Tales of Mystery and Imagination

"Tales of Mystery and Imagination is the title given to the Edgar Allan Poe collection. It’s not quite his complete short stories and it doesn’t include his poetry. But it does have The Fall of the House of Usher , The Black Cat, The Premature Burial and many of his other greats. And these stories still have a strong hook. Poe was a really interesting writer in that he managed to affect a kind of carelessness. There was a sort of feeling of dementia and frothing insanity and a stream of consciousness. But, actually, I think his works are extraordinarily well thought through, because he was a poet as well. He could think of things with really elaborate metres and internal rhymes. He’s great to read aloud. It’s no wonder that when he couldn’t get money writing he could go round getting personal appearances reading his work. Even today there’s many a Halloween gathering where people dress up as Poe and read his works out. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter"