While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,.Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore.Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,.He is the very embodiment of its desolation and gloom, performing it with troubled whispers, agitated anguish, and then… nothing more. In honor of this mournful masterwork, we recommend you listen to English actor Basil Rathbone recite the poem while you read along. Poe followed her to the other side two years later - a lamentable end to a lifetime of strife. His wife Virginia, about whom the poem is most likely written, died of tuberculosis in 1847.

But he remained poor, buttoning his jacket all the way to the top to hide his ragged shirt. These 108 carefully crafted lines made Poe internationally famous he gave public lectures during which he performed dramatic recitations of his works for upwards of two hours. Abraham Lincoln enjoyed one of the spoof poems so much, he looked up the original and committed it to memory. The poem was wildly popular and was immediately reprinted, reviewed, and parodied. It was eventually printed in The American Review under a pseudonym before it was published on 29 January 1845 in The New York Mirror with Poe’s name attached. Graham’s Magazine initially rejected the poem but gave the destitute Poe a charity payment of $13. But his gloomier instincts prevailed, noting that the raven, ‘the bird of ill-omen,’ was ‘infinitely more in keeping with the intended tone.’ The poem might not have been quite so affecting if Poe had gone with his first choice for the talking bird: a parrot. An elegiac poem of devotion and longing - and madness - it makes a desperate plea of the name Lenore. For 175 years, this poem has enthralled readers with its nearly-hypnotic repetitive rhythm and its black-winged messenger. On this date in 1845, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven was published.

The raven edgar allan poe song