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Edgar Allan Poe

You might think me mad to write this guide.  It's very hard to create viable marketing copy with a raven staring at me. It stands perched above my desk, its baleful eyes cast down upon me. Every now and again, I can hear it whispering something to me. I turned my iPod on, but I can still hear it sometimes. It tells me things I don't want to hear. I turn my Coldplay up.   I'm alone in the office. My coworkers think me mad and have condemned me to isolation. Perhaps it's the fans from the air conditioning unit, but there's an unearthly chill in the air.  The office has the dank, musty air of a tomb. I feel suffocated. Panic begins to set in. I wish I was at home in my jammies drinking amontillado and watching ''Two and a Half Men''.  I murdered my editor today. I had no reason to do so. Neither greed nor avarice motivated me. Instead, I slew her for her horrible eye. That, and the fact that she kept assigning me automotive guides. Fear not, for her body will remain undiscovered. I dismembered her corpse, cutting off her head and arms and limbs. There was no blood. A tub had caught all-ha ha! Also, we have a really good janitorial service.  The sound of my editor's heart thumps underneath floor beneath my feet. The beating is surprisingly strong, given the amount of cheeseburgers she ate. Terror settling in my heart, I watch the pendulum of the office's grandfather clock swing back and forth, back and forth. Should I survive this guide, I will return to my ancestral home in crumbling estate of Usher. There I shall wait until disease or madness takes me. In the meantime, I shall read some Edgar Allan Poe. That will be good for cheering me up. 

Nevermore...

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most important American authors of the 19th century. His tales of terror and the macabre have thrilled and delighted audiences for over a hundred years, and his work has had a profound impact on both American literature and the horror genre. Poe is most famous for his work in the Gothic horror, a genre that focuses on atmospheric tales of decay and madness. Poe's characters are often frail, prone to addiction and nervousness, cursed, and often condemned to horrible fates. His most famous tales, including "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Fall of the House of Usher", and "The Pit and the Pendulum" rank as some of the most terrifying stories ever written. He's probably most famously known for "The Raven", an eerie poem about a supernatural raven haunting a man mourning over the loss of his beloved. While "The Raven" made Poe a household name, he never made much money as an author. Poverty, tragedy, and alcoholism touched his life and fans imagine him to be the very archetype of a tortured artist.  While he's most famous for his work in the Gothic horror genre, he was also one of the earliest writers of mystery fiction. Poe wrote three stories featuring his gentleman sleuth, C. Auguste Dupin. These stories laid down many tropes of detective fiction: the consulting detective and his gift of logical deduction, the ineffectual police force, the seemingly impossible crime, and the diligent sidekick acting as narrator for the tales. Poe was also a wellBon" as a sterling example of the range of Poe's talents.  Poe's literary legacy continues to this day. Most famously, a mysterious man dressed entirely in black made an annual visit to Poe's grave on the day of Poe's birth. Known as the "Poe Toaster", the man would arrive in the early hours of the morning and leave three roses and a bottle of French cognac at Poe's grave before disappearing again. The man's identity has never been confirmed and he didn't arrive in 2010, marking the first time in 50 years that the man has not appeared. 

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