The Poe Clan is composed of a series of non-chronological stories set between the 18th and 21st centuries that follow the life of Edgar Portsnell, a teenage vampire.

[b] The clan maintains a strict code of only converting humans when they have reached adulthood, but by a confluence of circumstances, Edgar is made into a vampirnella at the age of fourteen.

Edgar finds he is isolated from both the human world as a result of his immortality, and from the adult vampirnellas of the clan due to his eternally-teenaged body.

"[11] In 1971 Hagio published The November Gymnasium, a one-shot about an all-boys school written as an early adaptation of her later series The Heart of Thomas.

[12] At the same time, Hagio had developed an interest in costumes; she began to write The Poe Clan after becoming inspired by the idea of a story about an immortal protagonist who wears the attire of different historical periods throughout their life.

[13] Hagio made her debut as a manga artist in 1969; by 1972 she was still considered as a novice, and thus was only permitted by her editor Junya Yamamoto [ja] to publish short one-shots.

[14] Hagio originally conceived of The Poe Clan as a trilogy, with each part consisting of roughly one hundred pages and set respectively in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.

Second, she focused early chapters of The Poe Clan on Marybelle and other female characters, as shōjo manga stories featuring male protagonists were less readily accepted in this era.

The tankōbon edition of The Poe Clan sold out its initial print run of 30,000 copies in three days, an unprecedented sales volume at the time for a shōjo manga series that had not been adapted into an anime.

[21] Upon turning 60 years old in 2009, Hagio began to fear that she would no longer be able to write manga due to declining health, and was convinced by her friend and science fiction writer Baku Yumemakura to create Poe no Ichizoku: Haru no Yume (春の夢, lit.

[22] Haru no Yume was published on May 28, 2016, in the July issue of Shogakukan's manga magazine Flowers, marking the 40th anniversary of the conclusion of the original series.

[40] Fantagraphics Books licensed the original run of the manga for an English-language release in North America, published in two hardcover omnibus volumes translated by Rachel Thorn.

Each volume covered a different generation of the Poe family and starred Romi Park as Edgar, Mitsuki Saiga as Alan, and Yuka Inokuchi as Marybelle.

It stars Yoshitsugu Matsuoka as Edgar, Takuya Eguchi as Alan, Daisuke Hirakawa as Mathias, Takaya Hashi as Aubin, Toshihiko Seki as Clifford, Kazuma Horie as Robin, and Takurou Nakakuni [ja] as a thief.

Featuring an original story scripted by Katsuhide Suzuki and directed by Katsuyuki Motohiro, Stranger ~Bakemono ga Jiken wo Abaku~ (ストレンジャー〜バケモノが事件を暴く〜, lit.

[58][59] In 2021, Shūichirō Koike directed a revival of Musical Gothic: The Poe Clan, this time with a cast composed of both men and women.

"[66] Shaenon K. Garrity concurs in Otaku USA that while early chapters of The Poe Clan are "uneven and sometimes hard to follow," she praises the series' "mastery of composition, emotion, and visual storytelling," describing it as a "classic of modern Gothic horror.

"[2] Rebecca Silverman similarly praises the artwork and story of the series in her review for Anime News Network, comparing it to My Platonic Sweetheart by Mark Twain and the Japanese concept of mono no aware.

[6][82] Its critical and commercial success attracted the attention of a male readership that did not typically read shōjo manga, notably by science fiction writers Baku Yumemakura and Azusa Noa, whose works are influenced by The Poe Clan through their rendering of homoeroticism and bishōnen.