In New York Poe entered upon a new sort of life.  Heretofore, from the Commencement of his literary career, he had resided in provincial towns.  Now he was in a metropolis, and with a reputation which might have served as a passport to any society he might desire.  For the first time he was received into circles capable of both the appreciation and the production of literature.  He added to his fame soon after he came to the city by the publication of that remarkable composition “The Raven,” of which Mr. Willis has observed that in his opinion “it is the most effective single example of fugitive poetry ever published in this country, and is unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification, and consistent sustaining of imaginative lift;” and by that of one of the most extraordinary instances of the naturalness of detail—–­the verisimilitude of minute narrative—­for which lie was preeminently distinguished, his “Mesmeric Revelation,” purporting to be the last conversation of a somnambule, held with his magnetizer just before his death, which was followed by the yet more striking exhibition of abilities in the same way, entitled “The Facts in the case of M. Vaklemar,” in which the subject is represented as having been mesmerized in articulo mortis.  These pieces were reprinted throughout the literary and philosophical world, in nearly all languages, everywhere causing sharp and curious speculation, and where readers could be persuaded that they were fables, challenging a reluctant but genuine admiration.

He had not been long in New York before he was engaged by Mr. Willis and General Morris as a critic and assistant editor of The Mirror.  He remained in this situation about six months, when he became associated with Mr. Briggs in the conduct of The Broadway Journal, which, in October 1845, passed entirely into his possession.  He had now the long sought but never before enjoyed absolute control of a literary gazette, and, with much friendly assistance, he maintained it long enough to show, that whatever his genius, he had not the kind or degree of talent necessary to such a position.  His chief critical writing in The Broadway Journal, were a paper on Miss Barrett’s Poems, and a long discussion of the subject of plagiarism, with especial reference to Mr. Longfellow.  In March, 1845, he had given a lecture at the Society Library upon the American poets, composed, for the most part, of fragments of his previously published reviewals; and in the autumn he accepted an invitation to read a poem before the Boston Lyceum.  A week after the event, he printed in The Broadway Journal the following account of it, in reply to a paragraph in one of the city papers, founded upon a statement in the Boston Transcript.