EA Poe
I was thinking about the dearth of stories with an unhappy ending these days, and in thinking of a non-tragedy example, I recalled the short story The Cask of Amontillado I read way back in 9th grade.
I rather like Edgar Allan Poe. Some people seem to think that because he was less than a paragon of virtue his work should be torn down, but they can bite me. It's foolish to hate the work of an individual for their failings; a fine craftsman is a fine craftsman, be he a murderer or saint. Work should stand alone and be judged on its own merits. To think otherwise is to live a life of untruth. For example, I recognize that Hitler was a talented artist. I have a few of his sketches/paintings on a HDD somewhere, and they're a lot better than I could do. I also believe that his attempt to eradicate the 'lesser race' is one of the most fucking dispicable and horrible events in the history of humanity. Your respect, or lack of, the work of an individual should not reflect your personal impressions of the individual in question.
So anyway, I googled up Poe to see how to spell Amontillado, and stumbled across a digital collection of his writing. I don't know how complete it is, but it's a damn sight better than I have in hard copy. You can find it
here if you're interested. Another good place to find older writing is
Project Gutenberg. I much appreciate the opportunity to sample the work of an author before spending 8 bucks on a paperback gamble.
