Tales of Terror: The Supernatural Poem Since 1800, Volume 1 (PDF)

Terrifying Supernatural Poems and Ballads by Coleridge, Shelley, Scott, Byron, Robert Browning, Christina Rossetti, Poe, Longfellow, Heine, Baudelaire, Hugo, Pushkin and others.

This annotated edition of 65 memorable supernatural-themed poems is a modern sequel to Matthew Gregory Lewis's famous 1801 poetry anthology, Tales of Wonder. Treasures in this volume include two translations of scenes from Goethe’s Faust by Coleridge and Shelley; supernatural verses and ballads gleaned from Sir Walter Scott’s Waverly novels; Shelley’s supernatural poems, both juvenile and mature; Longfellow sharing ghost stories from The Song of Hiawatha, and fierce legends from Norse myth and history; all of the overtly supernatural poems of Edgar Allan Poe; Robert Browning’s famed “Pied Piper of Hamelin”; Christina Rossetti’s delicious “Goblin Market”; and a feast of shuddery French, Russian, and German poems in translation from Hugo, Heine, Gautier, Baudelaire, Pushkin and Sologub. For the poetry lover, and the fan of supernatural literature, this book is a year-round Halloween treat of entertaining and alarming poems to read aloud — bedtime stories for very bad children. For the scholar of the Gothic, the volume presents an intriguing array of poems that range from overtly entertaining Gothic narratives, to works that employ the devices of the Gothic for other ends, social, political or personal. The book also includes an annotated bibliography of source materials on the supernatural and Gothic in poetry.

This series is designed to be continuous with our two-volume edition of the Monk Lewis anthology, Tales of Wonder.

314 pp., illustrated. The 213th publication of The Poet's Press/ Yogh & Thorn Books. 6 x 9 inches.