The Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume 2 (Illustrated) (ePub)

The purloined letter

The thousand-and-second tale of Scheherezade

A descent into the Maelström

Von Kempelen and his discovery

Mesmeric revelation

The facts in the case of M. Valdemar

The black cat

The fall of the House of Usher

Silence: a fable

The masque of the Red Death

The cask of Amontillado

The imp of the perverse

The island of the Fay

The assignation

The pit and the pendulum

The premature burial

The domain of Arnheim

Landor's cottage

William Wilson

The tell-tale heart

Berenice

Eleonora.

Edgar Allan Poe (born Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 - October 7, 1849) was an American author, poet, editor, and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story, and is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

Born in Boston, he was the second child of two actors. His father abandoned the family in 1810, and his mother died the following year. Thus orphaned, the child was taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia. Although they never formally adopted him, Poe was with them well into young adulthood. Tension developed later as John Allan and Edgar repeatedly clashed over debts, including those incurred by gambling, and the cost of secondary education for the young man. Poe attended the University of Virginia for one semester but left due to lack of money. Poe quarreled with Allan over the funds for his education and enlisted in the Army in 1827 under an assumed name. It was at this time his publishing career began, albeit humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to "a Bostonian". With the death of Frances Allan in 1829, Poe and Allan reached a temporary rapprochement. Later failing as an officer's cadet at West Point and declaring a firm wish to be a poet and writer, Poe parted ways with John Allan.