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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.3
EAN num: 9780393972856
ISBN number: 0393972852
Label: W. W. Norton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 1024
Printing Date: 2004-04
Publishing house: W. W. Norton
Sale Popularity Level: 188370
Studio: W. W. Norton
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Thompson (English and comparative literature, Purdue U.) relies on Poe's original works as they were very first published, solving the problem of Poe's rewriting habit. Among his selections Thompson includes poems, tales and sketches, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and passages from Eureka: An Essay in the Material and Spiritual Universe. His backgr
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Rated by buyers -
Poe's writings are the most stable part of his life. They are incredible, read over and over again. None dispute his genius and if you've only read "the Raven" or something the length of time of a pop song, read a good short story and see how you look at people afterward. What secrets they hide and in it's fiction Poe relates the truth of the human condition. Must have for anyone.
Rated by buyers -
If you're looking for a "complete" Poe, you have two sensible choices, the very first being Thomas Ollive Mabbott's 3 volume edition (richly annotated, and each of the works introduced with an account covering composition, publication, aesthetic aims and critical consensus), and the second the delightful and portable Library of America volume. I put "complete" in quotes because even these miss Poe's "Eureka" and some of his own reviews and sketches. The market offers countless other "complete" Poes, often available in the remaindered section of book stores, but these two options serve him (and you) best--if you want all his poems and tales.
But if you want a selection, this Norton Critical Edition is your single best choice. It's far from complete--30 poems, 35 stories, a novel and then a collection of letters and articles. But all your favorites are here, and they are also well annotated, which is not just scholarly fluff but a way of filling you in on all of Poe's now obscure knowledge of pseudo-science, his views about slavery (an issue in The Narrative of Gordon Pym), theories of the mind, 18th century gothic precepts, etc etc. These things really preoccupied Poe and they inform his stories, and knowing about them honors his intentions while only increasing our appreciation for the tales and poems. People in a huff about footnotes can just skip them, and people who wish to know what Poe was drawing on--what often inspired the tales--can read them, and if you know about it already, more power to you. Anyway, these notes are really useful and pretty thorough, often including info about publication, alternate versions Poe later wrote, motives for writing it, plus of course all that now lost cultural context that Poe was so much a part of.
This volume opens with one of my favorite features in any Norton Critical Edition I know, and that is a 37-page overview biography of Poe. It's incisive, analytical, and knowing, and it's broken down further into headings that cover particular segements of his life. It's also written in a lucid, engaging way, and it covers the American history and politics relevant to Poe's own life. It serves as a nice median between an ecyclopedia or anthology bio and a full-scale bio, and I've really enjoyed it.
So you get 65 works by Poe, a novel and other letters and articles, that awesome biography of him, but then you get a great selection of writing ABOUT Poe from the years when he was publishing, reviews and mentions by Whitman, Hawthorne, Baudelaire, Longfellow, Lowell, and many many others. How illuminating to hear the other great figures from the American Renaissance (and from Europe) discussing the man's works as they come out. This volume then offers more in-depth articles, both from the time and from later scholars, concering those "sciences" and brain theories and other issues that Poe filled his writing with, so you can read the sources from his day and voices from our day talking about what fascinated Poe as a writer. If you already just like sitting down and enjoying the stories and poems, this would be a great subsequent step for you. I would liken it to listening to your favorite band's influences, or your favorite director's favorite movies--you read what Poe himself found so compelling, and it lets you "get" him more completely.
Finally, the volume concludes with a great number of more recent discussions of Poe, some of the articles covering a particular story or poem, and some discussing some aspect of Poe more generally. In short, this book offers a total experience of Edgar Allan Poe. While it offers a smaller selection of his writings than a complete Poe does, you still get 75 pages of his poetry and over 500 pages of his prose, and then all the other material! And that other material presents a full picture of Poe's interests, how his contemporaries thought of him, and some views from today. The book itself is handsome, with fine typesets and a generous but portable pagecut that stays open readily (especially when it's laying in your hands) due to a good, flexible binding. All this for 16 bucks? Why wait?
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