The Raven - Softcover

The American poet Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) has suffered as many posthumous buffets and reversals in his reputation as he did in his life. Even before Baudelaire translated his stories and Mallarme his poems, he was revered in France, while in Britain and even in America his work came to seem haunted, weird, its merits subsumed in the gothic drama of a life drunk (in every sense) to the lees, and early over. Many readers know his poems by heart but are wary of confessing an enthusiasm for lines so sonorous and unfashionable. This edition includes all Poe's poetry and three of his most influential essays. C.H. Sisson in his introduction makes measured claims for an original and challenging writer, siding with Baudelaire, Gautier, Mallarme and Valery in singling out the unlikely and powerful qualities in Poe's language, qualities inherent in his subject-matter and realised in his verse. 'There is, ' Sisson declares, 'a small handful of Poe's poems which are of clarity and luminosity which make most of the poetry of the nineteenth century look muddy.' His poetry, 'enjoyable but not explicable', attempts 'the rhythmical creation of beauty'.

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston in 1809. Both his parents were actors. His father had abandoned the family, and after his mother died Poe was cared for by John Allan, a tobacco merchant, and his wife, in Richmond, Virginia. The Allans took Poe with them on a visit to England in 1815, and Poe attended school in London until 1820. In 1826 he enrolled at the University of Virginia, but left a year later when Allan refused to pay his debts. He left the Allans and joined the army in Boston. In 1829 Allan supported his admission to West Point Military Academy, but he was expelled within a year. Returning to Boston, Poe lived with his aunt and her daughter. In 1836 he married his cousin, and set out to make a living writing and editing. In later years Poe lived in Philadelphia and New York. His wife died in 1847, and after a failed suicide attempt in 1848 Poe returned to Baltimore, where he died in 1849.