Complete Poems

About this book

Although best known for his tales Edgar Allan Poe himself thirsted for fame primarily as a poet. This volume assembled by the eminent Poe scholar Thomas Ollive Mabbott is the single most authoritative edition of Poes poems ever published: 101 poems and their variants including such gems as "The Raven " "The Bells " and "Annabel Lee " as well as previously uncollected poems fragments verses he published in reviews he wrote and poems attributed to him. In this exhaustive collection Mabbott takes a fresh look at these texts aiming "to present what Poe wrote to explain why he wrote it to tell what he meant when he wrote it (if that be in any way obscure) and to give a history of its publication." Containing the definitive poems as well as pertinent biographical background full annotations and a meticulous enumeration of successive texts and variants Mabbotts edition stands as a firm foundation for Poe scholarship as well as for more general appreciation.