Critical Companion to Edgar Allan Poe: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work [Hardcover]

Dawn B. Sova (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 458 pages
• Publisher: Facts on File; 1 edition (August 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816064083
• ISBN-13: 978-0816064083
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,403,714 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

DAWN SOVA is a strong opponent of censorship in its many forms and has authored Banned Plays, Forbidden Films, Banned Books: Literature Suppressed on Social Grounds, and Banned Books: Literature Suppressed on Sexual Grounds. Third editions of the latter two books are in progress. She has felt honored to speak on the topic to both library associations and private groups.

She was born in northern New Jersey in 1949 to first-generation Americans of Eastern European descent whose parents came through Ellis Island with great hopes and dreams for the future. Economic disadvantage limited her parents' access to education, but they empowered their daughter to strive and to earn several advanced academic degrees. She taught writing, journalism, and literature for over two decades at both the high school and university level.

More important, their influence propelled her to dream beyond the boundaries of their working class neighborhood. She is the author of 23 books. In 2002, she won the Mystery Writers of America Award for Best Non-fiction Work for her 20th book Edgar Allan Poe A-to-Z. She was nominated by the MWA in the same category several years earlier for her work on Agatha Christie.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Companion, Not overly analytical, April 5, 2008

By 

vl1024 (ny, usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Critical Companion to Edgar Allan Poe: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work (Hardcover)

This is a great companion if you are looking for a good reference and some analysis but not overly detailed psychoanalysis of every story. I have found other companions like "the Cambridge Companion" to be too analytical and also extremely hard to reference and exact story. Often times other books like the Cambridge companion, analyze something specific in one chapter (for example his detective works) and talk about various stories with the same themes or references and then you accidently read the ending to another story..

This book allows you to look up any story or poem alphabetically, gives you a nice synopsis in case you didn't get it.. and then goes into a commentary briefing you on debated analysis and some popular theories or ideas about the story.
I love it because it allows me to get some insight, while still allowing me to have my own interpretation of the stories. It also gives publication information on each story, character bios and further reading.
It also has a nice biography at the beginning.