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    The Raven's Bride: A Novel
    The Raven's Bride: A Novel
    The Raven's Bride: A Novel
    Ebook397 pages6 hours

    The Raven's Bride: A Novel

    By Lenore Hart

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    When eight-year-old Virginia "Sissy" Clemm meets her handsome cousin, Eddy, she sees the perfect husband she's conjured up in childhood games. Thirteen years her elder, he's soft-spoken, brooding, and handsome. Eddy fails his way through West Point and the army yet each time he returns to Baltimore, their friendship grows. As Sissy trains for a musical career, her childhood crush turns to love. When she's thirteen, Eddy proposes. But as their happy life darkens, Sissy endures Poe's abrupt disappearances, self-destructive moods, and alcoholic binges. When she falls ill, his greatest fear– that he'll lose the woman he loves– drives him both madness, and to his greatest literary achievement.

    Part ghost story, part love story, this provocative novel explores the mysterious, shocking relationship between Edgar Allan Poe and young Sissy Clemm, his cousin, muse and great love. Lenore Hart, author of Becky, imagines the beating heart of the woman who inspired American literature's most demonized literary figure– and who ultimately destroyed him.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateFeb 15, 2011
    ISBN9781429994248
    The Raven's Bride: A Novel
    Author

    Lenore Hart

    Lenore Hart is the author of Ordinary Springs, Waterwoman, and other novels. Her work has been featured on Voice of America, in Poets & Writers Magazine, and on the PBS series Writer to Writer. She teaches creative writing at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania and Old Dominion University in Virginia. She lives on the Eastern Shore of Virginia with her husband, novelist David Poyer, and their daughter.

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    Reviews for The Raven's Bride

    3.5/5

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    • 3/5
      In general, I'm all in favor of the recent trend of writing biographical novels of famous men from the point of view of the women in their life.
      This one, about Edgar Allan Poe, narrated by his young bride, is interesting for its subject matter, but is not the most successful entry into the genre that I've read. This is, in part, because the narrator, Virginia, is simply not that interesting as a character. She starts out as an innocent young girl, and then proceeds to spend the bulk of the novel dying of consumption (TB).
      The author goes out of her way to link Poe's morbid writings to the fact that so many people around him suffered and dies from TB. She doesn't seem to understand (nor does her narrator) the appeal of the gothic in writing, or horror in general. While the book was worth reading for illuminating details of Poe's life, this lack made it somewhat of a disappointment.
    • 2/5
      Certainly not a bad book, but like the narrator describes on her death bed, it's a bit like someone's flipping the pages of a novel though her entire adult life. Every chapter is extremely repetitive. Poe sells a work, is happy. Poe has job, is miserable. Poe quits job, sells no more works, everyone starves. Lather, rinse, repeat. Sometimes they move to a new city to start the cycle over.

      The biggest problem with that cycle is it's in no way about Sissy. The book isn't about her, or her hopes and dreams. It's a checklist of events in Eddy's life, marked off as seen though his wife's eyes. In the end, she's just not a very realized character.

      *edit* Lowered the score to reflect the plagiarism controversy. I don't know if the author intentionally plagiarizer or not, but I do know that too many passages are similar to be coincidence.
    • 3/5
      This is a NOVEL about Virginia Poe, wife of Edgar Allan Poe. This book generated a little buzz when it was first published. I have had it on my TBR list for a little while. During October when I went in search of some "spooky" Halloween reads, I of course thought of Poe, and remembered this book. The first several chapters were a little boring. It wasn't until Virginia's mother finally consented to the official wedding ceremony that things got interesting. I felt so sorry for Virgina. She was more mature than her mother or husband, and was long suffering of them both. She had such a sad, unfulfilled life. She was a strong person in many ways, living in fear of her husband giving in to drink. She supported him when he changed jobs so often, and backed him up when her mother complained. But, she was just too compliant. She never really stood up for herself, and so I thought she was little dull. The author offers her own theories about the Poe's marriage, Edgar's scandals with other women, and his relationships with his various employers and other authors and poets. I don't know if I buy into this version of events, but we really don't know much about Virginia, so it's as good a guess as any. The book was very absorbing at times, other times I struggled to keep my eyes open and my mind focused on the page. There was a slight paranormal aspect at the beginning and end. I don't think the book lived up to the hype for me, but overall I would give it a solid C+ .
    • 4/5
      Edgar Allen Poe married his young first cousin, Virginia Clemm. This novel tells about this marriage from her perspective and describes her childhood. their first meeting, and their married life together. She died very young from TB at age 26, but not before Poe had written some of his greatest works. Very interesting novel about what married life and the creative process might have been like for the young couple. Wonderful descriptions of city like in Baltimore, New York, and Richmond. Heartbreaking poverty too.

    Book preview

    The Raven's Bride - Lenore Hart

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