Dark Graphic Tales By Edgar Allan Poe

A graphic novel adaptation of three short stories by Edgar Allan Poe.

A new selection for the NEA’s Big Read program A compact selection of Poe’s greatest stories and poems, chosen by the National Endowment for the Arts for their Big Read program. This selection of eleven stories and seven poems contains such famously chilling masterpieces of the storyteller’s art as “The Tell-tale Heart,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and such unforgettable poems as “The Raven,” “The Bells,” and “Annabel Lee.” Poe is widely credited with pioneering the detective story, represented here by “The Purloined Letter,” “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Also included is his essay “The Philosophy of Composition,” in which he lays out his theory of how good writers write, describing how he constructed “The Raven” as an example.

In this graphic adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's works, the celebrated narrative poem 'The Raven' and several of his short stories are brought to life by Pete Katz's superbly dark illustrations. Poe was a master of Gothic fiction, and the genre's core themes of horror, death and romance feature strongly in this collection, which includes The Raven, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Masque of the Red Death, The Black Cat, The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether.

Presents adaptations, in graphic novel format, of seven classic horror stories. Includes a brief biography of each author.

"Edgar Allen Poe has enthralled readers for over 150 years with his blend of doomed romantacism, gothic melodrama and macabre ghouishness. Here his most popular short storise are re-imagined in this vibrant graphic anthology." - product description.

The graphic novel is the most exciting literary format to emerge in the past thirty years. Among its more inspired uses has been the superlative adaptation of literary classics. Unlike the comic book abridgments aimed at young readers of an earlier era, today's graphic novel adaptations are created for an adult audience, and capture the subtleties of sophisticated written works. This first ever collection of essays focusing on graphic novel adaptations of various literary classics demonstrates how graphic narrative offers new ways of understanding the classics, including the works of Homer, Poe, Flaubert, Conrad and Kafka, among many others.