Where Thy Dark Eye Glances
Queering Edgar Allan Poe
ed. by Steve Berman
The canon of Edgar Allan Poe, one of the foremost writers of dark and atmospheric fiction and poetry, offers readers haunted shores teeming with various erudite men brooding in the waning light over their feelings for unobtainable women. Yet, whether the tales or verses are grotesque or sinister, Poe's narrators are Outsiders, dealing with emotions that so many queer individuals feel: isolation and abandonment as well as loneliness and lost love. In the Shirley Jackson Award-nominated Where Thy Dark Eye Glances, editor Steve Berman has assembled a range of tales that queer the prose and poetry of Poe, the man himself, as well as dark and eerie stories about reading Poe's work.
Paperback, 324
Cover art by Ben Baldwin
"Where Thy Dark Eye Glances" is a solid collection; as editor Berman puts it, it is 'no mere dream within a dream.' The depth of Poe's work allows for a breadth of approaches to the idea of "queering" the Poe canon. The characters may be gay and lesbian, but the themes are universal. Poe fans should not pass this collection up." - Strange Horizons
"Berman wisely takes a broad-brush approach, covering not only reimaginings of Poe’s tales but also Poe the man and the act of reading Poe’s fiction." - Publishers Weekly