Customer Reviews

Edgar Allan Poe Annotated and Illustrated Entire Stories and Poems

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Andrew Barger opens his hefty book that includes all of the prose and poetry of Edgar Allan Poe with an introduction 'Demystifying Poe', an essay so well written and informative that it sets the tenor for the important collections of his book EDGAR ALLAN POE ANNOTATED & ILLUSTRATED ENTIRE STORIES & POEMS: 'Edgar Allan Poe is arguably our most important original and brilliant author of American letters and most misunderstood. His combination of industriousness, minuteness for detail, originality, and respect for his craft are unparalleled.' Barger then proceeds to offer all of the written works of Poe (many of these will be discoveries to the casual Poe reader), offering annotations to clarify the time and setting and influences on each work. This is an ambitious work and one that immediately becomes the scholar's gold standard for research on this major writer of mystery and thrills.

If for no other reason than to have a solid selection of the works of Poe on the shelf, this beautifully designed and handsomely printed book will serve that intent. But once the reader thumbs through this book, pausing to re-read favorites such as 'The Fall of the House of Usher', 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue', 'The Pit and the Pendulum', and 'The Raven', there are many little known gems of short stories, articles, essays, and poems in addition to the stories that are less familiar to the larger audience to discover.

Barger adds 'guidance' to his method of presenting these works by such devices as listing all of the poems under the subheadings of 'Women in Edgar Allan Poe's Life', 'Miscellaneous Poetry both Before and After Age 25', 'Autobiographical', and 'Men in Edgar Allen Poe's Life.' These may seem like minor adjustments to the collections, but in Barger's hands the divisions add meaning and context to the works.

In addition to all of the written works of Poe, this handsome book contains photographs and many of the famous illustrations for his works - especially those of Harry Clarke and Gustave Dore. The fine art of these two men is also honored with annotations adding to their importance to Poe's popularity as a writer. This is simply a splendid book, handsomely written and produced, and a fine tribute to the literature of Poe - and to the scholarship of Andrew Barger! Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, June 2008

I just re-read the 5-star review of this book after finishing the steps required a refund. I don't normally write reviews despite purchasing 3-4 books per month from Amazon but this book is so poorly produced and the contrary to the 5-star review that I must say something. First off, the literature is great, that's without question. However, the excellent artwork that typically accompanies these poems and stories is an absolute abomination. No care whatsoever was made in the making of this "handsome book" (I'm quoting the 5-star reviewer) and that includes the printing. All the images seem to be low resolution 72dpi images grabbed from the web, I wish I were kidding. Some are even stretched horizontally to fit a desired space within the page layout. An illustrated portrait comes to mind as it looked as if one was staring into a funhouse mirror. I was SO looking forward to this book for the literature AND the amazing artwork of Clarke, Dore, etc. You can imagine my shock when receiving this tome and seeing such poor presentation. For example, back in the day, Dore's illustrations were made into engravings (high contrast black and white images) with exquisite line work so they'd be suitable for printing. In this book, the images are so pixelated and the printing so cheap that the engravings are blurry masses of choppy gray tones. The amateurishly photo-shopped low resolution cover of this book was a red flag but for the price I thought I'd take a chance on this book as it seemed a good value. I suppose it is if you want all of Poe's stories in on place this book is worthwhile but damn, this book is hard to look at especially if you're a fan of art. It earns 2 stars because the literature is great but brought down by the extremely poor production. The publisher should be ashamed...buyer beware.

I agree with Richard Desimone, if you are looking for an illustrated Poe, this is not it. The only section that is illustrated is "The Raven". There are a few very small black and white illustrations scattered through out, but be prepared to be disappointed. My other complaints are that the text is very small and the "Index of Real Names" at the back of the book is the only index and of limited usefulness.

This is the most comprehensive book I've seen on Edgar Allan Poe. It is comfortable to read because it has the proper annotations and an introduction, which makes its texts accessible. I remember that as a child, the use of Greek and Latin in these texts, scared me off from Poe. There are only a couple of things that slightly bothered me: first, I like literary texts to be presented in chronological order because chronology in anthologies communicates something about the author and the society that contextualizes the text; the other thing was that I expected better illustrations for the text. When I saw "Illustrated" I was expecting something similar to what you see in illustrated texts: a lot of drawings and pictures that may visulize the story. Nevertheless, I can't consider this last flaw troublesome because Poe was so detailed that one doesn't need that many pictures (although I confess that in the case of The Raven the illustrations were very helpful to grasp the mood)to be able to visualize the "Murder in the Rue Morgue" or the facts in the "Mystery of Marie Roget." The chronology, however, I consider necessary in any scholarly work on literature. Yet, this text is worth the porice.
I also like the fact that the editor clarifies several myths about Edgar Allan Poe, myths that I have always heard about him since a child. This is a great book about Poe and his oeuvre.

What gives here? An Amazon Top 10 reviewer has raved about his Poe book and given it 5 stars. Another reviewer doesn't like the illustrations so he pans it. I side with the Top 10 reviewer and also give this 5 stars. My Amazon copy was well-done with tons of background information for each story and poem. I liked seeing photographs of the ladies in Poe's life and the authors he fought with.

The illustrations are black-n-white as that is how the illustrators of the 1800s drew them. They are also more tasteful without the blood and guts. If you are looking for glossy color Poe illustrations, buy a Poe book with modern illustrations. I'll take the classics and 800+ pages of Poe bliss.