E pentru prima dată când văd la Poe, pe lângă latura obscură, latura romantismului suferind, concentrarea pe eul propriu.

Ceea ce e "savuros", cel puţin pentru mine, e faptul că, deşi vizibilă această erudiţie, ea nu este deloc ostentativă, pedantă. He excelled in his studies of language and literature at school, and self-published his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems, in 1827. Desigur, povestea este prin excelenţă neverosimilă (căci distanţa dintre Pământ şi lună este totuşi considerabilă şi nu poate fi parcursă cu un balon), dar textul trebuie cântărit literar, nu ştiinţific (cu toate că Poe dovedeşte o excelentă erudiţie).Combining elements of romance and horror, Poe wove a suspenseful story focusing on the mental health of a protagonist who has lost the love of his life. The melancholy tone really sticks with you (once again demonstrating my love for any writing related to grief and loss).

Sections include: Tales of Mystery and Horror, Humor and Satire, Flights and Fantasies, The Narrative of A. Henry James infamously said that "[a]n enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection. The catacombs in Cask are very much a Gothic trope where mysterious passageways and hidden chambers build unease on the idea of enclosed spaces as the claustrophobia of death closing in around you. The prevailing attitude of the time was that in the Western world humanity had reached the height of civilization and knowledge due to scientific and industrial revolutions. To celebrate Halloween, we asked our bloggers to name the scariest books they’ve ever read, and most of them got the heebie-jeebies just thinking about their answer.We passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame.

I’ve always been particularly charmed by how the cruel intentions of his enemies to sully his name after Poe’s death essentially helped secure his notoriety and transform him into something not unlike a legend. Known as the father of the detective story, Poe is perhaps most famous for his short stories―particularly his shrewd mysteries and chilling, often grotesque tales of horror―he was also an extremely accomplished poet and a tough literary critic. Aldous Huxley accused Poe’s style of vulgarity and bad taste, writing in an essay ‘ we should find it hard to forgive, shall we say, the wearing of a diamond ring on every finger. All used books might have various degrees of writing, highliting and wear and tear and possibly be an ex-library with the usual stickers and stamps. In addition, it also includes a compelling introduction by notable historian and biographer Daniel Stashower.The entirety of Poe's body of imaginative work encompasses detective tales, satires, fables, fantasies, science fiction, verse dramas, and some of the most evocative poetry in the English language. Red Death is an absolute banger of a story, Pit and the Pendulum is white-knuckle intensity, these hold up so well. Scott; ISBN: 0-7858-1453-1

But Cask is another perfect example of a different motif in Poe, the idea of the double or mirrored self.An essential resource for students and teachers of Poe, this book includes stories such as ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’, and ‘The Purloined Letter’ as well as his Gothic narrative poem ‘The Raven’ and some of his most significant critical writings.