Every Poe poem and short story. Even has his novella and Eureka. My favorite writer and now I have all he's written. Aside from his journalistic stuff, his critiques, and two essays.
I've got it as well, but with this cover: I wasn't sure if what I had was the complete tales and poems, but I knew it was the (something—collected maybe?) tales and poems. Couldn't find the book, so did a web search and located it that way. Yep, it's the complete. Probably read about half of the tales and just a handful of the poems.
Ive read probably 80% of his poetry before getting this collection and one story in full, the black cat. Which I thought was just brilliant in terms of the kind of. Psychological aspects and descriptions of the character. Honestly not a big fan of horror per say but the exploration of conscienceness is interesting to me. Does that one have the philosophy of composition?
That must be one of his essays on writing. I have read a couple of his essays, but not sure if I looked them up online or they're in the book. If I can find it I'll let you know. And oh man, if you like the way he handled psychology in The Black Cat, you're going to love a lot more of the stories.
"The Cask of the Amontillado" is my favorite, and "The Masque of the Red Death" is a close runner up. Never liked "Fall of the House of Usher" though. A lot of the poems are pretty good or great, but there certainly are a few duds in there. The novel is not great. There's only one, I believe, and it didn't do well for a reason. I have a full collection as well, but mine is quite old.
I kind of have high hopes for the novel but I have heard that it was sort of a flop. Overly descriptive.
Ok, I don't think I read that one. Probably because it was so long, I just kept going in for the bite-size chunks.
By the way Aceldama, I'm a bit jealous of your B&N leatherbound edition with the shining pages. I have a few of those, but not that one. I have the complete H. P. Lovecraft which has an enchanting cover, The complete works of Shakespeare, Moby Dick (fuck if I know why), and the Jurassic Par set (which is lovely in white).
I have the works of Mark Twain in that edition, I think. It's pretty nice; they've been sold at Costco in the past. Poe is great, but he's a little lurid for my taste. Certainly among the greatest American authors of the 19th century, though; I remember some essay from a famous British poet of the period, I can't remember who but it might have been Arnold, saying something to the same effect, namely that Poe was one of the few Americans whose work really equaled the best stuff coming out of England during that time.
I really hate that man. Arnold was too much of a pretentious ass to consider most anything other than what he considered the refined zones like Britain and Russia for his "touchstone" literature,
I have the completed Shakespeare on my to get list. Considered getting Lovecraft but he seems like kind of a weirdo. One of the rare instances of where I find it difficult to separate the art from the artist. Heard King say before too that he had trouble writing scenes. That it was "static" as he put it. I don't know though. I've yet to read anything from the man. At his worst, that is a very apt description. His poetry though just hits straight to my heart. And I did really enjoy the black cat so I'm sure there are more gems then not.
I understand, and I don't even think it was Arnold. But I agreed with that particular assessment of Poe, looking at the literary landscape of the time. America was quite a young country, and I don't think it's unreasonable to say that England had a richer literary scene. Arnold wrote some great poetry, but I agree that he could be pretentious. His evaluation of Chaucer as less than Milton because Milton had "high seriousness" and Chaucer didn't rubbed me the wrong way a little bit, if only because I much prefer Chaucer. I haven't read a huge amount of his critical work though, and I suspect it may be a case of our modern sensibilities clashing with his Victorian mindset.
Chaucer was quite a bit like Shakespeare in his crude comedy in beautiful poetry. I much prefer him too. But I love a few chapters of Milton's primary work though. Anything involving Lucifer is extraordinary. Anything involving Adam and Eve is insufferable.
I'm not defending him, but that was the standard line at the time. Even Americans writers were obsessed with the idea that American writers that had come before Poe and Hawthorne were in general not worth much reading compared to British writers - and they wanted to create a literature to rival the old world and were obsessed with doing so. Poe wrote about that in one of his reviews ... somewhere (I forget where at the moment, may have been his review of Alnwick Castle and other poems). All that might have changed with Whitman. He was a weirdo. This is a man who never got a job because he thought he was from an 'old' family he was too good to work. Even despite the crippling poverty he lived in, and sure he had issues too, but yeah - he never once tried to help himself. Decent writer though. Worth reading. To be honest, I'm the same. Book 1, and the bit where Lucifer is flying toward earth are things I'll never forget. But as soon as he gets to the garden I found it a real chore.
