The Raven

On a bleak December midnight, a lonely scholar sits over old books mourning his lost love, Lenore, when he hears a tapping at his chamber door. A raven steps in, perches on a bust of Pallas above the door and answers every question with one word: 'Nevermore'. As his questions grow more desperate, the bird's single reply drives him into despair.

Edgar Allan Poe published the poem in January 1845, and it made him famous almost overnight, though he earned very little from it. In his essay 'The Philosophy of Composition' he claimed he had built it step by step, like a problem in mathematics, choosing the word 'Nevermore' for its sound and the death of a beautiful woman as the most poetic of subjects. Read his stories, starting with The Fall of the House of Usher, and see his life.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) was born in Boston to travelling actors and orphaned before he was three. Raised by a Richmond merchant who later disowned him, he lived by his pen as a poet, critic and magazine editor, always short of money. His young wife Virginia died of tuberculosis in 1847, and two years later Poe was found delirious in Baltimore and died days later, in circumstances that are still a mystery.

He made the short story an art of total effect, wrote tales of terror such as The Fall of the House of Usher, invented the detective story with 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' and wrote 'The Raven', one of the most famous poems in English. French poets led by Baudelaire honoured him before America did.