas. I went to Amazon. com found several E.A.P.(Edgar Allan Poe) books, I looked at this particular one and this book not only has every story written by Poe, it also has all of the Poems that he wrote, and a Biography about Poe. When it arrived, before I wrapped it I have to admit I had to read some of it. I was impressed. Well once my Daughter opened her gift and seen the contents of this book she was too was impressed with it. She informed me that she, herself has not found a more complete read at any bookstore thus far.
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Summary: The Greatest American Writer.
Review: Edgar Allen Poe was the greatest American writer who ever lived. His writing style is still unequaled by other writers. His ability to say so much with just the right words was most astounding. Modern writers can only hope to aspire to his genius. Poe died as a pauper because his contemporaries were jealous of his talent. No other american writer except for maybe Ferlinghetti has grasped the idea of writing and used it so perfectly. Poe deserved better than he got.
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Summary: If you could own one book by an American author...
Review: Poe has been called the creator of the modern detective story and yet many people have no idea that the character of Sherlock Holmes was inspired by Dupin, the protagonist in "The Purloined Letter" and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue". This is not meant to detract from Doyle since I do credit him with mastering the genre. But Poe wrote with meticulous detail and such subtle nuances of logical distinction that he stands among the few truly great American writers.
Even Poe's shortest of stories, e.g. The Assignation, The Cask of Amontillado, pack far more visual imagery and intensity of emotion than contemporary pulp fiction authors can contrive in an entire novel stuffed full of crass language and sexual gimmicks. Poe needs no gimmicks to keep you turning the pages.
Perhaps Poe does assume a certain level of cultural literacy on the part of the reader that is absent in our modern television society. People actually read books for pleasure in those days. But !I don't believe he was writing for the elite for he was hardly of the upper class. And it is true some stories might contain one or two phrases of "non-politically correct" language (The Gold Bug, for example). So did Shakespeare, Melville, Twain, and Doyle. But evaluated in the context of his time one can not help but admire his work.
I don't want to address at too much length the experiences of many students who have had been force-fed Poe as part of an English literature class. The Merchant of Venice, Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment, and Lord of the Flies are all books I will never read again due to my onerous experiences in school. However, if you are inclined to delve back into any of the classics in the English language, you can do far worse than to rediscover the tales of Edgar Allan Poe.
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Summary: Great Literature, Horrible Annotation
Review: That should really be amended to say no annotation. I would have given five stars, six if possible, because Poe's work on the whole is amazing. Even though all of his short stories and poems (and novella) can be fit into one book which doesn't even break a thousand pages, Poe is very easily the best writer to ever come out of America surpassing even Melville, Whitman, and Faulkner. The writing is required reading for all who love words. However, according to the classical education of the nineteenth century, there are quite a few allusions to material written in foreign languages ranging from Latin and Greek to German and French. In some places translation is provided, but I believe that these translations were done by Poe himself and not by the editors at Doubleday. There were some places where translation was crucial to the story but was not provided such as at the end of "The Purloined Letter". However Doubleday is not the only one guilty of this, I found quite a number of other editions of Poe's Complete works which lacked annotation as well. In fact I still have not found an edition which DOES CONTAIN annotation. However, it is only a thorn which does not take away from the beauty of this rose of literature. Most know Poe from his horror fiction but in the section of Humor and Satire one finds stories which are still able to make one laugh such as "The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq.," and "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether." The section of Flights and Fantasies shows the man whom Jorge Luis Borges strove to imitate. And for the very sparseness of it's section, the poetry of Poe continues to amaze to this day, with poems which are more like music than writing. But be warned, no one will like everything in here, but everyone will like something in here. For me, I personally didn't care for "The Gold Bug" or for "The Mystery of Marie Roget" but those are both detective stories, so a detective story lover might swoon over them whereas a fantasy story lover might not care for them at all. A reader who prefers Satire will definitely see a side of Poe which few are familiar with, and which, oftentimes, is on par with even Twain and Bierce. For sheer imagination, few if any, can hope to ever equal Poe.
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Summary: Best book out there for Edgar Allan Poe readers
Review: This is the best of the best when it comes to Edgar Allan Poe. I am a long time fan and can say that Poe is coming into high fashion at last. I read Poe along with David Lehman's reissue of "The Perfect Murder: A Study in Detection" and found the two books perfect companions for anyone who loves understading the classic WHODUNIT.
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Summary: Master of Darkness
Review: In the annals of short story writing there is perhaps no greater master than Edgar Allan Poe. His tales of horror have sent chills up and down the spines of their readers for several generations. His better known stories are all masterpieces of the genre of the macabre. As for his lesser known tales, they too are complex masterpieces of pyschological horror. And I use the word pyschological because Poe was aware of the inner workings of the human mind before Freud or Jung. He loves to explore the dark side of the human psyche, and no one has or ever will do it with as much power and mastery as did Poe.Also, Poe was a master of language and his ear was exquisitely tuned to the sounds of words. His poetry is perhaps the most tuneful in the English language. Listen to the music of the first sentence of The Fall Of The House Of Usher: "During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher." You see, Poe understood both tone and atmosphere and how to weave these elements into his narrative; thereby creating a lasting effect in the minds of his readers. I remember when first I read The Tell-Tale Heart how the opening paragraph pulled me into the strange intensity of Poe's madness. It begins thus: "True!-nervous-very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am! but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses-not destroyed-not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily-how calmly I can tell you the whole story." But it is the story of a madman and in the end will not prove him sane. In point of fact, it will draw its reader ever deeper into the infernal regions of Poe's pysche, where he will hear the few things of heaven and the many demonic things of hell. I have always loved the intense way in which Poe uses language to attain his metaphysical revelations of the state of a brilliant mind that is on the verge of disintergration. For it is in the order that he brings to this nightmarish chaos that one begins to understand that Poe's dark genius is capable of the highest degree of intuition. And that he is an explorer of regions of the mind that others dare never to explore for fear of what they might find. So I recommend reading Poe's stories and poems for the sheer thrill of it, but also for the complexities of his craftmanship and the subtle way in which he weaves upon the magic loom of his incredible imagination.
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