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5.0 out of 5 stars
Nine Great Tales by the Master of the Macabre, May 2 2004
America was a young country; its age was measured in decades. America had few established colleges and had produced few writers, artists, and musicians. It is rather astounding that a poorly paid writer, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), living in poverty and suffering from alcohol and opium abuse, would still be widely read and admired nearly two centuries later.Poe had a remarkable imagination. He was one of the key creators of not one, but two genre of fiction - the horror story and the deductive mystery story. While in middle school, a teacher, Mr. McLeod, loaned me a thick, heavy book containing the complete stories and poetry of Edgar Allan Poe. I read it cover to cover. Poe remains one of my favorite authors. This inexpensive Dover edition contains nine unabridged tales arranged in chronological order. Seven stories are classic examples of horror; two are classic deductive mystery stories. Many readers will immediately realize that Sir Conon Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries were patterned on Poe's classic mystery titled The Murders in the Rue Morgue. The unnamed narrator could well have been Dr. Watson, an intelligent observer that has difficulty keeping pace with the brilliant deductions of Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin (the predecessor to Sherlock Holmes). Would we have had Holmes without Dupin? The Gold-Bug is the other deductive mystery, one that deeply impressed me as a young boy. I again enjoyed reading The Gold Bug. I will say nothing about the plot. It is best to be savored as a surprise. These tales are among the best known by Edgar Allan Poe and are often found in anthologies. Some have been adapted to films, often with considerable license on the part of the screen writer. The Cask Of Amontillado, The Black Cat, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Masque of the Read Death, and The Fall of the House of Usher are classics. Ligeia, the earliest story in this collection, is not as well-known, but is quite haunting. The vocabulary of Edgar Allan Poe is extensive. He carefully describes the setting, creating a suspenseful and threatening atmosphere. The tales are usually told in narrative form, sometimes from the perspective of one not entirely sane. These are stories to read again and again.
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