The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

The following list contains at least one entry for all 97 of what may properly be designated as Poe’s poetry. A few entries exist for items without any surviving text, but are included for the sake of completeness. Also, because Poe often revised his work, sometimes quite heavily, the same poem might have been printed under more than one title. In the case of multiple titles, all of the titles have been listed, with an indication of the later name. (See, for example, “To Elizabeth.”) A few poems share similar titles, such as “To Helen” — for these poems, the first line has been provided to allow for distinguishing one poem from the other. In addition to these items that are assigned to Poe’s pen with confidence, one or two doubtful items have been included because they were at one point suggested by a credible authority as possibly having been by Poe. (In the list below, they are noted as “doubtful.”) Also included is Poe’s only play, “Politian,” which is written in a verse form. Although Poe himself considered Eureka to be “a prose poem,” for this website it has been placed in what seems to be the more suitable category of an essay. Readers should also be advised to see several of Poe’s essays on poetry, including “The Philosophy of Composition” and “The Poetic Principle.” Information on a number of German translations has been graciously provided by Roger Forclaz.

During his lifetime, Poe published four collections of his poetry. A posthumous collection, edited by Rufus Wilmot Griswold, incorporates some additional manuscript changes, although Griswold did not have access to a few other important corrections and is therefore less than definitive. These collections are listed chronologically. Poe also sent Griswold revised versions of several poems for his important anthology of American poetry, which ran through many editions. Within each of the following items, there is descriptive information as well as a list of poems which links to the appropriate text.

These items are arranged alphabetically by the name of the poem. Within each name, the items are listed chronologically. A few poems were published by Poe under more than one name, or under a name assigned by later editors. These poems are listed under the name most commonly used.