Poe / Literature / The historical record
Literature leaves a trace.
We follow it.
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Poe. Print. Cultural memory.
An independent literary publication.
An engraving-style editorial illustration of a nineteenth-century printing workshop

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.

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Contemporary editorial illustration

On the page. In the ear.

Two ways into Poe's world

The image and the imagination

Printed, pictured, collected
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Follow the story back to the page.

Original documents, close readings and the objects that carry literature into the world.

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14 articles
Graham’s American Monthly Magazine — April 1846 Issue

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

Edgar Allan Poe – The Raven 7″ Vinyl Gatefold

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

The Raven — Animated Gothic Illustration

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

19th-Century Printing Press Used in Newspaper Production

People

Willis remembers Poe

An 1858 newspaper account offers a later perspective on Poe and the people who wrote about him.

Published

Letter from Nathaniel Parker Willis to Edgar Allan Poe — Page 1 (November 13, 1841)

People

A letter from Willis to Poe

Read the correspondence dated November 13, 1841, alongside the manuscript pages and their context.

Published