This large sheet is the preparatory drawing for one of the twenty-six wood engravings illustrating
the 1883 edition of The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). The publication was agreed in December
1882. Doré’s drawings were delivered only a month later, but the artist, who died on 19th January 1883,
never saw the project completed.

Poe first published this narrative poem in 1845; it became one of the author’s most famous works.
On a dark and cold winter night, as the narrator tries to read and distract himself from the death of his
beloved Lenore, he falls asleep. Soon he is visited in his dream by a majestic raven who drives the sad
lover through regret and mourning.

The poem was translated from the original English by Charles Baudelaire in 1853, as Le Corbeau,
and again by Stéphane Mallarmé in 1872. It is however on the original text that Doré based his
illustrations for the 1883-84 edition, which was simultaneously published in London by Sampson & Low,
and in New York by Harper & Brothers.

In her biography of the artist from 1887, Blanche Roosevelt gives an emphatic description of
Doré’s illustrations: ‘The poet’s luxurious feeling of melancholy resonated with the saddened imagination
of Doré, who poignantly rendered the indescribable sadness of this dark idyll’.
This project greatly contributed to the fame of Doré in America, and from its first publication
the book received praise from literary critics: ‘Plainly there was something in common between the
working moods of Poe and Doré […]. Both resorted often to the elf-land of fantasy and romance.
In melodramatic feats they both, through their command of the supernatural, avoided the danger-line
between the ideal and the absurd. […]. Poet or artist, Death at last transfigures all.’

Six further preparatory drawings for The Raven are known:
‘On this home by Horror haunted’, sold Sotheby’s, New York, 1st November 1995, lot 73 (current
location unknown);
‘Ananké‘ at the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg;
‘For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore –/ nameless here for evermore’ ,
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa;
‘Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door‘, private collection
‘Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before’, acquired by Musée d´Orsay at
Christie’s, Paris, 22nd March 2023
'...here I opened wide the door; Darkness there and nothing more...':, Christie's, London, 16 October 2025, Lot 303, £69,850