By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The Man of the Crowd’ is one of the shorter short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe (who pioneered the short story form when it was still an emerging force in nineteenth-century magazines and periodicals). Written in 1840, the story is deliciously enigmatic and, in some ways, prefigures later fiction, including modernism. You can read ‘The Man of the Crowd’ here before proceeding to our summary and analysis below.