Reviews
Avoiding the mere Frenchification of Poe that was dominant in the eighties, on the one hand, but, on the other, steadfastly refusing to return to the traditional formalist and thematic style which never really accounted for the French Poe, these essays make a wonderful case for a vitally social Poe—returning him home again, but with a difference that makes all the difference. They do so because their authors are at once theoretically current and widely experienced with the American canon. And they do so, even more, because they are quality essays, valuable individually as well as collectively.