Collected in these two volumes are roe's legendary tales of terror that attest to his stylistic brilliance in evoking an atmosphere of gloom and obsession. Creatures, eyes, coffins, walls-all are symbols in roe's efforts to create an aura of evil. What reader would not share the anxiety of the traveler in The Fall of the House of Usher, who upon his first glimpse of the house, finds an "insufferable gloom pervading my spirit... an utter depression of the soul... an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart"? In volume 2 his nightmarish visions take us down untraveled paths revealing the dark side of the human experience.
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