The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe

Kevin J. Hayes is Professor of English, University of Central Oklahoma. He is the author of Poe and the Printed Word (Cambridge, 2000); Melville's Folk Roots (1999); The Library of William Byrd of Westover (1997), for which he won the first annual Virginia Library History Award; Folklore and Book Culture (1997); and A Colonial Woman's Bookshelf (1996). In addition, he has edited Henry James: The Contemporary Reviews (Cambridge, 1996). His essays and reviews have appeared in American Literature, Edgar Allan Poe Review, Literature/Film Quarterly, New England Quarterly, Studies in the Novel, and Visible Language. In 1998, he received the Distinguished Service Award from the Association for Documentary Editing.

• Chronology of Poe's life; Introduction Kevin J. Hayes; 1. The Poet as critic Kent L. Jungquist; 2. Poe and his circle Sandra M. Tomc; 3. Poe's aesthetic theory Rachel Polonsky; 4. Poe's humor Daniel Royot; 5. Poe and the Gothic tradition Benjamin Franklin Fisher; 6. Poe, sensationalism, and slavery Teresa A. Goddu; 7. Extra! Extra! Poe invents Science Fiction! John Tresch; 8. Poe's Dupin and the power of detection Peter Thoms; 9. Poe's feminine ideal Karen Weekes; 10. A confused beginning: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, of Nantucket Geoffrey Sanborn; 11. Poe's 'constructiveness' and The Fall of the House of Usher Scott Peeples; 12. Two verse masterworks: 'The Raven' and 'Ulalume' Richard Kopley and Kevin J. Hayes; 13. Poe and popular culture Mark Neimeyer; 14. One-man modernist Kevin J. Hayes; Selected bibliography; Index.

"Kevin Hayes's delightful Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe offers a good, no-nonsense introduction to Poe's admittedly troubled and turbulent life ... [it] is the first volume I would put into the hands of any open-minded adult who wanted a reliable introduction to Poe studies." Richmond Times Dispatch