Maurice Sagoff •
ShrinkLits •

If you’re lucky enough to find a copy of this book, you might want to buy two. Your own is likely to disappear as soon as one of your friends opens it.

ShrinkLits, as the name implies, are brief summaries of the world’s literary masterpieces . . . written in rhyming couplets. Here, in its entirety, is Sagoff’s inspired rendering of “The Raven,” by Edgar Allan Poe.

Raven lurches
In, perches
Over door.
Poet’s bleary
Query—
“Where’s Lenore?”
Creepy bird
Knows one word:
“Nevermore.”

Enough said.