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Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry & Tales

Includes The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall | The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym | The Journal of Julius Rodman | Eureka: A Prose Poem More

Edited by Patrick Quinn

“The first truly dependable collection of Poe’s poetry and tales…. Poe is central to the American canon, both for us and for the rest of the world.” — Harold Bloom, New York Review of Books

Overview
News & Views
Table of Contents

Overview

Story of the Week Edgar Allan Poe, “The Oval Portrait”
October 7, 2021

Story of the Week Edgar Allan Poe, “William Wilson”
January 17, 2020

Story of the Week Edgar Allan Poe, “Morning on the Wissahiccon”
March 23, 2018

Read throughout the world, admired by Dostoyevsky and translated by Baudelaire, Edgar Allan Poe has become a legendary figure, representing the artist as obsessed outcast and romantic failure. His nightmarish visions, shaped by cool artistic calculation, reveal some of the dark possibilities of human experience. His enormous popularity and his continuing influence of literature depend less on legend or vision than on his stylistic and formal accomplishments as a writer of fiction and a great lyric poet.

In this complete and uniquely authoritative Library of America collection, well-known tales of “mystery and imagination” and his best-known verse are collected with early poems, rarely published stories and humorous sketches, and the ecstatic prose poem Eureka.

But his enormous popularity and his continuing influence on literature depend less on legend or vision than on his stylistic and formal accomplishments as a writer of fiction and as a great lyric poet (“always for all lands,” as Yeats said), famous for the sensuous musicality of “To Helen,” “The City in the Sea,” and “Annabel Lee” and for the hypnotic, incantatory rhythms of “The Raven” and “Ulalume.”

“The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Cask of Amontillado” show Poe’s mastery of Gothic horror; his “The Pit and the Pendulum” is a classic of terror and suspense. He invented the modern detective story, as in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” and developed the form of science fiction that was to influence, among others, Jules Verne and Thomas Pynchon.

Poe was also adept at the humorous sketch of playful jeu d’esprit, such as “X-ing a Paragraph” or “Never Bet the Devil Your Head.” All his stories reveal his high regard for technical proficiency and for what he called “ratiocination.”

Poe’s fugitive early poems, stories rarely collected (such as “Bon-Bon,” “King Pest,” “Mystification,” and “The Duc De L’Omelette), his only attempt at drama, “Politian”—these and much more are included in this comprehensive collection, presented chronologically to show Poe’s development as a writer, his oeuvre culminates in his vision of an indeterminate universe, Eureka: A Prose Poem, his culminating vision of an indeterminate universe, printed here for the first time as Poe revised it and intended it should stand.

A special feature of this volume is the care taken to select an authoritative text of each work. The printing and publishing history of every item has been investigated in order to choose a version that incorporates all of Poe’s own revisions without reproducing the errors or changes introduced by later editors. Here, then, is one of America’s and the world’s most disturbing, powerful, and inventive writers published in “the first truly dependable collection of Poe’s poetry and tales.”

Patrick Quinn (1918–1999), volume editor, was Professor of English at Wellesley College. His publications include The French Face of Edgar Allan Poe.

This Library of America series edition is printed on acid-free paper and features Smyth-sewn binding, a full cloth cover, and a ribbon marker.

Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry & Tales is kept in print by a gift from Candace K. and Frederick W. Beinecke to the Guardians of American Letters Fund.
News & Views

Story of the Week Edgar Allan Poe, “The Oval Portrait”
October 7, 2021

Story of the Week Edgar Allan Poe, “William Wilson”
January 17, 2020

Story of the Week Edgar Allan Poe, “Morning on the Wissahiccon”
March 23, 2018

Story of the Week Edgar Allan Poe, “The Angel of the Odd”
January 19, 2017

Influences Putting the alternate in alternate history: Whitman, Poe, and “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt”
April 18, 2016
Table of Contents

The selections of poetry and short prose works are arranged in the volume chronologically. They are listed below in alphabetical order.

Poetry
Selections include:
An Acrostic
Al Aaraaf
“Alone”
Annabel Lee
The Bells
Bridal Ballad
The City in the Sea
The Coliseum
The Conqueror Worm
“Deep in Earth”
A Dream
A Dream within a Dream
Dream-Land
Eldorado
Elizabeth
Enigma
An Enigma
Eulalie—A Song
Evening Star
Fairy-Land
For Annie
“The Happiest Day”
The Haunted Palace
Hymn
Imitation
Israfel
The Lake—To —
Lenore
“Lines on Joe Locke”
O, Tempora! O, Mores!
The Raven
Romance
Scenes from “Politian”
Serenade
The Sleeper
Song
Sonnet—Silence
Sonnet—To Science
Sonnet—To Zante
Spirits of the Dead
“Stanzas”
Tamerlane
To — (“The bowers whereat”)
To — (“I heed not”)
To F— (“Beloved! amid the earnest woes”)
To F—s S. O—d
To Helen (“Helen, thy beauty is to me”)
To Helen (“I saw thee once”)
“To Isaac Lea”
To Margaret
To M. L. S—
To Miss Louise Olivia Hunter
To My Mother
“To Octavia”
To One in Paradise
To the River —
Ulalume—A Ballad
A Valentine to — — —
The Valley of Unrest

Tales and Sketches
The Angel of the Odd
The Assignation
The Balloon-Hoax
Berenice
The Black Cat
Bon-Bon
The Business Man
Byron and Miss Chaworth
The Cask of Amontillado
The Colloquy of Monos and Una
The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion
A Descent into the Maelström
The Devil in the Belfry
Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences
The Domain of Arnheim
The Duc De L’Omelette
Eleonora
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Folio Club
Four Beasts in One—The Homo-Cameleopard
The Gold-Bug
Hop-Frog
How to Write a Blackwood Article
The Imp of the Perverse
Instinct vs Reason—A Black Cat
The Island of the Fay
King Pest
Landor’s Cottage
Ligeia
The Light-House
Lionizing
The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq.
Loss of Breath
The Man of the Crowd
The Man That Was Used Up
The Masque of the Red Death
Mellonta Tauta
Mesmeric Revelation
Metzengerstein
Morella
Morning on the Wissahiccon
MS. Found in a Bottle
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Mystery of Marie Rogêt
Mystification
Never Bet the Devil Your Head
The Oblong Box
The Oval Portrait
The Philosophy of Furniture
The Pit and the Pendulum
The Power of Words
The Premature Burial
The Purloined Letter
Shadow—A Parable
Silence—A Fable
Some Account of Stonehenge, the Giant’s Dance
Some Words with a Mummy
The Spectacles
The Sphinx
The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether
A Tale of Jerusalem
A Tale of the Ragged Mountains
The Tell-Tale Heart
“Thou Art the Man”
The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade
Three Sundays in a Week
Von Kempelen and His Discovery
Why the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Sling
William Wilson
‘X-ing a Paragrab’

The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall (1835)

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838)

The Journal of Julius Rodman (1840)

Eureka: A Prose Poem (1848)

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ISBN: 978-0-94045018-9 1408 pages

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N° 19 Library of America Series

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