[2Wycked]

I went home last weekend and snagged a compendium of Poe's work from my library.

The first story in the anthology was The Sphinx and was damn good. Not great, but it was barely 10 pages and the twist at the end was pretty good. Finished The Oblong Box just a few moments ago.

Shit, Poe is a fucking literary genius.

What are your favorite stories?

[Kdog]

I was always more of a Robert Munsch fan.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

"The Fall of House Uscher" and "The Masque of Red Death" have always been very inspiring to me. "The Black Cat" seems to be one of his most popular ones, but I'm not that enamored of it. His real genius lies in poetry, in my opinion. I know almost the whole "The Raven" by heart and "Annabel Lee" is one of the rare love songs that manages to be very soft and romantic without being either artificial or pathetic, like most of modern poetry does.

The Raven Wrote:

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."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;- vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow- sorrow for the lost Lenore-
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore-
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door-
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;-
This it is, and nothing more."

...

[Lucky]

When I was 9 or 10 someone in my family (probably my nutty aunt) got me a book with a collection of Edgar Allen Poe short stories.

I remember reading The Gold-Bug and being terrified and fascinated at the same time. I had to read it very slowly to understand what the hell was going on and when the main dude (Spoiler alert for a 160 year old story) dropped the bug through the skull and found the treasure I flipped out with excitement.

Good times; definitely contributed to my current love of reading.

[Renberg]

I love The Tell-Tale Heart

[Quintus Curtius]

So many great stories and poems.

But did you know this about Poe?

He was also a fantastic literary critic. He knew what made for good writing.

He mastered a little known genre called "prose poems"; that is, prose stories written in poetic language. See his story "Silence: A Fable."

He basically also invented the modern detective story.

[PapayaTapper]

(07-29-2014 01:16 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  

So many great stories and poems.

But did you know this about Poe?

He was also a fantastic literary critic. He knew what made for good writing.

He mastered a little known genre called "prose poems"; that is, prose stories written in poetic language. See his story "Silence: A Fable."

He basically also invented the modern detective story.

He was a genius but apparently tortured. There are stories that his greatest fear was that he would end up being buried alive, Apparently it wasn't that uncommon in his day. Maybe is neuroses were the source of his dark genius?

By the way, not to get off topic but in 1976 The Alan Parsons Project adapted some of Poe's works into a rock album "Tales Of Mystery And Imagination: Edgar Alan Poe" Very innovative for its time and I think it still hold up. If you've never heard it I think it's worth it.

Here's "The Raven" from that album