What one reviewer said about Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe:
Having never written a full novel, Poe is sometimes forgotten when the great fiction writers of American history are listed. The power of Poe's dark vision, though, is virtually unprecedented in world literature. The manifestation of such deep, intuitive symbols and archetypes, ones of such clarity, prophesy and terror that even his incredible craftsmanship in language becomes transparant, is a gift given to only the most blessed and tormented of writers. To read a story like the Masque of the Red Death is to be flung into an allegorical morality play which fits perfectly into the modern context. Poe's stories and poems travel through time and rap ceaselessy on the window of your conscious thoughts. An ominous pall of expectation and retribution permeates all of his work. To pick up Poe is really never to put it down.
Begins:
ILL-FATED and mysterious man ! - bewildered in the brilliancy of thine own imagination, and fallen in the flames of thine own youth ! Again in fancy I behold thee ! Once more thy form hath risen before me ! - not - oh not as thou art - in the cold valley and shadow - but as thou _shouldst be_ - squandering away a life of magnificent meditation in that city of dim visions, thine own Venice - which is a star-beloved Elysium of the sea, and the wide windows of whose Palladian palaces look down with a deep and bitter meaning upon the secrets of her silent waters. Yes ! I repeat it - as thou _shouldst be_. There are surely other worlds than this - other thoughts than the thoughts of the multitude - other speculations than the speculations of the sophist. Who then shall call thy conduct into question ? who blame thee for thy visionary hours, or denounce those occupations as a wasting away of life, which were but the overflowings of thine everlasting energies ?
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