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Also by Lenore Hart:

The Raven's Bride, February 2011
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The Raven's Bride
Lenore Hart

A Novel

St. Martin's Griffin
February 2011
On Sale: February 15, 2011
Featuring: Virginia "Sissy" Clemm; Edgar Allen Poe
368 pages
ISBN: 0312567235
EAN: 9780312567231
Trade Size
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Literature and Fiction

The Raven's Bride is a provacative novel that explores the curious and confounding relationship between Poe and his child bride, who was also his cousin, before her early death at age 25 of consumption. Sissy was the constant companion, critic, and friend of Poe, one of the most haunted and famous figures in American literature.

The Raven's Bride is a beautifully-written coming of age story, as Sissy grows from a young girl living in genteel poverty, through her adolescence, marriage, and young adulthood as Poe's wife. It's also a love story, showing the ups and downs of Sissy and Poe's tumultuous and complicated marriage.

Seeing Poe through Sissy's eyes offeres an intimate glimpse into both characters to create a narrative that Poe fans as well as lovers of literature and history will enjoy.

Comments

4 comments posted.

Re: The Raven's Bride

I really wish anyone who reads "Raven's Bride" would try to also read a 1956 novel by Cothburn O'Neal, "The Very Young Mrs. Poe." There are so many similarities between these two novels that I was really shocked. I don't know what the exact legal/technical definition of "plagiarism" might be, but...
(Elizabeth Henderson 8:13am February 28, 2011)

When a writer penetrates to the soul of the subject and recreates in imagination a whole piece of cloth, many wondrous things happen. In this case the source material was available to all and many similarities persist in any account of the life and times of Poe. Being in tune with the uni-verse is the mark of an artist. Ms. Henderson's remark is, besides, beside the point. Either the work works or not. Art exists to help us live our lives better through the imagination; it delights and elevates the soul.

Yours in the word,
Frank
(Frank Green 5:50pm February 28, 2011)

But Hart did not repeat the same factual "source material" used by O'Neal. She copied scenes and lines of dialogue that were simply invented by this previous novelist. That's a completely different matter.
(Elizabeth Henderson 7:59am March 4, 2011)

This book really deserves far more positive feedback than it has so far on this site, so I'd like to offer up a review I've posted on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

As a young reader, I just thought I should put in my two cents' worth on this novel. I'm 19 and a college freshman, and everywhere around me in popular culture and young adult literature are ridiculous excuses for literature like Twilight and its thousands of equally uninspired spinoffs. People think teenagers want to read vapid, plotless rags about pale angst-ridden psychopaths biting each other. Well, sorry -- that's not my style, or in fact the style of any of my friends. So I am overjoyed whenever I come across a book like this one which can attract and hold the attention of readers of any age and which contains not only realistic and dynamic characters, but also an engaging plot and setting and plenty of humanity. If stories of forbidden love and supernatural romance are what young adults want to read about, there are better alternatives than Twilight, et cetera! Hint hint.

After 19 years (more or less) of avid reading, I'm pretty selective and not fazed by much, but I found that every time I picked up this book, I ended up either laughing, crying, or practically yelling advice at the characters. I'd pick up the book in a public place and be discreetly wiping my eyes on my sleeves five minutes later. I sympathized wholeheartedly with Virginia and the terrible choice she had to make between maintaining love and experiencing certain things -- it's one I've already had to make a few times in my life, albeit not on as large a scale. I could also empathize with Eddie's crushing fear of losing his loved ones and his struggles as a creative person in a commercial world. And yet despite all the hardships endured by the characters, there are many moments of tranquility and happiness that make the reader feel that all their struggles were worthwhile. My friend walked into the room at one point and
(Elizabeth Reed 10:00pm March 13, 2011)