By Murray Ellison
Poe’s first important tale, “MS. Found in a Bottle,” (1833) won the Baltimore Visiter’s first prize for fiction. Poe scholar, Thomas Mabbott calls it a “masterpiece,” contending that “winning the contest set the author on the way to lasting fame” (Tales and Sketches 131). The Visiter wrote that “Poe’s tales are eminently distinguished by a wild, vigorous and poetical imagination, a rich style and a various and curious learning” (Thomas and Jackson 137). “MS.” reveals Poe’s interest in a broad range of science-related topics, including secret writing, conundrums, ...
horror
The Imp of the Poeverse
Which story does Poe scholar Thomas Ollive Mabbott deem as one of Poe's "great stories, although not one of the most popular?" There may be many obscure stories coming to mind; however, this particular story falls under the category of Horror and may give us insight into the development of the psychological thriller sub-genre, as well as allow us to further study the psychology of Poe's mind, if even briefly.
In July of 1845, Poe's horrific tale, "The Imp of the Perverse," was published in Graham's Magazine. According to American critic Benjamin De Casseres, "We've all got that 'imp' in ...
New Exhibit Explores Mental Illness in Poe’s Life and Work
True! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?
~ Edgar Allan Poe, ”The Tell-Tale Heart,” 1843
“I am constitutionally sensitive — nervous in a very unusual degree.”
~ Edgar Allan Poe, Letter to George W. Eveleth, January 4, 1848
In stories like "The Black Cat" and "The Tell-Tale Heart," Poe explores the mind's descent into insanity with such vivid realism that they have lost none of their power after over 170 years. Generations of readers have confused the author Edgar Allan Poe with the mentally ill narrators of his famous stories "The ...
Poe Museum’s Poem of the Week is “Ulalume”
One of the most cherished possessions of the Providence Athenaeum is a volume of the American Review with Edgar Allan Poe’s faint signature written in pencil under the anonymous poem “Ulalume.” That poem is the Poe Museum’s Poem of the Week, which was recommended to us by one of the Museum's Facebook followers.
Poe visited the Providence Athenaeum in 1848 while courting the poet Sarah Helen Whitman. The two poets spent time among the stacks discussing literature and love (and apparently also vandalizing library books).
“Ulalume” had been written the previous year, in the fall of 1847. ...
