Edgar Allan Poe

In “The Raven,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and more, he keyed in lush and early on violence, madness, spiritual doubt, terror. He was father of the detective story and the gory thriller.

Poe was a tortured soul, his death a bizarre mystery. From Sherlock Holmes to Stephen King to CSI, his work still echoes — like the tell-tale heart — in our culture today.

This hour, On Point: Master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe, at 200.

You can join the conversation. Did you, do you, love Poe? All that gothic romance, murder, horror? What was he tapped into? Do you see it all around us in our popular culture today?Guests:

J. Gerald Kennedy, professor of English at Louisiana State University. He's been thinking and writing about Edgar Allan Poe for 35 years. He's author of many books and articles on Poe, most recently "The Portable Edgar Allan Poe" and the Oxford "Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe."

Stephen Rachman, professor of English at Michigan State University. He's co-editor of "The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe" and president of the Poe Studies Association.

Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, professor of English at College of the Holy Cross and author of "Detecting Texts: The Metaphysical Detective Story from Poe to Postmodernism."

More links:

The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore has complete texts of Poe's works, and much more.

The Poe Museum in Richmond, where Poe lived and worked, documents his life and career and offers a special site devoted to the Poe bicentennial celebration.

Watch Vincent Price recite "The Raven" (from YouTube):