Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $8.40 You Save: $4.59 (35%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $5.14 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems
Book Review: Excellent condition
Summary: 5 Stars
We received the book in the time designated and the book was in brand new conditionBook Review: Small but annoying problem with Castle Books version
Summary: 3 Stars
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. Book Review: For all his issues and demons Poe left us a legacy to remember and embrace...
Summary: 5 Stars
What can I really say here? A book of this magnitude is hard to really review because there is so much to comment on it's almost better to comment on nothing but the emotional pull of the work in general. So, with that thought in mind I'll do that very thing. Edgar Allan Poe is one of the darkest writers known to man, but on the upswing he may very well be one of the most influential and overall the most insightful. Reading any of the selected work in this collection (ranging from masterful short stories to some of the most brilliantly crafted poems written) will open a door to another world, a world that lives in each and every one of us, a dark world that we shun for fear of understanding. Poe brilliantly connects us to that world.
Poe is often referred to for his horror, stories like `The Tell Tale Heart' or `The Black Cat' set a precedent for what we've come to expect from his work, but it's not limited and that's where the pure joy in unexpected gems lies in waiting. Poems like the beautifully written `Annabelle Lee', a tragic story of love and loss, showcase a side to Poe, that while still maintaining a dark edge comes off softer and more heartfelt. It's almost so beautiful its anti-Poe.
Like I've mentioned, there is so much here it's hard to narrow down the must reads. There are just so many here. Every poem and story are classic in their own way and deserve our attention. As some have already commented on, this is not a collection to breeze through or take in all at once. It's too abrasive and may come across drastic and or blunt. It's better to take it piece by piece and really allow the brilliance that was this tortured soul shine through with each passage.
Edgar Allan Poe still today proves to be an inspiration for many recent writers, and his influence can be seen in many of the most praised, hailed and cherished a manuscript, but the truth remains that there is only one Edgar Allan Poe, and while writers of today have their own unique twists and assets, an imitation of the predecessor at times is nothing more than an imitation. Poe was the real thing, a genius of the written word and it's tragic that he left before his time was through, but he stays with us through collections like this that capitalize on everything that was great and awe-inspiring about a man who lived darker than the rest of us, not because he was that much more removed from the rest of us but because he knew how to embrace the very darkness that lies in us all.
Book Review: Completely Poe
Summary: 5 Stars
I've always had a liking for Edgar Allan Poe, with his tales of horror, mystery and suspense, done in the atmospheric prose of a master writer. Since I live close enough, I've even made some trips to his gravesite, a place that is always surrounded by a sense of sadness.
Poe was a tormented genius who died young, under mysterious circumstances, and at the time of his death he wasn't deservingly popular. Certainly his work was not cute romances for the masses -- he explored the darkness of the human heart, love, satire, and the earliest whodunnit stories. And "Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe" brings together all of his poetry and writings in one book.
Poe's fiction writings include short stories and novellas, which tend to be rather weird -- a treasure-hunt and a golden insect, a ship caught in a whirlpool, a hypnotized man talks about the universe, and stories of despair, madness, and occasionally beauty. There is also his trilogy of Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin stories, which were the first to feature a brilliant detective solving an impossible crime.
Most people know about "The Raven" (which even has the Baltimore Ravens named after it) but Poe actually wrote a lot of poetry, most of which readers never heard of. Sometimes dark, or whimsical, or even both. "By a route obscure and lonely/Haunted by ill angels only/Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT/On a black throne reigns upright..."
And, of course, the horror. This is what Poe is best known for, including such well-known stories as "The Fall Of The House Of Usher." But there are also lesser-known gems -- tales of a plague invading a party, being buried alive, a portrait that siphoned the life out of its subject, and a nightly visit to an Italian crypt leading to madness.
Don't read "Complete Stories and Poems" all at once. It's too intense. It's better to soak it in a little at a time, so that you can get a better feel for the different kinds of writing that Poe did, and how he excelled at pretty much everything he put down on paper. Most great writers can't boast of that much.
Poe's writing is what makes even his least story or poem come alive -- he brought a gothic, misty vibrancy to his stories, and could make his quiet dialogue seem utterly chilling (" "I have no name in the regions which I inhabit. I was mortal, but am fiend..."). It's not hard to see why he was an influence on authors such as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Conan Doyle and Franz Kafka.
"Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe" is a must-have for anyone with an appreciation for great literature and beautiful, dark writing.
Book Review: Great Buy
Summary: 5 Stars
The book is a large hard-covered book with a good collection novels, poetry, etc. It is a great buy for the price and a nice addition to any library.