In England, fans of Charles Dickens were gripped by the four ghosts that visited Ebenezer Scrooge in 'A Christmas Carol' to get him to change his mean ways.
At the same time, Edgar Allen Poe's 'Angel of the Odd', made out of a keg and wine bottles, drops in on the narrator, who does not believe in strange occurrences.
He chases the angel away and has a booze-induced afternoon nap.
When he wakes, his house is on fire. A ladder appears at the window and down he climbs - only to collide with a pig, fracturing his arm in the fall.
Things cannot get worse, can they? They sure can! For he is given the elbow by his would-be wife, who notices that he wears a wig because it was burnt off in the blaze.
The mishaps just keep coming. But when the 'Angel of the Odd' reappears, will the poor man swallow his pride and halt the barrage of blows?
'Angel of the Odd' is the ideal read for those interested in Poe's lesser-known works.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American poet, author, and literary critic. Despite a brief life, he was celebrated for his poetry, short stories and tales of the supernatural. He is also regarded as the inventor of the detective genre and a contributor to the emergence of science fiction, dark romanticism, and weird fiction.
In 1827, Poe joined the US Army under an assumed name and had his first collection, 'Tamerlane and Other Poems,' published anonymously. He worked as a literary critic and moved around America, writing as he went while his works gradually built an audience.
His most famous works include ´The Raven´ (1945), ´The Black Cat´ (1943), and ´The Gold-Bug´ (1843).