Sutherland House Classics is proud to bring back to print Julian Symons' The Tell-Tale Heart, an acclaimed and best-selling biography of Edgar Allan Poe, one of the most influential authors in the English language. A highly-regarded mystery and crime writer in his own right, Symons is in a unique position to understand Poe's work and to sharply, thoroughly reveal the secrets of his life. He paints Poe as his contemporaries saw him: a man whose life was filled with tragedy and who struggled to make a living through his ...
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Sutherland House Classics is proud to bring back to print Julian Symons' The Tell-Tale Heart, an acclaimed and best-selling biography of Edgar Allan Poe, one of the most influential authors in the English language. A highly-regarded mystery and crime writer in his own right, Symons is in a unique position to understand Poe's work and to sharply, thoroughly reveal the secrets of his life. He paints Poe as his contemporaries saw him: a man whose life was filled with tragedy and who struggled to make a living through his writing, only to emerge as a definitive voice in murder-and-madness fiction and the inventor of the detective story. More relevant than ever in our horror-obsessed times, The Tell-Tale Heart is the second volume in the Sutherland Classics series, which seeks to rediscover and reprint classic works of narrative non-fiction. "As absorbing and compelling as a good detective story." - Washington Post
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Seller's Description:
1st edn. 8vo. Original gilt lettered red (VG), dustwrapper (residue of price sticker on upper cover-otherwise VG in protective wrapper, not price clipped). Pp. x + 259 (no inscriptions).
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Near Fine in Very Good jacket. First printing. Spine ends gently bumped. Jacket rubbed with light wear at the edges, including a 1" closed tear to the upper rear panel, in Brodart.
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Very Good in Very Good jacket. First Edition, First Printing. Not price-clipped ($10.95 price intact). Published by Harper & Row, 1978. Octavo. Hardcover. Book is very good. Dust jacket is very good. 100% positive feedback. 30 day money back guarantee. NEXT DAY SHIPPING! Excellent customer service. Please email with any questions or if you would like a photo. All books packed carefully and ship with free delivery confirmation/tracking. All books come with free bookmarks. Ships from Sag Harbor, New York.
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Fine. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 274 p. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
New. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 274 p. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
This book is Julian Symons?s study of the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe. It is divided into two parts: the first part being a short biography of Poe and the second part being a concise critical analysis.
Nearly three-fourths of the book is biography. Symons provides information about Poe?s parents, his abysmal relationship with his foster father, his work on various literary journals, his adult relationships (including his marriage, his complicated relationship with his aunt/mother-in-law and his series of emotional entanglements surrounding and following the death of his wife), his lifelong poverty, his fame during his lifetime, his death and the post-mortem character assassination by his literary executor, Rufus Griswold.
Symon?s biography is notable for its psychological profile of Poe. Symons engages in much psychological speculation to create a character behind the poems and tales. For example, Symons makes much of Poe?s possibly hereditary talent for drama and acting, and attributes much of Poe?s hysteria, compulsion for hoaxes and creative energy to the dramatic flair in Poe?s personality. Symons also makes much of Poe?s childhood and adolescence. By early adulthood Poe had been mistreated and abandoned by every father figure in his life and had lost every mother figure to early death, thus setting the stage for adult relationships that were destined to fail. And Symons goes on a psychoanalytical hayride with Poe?s marital arrangement ? an easy target for the armchair psychoanalyst. While living with his aunt during his early twenties, Poe developed an emotional dependence upon his pre-adolescent cousin, Virginia, whom he thought of as his little sister and, indeed, affectionately called Sister and Sissie. He convinced his aunt to allow him to marry the girl by promising not to consummate the marriage until she reached sexual maturity. Poe?s aunt/mother-in-law lived with the Poes throughout the marriage and continued to be involved with and dependent upon Poe until his death. Symons elaborates on the brother-sister-mother overtones of the arrangement at length.
The psychoanalysis continues in Symon?s critical study of Poe?s works. Symons postulates that many of the narrators in Poe?s horror tales are images of Poe himself, and are Poe?s attempt to work out his psychological issues and demons. Poe had a highly logical intellect and yet was a visionary, given to flights of fantasy. Symons sees Poe as a inwardly-tortured man who had to keep writing poems and tales in order to maintain a semblance of sanity and balance.
Symons critical study includes in-depth analysis of several tales and a shallow critique of Eureka (a work which deserves greater critical attention). Symons also provides an overview of critical approaches and schools of thought on Poe?s continuing influence on literature.
This is a high-readable, fascinating and enjoyable study. However, it would have been much more valuable to Poe scholars and students of American literature had Symons included citations to his source material. Throughout the biography portion of this book, Symons refers to Poe?s letters and to the letters, diaries and papers of various Poe contemporaries without providing bibliographic and archival information for his research sources. The book does feature a bibliography for further reading including editions of Poe?s works, biographies of Poe and critical works on Poe. The book also features an index.
