Harry Clarke, Illustrations for E. A. Poe

"He shrieked once -- once only." (The Tell-Tale Heart)
Click for huge versions.

A friend gave me her parents' copy of this 1923 rarity to scan: Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Poe, illustrated by Harry Clarke (Ireland, 1889 - 1931). She remembers being fascinated and haunted by details like the killer's toes from "The Tell-Tale Heart" (see above).

Also, don't miss this cartoon on YouTube: "The Tell-Tale Heart is a wonderful animated short film of 1953 based on Edgar Allan Poe short-story. The story told by a mad man has a dark visual with a perfect work of narration by James Mason. It is a UPA Production and was the first cartoon to be X-rated (adults only) in Great Britain under the British Board of Film Censors classification system."

Previously: Clarke's Swinburne illustrations for Alter-Gilbert's Lions of Literature column. I should thank here Cary Loren and Gilbert Alter-Gilbert, who earlier this year turned me on to Harry Clarke, independently, within minutes of each other.

I have not seen the 2008 Calla edition (Calla seems to be a division of Dover marketing to bibliophiles), but it includes all 8 color images and the 24 large monotone images, so I would say buy it before it's gone.

"It was the most noisome quarter of London." (The Man of the Crowd)


"Say, rather, the rending of her coffin." (The Fall of the House of Usher)


(The Colloquy of Monos and Una)


(The Mystery of Marie Rogêt)


"And now slowly opened the eyes of the figure which stood before me." (Ligeia)


"An attachment which seemed to attain new strength." (Metzengerstein)


"The colossal waters rear their heads above us like demons of the deep." (Ms. Found in a Bottle)


(Ligeia)


(Ms. Found in a Bottle)


(Berenice)


(Morella)


(Some Passages in the Life of a Lion (Lionizing))


(The Premature Burial)


(The Assignation)


(The Assignation)


(King Pest)


(Silence)


(A Descent into the Maelstrom)


(The Fall of the House of Usher)


(William Wilson)


(The Murders in the Rue Morgue)


(The Mystery of Marie Rogêt)


(The Masque of the Red Death)


(The Pit and the Pendulum)


(The Pit and the Pendulum)


(The Tell-Tale Heart)


(The Gold Bug)


(The Black Cat)


(The Oblong Box)


(The Cask of Amontillado)


(Landor's Cottage)
























(title page)


(spine detail)


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