Publisher's Synopsis
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the saddest and most enigmatic figures in world literature. He made his living as a poet, critic, editor, and journalist, and is recognized as one of the universal masters of the short story. He was a pioneer in his country and the first American writer of renown who tried to make writing his way of life. He revamped the Gothic novel, invented the detective story and made important contributions to the emerging genre of science fiction. He also ventured into such disparate fields as cosmology, cryptography and mesmerism, although his name would go down to posterity thanks to his shocking tales of terror, in which he portrays death in all its forms and manifestations with singular mastery: natural death, premeditated, mysterious, accidental, placid, gruesome and cursed. His work and legacy have been assimilated by popular culture through music, film, comics, painting and television, assuring him a posthumous fame such as he could never have imagined. His work also exerted an enormous influence on the literature of his time thanks to the obsession he had for the form and aesthetics of his writing, which allowed him to compose poems of remarkable beauty such as The Raven, a true work of literary art that, along with others of similar transcendence, would mark the path for authors who would come later, such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Franz Kafka, Jules Verne, H.P. Lovecraft and Charles Baudeaire, among many others. In this entertaining biography, richly illustrated, the reader will be immersed in the story of a floating and melancholic genius who had to endure continuous economic hardships, insurmountable deaths, complicated loves and countless emotional conflicts that made his life a painful and, at times, unbearable existence. We will also learn curious anecdotes of his time, the origin of his most important works and the ins and outs of his strange death in 1849, whose exact cause was never determined.
