William Wilson": 5 - read 11/20/2021. Reminded me of "The Double" by Dostoevsky. He definitely took inspiration from Poe! There's also similarities to "The Picture of Dorian Gray," which makes me think Oscar Wilde was also inspired by Poe. Stories about doppelgängers are always unsettling to me. This short story is a marvel. It appears confusing and contradictory, but if you stop and consider who is actually speaking then its true nature is revealed. Admittedly, on my first read I was a little lost, though after a second read I began to see it for what it was. This is not as approachable as some of Poe’s other works, and it really isn’t an advisable starting point for the author. But, the short story is wonderful, truly wonderful. It highlights the working of the mind in a state of sheer depravity; it is disturbing and brilliant.

The Complete Stories and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe | Goodreads

It’s not quite clear to the characters whether the trip actually occurred. Thus, the purpose of the tale is to make us believe that it actually did. Poe’s task is therefore to convince us of its veracity. He does this stylistically by containing enough empirical and scientific evidence to persuade us that this level of detail could only be known if the narrator had actually experienced what he purported to have. Poe achieves “plausibility by scientific detail”. Ironically, in an endnote, Poe differentiates his tale from earlier hoaxes (one of which adopts the tone of banter, the other being downright earnest). What differentiates his tale is that it is “an attempt at verisimilitude”. He who has never swooned, is not he who finds strange palaces and wildly familiar faces in coals that glow; is not he who beholds floating in mid-air the sad visions that the many may not view; is not he whose brain grows bewildered with the meaning of some musical cadence which has never before arrested his attention.”The Raven" - This is perhaps Poe's most well-known poem, telling the story of a man haunted by a raven who repeats the phrase "nevermore." This collection has all of his complete works (works like his very last, incomplete work, "The Light-House," are not included). Everything from his familiar tales like The Tell-Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado are included and also those that are not necessarily brought up in everyday discussion. All of his poems are included as well, from the familiar, such as The Raven and The Bells, to those from his younger days. One can be perfectly content with this collection alone as far as Edgar Allan Poe is concerned. This collection is also a really good buy, as many of his collections will have a selected amount of works and be worth more than this one. The final episode describes a murder which then reveals itself as a reflection in a mirror, saying, "In me didst thou exist - and in my death, see how utterly thou hast murdered thyself." Poe sent a copy of this story to Washington Irving, so the ending may well be an homage to a specific story of Irving's, in which the main character kills his double with his sword, only to see his own face behind the mask. The first story in this collection is “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall”, which is more like a piece of science fiction (about a trip to the moon).

Complete Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe | Goodreads Complete Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe | Goodreads

A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents–he then combines such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design.’ The narrator cannot be blamed for his fragility. He has lost his world: he has lost his beloved Ligeia. She was everything to him, and they both knew it. Nothing could lessen the blow of her death; nothing could take the pain away of her upcoming demise: nothing could save his mind in a world without her. They were living in harmony; their souls had achieved happiness and love; they were two lesser beings of one greater soul: they were at peace in their own transcendental plane, until she died. So, the narrator’s sense of self awareness and actuality has been destroyed. He is left with the tatters of a wonderful experience, and his own delusion. I'm not fond of Poe's poetry. Emerson's leveling of 'Jingle Man' is appropriate. Poe puts sounds together, but usually says very little with them. It is unusual that his prose was so varied while his poetry tended to obsessive repetition. Poe presents an example of the turning point when poetry ceased to represent the most complex and dense literary form (as in Milton and Eliot) and became the most frivolous and unrefined (the beat poets), while prose moved contrarily from the light-hearted to the serious. Lucrul interesant, specific acestei serii "criminale" (şi la propriu şi la figurat) e acela că autorul, Poe, da dovadă de o colosală erudiţie -îmbinând elemente ce aparţin unui cerc larg de ştiinţe, de sorginte reală şi umană deopotrivă. Ceea ce e "savuros", cel puţin pentru mine, e faptul că, deşi vizibilă această erudiţie, ea nu este deloc ostentativă, pedantă. Analizând-o îndeaproape, am observat că fiecare detaliu e la locul lui, iar nu pus acolo ca o dovadă a pedanteriei. Lipsind nuvela de elementul respectiv, cade tot firul. Acest fapt cere, din partea artistului, o muncă imensă.In beauty of face no maiden ever equaled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream - and airy and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the phantasies which hovered about the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos. Yet her features were not of that regular mould which we have been falsely taught to worship in the classical labors of the heathen.” I didn’t know anything about his writing, except that I expected it to be a kind of guilty pleasure. I recommend looking at the following quote and considering exactly who is speaking, and why he would conjure up such an image. Perhaps, he didn’t fantasise this. Maybe this is paranormal. I do love the multiplicity of its interpretation. Most of the works collected here were short stories, which he is credited with having pioneered/popularized. He is best known for his psychological horror tales, which are by far his most outstanding works. I was let down by a lot of the short stories included, and didn't find very many new favorites. The Business Man": 4 - read 1/1/2022. Poe is known for his dark and creepy stories, but every few are light hearted, ridiculous, and funny. This one follows a business man, as the title suggests, as he moves between different professions. At first he's respectable in an honest trad

Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe - Goodreads The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe - Goodreads

Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe" - A comprehensive collection of all of Poe's works, including his poetry, short stories, essays, and novels. Edgar Allan Poe Quotes The macabre and gruesome gothic style of Edgar Allen Poe is timeless and the author holds his place as one of the greatest horror authors. Ever! There are various collections of Edgar Allen Poe available, providing complete coverage of his short stories, poems, essays and his novel. This latest collection, The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe, provides an introduction from Daniel Stashower who gives a very interesting overview of Poe’s life and his bizarre and unsettling death. His death followed a strange set of events where he was found collapsed outside a tavern in Baltimore and then treated in the Washington College Hospital for drunkenness where he remained delirious and agitated suggesting something untoward happened him. He passed away muttering the words “Lord help my poor soul.” The first atypical tale that I came across and enjoyed was The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall, which was published in a magazine in 1835 as a hoax, because that's the kind of asshole that Poe was (it wasn't the only hoax he published, either, the second one was about the exact same subject matter—could you be a little more original? It retroactively tainted my enjoyment of the first). In other words, bullshit (and lots of it) baffles brains. These purportedly encyclopaedic fictions “may seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation.”Cea mai sumbră scriere a lui Poe citită de mine până acum. Aici descrie, la persoana I, o crimă înfăptuită din instinct (ca şi cum ai vrea să spargi ceasornicul care ticăie). Finalul covărşitor este dat nu de mustrarea de conştiinţa (după cum ne-am obişnuit), ci tocmai de motivaţia crimei: reversul instinctului. The Masque of the Red Death - a wonderfully written allegory about life and death, and no matter how rich you may be or what you have in the world, you can't avoid death