"Although Poe's aesthetics and interest in art have long drawn scholarly attention, Barbara Cantalupo's
Poe and the Visual Arts is the first study to approach the subject comprehensively. She convincingly re-creates the art world in which Poe moved in the 1830s and 1840s, and her deep research reveals Poe's exposure to and knowledge of a wide gallery of artists and paintings; more important, she illuminates how this engagement affected his own art criticism and his use of art in stories such as 'Ligeia, ' 'The Fall of the House of Usher, ' 'Landor's Cottage, ' and many others.
Poe and the Visual Arts tackles an exciting topic, and Cantalupo's firm grasp of it results in a notable contribution to the study of Poe and nineteenth-century American culture."
–Matthew C. Brennan, Indiana State University