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