Henry Lee Poe. Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories. Metro Books, 2008.
Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion is a well-done overview of the life and work of Edgar Allan Poe, one of America’s best-known writers. This book not only reminds us that Poe wrote the first detective story but also shares that Jules Verne credits Poe for writing the first science fiction story.
The photographs and illustrations that accompany this book are chosen well. In addition, each of its eight chapters contains a plastic envelope with facsimiles of pictures and documents related to Poe. Among these are copies of letters Poe wrote and received, pages from the first printing of some of his works, and even his marriage contract.
The author summarizes the main idea or themes of Poe’s best-known poems and stories without producing spoilers. We get an idea of his upbringing and financial struggles. We get insight into his own career plans—in his day he may have been best known for his impartial literary criticism at a time when most reviews were puff pieces.
And we certainly get an appreciation of Poe’s work.
The author stresses that Poe is not a character in any of his stories. Even very few poems are autobiographical in nature. For example, “The Raven” was written well before his wife died. Like others who have written about Poe, the author deems it necessary to debunk some of the rumors and even slanders that have persisted about Poe.
He notes that Poe was somewhere between the Age of Reason and the Romantic Era. While his work was vivid and emotional like the best Romantics, Poe was also interested in science, nature, and medicine, and applied the scientific method to his writing.
Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion keeps E. A. Poe (his usual byline) in a realistic perspective. At the same time even readers who have researched Poe will probably discover things that they did not know about Poe or his acquaintances.
The author, a professor at Union University (Tennessee), is related to Edgar. We learn about Poe’s relations with his brother, sister, aunt, and cousins. A few family documents come to light for the general reader for the first time. For example, his affiliation with the Sons of Temperance (the nineteenth century precursor to Alcoholics Anonymous) towards the end of his life reveals quite a bit.
I was reading this book just as one of my classes is beginning a unit on Poe and Hawthorne (an author Poe admired). It is a pleasant read and will no doubt help me teach these authors with a little more depth this year.