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Yesterday marked the
209th birthday of the father of American horror, Edgar
Allen Poe. So I thought it would be neat to make this post a Poe post
to honour him. Although my favorite of Poe’s works are his dark
supernatural stories, I thought it was important to emphasise his
science fiction which has been historically so underrated. So I’m
excerpting from an article I
had written several
years ago for the online
news site, Examiner.com, before it went obsolete. The
article was about the
Edgar Allen Poe House and Museum in Baltimore which was on the edge
of permanently closing down at the time which, fortunately, due to a
successful petition
(which I signed),
ended up not happening.
When I wrote the
article, I thought it was so important that the Poe House and Museum
be preserved because it is both an important landmark to U.S. and pop
cultural history. Even though Poe’s imaginative works were often
down-criticised and far underrated during his time, the early 19th
century, that all paid off in the century following his own. His
works influenced famous modern authors of horror and sci fi such as
H. P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson and Stephen King. A
multitude of movies have adapted his fiction, namely ones produced
under American International Pictures which many of starred Vincent
Price and Boris Karloff. Several of his stories have also been
adapted to comic books. Even rock bands base their songs on him. So
he’s definitely become a pop cultural figure even if in postmortem.
But many of his influences on
these aspects of popular
culture have been typically seen in relation to horror rather than
science fiction. So here’s
the excerpt that explains otherwise:
From “The Closing of Baltimore’s Poe House and Museum”, Examiner.com
Poe, so well known
for his gothic horror stories, is seldom thought of as a science
fiction author. However, it has been argued that he was an early
writer of science fiction as well as horror and detective fiction.
In fact, he has been regarded by the University of Baltimore’s
Baltimore Literary Heritage Project team to be the first true science
fiction writer. According to the Project, Poe “created the first
true science fiction story.” Many of Poe’s stories about flying
machines and hot air balloons that travel to unknown lands were
influences for the better known, late 19th/early 20th
centuries’ science fiction authors’ works, such as Jules Verne’s
Around the World in 80 Days. In fact, “Jules Verne himself
acknowledged his dept to Poe [. . .]”, states Harold Beaver in his
book, The Science Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe. California
State University, Sacramento English professor, Mark Hennelly, Jr.
explains in his article, “Oedipus and Orpheus in the Maelstrom”,
the journey in Poe’s stories, such as “A Descent Into the
Maelstrom”, in terms of scientific exploration and wonder by saying
that the characters are “obsessed with terrestrial (and marine)
depth, [. . . and] preoccupied with celestial elevation” which much
of science fiction concerns itself with.
Harold
Beaver’s book, the Science Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe,
collects these stories as Poe’s science fiction:
“Ms.
Found in a Bottle”
“The
Unparalleled Adventure/Hans Pfaall”
“The
Conversation of Eiros and Charmion”
“A
Descent into the Maelstrom”
“Colloquy
of Monos and Una”
“”The
Tale of the Ragged Mountains”
“The
Balloon Hoax”
“Mesmeric
Revelation”
“The
Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade”
“Some
Words with a Mummy”
“The
Power of Words”
“The
System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether”
“Mellonta
Tauta”
“Von
Kempelen and His Discovery”
If Poe wasn’t the
first science fiction author ever, he still contributed significantly
to the genre.
List of My Favourite Poe Tales
As I said, my
favorite tales by Poe are the dark supernatural ones. But out of the
sci fi ones I would say I like “A Descent into the Maelstrom”
most. It’s dark within itself and also has a supernatural element
to it as it does a science fiction one, which you can say in today’s
sub-genre terms is inter-dimensional travel. But here’s a list of
my favourite supernatural fiction by Poe:
The Fall of the
House of Usher
The Pit and the
Pendulum: This was the first Poe story I ever read. I read it in
it’s abridged version when I was 11 from a book of his tales that I
checked out at my school’s library. Today (literally) I’m reading
this one to celebrate his birthday. It’s from The Illustrated
Edgar Allen Poe, a book that contains select full stories but is
also beautifully illustrated by the artist, Satty. It’s a copy I
came across in the dealer’s room at one of the first full
conventions I went to several years ago, BayCon in San Jose, CA.
The Masque of the
Red Death
The Murders In
the Rue Morgue
Without Poe’s
work, there probably wouldn’t be speculative fiction in the sense
we know it today. They’re may not even be a horror genre as we know
it today.
So what are your
favorite works by Poe?
Until next time . .
.
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