| Top | Primary Works

Tamerlane and Other Poems, 1827 (poems); Al Aaraaf, Tamarlane, and Minor Poems, 1829 (poems); Poems: Second Edition, 1831 (poems); "Ms Found in a Bottle," 1835; Politan - A Tragedy, 1835 (play); The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, 1838 (novel); Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. 2 vols., 1840 (stories); The Prose Romances, 1843 (stories); Tales, 1845 (stories); The Raven and Other Poems, 1845 (poems); Eureka: An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe, 1848 (criticism).

Burtons' gentleman's magazine and American monthly review (later title Graham's illustrated magazine). Philadelphia: G. R. Graham, 1840-1856. LAC: v.19 (1841)-v.33 (1848). LAC#31030-31037.

Collected works of Edgar Allan Poe. 3 vols. Ed. Thomas Ollive Mabbott. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1969. PS2600 .F69

The complete poems and stories of Edgar Allan Poe, with selections from his critical writings. 2 vols. Ed. Arthur Hobson Quinn. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978. PS2601 .Q5

Essays and reviews. New York: Viking Press, 1984. PS2619 .A1

The fall of the house of Usher. Ed. Eric W. Carlson. Columbus, Ohio: Merrill, 1971. PS2614 .A1

Letters. Ed. John Ward Ostrom. 2 vols. New York: Gordian Press, 1966. PS2631 .A33

Literary criticism of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. Robert L. Hough. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965. PS2619 .A1

Marginalia. Ed. John Carl Miller. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1981. PS2622 .M3

The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Boston: D. R. Godine, 1973. PS2618 .N3

The unknown Poe: an anthology of fugitive writings by Edgar Allan Poe, with appreciations by Charles Baudelaire, Stephane Mallarme, Paul Valery, J.K. Huysmans & Andre Breton. ED. Raymond Foye. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1980. PS2603 .F6

| Top |Selected Bibliography: Biographical

Allen, Hervey. Israfel, the life and times of Edgar Allan Poe. NY: Farrar & Rinehart, 1934. PS2631 .A7

Auerbach, Jonathan. The Romance of Failure: First-person Fictions of Poe, Hawthorne, and James. NY: Oxford UP, 1989. PS 374 .F24 A94

Bonaparte, Princess Marie. The Life and Works of Edgar A. Poe; a Psycho-Analytic Interpretation. Foreword by Sigmund Freud. Translated by John Rodker. NY: Humanities P, 1971. PS2631 .B62

Braddy, Haldeen. Glorious incense; the fulfillment of Edgar Allan Poe. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1968. PS2631 B7

Broussard, Louis. The measure of Poe. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1969. PS2631 .B75

Buranelli, Vincent. Edgar A. Poe. NY: Twayne Publishers, 1961. PS2638 .B87

Fisher, Benjamin F. Poe and His Times: The Artist and His Milieu. Baltimore: EAP Society, 1990.

Kennedy, J. Gerald. Poe, Death, and the Life of Writing. New Haven: Yale UP, 1987.

Knapp, Bettina L. Edgar Allan Poe. NY: F. Ungar, 1984. PS2631 .K58

Levine, Stuart. Edgar Poe: Seer and Craftsman. Deland, Fla.: Everett/Edwards, 1972. PS2638 L4

Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar A. Poe: His Life and Legacy. NY: Scribner's, 1992. PS2631 .M48

Miller, John C. Building Poe biography. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1977. PS2630.5 .M5

Ober, Warren, Paul S. Burtness, and William R. Seat, Jr. The Enigma of Poe. Boston: Heath, 1960. PS2602 .O2

Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance. NY: HarperCollins P, 1991. PS2631 .S525

Sinclair, David. Edgar Allan Poe. London : Dent, 1977. PS2631 .S53

Symons, Julian. The tell-tale heart : the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe. NY: Harper & Row, 1978. PS2631 .S95

Thomas, Dwight, and David K. Jackson. The Poe Log: A Documenatry Life of Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987.

Thompson, G. R. Poe's Fiction: Romantic Irony in the Gothic Tales. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1973. PS2638 .T5

Walker, I. M., ed. Edgar A. Poe: The Critical Heritage. NY: Routledge & K. Paul, 1986. PS2638 .E35

Winwar, Frances. The haunted palace; a life of Edgar Allan Poe. NY: Harper, 1959. PS2631 .W57

| Top | Selected Bibliography: Critical

Alexander, Jean. Affidavits of Genius; Edgar A. Poe and the French Critics, 1847-1924. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat P, 1971. PS2638

Abel, Darrel. Ruined Eden of the Present: Hawthorne, Melville, and Poe: Critical Essays in Honor of Darrel Abel. eds. G.R. Thompson and Virgil L. Lokke. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue UP, 1981. PS374.F26 R8

Alterton, Margaret. Origins of Poe's critical theory. NY: Russell & Russell, 1965. PS2638 .A5

Baudelaire, Charles. Baudelaire on Poe; critical papers. Eds. Lois and Francis E. Hyslop, Jr. State College, Pa., Bald Eagle Press, 1952. PS2631 .B3

Benton, Richard P. ed. New approaches to Poe; a symposium. Hartford, Transcendental Books, 1970. PS2638 .B4

Burduck, Michael L. Grim Phantasms: Fear in Poe's Short Fiction. NY: Garland Pub., 1992. PS2642 .F43 B87

Carlson, Eric W., ed. Critical Essays on Edgar A. Poe. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1987. PS2638 .C75

- - -, ed. The Fall of the House of Usher. Columbus, Ohio: Merrill, 1971. PS2614 .A1

- - -, ed. The Recognition of Edgar A. Poe; Selected Criticism since 1829. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1966. PS2638 .C34

- - -. ed. A companion to Poe studies. Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1996. PS2631 .C66

Chiari, Joseph. Symbolism from Poe to Mallarme; the growth of a myth. NY: Gordian Press, 1970. PQ2344.Z5 C516

Davidson, Edward H. Poe, a critical study. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1957. PS2638 .D3

Halliburton, David. Edgar A. Poe; a Phenomenological View. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1973. PS2638 .H3

Hoffman, Daniel. Poe, Poe, Poe, Poe, Poe, Poe, Poe. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972. PS2638 H57

Hough, Robert L, ed. Literary Criticism of Edgar A. Poe. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1965. PS2619 .A1

Howarth, William L., ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of Poe's Tales; A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall 1971. PS2638 .H6

Jacobs, Robert D. Poe, journalist & critic. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, [1969. PS2638 .J3

Kesterson, David B. ed. Critics on Poe. Coral Gables: U of Miami P, 1973. PS2638 .K44

Ketterer, David. The Rationale of Deception in Poe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1979. PS2638 .K45

Levin, Harry. The power of blackness: Hawthorne, Poe, Melville. NY: Knopf, 1964. PS1888 .L4

Levine, Stuart and Susan, ed. The Short Fiction of Edgar A. Poe. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1976. PS2612 A1

May, Charles E. Edgar A. Poe: A Study of the Short Fiction. Boston: Twayne, 1991. PS2642 .F43 M39

Miller, Perry. The Raven and the Whale; the War of Words and Wits in the Era of Poe and Melville. NY: Harcourt Brace, 1956. PS74 .M5

Pahl, Dennis. Architects of the Abyss: the Indeterminate Fictions of Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1989. PS377 .P34

Phillips, Elizabeth. Edgar A. Poe, an American Imagination. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat P, 1979. PS2638 .P47

Pollin, Burton Ralph. Discoveries in Poe. Notre Dame: Notre Dame UP, 1970. PS2636 .P6

Regan, Robert, ed. Poe; a Collection of Critical Essays . Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967. PS2631 .R38

Saliba, David R. A Psychology of Fear: the Nightmare Formula of Edgar A. Poe. Washington, D.C.: UP of America, 1980. PS2638 .S2

Silverman, Kenneth. ed. New Essays on Poe's Major Tales. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993. PS2642 .F43 N48

Stovall, Floyd. Edgar Poe the poet; essays new and old on the man and his work. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1969.

Thompson, Gary R. Poe's fiction, romantic irony in the Gothic tales. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1973. PS2638 .T5

| Top | Selected Bibliography: Articles - Prose

Amper, Susan. "Untold Story: The Lying Narrator in `The Black Cat.'" Studies in Short Fiction 29.4 (Fall 1992) 475(11).

Badenhausen, Richard. "Fear and Trembling in Literature of the Fantastic: Edgar A. Poe's `The Black Cat.'" Studies in Short Fiction 29.4 (Fall 1992): 487(12).

Benton, Richard P. "Poe's `The Cask' and the `White Webwork Which Gleams.'" Studies in Short Fiction 28.2 (Sprg 1991): 183(12).

---. "Poe's 'The Cask of Amontillado': Its Cultural and Historical Backgrounds. Poe studies 29.1 (Jun 1996): 19-27.

Brown, Arthur A. "Literature and the Impossibility of Death: Poe's 'Berenice'." Nineteenth-century literature 50.4 (Mar 1996): 448-464.

Chandran, K. Narayana. "Poe's Use of Macbeth in `The Masque of the Red Death.'" Papers on Language & Literature 29.2 (Sprg 1993): ,236(5).

Cleman, John. "Irresistible Impulses: Edgar A. Poe and the Insanity Defense." American Literature 63.4 (Dec 1991): 623(18).

Doyle, Jacqueline. "(Dis)Figuring Woman: Edgar A. Poe's `Bernice'." Poe Studies 26.1-2 (Jun 1993): 13-22.

Dudley, David R. "Dead or Alive: The Booby-Trapped Narrator of Poe's `Masque of the Red Death.'" Studies in Short Fiction 30.2 (Sprg 1993): ,169(5).

Elbert, Monika. "Poe's Gothic Mother and the Incubation of Language." Poe studies 26.1/2 (Jun 1993): 22-41.

Freeland, Natalka. "'One of an Infinite Series of Mistakes': Mystery, Influence, and Edgar Allan Poe." Atq : the american transcendental quarterly 10.2 (Jun 1996): 123-141.

Gitelman, Lisa. "Arthur Gordon Pym and the Novel Narrative of Edgar A. Poe." Nineteenth-Century Literature 47.3 (Dec 1992): 349-361.

Hansen, Thomas S. "Poe's `German' Source for `The Fall of the House of Usher': The Arno Schmidt Connection." Southern Humanities Review 26.2 (Sprg 1992): 101(12).

Hanson, Philip. "Horror and Ethnic Identity in `The Jewbird' (Bernard Malamud). Studies in Short Fiction 30.3 (Sumr 1993): 359(8).

Hoeveler, Diane L. "The Hidden God and the Abjected Woman in `The Fall of the House of Usher.'" Studies in Short Fiction. (Sumr 1992): 385(11).

Kot, Paula. "Painful Erasures: Excising the Wild Eye from 'The Oval Portrait'." Poe studies 28.1/2 (Jun 1995): 1-7.

Malloy, Jeanne M. "Apocalyptic Imagery and the Fragmentation of the Psyche: `The Pit and the Pendulum.'" Nineteenth-Century Literature 46.1 (Jun 1991): 82(14).

May, Leila S. "`Sympathies of a Scarcely Intelligible Nature': The Brother-Sister Bond in Poe's `Fall of the House of Usher.'" Studies in Short Fiction 30.3 (Sumr 1993): 387(10).

Mayer, Ruth. "Neither Life Nor Death: Poe's Aesthetic Transfiguration of Popular Notions of Death." Poe studies 29.1 (Jun 1996): 1-9.

McEntee, Grace. "Remembering Ligeia." Studies in American Fiction 20.1 (Sprg 1992): 75(9).

Nelson, Dana D. "The Haunting of White Manhood: Poe, Fraternal Ritual, and Polygenesis." American literature 69.3 ( Sep 1997): 515-547.

Pike, Judith E. "Poe and the Revenge of the Exquisite Corpse." Studies in american fiction 26.2 (Fall 1998): 171-93.

Sands, Kathleen. "The Mythic Initiation of `Arthur Gordon Pym.'" Poe Studies 7:1 (June 1974).

Schweizer, Harold. "Nothing and Narrative `Twilighting' in `The Purloined Letter.'" Literature and Psychology 37.4 (Wint 1991): 63(7).

Shi, Yaohua. "The Enigmatic Ligeia: `Ligeia.'" Studies in Short Fiction 28.4 (Fall 1991): 485(12).

Stern, Julia. "Double Talk: The Rhetoric of the Whisper in Poe's 'William Wilson'." Esq : a journal of the american renaissance 40.3 (1994): 185-219.

Ware, Tracy. "`A Descent into the Maelstrom': The Status of Scientific Rhetoric in a Perverse Romance." Studies in Short Fiction 29.1 (Wntr 1992): 77(8).

Whalen, Terence. "Edgar A. Poe and the Horrid Laws of Political Economy." American Quarterly 44.3 (Sep 1992): 381-417.

Worley, Sam. "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and the Ideology of Slavery." Esq : a journal of the american renaissance 40.3 (1994): 219-251.

Zimmerman, Brett. "`Moral Insanity' or Paranoid Schizophrenia: Poe's `The Tell-Tale Heart.'" Mosaic 25.2 (Sprg 1992): 39(10).

| Top | Selected Bibliography: Articles - Poetry

Postema, James. "Edgar A. Poe's Control of Readers: Formal Pressures in Poe's Dream Poems." Essays in Literature 18.1 (Sprg 1991): 68(8).

Smith, Dave. "Edgar A. Poe and the Nightmare Ode." Southern Humanities Review 29.1 (Win 1995): 1.

"Al Aaraaf" (1829)

Ljungquist, Kent P. "Poe's 'Al Aaraaf' and the Boston Lyceum: Contributions to Primary and Secondary Bibliography." Victorian Periodicals Review 28.3 (Fall 1995): 199-216.

De Prospo, R. C. "Poe's Alpha Poem: The Title of 'Al Aaraaf'." Poe Studies 22.2 (Dec 1989): 34-39.

Tintner, Adeline R. "Fire of the Heart in 'Al Aaraaf': Beckford and Byron as Source." Poe Studies 22.2 (Dec 1989): 47-48. 

"To Helen" (two poems with this title, the shorter one 1831, the other 1848)

Lord, John B. "Two Phonological Analyses of Poe's 'To Helen'." Language and Style 3 (1970): 147-58.

"Israfel" (1831)

St. Armand, Barton Levi. "Poe's Unnecessary Angel: 'Israfel' Reconsidered; Crit. Essays in Honor of Darrel Abel." Ruined Eden of the Present: Hawthorne, Melville, Poe. Eds. G. R. Thompson and Virgil L. Lokke. West Lafayette: Purdue UP, 1981.

Davidson, Gustav. "Poe's 'Israfel'." Literary Review 12 (1968): 86-91.

"Lenore" (1831)

Pollin, Burton R. "Poe and Frances Osgood, as Linked through 'Lenore'." Mississippi Quarterly 46.2 (Sprg 1993): 185-97.

- - -. "Poe's Use of the Name DeVere in 'Lenore'." Names 23 (1975): 1-5.

Broderick, John C. "Poe's Revisions of 'Lenore'." American Literature 35 (1964): 504-510.

"The Conqueror Worm" (1843)

Howard, Brad. "'The Conqueror Worm': Dramatizing Aesthetics in 'Ligeia'." Poe Studies 21.2 (Dec 1998): 36-43.

Lubbers, Klaus. "Poe's 'The Conqueror Worm'." American Literature 39 (1967): 375-379.

Pollin, Burton R. "Poe's 'The Conqueror Worm'." Explicator 40.3 (Sprg 1982): 25-28.

Tritt, Michael. "'Ligeia' and 'The Conqueror Worm'." Poe Studies 9 (1976): 21-2.

"Dream-Land" (1844)

Ronnick, Michele Valerie. "Seneca's Medea and Ultima Thule in Poe's 'Dream-Land'." Poe Studies 27.1-2 (Jun-Dec 1994): 40-42.

Eddings, Dennis W. "Poe's 'Dream-Land': Nightmare or Sublime Vision?" Poe Studies 8 (1975): 5-8.

Reece, James B. "Poe's 'Dream-Land' and the Imagery of Opium Dreams." Poe Studies 8 (1975): 24.

| Top | "The Raven" (1845)

Brasher, Thomas L. "A Whitman Parody of 'The Raven'?" Poe Newsletter 1.1-2 (1968): 30-31.

Clark, George P. "Poe's Comments on the Meter of 'The Raven'." Poe Studies 13 (1980): 37.

Colwell, James L. and Gary Spitzer. "'Bartleby' and 'The Raven': Parallels of the Irrational." Georgia Review 23 (1969): 37-43.

Davison, Ned J. "'The Raven' and 'Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking'." Poe Newsletter 1.1-2 (1968): 5-6.

DeFalco, Joseph M. "Whitman's Changes in 'Out of the Cradle' and Poe's 'Raven'." Walt Whitman Review 16 (1970): 22-27.

Eddings, Dennis W. "Theme and Parody in 'The Raven'." Poe and His Times: The Artist and His Milieu. Ed. Benjamin F. Fisher. Baltimore: Edgar Allan Poe Soc., 1990. 209-17.

Fussell, Edwin. "Poe's 'Raven'; or, How to Concoct a Popular Poem from Almost Nothing at All." English Language Notes 2 (1964): 36-39.

Hirsch, David H. "The Raven and the Nightingale." Poe and His Times: The Artist and His Milieu. Ed. Benjamin F. Fisher. Baltimore: Edgar Allan Poe Soc., 1990. 194-208.

Johnson, Christy P. "Sublime Terror in Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven'." Tennessee Philological Bulletin 34 (1997): 43-52.

Merivale, Patricia. "The Raven and the Bust of Pallas: Classical Artifacts and the Gothic Tale." PMLA 89 (1974): 960-66.

Person, Leland S., Jr. "Poe's Composition of Philosophy: Reading and Writing 'The Raven'." Arizona Quarterly 46.3 (Autm 1990): 1-15.

Pribek, Thomas. "'The Raven' and the Madness of Poe's Student." Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 7.1-2 (Mar 1986): 22-24.

St. Armand, Barton L. "Poe's Emblematic Raven: A Pictorial Approach." ESQ 22 (1976): 191-210.

Teunissen, John J. and Evelyn J. Hinz. "'Quaint and Curious' Backgrounds for Poe's 'Raven'." Southern Humanities Review 7 (1973): 411-19.

Hallab, Mary, and Christopher Nassaar. "Lenore versus Pallas Athene: A Reading of Poe's 'The Raven'." The Library Chronicle 45.1-2 (1981): 129-142.

"Ulalume - A Ballad" (1847)

Carlson, Eric W. "Symbol and Sense in Poe's 'Ulalume'." American Literature 35 (1963): 22-37.

Kreigisch, Lou Ann. "'Ulalume' A Platonic Profanation of Beauty and Love." Poe Studies 11 (1978): 29-31.

Mulqueen, James E. "The Meaning of Poe's 'Ulalume'." American Transcendental Quarterly 1 (1969): 27-30.

Robinson, David. "'Ulalume': The Ghouls and the Critics." Poe Studies 8 (1975): 8-10.

- - -. "The Romantic Quest in Poe and Emerson: 'Ulalume' and 'The Sphinx'." American Transcendental Quarterly 26. supp. (1975): 26-30.

"Annabel Lee" (1849)

Jones, Buford, and Kent Ljungquist. "Poe, Mrs. Osgood, and 'Annabel Lee'." Studies in the American Renaissance (1983): 275-280.

"The Bells" (1849)

Schultz, Heidi. "Edgar Allan Poe Submits 'The Bells' to Sartain's Magazine." Resources for American Literary Study 22.2 (1996): 166-81.

| Top | Major Themes

1. Love - usually of a mourning man for his deceased beloved.
2. Pride - physical and intellectual.
3. Beauty - of a young woman either dying or dead.
4. Death - a source of horror.

Influence of Poe

1. Influenced writers of split personality.
2. Influenced literary criticism.
3. Influenced writers dealing with the disintegration of personality.

Poe's Four Types of Short Stories

1. Arabesque - strange; use of the supernatural; symbolic fantasies of the human condition; (Example - "The Fall of the House of Usher").
2. Grotesque - heightening of one aspect of a character (Example - "The Man Who Was Used Up").
3. Ratiocinative - detective fiction (Example "The Purloined Letter").
4. Descriptive (Example - "The Landscape Garden").

| Top | Poe's Aesthetic Theory of Effect

1. "Unity of effect or impression" is of primary importance; the most effective story is one that can be read at a single sitting.

2. The short story writer should deliberately subordinate everything in the story - characters, incidents, style, and tone - to bringing out of a single, preconceived effect.

3. The prose tale may be made a vehicle for a great variety of these effects than even the short poem.

Poe's main concern focused upon matters of design, proportion and composition; his use of effect meant the impact which a short work would make upon a reader. In reviewing Hawthorne's Twice Told Tales, he pointed out the writer's obligation and reward: "If his very initial sentence tend not to be the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design. And by such means, with such care and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art, a sense of the fullest satisfaction."

Paradoxes in Poe

1. His life - basically insecure and highly emotional, but his writing is structured.
2. He reflects the paradoxical time - there was the apocalyptic sense of doom combined with the romantic innocence of childhood.
3. Poe was a romantic writer, but he emphasized rationality.
4. He presents realistic details in gothic settings.
5. There is a paradox in Poe's critical thinking - he believed in individual creativity but advocated classical norms - the ideal length of a poem, suggested Poe, is 100 lines.

| Top | Study Questions

1. Summarize Poe's theory of aesthetics as he expresses it in "The Philosophy of Composition" and discuss his application of that philosophy in "The Raven."

2. Explicate a short lyric (The Lake, Preface, or To Helen) and discuss Poe's creation of the persona of the poet.

3. Discuss The Sleeper, The Raven, Annabel Lee, and Ligeia in light of Poe's statement, in "The Philosophy of Composition," that "the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world&emdash;and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover."

4. Explain what Poe means by his attempt to achieve "unity of effect," and trace the particular ways he manages this in "Fall of the House of Usher," "The Man of the Crowd," or "The Black Cat."

MLA Style Citation of this Web Page

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 3: Early Nineteenth Century - Edgar Allan Poe." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. WWW URL: http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap3/poe.html (provide page date or date of your login).