The lines from "Ligeia" epitomize the familiar Poe, the arch-priest ofGothic horror, author of "The Masque of the Red Death" and "The Pit andthe Pendulum". That Poe, unquestioned master of "the Grotesque andArabesque", is fully represented here, but the volume also includesgenerous selections from his poetry and critical writings. Togetherthey amount to a portrait of a complex personality, that of a consciousaesthete, the most exotic of American writers, who was at the same timekeenly engaged in an astonishing variety of interests. Not are the"Grotesque" tales the simple manipulations of terror that they seem;David Galloway"s introduction reveals their author as a profoundlyserious writier, whose investigations of extreme states ofconsciousness have a particular relevance for our time.