Who is Edgar Allen Poe

I love Edgar Allan Poe, but i found that most of his stories and poems are harder to understand because of the time period. So i bought this book hoping to get the full message...And i did its got slightly bigger print, Vocabulary at the bottom like a school book...In fact this was the version we used in our high school and it was great. It has a nice front cover a crows shadow and a haunted house in a storm its really neat... Poe being a gothic writer makes his writing more dark. He writes about the death and maddness.

So in conclusion this book is really good for students, adults,or anyone looking for a gothic story collection - Jenni "Vampyre_Blood_Lust" (Claremore, oklahoma United States)

Meltzer, author of several other biographies from this publisher, including Carl Sandburg (1999) and Walt Whitman (2000), now introduces Poe.

After a difficult youth, Poe married his cousin and struggled to support his family with a literary career that included creating groundbreaking poetry, short stories, and works in the mystery genre as well as many potboilers. Meltzer's analysis includes perceptive discussions of issues such as Poe's troubled relationship with his foster father and the probable causes and disastrous effects of Poe's alcoholism.

More than most other biographers for young people, Meltzer places his subject within the framework of his society. Readers will come away not only with a greater knowledge of Poe's life and accomplishments but also a clearer picture of American life in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Back matter includes a chronology, two bibliographies, and information about museums devoted to Poe. Black-and-white reproductions of period paintings, drawings, prints, and documents illustrate this informative biography. Carolyn Phelan