Text: Anonymous, “[Review of Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque],” New-York American (New York, NY), vol. XXI, whole no. 3825, December 21, 1839, p. 5, col. 5

[page 2, col. 5, continued:]

TALES OF THE GROTESQUE AND THE ARABESQUE. By E. A. POE. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard. — Assuredly, no one can glance at these tales without being impressed with the wild and vivid fancy of the writer, his copious style and familiarity with much, and much curious learning - and yet the cui bono will intrude. Take for example, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” a tale as much elaborated, probably, as any one of them, and full of the author's striking peculiarities of sentiment and invention; it fails to interest deeply from its unnaturalness, and from the want of any link of feeling or sympathy between life, such as it is conceived of by most men, and the terrors and distresses, and moody solitude, and impossible catastrophes of the House of Usher. Yet all will feel the writer's power over the terrible.