The Poe Project

How would you illustrate Edgar Allan Poe? If you are at all familiar with his work, doubtless some images popped up in your mind instantly: ravens, crypts and maidens. But that's the subject matter - i.e., the easy part. More difficult is the treatment of Poe's subjects: how to weight the romantic against the macabre, the surreal versus the lyrical.

I'm presently doing the illustrations for a book tentatively called Only the Lonely: Poems of Loss by E.A. Poe, a collection of 14 poems including "Annabel Lee" and "The Raven." I'm letting each poem dictate how long it "wants" to be, rather than allotting a set number of illustrations based on its length.

It takes a day or two to produce each illustration, and I'll post them as I go so you can read the poem and see how well my vision matches Poe's - and your own - starting with "Annabel Lee." Each poem gets a titlecard so that I can use InDesign to make an interactive table of contents for the ebook.

The look I've gone for is antique, romantic and timeless by setting it in an amorphous past in no particular country. Emphasizing wistful grief rather than hideous bodily decay. That's the plan, at least...