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Plot summary

The death of Edgar Allan Poe has always been a mystery, however, the
public, shared a common consensus that it was Poe’s frustrations on
his being excluded from the literary circle which prompted him to
commit an attempted suicide, and finally died dreary.
But this solution is not what a young Baltimore lawyer, Quentin
Clark, has discovered. Holding in deep respect on Poe, Quentin slowly
realizes that the truth of the man’s death is riddled with numerous
unanswered questions which the police might be concealing from the
public.
As the investigation of Quentin goes deeper, he builds up a notion
that Poe’s death, still remained in mystery, and might be highly
connected to Poe’s masterpieces. To solve the strange case of Poe’s
death, Quentin takes on a journey to find the one person that could
show competence on the case. Eventually, it dawned on Quentin that
his own future began to loose balance through the pursuit of the
truth....

“The Poe Shadow” shows the story of the mystery writer, Edger Allen
Poe, the pioneer of detective novels in 20th century of America’s
literary arena. It presented the writer’s conversance of Allen Poe’s life,
and how he compared Allen Poe’s work “The Murders in the Rue
Morgue” and poet “The Raven” with this book ingeniously. The
narrative in the whole book really passed down Allen Poe’s style. With
appalling plots and characters’ physical transformation, the book will
bring readers into Paris and Baltimore in 19th. By history and
imagination, it bring up the figure of Allen Poe through the pages.
Introduction of the Author:
Matthew Pearl, the writer who created his debut work on “The Dante
Club”, the international bestseller translated into over 30 languages,
had published his new novel “The Poe Shadow”(愛倫坡暗影). It was
his second successful story which combined literary history and
innovative mystery. He was graduated from Harvard University
summa cum laude (最高榮譽) in English and American Literature in
1997 and Yale Law School in 2000. Now, he has taught literature and
creative writing at Harvard University and Emerson College, and has
been a Visiting Lecturer in law and literature at Harvard Law School.
His first book using Dante’s “Divina Commedia” (神曲)really surprised
all the literature critics. The New York Times literary critic Janet
Maslin says Pearl "has now created a two-book franchise on the cusp
of mystery, literature and historical fiction." “The Poe Shadow” has
been anticipated by readers, and it also opened a new window on
literary history's most persistent enigma, with documented material
never published before.

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