Greatest Literature banner

Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque

Critique • Quotes

Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque first editionFirst edition title page, 1840
Publication details ▽ Publication details △

First publication
1839

Literature form
Stories

Genres
Fantasy, horror, crime, mystery

Writing language
English

Author's country
United States

Length
25 stories in two volumes

Notable lines

With a feeling of deep yet most singular affection I regarded my friend Morella. Thrown by accident into her society many years ago, my soul from our first meeting, burned with fires it had never before known; but the fires were not of Eros....

— First line, "Morella"

Not hear it?—yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long—long—long—many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it—yet I dared not—oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am!—I dared not—I dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb!

— "The Fall of the House of Usher"

It was Wilson; but he spoke no longer in a whisper; and I could have fancied that I myself was speaking while he said:

"You have conquered, and I yield. Yet henceforward art thou also dead—dead to the world and its hopes. In me didst thou exist—and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself."

— Last lines, "William Wilson"

...the whole incumbent mass of ether in which we existed, burst at once into a species of intense flame, for whose surpassing brilliancy and all-fervid heat even the angels in the high Heaven of pure knowledge have no name. Thus ended all.

— Last lines, "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion"

 

Critique • Quotes