A Fine Collection of American Literature and History

The First Appearance of Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven

New-York: Wiley and Putnam, 1845. Vol. I, Nos. I-VI, January-June, 1845. First edition. 8vo. (iv), 656, iv pp. Illustrated with an engraved frontispiece portrait; top corner chipped. Full crimson morocco, stamped in gilt, black morocco spine label; all edges trimmed; marbled endpapers; contemporary ownership signature on recto of frontispiece; frontispiece and title-page foxed; occasional light to moderate foxing to text.

Poe's most famous poem The Raven, which brought him immediate literary fame and made him a household name, is printed on pp. 143-145 in the February issue, signed under the pseudonym "Quarles." Heartman and Canny, in their Bibliography Of First Printings Of The Writings Of Edgar Allan Poe, consider this the first printed appearance of the work, maintaining that it precedes the January 29, 1845 appearance in The Evening Mirror. The publishers of this volume announced that "No. II will bear date Feb. 1845, but will be issued early in January," thus most likely preceding The Evening Mirror.

This volume contains other work by Poe, including the first printing of Some Words with a Mummy (p. 363), as well as Valley of Unrest (p. 392), and The City in the Sea (p. 393).