Meet the real Poe
—and discover literature’s
greatest con.
We have been had!
We thought Edgar Allan Poe was some dark, brooding misfit. Wrong! We thought his famous tales were about the “terror of the soul.” Wrong again.
Hi, I’m Susan Amper, and I’m here to set the record straight. To reveal the longest-running, most astonishing fakeout in literary history.
The truth is, Poe was not about terror at all. He was about trickery. Hoaxes and puzzles. Charades and masquerades. Mystification, he called it.
His so-called “tales of terror”—“The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Black Cat,” “The Fall of the Usher,” and so on—are the greatest fakeouts of all. For underneath the terror hide murder mysteries, designed to be solved. The most ingenious mysteries ever written.
Secrets of Poe will reveal the true Poe, the born trickster. And explain how we got him and his most famous tales so wrong.
Get the Essentials
Discover the real Poe in three brief instalments.
Follow the Blog
It was his consuming passion, and the subject of this website and this blog. Join me in exploring the “quintessence of Poe.”*
*G. Richard Thompson: “Is Poe’s ‘A Tale of the Ragged Mountains’ a Hoax?”
Studies in Short Fiction 6 (1969): 454.
Recent Posts
Recent dispatches from the world of Poe, the prankster.
Introducing the Gotcha!
These three tales are half sendup, half fakeout, and pure Poe.The Heart of the Matter: Misdirection, Masquerade, Malarkey
Illusion is the key to Poe’s tricks and also a goal in itself. “Believe nothing you hear and only half that you see.” -The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether
What is Poe really up to?
Explore upcoming posts that reveal Poe’s secret jokes and clever games—starting with the man behind the myth.
To fool the whole world for 200 years requires a peculiar genius
This site reintroduces Edgar Allan Poe as a literary trickster – by scholar Susan Amper, it’s part decoding game, part tribute, and all about seeing Poe anew.
Poe Unmasqued
Two books reveal his long-hidden secrets.
