Synopses & Reviews
A new six-volume series of the best in classic horror, selected by award-winning director Guillermo del Toro
Filmmaker and longtime horror literature fan Guillermo del Toro serves as the curator for the Penguin Horror series, a new collection of classic tales and poems by masters of the genre. Included here are some of del Toros favorites, from Mary Shelleys Frankenstein and Ray Russells short story Sardonicus,” considered by Stephen King to be perhaps the finest example of the modern Gothic ever written,” to Shirley Jacksons The Haunting of Hill House and stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, Ted Klein, and Robert E. Howard. Featuring original cover art by Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, these stunningly creepy deluxe hardcovers will be perfect additions to the shelves of horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and paranormal aficionados everywhere.
The Raven
The Raven: Tales and Poems is a landmark new anthology of Poes work, which defied convention, shocked readers, and confounded critics. This selection of Poes writings demonstrates the astonishing power and imagination with which he probed the darkest corners of the human mind. The Fall of the House of Usher” describes the final hours of a family tormented by tragedy and the legacy of the past. In The Tell Tale Heart,” a murderer's insane delusions threaten to betray him, while stories such as The Pit and the Pendulum” and The Cask of Amontillado” explore extreme states of decadence, fear and hate. The title narrative poem, maybe Poes most famous work, follows a mans terrifying descent into madness after the loss of a lover.
Review
Praise for Penguin Horror Classics:
“The new Penguin Horror editions, selected by Guillermo del Toro, feature some of the best art-direction (by Paul Buckley) I've seen in a cover in quite some time.” - Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing
"Each cover does a pretty spectacular job of evoking the mood of the title in bold, screenprint-style iconography." - Dan Solomon, Fast Company
Synopsis
A fully revised collection of Poe's work The first new edition of this landmark anthology since 1945 presents a more complicated, perverse, and culturally engaged Poe. Along with the author's familiar masterworks in poetry and fiction, this new Portable Poe includes satirical tales that reflect his critique of American culture.
Synopsis
This selection of Poe's critical writings, short fiction and poetry demonstrates an intense interest in aesthetic issues and the astonishing power and imagination with which he probed the darkest corners of the human mind. "The Fall of the House of Usher" describes the final hours of a family tormented by tragedy and the legacy of the past. In "The Tell Tale Heart", a murderer's insane delusions threaten to betray him, while stories such as "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "The Cask of Amontillado" explore extreme states of decadence, fear and hate.
About the Author
EDGAR ALLAN POE was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, the son of impoverished actors. Orphaned when he was not yet three, Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, Virginia. After a major falling-out with his foster father in 1827, Poe left Richmond for Boston, where he arranged for the publication of his first book of poetry,
Tamerlane and Other Poems. He published two additional books of poetry
Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (1829) and
Poems (1831)and began to publish short stories and book reviews, gaining an editorial position at the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond in 1835. Perhaps already privately married to his thirteen-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm, he married her publicly in Mary 1836. By this time he had begun work on his novel,
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, early chapters of which were published in the Messenger of January and February 1837. But on January 3, 1837, Poe lost his job (very likely owing to his drinking), and he moved to New York City, where he completed the book.
Pym was published by Harper and Brothers on July 30th, 1838. Poe had by then moved to Philadelphia, where he came to serve as the editor for two periodicals and where he published a collection of short stories,
Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840), as well as many additional stories, including the prize-winning The Gold Bug” and the first modern detective story, The Murders in the Rue Morgue”. However, his wife developed tuberculosis. Returning to New York in 1844, Poe soon reached the peak of his fame with the publication of The Raven” in 1945. That year also saw the publication of both
Tales and
The Raven and Other Poemsbut Poe's drinking led to the failure of his weekly, the
Broadway Journal. Settling in Fordham, Poe continued to write and to care for Virginia, who died in January 1847. In his final years, Poe wrote some of his most celebrated poetry, including The Bells”, Eldorado”, and Annabel Lee”. On October 7th, 1849 Edgar Allan Poe died in Baltimore.
GUILLERMO DEL TORO is a Mexican director, producer, screenwriter, novelist, and designer. He both cofounded the Guadalajara International Film Festival and formed his own production companythe Tequila Gang. However, he is most recognized for his Academy Award-winning film, Pans Labyrinth, and the Hellboy film franchise. He has received Nebula and Hugo awards, was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award, and is an avid collector and student of arcane memorabilia and weird fiction.
S. T. JOSHI is a freelance writer and editor. He has edited Penguin Classics editions of H. P. Lovecrafts The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories, and The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories, as well as Algernon Blackwoods Ancient Sorceries and Other Strange Stories. Among his critical and biographical studies are The Weird Tale, Lord Dunsany: Master of the Anglo-Irish Imagination, and H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, and The Modern Weird Tale. He has also edited works by Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Machen, and H. L. Mencken, and is compiling a three-volume Encyclopedia of Supernatural Literature.
Table of Contents
The Portable Edgar Allan Poe Introduction by J. Gerald Kennedy
Chronology
A Note on Texts
Tales
Predicaments
MS. Found in a Bottle (1832)
A Descent into the Maelstrom (1841)
The Masque of the Red Death (1842)
The Pit and the Pendulum (1842)
The Premature Burial (1844)
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (1845)
Bereavements
The Assignation (1834)
Berenice (1835)
Morella (1835)
Ligeia (1838)
The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)
Eleonora (1841)
The Oval Portrait (1842)
Antagonisms
Metzengerstein (1832)
William Wilson (1839)
The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)
The Black Cat (1843)
The Imp of the Perverse (1845)
The Cask of Amontillado (1846)
Hop-Frog (1849)
Mysteries
The Man of the Crowd (1840)
The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)
The Gold-Bug (1843)
The Oblong Box (1844)
A Tale of the Ragged Mountains (1844)
The Purloined Letter (1844)
Grotesqueries
The Man That Was Used Up (1839)
The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether (1845)
Some Words with a Mummy (1845)
Poems
The LakeTo(1827)
SonnetTo Science (1829)
Fairy-Land (1829)
Introduction (1831)
"Alone" (1875)
To Helen (1831)
The Sleeper (1831)
Israfel (1831)
The Valley of Unrest (1831)
The City in the Sea (1831)
Lenore (1843)
SonnetSilence (1840)
Dream-Land (1844)
The Raven (1845)
UlalumeA Ballad (1847)
The Bells (1849)
A Dream within a Dream (1849)
For Annie (1849)
Eldorado (1849)
To My Mother (1849)
Annabel Lee (1849)
Letters
To John Allan, March 19, 1827
To John Allan, December 22, 1828
To John Allan, January 3, 1831
To John Allan, April 12, 1833
To Thomas W. White, April 30, 1835
To Maria and Virginia Clemm, August 29, 1835
To Philip P. Cooke, September 21, 1839
To William E. Burton, June 1, 1840
To Joseph Evans Snodgrass, April 1, 1841
To Frederick W. Thomas, June 26, 1841
To Frederick W. Thomas, February 3, 1842
To T. H. Chivers, September 27, 1842
To Frederick W. Thomas and Jesse E. Dow, March 16, 1843
To James Russell Lowell, March 30, 1844
To Maria Clemm, April 7, 1844
To James Russell Lowell, July 2, 1844
To Evert A. Duyckinck, November 13, 1845
To Virginia Poe, June 12, 1846
To Philip P. Cooke, August 9, 1846
To N. P. Willis, December 30, 1846
To Marie L. Shew, January 29, 1847
To George W. Eveleth, January 4, 1848
To George W. Eveleth, February 29, 1848
To Sarah Helen Whitman, October 1, 1848
To Annie L. Richmond, November 16, 1848
To Frederick W. Thomas, February 14, 1849
To Maria Clemm, July 7, 1849
To Maria Clemm, September 18, 1849
Critical Principles
On Unity of Effect
On Plot in Narrative
On the Prose Tale
On the Design of Fiction
The Object of Poetry (from "Letter to B")
"The Philosophy of Composition"
The Effect of Rhyme
"The Poetic Principle" (excerpts)
American Criticism
Observations
Literary Nationalism
"Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison-House"
American Literary Independence
The Soul and the Self
Imagination and Insight
Poetical Irritability
Genius and Proportionate Intellect
Reason and Government
Adaptation and the Plots of God
Works of Genius
National Literature and Imitation
Language and Thought
Magazine Literature in America
The Name of the Nation
The Unwritable Book
Imagination
Art and the Soul
Superiority and Suffering
Matter, Spirit, and Divine Will
Notes
Selected Bibliography