Reviews

The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe

alexandre_rl's review against another edition

5.0

J’ai (re)lu:

Metzengerstein
Manuscrit trouvé dans une bouteille
Bérénice
Morella
Ligeia
La Chute de la maison Usher
William Wilson
Double assassinat dans la Rue Morgue
Le Portrait ovale
Le Masque de la mort rouge
Le Mystère de Marie Roget
Le Puits et le pendule
Le Cœur révélateur
Le Scarabée d’or
Le Chat noir
L’Enterrement prématuré
La Lettre volée
La Vérité sur le cas de M. Valdemar

annashiv's review against another edition

5.0

Not sure I can rate it any differently. I mean, it's Poe. Not everything was great. Some of it was awful, and I admit to having to listen to Eureka and the narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. They just were so long and not my thing. Still, Poe had some great stories and poems and his influence has been so great in the world of literature that you can't help but be in awe. I learned a lot about Poe as a person by reading his entire works. He's not what I thought. He's more complex than his most popular stories would suggest and you can see what really interested him.

davidabrams's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I started reading this volume on Halloween night 2023; I finished it seven months later. This was my first time through the COMPLETE Poe and, frankly, the journey was occasionally dull. Sure, the highlights of The Black Cat, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven and others are rightfully well-known and quite good, particularly for their time--but who else has suffered through "Eureka: a Prose Poem" or "The Domain of Arnheim" or a dozen other dull-blade fictions gathered here? Poe occasionally requires fortitude and endurance. But there are plenty of rewards to be found here, too--a surprising faux Rocky Mountain explorer's journal ("Julius Rodman") and of course Poe's greatest work (you'll have to pry me with a crowbar from that opinion): "Arthur Gordon Pym." This latter has been one of my favorite 19th-century novels ever since I first read it in graduate school 30-ish years ago. It's thrilling, scary, and still makes my brain exploded on the final weird page of that short novel. "Pym" makes these 1,300 pages worth it.

killallrockstars's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

osborne2read's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

zwinning's review against another edition

3.0

An extensive collection of Poe's work.

nkbolton's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

katie0528's review against another edition

This boom was big and pretty unwieldy. I thought I wanted to dive into all of Poe's writings, only to find that once I set out, it was too much. I've had it checked out from the library for months, so I've finally decided to just read the most famous works and return it. A smaller collection is probably enough for all but the Poe diehards.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Racism and Racial slurs

Minor: Blood, Terminal illness, and Slavery

cloudyobservations's review against another edition

I am just happy to be done. 3+ years of reading this on and off.

arukeni's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

4.5