Tales of Mystery and Imagination (Collins Classics)

by Edgar Allan Poe

Overview

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.

‘Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart – one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which gives direction to the character of Man.’

Including Poe’s most terrifying, grotesque and haunting short stories, Tales of Mystery and Imagination is the ultimate collection of the infamous author’s macabre works.

Considered to be one of the earliest American writers to encapsulate the genre of detective-fiction, the collection features some of his most popular tales.‘The Gold-Bug’ is the only tale that was popular in his lifetime, whereas ‘The Black Cat’, ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ and ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ became more widely read after his death.

Focussing on the internal conflict of individuals, the power of the dead over the living, and psychological explorations of darker human emotion that appear to anticipate Sigmund Freud’s later theories on the psyche, Poe’s Gothic terror stories are considered masterpieces the world over.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780007480661
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	05/31/2012
Series:	Collins Classics
Sold by:	HarperCollins Publishers
Format:	eBook
Pages:	512
File size:	662 KB

About the Author

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) was orphaned at the age of three and adopted by a wealthy Virginia family with whom he had a troubled relationship. He excelled in his studies of language and literature at school, and self-published his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems, in 1827. In 1830, Poe embarked on a career as a writer and began contributing reviews and essays to popular periodicals. He also wrote sketches and short fiction, and in 1833 published his only completed novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Over the next five years he established himself as a master of the short story form through the publication of "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Tell-Tale Heart," and other well–known works. In 1841, he wrote "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," generally considered the first modern detective story. The publication of The Raven and Other Poems in 1845 brought him additional fame as a poet.