The Illustrated Edgar Allen Poe

The artist, who conceived the book and created all the illustrations, was intimately involved with its layout, design, and production. The main concern was in creating a perfect “showcase” for the illustrations and allowing their incredible power to come through. Great care was taken in the layout so that all the illustrations (with the exception of one half-page illustration) fell on the right to give them maximum importance. There is always a blank separating one story from the next, and a part title page, with accompanying illustration vignette, precedes each story to give the reader a chance to breathe and to set the mood for the story. Full-page illustrations were interspersed with double-spreads to lend variety and to function as mood-pieces in the book. The illustrations themselves were painstakingly examined, one by one, and a decision was made how to shoot them: in line, halftone, or in a combination—all to obtain maximum fidelity to the originals.