Selected Tales (Oxford World's Classics)

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First published as an Oxford World’s Classics paperback 1998

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809–1849.
|Tales. Selections|

Selected tales / edited with an introduction and notes by David Van Leer,
p. em.—(Oxford world’s classics)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Horror tales, American. I. Van Leer, David, 1949–
II. Title. III. Series; Oxford world’s classics (Oxford University Press)
PS2612.A3 1998 813′.3—dc21 97–39648

ISBN–13: 978–0–19–283224–5

13

Typeset by Jayvee, Trivandrum, India
Printed in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS

For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics have brought readers closer to the world’s great literature. Now with over 700 titles—from the 4,000-year-old myths of Mesopotamia to the twentieth century’s greatest novels—the series makes available lesser-known as well as celebrated writing.

The pocket-sized hardbacks of the early years contained introductions by Virginia Woolf T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene, and other literary figures which enriched the experience of reading. Today the series is recognized for its fine scholarship and reliability in texts that span world literature, drama and poetry, religion, philosophy and politics. Each edition includes perceptive commentary and essential background information to meet the changing needs of readers.

Refer to the Table of Contents to navigate through the material in this Oxford World’s Classics ebook. Use the asterisks (*) throughout the text to access the hyperlinked Explanatory Notes.

OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Selected Tales

Edited with an Introduction and Notes by
DAVID VAN LEER

OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS

SELECTED TALES

EDGAR ALLAN POE. was born in Boston in 1809, the son of travelling actors. Deserted by his father, Poe was on his mother’s death in 1181 taken in by the Richmond merchant John Allan. He entered the University of Virginia in 1826 but despite scholastic success was expelled for gambling debts after one year. To heal the widening breach with Allan, over the next three years Poe served unsuccessfully in the army. In 1831, irrevocably alienated from Allan, Poe left the army and moved to Baltimore. Having already published two small volumes of poems, he there began his publishing career in earnest with a third volume of poems and his first tales. In Baltimore Poe set up house with his paternal aunt Maria Clemm, whose daughter Virginia he married five years later. In 1835 he returned with the Clemms to Richmond to edit the Southern Literary Messenger. Despite the success of the journal, Poe left at the end of 1836 to pursue his writing career unsuccessfully in New York and more successfully in Philadelphia. In 1838 Harper and Brothers published Poe’s first book of fiction, the novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Over the next five years Poe wrote the tales for which he is best known today—among them ‘Ligeia’, ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, and his detective fiction. In 1839 he collected his first stories as Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. In 1844 he moved his family to New York, where the next January he achieved overnight fame with the publication of ‘The Raven’.