ePub Format Would Have Suited Poe

I’ve been utilizing my Kobo eReader to check out and read some of the great classics available on CLP’s Overdrive platform.  For folks who haven’t explored it, Overdrive offers books in a number of electronic formats, including the ePub format most commonly utilized by non-Kindle (Amazon) eReaders.

You can do a nifty, targeted search that will limit to just “classics”  in the ePub format on Overdrive.  That’s how I found this lovely little collection of Poe material featuring some of his most famous tales (“Masque of the Red Death, “The Raven”, and “The Cask of Amontialldo”).   Here’s a shot of the eBook “cover”:

The more I think about it, the more I believe Edgar Allen Poe would have loved the ePub format.  As the country’s first real “magaziner,” he was a tireless self-promoter and really tried very hard to make a living at being both a publisher and a writer.  A format like ePub would have allowed him to go right at his core audience, breaking his work into mini-collections for sale and distribution.  And could you imagine some of the crossover marketing deals a modern-day Poe could have negotiated for himself?

Woman to Starbucks Barista: “Yes, I’d like a tall Cask of Amontialldo with extra room.”

Barista: “Do you want whole or skim milk with that?”

Alas, Poe died penniless, a victim of a reading public that did not fully appreciate his genius until he was gone.

His work lives on beyond the printed word, a testament to his talent and tenacity.

–Scott