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The Raven Bride A Novel Lenore Hart Books

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The Raven Bride A Novel Lenore Hart Books

As someone who appreciated Edgar Allan Poe's stories from my first reading of them as a teen, I was intrigued by the premise of Lenore Hart's newest book, The Raven's Bride, a fictionalized account of the short life of Poe's young wife, Virginia "Sissy" Clemm.

I'd even heard Hart share vignettes from her book (a work-in-progress at that time) during faculty readings at Wilkes University's creative writing program, finding her scenes entertaining and memorable. Who wouldn't appreciate fly-on-the-wall glimpses into the master mind of the most haunting stories ever published: "The Tell Tale Heart," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Black Cat"? My only misgiving before reading the entire work was this: Could a story centering on Poe's wife--not the tormented artist himself--intrigue over the span of a full-length novel?

Unlike Becky, Hart's novel immediately preceding The Raven's Bride based on Mark Twain's fictional character Becky Thatcher, Hart had the added challenge of rendering an accurate accounting of a real person's life while telling a robust story from his wife's point-of-view.

Poe aficionados will be pleased to know that Hart remained scrupulously faithful to history's record of the lives of Edgar ("Eddy") and his wife "Sissy," including many of the expected milestones of Poe's writing life--the sales of his first and most well-known tales and poems; his relocations up and down the East Coast, to Richmond, Philadelphia, and New York; and even his reputed drinking binges, as he both chased and reclaimed a career in publishing until two years before his death.

Hart accomplished all this while crafting a story that surprised, entertained, and chilled, employing some of the conventions of Poe's own gothic tales. Yes, it is part ghost story that captures rather than strains the imagination. Wholly, it is a consummate love story that begs the reader to consider whether true love ends with death--or only begins there. Unrequited love at first, then romantic love, then tainted love.

But The Raven's Bride is is too intricately crafted to be just a love story. Poe and Virginia's love is too complex, tinged with sacrifice and slavish devotion, foreboding martyrdom and doom.

Virginia was only thirteen when Edgar proposed. She herself contributed no single work to the annals of American literature. She never worked--it wasn't seemly--she only sang and played pianoforte a little and therefore never contributed to their household income even though they nearly starved to death more than once. Considering all these variables, Virginia Clemm was still remarkable and worthy of Hart's novelization. Had Virginia Clemm not devoted her life to her cousin and husband "Eddy," he might have extinguished his own flame at even a younger age than he did, and the world wouldn't have the body of work that generations of readers have loved because it's always "been there." Some later writer would have had to invent the detective story because Poe wouldn't have been around to do it.

He was a tragic figure riddled with tragic flaws, who staved off death from alcoholism or suicide because of the abiding love of his adoring cousin, then spurred by a co-dependent (by today's standards), desperate need to keep her alive once it was clear that consumption would claim her life at a young age.

Here is a passage taken from the middle of the book, when Edgar takes Virginia on what he hoped was a pleasant outing, but they are caught in a rainstorm on the way back, which dangerously aggravates her consumption and nearly kills her. Eddy, stricken with guilt, goes on a two-day bender, before returning to her bedside, dirty, reeking of alcohol, and desolate:

He sank to his knees by the bed. "I couldn't bear to see you lying there, it was happening--you were dying again." He laid his forehead on my hand like a child. He was my child--the only one, I dimly understood by then, I would ever have. (p. 209)

As historical fiction, the overall plot of The Raven's Bride is readily accessible in any biographical blurb of Poe published in print or online. Since Hart is a master of her craft--storytelling, I don't want to spoil the unique literary experience for the reader she contrives to set up the book. Let me just say that this handling of the gray, misty world between life and death, Clemm's and Poe's, between heaven and hell that Hart wraps around the historical record, envelops the reader and doesn't let go until the last page and constitutes some of the most surprising and satisfying elements of The Raven's Bride.

I've read books where accomplished writers become so bogged down in their historical research that they lose the story. This is not that kind of book. Hart's research illuminates her characters and their plights and elevates the overall reading experience. The reader has a front row seat to many of Poe's literary triumphs and his most crushing defeats. It's the kind of book that makes you feel smarter while you're reading it, conjuring the feeling that you are have been initiated into a select or insider's group having read it--you now know more about Poe's life and times than lots of other people in the world.

Because they suffered so much privation, Poe and his child bride did not have a happy life. But Hart has given voice to many happy moments with such color and vivacity that you are buoyed along at times while still able to take measure of the downward spiral of their entwined lives.


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The Raven Bride A Novel Lenore Hart Books Reviews

Edgar Allen Poe is one of the few "classic" authors that people know and love even if they aren't book nerds like myself. The creepiness of his stories, the haunting feel of his characters, and the scandal that surrounded his personal life and death (hello, taboo marriage of a child relative, alleged drug addiction, and rabies theories!) just seems to make him stand out as different in a sea of classic literature that makes people cringe at anticipated boredom. Perhaps one of the most scandalous and curiosity-arousing biographical facts about him was his marriage to his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. No matter how many times I teach Poe, I just savor the moment when students first learn that he married a 13-year-old - who was also his cousin. Let the gagging and judging commence.

For decades, the mention of Virginia Clemm was practically a side note to the novel that is Poe's literary legend - she is thought to have inspired his writing and to have been the love of his life - but she was no more real to readers than a paper-doll, dressed and curled, pretty and voiceless.

Well, not anymore. In her new novel, The Raven's Bride (St. Martin's Press, 2011), Lenore Hart creates a fascinating, fully-fleshed out Virginia "Sissy" Clemm and actually blows full life into a character that has only ever been mentioned as a taboo reference to a great author.

The book begins the way I like a good story to start with dead ghost girls. Virginia "Sissy" Clemm is watching Edgar Allen Poe dying in a hospital bed. Right away, Hart covers the obvious spoiler - Virginia Clemm dies young. Rather than letting it linger as a known in an unknown narrative, Hart begins the story in a way that at once captivates the reader and acknowledges that yes, Poe's wife died young. But guess what she's there, as a ghost, on the night that he is dying, and Virginia Clemm's story only begins there.

Without telling too much (I have a horrible habit of blurting out all the goodies about books I loved), I will give away that readers will first see the grown Poe meet the rambunctious, adorable Sissy Clemm when she is 8 years old. From the moment we meet her at her mother's house in Baltimore, it is obvious that a silent, helpless, cardboard girl is nowhere to be found in this book. Hart so fully engages her in her own thoughts, plots, jealousies, plans, ambitions, and hobbies that something magical happens as the story progresses, you realize you are fully immersed in the story of an ambitious, charming, yet realistically flawed girl, and that the larger-than-life literary figure known as Poe is simply another supporting character.

One other mentionable about The Raven's Bride Hart's creativity and writing makes historical fiction feel fun, fresh, and interesting - not an easy task for readers who aren't automatically drawn to fiction based on real life people (done wrong, and they're a complete snooze-fest). The dialogue, the varied settings, the biographical tidbits woven in unobtrustively, and the wholeness of Sissy Clemm's character as a woman of her own accord creates a world that fully sucks you in. It's obvious that Hart did her homework to create such an authentic experience for her readers, but that isn't what makes this novel memorable and enjoyable it's Hart's carefully interwoven details that seamlessly blend the true with the imagined. If that's not perfect historical fiction as a genre, I don't know what is.
Unfortunately, this book draws too much from an obscure earlier book, "The Very Young Mrs. Poe" by Cothburn O'Neal (1956) to be comfortably considered an original work. The facts in that book were largely fabricated, and these historical errors are repeated in this book verbatim. The publisher apparently wants to cash in the renewed interest in Poe's life. But in this case, the editors didn't do their homework. Shame on all concerned.
I am surprised this book is still available to buy. Looking at the evidence found in the links in this Melville House post,

[...]

it is irrefutable that Lenore Hart's The Raven's Bride is a plagiarized rewrite of Cothburn O'Neal's The Very Young Mrs Poe, published in 1956. I can only assume that Hart thought the O'Neal book was sufficiently obscure that no one would notice she stole many of its words and ideas. Of course, Hart also added a word or two here and there to perhaps ward off copy and paste searches, but she still plagiarized enough of the O'Neal novel that her plan did not work, as you can easily see in the examples provided by Duns and Undine.

I know won't pull a book from it's site because of plagiarism, but St Martin's should certainly do so.
While I am happy to devour nearly any book that can feed my fascination with Poe, I heartily suggest that fellow Poe aficionados give this one a miss. It is very drab fair except for the delicious but familiar garnish of previous works.

For those who enjoy a biography that is researched instead of regurgitated, may I recommend O'Neal's excellent "The Very Young Mrs. Poe." I find it scans better when complete, not diced and then tossed into Hart's word salad.
As someone who appreciated Edgar Allan Poe's stories from my first reading of them as a teen, I was intrigued by the premise of Lenore Hart's newest book, The Raven's Bride, a fictionalized account of the short life of Poe's young wife, Virginia "Sissy" Clemm.

I'd even heard Hart share vignettes from her book (a work-in-progress at that time) during faculty readings at Wilkes University's creative writing program, finding her scenes entertaining and memorable. Who wouldn't appreciate fly-on-the-wall glimpses into the master mind of the most haunting stories ever published "The Tell Tale Heart," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Black Cat"? My only misgiving before reading the entire work was this Could a story centering on Poe's wife--not the tormented artist himself--intrigue over the span of a full-length novel?

Unlike Becky, Hart's novel immediately preceding The Raven's Bride based on Mark Twain's fictional character Becky Thatcher, Hart had the added challenge of rendering an accurate accounting of a real person's life while telling a robust story from his wife's point-of-view.

Poe aficionados will be pleased to know that Hart remained scrupulously faithful to history's record of the lives of Edgar ("Eddy") and his wife "Sissy," including many of the expected milestones of Poe's writing life--the sales of his first and most well-known tales and poems; his relocations up and down the East Coast, to Richmond, Philadelphia, and New York; and even his reputed drinking binges, as he both chased and reclaimed a career in publishing until two years before his death.

Hart accomplished all this while crafting a story that surprised, entertained, and chilled, employing some of the conventions of Poe's own gothic tales. Yes, it is part ghost story that captures rather than strains the imagination. Wholly, it is a consummate love story that begs the reader to consider whether true love ends with death--or only begins there. Unrequited love at first, then romantic love, then tainted love.

But The Raven's Bride is is too intricately crafted to be just a love story. Poe and Virginia's love is too complex, tinged with sacrifice and slavish devotion, foreboding martyrdom and doom.

Virginia was only thirteen when Edgar proposed. She herself contributed no single work to the annals of American literature. She never worked--it wasn't seemly--she only sang and played pianoforte a little and therefore never contributed to their household income even though they nearly starved to death more than once. Considering all these variables, Virginia Clemm was still remarkable and worthy of Hart's novelization. Had Virginia Clemm not devoted her life to her cousin and husband "Eddy," he might have extinguished his own flame at even a younger age than he did, and the world wouldn't have the body of work that generations of readers have loved because it's always "been there." Some later writer would have had to invent the detective story because Poe wouldn't have been around to do it.

He was a tragic figure riddled with tragic flaws, who staved off death from alcoholism or suicide because of the abiding love of his adoring cousin, then spurred by a co-dependent (by today's standards), desperate need to keep her alive once it was clear that consumption would claim her life at a young age.

Here is a passage taken from the middle of the book, when Edgar takes Virginia on what he hoped was a pleasant outing, but they are caught in a rainstorm on the way back, which dangerously aggravates her consumption and nearly kills her. Eddy, stricken with guilt, goes on a two-day bender, before returning to her bedside, dirty, reeking of alcohol, and desolate

He sank to his knees by the bed. "I couldn't bear to see you lying there, it was happening--you were dying again." He laid his forehead on my hand like a child. He was my child--the only one, I dimly understood by then, I would ever have. (p. 209)

As historical fiction, the overall plot of The Raven's Bride is readily accessible in any biographical blurb of Poe published in print or online. Since Hart is a master of her craft--storytelling, I don't want to spoil the unique literary experience for the reader she contrives to set up the book. Let me just say that this handling of the gray, misty world between life and death, Clemm's and Poe's, between heaven and hell that Hart wraps around the historical record, envelops the reader and doesn't let go until the last page and constitutes some of the most surprising and satisfying elements of The Raven's Bride.

I've read books where accomplished writers become so bogged down in their historical research that they lose the story. This is not that kind of book. Hart's research illuminates her characters and their plights and elevates the overall reading experience. The reader has a front row seat to many of Poe's literary triumphs and his most crushing defeats. It's the kind of book that makes you feel smarter while you're reading it, conjuring the feeling that you are have been initiated into a select or insider's group having read it--you now know more about Poe's life and times than lots of other people in the world.

Because they suffered so much privation, Poe and his child bride did not have a happy life. But Hart has given voice to many happy moments with such color and vivacity that you are buoyed along at times while still able to take measure of the downward spiral of their entwined lives.