Tales of mystery and imagination

This volume brings together thirteen of Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories and poems and couples them with the visual art of thirteen talented and engaging artists.
I like this volume a lot becauseit’s not what it could easily be; a resurrection of some stock standard American literary figure as an excuse to showcase the cloying clamouring wares of some collection of over eager, ambitious,'look-at-me's who are GAGGING for the heraldry and praise that they themselves above all else believe that they so richly deserve.
It is in fact a beautifully constructed edition that stands as not only aluxurious homage to a worthy author but also as an exciting marriage of beautiful words and beautiful images.
The book itself is classy as hell, bound in hard board with embossed titling and a gorgeousfront cover illustration by Vania Zouravliov. Inside the text is printed on beautiful, creamy, heavy-gauge paper that can’t help but flatter both the text and the illustrations.
This sucker has aribbon book-mark. Come on. Is the ribbon book-mark not the ultimate symbol of ‘classy’ in book making?? I vote Yes.
The content delivers nine of Poe’s most famous short stories including The Pit and thePendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart and The Black Cat. The poems included are The Raven no doubt the one piece of work synonymous with the authors name, The Bells and The Conqueror Worm.
The work itself,as anyone familiar with old Edgar will tell you, is suitably dark and gothic and to a certain extent the slightest bit naive and formulaic. But let’s face it, if you’re reading Poe for the insidescoop on what’s cutting edge in the world of Literature you’re a million miles off the mark already. Just get over it and enjoy the shtick-horror glory of it all.
Yeats called The Raven “insincere andvulgar”. I am somewhat less fussy however, and to me at least it has it’s place in the history of poetry and to a larger degree in the history of horror fiction. It’s undoubtedly entertaining and...