The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe.

POE, Edgar Allan.

$5,500.00

Item Number: 147348

New York and Pittsburgh: The Colonial Company, Limited, 1903.

Limited manuscript edition of the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe. Octavo, ten volumes, bound in full crushed levant morocco, gilt titles and ruling to the spine in four compartments within gilt raised bands, gilt turn-ins, top edge gilt, watered silk endpapers, three tissue guarded frontispieces in each volume, illustrated with tissue guarded engravings. One of only thirty copines printed on Japan vellum and signed by editors Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodbury on the verso of the title page. In near fine condition. An exceptional set.

Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, American Romantic writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe is credited with inventing the genre of detective fiction and contributing to the genre of science fiction, only just emerging at the turn of the 20th century. Poe was the first well-known American writer to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career and his works influenced literature around the world, as well as specialized fields such as cosmology and cryptography. Poe's most memorable tales include: The Black Cat, The Cask of Amontillado, The Gold-Bug, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Premature Burial, and The Tell-Tale Heart.