Stephen Moss, "Ten Birds That Changed the World" has Raven at number one and Emperor Penguin at number ten.
Moss writes about Raven's relationship with Poe:
“…‘Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore”.’ The line comes from one of
the best-known of all narrative poems, ‘The Raven’, written by the
nineteenth-century American writer, Edgar Allan Poe.48 Published in January
1845, less than five years before Poe died, it is a masterpiece of Gothic
literature, whose popularity, even almost 200 years after it was published, has
yet to wane; it features in almost every online list of the top ten poems of
all time.
With a curiously jaunty, yet strangely ominous, rhythm, ‘The
Raven’ tells the story of a man who awakens ‘upon a midnight dreary’ to hear a
tapping on his door. The visitor turns out to be a raven which, once it has
been let into the room, will utter but a single word: ‘Nevermore’. The largely
one-sided dialogue between man and bird continues, with the man getting
increasingly angry and disturbed, as he realises that the raven’s constant
repetition of the word reminds him of the loss of his lover, Lenore. Gradually
he descends into madness, for which he blames the ‘grim, ungainly, ghastly,
gaunt and ominous’ bird…”
artist: Charlie Hankin, 2023
