Author Guide · Gothic Fiction and Poetry
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On 29 January 1845 the New York Evening Mirror printed “The Raven” under Edgar Allan Poe’s name, and it was soon being parodied in Boston, New York and Philadelphia; Poe was paid nine dollars for it. He was 36, had been writing for magazines for a decade, and had published his first book at 18, a pamphlet of poems signed only “a Bostonian”, of which about twelve copies survive. In his 40 years he wrote “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat”, invented the fictional detective in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841), and wrote one novel and one book-length theory of the universe. Most of it first appeared in magazines; only a handful of books came out while he was alive. This guide covers his 10 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 key books · 1827–1848 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Ten books by Edgar Allan Poe were published in his lifetime, from Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827) to Eureka (1848). The best known are The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838), his only novel, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840), and Tales and The Raven and Other Poems, both from 1845. Start with Tales (1845): twelve stories, including “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Black Cat” and all three Dupin detective stories.
Where to Start with Edgar Allan Poe
If you want the essential stories
→ Tales (1845) — Usher, The Black Cat and the three Dupin mysteries in one volume.
If you want the poems
→ The Raven and Other Poems (1845) — “The Raven”, “Lenore” and “The City in the Sea”.
If you want the early Gothic tales
→ Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840) — “Ligeia”, “William Wilson” and “Berenice”.
If you want his only novel
→ The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) — a sea voyage that ends in the Antarctic.
10 Edgar Allan Poe Books, in Order
Tamerlane and Other Poems
Poe’s first book, printed in Boston in 1827 by Calvin F. S. Thomas when Poe was 18, credited only to “a Bostonian”. The title poem is a monologue by the dying conqueror Tamerlane, who gave up love for power. Only about twelve copies are known; one sold at Sotheby’s in 2024 for $420,000 with buyer’s premium.
Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems
Published in Baltimore by Hatch and Dunning in December 1829, in 250 copies; the first book under the name “Edgar A. Poe”. “Al Aaraaf” is set in an afterlife between paradise and hell, drawn from the Quran, and inspired by the supernova Tycho Brahe saw in 1572. Most critics found it obscure, but the writer John Neal praised the young poet, which Poe later called the first encouragement he received.
Poems
Published in New York by Elam Bliss and labelled “Second Edition”, after Poe had got himself dismissed from West Point; it was paid for largely by subscriptions from his fellow cadets. It holds the first versions of “To Helen” (“the glory that was Greece”), “Israfel” and “The Doomed City”, later “The City in the Sea”, with a prefatory letter setting out his ideas on poetry.
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
His only complete novel, published by Harper & Brothers in July 1838 without Poe’s name, as if written by Pym himself. Pym stows away on the whaler Grampus, survives a mutiny, a shipwreck and the eating of a sailor named Richard Parker, then sails south on the Jane Guy towards Antarctica; the book breaks off before a huge white shrouded figure. Reviews were mostly hostile, but Jules Verne wrote a sequel, An Antarctic Mystery (1897), and Lovecraft borrowed its cry “tekeli-li”.
The Conchologist’s First Book
An illustrated school textbook on shells, published in Philadelphia by Haswell, Barrington, and Haswell, who paid Poe $50 to put his name on the title page. It was based on Thomas Wyatt’s Manual of Conchology, which itself borrowed from the Scottish naturalist Thomas Brown, and it brought Poe accusations of plagiarism, which he denied. It was the only Poe book to reach a second edition in the United States in his lifetime.
Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque
Twenty-five stories in two volumes from Lea & Blanchard of Philadelphia, among them “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “Ligeia”, “William Wilson”, “Berenice” and “MS. Found in a Bottle”. Poe received no royalties, only twenty copies. In the preface he answered critics who called his work “Germanic”: his terror, he wrote, was “not of Germany, but of the soul”. It sold poorly.
The Prose Romances of Edgar A. Poe
A 48-page paper pamphlet sold in Philadelphia in July 1843 for 12½ cents, meant as the first number of a series that never continued. It paired “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, first printed in Graham’s Magazine in April 1841 and often called the first modern detective story, with the satire “The Man That Was Used Up”. About fourteen copies survive.
Tales
Twelve stories chosen by the editor Evert Duyckinck for Wiley and Putnam’s series in New York: “The Gold-Bug”, “The Black Cat”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “A Descent into the Maelström”, “The Man of the Crowd” and all three stories with the detective C. Auguste Dupin: “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” and “The Purloined Letter”.
The Raven and Other Poems
Published by Wiley and Putnam on 19 November 1845, ten months after “The Raven” had made Poe famous, and dedicated to the English poet Elizabeth Barrett. Besides the title poem it collects “Lenore”, “The Sleeper”, “Israfel”, “The City in the Sea” and “The Haunted Palace”, followed by revised versions of “Al Aaraaf” and “Tamerlane” as “Poems Written in Youth”.
Eureka
Grown from a lecture, “On the Cosmography of the Universe”, that Poe gave in New York on 3 February 1848 to about 60 people. He argues that the universe began from a single primordial particle that scattered into everything and will one day collapse back into unity, and he offers an answer to why the night sky is dark. Dedicated to Alexander von Humboldt, it was badly received; Poe considered it his masterpiece.
In What Order to Read Edgar Allan Poe
Poe’s books do not build on each other, and most of his stories and poems appeared in several versions, first in magazines and then in different collections. Modern readers usually meet him through a complete or selected edition rather than the original volumes. Publication order still helps: it runs from the ambitious poems of his teens, through the Gothic tales of the late 1830s, to the detective stories and “The Raven” of the 1840s.
If you read only two, take Tales (1845) for the stories and The Raven and Other Poems for the verse. Add Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque for “Ligeia” and “William Wilson”, then Pym. Leave Eureka for last; it makes more sense once you know how much Poe cared about design and effect.
A reading path
1. Tales (1845)
2. The Raven and Other Poems (1845)
3. Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840)
4. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838)
5. Eureka (1848)
Everything Else Edgar Allan Poe Published
Beyond the 10 key books: 2 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Unfinished and posthumous
2
2 books · 1840–1850
- 1840The Journal of Julius Rodmana Western exploration narrative serialised in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, never finished
- 1850The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poethe first collected edition, edited by Rufus Griswold, with his hostile “Memoir of the Author”
The years · 1809–1849
Quick facts about Edgar Allan Poe
- Known for
- Edgar Allan Poe is known for his tales of terror and the poem “The Raven”, and for inventing the fictional detective with C. Auguste Dupin.
- 1809
- Born in Boston
- 1827
- Tamerlane, his first book
- 1849
- Dies in Baltimore, aged 40
- Born
- 19 January 1809, Boston, to the actors David Poe Jr. and Eliza Poe
- Raised
- In Richmond, Virginia, by the merchant John Allan and his wife, who never formally adopted him
- Education
- University of Virginia (1826); West Point (1830–31), left after a court-martial he provoked
- Married
- His cousin Virginia Clemm, in 1836; she died of tuberculosis in 1847
- Worked
- Editor at the Southern Literary Messenger, Burton’s, Graham’s and the Broadway Journal
- Died
- 7 October 1849, Baltimore, cause unknown
- Legacy
- The Mystery Writers of America’s annual awards are called the Edgars
The red mark is 1845: The Raven and Other Poems, published the year “The Raven” made him famous.
How Edgar Allan Poe Writes: Everything for the Effect
Poe planned for one effect and cut everything else. In “The Philosophy of Composition” (1846) he claimed he had built “The Raven” step by step, by logic, choosing the refrain, the bird and the dead young woman for the mood they would produce. Whether or not he really worked that way, his best stories are short enough to read in one sitting and nothing in them is wasted.
Most of his horror is told in the first person by a narrator who is unreliable, obsessed or insane: the murderers of “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” insist they are calm while they confess. That is what he meant when he wrote that his terror was “not of Germany, but of the soul”: the haunted house in “Usher” matters less than the mind of the man living in it.
The same taste for calculation runs through his other work. Dupin solves crimes by reasoning from the evidence the police overlook; “The Gold-Bug” turns on a cipher; Pym and several tales were written to pass as true accounts; and Eureka applies the method to the whole universe. He was also a working magazine editor and a harsh critic, publicly accusing Longfellow of plagiarism.
Frequently asked questions about Edgar Allan Poe’s books
How many books has Edgar Allan Poe written?
Ten books were published in his lifetime, all on this page, from Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827) to Eureka (1848); two of them, Tamerlane and Pym, appeared without his name. Most of his stories, poems and criticism first came out in magazines, and the first collected edition followed in 1850.
What are Edgar Allan Poe’s books in order?
Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (1829), Poems (1831), The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838), The Conchologist’s First Book (1839), Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840), The Prose Romances of Edgar A. Poe (1843), Tales (1845), The Raven and Other Poems (1845) and Eureka: A Prose Poem (1848).
Where should I start with Edgar Allan Poe?
Tales (1845). Its twelve stories include “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Black Cat”, “The Gold-Bug” and all three Dupin detective stories. Then read The Raven and Other Poems for the verse.
What is Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous work?
“The Raven”, first printed under his name in the New York Evening Mirror on 29 January 1845 and collected in The Raven and Other Poems that November. Among the stories, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” are the best known.
Did Edgar Allan Poe invent the detective story?
He is usually credited with it. “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (Graham’s Magazine, April 1841) is often called the first modern detective story and introduced the locked-room mystery. Its detective, C. Auguste Dupin, and his narrator friend became the model for Sherlock Holmes and Watson. The Mystery Writers of America named their Edgar Awards after him.
How did Edgar Allan Poe die?
Nobody knows. He was found semiconscious in Baltimore on 3 October 1849 and died at Washington Medical College on 7 October, aged 40. Newspapers reported “congestion of the brain”; his medical records are lost, and alcohol, disease and suicide have all been proposed. He is buried at Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore.
Why does Poe have a reputation as a drunk and a madman?
Largely because of his rival Rufus Griswold. Days after Poe’s death Griswold published a hostile obituary in the New York Tribune under the name “Ludwig”, then became his literary executor and wrote a “Memoir of the Author” for the 1850 collected works. Many of its claims were false or distorted, and letters he presented as proof were later shown to be forgeries.
Did Edgar Allan Poe marry his cousin?
Yes. He married his cousin Virginia Clemm; they took out a licence in September 1835 and held a ceremony on 16 May 1836, when she was 13. She died of tuberculosis in January 1847.
Did Poe finish The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym?
It ends abruptly, as Pym and Dirk Peters drift towards a huge white figure, with a note claiming the last chapters were lost. Jules Verne wrote a sequel, An Antarctic Mystery (1897). Poe privately called the book “a very silly book”; Jorge Luis Borges thought it his greatest work.
How much was Poe paid for The Raven?
Nine dollars. By comparison, he received $56 for “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” in 1841, an unusually high sum, and Putnam paid him $14 for Eureka in 1848.
Footnotes
- Edgar Allan Poe — Wikipedia
- Edgar Allan Poe bibliography — Wikipedia
- Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827) — Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore
- The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket — Wikipedia
- The Conchologist’s First Book — Wikipedia
- Eureka: A Prose Poem — Wikipedia
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“If in many of my productions terror has been the thesis, I maintain that terror is not of Germany, but of the soul.”
— Edgar Allan Poe, preface to Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840)
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