The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings: Edgar Allan Poe (Penguin Classics)

by David Galloway (Editor), David Galloway (Introduction), Edgar Allan Poe (Author), Peter Ackroyd (Editor), David Galloway (Editor), David Galloway (Introduction), Harland Miller (Illustrator)

• New

  Paperback
  2003

  $11.82

  The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings is a collection that displays the full force of Edgar Allen Poe's mastery of both Gothic horror and the short story form. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction and notes by David Galloway. This selection of Poe's critical writings, short fiction and poetry demonstrates his intense interest in aesthetic issues, and the astonishing power and imagination with which he probed the darkest corners of the human mind. 'The Fall of the House of Usher' is a slow-burning Gothic horror, describing the final hours of a family tormented by tragedy and the legacy of the past. In 'The Tell-Tale Heart', a murderer's insane delusions threaten to betray him, while stories such as 'The Pit and the Pendulum', 'The Raven' and 'The Cask of Amontillado' explore extreme states of decadence, fear and hate. In his introduction David Galloway re-examines the myths surrounding Poe's life and reputation. This edition includes a new chronology and suggestions for further reading. Although dissipated in his youth and plagued by mental instability towards the end of his life, Boston-born Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) had a variety of occupations, including service in the US army and magazine editor, as well as his remarkable literary output. If you enjoyed The Fall of the House of Usher, you might like Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, also available in Penguin Classics. 'The most original genius that America has produced' Alfred, Lord Tennyson 'Poe has entered our popular consciousness as no other American writer' The New York Times Book Review

• Used

  Paperback
  1986

  $4.18

  Poe, unquestioned master of the 'Grotesque and Arabesque, is fully represented here, but the volume also includes generous selections from his poetry and critical writings. Together they amount to a portrait of a complex personality, that of a conscious aesthete, the most exotic of American writers, who had at the same time engaged in an astonishing variety of interests. Nor are the 'Grotesque' tales the simple manipulations of terror that they seem; David Galloway's introduction reveals their author as a profoundly serious writer, whose investigations of extreme states of consciousness have a particular relevance for our time.