Includes bibliographical references and index.

About this volume / THE TALES AND THEIR AUTHOR: On Poe's Tales -- Steven Frye ; Biography of Edgar Allan Poe -- Charles E. May ; The Paris Review Perspective -- Nathaniel Rich for The Paris Review / CRITICAL CONTEXTS: A Debt Owed, a Debt Paid: Poe's Literary Cultural Heritage -- Jeff Grieneisen and Courtney Ruffner ; Introduction to Poe Criticism -- Susan Amper ; "Hypocrite Lecteur": The Reader as Accomplice in Poe's Short Stories -- Matthew J. Bolton ; Edgar Allan Poe's Fantastic Short Stories -- Santiago Rodriguez Guerrero-Strachan / CRITICAL READINGS: Irresistible Impulses: Edgar Allan Poe and the Insanity Defense -- John Cleman ; The Limits of Reason: Poe's Deluded Detectives -- J. Gerald Kennedy ; What Happens in "The Fall of the House of Usher"? -- J.O. Bailey ; Poe and the Powers of the Mind -- Robert Shulman ; The Motive for Murder in "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe -- Elena V. Baraban ; The Problem of Realism in "The Gold Bug" -- J. Woodrow Hassell, Jr. ; The Self-Consuming Narrator in Poe's "Ligeia" and "Usher" -- Ronald Bieganowski ; Poe's Re-Vision: The Recovery of the Second Story -- Cynthia S. Jordan ; Absolute Poe: His System of Transcendental Racism -- Maurice S. Lee / RESOURCES: Chronology of Edgar Allan Poe's Life ; Works by Edgar Allan Poe ; Bibliography ; About the Editor ; About The Paris Review ; Contributors ; Acknowledgments ; Index.