This book is shallow, judgemental, poorly researched and an insult to any the intelligence of any thinking person. There are some marvelous biographies about Edgar Allan Poe (The one by pulitzer prive winning biographer, Kenneth Silverman, is the best.) To call this a STUDY guide is absurd. It's a slanted, bias, narrow minded piece of propoganda.

Harold Bloom has assembled a slim volume of literary criticism on Edgar Allan Poe. Bloom's introductory essay on Poe and his critics is interesting and informative but takes a harsh slant against Poe's literary merit. Not surprisingly, a number of the essays side with Bloom.

The great majority of the essays were written by esteemed Poe scholars, poets and novelists. D.H. Lawrence's essay contains a number of factual inaccuracies and is gratuitously offensive. Allen Tate's essay "The Angelic Imagination" is very good, as is Richard Wilbur's "House of Poe."

What surprised me most is the pausity of references to Poe's metaphysics, mysticism and hidden meaning. Harold Bloom has written at least 3 books on gnosticism and gnosis in American religion and literature. In at least one of those books, he called Poe a "representative American gnostic." Ironically, Bloom more or less pretends in this book that Poe's works have no meaning or message whatsoever and that Poe wrote only for effect. There are a number of essays which focus on Poe's metaphysics. Take a look at those collected in Eric W. Carlson's book, Critical Essays on Edgar Allan Poe.

a pretty good book. it's definently a good read for those interested in poe.