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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Excellent Collection of Poe's Works, 27 Aug 2003
It's not actually a review of Poe's works, for I don't think it is necessary. Poe has been admired worldwide for many years as an unrivaled master of horror and suspense, the creator of the detective story and an excellent poet, and I can only add that if you somehow failed to read The Raven, Ulalume, Ligeia, The Fall of the House of Usher (how could that happen?), to name but a few, you've missed some of the finest works ever written in the English language.
My review is intended for those who, as I did some time ago, have decided that their library lacks a definitive edition of Poe's works and now are searching for a good edition at Amazon, puzzled by the great number of complete editions offered.
First of all I'd like to say that it's a very handsome, extremely well made volume. The paper is thin, maybe too thin, but it makes the book not so big and heavy as one could expect. The print isn't small.
The volume contains all POEtry and fiction(except poems ascribed to Poe or surviving only in fragments), so alongside with his well-known masterworks we can find here rarely collected stories and poems, as well as Poe's prefaces to the editions of his works, scenes from his unfinished verse drama Politian, plate articles with the original illustrations and The Light-House, his unfinished (rather, only started) tale, a few tantalizing passages of what would have surely been one of Poe's masterpieces, had he finished it. Poetry and prose are given in respective sections in chronological order (with a few exceptions), so one can easily trace the development of Poe's genius. The editor examined the publishing history of every item in the collection, to choose a version that includes all of Poe's corrections without including changes introduced by others, so a great part of the book is based on publications made during Poe's lifetime. As for Eureka, the publisher claims to print it "for the first time as Poe revised it and intended it should stand." Besides, the book includes a 9-page chronology of Poe's life and brief notes, as well as indexes of titles and first lines.
So if you want a definitive well-researched edition of Poe's works, don't think twice before buying this book.
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