Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Death and Dementia

Poe, Edgar Allan. Tales of Death and Dementia.(Compilation). Illustrated by Gris Grimly. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2009. ISBN: 978-1-4169-5025-7

The jacket description reads: "While the original stories have been neatly nipped and tucked, the dread, the gore, and the horror still reaches otherworldly heights." I must heartily agree with this description.

Poe's works are not typically thought of as the stuff fit for middle readers, but Grimly's illustrations help change that. Laid out in a fashion that is part comic-book, part narrative (with no dialogue bubbles), the goulash cartoon drawings create a world that is both fiction yet ethereal. (See example below).

Not for the faint-of-heart, but most definitely for fans of dark humor and classic tragedies, this collection illuminates the first glimpse of a twisted classic for young readers. Companion to Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery and Madness, the last stanza may say it best: "Upon the bed, before the whole company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome -- of detestable putridity."

No one says it quite like Poe.