'You have won and I have lost. But, from now on you too are dead . You existed in me — and this body is your own. See how completely you have, through my death, murdered yourself.' The short stories of Edgar Allan Poe are often strange, wild and highly imaginative. Many of them examine in an extremely detailed way the dark side of human existence. In his time, Poe was a very original writer. | Introduction You have won and I have lost. But from now on you too are dead . You existed in me and this body is your own. See how completely you have through my death murdered yourself. The short stories of Edgar Allan Poe are often strange wild and highly imaginative. Many of them examine in an extremely detailed way the dark side of human existence. In his time Poe was a very original writer. His stories communicate a world of terror that comes straight from the depths of his own troubled mind. William Wilson 1839 is set in England where Poe also went to school. It is a disturbing story about the struggle between the good and bad sides of a young man s character. The Gold-Bug 1843 is one of Poe s most popular stories selling over 300 000 copies in its first year. The story shows how clear thinking can make sense of things we do not at first understand. In this case the clear thinking leads to the discovery of immense treasures. Another strange and very frightening story is The Fall of the House of Usher 1839 .The character Roderick Usher has often been compared with Poe himself both lived in continual fear of death and kept apart from human company. Two more shocking stories in which death claims victory are The Red Death 1842 and The Barrel of Amontillado 1846 . The Whirlpool 1841 is an adventure story set on the Norwegian coast in which the main character experiences terrible fear and lives to tell the tale. The Pit and the Pendulum 1843 describes in horrible detail the cruelty of human beings to each other and examines fear and hopelessness at the point of death. Metzengerstein is one of Poe s early tales. Set in Hungary it is a story about the power of evil. The Stolen Letter and The Murders in the Rue Morgue 1841 are mystery stories featuring C. Auguste Dupin on whom other great fictional characters such as Conan Doyle s Sherlock Holmes were later modelled. The American poet and short-story writer Edgar Allan Poe was bom in Boston in 1809. He hardly knew .
