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Edgar Allan Poe: Stories
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Edgar continued writing for a short time, but his life was cut short in October of 1849. At the age of 40, Edgar Allan Poe died. The story surrounding his death has always been an enigma. Did he die in the streets of Baltimore? In a hospital after collapsing on the street? Rumors of both have circulated, but the true answer is unknown although most think he did indeed die in a hospital in Baltimore after being found in the street and being admitted.
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Poe's influence can be seen on several later writers. Kipling's tale of a strange future world, "With the Night Mail" (1905), could have been inspired by "Mellonta Tauta". The giant balloons that dominate each story, and the replacement of democracy by autocracy are features in common. So is the wonderful air of "strangeness", the visiting of a future so different in many ways from the present. The strange "sound and light shows" of the storms in Kipling could have been inspired by the storm encountered by the balloon in "Hans Pfaal". (There is a similar storm in "The Fall of the House of Usher".
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Poe's literary executor, R. W. Griswold, overemphasized Poe's personal faults and distorted his letters. Poe was a complex person, tormented and alcoholic yet ... considerate and humorous, a good friend, and an affectionate husband. Indeed, his painful life, his neurotic attraction to intense beauty, violent horror, and death, and his sense of the world of dreams contributed to his greatness as a writer. Such compelling stories as “The Masque of the Red Death†and “The Fall of the House of Usher†involve the reader in a universe that is at once beautiful and grotesque, real and fantastic.
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How much do you know about Mr. Edgar Allan Poe? Some of his famous short stories such as "The Black Cat" and "The Tell-Tale Heart" have gotten him noticed. Now let's see how much you know! Good luck!
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After Poe's death, the editor Rufus Griswold, who has become infamous for the calumny he spread about Poe, wrote: "He was at times a dreamer--dwelling in ideal realms--in heaven or hell, people with creations and accidents of the his brain. He walked the streets, in madness or melancholy, with lips moving in indistinct curses, or with eyes upturned in passionate prayers . . ." (72). Why do you suppose contemporary readers familiar with this story and others by Poe would be inclined to believe this account?
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Many of Poe's tales are distinguished by the author's unique grotesque inventiveness in addition to his superb plot construction. Such stories include “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym” (1838), noted for its blend of factual and fantastic material; “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839), in which the penetrating gloominess of the atmosphere is accented equally with plot and characterization; “The Pit and the Pendulum” (1842), a spine-tingling tale of cruelty and torture; “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843), in which a maniacal murderer is subconsciously haunted into confessing his guilt; and “The Cask of Amontillado” (1846), an eerie tale of revenge.
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