The Raven: Poems and Essays on Poetry

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is the poet of the night world, of the inexplicable, the uncanny. His poems do not analyse, they do not explain: they exist with the intensity of hallucinations. In the breathtakingly seductive beauty of 'To Helen' - 'Like those Nicéan barks of yore, / that gently o'er a perfumed sea...', or the claustrophobic horror of 'The Raven', Poe offers haunting alternative realities, as strange - and strangely familiar - as our dreams and nightmares.

Yet Poe was more than a poet of American gothic. He was translated by Baudelaire and Mallarmé, becoming a key figure in French Symbolism; he was an influential critic. This edition contains all Poe's poetry and his three most important essays. With an introduction by the poet C.H. Sisson, it is an indispensable collection of the work of one of the nineteenth century's most compelling and original poets.