Manuscript page / Willis to Poe, November 13, 1841
Letters & lives
A letter from Willis to Poe
Read the correspondence dated November 13, 1841, alongside the manuscript pages and their context.
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Featured essay / Poe & the press
The Raven,
in Poe's own house.
A poem, a printing, a claim to authorship. Inside the February 1845 Broadway Journal.
Step inside the story →On the page. In the ear.
Two ways into Poe's world
Editorial illustration / Early spoken-word recording
Sound & recordings
Hear The Raven from the dawn of recorded literature
An early spoken-word record offers another way into the poem: through phrasing, rhythm and the human voice.
Read the story →The image and the imagination
Printed, pictured, collected
Existing article artwork / The illustrated Raven
Art & editions
The Raven through Gustave Dore's eyes
Explore the illustrated Harper & Brothers edition and its visual interpretation of Poe's poem.
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From the article / Victorian advertising
Print & popular culture
When The Raven entered the advertising world
A Victorian advertisement shows how a literary refrain could become part of everyday visual culture.
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Existing article artwork / The seven-inch edition
Reviews & records
The Raven, pressed into vinyl
A close look at the seven-inch edition: the recording, the artwork and the object in your hands.
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Follow the story back to the page.
Original documents, close readings and the objects that carry literature into the world.
Explore the journal
20 articles
Poe Week / Primary sources
The Purloined Letter: Dupin's final case, in its first printing
Explore The Purloined Letter in The Gift for 1845, issued in 1844: the first printing of Edgar Allan Poe’s final Dupin detective story.
Published
Poe Week / Primary sources
The Cask of Amontillado, exactly as its first readers met it
Read The Cask of Amontillado in its first printing: three pages in the November 1846 Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book.
Published
Poe Week / Primary sources
The Raven crosses the Pacific: a Honolulu newspaper, 1849
The Raven reached Honolulu in 1849. Explore The Polynesian’s printing and compare its wording with a Virginia newspaper edition that same year.
Published
Poe Week / Primary sources
"The last thing written by the late Edgar A. Poe" — Annabel Lee
The Mountain Sentinel presented Annabel Lee as Poe’s last work in November 1849. Read its introduction and the poem in the preserved newspaper.
Published
Poe Week / Primary sources
The Raven in a Virginia newspaper, six days before Poe died
The Lynchburg Virginian printed all 18 stanzas of The Raven on October 1, 1849. Explore the newspaper edition published six days before Poe died.
Published
Poe Week / Primary sources
"Edgar Allan Poe is dead." — the obituary that shaped his legend
Read the 1849 obituary signed Ludwig: a hostile portrait of Edgar Allan Poe that also printed Annabel Lee, preserved with its original newspaper page.
Published
Essays
The Raven in Poe's own house
A poem, a printing, a claim to authorship. Inside the February 1845 Broadway Journal.
Published
Essays
A small advertisement. A revealing piece of literary history.
A December 1839 newspaper places Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque among the news and commerce of its day.
Published
Essays
How Poe said he wrote The Raven
The Philosophy of Composition opens a debate about calculation, inspiration and the making of a poem.
Published
Reviews
Hear The Raven from the dawn of recorded literature
An early spoken-word record offers another way into the poem: through phrasing, rhythm and the human voice.
Published
Essays
When The Raven entered the advertising world
A Victorian advertisement shows how a literary refrain could become part of everyday visual culture.
Published
Reviews
The Raven, pressed into vinyl
A close look at the seven-inch edition: the recording, the artwork and the object in your hands.
Published
Essays
The poem that refuses to die
Reading The Raven again, with an ear for its patterns, repetition and enduring hold on the imagination.
Published
People
Poe, Willis and the power of the literary press
The editors and relationships that helped shape how readers encountered The Raven.
Published
People
Willis remembers Poe
An 1858 newspaper account offers a later perspective on Poe and the people who wrote about him.
Published
People
A letter from Willis to Poe
Read the correspondence dated November 13, 1841, alongside the manuscript pages and their context.
Published
Essays
The Raven in The American Review
Return to the February 1845 magazine printing and the poem as its first readers encountered it.
Published
Essays
The Raven reaches the Evening Mirror
The January 1845 newspaper appearance brings the poem into the New York literary conversation.
Published
Essays
The Raven through Gustave Dore's eyes
Explore the illustrated Harper & Brothers edition and its visual interpretation of Poe's poem.
Published
People
The life behind the literature
An introduction to Poe's life, work and continuing place in the cultural imagination.
Published
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