Fighting out of the Red Corner, with works such as The Raven, Annabel Lee, The Fall of the House of Usher, Masque of the Red Death, The Purloined Letter and The Cask of Amontillado, America's first international literary superstar, EDGAR ALLAN POE! Fighting out of the Blue Corner, author of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the undisputed champion of the Fantasy genre, J.R.R. TOLKIEN! We began with 64 Authors...now, we crown WebDip's collective favorite!
Poe. It's Poe. Poe all day, all the way--in this match-up, at least.
He excelled in two fields (poetry and short stories...three if you count his critical works.)
He IS America's first international superstar (J.R.R. Tolkien can't claim to even be Britain's first Fantasy star, Lewis Carroll and other beat him to the punch, though Tokien's obviously the bigger world builder.)
He's credited with inventing the Crime/Detective story...and while Sherlock Holmes is the better detective, he may never have gotten his chance without Auguste Dupin.
The Fall of the House of Usher and The Cask of Amontillado are arguably two of the greatest short stories ever written--period.
The Raven's arguably one of the most technically-perfect, quotable, and all-around resonant works in not just American literature, but the post-1800 English canon.
Aaaaaaaand I really, really love Annabel Lee, too. ;)
No disrespect to Frodo and the Hobbitses, but the Road Goes Ever On Nevermore!
There are some serious Tolkien haters here. It's perfectly reasonable to prefer Poe, as they're both great, but discounting Tolkien because he's a fantasy author is ridiculous. Tolkien is one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century, he created what is undoubtedly the biggest, most detailed, and most complex fictional world ever, and he wrote great books on top of it.
Both are wonderful, but my vote has to go to Tolkien.