An Indian Companion to Edgar Allan Poe

Contents: Author’s note. Introduction. 1. Edgar Allan Poe’s life and works. 2. Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry. 3. Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories. 4. Edgar Allan Poe’s novel: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. 5. Essays and criticism. 6. Edgar Allan Poe and the literary world. Bibliography. Annexure.

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the ten greatest 19 century American Writers. He is a great poet, short story writer, critic and innovator. His poems like The Raven have earned him world wide acclaim. His short story The murders in the Rue Morgue is credited as being the first example of detective fiction. Poe has experimented with the genre of poetry and short story and he has written original criticism. Poe had an unstable mind, and his poetry and stories show intense preoccupation with the morbid and the bizarre. Arthur Gordon Pym is his fine novel, The Philosophy of Composition is his fine example of criticism and Eureka is his fine philosophical prose piece. Poe is also credited with originating symbolism and surrealism. He was a great genius with a streak of madness as Longfellow has voiced it in his poem, and in the Wreck of noble lives/something immortal still survives.

The present study of Poe has six chapters on Poe’s life, poetry, short story and his novel Pym, his criticism and the worldview about Poe. This book is a fine reference work for the students of English Literature.