Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque - Edgar Allan Poe - The Complete Works Series Book #1 (Original Version) [NOOK Book]

It was published by the original Philadelphia firm Lea & Blanchard and released in two volumes. The publisher was willing to print the anthology based on the recent success of Poe's story "The Fall of the House of Usher." Even so, Lea & Blanchard would not pay the original Poe any royalties; his only payment was 20 free copies. Poe had sought Washington Irving to endorse the book, writing to him, "If I could be permitted to add even a word or two from yourself... my fortune would be made."

In his preface, Poe wrote the now-famous quote defending himself from the criticism that his tales were part of "Germanism". He wrote, "If in many of my productions terror has been the thesis, I maintain that terror is not of Germany but of the soul".

The collection was dedicated to Colonel William Drayton, whom Poe likely met while stationed in Charleston, South Carolina; when Drayton moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Poe continued to correspond with him. Drayton was a former member of Congress turned judge and may have subsidized the book's publication.

When its publication was announced in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, its one-line description said that its title "pretty well indicates their [stories'] character." There has been some debate, however, over the meaning of Poe's terms "Grotesque" and "Arabesque." Poe probably had seen the terms used by Sir Walter Scott in his essay "On the Supernatural in Fictitious Composition" Both terms refer to a type of Islamic art used to decorate walls, especially in mosques. These arts styles are known for their complex nature. Poe had used the term "arabesque" correctly in his essay "The Philosophy of Furniture."

Poe may have been using these terms as subdivisions of Gothic art or Gothic architecture in an attempt to establish similar subdivisions in Gothic fiction. For example, the "grotesque" stories are those where the character becomes a caricature or satire, as in "The Man That Was Used Up". The "arabesque" stories focus on a single aspect of a character, often psychological, such as "The Fall of the House of Usher." A distant relative of Poe, modern scholar Harry Lee Poe, wrote that "grotesque" means "horror", which is gory and often disgusting, and "arabesque" means "terror", which forsakes the blood and gore for the sake of frightening the reader. Even so, accurately defining Poe's intentions for the terms is difficult and subdividing his tales into one category or another is even more difficult.