Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque

Continuing with my collection of Worth Literary Classics: Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. This is kind of the "other" collection of Poe's short stories: most of his famous works (The Fall of the House of Usher, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Masque of the Red Death, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Cask of Amontillado and The Tell-Tale Heart) are in another collection ("Tales of Mystery and Imagination"). Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque really shows Poe's diversity: a lot of the pieces are humorous, a few show his trademark interest in the Gothic, and a couple are more in the nature of science-fiction. There were a handful I thought were really good: King Pest (set during plague-infested London, when grotesque mockeries of normal life are enacted by people who have given up hope); William Wilson (an early example of psychological horror); The Unparalled Adventure of One Hans Pfaal (a science-filled hoax about a trip to the moon in a hot-air balloon); and The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether (inmates running the asylum: a bit of a hoary plot today, but still effectively creepy). The Worth edition comes with an introduction and an essay on "Poe and the Gothic", which probably would have belonged better in the other collection. Surprisingly, there's no table of contents--something really necessary for a short story collection. I really liked the Publishing History section, which included full-color reproductions of gothic art inspired by Poe's work.