The Raven

Praise for Penguin Horror Classics:

“The new Penguin Horror editions, selected by Guillermo del Toro, feature some of the best art-direction (by Paul Buckley) I’ve seen in a cover in quite some time.” – Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

“Each cover does a pretty spectacular job of evoking the mood of the title in bold, screenprint-style iconography.” – Dan Solomon, Fast Company

Edgar Allan Poe

Born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Edgar Allan Poe was the son of impoverished actors. Orphaned at a young age, he was taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, Virginia. After a falling-out with his foster father in 1827, Poe moved to Boston and published his first book of poetry, Tamerlane and Other Poems. He went on to publish two more poetry collections and began writing short stories and reviews, eventually securing an editorial position at the Southern Literary Messenger in 1835.

Poe married his thirteen-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm, in 1836. Around this time, he began working on his novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, with early chapters appearing in the Messenger in 1837. After losing his job, Poe moved to New York City, where he completed Pym, published in 1838. He then moved to Philadelphia, editing two periodicals and publishing the short story collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840), along with other notable stories like “The Gold Bug” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”

Despite his wife’s battle with tuberculosis, Poe returned to New York in 1844 and achieved peak fame with the publication of “The Raven” in 1845. That same year, his collection Tales and The Raven and Other Poems was released, but Poe’s drinking contributed to the failure of his weekly publication, the Broadway Journal. He settled in Fordham, continuing to write and care for Virginia, who died in January 1847. In his final years, Poe penned some of his most celebrated poems, including “The Bells,” “Eldorado,” and “Annabel Lee.” Edgar Allan Poe died in Baltimore on October 7, 1849.

Guillermo del Toro

Guillermo del Toro is a Mexican director, producer, screenwriter, novelist, and designer. He cofounded the Guadalajara International Film Festival and established his own production company, the Tequila Gang. He is widely recognized for his Academy Award-winning film Pan’s Labyrinth and the Hellboy film franchise. Del Toro has received Nebula and Hugo awards, was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award, and is a dedicated collector and scholar of arcane memorabilia and weird fiction.

S. T. Joshi

S. T. Joshi is a freelance writer and editor. He has edited Penguin Classics editions of H. P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories and The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories, as well as Algernon Blackwood’s Ancient Sorceries and Other Strange Stories. His critical and biographical works include The Weird Tale, Lord Dunsany: Master of the Anglo-Irish Imagination, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, and The Modern Weird Tale. Joshi has also edited works by Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Machen, and H. L. Mencken, and is currently compiling a three-volume Encyclopedia of Supernatural Literature.

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