Customer Reviews

Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales and Poems

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

All of Edgar Allan Poe's works collected into one hardcover volume. This book has a lot of stuff in it, and I still haven't quite finished it.
I guess what sets this book apart from all the other collections of Poe, is the book itself. It's not annotated, but I couldn't find any collections of Poe that were; however, it does come with a great introduction. And after that, pure Poe. The book is very sturdy, and considering it's price, a great bargain. I personally can't stand the see-saw cut pages that a lot collections like this get, but this book lacks those, and that makes me happy. I also won't waste your time trying to convince how great Poe was, since the fact that you're browsing here means you already know, or at least have a clue.
While any collected Poe book would probably suit you just fine, since there is very little to distinguish them from each other, I would recommend this one, simply because when I was browsing through the various collections, this one appeared to be the best bang for my buck.

This book brings together all of Poe's stories and poems, and suggests the diverse and multifaceted genius of one of the greatest and most influential writers in the history of American literature.

Also recommended: REDEFINING THE 'SELF': SELECTED ESSAYS ON SWIFT, POE, PINTER, AND JOYCE by John Condon Murray

Few authors (perhaps only Stephen King) have consistently tingled the spine like Master Poe. While two centuries have passed since his tortured life and twisted pen have graced our old world, his fame has endured, and this inimitable collection reminds us why. All the great stories are here: The Tell-Tale Heart, The Pit And the Pendulum, The Cask of Amantillado, The Purloined Letter, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, etc., etc., as well as all of his published poems and even some other of his writings thrown in for good measure. A must to add to the collection of any bibliophile.

Edgar A. Poe was an amazing poet and story teller, and I would strongly urge anyone to purchase one of his complete tales and poems volumes. The Castle Books (2002) version is nicely bound and a great price. HOWEVER, the top of each right hand page reads "Complete Tales and Poems" rather than displaying the name of the story or poem on that page. While only a minor detail, I like to flip through volumes of this size, and this small problem drives me crazy! I don't know whether other versions (Doubleday, Barnes & Noble, etc.) have a similar issue, but if you have OCD like me, you might try one of those instead.

I've bought a few complete Poe collections over the years, and this one is my favorite. The font size is not squashed down to save pages at the expense of my eyes, and it does seem to be complete. It's also an attractively put together book.

Poe is essential reading for anyone interested in horror, and for any apsiring writer. He not only is a master of horror, but he's credited as being the inventor of the detective story.

"The Raven", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Black Cat", "The Masque of the Red Death", "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", and everything else you're looking for plus stories and poems you may never have heard of yet are all in here.

This is a great volume at a great price. I'd also recommend: The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre, Cold Streak, It (Signet Books), Coraline, & Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance.

Edgar Allen Poe. I'm sure you have read his most famous of works, The Pit and the Pendelum, The Tell Tale Heart, the Raven etc. But who of you has ventured deeper into his writings? There are many of his lesser known works that will keep you glued to the couch for hours. Example: The Angel of the Odd. You may think you know Poe, but.... you really don't. This book also contains an introduction that was very interesting. I know much more now, some of which I wish I didn't learn. Excellent stories, excellent poems, excellent book.

I read a few stories by Poe: they include "The Murders of the Rue Morgue," "The Raven," "The Tell Tale Heart," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Gold Bug," and "The Fall of the House of Usher". I thought all of these stories are very interesting. As a junior in high school I thought I was going to have a very boring time reading Poe for a project we had to do for school. Surprisingly I was not bored with his writing style at all. Especially when I read "The Tell Tale Heart," which was by far my favorite story by Poe thus far. Poe brings you into his work rather slowly, but once you get past the first page or two he sucks you into his writings.

When you read his stories you wonder how a person can think of these sorts of topics to write about. You realize Poe's mind was definitely not one track thinking, but very open to various themes. Poe's writings are good for anybody to read, especially if you are into sick and twisted stories.

Poe may not seem to be very much of a fright story writer nowadays, because we have so many movies with amazing special effects. But after you read Poe and realize what time he wrote in you think he is a pretty spooky writer.

In my mind Poe is an amazing author and I come from a generation where we have substituted movies for books. Poe is a must read author some time in your life, so take a minute and instead of watching Texas Chain Saw Massacre read one of Poe's stories and you will feel like you accomplished something more meaningful.

When you think of Poe, you generally first think of his classic macabre short stories and poems, and then perhaps you also think of his detective fiction, often considered the forerunner of Sherlock Holmes and company.

But after finishing this book, I discovered that those really made up a small amount of what he wrote. Mostly he seems to have written rather heavy handed satire. Maybe it was funny back then, but it's not especially funny now. Perhaps if there were annotations explaining just what he was satirizing, it would be better. But even so, most of it is just, so, er, thickly written, that it's hard to wade through.

So basically, I think you're probably off just buying a book that isn't so complete. You really probably don't want to read most of this.

That said, for $10, it's a pretty good deal. Lots of pages, seems sturdy of binding and paper. It's a little hard to read, I don't know if it's the text size, the type face they used, or if I need glasses.

I bought this book but had to return it; I found the print so small I could not comfortably read it. Admittedly I am a senior and many people may not have a problem but be prepared, the print (or type) is uncommonly small. I would be better off buying a collection in two volumns. And no, I do not need large-type books.

Edgar Allan Poe was more than another great writer. He was the ferryman to a world where all earthly norms fall away, and sense becomes nonsense. In his introduction to this volume, Wilbur Scott describes the goal of Poe's poetry being "to move the reader from the quotidian world of fact and tedium into a transcendent world of supernal loveliness."

Same with many of his tales, also produced here, with this important addendum: Sometimes the world Poe takes you do is not any fancy land at all; but a bleak, rocky chasm with no bottom.

Poe's been dead 160 years, but he's still THE man of American letters, the one classic American author ordinary people are eager to read. Of his stories, which I prefer to his poems just because I'm that kind of guy, you have an array of macabre milestones like "The Cask Of Amontillado", "The Black Cat", "The Fall Of The House Of Usher", "Hop-Frog", "The Man Of The Crowd", and my favorite from middle school, "The Tell-Tale Heart."

You also have a rousing detective story, "The Purloined Letter", and even some fine humor pieces that are less well-known, like "The Spectacles," "The Man That Was All Used Up", and "The Business Man". "A Predicament" presents us with the story of a woman so bent on trying to be macabre that she writes lovingly, excessively, of her own decapitation. Poe was apparently satirizing a popular ghoulish fiction magazine of the time, though he seems to be sending up himself. The laughs are still there more than 150 years later.

"The loss of the eye was not so much as the insolent air of independence and contempt with which it regarded me after it was out," Poe has the narrator relate affectedly. "There it lay in the gutter just under my nose, and the airs it gave itself would have been ridiculous had they not been disgusting."

So why only four stars? I took one off for the presentation, and one off for the entirety of Poe (sentences to be served concurrently). This edition is bare bones, nothing but the prose and poems, aside from Scott's introduction, with no attempts at placing recondite items of Poe's in historical context, or even furnishing likely writing dates. If any author cries out for a loving editor who sticks his or her nose into things to help explain the writer, it's Poe. I'm sure not going to figure out what he was trying to do with "X-ing A Paragrab" on my ownsome.

No author is going to shine as brightly with the whole of their work before you, not if it's Shakespeare, and certainly not if it's Poe. In some ways he's overrated ("The Pit And The Pendulum" is a tension-filled potboiler with a nonsensical ending, though at least its short, which can not be said of the silly "Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym"). In others, he's just a little too in love with his own vocabulary. "The Domain Of Arnhem" is a great example of how quickly Poe can send you to Eldorado by putting you to sleep with a story going nowhere.

Finally, Poe is very morbid. Death is a constant presence in his stories, and sometimes it gets the better of him, like in "Mesmeric Revelation", when a person who dies under hypnosis conducts a metaphysics seminar from beyond the grave. It would be better if the compilers of this book spread out the "Buried Lady" stories, rather than ran them all together like a cattle train.

The nice thing about a book like this is the opportunity to find a lost treasure, like "The System Of Doctor Tarr And Professor Fether" or "The Gold Bug", ironically Poe's biggest financial success in his lifetime though now deemed racist in many quarters. And of course you have the greatest poem in the world, for someone like me who needs the poet to do all the work: "The Raven". Even if the rest of this collection was a pile of hay, the Hope Diamond would still be the Hope Diamond buried within it.