Raven (Deluxe Hardbound Edition), The (Fingerprint! Classics)

Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" was first published in the New York Evening Mirror on January 29, 1845. It is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. Over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, "The Raven" has become one of America's most famous poems, partly as a result, of its easily remembered refrain, "Nevermore." The speaker, a man who pines for his deceased love, Lenore, has been visited by a talking bird who knows only the word, "Nevermore." The narrator feels so grieved over the loss of his love that he allows his imagination to transform the bird into a prophet bringing news that the lovers will "Nevermore" be reunited, not even in heaven. Poe describes the poem as one that reveals the human penchant for "self-torture" as evidenced by the speaker's tendency to weigh himself down with grief. The publication of "The Raven" made Poe widely popular in his lifetime, though it did not bring him much financial success. Soon reprinted, parodied, and illustrated, critical opinion is divided as to the poem's status, though it remains one of the most famous poems ever written.