before relapsing into apparent death. As he attempts resuscitation, the revivals become progressively stronger, but the relapses more final. As dawn breaks, and the narrator is sitting emotionally exhausted from the night's struggle, the shrouded body revives once more, stands and walks into the middle of the room. When he touches the figure, its head bandages fall away to reveal masses of raven hair and dark eyes: Rowena has transformed into Ligeia. Publication history "Ligeia" was first published in the September 18, 1838, edition of the American Museum, a magazine edited by two of Poe's friends, Dr. Nathan C. Brooks and Dr. Joseph E. Snodgrass. The magazine paid Poe $10 for "Ligeia". The story was extensively revised throughout its publication history. It was reprinted in Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840), the one volume of Phantasy Pieces (1842), and Tales by Edgar Allan Poe (1845), the New World (February 15, 1845), and the Broadway Journal (September 27, 1845). The poem "The Conqueror Worm" was first incorporated into the text (as a poem composed by Ligeia) in the New World. Critical reception Charles Eames of The New World commented: "The force and boldness of the conception and the high artistic skill, with which the writer's purpose is wrought out, are equally admirable". Thomas Dunn English, writing in the October 1845 Aristidean, said that "Ligeia" was "the most extraordinary, of its kind, of his productions". Critic and playwright George Bernard Shaw said, "The story of the Lady Ligeia is not merely one of the wonders of literature: it is unparalleled and unapproached". Analysis The narrator relies on Ligeia as if he were a child, looking on her with "child-like confidence". On her death, he is "a child groping benighted" with "childlike perversity". Poe biographer Kenneth Silverman notes that, despite this dependency on her, the narrator has a simultaneous desire to forget her, perhaps causing him to be unable to love Rowena. This desire to forget is exemplified in his inability to recall Ligeia's last name. The story tells us however that the narrator never knew her last name at all. Ligeia, the narrator tells us, is extremely intelligent, "such as I have never known in a woman". Most importantly, she served as the narrator's teacher in "metaphysical investigation", passing on "wisdom too divinely precious not to be forbidden!" So, her knowledge in mysticism, combined with an intense desire for life may