"Richard Cory" is perhaps the best-known example of his respect for the inaccessible recesses of man’s inner being . . .

The first reference to Tilbury Town occurs in "John Evereldown," which appeared in The Torrent and the Night Before (1896), Robinson’s first volume of poetry. Here, simply a place, it has not yet acquired a dramatic role. In other poems of the same volume, however, the small-town community, though unnamed, does begin to assume such a role, as for instance in "Richard Cory," where the collective "we" speaks as a character.