Romanticism / Romantic Period

William Blake’s poem “The Chimney Sweeper” was first published in his poetry collection Songs of Innocence (1789) and then republished in the expanded Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794). The latter collection includes another poem of the same title, which complements the first poem and clarifies Blake’s intention. All poems in the collection are short and deceivingly simple in form, borrowing from and building on the conventions of 18th-century poetry for children, designed to... Read The Chimney Sweeper Summary

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American author Edgar Allan Poe wrote the Gothic short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” in 1839. It first appeared in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and later in Poe’s collection of short stories Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1840. Poe is considered a founding figure of US Gothic and Romantic literature. He is best known for his poetry, including "The Raven" (1845) and "Annabel Lee" (1849), and short stories such as "The... Read The Fall of the House of Usher Summary

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The Man Who Was Poe is a young adult historical fiction novel published in 1989 by Edward Irving Wortis, an award-winning American author who writes under the pen name “Avi.” Set in Providence, Rhode Island in 1848, the story is about the unlikely partnership between Edgar Allan Poe and an 11-year-old London boy named Edmund. The book sources many facts from Poe’s life and works and emulates Poe’s own Gothic style of literature. Edmund turns... Read The Man Who Was Poe Summary

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“The Minister’s Black Veil,” by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, was first published anonymously in 1836. Hawthorne, author of the novel The Scarlet Letter, is known for exploring Puritanism in his works, which typically are set in New England. Hawthorne himself was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and was descended from John Hathorne, one of the judges in the Salem witch trials. Embarrassed by his ancestor’s role in the trials, Nathaniel Hawthorne added a “w” to his... Read The Minister's Black Veil Summary

Written when he was just 19 (and, the author claimed, in only 10 weeks), Matthew Lewis’s The Monk: A Romance proved spectacularly popular with readers upon its first publication in 1796. At the same time, this Gothic tale of religious hypocrisy, sexual depravity, and supernatural visitations was roundly condemned as immoral; critics and readers alike were shocked by the novel’s explicit depictions of violence and sexuality. Lewis published four further editions of the novel in... Read The Monk Summary

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“The Pit and the Pendulum,” Edgar Allan Poe’s agonizing tale of terror and suspense, was first published in 1842. One of Poe’s many horror stories, “The Pit and the Pendulum” became famous for its depiction of pure dread. This guide refers to the 1992 Modern Library edition of Poe’s Collected Tales and Poems.The story begins with shocking suddenness: “I was sick—sick unto death with that long agony” (246). The narrator, we soon discover, is a... Read The Pit and the Pendulum Summary

The Scarlet Letter is an 1850 novel by writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. The work, Hawthorne’s first full-length novel, is a classic of the American Romantic era. More specifically, its treatment of topics like sin, insanity, and the occult make it a work of Dark Romanticism—a movement related to the Gothic genre that includes works by Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville. The Scarlet Letter is also a piece of historical fiction; it is set in the... Read The Scarlet Letter Summary

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The Sorrows of Young Werther (in German, Die Leiden des jungen Werthers), written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, is a semi-autobiographical epistolary novel published in 1774. The story unfolds through a series of letters penned by the eponymous protagonist, Werther, and mainly chronicles his experiences in the small town of Wahlheim. Werther, a sensitive and idealistic young man, arrives in the town and becomes enamored with Lotte, a local magistrate’s daughter. His unrequited love becomes... Read The Sorrows of Young Werther Summary

“The Tell-Tale Heart” is one of Edgar Allan Poe’s best-known short stories, first published in The Pioneer in January 1843. It is a work of Gothic horror written from the first-person point of view; like other Poe stories that employ the same narrative style (e.g., "The Black Cat," also published in 1843, or "Berenice," published in 1835), "The Tell-Tale Heart" uses an unreliable narrator to explore obsession, guilt, violence, and the supernatural. It has been... Read The Tell-Tale Heart Summary