Not all or even most of them-that would be a monumental task, even given Poe's short life-but familiar ones, like 'The Pit and the Pendulum' and 'The Fall of the House of Usher.' And the lecturer nicely puts Poe and his work in a historical context, which reveals just how truly unique and influential his work was.
A good chunk of the book is devoted to Poe's creative works. Many theories have been aired that could explain Poe's troubled personal life, his relationship to the bottle and his particularly dark genius. So Canada, like other recent biographers, also questions whether Poe was the inveterate drunkard history has led us to believe. And his die-hard enemy, Rufus Griswold, who took the occasion of Poe's early demise to begin a hatchet job on the author's reputation. An absentee dad, a dead mother and a prickly, disapproving 'adopted' dad. The first series of lectures give an overview of Poe's truly tragic life.
The lecturer, Mark Canada, clearly loves America's dark genius and that enthusiasm keeps the lectures lively and fast-moving. I found one that was about three hours long-and that was okay. I've been looking for a good Edgar Allan Poe biography on Audible.
