My love for darkly mysterious stories began in fifth grade, when I managed to sneak a book from the junior-high section out of the library—Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery & Imagination. Like most petty crimes, it was almost harmless . . . except that it opened the door to the world of the macabre and fantastical, a world where there were no happy endings, only consequences of the most horrific and nightmarish.
And I loved it. Loved it like human beings love simple sugars and standing on the edge of cliffs. It also terrified me. These simultaneous responses guaranteed that I read each story with every light in the bedroom on, stuffed animals surrounding me like a security team. Poe led me to Anne Rice and Stephen King and all their midnight court, but he also introduced me to crime fiction. For while Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes is the most famous, the honor of being the first literary private investigator goes to C. August Dupin, the ratiocinating detective who solved "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."
Imagine my delight to discover yet another interest of mine—tarot reading—intersecting with my literary tastes. Behold in all its dark glory…the Edgar Allan Poe tarot deck!
The creators had this to say about it: "Blending the divinatory power of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot with the visionary writings of Edgar Allan Poe, this deck provides deep spiritual insights into who you are and what you might become. Stunning art based on Poe's tales of the mysterious and the macabre illuminates the imagination and opens the soul to fantastical realms of spirit." An apt description, with Poe's familiar themes of loss, obsession, and the horror hidden just below the surface.
The interpretations remain true to the RWS tarot, with the minor suites falling into the traditional categories of cups/water, wands/fire, swords/air and pentacles/earth (though the latter is given a Poe-worthy spin by placing the pentacle not on a coin, but on a solid gold scarab beetle, the "gold bug" of the famous tale of the same name). The court cards feature characters from the stories—Ligeia as the Queen of Swords, an orangutan as the Knight of Wands—with other stories referenced throughout the deck.
Some are breathtakingly gorgeous, like Strength, which features Annabel Lee against a setting sun (her kingdom by the sea in the background).
Other images are as violent and unsettling as the stories that inspired them, like this quiet nightscape from “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”
And, of course, there are ravens.
I haven't yet tried a reading with the deck. I'm afraid the answer would always be DOOM! DOOM, I SAY! (also do not look under the floorboards. Or in the wine cellar. Or up the chimney.). I find it inspiring enough just sitting at my elbow, whispering omens and other revelations, opening the way to the darker realms of the human heart and the richness of the human imagination. Just like mysteries do.