The Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume 2 (Illustrated)

The purloined letter
The thousand-and-second tale of Scheherezade
A descent into the Maelström
Von Kempelen and his discovery
Mesmeric revelation
The facts in the case of M. Valdemar
The black cat
The fall of the House of Usher
Silence: a fable
The masque of the Red Death
The cask of Amontillado
The imp of the perverse
The island of the Fay
The assignation
The pit and the pendulum
The premature burial
The domain of Arnheim
Landor's cottage
William Wilson
The tell-tale heart
Berenice
Eleonora.

Edgar Allan Poe (born Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 October 7, 1849) was an American author, poet, editor, and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story, and is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

Born in Boston, he was the second child of two actors. His father abandoned the family in 1810, and his mother died the following year. Thus orphaned, the child was taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia. Although they never formally adopted him, Poe was with them well into young adulthood. Tension developed later as John Allan and Edgar repeatedly clashed over debts, including those incurred by gambling, and the cost of secondary education for the young man. Poe attended the University of Virginia for one semester but left due to lack of money. Poe quarreled with Allan over the funds for his education and enlisted in the Army in 1827 under an assumed name. It was at this time his publishing career began, albeit humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to "a Bostonian". With the death of Frances Allan in 1829, Poe and Allan reached a temporary rapprochement. Later failing as an officer's cadet at West Point and declaring a firm wish to be a poet and writer, Poe parted ways with John Allan.

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