The Oval Portrait

Edgar Allan Poe was one of the most important and influential American writers of the 19th century.

The book describes a tragic story involving a young maiden of 'the rarest beauty'. She loved and wedded an eccentric painter who cared more about his work than anything else in the world, including his wife. The painter eventually asked his wife to sit for him, and she obediently consented, sitting "meekly for many weeks" in his turret chamber. The painter worked so diligently at his task th...