The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1
1845
The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1
1845
No writer in American letters wielded terror with more surgical precision than Edgar Allan Poe. This volume gathers the stories and poems that invented modern horror: the frenzied confession of a man driven to madness by a dead man's eye, a house that crumbles into the tarn it watches over, a pendulum slowly descending toward a doomed prisoner. Here too is "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," the genre-defining mystery that birthed the detective story, alongside the mournful lyricism of "The Raven" and "Annabel Lee." Poe wrote about grief, obsession, and the thin membrane between rationality and madness with an intensity that remains unrivaled. His prefaces and biographical sketches reveal the troubled mind behind the macabre, adding depth to tales that function as both entertainment and psychological excavation. This collection captures a writer who understood that the deepest fears live not in dungeons or graveyards, but in the human heart.
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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
