An Embattled Poet, a Pilloried Bird: How Poe's "Raven" Became America's Most Famous Poem
Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters NHS, 105 Brattle St, Cambridge, MA
Admission: Free
Join us for this special book launch event with author Paul Lewis, on the 177th anniversary of the day Poe died in 1849. Copies of Quothing "The Raven": The First Responses to America's Most Famous Poem will be available for purchase and signing. What factors influenced the attention devoted to Poe's "Raven" from the very day when it was first published in 1845? Why was it widely reprinted, praised, criticized, and mocked during the following weeks and months? How has it sustained interest from that first publication through to the present? And how did Poe's "Little Longfellow War" and Bostonian parodies of "The Raven" figure in the rollicking rollout of America's most famous poem? Blurbs: " Paul Lewis's QUOTHING 'THE RAVEN' is a wonderful romp through the sea of parodies that proliferated in the wake of the publication of Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven' in 1845. Here we meet not the saintly, stately Raven of Poe's poem, but 'The Owl,' 'The Turkey,' 'The Gazelle,' and even 'The Bed Bug.' Gathering these parodies together for the first time, Lewis expertly guides readers through the chaotic world of Antebellum magazines and newspapers that Poe himself navigated. Lewis has written an…