
Edgar Allan Poe has become one of my personal favourite authors after I read this stunning compilation featuring from amongst Poe's greatest works. This includes my personal favourites: The Tell Tale Heart, The Masque of the Red Death, The Raven and The Pit and the Pendulum. Add to that essays by writers influenced by Poe's genius and this compilation becomes a must for any classic literature lover.
The one reason I love Poe's writing so much is because he was a poet and also a writer of prose. I also like to write both poetry and prose although I am completely unable to match the genius of his beautiful flowery writing style. A style that created uniquely gothic and haunting tales of macabre genius that show the inner darkness of humanity.
If you haven't read Poe I recommend that you do. Perhaps you'll find the language daunting, too dramatic, too flowery and his plots a little melodramatic. It is the one flaw in his genius. And yet such melodrama is necessary to help convey the allegorical ideas and metaphoric ideas Poe fiendishly creates. Any way I recommend that you read Poe and also be impacted by the grandeur of his work.