Gustave Doré Illustration From "The Raven" (New York: Harper Brothers, 1884) Gift of the Raven Society, Special Collections, U.Va. Library (PS2609 .A1 1884 c.1, c.2)

Doré (1832-1883) had already secured fame in Europe as an illustrator when he accepted his first and only American commission for “The Raven.”  His illustrations paradoxically downplay the presence of the raven, and instead emphasize “the enigma of death and the hallucination of an inconsolable soul.”