Tag Archives: Edgar Allan Poe

14 Great Quotes About Night From Literature

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Quotes About Night

No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be. ~ Dracula by Bram Stoker

“The owl, night’s herald.” ~ Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare

They never pulled the curtains till it was too dark to see, nor shut the windows till it was too cold. Why shut out the day before it was over? The flowers were still bright; the birds chirped. You could see more in the evening often when nothing interrupted, when there was no fish to order, no telephone to answer. ~ Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf

The longest way must have its close,—the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning. ~ Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

In the dead vast and middle of the night. ~ Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare

At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others–poor young clerks who loitered in front of windows waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner–young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life. ~ The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The cool peace and dewy sweetness of the night filled me with a mood of hope: not hope on any definite point, but a general sense of encouragement and heart-ease. ~ Villette by Charlotte Bronte

Night, the mother of fear and mystery, was coming upon me. ~ The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore– ~ The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

With a fierce action of her hand, as if she sprinkled hatred on the ground, and with it devoted those who were standing there to destruction, she looked up once at the black sky, and strode out into the wild night. ~ Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens

Leonard looked at her wondering, and had the sense of great things sweeping out of the shrouded night. But he could not receive them, because his heart was still full of little things. ~ Howards End by E. M. Forster

And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolflike, it was his ancestors, dead and dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries and through him. ~ The Call of the Wild by Jack London

“Lead on!” said Scrooge. “Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!” ~ A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

“Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!” ~ Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare

More Quotes About Night from Literature

5 Imagination Quotes from Literature

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Imagination QuotesIt was better to know the worst than to wonder. ~ Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell

“You gave too much rein to your imagination. Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely.” ~ The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

My imagination requires a judicious rein; I am afraid to let it loose, for it carries me sometimes into appalling places beyond the stars and beneath the world. ~ The Listener by Algernon Blackwood

It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic. ~ The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe

“I call people rich when they’re able to meet the requirements of their imagination.” ~ The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

See More Imagination Quotes from Literature

Terror Quotes from Literature

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Terror Quotes

I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect – in terror. ~ The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe

He understood now why the world was strange, why horses galloped furiously, and why trains whistled as they raced through stations. All the comedy and terror of nightmare gripped his heart with pincers made of ice. ~ The Other Wing by Algernon Blackwood

“Too much! Wait till you have lived here longer. Look down the valley! See the cloud of a hundred chimneys that overshadows it! I tell you that the cloud of murder hangs thicker and lower than that over the heads of the people. It is the Valley of Fear, the Valley of Death. The terror is in the hearts of the people from the dusk to the dawn. Wait, young man, and you will learn for yourself.” ~ The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Terror made me cruel. ~ Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

And something born of the snowy desolation, born of the midnight and the silent grandeur, born of the great listening hollows of the night, something that lay ‘twixt terror and wonder, dropped from the vast wintry spaces down into his heart—and called him. ~ The Glamour of the Snow by Algernon Blackwood

“They all agreed that it was a huge creature, luminous, ghastly, and spectral. I have cross-examined these men, one of them a hard-headed countryman, one a farrier, and one a moorland farmer, who all tell the same story of this dreadful apparition, exactly corresponding to the hell-hound of the legend. I assure you that there is a reign of terror in the district, and that it is a hardy man who will cross the moor at night.” ~ The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

More Terror Quotes from Literature

 

Six Facts About Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849)

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Edgar Allan Poe
You may know that Edgar Allan Poe wrote The Raven and The Fall of the House of Usher but did you know that . . .

1 – Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston.  He died on October 7, 1849.

2 – His parents were both actors. In fact, Poe may have been named after a character in King Lear. His parents performed the play the year of Poe’s birth.

3 – Poe’s father abandoned the family in 1810. Sadly, Poe’s mother passed away in 1811. Edgar was raised by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, Virginia.

4 – In 1835 Poe married Virginia Clemm, his first cousin.  She was thirteen-year-old at the time.  They remained married until her death in 1847.

5 – Edgar Allan Poe is considered to be the inventor of the detective fiction genre because of his work, The Murders in the Rue Morgue.

6 – Poe died in 1849 at the age of 40. The cause of his death is a mystery. Theories about the matter include alcohol, carbon monoxide poisoning, suicide and even rabies.

Partial List of Poe’s Work

  • The Cask of Amontillado
  • A Descent into the Maelstrom
  • The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
  • The Fall of the House of Usher
  • The Gold-Bug
  • Hop-Frog
  • The Imp of the Perverse
  • Ligeia
  • The Masque of the Red Death
  • Morella
  • The Murders in the Rue Morgue
  • The Oval Portrait
  • The Pit and the Pendulum
  • The Premature Burial
  • The Purloined Letter
  • The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether
  • The Tell-Tale Heart

More Edgar Allan Poe Information

Edgar Allan Poe: The Fever Called Living

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Edgar Allan Poe: The Fever Called LivingEdgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) wrote The Raven and other tales of mystery and macabre.  But how much do you really know about him?   A newly released book, Edgar Allan Poe: The Fever Called Living should help to answer those questions.

Looming large in the popular imagination as a serious poet and lively drunk who died in penury, Edgar Allan Poe was also the most celebrated and notorious writer of his day. He died broke and alone at the age of forty, but not before he had written some of the greatest works in the English language, from the chilling “The Tell-Tale Heart” to “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”—the first modern detective story—to the iconic poem “The Raven.”

Poe’s life was one of unremitting hardship. His father abandoned the family, and his mother died when he was three. Poe was thrown out of West Point, and married his beloved thirteen-year-old cousin, who died of tuberculosis at twenty-four. He was so poor that he burned furniture to stay warm. He was a scourge to other poets, but more so to himself.

In the hands of Paul Collins, one of our liveliest historians, this mysteriously conflicted figure emerges as a genius both driven and undone by his artistic ambitions. Collins illuminates Poe’s huge successes and greatest flop (a 143-page prose poem titled Eureka), and even tracks down what may be Poe’s first published fiction, long hidden under an enigmatic byline. Clear-eyed and sympathetic, Edgar Allan Poe is a spellbinding story about the man once hailed as “the Shakespeare of America.”

Edgar Allan Poe: The Fever Called Living

You might also enjoy the LitQuotes collection of quotes by Edgar Allan Poe.

Spooky Quotes for Halloween Cards and Invitations

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Are you planning a Halloween party?  Maybe you’re making Halloween cards to send to friends and family?  If you need some spooky quotes for your projects then LitQuotes can help.  Our spooky, scary quotation collection has over 130 quotes from authors like Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allan Poe and Algernon Blackwood.

For a moment he paused there, the wind blowing his long grey locks about his head, and twisting into grotesque and fantastic folds the nameless horror of the dead man’s shroud. ~ The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde

It used to puzzle him that, after dark, someone would look in round the edge of the bedroom door, and withdraw again too rapidly for him to see the face. ~ The Other Wing by Algernon Blackwood

It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open. ~ Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore,— Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!” Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.” ~ The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

‘Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world. ~ Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare

PS – And if you need a little crafty inspiration check out Star Dust Stamper.

Spooky Quotes

Literary Greats Paper Dolls

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Oh, how I wish I’d seen this before Christmas!   I would have added the Literary Greats Paper Dolls Collection to my wish list.  This paper doll set for grownups contains 35 caricatures of famous authors, including Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Ayn Rand, and Charles Dickens. Each doll has three costumes that relate to the author’s work.  Fox example,  the Conan Doyle doll has a Sherlock Holmes costume and Agatha Christie can be decked out as Miss Marple.  Fun stuff!!

 

Grip the Raven

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“Halloa, halloa, halloa! What’s the matter here! Keep up your spirits. Never say die. Bow wow wow. I’m a devil, I’m a devil, I’m a devil. Hurrah!”

The above  is a quote from Baranaby Rudge by Charles Dickens.  Can you identify the speaker of these lines?  A gold star to you if you said, “Grip the raven.”

What you may not know, and I didn’t until recently, is that Dickens really had a pet raven named Grip.  While Dickens was writing Barnaby Rudge he wanted to get a better idea about what a pet raven would be like.  So he acquired Grip.  That raven was quite a handful!  Because of Grip’s propensity for biting children he was banished from the home and  ended up living in the carriage house.

Edgar Allan Poe

Grip’s influence didn’t end with Dickens either.  An interesting aside is that Grip may have provided inspiration for Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven.  While there’s no direct evidence that one work inspired the other, it does seem likely.  Poe read Barnaby Rudge and even reviewed it for Graham’s Magazine.

In 1841 Grip passed away Dickens had him stuffed.  Grip was sold in an auction after Dickens died and eventually came to be owned by Philadelphia’s Colonel Richard Gimbel as part of his collection of objects relating to Edgar Allan Poe.  Later Gimbel’s collection was donated to the Free Library of Philadelphia.