with the poem's theme of a self-conscious dramatization of doom, similar to Poe's "The Sleeper" and "The Valley of Unrest." Inspiration Poe was inspired at least in part by Flavius Josephus's History of the Jewish Wars, a first-century account of the Biblical city of Gomorrah. The poem also bears a resemblance to Lucretius's classical poem "De Rerum Natura" and, specifically, an English translation by John Mason Good. Thirty-five of eighty-five consecutive lines parallel the work. Poe's last version of the poem may also reference Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene with the term "proud tower". The mood and style of the poem also seem to echo "Kubla Khan", a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, known to be a heavy influence on Poe's poetry. Publication history An early version of the poem, titled "The Doomed City", appeared in Poe's 1831 collection simply called Poems. It was reworked, as many of Poe's works, and published in the Southern Literary Messenger in August 1836 as "The City of Sin". It was first printed under the title "The City in the Sea" in the April 1845 issue of the American Review. The poem also appeared in the Broadway Journal, in the August 30, 1845 issue. It was included by Rufus Wilmot Griswold in the tenth edition of The Poets and Poetry of America in 1850, the year after Poe's death, as an example of Poe's best poetry. Critical reception Poe was accused of plagiarizing part of the poem from a poem called "Musing Thoughts", first published in 1829 in The Token. Both poems include a line about a "thousand thrones". Even so, it is considered one of his best poems from his early years. Adaptations and influence The Proud Tower by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Barbara Wertheim Tuchman, subtitled "A portrait of the world before the War: 1890-1914", New York: Macmillan, 1966, derives its title and contains an epigraph from Edgar Allan Poe's 1845 version of the poem "The City in the Sea". A performed version of the poem was included on the 1997 album Closed on Account of Rabies, though the name of the poem was given as "The City and the Sea". Basil Rathbone narrated the story in the Caedmon audio collection Edgar Allan Poe: The Edgar Allan Poe Audio Collection, Caedmon Records – CD 4148(5), released on CD in 2000. The German metal band The Ocean used "The City in the Sea" as