The Works of Edgar Allan Poe (5)

This volume of THE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLEN POE we see what is, in the opinion of the editors who compiled the Raven Edition in the 19th century, the tail end of Poe's fiction. "A Tale of Jerusalem" is a tasteless joke and "The Sphinx" is a pedantic one. But there are more interesting tales present. "Thou Art the Man," for all the characters have names like something out of an 18th century farce, is a middling-good mystery story. "The Man In the Crowd" continues to fascinate. The tale is as inexplicable as the title character. "Hop-Frog" is certainly a fine bit of grotesquerie. But much more importantly, this is the volume that contains Poe's poems. Poe certainly thought of his verse as the most important and most artistic part of his literary output. The tales might be seen as popular entertainments, or even magazine drudge-work, but, in the 1840s as now, POETRY had the mystique of being the most sublime of literary arts, and the poet was the most exquisite sort of genius.