*Starred Review* What mystery novelist worth his or her advance isn’t indebted to the dark-souled inventor of the detective-fiction genre? And what reader hasn’t left the lights lingering a little longer after indulging in one of his tales? This compulsively readable collection, commemorating the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth, unites some of Poe’s best short works (including The Black Cat, The Raven, and The Fall of the House of Usher) with commentary by a slew of Edgar Award winners and nominees. Here readers find T. Jefferson Parker reflecting on the awe he experienced, as a 12-year-old boy, upon reading the unforgettable opening lines of The Cask of Amontillado. And Nelson DeMille as a teenager, quivering in his boots as he cuts through a cemetery after seeing the 3-D movie based on The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Novelist Lisa Scottoline, who didn’t buckle down and read Poe until adulthood, writes about Poe’s spooky representations of the splintered self that inspired her own prose. Editor Connelly recounts a memorable, albeit terrifying, night in a hotel room spent under the author’s spell. Opining on The Tell-Tale Heart, Stephen King doesn’t miss a beat.: Poe foresaw the darkness of generations far beyond his own, he writes. Ours, for instance.

如果沒有愛倫．坡，就沒有這些偉大的藝術創作者：波特萊爾、柯南道爾、江戶川亂步、史蒂芬金、德布西、菲利普葛拉斯、巴布狄倫、披頭四樂團、瑪莉蓮曼森樂團、年輕歲月合唱團、宇多田光、希區考克等，都是愛倫．坡的繼承者。

美國推理作家協會策劃，愛倫．坡200歲冥誕紀念選集
影響力超過一個半世紀，橫跨文學、音樂、電影等多重藝術領域的奇蹟作家
歷久彌新的十六篇創作，二十位現代推理小說巨匠齊聲讚揚的紀念作品集

「我可以花一個世紀來等待讀者……」
你一定聽過他的名字，但不見得真正感受過他的文字魔力
愛倫．坡不僅是類型小說的奠基者，更是許多藝術創作者靈感的活水源頭；他是深諳人性深層欲念與恐懼的曠世奇才，影響文學、音樂、電影等多重領域長達一個半世紀。

在愛倫．坡出生兩百年後的今天，美國推理作家協會特別編選此書，搜羅了最膾炙人口的十六篇小說與詩作，邀請二十位現代推理小說大師以輕鬆幽默的筆法，與讀者分享愛倫．坡如何影響了他們的寫作之路，藉以表達眾人對他的喜愛與懷念。