The Annotated and Illustrated Edgar Allan Poe (Oldstyle Tales Press) edited by M. Grant Kellermeyer consists of twenty stories and fourteen poems with annotations. Also included are short essays before and after each story as well as chiaroscuro illustrations by the editor.
The stories are arranged in order of original publication. Kellermeyer explains in his introduction:
“By beginning and ending in the order in which these tales are printed, you will have the ability to follow the themes that recur and develop throughout Poe’s literary career. The notes will assist in tying together shared themes by referring you to other stories (by Poe and others) which either influenced or were influenced by the story at hand. Additionally, it should be noted that we have cataloged the tales into four sub-categories to engender comparative analysis.”
The four sub-categories of focus:
The Tale of Gender and Metaphysics - “...the binary relationship between a man and a woman is used to render a psycho-philosophical commentary on the balance between mind and matter, essence and form…”
The Tale of Existential Adventure - “...a situation of physical horror and natural sublimity is digested through the use of logic and ratiocination - leading to conclusions about the vulnerability of humanity in the face of a hostile cosmos…”
The Revenge Fantasy - “...a malefactor is punished with impunity by a self-justified murderer…”
The Tale of Psychological Duplicity - “...a character is faced with a symbolic or literal episode of psychosis, whereby their psychology is broken into two elements, and they are plagued by their doppelgรคnger - usually an extension of conscience.”
Poe’s use of long sentences and esoteric vocabulary was a little challenging to read in some stories but was more straightforward in others where the words just flowed. I found the detailed annotations extremely helpful for vocabulary definitions, story analysis, and for helping to decipher the meaning of many of the poems.
My one criticism is that the annotations were sometimes too detailed. I encountered spoilers two times revealing the endings of stories as I was reading them. In any case, most of the stories were amazing, and I learned quite a lot from the essays and annotations.
Spoilers in this collection aside, I highly recommend the books published by Oldstyle Tales Press. I also have their collection of M.R. James ghost stories (I don’t remember any spoilers in that collection) and absolutely loved it.
My copy is a third edition with a painting (pictured above) titled The Premature Burial by Antoine Weirtz as the cover, which is not showing up on Goodreads as of this writing.
My story ratings:
Metzengersten (3/5)
MS. Found in a Bottle (4/5)
The Assignation (4/5)
Berenice (5/5)
Morella (5/5)
Shadow - A Parable (4/5)
Silence - A Fable (4/5)
Ligea (4/5)
The Fall of the House of Usher (5/5)
William Wilson (4/5)
The Man of the Crowd (3/5)
A Descent into the Maelstrom (3/5)
The Oval Portrait (4/5)
The Masque of Red Death (4/5)
The Pit and the Pendulum (5/5)
The Tell-Tale Heart (5/5)
The Black Cat (5/5)
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (5/5)
The Cask of Amontillado (5/5)
Hop-Frog (4/5)
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