Look, I know he's very famous and I know he's written some good stuff but hear me out: this is not the Poe collection that you want. Yes, it contains "The Fall of the House of Usher" which is a five star horror story if ever there was one. Yes, it also contains a selection of his other short stories, which admittedly I do not find as excellent as many do, but which I would still give a solid three stars in general. HOWEVER. Fully one half of this particular edition is not a short story at all. It is the entire 200 pages of Poe's only novel, "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" - and I have no hesitation in saying that it is a strong contender for the worst novel ever written. Seriously, the thing is dire. It's patched together and badly edited. My favourite example of how disastrous this is comes in the death of a man aboard ship. His arm has been injured. It turns gangrenous and nasty, starts to putrefy in a number of disgusting ways. Yet when this poor victim dies and is in the process of being tossed overboard, it's not his disintegrating arm, black to the shoulder, that falls off, no. It's his leg. Poe did not notice. Clearly neither did his editor. I imagine they'd both given up by then.

I'll not give anything that contains "House of Usher" a single star. But neither will I ever give any book that prints "Arthur Gordon Pym" any rating that approaches likeability. Save yourselves, and find another edition of his stories to read...