This gets 3 stars only because of Poe's mastery of writing. I can't comment on the poetry because I'm not educated in that area, and the essays because they didn't interest me in the slightest so I skimmed through them, but the stories themselves weren't particularly enjoyable. There were a few here and there that held me in, but aside from the writing they weren't good enough to merit a high rating from me.

Poe's writing style and voice is impressive and I wish I were able to enjoy his short stories but there were too many that left me too bored to keep me impressed with the ones that didn't. To me, they were either exceptionally good or bad and only the writing kept me going. I wish I was able to delve deeper into the stories as I was reading this for research purposes but I couldn't enjoy myself in every story and I found myself taking forever to get through this volume on the sheer fact that nothing kept me returning for more. I didn't want to pick the book up again and keep reading so I'm glad that the stories were short because if I were reading a novel I think it would've taken me longer to get through it.

Perhaps I'll try something else from Poe in the future because his writing style is well mastered but I may have to make it later on to distance myself from this disappointing experience. Maybe I'll go back to the stories I did enjoy and go from there because if I had to go through the entire volume again I think I'd have enough of Poe for the rest of my life.