I find his writing style to be a little off, Nevertheless, I really enjoy reading his works. The suspenses, drama and thriller all seem to be Simultaneous. A real good read.

Southerner with an odd fondness for things like slavery, aristocracy, and dead women. He wrote a couple of brilliant essays ("The Philosophy of Composition" about "The Raven") and several perfect stories, but floundered in longer genres (the godawful Gordon Pym, for example) because his creative imagination was limited; his plots usually revolve around the same issues of madness, incest, etc. He's always been overrated in U.S. literature because of his "image," which doesn't fit that of the American author at all, coming closer to some French decadent like his greatest fan, Charles Baudelaire. While I understand why that image can sometimes be appealing, I'm not convinced that those people who dig him really enjoy reading him.

Master of thriller. Inspired the contemporary writers. Once I heard the audio of "Black Cat". It was wonderful

A bad joke foisted on the literary world. Mundane, deluded and dull.

AWESOME!

Perhaps a bit macabre for some, but speaking for myself, I like the ol' chap. The Mask of the Red Death, The Pit and the Pendulum,The Black Cat, and The Fall of the House of Usher all bring back fine high school memories for me...unfortunately none of Poe's writings were actually assigned in class, but I'm glad I took the initiative to read them on my own.

What's not to like?

Studying it in English and is VERY good. We watched most of The Pit and the Pendulum today. (I'm in 8th grade.) To explain what a success it was, when the bell rang for lunch, the only sounds were Awww! and Did you see that?! It was AWESOME!!

Edgar Allan Poe was a great author, and his revenge stories were amazing. When I first read The Tell-Tale Heart, I was scared for days. I encourage anybody to read any of his stories, they are great.

He's difficult to read, but not on the level with the likes of Faulkner, Pynchon, or some other stream=of-conciousness author. His stories are often very depressing and mimic events that happened to him in real life. I wonder what it would had been like had he wrote a novel. The man's entire life was shady and morbid, almost like on of his stories. He kind of freaks me out though, because he always writes about some guy who goes insane but doesn't know it and ends up going on a murderous rampage. You have to wonder...

I enjoy many of his dark and sinister stories, although his prose style can get a tad florid from time to time.

A true wordsmith.

over-rated. i'm sick of fifteen year old agnst-y teenagers spewing forth the raven as if it were the best thing ever written. get a life.

Very good with words, but often too depressing. As I've written before, his stories and poems are like a long series of suicide notes.

Poe's O.K., but has been grossly overrated for decades. Some of his poetry is fine, but it hardly compares to the work of English poets of the earlier Romantic period (Blake, Keats, Wordsworth). His fiction, dark, somber and focused on the underside of life, is an American version of what was going on in the contemporary literary world in France, and because Poe bought into this ethos early on, it ensured his enduring place in the coninuum of lit noir. He did, to his credit, pioneer the detective story, yet there is little modern in his writing style as his language suffers from that 19th century ponderousness typical of his time. He could have benefited from taking a page from the Flaubert game book by exercising the art of leaving out. His overrated reputation resides more in his identity as Tragic American Literary Figure than in anything that came from his pen.

I'm a little surprised to see Poe in the top spot on this ratings list (cynical comment deleted). A good and entertaining writer who explored the dark and the diseased, arguably he had more influence in France than in the U.S. Along with Baudelaire and the Marquis de Sade, he was one of the forerunners of Expressionism.

I have loved everything of his I have read.

I don't really care for his work, however I can't deny his passion and talent. I dont like it, but it doesnt' mean I don't recommend it to others...

One of my life long favorites.

ehxcellent...

His works will live forever.A great writter by any standards.Someone who pushed the art form he was working in and took it to places it had not been.The "Tell Tale Heart","The Raven" his works have a presence or character no matter how many times you read and reread.It is always fresh and alive.

Poe was an absolute genius, who produced gothic horror at its finest. He was definitely the forefather of modern horror and set the standard for literature within that genre that has come since. (And my handle name should indicate just how much I love Poe! ;-))

Edgar Allan Poe is by far one of my favorite authors. He rates up there with e.e.cummings. Poe had his problem (i.e. drugs, alcohol), but who hasn't had their fare share of problems? don't bash the man because you're jealous of his literary expertise. i think one of his greatest works is "The Tell-Tale Heart", it creeps me out just thinking about it. If i were a girl, and was alive when he was, and yeah, I definitely would have tried to like, marry him or something.

I've always felt that Poe is underrated in academic circle because he was a 'gothic' writer. I've never tired of 'The Raven'. . .'House of Usher'. . .or "Tell Tale Heart'. . .I read him in Middle School and Graduate School and the reaction was the same. . .very unique thing to say about any artist.

read his works and you will know.

I would give him 5, but sometimes he's just a bit tedious. I must say, it is a feat that he compells me to like his work at all, since I am inclined to dislike horror stories.

This guy is awesome. Poe is the bestest ever!

He was unique and imaginitive. His stories were dreary, but that was the whole point.

I genuinely love Poe's work. In the 150 years since he passed on, who else has mannaged to create such a magically cryptic, bizarre, surreal, relentlessly bleak world through the printed word? It's interesting that modern horror stories are more concerned with making the reader piss their pants while Poe's intent was more to make a point about the psychological machinations of the dark side of human nature, most clearly so in "The Imp of the Perverse". I feel the world of American literature was truly revolutionized by him. He elevated the short story to an art with such classics as "The Pit and the Pendelum" and "The Tell-Tale Heart", wrote great poetry such as "The Bells", the beautiful "To Helen" (the later version) and his most famous work, "The Raven", and invented the detective story with "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and the brilliant "The Gold Bug". He also wrote some very amusing HUMOR pieces, most notably "X-ing a Paragrab", and though it's a horror story, morbid ironic humor abounds in "The Cask of Amontillado". Poe is my favorite author, a literary genius, and, I feel, perhaps the greatest writer of all time. He may have had a terrible and depressed life on earth, but his excellent writings will live on forever in the heart of American literary culture.

Edgar Allen Poe was a social misfit and alcoholic who died of rabies (hydrophobia), and not of alcoholism, although that was certainly a factor in his short life. Everyone seems to know him through "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Raven" and "The Fall of the House of Usher," but my personal favorite story is "The Cask of Amontillado" and the haunting poem "The Bells." Poe's flowery language can turn people off, but I believe his works are meant to be read aloud for their full effect. I remember I heard an LP recording of his "The Tell-Tale Heart," and I would get nightmares from it. Poe's works are still as creepy and wierd as he originally wrote them, and I would rate him to be one of this country's foremost masters of original terror and suspense.

I think he's boring, overrated, and not at all scary. But the poor bastard lost 75% of the people he knew to tuberculosis, so he deserves the points.

Poe was a dark genius. Certainly, his bouts with alcoholism had influence in some of his bizarre and graphic tales. Nonetheless, his works are sheer brilliance. He was a superior writer and superb storyteller. His works instantly create vivid mental images leaving the reader with a highly sensual reading experience. Since most of his works are relatively short, they make an excellent entry point in to Classical Literature for young readers.

Out of all of the people on this list, Edgar Allan Poe should take First Place in this list. He has written some of the greatest, most imaginative stories I've ever read, and the way that he edits them, so greatly, I bet that he was a great man.

Gothic horror - or more correctly post gothic horror - at its most lush. His poems and stories not only terrify, but they do so on a psychological and intellectual level unlike anything before or since this era in literary fiction. We take so much of what he did for granted now, since it has been rehashed and replicated for over a century. But Poe's work remains one of the best representations of the most deeply frightening of the horror genre in its purest form. With a skillful touch of the pen, he was able to blend an unforgettable mix of romanticism, fantasy, and terror thereby giving us a look at the scariest thing imaginable - the dark side of the human soul.

The greatest American author ever. Except, of course, for me! and...Hemmingway....

The "founding father" of both horror AND detective fiction, and the author of the greatest poem of all time: "The Raven"

The ability that he had to communicate through the written word truly makes him one of the great literary authors of our time. His poetry was very expressive and has inspired many poets of the 21st century.

Poe is my man.

My favorite writer. I sometimes pick up a book of his short stories (all of which I've read a million times) when I have to write a paper and read a few pages. His logical and clear-headed writing gets me thinking in a more cohesive, complete-sentence sort of way.

Humans. Are. Screwed.

Edgar Allen Poe was a SICK, SICK MAN. This made his stories very disturbing, just how I like it.

Poe is conceptually interesting but often tedious in actually wade through. He's one of the few great writers who actually seems improved upon by the Classic Comix-style condensations.