"Charlatan, plagiarist, pathological liar, whimpering child, egomaniac, braggart, and irresponsible drunkard, he did what few American writers had ever tried to do before: he tapped the rich reservoir of the subconscious mind to set free the terrible images which had seldom been allowed to stalk the printed page." Thus in his introduction to this collection Philip Van Doren Stern sums up the strange genius of Edgar Allan Poe, one of America's most original men of letters.

The Portable Poe compiles Poe's greatest writings: tales of fan- tasy, terror, death, revenge, murder, and mystery, including "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Cask of Amontillado," and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," the world's first detective story. In addition, this vol-ume offers letters, articles, criticism, visionary poetry, and a selection of random "opinions" on fancy and the imagination, music and poetry, intuition and sundry other topics. --back cover