POE: Stories and Poems

t is true that I am nervous. But why will you say that I am mad?

In stories and poems written well over a century ago, Edgar Allan Poe established himself as the original American master of gothic horror. Now, acclaimed artist-adapter Gareth Hinds translates Poe’s dark genius into the graphic novel format for Poe fans new and old.

Blood, bones, and flickering firelight set the mood for Hinds’s vision of Poe’s macabre and tragic worlds. In “The Cask of Amontillado,” a man takes a terrifying revenge on a friend who has insulted him. In “The Masque of the Red Death,” a prince hosts a party in his abbey stronghold while plague spreads outside. A prisoner finds himself in the sadistic clutches of the Spanish Inquisition in “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and in “The Tell- Tale Heart,” a single milky eye incites madness and murder.

Alongside the tales are visual interpretations of three iconic poems — “The Raven,” “The Bells,” and Poe’s poignant elegy to lost love, “Annabel Lee.” Taken together, these seven concise graphic narratives both amplify and honor a timeless legacy.