The Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe brings together, in one convenient edition, all of the information a reader needs to understand Poe's stories. Readable, attractive, and accessible to a general reader or student, it also provides a useful resource for the scholar and specialist. Stuart Levine and Susan Levine tracked down information that is often highly specialized and hard to come by through an extensive program of literary sleuthing—an investigation that took him through the hundreds of places where scholars make their contributions to knowledge.

About the Author

Author, poet, and literary critic, Edgar Allan Poe is credited with pioneering the short story genre, inventing detective fiction, and contributing to the development of science fiction. However, Poe is best known for his works of the macabre, including such infamous titles as The Raven, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Lenore, and The Fall of the House of Usher. Part of the American Romantic Movement, Poe was one of the first writers to make his living exclusively through his writing, working for literary journals and becoming known as a literary critic. His works have been widely adapted in film. Edgar Allan Poe died of a mysterious illness in 1849 at the age of 40.

Review

"This book has proved for me the best edition of Poe's short fiction for classroom use. Its best feature, among many good ones, is its ample annotations. Those annotations, indispensable for such an allusive author as Poe, illuminate the text at every turn. I heartily recommend it to teachers and students alike."--Sidney P. Moss, author of Poe's Literary Battles: The Critic in the Context of His Milieu

"The Levines' edition of Poe's fiction is the most thoroughly and responsibly annotated of all the editions of Poe's work. It should be in all libraries and in any classroom where Poe's fiction is taught."--John Henry Raleigh, author of The Chronicle of Leopold and Molly Bloom: "Ulysses" as Narrative

"Provides translations of foreign phrases, explanations of obscure references, notes on critical controversies, sources and interpretations. It does groundwork for students and teachers alike. With no other American author (T. S. Eliot excepted) is there such a need for annotation as in the case of Poe; without it, the tales simply refuse to ‘come alive.' I would say without hesitation that the Levines' Poe edition is the text of choice for courses in Poe."--William Goldhurst, author of Poe's Multiple King Pest: A Source Study