Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

Slobodan Sucur (University of Alberta)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.2: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Nineteenth Century, 1783-1900.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1839

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Gothic & Ghosts
Story

Resources

“The Fall of the House of Usher”, first published in 1839 in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, is possibly the best known of Poe’s stories and certainly the most often anthologized since 1847, when Griswold included it in The Prose Writers of America. According to T.O. Mabbott, the tale is biographical only to the extent that it concerns James Campbell Usher and Agnes Pye Usher, a real brother and sister, and children of actors, who were orphaned in 1814 and grew up as neurotics (Poe 2:393). The tale has inspired much literary criticism, ranging from psychoanalytical and New Critical renderings to Romantic Ironist contributions (such as G. R. Thompson’s work) and many deconstructionist and/or post-…

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2929 words

Citation: Sucur, Slobodan. "The Fall of the House of Usher". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 October 2005 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=905, accessed 26 November 2024.]

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