I need to do a paper on what my teacher refers to as Poe's "Dead Ladies Society." This is basically a collection of all the young women who die or are dead in Poe's works. Could anyone help me find examples of these works, background on why he does this, and possibly some critiques or reviews mentioning this idea? Thanks.

-- Anonymous, January 24, 2001

Answers

Dear Stephanie,

You are in luck. I have just completed a draft similar to the project you outline in your query, so I shall provide you with some possible ideas or ways to go with this:

You ought to start with the primary sources, which is always adviceable for any literary study. For this particular topic you would do well to examine the following tales: "The Assignation", "Berenice", "Morella", "Ligeia" "The Fall of the House of Usher", "The Oval Painting (or Portrait.. cannot recall the exact title from memory)", The Oblong Box".

Poems which are relevant include: "The Raven", "The Sleeper", "Lenore", Annabel Lee", and a few others which are not too difficult to track down by yourself.

Please contact me with further details if you wish to pursue a closer study, by which time I may have information regarding specific critical studies on this subject, as well as raise some possible ideas which I have developed around this subject:

Good luck with this:

Yours sincerely,

Pragmatic_Poe

-- Anonymous, February 05, 2001

pragmatic poe, even if stephanie doesn't neeed to know more about this topic, i would like more information.

-- Anonymous, February 05, 2001