Christabel and Kubla Khan

An old sailor stops a wedding guest to tell how killing an albatross brought a curse of thirst, death, and ghostly crewmen. Coleridge's 1798 ballad is the great supernatural poem of English Romanticism.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

A guilt-ridden nobleman summons spirits in his Alpine castle, seeking oblivion for a forbidden past. Byron's 1817 dramatic poem defined the brooding Byronic hero of gothic literature.

Lord Byron

Keats's 1820 collection, with the serpent-woman Lamia, the severed head of Isabella, and the moonlit castle of The Eve of St. Agnes. Includes the great odes and an introduction with notes.

John Keats

On a bleak December midnight, a grieving student is visited by a raven that answers every question with one word: Nevermore. Published in 1845, it is the most famous gothic poem in English.

Edgar Allan Poe

Poe's last complete poem (1849) mourns a young bride taken by a chilling wind, and a love that refuses to stay buried. A haunting ballad of death and devotion beside the sea.

Edgar Allan Poe