EDGAR POE WAS BORN THE SON of itinerant actors on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. Abandoned by his father and the later death of his mother, he was taken into the foster care of John Allan, a Virginia tobacco farmer. Now styled as Edgar Allan Poe, he distinguished himself at the University of Virginia but was equally adept at collecting debts from his assiduous gambling. His stepfather’s disapproval shattered their fragile relationship and Poe left home to seek his fortune.

EDGAR POE WAS BORN THE SON of itinerant actors on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. Abandoned by his father and the later death of his mother, he was taken into the foster care of John Allan, a Virginia tobacco farmer. Now styled as Edgar Allan Poe, he distinguished himself at the University of Virginia but was equally adept at collecting debts from his assiduous gambling. His stepfather’s disapproval shattered their fragile relationship and Poe left home to seek his fortune.

In 1836 he married his cousin Virginia but despite his prolific activities - journalism, poetry, lecturing, short stories, publishing, criticism and experimentation with fictional genres, including the detective novel which he virtually invented with the publication of ’The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ (1841) - he received scant recognition for his efforts until the publication of ’The Raven’ in 1845. The poem’s instant popularity gave him a new visibility in literary circles, but his personal situation remained desperate; poverty, illness, drink, and the physical decline and ultimate death of Virginia in 1847 led to his untimely and premature decline, In 1849 he was found sick, injured and semi-conscious in a Baltimore tavern. Taken to hospital, he lingered on for four days, but he never recovered and on October 7th Edgar Allan Poe died at the age of 40.

He was one of the most original writers in the history of American letters - a genius who. thanks to his dire reputation, was tragically misunderstood during his lifetime. It was not until Baudelaire enthusiastically translated his work that he found a wider audience in Europe, and became not only an enormous influence on modern French literature but also on the acclaimed work of writers such as Dostoevsky, Conan Doyle and Jules Verne.

This volume includes Poe’s most well-known works - The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Raven, The Pit and the Pendulum,Annabel Lee. The Fall of the House of Usher and many others. Also included are over 50 of his poems.

PART ONE

I   TALES OF MYSTERY AND HORROR

  The Murders in the Rue Morgue

  The Mystery of Marie Roget

  The Black Cat

  The Gold-Bug

  Ligeia

  A Descent into the Maelstrom

  The Tell-tale Heart

  The Purloined Letter

  The Assignation

  MS. Found in a Bottle

  William Wilson

  Berenice

  The Fall of the House of Usher

  The Cask of Amontillado

  The Pit and the Pendulum

  A Tale of the Ragged Mountains

  The Man of the Crowd

  Morella

  "Thou Art the Man"

  The Oblong Box

  The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion

  Metzengerstein

  The Masque of the Red Death

  The Premature Burial

  The Imp of the Perverse

  The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar

  Hop-Frog

II   HUMOR AND SATIRE

  The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether

  The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq

  How to Write a Blackwood Article

  A Predicament

  Mystification

  Loss of Breath

  The Man that Was Used Up

  Diddling

  The Angel of the Odd

  Mellonta Tauta

  The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade

  X-ing a Paragrab

  The Business Man

  A Tale of Jerusalem

  The Sphinx

  Why the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Sling

  Bon-Bon

  The Duc De L’Omelette

  Three Sundays in a Week

  The Devil in the Belfry

  Lionizing

  Some Words with a Mummy

  The Spectacles

  Four Beasts in One

  Never Bet the Devil Your Head

III  FLIGHTS AND FANTASIES

  The Balloon-Hoax

  Mesmeric Revelation

  Eleonora

  The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall

  King Pest

  The Island of the Fay

  The Oval Portrait

  The Domain of Arnheim

  Landor’s Cottage

  The Power of Words

  The Colloquy of Monos and Una

  Shadow - a Parable

  Silence - a Fable

  Von Kempelen and His Discovery

IV   THE NARRATIVE OF A. GORDON PYM OF NANTUCKET

PART TWO

  THE POEMS

  PREFACE TO THE POEMS

Miscellaneous Poems

  The Raven

  Serenade

  Lenore

  Elizabeth

  A Valentine

  Hymn

  The Coliseum

  To----

  Ulalume

  Epigram for Wall Street

  To Helen

  An Enigma

  The Happiest Day, The Happiest Hour

  Annabel Lee

  To One in Paradise

  The Bells

  To My Mother

  Imitation

  The Haunted Palace

  The Conqueror Worm

  To F--SS. O--D

  The Valley of Unrest

  The City in the Sea

  The Sleeper

  A Dream Within a Dream

  Sonnet- Silence

  Dreamland

  Eulalie

  Sonnet - To Zante

  Bridal Ballad

  ToF--

  Eldorado

  Israfel

  For Annie

  Sonnet - To Science

  Al Aaraaf

  To The River

  Tamerlane

  To-

  A Dream

  The Lake To -

  Song

  To M-

  To M.L.S. -

  Spirits of the Dead

  To Helen -

  Dreams

  Evening Star

  Alone

  A Paean

  Fairy-Land

  Romance

In Youth I Have Known

  Stanzas