This week’s blog turns its attention to our Edgar Allan Poe Short Stories collection – another of the companion titles to our popular, and ever-growing, Gothic Fantasy short story anthologies. Whilst the latter combine classic fiction with exciting contemporary writers; these companion titles focus on one key author from the history of the genre.
Image courtesy of Poetry Foundation
Why Poe?
One of the greatest writers of the gothic fantastic, Poe’s dark, masterful stories have inspired a generation of writers. With his macabre twists of fate and fascination with science and invention his work led to the detective stories of Sherlock Holmes, the weird horror of H.P. Lovecraft and the grim, tortured tales of Stephen King. He has been one of the most influential authors of the horror genre, as well as having a huge impact on crime fiction, often being dubbed ‘The Father of the Detective Story’.
How to Choose?
Edgar Allan Poe is best-known as a master of the gothic, chilling tale as seen in such exemplary works as ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ or ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, where the reader can almost feel icy fingers of dread crawling up their skin. Therefore we just had to pack the book full of stories like these. But Poe was a master storyteller in an amazing array of genres – from proto-SF in ‘The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfall’ to what is perhaps the first detective story ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ and his haunting poetry like ‘The Raven’. This was our opportunity to show his range, and include both his most popular and beloved tales alongside lesser known stories. Although this anthology focuses mainly on short stories, he also only ever completed one novel, and so it seemed interesting to include that too.
How to Organise the Stories?
Some immediate themes start to appear on reading Poe: Death & Resurrection (particulary if it involves a beautiful woman); Fear & Obsession (though this is a feature of a great many stories – but for this section, I chose stories where this was an undeniable focus); Tales of Murder (this involved a mix of chilling, murderous horror with his crime fiction, told form the point of view of the detective); Adventures of the Sea & Sky (a less obvious theme perhaps, until you start to go through his catalogue and see how often these settings occured); and lastly Humour & Satire (which really are set apart tonally form his other works).
To add an extra dimension of interest, I also added two recommended reads at the end of each text, to direct the reader to other stories within the collection which they might enjoy.
Extra Content
This book starts with a foreword by Christopher Semtner, who is the Curator of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia. Semtner has written a number of books and articles about Poe, visual art, and history. He has appeared on BBC4, PBS, Military History Channel, and many other stations to speak about the author. Semtner is also an internationally exhibited visual artist whose paintings have entered several public and private collections.
Table of Contents
Death & Resurrection
Metzengerstein
Berenice
Morella
Ligeia
The Fall of the House of Usher
Eleonora
The Masque of the Red Death
Lenore
To One in Paradise
Mesmeric Revelation
A Tale of the Ragged Mountains
The Raven
The City in the Sea
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
Ulalume
Annabel Lee
Fear & Obsession
Shadow – A Parable
Silence – A Fable
William Wilson
The Man of the Crowd
The Oval Portrait
The Pit and the Pendulum
The Premature Burial
Tales of Murder
The Assignation
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Mystery of Marie Rogêt
The Tell-Tale Heart
The Black Cat
Thou Art the Man
The Imp of the Perverse
The Cask of Amontillado
Hop-Frog
Adventures of Sea & Sky
MS. Found in a Bottle
The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
A Descent into the Maelström
The Gold-Bug
The Balloon-Hoax
The Oblong Box
Mellonta Tauta
Humour & Satire
Never Bet the Devil Your Head
The Spectacles
The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether
Links
- To see the current and forthcoming books in our Gothic Fantasy anthologies, with beautiful foiled and embossed covers, click here.
- Find out more about the Poe Museum in Richmnd, Virginia, here.
- The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore has a lot of information you might find interesting – visit their website here.
