Tag: Edgar Allan Poe

“The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings” By Edgar Allan Poe Review

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Edgar Allan Poe remains the unsurpassed master of works of mystery and madness in this outstanding collection of Poe’s prose and poetry are sixteen of his finest tales

Let me give you a quick explanation of why I’m again reviewing Edgar Allan Poe. In December I got an Kindle, and I was playing around with it and I say that this e-book was for free on the “Prime Reading” category so I decided to read the short stories and poem of EAP (Edgar Allan Poe) because I really enjoyed reading his work the first time around. So I decided to review this book because some of my opinion about the EAP’s work included in this book have changed.

This book contains The Tell-Tale Heart, The Black Cat, The Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Masque of the Red Death, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, Ligeia, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Purloined Letter, A Descent into the Maelstrom, The Pit and the Pendulum, Ms. Found in a Bottle, The Premature Burial, William Wilson, Eleonara, Silence-A Fable, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, Stanzas, Romance, To Helen, Israfel, The City in the Sea, The Sleeper, The Valley of Unrest, Lenore, The Raven, A Valentine, Ulanume-A Ballad, For Annie, Annabel Lee, The Bells & Alone.

The last time I read anything by EAP was in 2021, which is now solid 4 years ago and I need to be honest here and admit that majority of the stories and poems in this book have been much better now on re-reading them than what I felt about them back in 2021 when I read them for the first time. 

The reason behind it might be that my opinions, thoughts, likes and dislikes changed in those 4 years or the amount of books ive read in those 4 years have affected me without me realizing it.

Of course if you want me to re-read all of EAP’s work again and re-review them then let me now in the comments because now I would have given them different ratings and different opinions in the reviews than what I did on the first read of them. 

But I gotta say that this book surprised me a lot, because it gave me the joy of being a new reader back in 2020 and 2021 and why I decided to start this website to talk about the books, short stories and poems ive read and maybe help people decide what books, short stories or poems they should pick up and which once they shouldn’t.

Yes after reading this book, I come to the realization that EAP is easily one of my top 5 authors (so far in my life at least.)

I Give This Book 4 / 5

“King Pest” By Edgar Allan Poe Review

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It is about the adventure of two drunk sailors who venture into a deserted part of the city, escaping without payment from the local pub

Need to say that this story remind me of The Hangover. If The Hangover happened in the 14th century London during the Black Death pandemic.

It was pretty interesting and fun to read, but there were a lots of things which I personally didn’t like or didn’t quit understand.

The writing style was good, but not as quit gothic and dark as you might expect from Edgar Allan Poe. But still it was good.

This story was good and quick to read, but still it could have been better than it was actually was. 

To be honest the entire story reminded me of something that Lewis Carroll would write and not something Edgar Allan Poe would write. 

For the most part it was written nicely with some black humour in it.

I give this poem 1 / 5

“Silence” By Edgar Allan Poe Review

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This poem portrays how humans can feel about silence; how it both brings people joy and causes them sorrow.

I really had high expectations for this one but it didn’t live up to my exceptions which is sad because I really wanted to like this one.

I either love Edgar Allan Poe’s work or hate and there is nothing in between these two. 

This poem was easy and a quick read but still there were a lots of things missing in this one at least for me.

I didn’t bother even to remember this poem because it was so bad and nothing more than that. It was so boring and uninteresting that I don’t even have words for it.

I give this poem 1 / 5

“An Enigma” By Edgar Allan Poe Review

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To find her name, use the first letter of the first line, the second letter of the second line, the third letter of the third line, and so on.

This poem had the potential to get the full score but Edgar Allan Poe didn’t use that potential for whatever reason.

The plot itself was super interesting but it could have been much better if only Edgar Allan Poe had put some more work into this one. 

The writing style was amazing in this one. I shouted Edgar Allan Poe vibe which I truly loved in this one.

I give this poem 5 / 5

“Elizabeth” By Edgar Allan Poe Review

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It was written for Edgar Allan Poe’s Baltimore cousin, Elizabeth Rebecca Herring.

I gotta say that it pissed me off because it is full of expiation from Edgar Allan Poe about the topic of why he had written it the way he did.

The writing style in this one was good but quit not on the level with Edgar Allan Poe. Which really disappointed me because I had sort of high expectations for this one. 

This poem doesn’t have neither the Edgar Allan Poe vibe to it because I really missed in this because the plot to this one was really speaking that it was written by Edgar Allan Poe.

I give this poem 2/ 5

“The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq.” By Edgar Allan Poe Review

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This short story is about one Thingum Bob, who is a son of a brilliant and successful businessman.

This short story is a little wordy story, which i don’t mind but i’m not a huge fan of.

The writing style was pretty okay but Edgar Allan Poe was able to much better work than what he did here.

I had again hard time connecting with the story. So again a low rating is in order. 

This short story needs to get points for having some funny moments but there weren’t a lot of them.

The story in this short story was far from great. Its a bit of a disappointment if you are an Edgar Allan Poe like me. 

I give this poem 1 / 5

“The Spectacles” By Edgar Allan Poe Review

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The narrator, 22-year-old Napoleon Bonaparte Froissart, changes his last name to “Simpson” as a requirement to inherit a large sum from a distant cousin, Adolphus Simpson. At the opera he sees a beautiful woman in the audience and falls in love instantly.

Overall the plot behind this short story was pretty decent and at some part it reminded me of an episode from Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Which I really enjoyed. Im a huge fan of Alfred Hitchcock if you didn’t know.

The writing style however was kind of poor, as someone who have read all of Edgar Allan Poe’s literature work and as someone who have reviewed most of them I gotta say that Edgar Allan Poe was able to write better than he did in this one.

This one had a huge Gothic vibe to it which I give it extra points for doing that.

In this short story Edgar Allan Poe makes again an attempt at being humorous and as some of you might know I’m not a big fan of that. Because every time he tries to be humorous in his short stories or poems they don’t go well with me for whatever reason. 

But also it was too long and it would be better if the short story was like 4-5 pages long and not as long as it was.

And gotta say that this one is different from the rest of Edgar Allan Poe’s work because it sort of wasn’t about death. 

The ending was surprising which I give it extra points for.

But in the end this short story didn’t go well with me for whatever reason. It was a okay short story, it was fun to read.

I give it 1 / 5

“The Balloon Hoax” By Edgar Allan Poe Review

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It is about detailed European Monck Mason’s trip across the Atlantic Ocean in only three days in a gas balloon. It was later revealed as a hoax and the story was retracted two days later.

So another short story from Edgar Allan Poe which didn’t go well with me. I had hard time connecting with the story which again leads to a low rating from me.

I also need to mention that this story was boring and it wasn’t a lots of action in it. 

The writing style was bad, probably one of the worst I’ve seen Edgar Allan Poe do in his short stories and poems.

After reading this short story I began to think that Edgar Allan Poe had a fascination with hot air balloons.  Because it was too much talk about them in this story. 

One of the things which annoyed me the most with this story is that it ended where it was supposed to be picking up.

And I can’t stop thinking that if Edgar Allan Poe wrote at some point a Buzzfeed article it would be as lame and boring as this story. 

I give this story 1 / 5

“The Angel of the Odd” By Edgar Allan Poe Review

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The story follows an unnamed narrator who reads a story about a man who died after accidentally sucking a needle down his throat. He rages at the gullibility of humanity for believing a hoax. 

So the whole story in this short story was so absurd that there were times were it might laugh and there were times when it made me think why I was reading it. Which isn’t a good combination if you ask me.

However it needs to get points for being creative and sort of different from his other short stories. For me at least it sort of stands out from the rest not because it is good but because it was so strange even when it comes to Edgar Allan Poe.

I had really hard time connecting with the story which as you might know leads me to give it a low rating.

However  it was entertaining and made me laugh at times. And I had sort of fun time reading it but it was far from the best work by Edgar Allan Poe. However at times it was way too ridiculous at least for me.

The writing style was okay, it was not the worst but neither it was the best. Its like on the line between good and bad. 

I don’t know why but every time Edgar Allan Poe tries to be humanistic in his stories it doesn’t go well with me. It might be because I think of Edgar Allan Poe as the strange and odd guy who writes bad ass stories and poems and not as the jokester. 

This short stories wasn’t sort of my idea of horror which is probably another reason why I give it so low rating. 

It was also hard to read at times because the voice of the angel in this short story was written in a weird way. Which was sort of a in drunken style which made me very confused. 

I give this story 1 / 5

“The Domain of Arnheim” By Edgar Allan Poe Review.

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“The Domain of Arnheim” is a tale of a fantastically wealthy man called “Ellison” who desires to express “the true character, the august aims, the supreme majesty and dignity of the poetic sentiment”. He achieves his goal through creating “Arnheim”, a castle and landscape-garden of supreme loveliness.

For the most part this whole tale is about a man named Ellison and about his travel journey which was actually a good idea for a story. But again Edgar Allan Poe did not use the full potential of this story.

The writing style was pretty decent and for the most part the best thing in this whole story. 

This one is pretty much hard to pin down. But it wasn’t that great so that ti could give it even 2 stars. 

Don’t get me wrong I had a little bit of fun while reading this story but it could have been better than it actually was.

I give this novel 1 / 5