Edgar Allan Poe is a great childhood favourite of mine.  I love his short stories such as the Cask of Amontillado, the Pit and the Pendulum, The fall of the house of Usher and etc.  I also love his poems especially Annabel Lee and The Raven.

Talking about the raven, there was a film called The Raven which supposed to be about Edgar Allan Poe and his brilliance and mysterious death.  It was a clever tale woven around stories of Poe’s. A serial killer used Poe’s short stories to create his murderous mayhem.  Clever plot with a lot of twists and turns.  I would recommend for anyone to please watch it.

Anyway Edgar Allan Poe, as I have said is a great favourite.

Here is Annabel Lee which I memorised as a young girl for a declamation.

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

It was many and many a year ago,

   In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

   By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

   Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

   I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

   Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

   My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

   And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

   In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

   Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

   In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

   Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

   Of those who were older than we—

   Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

   Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

   Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

   In her sepulchre there by the sea—

   In her tomb by the sounding sea.

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Famous Quotations by Edgar Allan Poe:

“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

..

I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it.
~Edgar Allan Poe
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