MurderByDeath
Since all of his work consists of short stories and poetry, I chose a variety of titles and my thoughts on each are below:
From his poetry I read:
Annabelle Lee
This is a re-read for me and one of my favourites from Poe. I remember the first time I read it vividly because my initial impression was "this isn't horror, this is sweet" with its singsong rhyming and talk about childhood sweethearts. Awww.... Ewww!! The horror hit me in a slow creepy sensation as he goes on to talk about that cold wind and I'll stop here because spoilers. If you've read it you know what I'm talking about. A re-read doesn't have the same horror-ific impact, but it's still pretty freaking creepy.
The Haunted Palace
This was on the same page as Annabelle Lee so I read it - meh. Nothing special but I could be losing something because its rhyming meter isn't a basic one so I was stumbling about a bit rhythm wise while reading it.
The Raven
I cannot think of the Raven without immediately seeing Vincent Price in my head; it's impossible and if there's anyone out there that has not seen Vincent Price perform Poe's The Raven I highly urge you to do so when you have a spare 10 minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7zR3IDEHrM
The quality of the video is pretty poor, but it's still worth it.
With that performance in my head, this re-read of the Raven was a lot more powerful and much smoother than my initial attempt.
Lenore
This one immediately followed The Raven and since Lenore was the subject of The Raven I figured 'why not?', expecting more details. Nope. Again, unless the poetry is written for a grade schooler I stumble through it, so I might have missed some deeper horror here.
From his prose, I read:
The Masque of the Red Death
Oh, I liked this a LOT. So atmospheric, so richly detailed without being verbose. In just a few pages Poe captures both the grotesque and the horrific while creating a story that can be taken both literally and as an allegory. Loved this one.
The Purloined Letter
I'd heard of this one, of course, but until I started reading it I didn't know it was one of the Dupin mysteries. If I had known that, I'd have skipped it. It's a great mystery, but like all his Dupin stories it's twice as long as it has to be and serves as not only a platform for Poe's undisputed genius, but also as a stage from which Poe puts his ego on display. Lord can that man go on!
Words with a Mummy
I chose this because it's Halloween and - Mummies! I'd never heard of it before so I had no idea what to expect. What I got was hysterical! I loved this story so much and grinned the entire time I read it. This is a whole different side of Poe I'd love to see more of; a dry wit and a humorous look at our silly ideas about the progress of civilisation. If I'd read it without knowing who wrote it and someone tried to pass it off as a work of Wodehouse or similar, I'd not have disputed it.
My rating for the book is based on an average of the ratings I'd have the stories: I 5-star loved 3 of them and found the rest average.