In selecting the tales that form this volume, the foremost place has been allotted to two romances of Death, “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “ Ligeia.” The latter was considered by Poe himself the finest of all his tales, and in a well-known letter to Lowell he places close beside it `The Fall of the House of Usher.” In both his singular genius finds full expression. They are followed by two old-world romances, laid in Rome and Venice, rich in color and subtly varied atmosphere, and vibrating with passion. Of the tales whose theme is the guilty conscience, Poe thought “ William Wilson ”' and `The Black Cat” the best. The briefer one is given here. The “ MS. Found in a Bottle' is the earliest and in some respects the most purely imaginative of his pseudoscientific stories. The tales of ratiocination- to use Poe's phrase for what would now be termed detective stories-are represented by:“The Gold-Bug,” a tale less poignant than “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and perhaps less flawless in its art than `` The Purloined Letter,' yet one of the most celebrated short stories ever written.
