*All reviews come from online reviews*

This collection has all of his complete works (works like his very last, incomplete work, "The Light-House," are not included). Everything from his familiar tales like The Tell-Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado are included and also those that are not necessarily brought up in everyday discussion. All of his poems are included as well, from the familiar, such as The Raven and The Bells, to those from his younger days. One can be perfectly content with this collection alone as far as Edgar Allan Poe is concerned.

THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM

A narrative of two voyages and three ships.
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket tells the sea adventures of Pym from Nantucket (famous ships whaling harbour).

The first voyage and ship: Pym and his friend Augustus go to sea with the Ariel, but a terrible storm hits the boat and they are saved by the crew of another ship.

The second voyage and ship: Pym is hidden in the Grampus, a ship of Augustus’ father. Several members of the crew mutiny and Pym risks to die because Augustus cannot help him.
This is the best part of the book, where Poe show why he is the master of suspense, horror, and mystery books.
For instance, chapter three: a man (Pym) in darkness with a piece of paper in his hands. Who could write two pages like these ones instead of Poe?

The second voyage and third ship: Pym is one of the last survivors of the Grampus, he is starving, finally he is rescued by the Jane Guy’s crew. This last part of The Narrative is different from the previous telling the voyage of the Jane Guy toward the south pole; and describe sceneries, people living in this remote countries. The Narrative becomes a travel journal and the main character (Pym) only a witness of the voyage.
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THE TELL-TALE HEART

An eye, a heart, and a drum.
The Tell-Tale Heart is the most famous short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
Some unnamed person kills a man with a ‘vulture eye’. The police knock at the door called by a neighbour because of a scream in the middle of the night.
The unnamed person is calm … but a beat from the floor like a heartbeat becomes every moment louder … louder …
‘It was the beating of the old man’s heart.’
‘... as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.’ (p.123)
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THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE

‘The necessary knowledge is that of what to observe.’ (p.3)

The Murders in the Rue Morgue is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1841. It has been claimed the first detective story.
C. Auguste Dupin and his friend, the last is also the narrator of the story, solve the mysterious massacre of two women.
‘What to observe’ in this omicide is a hair that does not appear to be human.

‘De nier ce qui est, et d’expliquer ce qui n’est pas.’ (p.26)
‘To deny what exists, and to explain what doesn’t.’

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THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH

The Masque of the Red Death is a short story written in 1842.

Prince Prospero attempts to avoid a plague known as the Red Death. The Prince is hiding inside his castle together with other friends.
They have a masquerade ball when a mysterious figure meets Prince Prospero. After that meeting the Prince dies.

This story reminds another setting: The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, where some people fled from the Black Death in a villa outside Florence.

According to some critics, this book does not suggests an allegorical reading. In my opinion it’s because The Masque of the Red Death suggests so many allegorical readings, that an unique interpretation is impossible The most important thing: many words put together by Edgar Allan Poe to create suspense.

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THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGÊT and THE PURLOINED LETTER

The Mystery of Marie Rogêt is a short story written in 1842, and follow The Murders in the Rue Morgue. The main character in both stories is C. Auguste Dupin, an ‘ancestor’ of Sherlock Homes and Hercule Poirot.
Dupin and his unnamed mate also narrator of the story, undertake the murder of Marie Rogêt in Paris. Marie Rogêt is a perfume shop employee; she is killed and her body is found in the Seine River.
The story is based upon the murder of Mary Cecilia Rogers. Edgar Allan Poe writing The Mystery of Marie Rogêt gives birth to the first murder mystery based on a real crime.
Dupin’s ‘ratiocination’ takes most of the story, and it seems too long and not very interesting.

The Purloined Letter is the third of Poe’s detective stories. He wrote this story in 1844.
Police’s Prefect of Paris has a case he would like to discuss with C. Auguste Dupin. Minister D. steals a letter from a room of an unnamed woman. The letter could contain compromising information. The Prefect tells Dupin that he has searched the Minister’s room but did not find anything.
A month later the Prefect tells Dupin about the reward upon the letter’s return. Dupin asks to the Prefect to sign a check because he has already found the letter.

Among these three detective stories I preferred the first one: The Murders in the Rue Morgue. In this story the narration of the events and Dupin’s ‘ratiocination’ are balanced, so the reader can enjoy reading.

Around the same period another writer, Fyodor Dostoevsky, based his books on real crimes reading Moscow’s newspapers.

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THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM

The Pit and the Pendulum is a short story published in 1842.
The main character is a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition. The story tells about the prisoner’s experience of being tortured.
At the center of the cell there is a pit, and on the ceiling there is a picture with a painted Father Time, and hanging from the picture there is a pendulum sliding downward.

Poe’s idea is to describe an atmosphere of fear. The narration, despite the brevity of the story, is slow so to suggest in the reader the angst of ‘tempus fugit’ (time flies).

At the end the rats free the prisoner ...

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THE FALL OF THE HOUSE USHER

‘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, …’ (p.177)

The Fall of the House of Usher was first published in 1839.
The unnamed narrator arrives at his friend’s house, Roderick Usher’s, because he is complaining an illness and he is asking for help to his friend.
Roderick’s twin sister, Madeline is also ill, and during the stay of the narrator at the Usher’s house, she dies.
Roderick asks his friend to bury his sister’s corpse in a provisional coffin.
Roderick feels fear, guilt, and he seeks comfort with his friend; but during the conversation a loud scream pierces the air: Roderick’s sister?
The narrator fled away from Usher’s house with terror in his eyes.

MAYBE:
A man wants to know his double soul and riding an unstable horse is watching Usher’s house.
One side of his soul asks for help because the other side shows to him illness and feeling of guilt.
As twin souls they can not be separated, actually the reunification becomes the biggest scream of the loudest storm.
The man prefers to fled away from the falling of the Usher’s house, or from his soul.

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THE BLACK CAT and THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO

The Black Cat was first published in 1843.
The narrator tells about his black cat Pluto (Pluto is the Roman god of the underworld).
Pluto is especially fond of the narrator, but, one night, he comes home drunk and when he tries to seize the cat, it bites the man.
The narrator is angry with the cat, and later he hangs the cat from a tree.
Some time later the narrator finds another black cat and takes it home.
One day the narrator and his wife are visiting the house’s cellar while the cat nearly trips the man. He is infuriated and grabs an axe trying to kill the cat. The narrator’s wife stops him but she is killed instead of the black cat.
The man buries the woman, but when the police start to search her, the man breaks down and tells to the police where he has buried his wife.
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The Cask of Amontillado was first published in November 1846.
The story is set in a nameless Italian city.
The narrator, Montresor invites his friend Fortunato to drink a special wine called Amontillado.
Montresor thinking about ‘The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne …’ (p.191), chains Fortunato in a wine cellar’s niche and builds a wall to bury him alive.

At the end of The Tell-Tale Heart and The Black Cat, the narrator, feeling guilty, confesses his murderers.
This time the murderer is unrepentant: the idea of ‘The thousand injuries’ to bury behind a brick’s wall sometimes works.
The feeling of guilt is suppressed: the new idea is dichotomy, such as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Stevenson (1886), The Double by Dostoevsky (1846), etc.

Rip

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THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR

The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar was first published in 1845.
The narrator is interested in hypnotism, and he is curious to know what effects hypnotism would have on a dying person. The narrator thinks of experimenting his idea with his friend Ernest Valdemar. Valdemar, who is dying of tuberculosis, accepts.
Valdemar is hypnotized and while in trance he tells to the narrator that he is dying and then that he is dead.
Finally the narrator decides to awaken Valdemar from hypnosis (?), but during the process Valdemar’s body decays into a liquid mass.

More than a story Poe is narrating an experiment, so it seems not one of the Poe’s best stories. Point of advice: instead of reading the story, watch the movie Tales of Terror with Vincent Price.

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HOP-FROG

Hop-Frog (1849) was originally published with the title Hop-Frog: Or, the Eight Chained Ourangoutangs.
The story tells about the court jester Hop-Frog, a dwarf. Both Hop-Frog and his best friend Trippetta are slaves of an unnamed king. The king decides to hold a masquerade, Hop-Frog suggests realistic costumes of orangutans, and they have to be chained together implying a massive escape from the zoo.
Hop-Frog is seeking revenge because the king has mistreated Trippetta.
During the masquerade Hop-Frog attaches a chain from the ceiling that is linked to the chain around the men in costume. Trippetta pulls the chain so all the men are hanging above the hall. Hop-Frog wants to identify the men so he climbs up and holds a torch, but soon the costumes catch fire.
Hop-Frog and Trippetta escape to their home country.

A first analysis: Poe writing Hop-Frog seeks revenge on a personal enemy.
A second point of view: the idea of a crime without guilty, the criminal is a dwarf or in The Cask of Amontillado a man with a costume, and the orangutans: fears, monstrosities, deformities. Evil is bond with ugly, so we can separates crime from honest, just watching at.
But Poe could indicates a path towards a different idea: those associations are easy, too easy. Why not?
But all stopped on a sidewalk of Baltimore.

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( )

Grudgingly four stars. Granted Poe was brilliant, and modern literature would not be where it is today without his influence. But Poe was not a great writer, and probably the only writer for whom I would say his writing is brilliant precisely because it is so bad. He understood something about the human psyche. We all know his writings, but I for one will be happy never to read them again. ( )

Reading "The Complete Stories and Poems" will be a hell of a time-consuming project, but as I can feel honored to call Edgar Allan Poe one of my favorite authors, the only option to give his writing abilities justice is to read his stories and poems in their entirety. My intention is to update this review with my thoughts on all the stories and poems Poe has ever written constantly until I've completed my way through (however, I'll probably not always add it to my update feed in order to not spam other feeds), but it will be sporadic and infrequent due to my unpredictable reading moods.

Tales (listed in chronological order)

Metzengerstein: (4/5 stars)
Being the first short story Poe has ever published, [b:Metzengerstein|1467621|Metzengerstein|Edgar Allan Poe|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1183907544s/1467621.jpg|1458541] includes all the well-known aspects of his writing style which he has become so popular for. Quite disturbing, relying on speculative thoughts due to the narrative, a thought-provoking turning point and a deeper meaning which appears when thinking more precisely about the story. Poe has excellently explored the interesting concept of metempsychosis through this interesting short story which focuses on the feuds of two rivaling Hungarian families. [Please don't read the synopsis on the Goodreads book edition, since it spoils the story and its apparent meaning in their entirety.]

The Duc de L'Omelette: (1/5 stars)
Somehow, I find myself being glad that Edgar Allan Poe also came up with terribly-written stories like this one, so that I can still find reasons to criticize him. The fact that this was written partly in English, partly in French, was not so irritating as was the lack of anything resembling a plot.

A Tale of Jerusalem: (1/5 stars)
It's interesting to see how pointless some of Poe's early stories were. Trying to read them chronologically enables the reader to look behind Poe's writing process, and it definitely accentuates how much he improved his writing skills in the course of time.

Morella: (4/5 stars)
[b:Morella|10835604|Morella|Edgar Allan Poe|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328322587s/10835604.jpg|15749728] is one of Poe's most memorable stories so far. A short tale of love, studies, death, identity and dread, Poe managed to integrate me into the story and fix my attention on his words, only to leave me shattered and thunderstruck upon the final twist.

Four Beasts in One - The Homo-Cameleopard: (1/5 stars)
I have no idea what to think of [b:Four Beasts In One: The Homo-Cameleopard|19552513|Four Beasts In One The Homo-Cameleopard|Edgar Allan Poe|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1387656197s/19552513.jpg|49751781]. It was boring, ridiculous and did not even include a message of its own. A story which can definitely be skipped without regretting it.

Ligeia: (4,5/5 stars)
One of my favorite Poe stories. In [b:Ligeia|419520|Ligeia|Edgar Allan Poe|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1174584969s/419520.jpg|408663], it appears as though Poe wants his reader to know that not only does he masterfully write chilling horror stories, but also is he a romantic at heart. 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 Fall of the House of Usher
[b:The Fall of the House of Usher|175516|The Fall of the House of Usher|Edgar Allan Poe|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1387708966s/175516.jpg|15570703] is a story I don't remember a lot of, so I'll definitely re-read it soon.

A Descent into the Maelstrom (3/5 stars)
With the creepy title and the horrifying premise - the narrator talking about a fishing trip with his two brothers which ended in chaos and turmoil years ago - I expected this story to be a little more frightening and engaging than it ultimately ended up to be. You will find Poe's classic style, though nothing extraordinary.

The Oval Portrait (3,5/5 stars)
One of the shortest stories of Poe's writing, [b:The Oval Portrait|2183989|The Oval Portrait|Edgar Allan Poe|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312742245s/2183989.jpg|2189682] focuses on a protagonist who finds a certain painting of a beautiful woman in an abandoned castle and discovers the frightening as well as disturbing background of this painting. Precise and meaningful, Poe's prose masterfully explores the sacrifices of art.

The Masque of the Red Death (4/5 stars)
[b:The Masque of the Red Death|204779|The Masque of the Red Death|Edgar Allan Poe|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1172667858s/204779.jpg|15568908] is no story about plot or characters. It's a story about atmosphere, about mood, about the symbolisms of colorful descriptions. That's what Poe was able to write perfectly, and that's what I can recommend this story for.

The Tell-Tale Heart: (5/5 stars)
[b:The Tell-Tale Heart|899492|The Tell-Tale Heart|Edgar Allan Poe|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1317724096s/899492.jpg|19034527] was the story through which I have had the pleasure to meet Edgar Allan Poe some years ago, and it proved to become one of the best short stories I've ever read. Basically, it's a murderer's confession, creating the impression of a mad narrator and raising the reader's interest in his arguments he builds up as part of his defense. As the story continues, Poe cleverly turns his reader from a witness of the events into a judge of guilt and innocence, a narrative structure admired by me.

The Black Cat: (4/5 stars)
[b:The Black Cat|391724|The Black Cat|Edgar Allan Poe|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1387720896s/391724.jpg|15570126] represents an exceptionally well-written, shocking and frightening story dealing with madness and human abysses. Being the most terrifying story I've read so far from Poe, this one can be highly recommended to be read.

The Sphinx: (3/5 stars)
One of his shortest works, "[b:The Sphinx|3336860|The Sphinx|Edgar Allan Poe|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1342704747s/3336860.jpg|3375000]" deals with the cholera epidemic and its influence. Not too disturbing or compelling, but definitely worth a glimpse.

The Cask of Amontillado: (3,5/5 stars)
[b:The Cask of Amontillado|261240|The Cask of Amontillado|Edgar Allan Poe|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327936575s/261240.jpg|1405544], the first story I've read as part of my intention to read all of Poe's works, deals with a man's creepy revenge upon an earlier friend who seemingly infuriated the narrator, motivating him to perform his fatal scheme of revenge. This one is not so much about the characters, but more about the atmosphere and the climax itself. Poe focuses on what happens down there in the catacombs, not establishing why it happens. The message: Do never, never, never be so naive to enter some dark, creepy catacombs on another person's request without any witnesses. It might not end too well for your health.


Poems (listed in chronological order)

The Raven: (5/5 stars)

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door —
Only this, and nothing more."

Do I need to add anything else to this quote?

Annabel Lee: (4/5 stars)

“It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

As short as Poe's poems are, he always succeeds with breathing life into his words.


[Updated: 02/19/16]

Poe cannot be overstated. If you can overlook the idiotic manner the goth kid generation attempts to represent his work and see it for the true brilliance it is then you are going to walk away with some chilly stories. Dig deep into his stories and come out truly appreciating his brilliance.