Selections from Poe
1840
Selections from Poe
1840
Poe writes about death the way few others dare to, not as an ending but as a presence that haunts every room, every sentence, every beating heart in his stories. This collection gathers the poems and tales that defined the American gothic: "The Raven," with its unbearable refrain of "nevermore"; "The Fall of the House of Usher," where a家族 crumbles alongside a man's sanity; "Annabel Lee," a grief so raw it transcends time. Here too is "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," the first detective story ever written, and "The Pit and the Pendulum," pure claustrophobic terror. Poe's wife Virginia died young of tuberculosis, and that loss runs through these pages like groundwater, making even his most fantastical horrors feel autobiographical. He was despised in his lifetime, dismissed as a drunk and a madman, but Baudelaire championed him in France and the world eventually recognized what Poe had always known: that the dark places of the human soul are worth exploring. This is the book for readers who want literature that doesn't flinch, who find beauty in melancholy, who understand that some truths can only be spoken in whispers and screams.
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“Years of love have been forgot, In the hatred of a minute.””
— Edgar Allan Poe
“Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence– whether much that is glorious– whether all that is profound– does not spring from disease of thought– from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.””
— Edgar Allan Poe
“Take this kiss upon the brow!And, in parting from you now,Thus much let me avow-You are not wrong, who deemThat my days have been a dream;Yet if hope has flown awayIn a night, or in a day,In a vision, or in none,Is it therefore the less gone?All that we see or seemIs but a dream within a dream.I stand amid the roarOf a surf-tormented shore,And I hold within my handGrains of the golden sand-How few! yet how they creepThrough my fingers to the deep,While I weep- while I weep!O God! can I not graspThem with a tighter clasp?O God! can I not saveOne from the pitiless wave?Is all that we see or seemBut a dream within a dream?””
— Edgar Allan Poe
“It is a happiness to wonder; -- it is a happiness to dream.””
— Edgar Allan Poe
“I intend to put up with nothing that I can put down."[, August 8, 1839]””
— Edgar Allan Poe
“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil.””
— Edgar Allan Poe
“To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths!””
— Edgar Allan Poe
“Is all that we see or seemBut a dream within a dream?””
— Edgar Allan Poe
“Gaily bedight, A gallant knight, In sunshine and in shadow, Had journeyed long, Singing a song, In search of Eldorado. But he grew old”
— Edgar Allan Poe
