title: Poe: Illustrated Tales of Mystery and Imagination
author:  Edgar Allan Poe 
description: Edgar Allan Poe widely recognized as one of the greatest American writers of short stories and poems and acknowledged as the inventor of detective stories, greatly influencing the modern thriller. A master in creating characters and plots that send shivers down your spine. His dark, gothic, and horrifying tales and poems of mystery and imagination now come to life in this book, featuring artworks by eminent international designers. POE contains nine short stories including his celebrated masterpieces, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Masque of the Red Death and The Black Cat as well as poems including The Bell and The Raven, certainly Poes best known work and arguably the most popular poem ever written. The familiar works and thrilling stories are heightened by elaborate illustrations by contemporary designers such as Usugrow, Casaramona, Jen Ray, Brian Ewing and others. This lavishly illustrated hardcover volume is sure to enthrall Poes most rabid fan and arouse the interest of those who are reading Poe for the first time.
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  Edited by Lois H. Gresh
  
  
  
  
  
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  INTRODUCTION
  
  
  Lois H. Gresh
  
  
  
  
  
  This is the book of my dreams. I’ve always been fond of Innsmouth. Directly
  over my desk, a painting of Innsmouth hangs on an old hook left by the former
  inhabitants of my house. I spend most of my life at this desk, so Innsmouth is
  always with me. There’s something very appealing about the tottering village
  and its shambling denizens, the cults, the dreariness, the turbulence of the
  sea, and Devil Reef.
  
  
  When I proposed this anthology to Pete Crowther at PS Publishing, I told him
  that I wanted to produce a book brimming with extraordinary Innsmouth stories.
  I wanted to produce a book that I would never grow tired of reading, a book
  that I would read every now and then for the rest of my life. I think that I
  succeeded.
  
  
  I requested stories from all the top writers in the weird genre. I desperately
  wanted Ramsey Campbell, but alas, Pete had Ramsey squi