Edgar Allan Poe’s stories and poems are among the most haunting and indelible in American literature, but critics for decades persisted in seeing Poe as an anomaly, or even an anachronism. His works, with their bizarrely motivated characters and mysterious settings, did not seem to be a part of the literature of early nineteenth-century America. Critics realize now, though, that Poe was even more a part of the contemporary American literary scene than many of his more “nationalistic” peers, and that in much of his work Poe was making commentaries on slavery and Southern social attitudes, technology, the urban landscape, political economy, and other subjects.
This Broadview Edition includes a selection of Poe’s poems, tales, and sketches in such diverse modes of writing as tales of the supernatural and psychic conflict, satires and hoaxes, science fiction and detective fiction, and nonfiction essays on literary and social topics. These are supplemented by a selection of contextual documents—newspaper and magazine articles, treatises, and other historical texts—that will help readers understand the social, literary, and intellectual milieus in which Poe wrote.