



Produced by Distributed Proofreaders










SELECTIONS FROM POE

Edited with Biographical and Critical Introduction and Notes

BY

J. MONTGOMERY GAMBRILL

Head of the Department of History and Civics
Baltimore Polytechnic Institute

INSCRIBED TO THE POE AND LOWELL LITERARY SOCIETIES OF THE
BALTIMORE POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE

[Illustration: EDGAR ALLAN POE. After an engraving by Cole]



PREFACE

Edgar Allan Poe has been the subject of so much controversy that he is
the one American writer whom high-school pupils (not to mention
teachers) are likely to approach with ready-made prejudices. It is
impossible to treat such a subject in quite the ordinary
matter-of-course way. Furthermore, his writings are so highly
subjective, and so intimately connected with his strongly held
critical theories, as to need somewhat careful and extended study.
These facts make it very difficult to treat either the man or his art
as simply as is desirable in a secondary text-book.  Consequently the
Introduction is longer and less simple than the editor would desire
for the usual text. It is believed, however, that the teacher can take
up this Introduction with the pupil in such a way as to make it
helpful, significant, and interesting.

The text of the following poems and tales is that of the
Stedman-Woodberry edition (described in the Bibliography, p. xxx), and
the selections are reprinted by permission of the publishers, Duffield
& Company; this text is followed exactly except for a very few changes
in punctuation, not more than five or six in all. My obligations to
other works are too numerous to mention; all the publications included
in the Bibliography, besides a number of others, have been examined,
but I especially desire to acknowledge the courtesy of Dr. Henry
Barton Jacobs of Baltimore, who sent me from Paris a copy of Émile
Lauvrière's interesting and important study, "Edgar Poe: Sa vie et son
oeuvre; étude de psychologie pathologique."  To my wife I am indebted
for valuable assistance in the tedious work of reading proofs and
verifying the text.



CONTENTS

  PREFACE

  INTRODUCTION

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  POEMS
    SONG
    SPIRITS OF THE DEAD
    TO ----
    ROMANCE
    TO THE RIVER
    TO SCIENCE
    TO HELEN
    ISRAFEL
    THE CITY IN THE SEA
    THE SLEEPER
    LENORE
    THE VALLEY OF UNREST
    THE COLISEUM
    HYMN
    TO ONE IN PARADISE
    TO F----
    TO F----S S. O----D
    TO ZANTE
    BRIDAL BALLAD
    SILENCE
    THE CONQUEROR WORM
    DREAM-LAND
    THE RAVEN
    EULALIE
    TO M.L. S----
    ULALUME
    TO ---- ----
    AN ENIGMA
    TO HELEN
    A VALENTINE
    FOR ANNIE
    THE BELLS
    ANNABEL LEE
    TO MY MOTHER
    ELDORADO
    THE HAUNTED PALACE

  TALES
    THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
    WILLIAM WILSON
    A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTRÖM
    THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH
    THE GOLD-BUG
    THE PURLOINED LETTER

  NOTES



INTRODUCTION

EDGAR ALLAN POE: HIS LIFE, CHARACTER, AND ART


Edgar Allan Poe is in many respects the most fascinating figure in
American literature. His life, touched by the extremes of fortune, was
on the whole more unhappy than that of any other of our prominent men
of letters. His character was strangely complex, and was the subject
of misunderstanding during his life and of heated dispute after his
death; his writings were long neglected or disparaged at home, while
accepted abroad as our greatest literary achievement. Now, after more
than half a century has elapsed since his death, careful biographers
have furnished a tolerably full account of the real facts about his
life; a fairly accurate idea of his character is winning general
acceptance; and the name of Edgar Allan Poe has been conceded a place
among the two or three greatest in our literature.


LIFE AND CHARACTER

In December, 1811, a well-known actress of the