The Raven and Other Favorite Poems

by Edgar Allan Poe, Stanley Appelbaum (Editor)

One of the most famous poems in the English language, The Raven first appeared in the January 29. 1845 edition of the New York Evening Mirror. It brought Edgar Allan Poe, then in his mid-thirties and a well-known poet, critic and short story writer, his first taste of celebrity on a grand scale. The Raven remains Poe's best-known work, yet it is only one of the dazzling series of poems and stories that won him an enduring place in world literature. This volume contains The Raven and 40 others of Edgar Allan Poe's most memorable poems. --back cover

To --
--
("I saw thee on thy bridal day") --
Dreams --
Spirits of the dead --
Evening star --
A dream within a dream --
Stanzas --
A dream --
The happiest day, the happiest hour --
The lake : to --
--
Sonnet : to Science --
Romance --
To --
("The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see") --
To the River --
--
To --
("I heed not that my earthly lot") --
Fairy-land --
To Helen ("Helen, thy beauty is to me") --
Israfel --
The city in the sea --
The sleeper --
Lenore --
The valley of unrest --
The Coliseum --
To one in paradise --
To F--
--
Sonnet : to Zante --
The haunted palace --
Sonnet : silence --
The conqueror worm --
Dream-land --
The raven --
Eulalie : a song --
To M.L. S--
--
Ulalume --
To --
--
("Not long ago, the writer of these lines") --
To Helen ("I saw thee once, once only, years ago") --
Eldorado --
For Annie --
To my mother --
Annabel Lee --
The bells --
Alone.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Fiction, Horror, Literature, Gothic, Fantasy

50 pages, Paperback

First published January 29, 1845

About the author

The name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and The Fall of the House of Usher. This versatile writer’s oeuvre includes short stories, poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe’s reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry.

Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.

The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This present volume, in which the poems are reprinted from standard older editions, generally presents the final versions, which are usually distinct improvements

To — ("I saw thee on thy bridal day") - 3.5 Stars This is the first line of a poem later titled Song The speaker tells of a former love he saw from afar on her wedding day. A blush on her cheek, despite all the happiness around her, displays a hidden shame for having lost the speaker's love.

Dreams - 3 Stars Poem where poet wishes he could always stay in the dreamscape of the young.

Spirits of the Dead - 4 Stars Was initially titled Visits of the Dead.
Evening star - 4 Stars
A Dream Within a Dream - 5 Stars
Stanzas - 3 Stars
A Dream - 3 Stars
The Happiest Day, The Happiest Hour - 3 Stars
The Lake: To - 3 Stars
Sonnet: to Science - 4.5 Stars
Romance - 4 Stars In this poem Poe uses allusions in nature to capture the essence of romance.

To — ("The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see") - 3 Stars Killis Campbell author of The Mind of Poe and Other Studies thought that these lines refer to Elmira Royster Shelton and that lines 11 and 12 may refer to the wealth of her successful suitor and husband, Alexander Barret Shelton, who later left her fifty thousand dollars. https://www.eapoe.org/works/mabbott/t...

To the River - 3 Stars A beautiful poem that compares the elegance of a young woman to a crystal clear flowing river.

To — ("I heed not") 1829 - 3.5 Stars (8 line version in this book) Called Alone in the earliest version, To M— in the 1829 volume, and To — in a late manuscript, the poem is extremely personal — and, in the final version, worthy of the term “perfect.” The allusions will be patent to anyone acquainted with the early life of Poe. The 20 line version is a solid 4 Stars. https://www.eapoe.org/works/mabbott/t...

Fairy-land - 4 Stars
To Helen ("Helen, thy beauty is to me") - 4 Stars
Israfel - 3.5 Stars
The City in the Sea - 5 Stars
The Sleeper - 5 Stars
Lenore - 4.5 Stars
The Valley of Unrest - 4.5 Stars
The Coliseum - 4 Stars
To One in Paradise - 4.5 Stars
To F — 4 Stars
Sonnet: to Zante - 3.5 Stars
The Haunted Palace - 5 Stars
Sonnet: Silence - 4.5 Stars
The Conqueror Worm - 4 Stars This poem was later incorporated into the text of Poe's short story "Ligeia"

Dream-Land - 4.5 Stars
The Raven - 5 Stars
Eulalie : a song - 4 Stars
To M. L. S. 1847 - 5 Stars (Marie Louise Shew ) Poe’s friend and Virginia’s nurse.

Ulalume - 4 Stars

To — ("Not long ago, the writer of these lines") 1848 - 3.5 Stars Another poem that was to (Marie Louise Shew) Poe’s friend and Virginia’s nurse.

To Helen — ("I saw thee once, once only, years ago") - 4 Stars
Eldorado - 5 Stars
For Annie - 4 Stars
To My Mother - 3.5 Stars Poem was for his "Muddy" his mother-in-law/paternal aunt
Annabel Lee - 5 Stars
The Bells - 5 Stars
Alone - 4 Stars [Boy you really can feel Poe's depth of sadness in the lines of this poem]. This 22-line poem was composed in 1829 and left untitled and unpublished during Poe’s lifetime. The original manuscript was signed "E. A. Poe" and dated March 17, 1829. In February of that year, Poe's foster mother Francis Allan had died.

[leynes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edgar Allan Poe’s stature as a major figure in world literature is primarily based on his ingenious and profound short stories, poems, and critical theories, which established a highly influential rationale for the short form in both poetry and fiction. Regarded in literary histories and handbooks as the architect of the modern short story, Poe was also the principal forerunner of the “art for art’s sake” movement in 19th-century European literature. Whereas earlier critics predominantly concerned themselves with moral or ideological generalities, Poe focused his criticism on the specifics of style and construction that contributed to a work’s effectiveness or failure.

Poe’s most conspicuous contribution to world literature derives from the analytical method he practiced both as a creative author and as a critic of the works of his contemporaries. His self-declared intention was to formulate strictly artistic ideals in a milieu that he thought overly concerned with the utilitarian value of literature, a tendency he termed the “heresy of the Didactic.” While Poe’s position includes the chief requisites of pure aestheticism, his emphasis on literary formalism was directly linked to his philosophical ideals: through the calculated use of language one may express, though always imperfectly, a vision of truth and the essential condition of human existence.

Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?

While Poe is most often remembered for his short fiction, his first love as a writer was poetry, which he began writing during his adolescence. His early verse reflects the influence of such English romantics as Lord Byron, John Keats, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, yet foreshadows his later poetry which demonstrates a subjective outlook and surreal, mystic vision.

“Tamerlane” and “Al Aaraaf” exemplify Poe’s evolution from the portrayal of Byronic heroes to the depiction of journeys within his own imagination and subconscious. The former piece, reminiscent of Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” recounts the life and adventures of a 14th-century Mongol conqueror; the latter poem portrays a dreamworld where neither good nor evil permanently reside and where absolute beauty can be directly discerned.

In other poems—“To Helen,” “Lenore,” and “The Raven” in particular—Poe investigates the loss of ideal beauty and the difficulty in regaining it. These pieces are usually narrated by a young man who laments the untimely death of his beloved. “To Helen” is a three stanza lyric that has been called one of the most beautiful love poems in the English language. The subject of the work is a woman who becomes, in the eyes of the narrator, a personification of the classical beauty of ancient Greece and Rome. “Lenore” presents ways in which the dead are best remembered, either by mourning or celebrating life beyond earthly boundaries. In “The Raven,” Poe successfully unites his philosophical and aesthetic ideals. In this psychological piece, a young scholar is emotionally tormented by a raven’s ominous repetition of “Nevermore” in answer to his question about the probability of an afterlife with his deceased lover.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”

Charles Baudelaire noted in his introduction to the French edition of “The Raven”: “It is indeed the poem of the sleeplessness of despair; it lacks nothing: neither the fever of ideas, nor the violence of colors, nor sickly reasoning, nor drivelling terror, nor even the bizarre gaiety of suffering which makes it more terrible.”

Poe also wrote poems that were intended to be read aloud. Experimenting with combinations of sound and rhythm, he employed such technical devices as repetition, parallelism, internal rhyme, alliteration, and assonance to produce works that are unique in American poetry for their haunting, musical quality. In “The Bells,” for example, the repetition of the word “bells” in various structures accentuates the unique tonality of the different types of bells described in the poem.

Favorite poems from this collection include: “The Raven” (duh, it's literally my favorite poem of all time! I love narrative poems, and what Poe does here with the language and the ryhmes is unmatched!), “To — —”, “To the River —”, “To One in Paradise”, “Dream-Land”.

[Daniel · Rating 1 out of 5]

In my estimation Poe was a nut case. The Ravern illustrates that more than anything else/

[Sloane Jensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ahhh...Edgar Allen Poe, America's brilliant, tormented, twisted literary genius! I pay him honor by writing my first review on this great site about his poetry. Not his stories, his poetry. The book I own contains ALL of his poems, not just the select few like "The Raven." (which of course, is a mind-blowing poem in its own right.) Poe is the master of rhyme and form. His poems paint colorful pictures in my head; I walk alone through the desolate "City In The Sea". I stand weeping next to the raised coffin of the beautiful young "Leonor". I preform my part in the play with the rest of the human race knowing that soon my time will come when I'll be devoured by the "Conqueror Worm." I beg the grim and ghastly raven perched above my chamber if whether or not I'll be reunited with the one I love the most after I die, but the bird only responds with the word "nevermore!" All this and so much more! Although Poe is better known for his numerous short stories, he wanted to be recognized as a poet more then anything else. And I, along with so many others, recognize him! He is an Immoral poet, and now the raven should change his prophecy of "nevermore" to "forevermore!"

- SMJ

[Cláudia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Como leitora entusiasta de poesia gosto sempre de avaliar o trabalho poético porque em literatura a "inspiração" é um mito ridículo. Já tinha lido Poe anteriormente​ e como tal já vinha com algumas expectativas (os meus dois poemas preferidos dele encontram-se neste livro) que foram completamente destruídas. Os poemas são muito banais, pouco arrebatadores e com temas um pouco aborrecidos.
"By you -- by yours, the evil eye, - by yours, the slanderous tongue
That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?"

[Sassy Sarah Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars. I liked this. Some poems I loved, some I liked, and some I hated. Review to come.

[Claudia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Leonie]

Poe’s poems are dark and gloomy and I like that about him.

[J Kuria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Banged at 15, bangs today. I'd forgotten how many of these I memorised. 😂

[Kyle Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being a big fan of The Raven, I thought that I would immensely enjoy this book. I was wrong, apart from The Raven, I only found two other poems to be very compelling, To Helen and Annabel Lee. The rest seemed to use amateur rhyming schemes with Poe often using the same exact word to rhyme with itself. He also used the same words quite frequently in his poems, which bugs me for some reason. I wish I would have liked this book better, but I just didn't.

[Yuuki Nakashima · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost all of the poems in this book are dark, but I felt they were also enthusiastic. It was like watching a one-man play at the theatre.
I like to read or listen to something dark when I am sad, depressed or under great stress, so I'm sure I'll reread these dark poems with nice rhythms and rhymes again and again in the rest of my life.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

“There are some qualities — some incorporate things, that have a double life, which thus is made a type of that twin entity which springs from matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.”

Anytime you’re dealing with Edgar Allan Poe, you know you’re going to be dealing with those age-old topics he’s famously associated with — death, decay, darkness, depression, and dreams. The Raven and Other Favorite Poems is an excellent collection of Poe’s poetry, and while not every piece was exactly to my liking, I enjoyed seeing the linear progression of Poe’s style and topics, no matter how morbid it is.

The Raven and Other Favorite Poems includes forty-one original poems by Edgar Allan Poe, arranged in the order they were written and covering a surprisingly large swath of topics. Poe’s writing begins with self-reflection, as he ponders the fleeting nature of youth, the comfort of dreams, and fascination with other, more fantastical worlds. In true Poe fashion, the poems soon begin to devolve into pictures of death and sorrow, which mixes magical prose with some morbid fixations. Poe’s obsession with death and the afterlife becomes the central focus of his poetry, presenting death as the only hope of relief from a terrible life, and sleep / dreams as a sweet foretaste of that eternal rest. With lots of natural imagery — the moon, the wind, the stars, lakes, rivers, oceans — and supernatural imagery — angels, devils, ghosts, omens — The Raven and Other Favorite Poems is a perfect collection of moody poetry to represent its author’s tormented mind.

“I stand amid the roar of a surf-tormented shore, and I hold within my hand grains of the golden sand — how few! yet how they creep through my fingers to the deep, while I weep — while I weep! O God! Can I not grasp them with a tighter clasp? O God! Can I not save one from the pitiless wave?”

I was surprised by some of the contents of this collection; having mostly read Poe’s disturbing short stories and a few of his more famous poems, I was not expecting to find so many earnest sonnets (“Silence”), imagery-rich diatribes (“A Dream Within a Dream”), and impassioned tributes to friends and lovers (“To Helen”). Sometimes it’s difficult to discern when Poe is speaking and when he is speaking through the guise of a narrator, but some of my favorite of his poems were his descriptions of imaginary worlds, such as in “Fairy-Land” and “The City in the Sea;” surprisingly, I think Poe should have tried his hand at fairytale-fantasy writing. Many poems deal with the changing of the times (“Sonnet — To Science”) and vivid imaginings of real-life places (“The Valley of Unrest”). Poe’s frequent uses of Greco-Roman mythology and even some Islamic mythology were unexpected but intriguing, though of course his obsession with dead women gets creepy after five or six poems on the subject. A few of my other favorites in this collection were “The Sleeper,” “The Coliseum,” and “To One in Paradise.”

“Thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained: they would not go — they never yet have gone; lighting my lonely pathway home that night, they have not left me… they follow me — they lead me through the years.”

Since The Raven and Other Favorite Poems represents the final versions of Poe’s heavily-edited poetry, it’s interesting to see his progression not only in theme but in style, as he comes to rely more heavily on repetition and unique rhyme schemes. Many of his more famous poems — “The Raven,” “Annabel Lee,” and “The Bells,” plus the poems that make appearances in some of his longer works — have a similar style to that of Alfred Lord Tennyson, but perhaps what struck me the most was the sadness of Poe’s final poem, “Alone.” The whole collection is a stirring glimpse into the mind of a man who was tormented, disturbed, and morbidly obsessed with death… but who managed to come up with some killer stories and poems during his career.

Poems included in this selection are as follows:

• “To — (I Saw Thee on Thy Bridal Day)”
• “Dreams”
• “Spirits of the Dead”
• “Evening Star”
• “A Dream Within a Dream”
• “Stanzas”
• “A Dream”
• “The Happiest Day — The Happiest Hour”
• “The Lake: To —”
• “Sonnet — To Science”
• “Romance”
• “To — (The Bowers Whereat, in Dreams, I See”
• “To the River —”
• “To — (I Heed Not That My Earthly Lot”
• “Fairy-Land”
• “To Helen (Helen, Thy Beauty Is to Me)”
• “Israfel”
• “The City in the Sea”
• “The Sleeper”
• “Lenore”
• “The Valley of Unrest”
• “The Coliseum” (from Politan)
• “To One in Paradise” (from "The Assignation")
• “To F—”
• “Sonnet — To Zante”
• “The Haunted Palace” (from "The Fall of the House of Usher")
• “Sonnet — Silence”
• “The Conqueror Worm” (from "Ligeia")
• “Dream-Land”
• “The Raven”
• “Eulalie — A Song”
• “To M.L.S.”
• “Ulalume”
• “To — (Not Long Ago, the Writer of These Lines)”
• “To Helen (I Saw Thee Once — Once Only — Years Ago)”
• “Eldorado”
• “For Annie”
• “To My Mother”
• “Annabel Lee”
• “The Bells”
• “Alone”

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I purchased this book solely for 'The Raven' and I was not disappointed. I enjoyed the other poems, however, many of them I am not capable of understanding at this point.

Therefore:
- The Raven 5/5
- Other Poems 3/5

[Angie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good collection of poetry... some of the poems were just beautiful while others fell short. Favorites include "The Raven," "Annabel Lee," and "Bells" (once I embraced what Poe was doing with the piece). In general, his poetry is dark, sometimes frantic, often discomforting.

[Renee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love everything Poe. I had the Raven fully memorized at one time.

[Zi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Edgar Allan Poe. Mom bought this for me when we visited Poe's house in Pennsylvania :). I really need a complete collection.

[Lesley Looper · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I read "The Raven," I could hear Duke professor Reynolds Price reading it during his annual Halloween storytelling. :)

[Anie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of Poe's best poetry.

[Dane Cobain · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is easily Poe’s best collection as far as I’m concerned – I much prefer his poetry to his prose. What was it that the raven said, again?

[Lauren · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5*

[Ruth Dahl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Edgar Allen Poe.

[Jana · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 because Poe certainly knows how to create atmosphere.

There were a few poems I really liked, including The Raven and The Conqueror Worm, but in general I found the rhyme schemes overly forced. The repetition often seemed used with the sole purpose of making the rhyme scheme work, and it forced vocabulary which rhymed (yay?) but didn't fit with the mood or tone of the poem. A little silly, and compromises the creepy vibe for which he's rightfully known.

[bobbi•♥• · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5)
this was good! I always feel bad eating poetry books because they weren’t really written to be put in a book. I didn’t like most of these though, looking forward to read more of Edgar Allan Poe’s work.
Quote: “That years of love have been forgot
In the hatred of a minute:”

[Lila Bacheré · Rating 4 out of 5]

Controversial opinion but the raven was not the strongest poem in this collection. At all. it should've been called Annabel Lee and other poems because wow I can understand why some of my favorite artists (Nabokov, Bright Eyes) drew inspiration from this short yet impactful masterpiece

[Leonardo Prado · Rating 3 out of 5]

Plot and Structure: 3 - Character Development: ? - Writing Style: 3.5 - Themes and Depth: 3 - Impact: 3
Stars: 3
Not my favorite kind of poetry, it was still an interesting reading. I especially liked: The Valley of Unrest, The Conqueror Worms, The Raven and Alone.

[Heather Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

A better selection of poetry would have been a blessing.
As it stands, this edition is severely lacking.

[Soph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man needs his ass ate for that (and some free antidepressants, he's a lil emo)

[Trinity · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

[Tina Poulsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Borrowed the book, to read The Raven. Amazing poem!

[Franklyn James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful classical read. My favorite is "The Raven." I suggest this to all budding poets.