HIS TALES.--He wrote more than sixty tales, some of which rank among the world's greatest short stories. The most important of these productions may be classified as tales (1) of the supernatural, like _The Fall of the House of Usher_ and _Ligeia_, (2) of conscience, like _William Wilson_, that remarkable forerunner of _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, (3) of pseudo-science, like _A Descent into the Maelstrom_, (4) of analysis or ratiocination, like _The Gold Bug_ and that wonderful analytical detective story, the first of its kind, _The Murders in the Rue Morgue_, the predecessor of later detective stories, like _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_, and (5) of natural beauty, like _The Domain of Arnheim_. This classification does not include all of his types, for his powerful story, _The Pit and the Pendulum_, does not belong to any of these classes. He shows remarkable versatility in passing from one type of story to another. He could turn from a tale of the supernatural to write a model for future authors of realistic detective stories. He could solve difficult riddles with masterly analysis, and in his next story place a conscience-stricken wretch on the rack and then turn away calmly to write a tale of natural beauty. He specially liked to invest an impossible story with scientific reality, and he employed Defoe's specific concrete method of mingling fact with fiction. With all the seriousness of a teacher of physics, Poe describes the lunar trip of one Hans Pfaall with his balloon, air-condenser, and cat. He tells how the old cat had difficulty in breathing at a vast altitude, while the kittens, born on the upward journey, and never used to a dense atmosphere, suffered little inconvenience from the rarefaction. He relates in detail the accident which led to the detachment from the balloon of the basket containing the cat and kittens, and we find it impossible not to be interested in their fate. He had the skill of a wizard in presenting in remarkably brief compass suggestion after suggestion to invest his tales with the proper atmosphere and to hypnotize the reader into an unresisting acceptance of the march of events. Even a hostile critic calls him "a conjuror who does not need to have the lights turned down." In one respect his tales are alike, for they are all romantic (p. 88) and deal with the unusual, the terrible, or the supernatural. Some of these materials suggest Charles Brockden Brown (p. 89), but Poe, working with the genius of a master artist, easily surpassed him.