sonally? Is he just some author who isn't read anymore?
             NO! [P] Poe is considered 'the father' of both the horror genre [P] and the detective novel. His stories of murder, [P] revenge, [P] and paranoia are still popular, more than 150 years after his premature [P] and, ironically, [P] mysterious death. Many readers wonder how he came up with the ideas for his stories, and what type of a man would write such horrifying tales.
             The workings of the human mind and the human psyche remain by far the most important and interesting themes in Poe's fiction. He looks at this through first-person narrative, [P] as an observer, [P] as a perpetrator, or as a victim. Poe's writings explore the state of mind of the person telling the story.
             Nick, do you know why Poe writes such horrifying tales? Well, [P] the subject of a beautiful woman meeting an untimely death recurs frequently in Poe's work. In "The Raven" the narrator is seen trying to find relief – "surcease of sorrow" - from his grief at the death of his love, Lenore. This theme was particularly close to Poe, being a reflection of his life experience. Poe's life was shaped by the early death of several women close to him – his mother, Elizabeth died aged 24 when he was just 3 and his adoptive mother, Frances Allan, when he was twenty, both of tuberculosis. At the time Poe was working on "The Raven," his young wife, Virginia, was also very ill with the disease.
             Related to this theme is the idea of destiny and the inevitability of fate. Brighton, [P] would you agree with the statement that in Poe's
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