A series of Poe's poetry read by actors dressed in period costume.

"Philadelphia, 1844. As violent tensions escalate between nativists and recent Irish immigrants, Edgar Allan Poe's fears for the safety of his wife, Virginia, and mother-in-law, Muddy, are compounded when he receives a parcel of mummified bird parts ... Just as odd is the arrival of Helena Loddiges, a young heiress who demands Poe's help to discover why her lover died at the city's docks on his return from an expedition to Peru. Poe is skeptical of...

"Poe exerted a profound influence on 20th-century culture, and continues to inspire composers, filmmakers, writers and artists. Popularly considered a "horror" writer, Poe was a philosophical aesthete, satirist, hoaxer, psychologist and prophet of the anxieties and preoccupations of the modern world. Explores major works in their own right and in terms of their impact on others"--

The publisher calls this DVD a "video book" in which Edgar Allan Poe's poem is brought to life through stills of hand drawn illustrations and a voice actor.