The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe: Including Essays on Poetry

No American writer has more perfectly united beauty and terror. Poe's poetry pulses with a grief that feels eternal, a longing for the lost that transforms into something almost sacred. This complete collection gathers the work of a man who wrote while his young wife died of tuberculosis in the next room, who buried his mother, his mother-in-law, and his wife, and who poured all that anguish into verses of staggering musicality. Here you will find 'The Raven,' with its maddening refrain of 'nevermore,' but also the ethereal 'Annabel Lee,' the doomed grandeur of 'Ulalume,' and the controlled madness of 'The City in the Sea.' Also included are Poe's essays on poetry, including 'The Poetic Principle,' where he articulates his belief that a poem should be written for its own sake, for the pure beauty it creates. This is not a comfortable read. It is a descent into the dark architecture of the soul, where angels weep and dead voices answer. For those who have known loss, or feared mortality, or simply ached for something beautiful and unattainable, Poe remains the poet who says what we cannot say ourselves.