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    The Essential Edgar Allan Poe
    The Essential Edgar Allan Poe
    The Essential Edgar Allan Poe
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Essential Edgar Allan Poe

    Written by Edgar Allan Poe

    Narrated by Kerry Shale, John Chancer and William Roberts

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Released to coincide with the two-hundredth anniversary of the author’s birth in January 1809, this selection of well-loved chilling tales from the master of the supernatural is a perfect Christmas gift. The short stories include The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Masque of the Red Death, and The Fall of the House of Usher. This release also features additional poetry by Poe and a new biography especially written for Naxos AudioBooks by Roy McMillan.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateSep 1, 2008
    ISBN9789629547738
    The Essential Edgar Allan Poe
    Author

    Edgar Allan Poe

    New York Times bestselling author Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University, with appointments at the Fuqua School of Business, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, and the Department of Economics. He has also held a visiting professorship at MIT’s Media Lab. He has appeared on CNN and CNBC, and is a regular commentator on National Public Radio’s Marketplace. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife and two children.

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    Reviews for The Essential Edgar Allan Poe

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      Silverman doesn't seem to like Poe much. Poe's desperate poverty, his supporting a sick wife and her mother by writing alone, doesn't, to Silverman, really justify Poe's recycling of his early work, the occasional puff piece on writers and editors he wanted to ingratiate himself with or the near plagiarism of other authors. His mysterious death had to be the result of drinking too much or a sudden withdrawal from liquor. Never mind the bouts of illness that plagued him, especially in his last two years, and the contemporary testimony that he had a peculiar susceptibility to even small amounts of alcohol. No such sentiments for Silverman. Those poems? Well, they're famous, especially "The Raven". But he lied about how it came to be written. It wasn't really a calculating, almost mathematically composed piece. "Tamerlane" just shows a young Poe as a would-be Byron, the desire of a future soldier and poet to conquer the world. The infamous Eureka? Mostly bad philosophy mixed with a popular astronomy work of the day. Those stories? Well, Silverman seems to like "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", the first detective story, the best of all Poe's works. "The Case of M. Valdemar" and "Melonta Tauta" are argueably important as prototypes of another genre - science fiction. However, they don't get much respect. Just the questionable contention that "Valdemar" begins a prevalent tradition in horror of liquefying corpses and that "Melonta Tauta" mainly shows Poe's anti-democratic feelings. Sure, Silverman covers all the other famous stories, but it's mostly to draw biographical inferences from them. While he restricts most of his Freudian analysis to the book's unusually confusing footnotes, he can't resist finding constant references to "Allan", the very seldom used middle name of Poe that came from the name of his never-father John Allan, in the titles of Poe works and characters. (The key, you see, is the double "a"s and "l"s.) This reaches its nadir when we're invited to see the title of "Ulalume" as another example of Allan even though it has only one of the required "a"s. Given that he doesn't really see Poe as a literary genius or innovator - with the exception of "Rue Morgue", one wonders why Silverman even bothered to make the effort because quite an effort it was. This is a long, detailed, but very readable book. Silverman is thorough in his coverage of Poe's family many of whom left Poe at a young age. There was the father who deserted him; the beloved, barely remembered mother who died at age 24; a beloved older brother, William Henry Leonard Poe, who also died at age 24. His surrogate mothers died young. His beloved cousin-wife Virginia died at age 25. And, in a nice coda, Silverman talks about the fate of Poe's beloved aunt and mother-in-law "Muddy" Clemm and his younger sister Rosalie Poe. Remembering the dead, wishing for and fearing their silence, Silverman argues, is one of Poe's major themes. The names of his past and his family reverberate in the place names of his stories, in characters' names, in the mysterious cries Arthur Pym hears in Antarctica. William Poe was also a writer and poet, and there is a particularly interesting section on how similar their early poems were, pointing to collaboration or an eerie similarity of theme and image. The other major theme Silverman discusses in Poe's works is the recurring presence of characters who cross back and forth, sometimes literally, sometimes symbolically, the line of life and death. It is part of the theme of remembering and honoring the dead. The "mournful and never-ending remembrance" of the dead is what Poe himself said was the theme of "The Raven", but it also holds true for much of his other work. Silverman discusses Poe's many literary feuds, touches on his "Imp of the Perverse" (as he called it) - his seeming will to self-destruction. Some Poe scholars claim Silverman always puts the worst interpretation on Poe's actions. Perhaps so. On the other hand, this book is a useful antidote to thoughtless and ignorant Poe worship. Poe was not the accomplished linguist he claimed. The man who wrote "The Gold Bug" was probably only adept at solving simple ciphers. (Which in no way means that he didn't inspire real cryptographers to take up their trade.) His work did have precedents. Yes, he did occasionally borrow images and language from others. His writing sometimes showed the sins he ruthlessly criticized in others. His did, perhaps, forge checks. He certainly lied about his past whether it was his age or why he married Virginia. No, I don't think Silverman likes Poe much. And you may or may not after reading this book. But, if you already admire Poe's work, this will help you understand the man better. And, despite the occasional intrusion of worthless Freudianism, Silverman does have some credible and interesting things to say about the relationship between Poe's life and works.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      A solid biography of a sad, often pathetic, literary life. I was only peripherally familiar with some of Poe's story and, like many readers, had been suckered by some of the stories that had been maliciously spread as fact over the last 200 years (i.e. Poe's expulsion from West Point, his drug use) -- most of which, as it turns out, were completely false and part of a concerted effort by a rival to slur his reputation. Silverman cuts through the gauze of slanderous or puffed biographies, missing or burned letters, and lost newspaper articles and reviews to paint a warts-and-all portrait of Poe, who comes across as a sort of pathetic, unappreciated scoundrel of a genius. Poe feuded with magazine editors, challenged rivals to fist fights, wrote sock puppet reviews of his own work, accused fellow writers of plagiarism (even as he liberally borrowed from others himself), wooed multiple women at once -- and yet, his fiction and poetry are so clearly brilliant that you can't help loving the poet, even as you wish he would pull himself together. You may not come away from Silverman's book liking Poe as a person, but you'll definitely appreciate his commitment to his craft. My only real complaint lies with Silverman's over-reading of Poe's work in search of what he is convinced are deep-seated mom and dad issues. Any time Poe creates a character whose name has two Ls and an A in it, Silverman is convinced Poe is taking a slap at his foster fother, John ALLan. To Silverman, every dying woman represents Poe's mother, and any remotely heroic character calls up Poe's brother, William Henry Leonard Poe. It can get to be a bit much, and by the time Silverman starts in on his analysis of the 1847 "Ulalume," you may find yourself groaning and thumbing for the end of the chapter. Still, Silverman's biography brings much-needed clear-eyed scholarship to Poe's story, making Poe the most memorable character in his own rocky life story. Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      Silverman's book does much to restore Poe the man by pulling him away from Poe the myth. As a biography, a straightforward chronicle of the life of its subject, the book succeeds fairly well. However, the tone of the book implies its author started off with the idea that Poe was a bad person and made sure to present him in that light, regardless of what evidence he found (or did not find). Silverman almost without exception fails at every attempt at offering personal literary criticism for Poe's works. Like a previous reviewer here, I found his psychoanalytic readings of everything Poe ever wrote somewhat silly. I found myself rolling my eyes at some of his biggest reaches, including, as elsewhere mentioned, his theory that any double "A" or "L" is a reference to his disinterested foster-father John Allan.Though Silverman presents a very readable book which helps to bring Poe out of his mythical status, it does not quite complete that task. Though Poe need not be turned into a saint, he also need not be presented as a demon.