HE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, AND OTHER TALES AND PROSE WRITINGS OF EDGAR POE: SELECTED AND EDITED, WITH INTRO DUCTION, BY ERNEST RHYS. LONDON: WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE, TORONTO: W. J. GAGE AND CO. 1889. WE INTRODUCTION. WERE I bidden to say," writes Poe in his essay on Hawthorne, "how the highest genius could be most advantageously employed for the best display of its own powers, I should answer, without hesitation, in the composition of a rhymed poem, not to exceed in length what might be perused in an hour. Next to such a poem I should unhesitatingly speak of the prose tale as Mr. Hawthorne has exemplified it. I allude to the short prose narrative requiring from a half-hour to one or two hours in its perusal." Poe, the tale-writer, was very faithful to his theory. It is not often that an author is able to illustrate his critical ideas in his original work as well as Poe did; and in his tales perhaps, even more than in his poems. And now that the shorter tale seems almost likely in its increasing vogue to take the place of the long novel-not altogether unfortunately, it may be thought, seeing to what inane results the long novel is apt to lead us-Poe's tales may well be turned to anew for their admirable example in the art of fiction. There are, no doubt, many paths open to the tale-writer that he did not attempt. His, it has been said, was a narrow range, in which melancholy, curiosity, and horror are the leading motives; but it was Poe's virtue that, driven by temperament and circumstance toward these things, he strove to give them in the most perfect way. When the stress of the hard life that America afforded him |