Edgar Allan Poe: Poe the writer

In an extreme sense, Edgar Allan Poe's writing is the very embodiment of what we recognize as the quintessential modern condition: a world defined through its concern with doubt, fear, and anxiety--a world in which individuals are isolated and displaced. This four-volume assessment examines the Poe phenomenon and its significance for the twentieth-century reader. Volume One offers a range of material that contextualizes Poe's life and the myths surrounding it. Volume Two contains contemporary essays and reviews which chart the immediate and changing sense of Poe's work and the response to it in his lifetime. A second section offers a different viewpoint: that of French writers. Volume Three offers a collection of exemplary and often seminal essays responding to Poe's work. Volume Four, the most extensive of the volumes, reflects the range and extent of Poe criticism that has emerged in the twentieth century as Poe has been condidtently rediscovered and reinterpreted.