How “The Raven” Became America’s Most Famous Poem

Join The Longfellow House 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?