Coffee with Poe
A Novel of Edgar Allan Poe’s Life
Coffee with Poe brings Edgar Allan Poe to life within its pages as never before. The book is filled with actual letters from his many romances and literary contemporaries. Orphaned at the age of two, Poe is raised by John Allan—his abusive foster father—who refuses to adopt him until he becomes straight-laced and businesslike. Poe, however, fancies poetry and young women. The contentious relationship culminates in a violent altercation, which causes Poe to leave his wealthy foster father’s home to make it as a writer. Poe tries desperately to get established as a writer but is ridiculed by the “Literati of New York.”
The Raven subsequently gains Poe renown in America yet he slips deeper into poverty, only making $15 off the poem’s entire publication history. Desperate for a motherly figure in his life, Poe marries his first cousin who is only thirteen. Poe lives his last years in abject poverty while suffering through the deaths of his foster mother, grandmother, and young wife. In a cemetery he becomes engaged to Helen Whitman, a dark poet who is addicted to ether, wears a small coffin about her neck, and conducts séances in her home. The engagement is soon broken off because of Poe’s drinking. In his final months his health is in a downward spiral. Poe disappears on a trip and is later found delirious and wearing another person’s clothes. He dies a few days later, whispering his final words: “God help my poor soul.”
To give us a historical fiction look at Edgar Allan Poe is great. The start where we are at his mom’s funeral gives a little insight into why he may write the way he does. It is very interesting the ideas the author has put into the story about Poe. I like the idea of detailing the life of Edgar Allan Poe into a historical fiction novel. . . . A great idea to give us some insight into why Poe may be the way he is. —Breakthrough Novel Award Expert Reviewer
BlooDeath: The Best Vampire Stories 1800-1849
Unearthed from long forgotten journals and magazines, Andrew Barger has found the very best vampire short stories from the first half of the 19th century. They are collected for the first time in this groundbreaking book on the origins of vampire lore. The cradle of all vampire short stories in the English language is the first half of the 19th century. Andrew Barger combed forgotten journals and mysterious texts to collect the very best vintage vampire stories from this crucial period in vampire literature. In doing so, Andrew unearthed the second and third vampire stories originally published in the English language, neither printed since their first publication nearly 200 years ago.
Also included is the first vampire story originally written in English by John Polidori after a dare with Lord Byron and Mary Shelley. The book contains the first vampire story by an American who was a graduate of Columbia Law School. The book further includes the first vampire stories by an Englishman and German, including the only vampire stories by such renowned authors as Alexander Dumas, Théophile Gautier and Joseph le Fanu. As readers have come to expect from Andrew, he has added his scholarly touch to this collection by including annotations, story backgrounds, author photos and a foreword titled “With Teeth.”
Phantasmal
The Best Ghost Stories 1800-1849
Ghost stories became very popular in the first half of the nineteenth century and this collection by Andrew Barger contains the very scariest of them all. Some stories thought too horrific were published anonymously like “A Night in a Haunted House” and “The Deaf and Dumb Girl,” with the later being anthologized for the first time since its original publication in 1839.
The other ghost stories in this fine collection are by famous authors. “The Mask of the Red Death,” is by Edgar Allan Poe; “A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family,” by Joseph Sheridan le Fanu; “The Spectral Ship,” by Wilhelm Hauff; “The Old Maid in the Winding Sheet,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne; “The Adventure of the German Student,” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” by Washington Irving; as well as “The Tapestried Chamber,” by Sir Walter Scott. Andrew Barger has added his familiar scholarly touch to this collection by including annotations, story backgrounds, author photos and a foreword titled “All Ghosts Are Gray.”
[A] unique perspective on this dawn of horror's early roots and their connections to our modern day. "The Best Ghost Stories 1800-1849" is a choice pick with stories from many legendary authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and Washington Irving, very much recommended reading.
MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW
Edgar Allan Poe
Annotated and Illustrated Entire Stories and Poems
For the first time in one compilation are background information for Poe’s stories and poems, annotations, foreign word translations, illustrations, photographs of individuals Poe wrote about, and poetry to Poe from his many romantic interests. Here is a sampling of the tales and poems included: “Annabel Lee,” “The Bells,” “The Black Cat,” “[The Bloodhounds],” “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Conqueror Worm,” “A Descent into the Maelstrom,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Gold-Bug,” “The Haunted Palace,” “Lenore,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” “MS. Found in a Bottle,” “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Oblong Box,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Premature Burial,” “The Purloined Letter,” “[The Rats of Park Theatre],” “The Raven,” “Some Words with a Mummy,” “The Swiss Bell-Ringers,” “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “Thou Art the Man.” The classic illustrations are by Gustave Dore and Harry Clarke, with a great introduction by Andrew Barger.
This is an ambitious work and one that immediately becomes the scholar’s gold standard for research on this major writer of mystery and thrills.
If for no other reason than to have a solid selection of the works of Poe on the shelf, this beautifully designed and handsomely printed book will serve that intent. But once the reader thumbs through this book, pausing to re-read favorites such as ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’, ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’, and ‘The Raven’, there are many little known gems of short stories, articles, essays, and poems in addition to the stories that are less familiar to the larger audience to discover.
Barger adds ‘guidance’ to his method of presenting these works by such devices as listing all of the poems under the subheadings of ‘Women in Edgar Allan Poe’s Life’, ‘Miscellaneous Poetry both Before and After Age 25’, ‘Autobiographical’, and ‘Men in Edgar Allen Poe’s Life.’ These may seem like minor adjustments to the collections, but in Barger’s hands the divisions add meaning and context to the works.
In addition to all of the written works of Poe, this handsome book contains photographs and many of the famous illustrations for his works - especially those of Harry Clarke and Gustave Dore. The fine art of these two men is also honored with annotations adding to their importance to Poe’s popularity as a writer. This is simply a splendid book, handsomely written and produced, and a fine tribute to the literature of Poe - and to the scholarship of Andrew Barger! Highly Recommended.
AMZ TOP TEN REVIEWER
Leo Tolstoy’s 20 Greatest Short Stories
Annotated
Anna Karenina and War and Peace revealed Leo Tolstoy as one of the greatest writers in modern history. Few, however, have read his wonderful short stories. Now, in one collection, are the greatest short stories of Tolstoy, which give a snapshot of Russia and its people in the late 19th century. Annotations are included of difficult Russian terms. Read these short classics today.
Now for the first time, twenty of his best short stories have been compiled and edited into a single volume by Andrew Barger. Enhanced for the reader with informative annotations. The stories comprising this outstanding collection include: A Candle, After the Dance, Albert, Alyosha the Pot, An Old Acquaintance, Does a Man Need Much Land?, If You Neglect the Fire You Don’t Put It Out, Khodinka: An Incident of the Coronation of Nicholas II, Lucerne, Memoirs of a Lunatic, My Dream, Recollections of a Scorer, The Empty Drum, The Lo
ng Exile, The Posthumous Papers of the Hermit Fedor Kusmich, The Young Tsar, There Are No Guilty People, Three Deaths, Two Old Men, and What Men Live By. A truly impressive anthology, “Leo Tolstoy’s 20 Greatest Short Stories” is especially recommended for acquisition by community and academic libraries, as well as the supplemental reading lists for students of Russian Literature.
MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW
Orion
An Epic English Poem
Orion is an epic English poem of love and war. It deserves its place next to Beowulf in English literature. Its overtones consist of aesthetically pleasing writing with a Shakespearian tinge, all wrapped in classical Greek mythology. It contains a fine introduction by Andrew Barger, a foreword by the author, Richard Horne, and a fantastic review by Edgar Allan Poe. This is all combined with illustrations and annotations for the first time. As Poe stated, “It is our deliberate opinion that, in all that regards the loftiest and holiest attributes of the true Poetry, ‘Orion’ has never been excelled. Indeed we feel strongly inclined to say that it has never been equaled.” While Charlotte Bronte said, “there are passages I shall recur to again and yet again - passages instinct both with power and beauty.” Written in 1843, Orion is the greatest epic poem you have never read.
The present edition, which not only reprints the complete text of the poem itself, but also provides a brief introduction, a biographical sketch, illustrations, explanatory footnotes, Horne’s Preface to the 1854 Australian edition, and Poe’s review, in an attractively prepared volume edited by Andrew Barger, constitutes a determined effort to restore the poem to something approaching its former glory.
Professor Paul Schlicke
University of Aberdeen
The Divine Dantes
Squirt Guns in Hades
A Dark Wood
BEA THINKS SHE dumped me, but I secretly dumped her without her knowing it. That’s when she took off for Venice where she’s probably being serenaded by some gondolier singing bad Italian love songs to her. I’m going to fly there from New York and plead with her on bended knee to take me back so our two-person rock band can rule the world again and we can rock on for all eternity.
Naw!
That’s the plot of a novel or maybe three. Who knows? But I’m not a novelist. I’m a rockstar. I’ve certainly never written a novel. Geez, I’ve hardly read any. Most rockstars don’t even read sheet music let alone big thick books.
And since there’s no way I’m ever going to Venice to get my girl back, I suppose you’ll want answers to a bunch of squirrelly questions like the name of our band and why Bea broke up the band and how come my parents gave me the sorry name of Edward T. Nad instead of something rock-n-roll like Sting or Bono or Slash. Next you’ll want to know what model combat boots I wear on stage and the type of wood I use for my drumsticks and why I drive around in a meter maid car. The obvious questions.
There’s no end to it, really.
Since I have time on my hands—being between girls and bands and all—I’ll tell you my rotten story. It begins like any good rock-n-roll yarn: I was in a bunny costume being chased through a dark wood by my new band members on the day before Good Friday (let’s call it Bad Thursday).
A lion. A wolf. A leopard. Satan’s becostumed dark brood was after me. They were gaining. I’ll give them that. Those buncha reverbmongers. There was no chance they would ever be rockgods or anything, like me, and that’s probably at the heart of why they were so mad.
“The Beelzebubbas is a fantastic name for a rock band,” I yelled from within the furry bunny head. “It’s Devil Grunge. It’s Dunge. A whole new genre!”
“Sounds like dung and smells like it, too,” blurted Phil the spotted leopard.
“Takes dung to know dung.”
“We’ve had it with your stupid names, Nad.” Phil is a big fraud. Once, I caught him trying to swap out my amp for some piece of junk he got online. It was made in China and I told him, “A billion and a half people and not one rockstar worth mentioning. Think about it. Why should we use their equipment? What does China know about rock-n-roll? But we do need to tour there someday.” Phil’s jaws started popping. That’s when I know he’s mad. That’s when he kicked in the amp. His foot got stuck in it and I laughed while he tried to extract it. To this day he carries a lot of angst around with him from the incident. What I should’ve done is kick Phil out of the band. Then he wouldn’t be chasing me.
“My name’s better than Guilloteens, Phil!” I said as I continued running and running, ducking under branches and hurdling bushes with all my bunny ability. “We’re not even teenagers! For the last time, if you don’t like my name for my band then get out of my band.”
“We’ve already left,” disclosed Tasha from her wolf costume. Guess you could say Tasha is a she-wolf. She’s all big-lipped and lusty with a flowing mane of hair. She wants more than a fourth of the revenues from our gigs because she attracts both boy and girl fans. The greedy canine.
But forget Tasha, the heart of all my problems always reverts to Bea. She’s the one who took off to Venice and broke up our original two person band. When she did she made me feel middle aged. I’m only twenty-one. And now that I’ve brought up Bea I suppose you want to know—in your list of squirrelly questions—what she’s like and all that, what tat she’s sporting on her shoulder that the Venetian guy is staring at right now from the back of the gondola. Bea played guitar and shrieked on lead vocals. I played drums and sang when Bea had blown out her chords. That happened often. It was so sexy. But enough of Bea. I could write my next rock anthem, Anarchy for Me, if I wasn’t always telling you about Bea so stop asking already. I’ll get to all that stuff eventually, but first let me summarize the situation for you: young rocker—being chased through the woods—bunny costume—not going to Venice. So there.
“We’re getting closer, Nad,” one of them yelled through cheap synthetic Asian fabric.
“Fat chance catching me. I’m a pink blur. You run like a bunch of dingleberries!”
“When we catch you, you’re dead.” That was the lion. Geri’s the most angst-ridden of the bunch and the only one with a Mohawk. I know that’s not the politically correct thing to say but it’s the only way I know how to describe it. Really. Anyway, he’s the most ambitious, too. If he got his way we’d have been playing gigs on the road for eighteen months straight.
“Go back where I found you, playing videogame guitar in your mommy’s basement. What the—”
I turned around and a branch snagged one of my floppy ears. It spun my furry head to the side, which caused the lights to go out. Ever tried running blind through the forest in a bunny costume? It’s not everything it’s cracked up to be.
I began rolling (all poof and cottontail) down an embankment, over a tin can and what may have been a squealing forest creature. A few 360s later came the log. It sent me airborne, ears helicoptering. The two hundred pound pink snowball that I had become splashed hard into a creek bed. As I lay there in a semi-conscious state, I felt the slow creep of dank water into my costume. It was freezing.
There were blurry visions of budding trees and wild sunflowers. There was Bea singing on stage. And the flames of Hades!
After a few hazy moments I wrenched my head back to the front. I wriggled my pink body under a deadfall of branches in the hopes they wouldn’t find me. I felt bruises marching up my side and issuing a purple salute. Let me tell you something, there’s no padding in Easter bunny costumes no matter what your boss tells you at the miserable Zany Zoo Travel Agency.
Virg—who runs the place and is our sometimes manager for the band—started feeling sorry for us. So he offered us a job of sorts promoting the travel agency. It wasn’t until he dragged out the costumes that we knew what we were getting ourselves into. My new band got mad at me for making them dress up in costumes to make a little extra money for a smog machine at our gigs. I said it was better than flipping burgers or frying chicken nuggets. “Musicians have to make money any way they can,” I
pointed out. “Besides, no one will know us in the costumes.”
I got stuck with the bunny getup on account of me creating the whole the situation. As you might imagine that was the most embarrassing getup.
It’s hard work waving at traffic for eight hours. My arms killed at the end of the day. I couldn’t play any beats when I got back to the apartment. Plus, the lining in the costume really chaffed in all the wrong places. Can you believe somebody would throw a chocolate milkshake at the Easter Bunny? Last Sunday a trucker mooned me.
The same afternoon a woman approached me with her little brat kids and wanted me to conduct an Easter egg hunt right on the front lawn of the Zany Zoo Travel Agency of greater Florence (that would be Florence, New York for all you home readers). We don’t even have a good Italian restaurant. Anyway, I told the lady to get lost and then Virg got all mad because he received an irate call from her husband who promised he would never use the travel agency again. Probably the same guy who mooned me.
That day it all came to a (furry) head when we got in a fight over our name. Not the first time. The Beelzebubbas rocks and it’s the best name I’ve come up with. Why can’t they understand my genius? The ruckus started right on the front lawn when Geri started beating me over the head with the Zany Zoo sign. Then they all got in on the action. Cars were honking. Kids stopping their bikes on the sidewalk.
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