POE, Edgar Allan "The Bells" [John C. Winston, 1881]

POE, Edgar Allan. The Bells.

Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 1881. 8"x 6.5", unpaginated with 22 illustrations (one per facing page of the poem + illustrated half title, headpiece, and vignette). Quarter blue cloth with pictorial paper overlay featuring holy leaf design. Stray mark down right side of front board, as pictured, and several small splotches on rear. Rear board corners well rubbed. Hinges tight and textblock clean. Very Good.

The Bells is a poem that explores the different sounds and moods of bells, moving from light and joyful tones to dark and foreboding ones. Each stanza is built around a type of bell—silver, golden, brazen, and iron—mirroring stages of life from youth and celebration to alarm and death. Its repetition, rhythm, and onomatopoeia make the poem both musical and haunting, one of Poe’s most striking studies of sound.