by Robert Giordano
This site contains short stories and poems by Edgar Allan Poe
(Edgar Allen Poe is a common misspelling), story summaries,
quotes, and linked vocabulary words
and definitions for educational reading. It also includes a short
biography, a timeline of
Poe's life, and links to other Poe sites.
Most people recognize Poe by his famous
poem, "The Raven". Others may have read one of his
more popular dark and creepy tales like, "The
Fall of the House of Usher" or "The
Tell-tale Heart". Poe wrote quite a few gothic stories about
murder,
revenge,
torture,
the plague,
being buried alive, and
insanity. Many modern books and movies
have "borrowed" ideas from Poe. Some of Poe's stories were not well accepted in his day
because people were just not ready for them- they were too scary.
Many people don't know that Edgar Allan Poe also wrote stories about
adventure on the high seas,
buried pirate treasure, and a famous
balloon ride.
Poe invented the detective story with tales like
"Murders in the Rue Morgue" and
"The Purloined Letter". Sherlock
Holmes and other fictional detectives would later be based on the characters that Poe
created. Poe wrote love stories and even a few
strange little
comedies. He attempted to explain the
composition of the universe in a
way that sounds a little like quantum physics.
Explore this site and you'll see why I think Edgar Allan Poe deserves to
be recognized as one of the most original, imaginative, and ingenious authors of
our society.
Poe wrote many stories on many different topics. If you don't know where to start, you can browse
short summaries of Edgar Allan Poe stories, so you can find something that
interests you. Don't worry, I don't give away the endings!!
This site makes it easy for you read Poe's stories. Poe knew several languages and had quite a
large vocabulary. Poe's works are not hard to read but sometimes he uses obscure words or
references that the average user may not know. Because of this, I've created an ever growing
wordlist containing many of these words and their definitions. When
a word in the wordlist appears in any story, it becomes hyperlinked to its definition.
In the Gallery, you'll find a large collection of Edgar Allan Poe
portraits and daguerreotypes. Learn the details behind each of Poe's commonly
recognized portraits.
In the Poe Artwork section, browse a constantly
updated selection of art from current artists who were inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, his poetry,
and prose. Artists who have created paintings, drawings, or illustrations based on Poe or his
works, are invited to contact me about featuring your work on this site.
The Gallery also features photography from various
trips to Edgar Allan Poe historic sites, like the ones in
Richmond and
Baltimore.
Poestories.com was originally built by Robert Giordano in 2005 using 100% standards compliant
HTML and CSS, written from scratch. In 2019, Robert updated all of the code to an HTML5 "Responsive" layout for phones and mobile devices.
This site should work equally well in old browsers from 10 years ago, all the way up to the latest Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge browsers.
The site even works in Internet Explorer but why would you do that? Finally it means this site is fully
functional with all styles turned off and is accessible to people with disabilities.
Enjoy your visit and don't forget to sign the guestbook.