The Raven

Edgar Allan Poe was the absolute master of spooky stories and poems, and "The Raven," published in 1845, is probably his most famous and popular work. This poem shares a lot of features with his other works, which are often about lonely, depressed men who have lost women who are important to them. His poems almost always feature strange events and cold, dark, creepy landscapes. This particular poem, though, has captivated people's interest ever since it was published. "The Raven" saw immediate success in Poe's lifetime, and has had fans all over the world ever since.

So, we know this poem is famous and important and everything, but more than that, we think it's just a lot of fun. It's spooky and a little spine-tingling, like a good horror movie. It's fun to read – we almost can't stop ourselves from reciting it out loud. We recommend you try it and see how satisfying these lines are when they roll off the tongue.

Poe really knows how to create a mood, to make his reader feel the shadows, the creepy noises in the room, the croak of the bird. This is a poem that pulls you into a moment. Like anything that scares you in a fun way, this is all about making you feel like you are experiencing the story while you read it.

It's kind of cool to think that people have been excited by stories like this for hundreds of years. Folks in the 19th century read Poe for the same reasons we read Stephen King: that creepy thrill in reading about scary things happening to other people. When you read a story about someone slowly losing his mind, you might be horrified, but it's also pretty hard to put it down. So, we don't think you'll be able to resist Poe.