About Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and as a central figure in American literature as a whole. Poe is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career. His most famous works include the short stories "The Tell-Tale Heart," The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and "Ligeia," and the poems "The Raven," "The Conqueror Worm," "Annabel Lee," and "The Bells."

“The Fall of the House of Usher”

By |2023-10-07T14:55:32-05:00October 7th, 2023|Categories: Edgar Allan Poe, Literature|

Son cœur est un luth suspendu; Sitôt qu’on le touche il rèsonne. De Béranger. DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at [...]

“The Premature Burial”

By |2020-11-13T02:33:10-06:00November 12th, 2020|Categories: Edgar Allan Poe, Literature|

And now, amid all my infinite miseries, came sweetly the cherub Hope—for I thought of my precautions. I writhed, and made spasmodic exertions to force open the lid: it would not move. I felt my wrists for the bell-rope: it was not to be found. And now the Comforter fled for ever, and a still [...]

“The Black Cat”

By |2023-10-12T18:06:06-05:00October 30th, 2020|Categories: Edgar Allan Poe, Literature|

This cat followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend. At such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing, partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly—let me confess it at once—by absolute dread of [...]

“The Cask of Amontillado”

By |2020-10-15T14:14:49-05:00October 15th, 2020|Categories: Edgar Allan Poe, Literature|

The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely settled—but the very definitiveness [...]

“The Tell-Tale Heart”

By |2023-07-26T18:30:49-05:00October 6th, 2020|Categories: Edgar Allan Poe, Literature|

True! --nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses --not destroyed --not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in [...]

“Sonnet — To Science”

By |2020-08-12T01:04:58-05:00August 11th, 2020|Categories: Edgar Allan Poe, Poetry, Science|

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art! Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. Why prey’st thou thus upon the poet’s heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled [...]

“Berenice”

By |2022-10-06T13:12:03-05:00July 1st, 2020|Categories: Audio/Video, Edgar Allan Poe, Literature|

The eyes were lifeless, and lustreless, and I shrunk involuntarily from their glassy stare to the contemplation of the thin and shrunken lips. They parted: and, in a smile of peculiar meaning, the teeth of the changed Berenice disclosed themselves slowly to my view. Would to God that I had never beheld them, or that, [...]

“Ligeia”

By |2020-10-07T08:50:53-05:00May 28th, 2020|Categories: Audio/Video, Edgar Allan Poe, Literature|

Shrinking from my touch, she let fall from her head, unloosened, the ghastly cerements which had confined it, and there streamed forth into the rushing atmosphere of the chamber huge masses of long and disheveled hair; it was blacker than the raven wings of midnight. And now slowly opened the eyes of the figure which [...]

“Epigram for Wall Street”

By |2020-05-27T01:21:41-05:00May 26th, 2020|Categories: Edgar Allan Poe, Poetry|

I’ll tell you a plan for gaining wealth, Better than banking, trade or leases— Take a bank note and fold it up, And then you will find your money in creases! This wonderful plan, without danger or loss, Keeps your cash in your hands, where nothing can trouble it; And every time that you fold [...]

“May Queen Ode”

By |2020-05-19T15:14:27-05:00May 19th, 2020|Categories: Edgar Allan Poe, Poetry|

Fairies guard the Queen of May, Let her reign in Peace and Honor — Every blessing be upon her; May her future pathway lie, All beneath a smiling sky Note on this work from The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore: This charming fragment is all that has reached us of a poem Poe composed [...]

“The Sphinx”

By |2023-08-21T18:32:52-05:00May 13th, 2020|Categories: Edgar Allan Poe, Literature|

Near the close of an exceedingly warm day, I was sitting, book in hand, at an open window. Uplifting my eyes from the page, they fell upon the naked face of the hill, and upon an object—upon some living monster of hideous conformation, which very rapidly made its way from the summit to the bottom, [...]

“To My Mother”

By |2020-05-10T14:37:18-05:00May 10th, 2020|Categories: Edgar Allan Poe, Poetry|

Because I feel that, in the Heavens above, ⁠The angels, whispering to one another, Can find, among their burning terms of love, ⁠None so devotional as that of "Mother," Therefore by that dear name I long have called you— ⁠You who are more than mother unto me, And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed [...]

“The Man of the Crowd”

By |2021-04-07T12:16:27-05:00May 1st, 2020|Categories: Edgar Allan Poe, Literature|

There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors, and looking them piteously in the eyes --die with despair of heart and convulsion of throat, on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed. [...]

“The Murders in the Rue Morgue”

By |2020-04-25T04:48:41-05:00April 24th, 2020|Categories: Edgar Allan Poe, Literature|

Between ingenuity and the analytic ability there exists a difference far greater, indeed, than that between the fancy and the imagination, but of a character very strictly analogous. It will found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic. What song the Syrens sang, or what name [...]

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