An ‘impassioned defense’ of Edgar Allan Poe

Emily Ogden blends literary criticism and biography in this captivating portrait of the American writer and poet. Darkness Becomes Bright by Emily Ogden. Not quite biography, not quite memoir, not quite literary criticism, this book amounts to “an impassioned defense” of Edgar Allan Poe, a New York Times critic says. In Poe’s writing, Ogden argues, “horror yields beauty. And unlike horror itself, which is intolerable, the art of horror is more than tolerable; it glows.” Ogden herself “ is both incisive and eloquent,” and the book is “a slim, engaging work of literary history and criticism.” Buy Darkness Becomes Bright from your local bookstore.