Portable Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) was born in Boston and orphaned at an early age. Taken in by a couple from Richmond, Virginia, he spent a semester at the University of Virginia but could not afford to stay longer. After joining the Army and matriculating as a cadet, he started his literary career with the anonymous publication of Tamerlane and Other Poems, before working as a literary critic. His life was dotted with scandals, such as purposefully getting himself court-martialled to ensure dismissal from the Army, being discharged from his job at the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond after being found drunk by his boss, and secretly marrying his thirteen-year-old cousin Virginia (listed twenty-one on the marriage certificate). His work took him to both New York City and Baltimore, where he died at the age of forty, two years after Virginia.

• The Portable Edgar Allan PoeIntroduction by J. Gerald KennedyChronologyA Note on TextsTalesPredicamentsMS. Found in a Bottle (1832)A Descent into the Maelstrom (1841)The Masque of the Red Death (1842)The Pit and the Pendulum (1842)The Premature Burial (1844)The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (1845)BereavementsThe Assignation (1834)Berenice (1835)Morella (1835)Ligeia (1838)The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)Eleonora (1841)The Oval Portrait (1842)AntagonismsMetzengerstein (1832)William Wilson (1839)The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)The Black Cat (1843)The Imp of the Perverse (1845)The Cask of Amontillado (1846)Hop-Frog (1849)MysteriesThe Man of the Crowd (1840)The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)The Gold-Bug (1843)The Oblong Box (1844)A Tale of the Ragged Mountains (1844)The Purloined Letter (1844)GrotesqueriesThe Man That Was Used Up (1839)The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether (1845)Some Words with a Mummy (1845)PoemsThe Lake—To—(1827)Sonnet—To Science (1829)Fairy-Land (1829)Introduction (1831)"Alone" (1875)To Helen (1831)The Sleeper (1831)Israfel (1831)The Valley of Unrest (1831)The City in the Sea (1831)Lenore (1843)Sonnet—Silence (1840)Dream-Land (1844)The Raven (1845)Ulalume—A Ballad (1847)The Bells (1849)A Dream within a Dream (1849)For Annie (1849)Eldorado (1849)To My Mother (1849)Annabel Lee (1849)LettersTo John Allan, March 19, 1827To John Allan, December 22, 1828To John Allan, January 3, 1831To John Allan, April 12, 1833To Thomas W. White, April 30, 1835To Maria and Virginia Clemm, August 29, 1835To Philip P. Cooke, September 21, 1839To William E. Burton, June 1, 1840To Joseph Evans Snodgrass, April 1, 1841To Frederick W. Thomas, June 26, 1841To Frederick W. Thomas, February 3, 1842To T. H. Chivers, September 27, 1842To Frederick W. Thomas and Jesse E. Dow, March 16, 1843To James Russell Lowell, March 30, 1844To Maria Clemm, April 7, 1844To James Russell Lowell, July 2, 1844To Evert A. Duyckinck, November 13, 1845To Virginia Poe, June 12, 1846To Philip P. Cooke, August 9, 1846To N. P. Willis, December 30, 1846To Marie L. Shew, January 29, 1847To George W. Eveleth, January 4, 1848To George W. Eveleth, February 29, 1848To Sarah Helen Whitman, October 1, 1848To Annie L. Richmond, November 16, 1848To Frederick W. Thomas, February 14, 1849To Maria Clemm, July 7, 1849To Maria Clemm, September 18, 1849Critical PrinciplesOn Unity of EffectOn Plot in NarrativeOn the Prose TaleOn the Design of FictionThe Object of Poetry (from "Letter to B—")"The Philosophy of Composition"The Effect of Rhyme"The Poetic Principle" (excerpts)American CriticismObservationsLiterary Nationalism"Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison-House"American Literary IndependenceThe Soul and the SelfImagination and InsightPoetical IrritabilityGenius and Proportionate IntellectReason and GovernmentAdaptation and the Plots of GodWorks of GeniusNational Literature and ImitationLanguage and ThoughtMagazine Literature in AmericaThe Name of the NationThe Unwritable BookImaginationArt and the SoulSuperiority and SufferingMatter, Spirit, and Divine WillNotesSelected Bibliography