The man of the crowd: (low cost). limited edition - Softcover

Poe, Edgar Allan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1516834658 ISBN 13: 9781516834655

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015

Synopsis

The story is introduced with the epigraph "Ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir etre seul" - a quote taken from The Characters of Man by Jean de La Bruyere. It translates to This great misfortune, of not being able to be alone. This same quote is used in Poe's earliest tale, "Metzengerstein." After an unnamed illness, the unnamed narrator sits in an unnamed coffee shop in London. Fascinated by the crowd outside the window, he considers how isolated people think they are, despite "the very denseness of the company around." He takes time to categorize the different types of people he sees. As evening falls, the narrator focuses on "a decrepit old man, some sixty-five or seventy years of age," whose face has a peculiar idiosyncrasy, and whose body "was short in stature, very thin, and apparently very feeble" wearing filthy, ragged clothes of a "beautiful texture." The narrator dashes out of the coffee shop to follow the man from afar. The man leads the narrator through bazaars and shops, buying nothing, and into a poorer part of the city, then back into "the heart of the mighty London." This chase lasts through the evening and into the next day. Finally, exhausted, the narrator stands in front of the man, who still does not notice him. The narrator concludes the man is "the type and genius of deep crime" due to his inscrutability and inability to leave the crowds of London."

About this title

About the Author:

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 - October 7, 1849) was an American author and poet; his short stories include "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Pit and the Pendulum," and "The Tell-Tale Heart."

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1516834658
• ISBN 13: 9781516834655
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 24