Critical Companion to Edgar Allan Poe : a Literary Reference to His

CRITICAL COMPANION TO

Edgar Allan Poe

A Literary Reference to His Life and Work

DAWN B. SOVA

i-viii_Poe-fm.indd i 10/12/07 11:48:03 AM Critical Companion to Edgar Allan Poe

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Sova, Dawn B. Critical companion to Edgar Allan Poe: a literary reference to his life and work / Dawn B. Sova. p. cm. Rev. ed. of: Edgar Allan Poe, A to Z. c2001. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-8160-6408-3 (acid-free paper) 1. Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809–1849—Encyclopedias. 2. Authors, American— 19th century—Biography—Encyclopedias. I. Sova, Dawn B. Edgar Allan Poe, A to Z. II. Title. PS2630.S68 2007 818′.309—dc22 2006029466

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i-viii_Poe-fm.indd ii 10/12/07 11:48:03 AM CONTENTS

Acknowledgments v Introduction vii Part I: Biography 1 Part II: Works A to Z 13 Part III: Related Entries 285 Part IV: Appendices 405 Edgar Allan Poe: A Time Line 407 Chronology of Poe’s Works 410 Poe Research Collections 428 Selected Bibliography 430

Index 443

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o examine comprehensively the life and works charged with bringing it to fruition in its new incar- Tof an author such as Edgar Allan Poe requires nation, has shown admirable grace and tenacity tenacity on the part of the writer and tolerance in assisting me to produce a comprehensive and on the part of her friends, family, and colleagues. valuable work of which we can both feel proud. I In revising Edgar Allan Poe, A to Z, I have tried very much appreciate his professional insight, his to exhibit the necessary tenacity as one source willingness to work with me, and his insight-filled after another led to a dead end, while other unex- suggestions as the work progressed. Having worked pected sources emerged unannounced. I gratefully with Jeff on previous books, I expected no less than acknowledge that those personally closest to me, as the best editorial direction, which I received on well as professional contacts whose names appear this work as well. here or whose names are omitted by their choice, I. Macarthur Nickles, director of the Garfield have shown a remarkable tolerance over the years [New Jersey] Public Library, has made me view during which this guide acquired form and moved every new book project as a cause for celebration toward completion. Unlike my subject, who sur- because each brings a renewed opportunity to enjoy vived many of his 40 years with feelings of loss, the continuing innovation he has brought to my abandonment, and personal as well as professional hometown library. His professional expertise, his frustration generated by others, I have enjoyed knowledge of people and resources, his understand- willing assistance and personal support, for which ing of the multitude of possibilities in research, and I am grateful. his graciousness in sharing that knowledge have Bert Holtje of James Peter Associates, Inc., is been invaluable in this and other projects. Kath- a remarkable individual who was both my literary leen Zalenski, reference librarian, provided me with agent and the caring voice of reason upon whom I a steady stream of materials for the project, some of relied. I appreciated his confidence in my dedica- which I thought might be impossible to obtain, and tion to the initial project and his support, despite I thank her for her efforts. difficulties that threatened to derail my progress. Robert Gregor, whose professional world is one Although he is now retired, he inspired me in of Web-based researching and information tech- making the necessary changes that have made an nology, provided valuable technical and resources already great book better. I am also heartily grate- management assistance that enabled me to harness ful for his extensive knowledge of many subjects, the power of my computer and my time. For his which made his problem-solving efforts that much patience and expertise I am grateful. more meaningful. My appreciation also goes to the University of Jeff Soloway, my editor at Facts On File, Inc., Virginia libraries and special collections; the Edgar who inherited this project already formed and was Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, Maryland; the

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Edgar Allan Poe Library of Richmond, Virginia; Last and most important are the debts that the library of Montclair State University, New Jer- I owe to my family, especially my parents: my sey; and the people who have dedicated them- mother, Violet Sova, and my late father, Emil J. selves to maintaining sites both large and small Sova, who instilled in me a love of learning and dedicated to Poe. the desire to know.

i-viii_Poe-fm.indd vi 10/12/07 11:48:03 AM INTRODUCTION

he contemporary popularity of Edgar Allan never met him but admired his work. He had the TPoe relies on only a few of his works. The boldness, critical status, and credibility to attack in larger part of his extensive writings are unknown print the works of other writers who enjoyed strong to all but a small number of readers and schol- reputations. Such critical assessments appeared in ars. Poems such as “The Raven,” “The Bells,” and leading literary and popular periodicals of the time, “Annabel Lee,” and short stories such as “The as did his stories and poems. Black Cat,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Pit A large body of Poe’s work is no longer in print, and the Pendulum,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” leaving only the well-known and frequently cre- remain extremely influential today and have even atively recycled stories and poems to perpetuate his provided source material for television dramas and fame. Most libraries long ago cleared their shelves comedies—some with a nod to the author, but more of his literary criticism and decimated sets of his often not. Everyone recognizes the plot or certain collected works, retaining the best-known tales and famous lines, but few know the full range and the poems and winnowing out the rest. The reasons innovations of Poe’s work in science fiction, liter- for such decisions are varied, but most have to do ary criticism and theory, and philosophy. Even the with the low regard in which Poe was held during most familiar works are often insufficiently under- the first half of the 20th century. As biographers stood. Critical Companion to Edgar Allan Poe seeks who have taken the time to consult the correspon- to fill that void by providing comprehensive entries dence, journals, and criticism of Poe’s day have on Poe’s life and writings. found, his loss of status was largely undeserved Readers whose knowledge of Poe is limited to and easily traced to the successful efforts of Rufus short stories and poems included in high school Wilmot Griswold at defaming Poe’s character. Gris- anthologies or college textbooks might be amazed wold, nominally a friend, claimed after Poe’s death to learn that Poe published more than 350 stories, that he had been designated the author’s literary poems, essays, and critical articles under his own executor. He manipulated Poe’s mother-in-law, name and is the likely author of many additional Maria Clemm, into supporting his handling of Poe’s anonymous works. He popularized the American writings and went on to destroy Poe’s character. On short story, and he is credited with inventing the October 9, 1849, Griswold avenged an old grudge modern detective story, featuring an investigator against Poe by publishing a defamatory obituary— who uses reasoning instead of legwork to solve to which Griswold signed the name “Ludwig”—that crimes. Poe also served as editor of several peri- cast aspersions on Poe’s moral character. Griswold odicals. His correspondence with the other lead- suggested that the excesses of Poe’s fiction were ing writers of his day was extensive, and he was renderings of Poe’s own experiences and life. While praised in print by many other literary figures who many of Poe’s contemporaries tried to correct this

vii

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image by publishing defenses of Poe in the decades betical listing of Poe’s works, fictional characters, that followed, Griswold’s charges remained in the relevant people, places, and topics, this volume is public mind for many years. divided into four parts. Critical Companion to Edgar Allan Poe is a com- Part I contains a biography of Poe. Part II is prehensive examination of Poe’s writings that divided into two sections: The first provides entries presents a complete portrait of a complicated and for each of Poe’s published poems and works of fic- brilliant thinker and writer. Other studies have tion, in alphabetical order; the second provides examined all of the known stories or some of the entries for each of his published essays and reviews. best-known poems, and a few have identified and Every one of Poe’s more than 350 publications is discussed several of the essays that gained promi- covered. Entries on fictional works contain sub- nence, such as “A Rationale of Verse,” “Eureka,” entries on major characters in the work. Entries or “The Poetic Principle.” No single work, how- on major fictional works and poems contain sec- ever, has covered all of these works in critical detail tions providing expanded critical commentary on along with Poe’s extensive literary criticism. the works. Part III of the book contains entries on important people in Poe’s life (such as his cousin About This Book and wife, Virginia), influences on his writing (such Critical Companion to Edgar Allan Poe is a compre- as Charles Dickens), publications he wrote for (such hensive guide to Poe’s life and work. It is designed as Graham’s Magazine), places (such as Baltimore, to be useful both for those readers who know Poe Maryland), topics (such as “detective story” and well and for those coming to Poe for the first time. “mesmerism”), and more. Part IV contains the fol- Readers of Edgar Allan Poe A to Z, upon which lowing appendices: a time line of Poe’s life, a list this critical companion is based, will find this vol- of his works in chronological order, a list of major ume different in important ways. The first differ- research collections, and a bibliography of second- ence is that this volume contains new commentary ary sources. sections analyzing Poe’s major tales and poems and Any reference to a person, place, thing, or topic expanded sections on important characters in the that is the subject of an entry in Part II or Part tales. It also contains more than 20 additional new III is printed in SMALL CAPITAL LETTERS the first illustrations. The second and most obvious differ- time it appears in an entry, in order to indicate a ence is that rather than featuring a single, alpha- cross-reference.

i-viii_Poe-fm.indd viii 10/12/07 11:48:03 AM PART I

Biography

001-012_Poe-p1.indd 1 10/12/07 11:52:37 AM 001-012_Poe-p1.indd 2 10/12/07 11:52:37 AM Biography 3 Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)

An American writer and critic who is credited with refining the short story form and inventing the modern detective story, Poe has been denied the full respect due his accomplishments. The details of his life, rife with reports of gambling, drinking, addiction to opiates, and other profligate behavior, combined with his marriage to a 13-year-old cousin, have overshadowed his achievements, which include the publication of more than 350 poems, short stories, and critical reviews and essays, and his influence in creating a uniquely American form of literature, as well as his continuing influence on contemporary literature and culture. Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in a boardinghouse on Carver Street, in Boston, near the Boston Common, while his actor parents, ELIZA- BETH ARNOLD HOPKINS POE (1787–1811) and DAVID POE, JR. (1784–1811?), were on tour. His elder brother, WILLIAM HENRY LEONARD POE (1807–1831), was also born in Boston, but his sis- Edgar Allan Poe, circa 1848 (Courtesy of Edgar Allan Poe OSALIE OE ter R P (1810–1874) was born in Rich- Society) mond, Virginia. Edgar’s father had been studying to be a lawyer but abandoned that career when he joined an acting troupe and married Elizabeth were with her as she died and were found huddling Arnold Hopkins, who had been widowed less than close to their dead mother. a year before. Edgar’s paternal grandfather, DAVID After experiencing the trauma of their mother’s POE, SR. (1742–1816), was a prominent member of death, the children were further traumatized when Richmond society, a distinguished veteran of the they were separated and sent to live with different American Revolution, and the former deputy quar- families. William Henry Leonard was sent to Balti- termaster of Baltimore, as well as a wealthy man, more to live with the paternal grandparents, then but he disowned his son when David, Jr. aban- after their death lived with his late father’s sister doned law for the stage. David Poe’s lack of acting MARIA POE CLEMM (1790–1871). As an adult, Wil- talent and critics’ harsh reviews led to his lack of liam Henry journeyed to the Near East, the West popularity onstage, and his heavy drinking and vio- Indies, Montevideo, the Mediterranean, and Rus- lent temper made him a poor bet as a wage earner. sia during the late 1820s as a crewman aboard the After he deserted his wife and three children in July American frigate Macedonian; his accounts of his 1811, leaving them impoverished, Edgar’s mother adventures were listened to eagerly by Edgar, who struggled to feed her children by continuing to take later claimed some of William Henry’s adventures any stage roles she was offered, although she was for his own, hinting darkly of adventures in Russia already ill with tuberculosis and died only months and other distant places. William Henry died of later. Accounts of her death relate that she and her tuberculosis and alcoholism at age 24. Rosalie, later children were living in a poorly heated room, with described by observers as being mentally slow, was straw on the floor for their beds; the three children adopted by WILLIAM and JANE SCOTT MACKENZIE.

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Young Edgar was taken into the home of JOHN birth mother, and she also protected him against ALLAN (1779–1834), a wealthy Richmond mer- her husband’s anger. The Allans provided Edgar chant whose wife, FRANCES ALLAN (1785–1829), with a private school education when they traveled was unable to have children. Both Mrs. Mackenzie to England in 1815, and his education continued in and Mrs. Allan had been among a group of women private schools when they returned to the United from respectable Richmond families who consid- States in 1820. In 1826, Poe entered the newly ered their charitable duty to bring food and other established University of Virginia, but John Allan items to the poor families in Richmond; among the made him leave one year later after Edgar racked families for which appeals were made were Eliz- up huge debts by drinking and gambling instead abeth Poe and her children. When the children of attending classes. Poe was forced to return to were left bereft of family, the two women assumed Richmond as a clerk in Allan’s mercantile firm, but responsibility for Rosalie and Edgar. he hated the work and ran off to Boston, where he Frances Allan was a tender and unassertive enlisted in the army under the name of EDGAR A. woman who gave Edgar the maternal nurturing and PERRY. After Poe left the Allan household in 1827, love that he had not experienced with his struggling he continued his contact with Frances Allan and

Poe’s room at the University of Virginia (Edgar Allan Poe Library, Richmond)

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A view, circa 1830, of the United States Military Academy at West Point (Courtesy of National Archives)

wrote her affectionate letters. She was chronically appeared to outsiders to treat Edgar as his son, ill and died of tuberculosis at age 44. In letters writ- his support was never wholehearted. Allan raised ten to SARAH ELMIRA ROYSTER, Poe revealed that Edgar as the seeming heir to his fortune, but he he felt guilty about Frances Allan’s death, feeling never legally adopted the boy. Instead, Allan, who that he somehow might have been able to prevent with his partner, Charles Ellis, eventually became a it had he remained on good terms with John Allan wealthy merchandiser of tobacco commodities and and continued to live with the family. His grief was also inherited a great deal of money from his uncle increased because he could not be with her in her WILLIAM GALT, provided Edgar with only minimal final hours due to a bureaucratic delay in process- support. He sent Edgar to the University of Virginia ing his military papers. He arrived in Richmond the but failed to provide him sufficient funds to buy day after her funeral. furniture, clothes, meals, or books. When Edgar was Poe served two years in the army, after which he at West Point, Allan refused to provide any of the pleaded with Allan to help him to leave the army. financial support that would raise Edgar’s military Allan agreed, provided that Poe obtain an appoint- life from its meager, rigid, and difficult existence ment to the United States Military Academy at of bare survival. Edgar might have tolerated the West Point, to which he acquiesced. Frances Allan frugal coldness that Allan showed him, but he was had died in the last weeks of Poe’s enlistment, but intensely protective of his foster mother, whom he she had pleaded his case with her husband, who was felt Allan had mistreated by having several extra- willing to give him another chance. Although Allan marital affairs and by fathering several children by

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different women. Poe quarreled with John Allan appeared in 1831. In 1829, no longer welcome before entering West Point, and that argument, in John Allan’s home, Edgar moved to Baltimore coupled with Allan’s remarriage in October 1830 to to live with his paternal aunt MARIA POE Clemm LOUISA GABRIELLA PATTERSON, created a final, irre- (1790–1871) and her young daughter, VIRGINIA vocable break. Even after his death, John Allan pro- CLEMM (1822–1847), as well as her son Henry, an vided one more insult to his foster son by omitting intermittent drinker; his paralytic grandmother, all mention of Edgar from his will, but he provided old Mrs. David Poe, who had been bedridden for inheritances for illegitimate twin sons born in 1830, two years; and his alcoholic older brother William only a year after the death of Frances. Henry Leonard, who suffered from advanced tuber- Already at the military academy but with little culosis. The household was poverty-stricken and hope of financial support from Allan, Poe worked survived only on the money that Henry Clemm to be expelled, and succeeded. After he left, he made as a mason’s apprentice, Poe’s small allow- began his publishing efforts in earnest. His immedi- ance from John Allan, and Mrs. Clemm’s sewing; ate literary influence was GEORGE GORDON, LORD yet Mrs. Clemm, known as “Muddy” to her dear BYRON (1788–1824), whom he had emulated in “Eddie,” enthusiastically welcomed him. “Muddy” wearing primarily black clothing and in his predi- was a penniless widow, but she was also a strong- lection toward melancholy subjects. Poe admired willed woman who appears to have offered Poe Byron both for his poetry and his rebelliousness, but both unconditional love and complete support in John Allan had earlier expressed clearly his hatred his literary attempts. Although not educated, she for the cult that had grown up around Byron, and seems to have understood Poe’s literary genius and he blamed Edgar’s attention to Byron for his foster backed his efforts to publish his early stories, and son’s rebellious behavior and profligate ways. In an she offered him physical and mental support as well attempt to show that he had reformed, Poe reas- as emotional assistance throughout his career. sured Allan in a letter dated May 29, 1829, that he With this move, Poe began a productive period had long ago given up Byron as a model. However, of writing and publishing short stories while he also this statement is suspect, as it appears in a letter worked as an editor and established an important in which he also asked his guardian to write to the connection with the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSEN- publishers of AL AARAAF to guarantee the book GER, where he served as editor from 1835 through to the extent of $100. For years afterward, Poe 1837. For six years, Poe used the Clemm household was fond of reciting Byron’s poetry during his pub- as his home base as he traveled to Richmond and lic recitations. In one lecture, presented in Lowell, other cities in efforts to publish his writing and to Massachusetts, on July 10, 1848, his recitation of make a living. During most of that time, he treated Byron’s “Bride of Abydos” was rendered so affect- Virginia simply as his young cousin whom he called ingly that one onlooker wrote that this reading was “Sis” or “Sissy,” even asking her on occasion to the only remembrance of the evening that he car- carry love notes to other young women whom he ried away. The influence of the Byronic personality was courting. After his grandmother and brother and attitudes on Poe’s work is found in his manner died and Maria’s son went to sea, Poe felt a respon- of dressing in dramatic black, as well as in let- sibility for the security of Maria and Virginia, with ters, poems, and several tales. A few Poe characters whom he had formed the first happy family unit are thinly veiled examples of the Byronic physi- in his life. In 1834, Poe expressed his love for the ognomy and personality, most apparently in “The intelligent and beautiful 12-year-old Virginia, 13 ASSIGNATION.” years his junior, and proposed marriage. He tried His first book, TAMERLANE AND OTHER POEMS, to obtain a teaching position at Richmond Acad- had appeared anonymously in 1827, and the sec- emy to provide a stable income for his new life, ond volume of verse—his first to be commercially and while he was in Richmond, his second cousin published—AL AARAAF, TAMERLANE, AND MINOR NEILSON POE, who had married Virginia’s half sis- POEMS, appeared in 1829. Poe’s third book, POEMS, ter, offered to take Virginia into his household and

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to care for her until she was what he considered to of her death, and the pain of watching her body be of a more suitable age for marriage. The offer waste away stayed with him until his own death. was refused by Virginia and her mother, who took Many critics have seen the influence of Virginia’s pity on Edgar, who had written desperate letters five years of dying in Poe’s work during those years, to them in which he had expressed his passionate especially in works that focus upon death in life, love for Virginia and begged her to reject Neilson’s such as “ELEONORA,” “BERENICE,” “LIGEIA,” and offer. In a threatening and agonizing letter sent on “The FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER.” The madness August 29, 1835, Poe wrote, “Virginia, My love, my of which Poe speaks in this letter and in other com- own sweetest Sissy, my darling little wifey, think munications becomes the madness of the narrators well before you break the heart of your cousin.” of “The CASK OF AMONTILLADO,” “The TELL- In October 1835, when Poe was rehired by the TALE HEART,” and “The BLACK CAT.” Although Southern Literary Messenger, Virginia and Maria “ANNABEL LEE” may reflect their relationship, it is joined him in Richmond. After seven months, on “ULALUME,” published in December 1847, that was May 16, 1836, the 13-and-a-half-year-old Virginia inspired by Virginia’s death and which Poe made and the 27-year-old Poe were married. A witness clear was a memorial to his late wife. swore that Virginia was 21. The marriage provoked During their 10 years of marriage, Poe moved a storm of disapproval among Poe’s acquaintances the family, including Maria Clemm, to Philadel- and his extended family, especially his cousin Neil- phia and then to New York City, where he worked son, who had earlier tried to take Virginia into his as an editor on such periodicals as BURTON’S household, but the marriage had Maria Clemm’s GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE, GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE, blessing. Poe made every effort to develop Virginia’s ALEXANDER’S WEEKLY MESSENGER, and GODEY’S intellectual and social abilities, tutoring her in the MAGAZINE AND LADY’S BOOK, among others. He classics, algebra, and other academic subjects, and also published extensive criticism and numerous he stretched his meager income to provide her with poems and short stories in these and other pub- singing and piano lessons. Her sweet disposition lications. He published his only novel, The NAR- and complete adoration of her “Eddie” made the RATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM, in 1838; TALES first six years of marriage a time of emotional peace OF THE GROTESQUE AND ARABESQUE, containing for the three members of the little household. For 25 stories, was published in 1840; The RAVEN AND the first two years of the marriage, Poe continued OTHER POEMS appeared in 1845, as did TALES BY to sleep apart from Virginia, but they began a nor- EDGAR A. POE. mal married life when she turned 16, which con- These years were Poe’s most productive, and tinued until she experienced her first hemorrhage he appeared to enjoy the presence of his wife from tuberculosis when she was 20. and aunt/mother-in-law, both of whom adored From all accounts, Virginia remained childlike, and revered him and made certain that his liter- plump, and sweet-tempered throughout most of ary genius had the quiet and the comfort in which the first six years of their marriage. In 1842, after a to flourish. It was also during these years of his period of severe financial strain, Virginia lost con- marriage that Poe developed the DETECTIVE STORY siderable weight and became ill. On January 20, format with the detective as the main protagonist 1842, while she was playing the piano and singing and created the detective who uses his ratiocina- to amuse her husband, a blood vessel in her throat tive power to solve the crime, which would serve broke, and blood began to pour from her mouth. as models to later writers. Poe’s Auguste Dupin, a Little more than five years later, on January 30, French detective hero, appeared in “The MURDERS 1847, Virginia died. In the five years from the first IN THE RUE MORGUE” (1841), “The MYSTERY OF serious evidence of her illness, Virginia had become MARIE ROGET” (published over 1842 and 1843), an invalid, and her increasingly fragile health and and “The PURLOINED LETTER” (1845). Dupin’s the destruction of her body by tuberculosis sent remarkable powers of deduction and his idiosyncra- Poe into deep depression. He lived in daily fear sies—such as the desire to sequester himself from

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society and his procedure of entering the mind of and his success was instantaneous. Thus began a the murderer—as well as the dual national asso- round of literary gatherings, invitations to lecture, ciation of a French detective created by an Ameri- and acquaintances with other writers who were can writer, led to a range of successors both in later profiled in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY.” the United States and abroad, the most famous of With his newfound success came the expected great which was SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE’s Sherlock tragedy when Virginia died in 1847 of tuberculosis. Holmes. Doyle used Poe’s technique of narrating Poe also became very ill and was nursed by Maria his detective’s exploits through the viewpoint of a Clemm and MARIE LOUISE SHEW, the medically companion, and he gave Holmes intellectual capa- trained daughter of a physician. Shew consulted bilities as well as bizarre habits similar to those the physician VALENTINE MOTT, who told her that of Dupin. Critics have also suggested that Agatha Poe had had a brain lesion when young, and this Christie had Poe’s Dupin in mind in creating her was responsible for the erratic behavior through- Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, who insists that out his life. In the remaining two years of his life, his powers of detection reside in his use of “the little Poe continued to publish and lecture. He died in gray cells” and whose idiosyncrasies are abundant. Washington Hospital in Baltimore, on October 7, Within nine months of arriving in New York 1849, and was buried in Westminster Churchyard City in April 1844, Poe published “The RAVEN,” the following day.

Poe lived and worked briefly in Philadelphia, shown here in the 1840s. (Courtesy of National Archives)

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Downtown Baltimore as it looked in 1849, the year Poe died there. (Courtesy of National Archives)

Poe had made a terrible error in appointing for nearly a half century. As soon as Poe was dead, RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD (1815–1877) as his lit- Griswold began the process of exacting posthu- erary executor. Griswold was a Baptist clergyman mous revenge against Poe, stating of his death that who replaced Poe as the editor of Graham’s Maga- “few will be grieved by it” and depicting him as a zine, and the two men were literary and personal mentally unstable misanthrope who “had few or rivals for the favors of FRANCES OSGOOD. Despite no friends.” Still bitter from Poe’s attacks on his their rivalry, both recognized the power that each work, Griswold condemned Poe as “little better carried in the literary world, so they maintained than a carping grammarian” who also had “little or a tentative friendship. Once Poe was dead, how- nothing of the true point of honor.” Despite efforts ever, Griswold was free to wreak his revenge on by JOHN R. THOMPSON, who published “The Late his old rival. The power and authority that such Edgar A. Poe” in the November 1849 issue of the an appointment brought led the public to believe Southern Literary Messenger, and GEORGE R. GRA- every scurrilous word of the infamous obituary of HAM, who published in his magazine “Defence of Poe that Griswold published. Using the pseud- Poe” in March 1850 and “The Genius and Char- onym Ludwig, Griswold published an obituary of acteristics of the Late Edgar Allan Poe” in Feb- Poe in the October 9, 1849, issue of the New York ruary 1854, Griswold’s vitriolic characterization Daily Tribune, which destroyed Poe’s reputation of Poe became the unofficial biographical record and remained the “official” view of the poet’s life that extended well into the 20th century and kept

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Poe from achieving his full literary due. Griswold’s Poe’s relationships with women. Ingram’s enthusi- lies included claims that Poe was expelled from astic defense of Poe aided in reversing the common the University of Virginia, that he deserted from 19th-century misperceptions regarding Poe’s char- the U.S. Army, and that he had been “sexually acter, but Poe did not receive serious consideration aggressive” toward John Allan’s second wife. Gris- from literary critics until well into the 20th cen- wold also made a pronounced effort to prove that tury. It was not until the 1941 biography by A. H. Poe was a morally negligent drug addict whose Quinn, Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Autobiography, concerns were only for himself. In his introduc- that a balanced view was provided of Poe, his work, tion to the 1850 edition of Poe’s works, Griswold and the relationship between the author’s life and misled readers by suggesting that Poe had based his imagination. Even after this, however, critics the portrayals in his bizarre stories on personal such as Joseph Wood Krutch and Marie Bonaparte experience. continued to assert that the madmen and murder- Poe had trusted that Griswold would make ers in Poe’s stories had their sources in his life and in certain that his sister Rosalie and “Muddy” would his disturbed mentality. Added to the controversy have comfortable lives from the proceeds of his over Poe’s sanity was the question of the value of literary estate, but his wishes were not honored. Poe’s works as serious literature. Such literary fig- Weeks before his death, Poe had asked Rufus Gris- ures as Henry James, Aldous Huxley, and T. S. Eliot wold to edit his works in the case of his sudden dismissed Poe’s works as juvenile, vulgar, and artisti- death, a request to which Griswold had agreed. cally debased. These same works were judged to be Griswold also acquired the copyright to the works of the highest literary merit by such writers as George at that time and later refused to turn it over to Mrs. Bernard Shaw and William Carlos Williams. Clemm when Poe died. Instead, in order to publish In contrast to Poe’s unfavorable reputation the material with an appearance of credibility, he among American and English critics was the gener- asked that she endorse him as executor of Poe’s ally more positive opinion held by critics elsewhere literary estate and as editor of the works, which she in the world, particularly in France. Following the did in a preface to the first volume of Griswold’s extensive translations and commentaries of French 1850 edition. For her efforts, she received several poet Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) in the 1850s, sets of the published works, which she tried to sell Poe’s works were received with high esteem by to raise money on which to survive. Left without French writers, especially those associated with the a home at Poe’s death, she lived with friends at late 19th-century Symbolist movement. Baudelaire different times in Richmond and Fordham in New was an early critical defender of Poe’s work, and his York City before returning to Baltimore in 1858. translations remain the best in any language. Pub- On February 16, 1871, she died in the Church lished over 16 years from 1848 to 1864, they occupy Home and Infirmary, formerly named the Balti- five books of the 12-volume set of Baudelaire’s stan- more City Marine Hospital, where Poe himself had dard works. Baudelaire vowed to make Poe a great died in 1849. man in France, even though Americans had largely Poe’s first English biographer, JOHN HENRY dismissed him. His enthusiasm was shared by other INGRAM (1842–1916), tried in Edgar Allan Poe: members of the French Symbolist movement, such His Life, Letters and Opinions (1874) to correct the as ANDRÉ GIDE (1869–1951), who proclaimed Poe many misconceptions created by Griswold regard- the master of the “interior monologue,” the pre- ing Poe’s character. He wrote lengthy correspon- sentation of a character’s thoughts in a manner dence to everyone he could locate who had ever more controlled than stream-of-consciousness and had any contact with Poe. He also traced many Poe on a level closer to direct verbalization, and Ste- letters and corresponded extensively with SARAH phen Mallarmé (1842–1898), who encouraged the HELEN WHITMAN and ANNIE RICHMOND, using all FRENCH CRITICS to embrace Poe’s work. the information that he could to refute the many Despite Griswold’s massive campaign of charac- venomous lies that Griswold told and wrote about ter assassination, Poe’s works have endured. Many

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of his poems and short stories have inspired com- Masque of the Red Death (1964), The Haunted Palace posers of such diverse nations as Ireland, Russia, (1964), The Tomb of Ligeia (1965), The City Under Lithuania, France, Sweden, Austria, and, of course, the Sea (1965), The Conqueror Worm (1968), The the United States to compose musical accompani- Oblong Box (1969), and Cry of the Banshee (1970). ments and other instrumentals. Renowned French Today, Poe is regarded as one of the founding impressionist composer CLAUDE-ACHILLE DEBUSSY writers of modern literature, both in popular forms, (1862–1918) left two unfinished operas on Poe such as horror and detective fiction, and in the themes, Le Diable dans le Beffroi [“The DEVIL IN THE more complex literary forms of poetry and criti- BELFRY”] and La Chute de la Maison Usher [“The cism. Unlike earlier critics who disparaged Poe’s FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER”], on which he had work and sought to find the sources of his art in been at work for years and which obsessed him. his mind and life, many critics today focus on the Poe’s short stories have provided contemporary works as creative compositions. Rather than view- writers with inspiration and inspired Hollywood to ing each poem and each story as simply the expres- place Poe’s work on screen, although most films sion of Poe’s emotions and mental state, critics were loosely based on the works, sometimes associ- now acknowledge Poe as an artist whose stories, ated only by title or the recitation of the relevant poems, and essays exhibit his creative talents and poem at the beginning or end of the movie: The Pit convey a sense of modernism in literature that and the Pendulum (1961), Tales of Terror (1962), remains relevant more than a century and a half The Premature Burial (1962), The Raven (1963), The after his death.

001-012_Poe-p1.indd 11 10/12/07 11:52:38 AM 001-012_Poe-p1.indd 12 10/12/07 11:52:39 AM PART II

Works A to Z

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 13 10/12/07 12:01:49 PM 013-284_Poe-p2.indd 14 10/12/07 12:01:49 PM LITERARY WORKS

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 15 10/12/07 12:01:49 PM 013-284_Poe-p2.indd 16 10/12/07 12:01:49 PM “Al Aaraaf” 17 “Acrostic, An” (1829)

Unpublished nine-line poem written by Poe sometime around 1829 for his cousin ELIZABETH REBECCA HERRING. Thomas Ollive Mabbott included it among the unsigned works in his definitive Col- lected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (1969). Critics have noted the influence of John Keats in the poem’s mention of Endymion (Keats’s poem “Endymion” was published in 1818) and the way it connects love, pride, and death. Illustration for “Al Aaraaf” (Edmund Dulac)

“Al Aaraaf” (c. 1827) the cosmic balance; thus, God believes that those on Earth must atone for their arrogance. The ruling Poem written before 1827. presence on Al Aaraaf is God’s favorite angel, the maiden Nesace, who symbolizes ideal beauty and SYNOPSIS spirituality yet exists in a nonmaterial state. She Al Aaraaf is the name of the region between heaven alone in the universe can hear God’s voice directly and hell, or limbo, in the Koran, as well as the name and begs Him to elevate to a higher spiritual plane that the astronomer Tycho Brahe gave to a star he the lower beings who have come to Al Aaraaf. discovered in 1572. Poe applied this name to a star Part II that suddenly appears, then disappears, when he The second part of the poem takes place in the uses a metaphor for the concept of idealized fantasy temple in which Nesace lives. She calls together in the poem. The poem mingles science with poetry all of her subjects and commands the angel of and creates a dream world of ravishing sights while harmony, Ligeia, who also exists in a nonmaterial it emphasizes the ideal of absolute beauty. Poe had state, to awaken the spirits of those who lie dor- planned to create a poem of four parts, but the first mant. Nesace then instructs those assembled to two parts became so long he chose to end it with devote their time to the contemplation of beauty the first two. and purify their natures so that their corporeal Part I state will be transformed into pure idea. To those The first part of the poem takes place in Al Aaraaf. who do not, the godly realm of perfect knowledge Al Aaraaf is a timeless ethereal plane inhabited by will always remain closed. Angelo and Ianthe alone superior beings whose intelligence is beyond that do not respond to her summons. They are lovers of ordinary humans yet inferior to that of God. who are so deeply engrossed in each other that The inhabitants live in a paradise free of all earthly they are oblivious to Nesace’s summons. Angelo concerns, with none of the needs or conflicts expe- is an angelic creature, the spirit of a man who was rienced by mortals. Prior to the beginning of the the world’s greatest lover and creator of beauty. He poem, those of Al Aaraaf have carried out God’s leaves the Earth after dying during a catastrophe command to destroy the Earth and returned to its and seeks to enjoy a life of sensuality and passion location “near four bright suns.” God determined with the angelic creature Ianthe, “a maiden angel” that the continuing thirst for knowledge by mortals who encourages her lover to be happy on the star. In was dangerous and would lead humans to claim an effort to make him content with his new home, themselves to be equal to God. Such challenges Ianthe tells Angelo that “A brighter dwelling-place is to patriarchal domination would eventually destroy here for thee . . . grey Time unfurled / Never his fairy

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as “The Messenger Star.” The length of the poem and its abstract imagery dismayed listeners, many of whom walked out during Poe’s lecture. The press severely criticized Poe for making a poor choice of reading and provided new ammunition to his enemies. “Al Aaraaf” is Poe’s longest poem and one of his most difficult; it is also the first work in which Poe displayed his interest in astronomy. Influenced by numerous writers, including JOHN KEATS, Thomas Moore, and LORD BYRON, as well as the Bible and Oriental literature, Poe uses the poem as a vehicle to present his views about beauty, truth, God, and the nature of the universe. Bettina Knapp writes that “Al Aaraaf” may be looked upon as “an exposition in the steps involved in Poe’s conception of the creation of the poem, the role played by the imagination in expanding consciousness, by feeling in helping to purify and depersonalize the experience” (61). Another critic writes that passion is

Illustration for “Al Aaraaf” (Edmund Dulac)

wing o’er fairier [sic] world!” Their downfall is that they choose the world of passion over the world of the mind. The two remain locked in their world of passion and reject the opportunity to devote their lives to pure beauty and spirituality and to share in the world of perfect knowledge that Nesace can offer them. COMMENTARY The poem received little notice in its first publication because of distribution difficulties. Poe submitted the poem to literary critic JOHN CLAY NEAL, who mentioned the work in his column in the September 1829 issue of Yankee. Although Neal called “Al Aaraaf” in the main “nonsense, rather exquisite nonsense,” he also expressed hope that the young poet “would but do himself justice.” When Poe chose on October 16, 1845, to read the poem at the Odeon in Boston, as part of his lecture before the Lyceum, he identified it Illustration for “Al Aaraaf” (Edmund Dulac)

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 18 10/12/07 12:01:49 PM Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems 19 portrayed as being an affliction that “hinders the Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and poet in his devotion to beauty” (Stovall 107). As a result of his passion for Ianthe, Angelo is barred Minor Poems (1829) from experiencing the life of ideal beauty and spirituality on Al Aaraaf. Collection of poetry written before 1829. The poem is an allegory for poetic creation that conveys Poe’s aesthetic ideas in a manner SYNOPSIS similar to Plato’s quest for the ideal. Concerned Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems was Poe’s with spiritual intangibles and with uncovering second collection of poetry and the first to be com- intellectual concepts that are above and outside mercially published. The collection contains the earthly views, Poe creates in Al Aaraaf a place lengthy poems “AL AARAAF” and “TAMERLANE” characterized by truth, beauty, and justice. He as well as shorter poems “SONNET—TO SCIENCE,” presents an ethereal realm where celestial rules “ROMANCE,” “TO—”[“SHOULD MY EARLY LIFE apply and where those who are willing to give up SEEM”], “TO—[“THE BOWERS WHEREAT, IN DREAMS, the material world and its sensual temptations will I SEE”], “TO THE RIVER—,” “The LAKE” “SPIRITS OF be among the very few who can glimpse absolute THE DEAD,” “A DREAM,” and “FAIRYLAND.” beauty. In the same way, only those poets who work to transcend the material world and who are COMMENTARY willing to remove themselves from prosaic human Poe attempted to publish the collection in early entanglements and material needs will be able to 1829 while he was in BALTIMORE, waiting to hear write the perfect poem. if he would receive an appointment to West Point. He hand delivered the manuscript of poems to the PUBLICATION HISTORY prestigious Philadelphia publisher Carey, Lea, and “Al Aaraaf” first appeared in TAMERLANE AND Carey with a long letter in which he lauded the OTHER POEMS, a collection that Poe first self-pub- merits of his work. Poe wrote simultaneously to lished in May 1827. In December 1829, the poem JOHN ALLAN and asked him to guarantee the pub- appeared in AL AARAAF, TAMERLANE, AND MINOR lishers against loss by sending $100. Allan ignored POEMS, published commercially by the firm of the request, and the publishers refused to publish Hatch and Dunning. the manuscript, so Poe took the work to Baltimore publishers Hatch and Dunning, who compensated FURTHER READINGS him by giving him 250 copies of his 72-page work. Cairns, William B. “Some Notes on Poe’s ‘Al Aaraaf.’ ” When the work came out in December 1829, Poe Modern Philology 13 (1915): 35–44. sent a copy to John Allan. De Prospo, R. C. “Poe’s Alpha Poem: The Title of ‘Al The publication of the collection drew harsh Aaraaf.’ ” Poe Studies 22, no. 2 (1989): 34–39. criticism from early reviewers who claimed Knapp, Bettina L. Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Freder- they could not understand the main poem “Al ick Ungar, 1984. Aaraaf,” and many echoed the words of the critic Neal, John. “Comments on Poe’s Poems.” In The J. H. Hewitt, who stated, “No man has been Recognition of Edgar Allan Poe. Edited by Eric W. more shamefully overestimated.” Poe did receive Carlson. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, encouragement from novelist, poet, and critic 1966. JOHN NEAL, who wrote in an article published in Stovall, Floyd. “An Interpretation of Poe’s ‘Al Aaraaf’.” the September 1829 issue of Yankee and Boston University of Texas Studies in English 9 (1929): Literary Gazette, “He [Poe] is entirely a stranger 106–133. to us, but with all their faults, if the remainder of Van Doren Stern, Philip. Edgar Allan Poe: Visitor from “Al Aaraaf” and “Tamerlane” are as good as the the Night of Time. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, body of the extracts here given, to say nothing 1973. of the more extraordinary parts, he will deserve

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PUBLICATION HISTORY A total of 250 copies of the 71-page work were published by Hatch and Dunning of Baltimore in December 1829. FURTHER READINGS Neal, John. “Comments on Poe’s Poems.” In The Recognition of Edgar Allan Poe. Edited by Eric W. Carlson. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966. Stovall, Floyd. Edgar Poe the Poet: Essays New and Old on the Man and His Work. Charlottesville: Univer- sity of Virginia Press, 1969.

“Alone” (1829)

Poem written in 1829. SYNOPSIS “Alone” is a highly personal poem that expresses clearly in 22 lines the deep loneliness that Poe experienced early in life and sense of isolation that Title page of Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, remained with him until his death. In the open- published in 1829 (Robert Gregor) ing lines, the speaker relates this awareness that “From childhood’s hour I have not been / As others to stand high—very high—in the estimation of were—I have not seen / As others saw—I could the shining brotherhood.” To attract readers, Poe not bring / My passions from a common spring.” In included as an advertisement the claim that the lines that follow, the speaker conveys his inability poems had earlier been printed in Boston in 1827 to feel the joy that others feel and his early recog- “but suppressed through circumstances of a private nition “in my childhood, in the dawn / Of a most nature.” The truth was more mundane than the stormy life” that others might enjoy the peace and mysterious words suggested, because the self-pub- certitude of a “Heaven [that] was blue” but he is lished Poe had simply run out of money to publish doomed always to perceive “a demon in my view.” more than a few copies of the work. Prefatory pas- The speaker exhibits an awareness of his great dif- sages in each volume revealed Poe’s moods in pub- ference from the way others think and feel. lishing each edition of the collection. As Stovall points out, “The predominant moods of the 1827 COMMENTARY volume as a whole are those of wounded pride “Alone” was not published until September 1875 and resentment for the wrongs, real or imagined, in Scribner’s Magazine, where it appeared with a that he had suffered, and the dominant tone of prefatory note by EUGENE L. DIDIER, who gave the the 1829 volume is one of disillusionment with poem its title and who identified it as having been the world and escape into some more congenial found in an autograph album originally owned by realm of dream or of the imagination” (205). Criti- Lucy Holmes Balderston, who died in 1881, and cal commentary on the individual poems appears given to him by her daughter. The daughter of Dr. under their titles. Oliver Holmes of BALTIMORE, Lucy Holmes Balder-

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ston kept the the autograph album during the years been due to his lack of familiarity with Poe’s early 1826–48, but the two pages written in Poe’s hand- handwriting. writing and dated March 17, 1829, are the only significant contributions to the album, which is PUBLICATION HISTORY currently in the Rare Book Room of the Maryland Originally untitled when Poe wrote this poem in the Historical Society. autograph book owned by Lucy Holmes, “Alone” JOHN H. INGRAM, an early biographer of Poe, was not published until September 1875. disputed the authenticity of the work and wrote in 1875 that “If the caligraphy [sic] be Poe’s, it is FURTHER READINGS different in all essential respects from all the many Bandy, W. T. “Poe’s ‘Alone’: The First Printing.” Papers specimens known to us, and strongly resembles of the Bibliographical Society of America 70 (1976): that of the writer of the heading and dating of the 405–406. manuscript, both of which the contributor of the Campbell, Killis. The Mind of Poe and Other Stud- poem acknowledges to have been recently added. ies. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, The lines, however, if not by Poe, are the most suc- 1933. cessful imitation of his early mannerisms yet made Cauthen, I. B., Jr. “Alone.” Studies in Bibliography 3 public, and, in the opinion of one well qualified to (1950–1): 284–291. speak, are not unworthy on the whole of the par- Ingram, John H. “Memoir of Poe.” The Works of Edgar entage claimed for them” (xlvii). Campbell writes Allan Poe. 4 vols. Edinburgh: Black, 1874–1875. that Ingram’s denunciation of the work may have Vol. 1, pp. xvii–ci. Lucy Holmes Balderston Album, 1826–1848. Mary- land Historical Society. Available online. URL: http://www.mdhs.org/library/Mss/ms001796.html. Accessed April 4, 2007. Mabbott, T. O., ed. Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard Uni- versity Press, 1969.

“Angel of the Odd: An Extravaganza, The” (1843)

Short story written in 1843. SYNOPSIS The plot relates the story of an unnamed narrator, a heavy drinker of alcohol who professes to be a rationalist. As the story begins, he concludes his dinner with “some apologies to dessert, with some miscellaneous bottles of wine, spirit and liquer.” After attempting to read a newspaper and “reading it from beginning to end without understanding a syllable, conceived the possibility of its being Chinese,” one paragraph catches his attention. The improbable story about a man who acciden- Illustration for “Alone” (Edmund Dulac) tally inhales rather than blows a long needle while

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playing a game called “puff-the-dart” angers the popular when it first appeared because of the strong narrator, who pronounces the story “a contrived public interest in spiritualism and spiritual manifes- falsehood—a poor hoax.” He asserts that the gull- tations of the time. ibility of the age has encouraged the publication The inspiration for this story may lie in three of “improbable possibilities—of odd accidents, as sources: the article “It’s Very Odd,” which appeared they term them.” Commending himself for having in the January 1829 issue of BLACKWOOD’S MAGA- a “reflecting intellect,” the narrator declares he will ZINE; “Progress of Social Questions,” published on “believe nothing henceforward that has anything of June 8, 1844, in the NEW YORK TRIBUNE; and a the ‘singular’ about it.” He has hardly uttered these novel titled The Man About Town, written by Cor- words when a heavily accented voice intrudes on nelius Webbe and published in 1839. All three show his thoughts, telling him, “Mein Gott, den vat a minor resemblances to the story, and Webbe’s novel fool you bees for dat!” After frustrating the narra- also includes a character who speaks in a German tor’s attempts to ignore him, the speaker identifies dialect similar to that of the Angel of the Odd. This himself as “te Angel ov te Odd.” The odd-looking story has not attracted significant critical attention, being claims that he is “the genius who presided but psychoanalyst MARIE BONAPARTE suggests that over the contretemps of mankind, and whose busi- Poe uses it to acknowledge his demons, even if he ness it was to bring about the odd accidents which is unable to avoid them. The addictions to alcohol are continually astonishing to the skeptics.” and drugs, his feelings of lacking control over his The narrator’s skepticism is tested after he destiny, and the memories of his abuse at the hands drives the angel away, then falls asleep because he of JOHN ALLAN are all contained within the treat- has drunk too much. His intended nap of 25 min- ment that the unnamed narrator undergoes at the utes stretches into two hours, making him late for hands of the Angel of the Odd. an appointment during which he had intended to renew his fire insurance on the house. The house PUBLICATION HISTORY burns down, and the narrator breaks his arm The story first appeared in print in the October when a hog rubs up against the escape ladder he is 1844 issue of Columbian Magazine. descending. The narrator loses his hair, then finds his attempts to marry a rich widow blocked by the CHARACTERS antics of the angel. When the narrator attempts Angel of the Odd His mission is to force the suicide by leaping into the river, the angel drops unnamed narrator to drink to excess and to a guide rope from a balloon and demands, “ ‘Ave acknowledge the existence of the odd, the unex- you pe got zober yet and come to your zenzes?’ ” plained, and the absurd. The insulting and offensive When the narrator still refuses to admit to the angel speaks with a pronounced German accent. Its reality of the absurd, the angel cuts the rope and body is constructed of a rum cask, with wine bottles the narrator falls down through the chimney of for arms and kegs for legs. The head is a Hessian his house, which has been miraculously rebuilt canteen with a funnel on its top “like a cavalier cap while he wandered. He awakens sober at four in slouched over the eyes.” This ridiculous personage the morning, surrounded by shattered bottles and appears to the narrator and plies him with so much overturned jugs. Whether or not his experiences liquor that the man forgets the need to renew the were a dream, he is forced to revise his narrow fire insurance on his home. He falls asleep and does philosophy of a reasonable universe and to admit not awaken until the fire insurance has expired that accident, unreason, and absurd probability and his house is on fire. Not satisfied with leav- are real. ing the narrator homeless, the angel continues to stalk the man and create disaster at every turn COMMENTARY until the man finally nods his head in assent to the This tale appears to be Poe’s satire on the philoso- angel’s demand, “You pelief, ten, in te possibility of phy of human perfectibility. The story was highly te odd?”

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Grandjean, Auguste Grandjean supplies the narrator with a wig to cover the “serious loss of my hair, the whole of which had been singed off by the fire.” FURTHER READINGS Gerber, Gerald. “Poe’s Odd Angel.” Nineteenth Cen- tury Fiction 23 (1968): 88–93.

“Annabel Lee” (1849)

One of Poe’s final finished poems; composed in May 1849. SYNOPSIS Lines 1–4 Poe introduces the setting of the poem and the character of Annabel Lee in these lines. The creation of a vague time frame and the repetition of the phrase “many and many a year ago” indicate that the poem relates an event that occurred in the distant past, and the legendary tone of the setting is further emphasized by the location in “a kingdom by the sea.” These lines also introduce the character of Annabel Lee, who is described as someone “whom you may know,” through which the poet adds a feeling of intimacy between speaker and reader through use of the personal pronoun “you.” Poe’s handwritten version of his poem “Annabel Lee” (Robert Gregor) Lines 5–8 These lines introduce the speaker’s relationship to suggesting that “the winged seraphs” envy the lov- Annabel Lee and relate the relative youth of both ers’ feelings for each other. the speaker and Annabel Lee. The reader learns of her devotion to the speaker and that her only Lines 13–16 thought was to “love and be loved” by him, a rela- In these lines, the speaker reemphasizes the jealousy tionship emphasized by the repetition of the words of the angels, whom he blames for the death of love and loved. In line 7, the repetition of the word Annabel Lee, which appropriately occurs at “night.” child suggests that the love between Annabel Lee After line 14 repeats the refrain that appears in lines and the speaker was an innocent, youthful love, 2 and 8, the speaker tells of the chilling wind that free from the corruption of the adult world. The emerges from the sky—the realm of the angels— repetition of line 2 as line 8 in the poem creates a which results in the death of his beloved wife. refrain to harmoniously link the stanzas. Lines 17–20 Lines 9–12 The reader learns more about the background of The characterization of the relationship as inno- Annabel Lee in these lines, as her funeral is also cent is further emphasized in these lines, as the introduced. Reference is made to her “highborn writer repeats the words love and loved and places kinsmen,” which suggests that she is a member of the relationship above merely earthly affection by an upper-class family. The impression of her higher

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social class also emerges in the speaker’s use of the Lines 27–29 formal word sepulchre, rather than tomb. The finality Contrasted with the horror of death related by the of the separation of the couple emerges in the speak- use of the term killing in line 26, the lines follow- er’s worry that others will “shut her up” and place ing remind the reader of the deep love shared by her “away from me,” as well as in the final line of the the speaker and Annabel Lee. The word love is stanza, which is the refrain from lines 2, 8, and 14. repeated, and the speaker relates that the couple Lines 21–26 has experienced a more intense love than that These lines repeat the speaker’s belief that the envi- experienced by older and wiser people. ous angels caused Annabel Lee’s death by blowing Lines 30–33 a chilling wind from the cloudy sky above, and the The speaker relates his faithfulness to Annabel Lee use of the word Yes followed by an exclamation and makes clear that his loyalty continues beyond point suggests the growing frenzy of the speaker. death, despite the attempts of “angels” to destroy Poe reemphasizes the legendary tone by using the the deep love of the couple. In “Poe and the Art of phrase “as all men know” in line 23. The appear- Suggestion,” Richard Wilbur relates that the lines ance of the refrain in line 24 reminds the reader of in which the speaker professes his never-ending the loss that has occurred, as does the use of the love are very similar to those that appear in St. term chilling in line 25, which also sets the mood for Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (chapter 8): “I am the speaker’s deep sorrow, which is complete in the persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, final line of the stanza, which relates the “killing” nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, of Annabel Lee. nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God.”

Lines 34–37 In these lines, the speaker uses references to the celestial bodies to immortalize Annabel Lee and to assert that his love for her is eternal. He speaks of the “moon” and the “stars” as his messengers who bring him her love in the form of “dreams” and who project to him visions of her eyes.

Lines 38–41 The final lines of the poem place the emphasis of the poem squarely on death, in contrast to the repeated attempts by the speaker to keep memories of the love relationship alive throughout the first 37 lines of the poem. Despite the speaker’s references to his “bride” and the repetition of such terms as my darling and his characterization of her as his “life,” the reader learns that the speaker visits the entombed Annabel Lee each night and lies next to her. The final two lines, parallel constructions beginning with “in her” and ending with “the sea,” create a strong sense of finality to the relationship as they end the poem, a feeling that Illustration for “Annabel Lee” (Edmund Dulac) is supported by the identification in this stanza of

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Annabel Lee’s resting place as both “sepulchre” memories of their happiness accurate, or are they, and “tomb.” instead, based upon a false and idealized memory of Annabel Lee? Poe uses the symbol of the sea COMMENTARY to represent memory and links it to the speaker’s “Annabel Lee” contains themes that appear in life with Annabel Lee because they lived together many of Poe’s works, such as the death and burial “in a kingdom by the sea.” The sea is also linked of a beautiful woman, undying love, and deifica- with her death, as the reader learns in the final tion of her memory. Despite strong contemporary two lines, which tell us that her body is laid to rest sentiment that Poe composed the poem to memo- beside the sea, and the speaker fears that the sea rialize his love and loss of VIRGINIA CLEMM, after will also separate him from his beloved. He speaks his death other women in his life, including SARAH of demons lurking under the sea who might “dis- ANNA LEWIS, HELEN WHITMAN, and SARAH ELMIRA sever” his soul from hers. ROYSTER, claimed that they had been immortal- The poem is also very concerned with the effect ized in this poem. The poem recounts a love so that death has upon the person or people left powerful that even the angels feel envious of the behind and explores the problems they face in con- bond, which transcends death and overcomes both tinuing to live. As the memory may be distorted in human and cosmic forces that seek to “dissever relating a love and a life after “many years,” so is my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabel reality distorted by the speaker who provides no Lee.” Poe’s words also exhibit his resentment for medical or physical reason for the death of Anna- the years of poverty that often left him powerless: bel Lee, other than that a “chill” came upon her. “So that her high-born kinsmen came and bore her Rather, he escapes into a metaphoric illusion of away from me.” envious angels who act to destroy their deep love The repeated profession of the speaker’s love and who take her from him. Ordinary disease or for Annabel Lee might mislead readers into view- accident would not be strong enough to destroy his ing the poem as simply the anguished cries of a deep love; only the intervention of supernatural lover mourning a dead love, but “Annabel Lee” beings is powerful enough to do so. The expla- is far more complicated in meaning. The poem nation offered by the speaker indicates more of examines a range of important themes beyond an inability to accept the death, a psychological the survival of love beyond death, among them weakness, than an all-enduring love that survives the issues of memory and reminiscence, the consequences that death has for the living, and the beyond the grave. destruction of innocence, concerns that perme- The poem presents a speaker who struggles to ate the works of Edgar Allan Poe. The speaker maintain his love against the disapproval of oth- states that the events of the poem occurred “many ers who are more socially powerful than he. The and many years ago” and admits that his tale of speaker relates that he and Annabel Lee were the relationship with Annabel Lee is based upon children, thus suggesting that their love was first memories that have existed after a long pas- opposed by the adult world. Later in the poem, the sage of time. The considerable distance between threat to their love comes from a more powerful the events described and the current relation of source, the angels who are envious because these these events suggest that more of the memories young lovers appear to enjoy more happiness on are based upon idealized versions of reality rather Earth than the angels in heaven. After suggesting than accurate recall. The intensity of the speaker’s that the more privileged angels have caused the grief, despite the acknowledged passage of “many death of Annabel Lee, “her high-born kinsmen” years,” indicates that this is an abnormal, obses- take her body away from the speaker. Throughout, sive grief and makes everything else he relates sus- the speaker struggles to maintain a love affair in pect. Was the brief love affair with Annabel Lee the face of opposition from powerful forces–adults, as pure and ethereal as memory suggests? Are his angels, and the upper social class.

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ADAPTATIONS Wilbur, Richard. “Poe and the Art of Suggestion.” The The work has been recorded on Listen and Read University of Mississippi Studies in English 3 (1982): Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” and Other Favorite 1–13. Poems (Dover Press Audio Thrift Classic, 1998), book and audiocassette. Marianne Faithful reads “Annabel Lee” on the compact disk Closed On Account of Rabies: Poems and Tales of Edgar Allan “Assignation, The” (1843) Poe (1997) by UNI/Polygram. Basil Rathbone Short story written in 1843. reads “Annabel Lee” on the audiocassette Poems and Tales of Edgar Allan Poe (1955) by Caedmon. SYNOPSIS Michael Caine reads “Annabel Lee” on the audio- The early version of the story began with the fol- cassette The Silver Lining: The World’s Most Distin- lowing two epigraphs: guished Actors Read Their Favorite Poems (1995) for BMP, Ltd. —Ich habe gelebt, und geliebet. —Schiller’s Wallenstein PUBLICATION HISTORY I have lived, and I have loved. “Annabel Lee” first appeared as part of Poe’s obituary published in the NEW YORK TRIBUNE Und Sterbich denn, so sterbich doch on October 9, 1849, and was later published in Durch sie—durch sie. the November 1849 issue of the SOUTHERN LIT- —Goethe ERARY MESSENGER and the January 1850 issue of And if I die, at least I die SARTAIN’S UNION MAGAZINE, which also posthu- With her—with her. mously published “The BELLS” and “The POETIC The final version of the story, published in the June PRINCIPLE.” 7, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL, contains FURTHER READINGS only one epigram, taken from the Exequy by Henry King, Bishop of Chichester, written on the death of Bonaparte, Marie. The Life and Works of Edgar Allan his wife: Poe: A Psycho-Analytical Interpretation. London: Imago Press, 1949. Stay for me there! I will not fail Booth, Bradford A. “The Identity of ‘Annabel Lee’.” To meet thee in that hollow vale. College English 7 (October 1945): 17–19. The plot relates the story of the young and beau- Freeman, Elizabeth. “Honeymoon with a Stranger: tiful Marchesa di Mentoni, “the adoration of all Pedophiliac Picaresques from Poe to Nabokov.” Venice—the gayest of the gay—the most lovely American Literature 70, no. 4 (December 1998): where all were beautiful,” who is married to the 863–897. “old and intriguing Mentoni.” The story takes place Kennedy, J. Gerald, Poe, Death, and the Life of Writing. in Venice and opens on “a night of unusual gloom.” New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987. Shrieks fill the air as the unnamed narrator learns Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical that the Marchesa has accidentally dropped her Biography. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University baby into the canal. As she stands watching swim- Press, 1988. mers try to find her child in the water, her husband, Saintsbury, George. “Edgar Allan Poe.” In Prefaces and the Marchese, stands in the shadows, looking bored Essays, edited by Oliver Elton. New York: Macmil- and strumming a guitar while sporadically giving lan, 1933, pp. 314–323. directions to the searchers. Just when all hope Stovall, Floyd. Edgar Poe the Poet: Essays New and Old seems lost, a dark and mysterious figure steps from on the Man and His Work. Charlottesville: Univer- the shadows of the old Republic prison, linked to sity Press of Virginia, 1969. the ducal palace by the Bridge of Sighs. His cloak

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is heavy with water, and in his arms lies “the still the Marchesa di Mentoni, was married to an older living and breathing child.” The stranger hands the Venetian nobleman. The likelihood of this source child to its mother. As a servant quickly snatches is strengthened by Poe’s familiarity with Thomas the child and takes it into the palace, the Marchesa Moore’s notorious biography Byron, which recounts touches the stranger’s hand and the narrator hears the affair in detail. The incident of the baby falling her whisper, “Thou has conquered . . . thou has con- into a canal resembles an incident that appears in quered—one hour after sunrise—we shall meet—so chapter 23 of The Vicar of Wakefield (1776), a novel let it be!” As the stranger leaves the palace, the nar- written by OLIVER GOLDSMITH. In that account, rator offers to share his gondola with the man whom a young woman married to an older Neopolitan he has recognized as one “with whose name the nobleman holds her infant son as she stands at an greater part of Europe was then ringing.” open window that overlooks the River Volturna. Invited to visit the stranger’s lavishly decorated The child wriggles out of her arms, falls into the palazzo the following day, the narrator sees there a water below, and disappears. A third possible influ- full-length portrait of the Marchesa that contains ence is the tale titled “Doge and Dogaressa” by E. a scroll with these words: “I am waiting but for T. A. Hoffman, in which a young man rescues the thee.” The two men drink several glasses of wine, husband of the woman he loves from drowning. then the stranger lies down on a chaise longue to With its mysterious stranger, dark surroundings, sleep while the narrator prepares to leave. Before and suicides by two characters at the same hour, he can exit, a page from the ducal palace bursts the story appears to have begun as a parody of the in and cries out, “My mistress!—Bianca! [“Aphro- type of gothic tale popular at the time. This percep- dite” in the final version]—poison! Horrible! Hor- tion prevented critics from seriously appraising the rible!” The startled narrator tries to awaken his inherent artistry of the piece, and, for too long, they host but finds him dead, having deliberately drunk viewed “The Assignation” as one of Poe’s minor poisoned wine. The ending strongly suggests that tales. It has attained status as a major tale since an illicit affair between Bianca, the beautiful young critics have recognized its significance as the first Marchesa di Mentoni, and the mysterious Byronic of Poe’s tales to appear in a nationally prominent stranger has overwhelmed both with hopelessness, magazine and also the first to focus on the death leading them to keep their final assignation with of a beautiful woman, a theme that dominates his each other through suicide. later work. COMMENTARY PUBLICATION HISTORY This tale, one of Poe’s most romantic, is a story of The story was first published under the title of “The passion that relates a clandestine love affair and its Visionary: A Tale” in the January 1834 issue of tragic consequences. It is the only one of Poe’s tales GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND LADY’S BOOK. in which any character commits suicide. The early version contained both a 30-line poem titled “TO CHARACTERS ONE IN PARADISE” and two introductory paragraphs Mentoni, Marchesa Aphrodite di The beautiful in which the unnamed narrator claims to know the wife of the seemingly passionless Marchese di Men- identity of the mysterious stranger of the story, one toni, she accidentally drops her baby into a Venetian “devoutly admired by the few who read.” The name canal, from which it is rescued by a former lover as is also one that the narrator is “determined to con- her husband looks on and plays the guitar. After ceal,” and he vows not to dishonor the man by cre- being reunited with her baby, she agrees a short ating a fictional name for him, “whose melancholy while later to a suicide pact with her former lover. end is a tissue of malevolent blasphemies.” The inspirations for this story appear to include Mentoni, Marchese di The “old and intriguing accounts of an affair between the English poet LORD Mentoni,” described as “a Satyr-like figure,” stands BYRON and Contessa Teresa Guiccioli, who, like strumming a guitar and “seemed ennuyé to the

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very death” as he gives directions for the recovery of real individuals who had already published of the child who has fallen into a Venetian canal. accounts of their aeronautical expeditions. As an He conveys an atmosphere of cruel indifference aid to convincing readers that the voyage actu- toward the plight of his wife and the fate of his ally had occurred, he named the popular novelist child. WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH as having been among the crew. Once the story was revealed to be unnamed young Byronic stranger A mysterious a hoax, the Sun printed the following retraction on man who appears to have a long-standing romantic April 15, 1844: connection to the Marchesa. He remains in the BALLOON—The mails from the South last shadows outside the palace until the Marchesa’s Saturday night not having brought a confirma- baby falls into the canal, when he acts to save tion of the arrival of the Balloon from England, the child. When he returns to his villa with the the particulars of which from our correspon- unnamed narrator, his previous relationship with dent we detailed in our Extra, we are inclined the Marchesa is revealed in the portrait. He com- to believe that the intelligence is erroneous. mits suicide by drinking poisoned wine. The description of the Balloon, and the voyage was written with a minuteness and scientific unnamed narrator A detached observer who ability calculated to obtain credit everywhere, reports the events as they occur but who does not and was read with great pleasure and satisfac- take an active role in the action of the story. tion. We by no means think such a project FURTHER READINGS impossible. Benton, Richard. “Is Poe’s ‘The Assignation’ a Hoax?” The tale is written in the journalistic style of the Nineteenth Century Fiction 28 (1963): 193–197. big scoop and provides readers with convincing Pahl, Dennis. “Rediscovering Byron: Poe’s ‘The Assig- details, including a technical description of the nation.’ ” Criticism 26 (1984): 211–299. balloon, the aerodynamics of transatlantic travel, Pitcher, Edward W. “Poe’s ‘The Assignation’: A and journal entries presumably written by Mason. Reconsideration.” Poe Studies 13 (1980): 1–4. After establishing the credentials of his travelers, Poe reports to his readers that “the particulars furnished below may be relied upon as authentic and accurate in every respect, as, with a slight “Balloon-Hoax, The” (1844) exception, they are copied verbatim from the joint diaries of Mr. Monck Mason and Mr. Har- Short story written in 1844. rison Ainsworth, to whose politeness our agent for much verbal information respecting the bal- SYNOPSIS loon itself, its construction, and other matters of This tale was conceived as an attempt to fool interest.” The account is divided into two parts: newspaper readers into believing that a manned “The Balloon” and “The Journal.” In the first sec- balloon flight across the Atlantic Ocean was com- tion, Poe draws upon nonfiction descriptions of pleted in 75 hours. The story was first published as balloons and their functioning to methodically a newspaper article under the following headline: delineate the size, shape, and working details of “Astounding Intelligence by Private Express from the balloon. Readers are informed in clear lan- Charleston via Norfolk!—The Atlantic Ocean guage of the many intricate parts that make up crossed in three days!! Arrival at Sullivan’s Island the balloon and its basket, and they are warned of a Steering Balloon invented by Mr. Monck of the consequences should damage occur to any Mason.” The article was reprinted the following one of these parts. The account also provides a day in the New York Sunday Times. To strengthen careful delineation of the steps required to raise the image of verisimilitude, Poe used the names the balloon and to keep it afloat. The second

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part of the account purports to contain daily jour- a profitable speculation beyond doubt. I saw nal entries about the voyage, written by Mason a half-dollar given, in one instance, for a sin- and appended with postscripts by Ainsworth, gle paper, and a shilling was a frequent price. from Saturday, April 6, through Tuesday, April I tried, in vain, during the whole day, to get 9. Each entry recreates the fictional activities of possession of a copy. It was excessively amusing, the balloon crew and recounts their thoughts and however, to hear the comments of those who apprehensions regarding the journey. The story had read the ‘Extra.’ ends with the safe descent of the balloon at Fort Despite Poe’s self-satisfaction in having fooled Moultrie and Sullivan’s Island, in South Carolina, 50,000 people, the success of the hoax had a nega- and the statement by the “reporter” that “we can tive effect on his career. Publishers viewed the inci- safely promise our readers some additional infor- dent as reinforcing their suspicions that Poe was not mation either on Monday or in the course of the quite trustworthy and led to concern that he might, next day, at farthest.” if hired, play jokes on them and their readers. This COMMENTARY led to a hesitance among editors to approach Poe, and demand for his work decreased. The inspiration for the story lies in the high interest that the public of the 1830s and 1840s had in PUBLICATION HISTORY manned balloon flights. Balloonists competed for The story was first published as a newspaper article records in height, speed, and distance, and many in the Extra Sun on April 13, 1844. magazines carried articles that described the latest model balloons and their capabilities. Poe earned CHARACTERS $50 for what the Sun believed to be an exclusive Character based on an obscure story, but he may have experienced even greater Henson, William businessman of the same name who organized the satisfaction for having fooled many people who Aerial Steam Transportation Company in 1842. had not appreciated his writing previously. He After the company failed, he moved to the United was proud of the stir that his account caused and States and was never heard from again. described his pleasure in an article in the Colum- bian Spy, published in May 1844, a month after the One of the balloon Victoria’s hoax was revealed: Mason, Monck pilots and the supposed inventor of the “steer- ‘The Balloon-Hoax’ made a far more intense ing balloon.” Poe based the character on Thomas sensation than anything of that character since Monck Mason and borrowed heavily from Mason’s the ‘Moon-Story’ of Locke. On the morning book Account of the Late Aeronautical Expedition (Saturday) of its announcement, the whole from London to Weilburg, accomplished by Robert Hol- square surrounding the ‘Sun’ building was liter- lond, Esq., Monck Mason, Esq., and Charles Green ally besieged, blocked up—ingress and egress Aeronaut, published in 1836. being alike impossible, from a period soon after sunrise until about two o’clock P.M. In Satur- FURTHER READINGS day’s regular issue, it was stated that the news Rolt, L. T. C. The Aeronauts: A History of Ballooning had been just received, and that an ‘Extra’ was 1783–1903. New York: Walter, 1966. then in preparation, which would be ready at Scudder, H. H. “Poe’s ‘Balloon-Hoax.’ ” American Lit- ten. It was not delivered, however, until nearly erature 21 (1949): 179–190. noon. In the meantime I never witnessed more Wilkerson, Ronald S. “Poe’s ‘Balloon-Hoax’ Once intense excitement to get possession of a news- More.” American Literature 32 (1960): 313–317. paper. As soon as the first few copies made their Wimsatt, William K., Jr. “A Further Note on Poe’s way into the streets, they were bought up, at ‘Balloon-Hoax.’ ” American Literature 22 (1951): almost any price, from the newsboys, who made 491–492.

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Illustration for “The Bells” (Edmund Dulac)

“Bells, The” (1848) the musical sound of the ringing of silver bells, and their “tintinnabulation” creates a sense of excite- Poem written in May 1848. ment and the promise of undefined possibilities. The second section of the poem focuses on the SYNOPSIS musical sounds of golden wedding bells, which “The Bells” is an ode that contains four numbered promise marital happiness and romantic passion. movements of varying length. The stanzas increase The mood of the poem changes in the third sec- in length, with each one longer than the one pre- tion, as the words evoke the harsh and discordant ceding as the sound expressed builds in each suc- sounds of the brass alarm bells, which offer ter- cessive stanza. In addition, each stanza is devoted rifying sounds that are harsh and angry with their to differing stages in human life, with a different “clanging,” “jangling,” and “wrangling.” The fright- type of metal bell used to represent each stage. The ening sounds upset their listeners and make their poem achieves a lyrical flow through the use of hearts beat faster at the fear of the danger they alliteration, assonance, and monosyllabic rhymes, promise. which create a rapid pace throughout the poem. The final stanza signals the end stage of human The first stanza contains a lyricism that conveys life through the ringing of the iron bells that knell a sense that the poem to follow is a song expressed to announce death or an approaching funeral. The by an unidentified and vaguely sketched narrator. iron bells produce a melancholy sound that saddens The speaker points out to readers the sound of the all who hear them. The speaker describes the iron merry silver bells of youth. In the first section of bells as “Ghouls” and says that the king of ghouls the poem, the holiday season is evoked through presides over them, “Keeping time, time, time / In

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a sort of runic rhyme.” Poe places this couplet once submitted to SARTAIN’S UNION MAGAZINE three into the first stanza, then repeats the couplet three times before being published in November 1849. times to suggest a finality, as if tolling the bell three Divided into four major movements, the poem times. deals with different types of bells that mark the four ages of human beings: silver for youth and merri- COMMENTARY ment, golden for happiness and harmony in love Biographers have credited inspiration for the poem and marriage, brass for maturity, and iron for old to MARIE LOUISE SHEW, who helped to care for age and death. Appropriate sound devices such as the dying VIRGINIA CLEMM in the little Fordham onomatopoeia and repetition produce sonority and cottage. In the month after Virginia’s death, Poe rhythm in the poem. Sounds are alternately harsh, became emotionally attached to Mrs. Shew and mellifluous, jarring, loving, and cajoling. The poem often spent time at her home, which was close to was published with editor John Sartain’s note that Grace Church in New York City. On one evening, “There is a curious piece of literary history con- Poe claimed that he had to write a poem but was nected with this poem. . . . It illustrates the gradual devoid of inspiration. Church bells in the back- development of an idea in the mind of a man of ground encouraged his companion to write play- original genius.” The poem has since been assessed fully, “The bells, the little silver bells,” and Poe by critics as one of Poe’s best. finished the stanza. He then contemplated other types of bells and created stanzas for each. The PUBLICATION HISTORY poem went through three major revisions and was The poem was published posthumously in Sartain’s Union Magazine in November 1849.

FURTHER READINGS Dedmond, Francis B. “The Word ‘Tintinnabulation’ and a Source for Poe’s ‘The Bells.’ ” Notes & Que- ries 196 (November 24, 1951): 520–521. Graham, Kevin. “Poe’s ‘The Bells’.” The Explicator 62, no. 1 (Fall 2003): 9.

“Berenice” (1835)

Short story written in 1835. SYNOPSIS “Berenice” opens with the following epigraph: Dicebant mihi sodales, si sepulchrum amicae visi- tarem, curas meas aliquantulum fore levatus. [My companion told me I might find some little alle- viation of my misery in visiting the grave of my beloved.]

—Ebn Zaiat (c. A.D. 218) The plot is the story of an aborted attempt at mar- Illustration for “The Bells” (Edmund Dulac) riage between Egaeus, the “gloomy” and “ill” last

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descendant of an ancient family that “has been similar in content to other tales found in magazines called a race of visionaries,” and his “graceful and of his day, “in the ludicrous heightened into the energetic” cousin Berenice. Self-described as suf- grotesque; the fearful coloured into the horrible; fering from “monomania . . . a morbid irritability,” the witty exaggerated into the burlesque; the sin- Egaeus engages in meditations that were “never gular wrought out into the strange and the mysti- pleasurable.” As the wedding approaches, Egaeus’s cal.” The public outcry against the story led Poe to monomania becomes more intense, and the once- remove four paragraphs that contained detailed, vibrant Berenice becomes ill and begins to waste gory descriptions of the coffin and the body of the away. As he views his changed bride-to-be, the dead Berenice. Poe had specifically depicted “the narrator can focus only on the “white and ghastly peculiar smell of the coffin” and “the deleterious spectrum of her teeth.” He obsesses over their per- odor [that] was already exhaling from the body.” fection: “The teeth!—the teeth!—they were here The graphic description of Berenice’s mouth, whose and there, and everywhere, and visibly and palpa- “livid lips were wreathed into a species of smiles” bly before me; long, narrow, and excessively white, and similar descriptions were considered to be in with the pale lips writhing above them.” The ema- bad taste. The edited version was published in the ciated Berenice soon dies early one morning, after Southern Literary Messenger in 1840. what the narrator describes as an epileptic seizure, and she is buried “at the closing in of the night.” At PUBLICATION HISTORY midnight, the narrator awakens from “a confused The story was first published in the March 1835 and exciting dream” with no recollection of how issue of the Southern Literary Messenger. he has spent the hours since interring Berenice at sundown. He is plagued by a great feeling of unease CHARACTERS but has no explanation until a servant enters and Berenice She is buried alive by the cousin to tells him that Berenice’s grave has been violated, whom she is betrothed. At the outset of the story, and that other servants had searched and found “a Berenice is vital and healthy, but her health dete- disfigured body, enshrouded, yet still breathing, still riorates as her wedding day approaches, until she palpitating, still alive!” As the mud-covered Egaeus becomes frail and wraithlike. After suffering an shrieks and bounds out of his seat, a box falls from epileptic seizure, Berenice is buried by her gloomy the table and out fall “some instruments of dental bridegroom, Egaeus, who believes that she is surgery, intermingled with thirty-two small, white dead. Late that same night, a servant reports that and ivory-looking substances.” the grave has been violated and that Berenice’s enshrouded body has been found “yet still breath- COMMENTARY ing, still palpitating, still alive!” Someone or some- The story is one of Poe’s most morbid and grue- thing has ripped out all 32 of her teeth, disfiguring some, and he admitted in a letter to the editor of her. Berenice is one of the many frail and dying Poe the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER on April 30, heroines who experience death in life. 1835, “I allow that it approaches the very verge of bad taste—but I will not sin quite so egregiously Egaeus A self-described monomaniac, Egaeus is again.” After its publication, readers wrote letters engaged to marry his cousin Berenice, with whose to the editor to complain about the subject matter, teeth he becomes obsessed. The emaciated Ber- which deals with grave robbing and corpse mutila- enice dies early one morning, and she is buried “at tion. Poe claimed that the story originated in a bet the closing in of the night.” At midnight, Egaeus with an unnamed editor after both read an article awakens from “a confused and exciting dream” with in the February 23, 1833, issue of the BALTIMORE no recollection of how he has spent the hours since SUNDAY VISITER on the subject of graves being interring Berenice at sundown—until a servant robbed to obtain teeth for dentists. In his defense tells him that Berenice’s grave has been violated. of “Berenice,” Poe stated that the story was very As the mud-covered Egaeus shrieks and bounds

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out of his seat, a box falls from the table and out want to perform acts of even greater cruelty. Imag- fall “some instruments of dental surgery, intermin- ining that the white splotch on the cat’s breast is gled with thirty-two small, white and ivory-looking in the shape of a gallows, the narrator seeks to kill substances.” this second cat. He axes his wife to death when she tries to protect the cat and then inters her in a false FURTHER READINGS chimney in the cellar with “a glee at heart [that] Brooks, Curtis M. “The Cosmic God: Science and the was too strong to be restrained.” However, the cat Creative Imagination in Eureka.” American Tran- escapes him. When the police arrive unexpectedly scendental Quarterly 26 (1975): 60–68. four days later, the overly confident narrator invites Johansen, Ib. “The Madness of the Text: Decon- them to search the cellar, but his crime is revealed struction of Narrative Logic in ‘Usher,’ ‘Berenice,’ when the police hear inhuman shrieks and howls ‘Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether.’ ” Poe Studies 22 coming from behind the wall. After the police tear (1989): 1–9. down the wall, the narrator sees the hated cat, sit- Sloan, David E. E. “Gothic Romanticism and Ratio- ting on the gore-clotted corpse’s head and seeming nal Empiricism in Poe’s ‘Berenice.’ ” American Tran- to grin at the murderer. scendental Quarterly 19 (Summer 1973): 19–26. COMMENTARY When “The Black Cat” was published, the public reaction was immediately favorable, and the story “Black Cat, The” (1843) became so great a success that it spawned a parody the following year, “The Ghost of the Grey Tad- Short story written in 1843. pole,” written by THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH. Crit- ics have suggested that Poe found inspiration for SYNOPSIS the story in a passage that appears in SIR WALTER The story relates the gradual mental deterioration SCOTT’S Letters on Demonology (1830), in which of a man whose early kindly temperament becomes a lawyer explains to his doctor that he has been warped, leading to irrational, violent acts against plagued by a cat which may or may not be real: “I what he loves most at the outset of the story. He found myself . . . embarrassed by the presence of a blames his changed and newly violent personality large cat, which came and disappeared I could not on “that Fiend Intemperance,” which he views as a exactly tell how: . . . I was compelled to regard it . . . disease over which he has no control. The protago- [as having] no existence save in my deranged visual nist begins his reign of cruelty by “maltreating the organs, or depraved imagination.” The story influ- rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by acci- enced several scenes in Richard Wright’s Native Son dent, or through affection, they came in my way.” (1940), in which the main character, Bigger, has For a while, his black cat Pluto escapes this treat- a cat that seems to stare at him in an accusatory ment, until one night when the narrator returns manner at one point. Later, after Bigger has com- home and, in an act of “evil malevolence,” uses mitted a particularly violent murder, the cat howls his penknife to pry the cat’s eye from its socket. As and races past him, then turns and leaps onto his the cat heals in the weeks that follow, the narrator shoulders, digging its claws deeply into his shoulders experiences moments of remorse, but “the spirit of as newspaper reporters search the premises. perverseness” soon overtakes him, and he hangs Critics generally view the tale as among Poe’s Pluto in the garden, experiencing a mixture of finest works, and they have especially praised his pleasure with “the bitterest remorse at heart” and handling of the mentally ill protagonist. Poe drew terrible self-loathing. The narrator’s wife replaces upon superstitions about cats as sacred and as hav- Pluto with a second cat, also entirely black except ing special powers, as well as upon medieval belief for a single splotch of white on its breast, and her that black cats were Satan’s favorite disguise when husband’s aggression becomes greater, making him he roamed the earth.

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Poe’s unnamed narrator begins his story with that the rumination has no significance other than what appears to be a contradictory statement, as he “for no better reason than that happens, just now, asserts “for the most wild yet homely narrative I am to be remembered.” Later in the story he speculates about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief,” yet regarding what has brought about the appearance frames his story as a confession. As such, the tale of Pluto’s image on a wall only a short while after should be viewed as credible, even as the narrator claiming that he is “above” attempting to deter- uses numerous terms that diminish his credibility. mine what might be the cause and effect of the Although he states that his purpose is to relate the image appearing. events of his crime, characterizing it as “a series of Poe’s use of irony in “The Black Cat” functions mere household events” to be told “plainly, suc- as “a basic discrepancy between what is expected cinctly, and without comment,” he frequently or apparent and what is actually the case” (Thomp- digresses. He matter-of-factly relates that the story son 9). Poe employs satire in this story to make a he is about to tell might one day be viewed by “fuller use of comic distortion” (Thompson 9), and others as “nothing more than an ordinary succes- the tone of the story is filled with ironic comments sion of very natural causes and effects.” This seem- on his narrator’s actions. The juxtaposition of the ingly normal beginning is immediately found to be horror of the narrator’s actions with his matter-of- ironic, because the narrator tells readers, “Tomor- fact relation of these actions reveals Poe’s satiric row I die,” and reveals that he is in jail and has attitude toward the narrator and his crimes. As been sentenced to death. Thompson states, “When the satirist makes use of The narrator suggests throughout that he is irony, he pretends to take his opponents seriously, innocent of any wrongdoing and blames first the accepting their premises and values and methods “Fiend Intemperance” for his actions then the spirit of reasoning in order to eventually expose their of “PERVERSENESS,” before identifying that he absurdity” (9). believes Pluto and the cat who replaces Pluto are The narrator admits to suffering from serious actually responsible for the tortures and murder. alcoholism, which seems to be the chief cause of Although he portrays himself as a victim of the his growing viciousness, as he admits that once he “Arch-Fiend,” a blending of both Pluto and the started drinking his attitude toward his wife and his replacement cat whose “craft has seduced me into formerly loved pets changed. “I grew, day by day, murder,” the narrator’s horrible actions and his more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the “rabid” desire to kill then to share his story with feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemper- the police reveal that he is the fiend. He refuses to ate language to my wife. At length, I even offered acknowledge his own culpability and claims that her personal violence.” Ironically, although aware the blame for the horrors that have occurred lies of the changes in his behavior, the narrator does in the series of events that “have terrified—have not analyze the reasons for his drinking nor for the tortured—have destroyed me.” resulting behavior. He portrays himself as simply In stark contrast to the horrifying mutilations an observer who conveys the facts and the con- the narrator performs are his dismissal of his actions sequences without emotion, excusing his behav- as a “vile or silly action” that he has committed “for ior throughout. Critics have identified the way in no other reason than because he knows he should which Poe depicts specific mental states as being not.” In a philosophical tone, he muses, “Have we one of the most “arresting attributes” of his tales, not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best and Buranelli suggests that Poe was able to create judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely such varying psychological states by “consulting his because we understand it to be such?” Even as his own psychology” (79). murderous rage builds, and he commits his horrify- At the beginning of the story, the narrator ing acts, he seeks to present a calm façade. At one describes his first cat, Pluto, as a valued companion point, the narrator ruminates about superstitions and contrasts him to the “paltry friendship and gos- that link black cats and witches, although he notes samer fidelity of mere Man.” As he praises the cat,

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he exposes his true feelings toward other human has previously mistreated and thus ultimately the beings and claims that he prefers the company of device of his self-torture” (Thompson 7). As the a cat over human beings. The narrator attempts to narrator implicates himself at the end, his true portray himself at the outset as a lover of human- nature becomes apparent to the reader, although ity. “From my infancy I was noted for the docility he insists on blaming his actions on the black and humanity of my disposition.” He details his cat: “ . . . with red extended mouth and solitary love of animals since his early childhood but soon eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had admits that he is awaiting a death sentence, and his seduced me to murder, and whose informing voice earlier professions become suspect. His disdain for had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled all living beings becomes evident. By the end of the the monster up within the tomb!” The black cat story, the contrast between the narrator’s self-por- becomes a symbol of the narrator’s guilt, self- trayal and the reality of his actions and his behavior hatred, and need for punishment, all of which are mark him as ridiculous. exposed when he bangs on the wall, causing the Beneath the narrator’s calm words and peace- black cat to howl and revealing his wife’s corpse ful self-portrayal lie an arrogance and a suppressed behind the wall. anger that suggest the potential for horrifying actions, but the irony of his condescending feelings ADAPTATIONS toward humans and animals does not become clear The name recognition of Poe’s popular short story until he performs the violent actions toward his has led to its use as the title of films that have not cat and his wife. The true depth of the narrator’s always reflected the content of the original. The brutality does not become evident until he openly title has attracted audiences, but the plots of these reveals the loathing he actually feels for his wife, films have been far different from Poe’s story. Both identifying her death as a “hideous murder,” and the 1934 film The Black Cat, starring Boris Karloff suggesting that he has been plotting the crime all and Bela Lugosi, and the 1941 film of the same along (Hoffman 83). He walls up his wife’s body in name, starring Lugosi and Basil Rathbone, share the basement and calmly relates the details, com- only the title of the original; neither contains plot menting that “For a purpose such as this the cellar characteristics of the short story. The 1968 Japa- was well adapted.” The narrator calmly discusses nese film Kuroneko (“The Black Cat”) is a story of his excellent masonry skills while completing the two women, raped and murdered by samurai, who wall and shows his utter lack of remorse. return to haunt their attackers, while the 1990 The irony in the story becomes more pro- American film The Black Cat places its action in nounced as the police arrive to question the narra- a haunted house, without a hint of the original tor about his wife’s disappearance. After searching plot. Critics have described the 1981 film The the home and finding no evidence of harm to the Black Cat, starring Patrick Magee and Mimsy wife, the police are satisfied and appear ready to Farmer, as “vaguely Poe-ish”: the film does con- leave, but the narrator delays them. Seemingly tain a cat, but the cat is possessed by an evil spirit. unaware that he was about to get away with the The most faithful rendering of the story appears crime, he brags about the construction of his in the 1962 Tales of Terror, directed by Roger house, an arrogance that leads to his exposure as a Corman, who presented three of Poe’s short sto- murderer. He bangs on the new wall to show how ries—“MORELLA,” “The FACTS IN THE CASE OF well it is made, and the action reveals the missing M. VALDEMAR,” and “The Black Cat”—starring cat who howls and uncovers his terrible crime in Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone, and killing his wife. The ending of the story is “almost Debra Paget. the ultimate irony, to act against one’s self” and the poor wife’s murder is a “major absurdist irony” PUBLICATION HISTORY when the narrator commits an act that is “the The story was first published in the United States result of subconscious remorse over the cat he Saturday Post on August 19, 1843.

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CHARACTERS lore suggests that a black cat is a witch in disguise. Pluto A cat, the narrator’s favorite pet. He is When her husband mutilates Pluto, she nurses the “a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely cat, then mourns him when the cat is murdered. black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree.” She immediately becomes attached to the cat her Pluto follows the narrator everywhere, and when husband brings home to replace Pluto, and she sees the narrator begins to maltreat the other animals in the new cat as an act of remorse for Pluto’s murder. When her husband becomes angered by the second his menagerie he spares the cat for a long while until cat and runs after it with an axe, she runs down the “at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, cellar stairs, seeking to protect the cat. She dies after and consequently somewhat peevish—even Pluto her husband “buried the axe in her brain,” and her began to experience the effects of my ill temper.” body is walled up in the cellar. The reader is given no The cat experiences cruel torture and mutilation details about her physical appearance, and she seems by the narrator, who eventually “slipped a noose to only exist in the story as the object of the narra- around its neck and hung it to a limb of a tree.” tor’s physical and mental abuse. The critic Daniel Hoffman states, “It is as though she has no name, or Initially a kind and unnamed male narrator cannot remember it, or he dare not speak it” (82). caring individual, he begins to evidence a streak of cruelty. He first kills small animals, then attacks his FURTHER READINGS favorite cat, Pluto, and horribly disfigures the cat by Badenhausen, Richard. “Fear and Trembling in the carving one eye from its socket before hanging the Literature of the Fantastic: Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The cat in the backyard. As his mental degrangement Black Cat’.” Studies in Short Fiction 29 (1992): increases, he kills his wife with an axe and stuffs her 486–498. body into a false chimney in the cellar. Condemned Buranelli, Vincent. Edgar Allan Poe. Boston: Twayne, to die for the insane and horrible acts he has com- 1977. mitted, the narrator tells his story on the day before Frushell, Richard C. “An Incarnate Nightmare: Moral his expected execution and calmly states that he Grotesquerie in ‘The Black Cat’.” In Poe Studies. intends to relate to “the world, plainly, succinctly, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1972, and without comment, a series of mere household 9–72. events.” Although he states that his abusive actions Gargano, James W. “ ‘The Black Cat’: Perverseness began when he began to drink heavily, he does not Reconsidered.” Texas Studies in Literature and Lan- blame alcoholism for his behavior. Instead, the nar- guage 2 (1960): 172–178. rator claims that his behavior was due to perversity Hoffman, Daniel. “The Marriage Group.” In Edgar as “the fury of the demon instantly possessed me.” Allan Poe: Modern Critical Views, edited by Harold He explains that his behavior is similar to that of Bloom, pp. 81–102. (New York: Chelsea House, any normal man and questions: “Who has not, a 1985). hundred times, found himself committing a vile or Madden, Fred. “Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’ and Freud’s silly action, for no other reason than because he ‘The Uncanny.’ ” Literature & Psychology 39, nos. knows he should not?” Rather than take responsi- 1–2 (1993): 52–62. bility, he blames his actions on the spirit of “per- Nadal, Marita. “Variations on the Grostesque: From verseness” that leads him to violate any rules that Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’ to Oate’s ‘The White Cat’.” he sees in law or nature. The narrator claims that The Mississippi Quarterly 57, no. 3 (Summer 2005): he has been pushed into evil actions by some radi- 455–471. cal and irresistible “perversity.” Stark, Joseph. “Motive and Meaning: The Mystery of the Will in Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’.” The Mississippi unnamed wife of the narrator The patient and Quarterly 57, no. 2 (Spring 2004): 255–263. long-suffering wife of the homicidally maniacal nar- Thompson, G. R. Poe’s Fiction. Madison: University of rator. She innocently informs her husband that folk- Wisconsin Press, 1984.

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 36 10/12/07 12:01:53 PM “Bon-Bon” 37 “Bon-Bon” (1831) the bottle.” As he drinks his wine and ponders a volume that he is soon going to submit for pub- Short story written in 1831. lication, Bon-Bon is startled by Satan’s sudden appearance in his apartments. The guest is a vam- SYNOPSIS pirelike figure who wears “garments [that] had Each version of the story has its own epigraph. evidently been intended for a much shorter person Preceding the first published version of the story is than their present owner. His ankles and wrists were left naked for several inches. . . . His head this quote taken from WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’s play As You Like It: “The heathen philosopher, when was bare, and entirely bald, with the exception of he had a mind to eat a grape, would open his lips the hinder part, from which depended a queue of when he put it into his mouth, meaning thereby considerable length.” Bon-Bon plays the perfect host to the devil, placing on the table several that grapes were made to eat and lips to open.” Poe more bottles of Chambertin, drawing chairs com- attached the following lengthier epigraph from Les fortably near the fire, and waiting until his guest Premiers Traits de l’érudition universelle (The Most speaks first. Bon-Bon is not fearful, but instead Important Characteristics of Universal Wisdom), pub- looks forward to a lively philosophical exchange lished in 1767 by Baron Bielfeld, to his final version with the devil, and “to elicit some important ethi- of the story: cal ideas, which might, in obtaining a place in his Quand un bon vin meuble mon estomac, contemplated publication, enlighten the human Je suis plus savant que Balzac— race, and at the same time immortalize himself— Plus sage qu Pibrac; ideas which . . . his visitor’s great age, and well- Mon bras seul faisant L’attaque known proficiency in the science of morals, might De la nation Cosaque, very well have enabled him to afford.” As Bon- La mettroit au sac: Bon listens, his guest lists the names of numerous De Charon je passerois le lac intellectual giants of the past whom he claims En dormant dans son bac; have been roasted, fricasseed, parboiled, sauteed, J’irois au fier Eac, and souffleed down in hell. When Bon-Bon pro- Sans que mon coeur fit tic ni tac, poses to discuss the soul as being insubstantial Presenter du tabac. and a shadow, the devil counters by describing the souls of the great intellectuals that he has [When a good wine fills my stomach tasted: “I found that Horace tasted very much like I am more learned than Balzac— Aristotle,—you know that I am fond of variety. Wiser than Pibrac; Terentius I could not have told from Menander. My lone arm attacking Naso, to my astonishment, was Nicander in dis- The Cossack nation, guise. Virgilius had a strong twang of Theocritus.” Plunders it; Running through an extensive list of thinkers, the I cross Charon’s lake devil points out their foibles and the false ideals Asleep in his ferry; that people hold of them. He also lists for Bon- I would go to proud Aeacus, Bon numerous individuals, such as Cain, Nero, Without my heart beating hard and Caligula, “who never knew what it was to To offer him some snuff.] have a soul during the latter part of their lives.” As Bon-Bon becomes increasingly drunk, he offers The tale centers on Pierre Bon-Bon, a superb chef the devil his soul “—a bargain.” The devil calmly and masterful philosopher, who receives a visit refuses the offer, claiming that he cannot take from the devil one snowy winter evening. Known advantage of someone in this “present disgusting both for his superb omelettes and for being “a man and ungentlemanly situation.” As the devil leaves, of genius,” Bon-Bon also has “an inclination for Bon-Bon throws an empty bottle that severs the

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chain on the lamp above him, hitting him on the devil, the Visits Pierre Bon-Bon with the inten- head and knocking him out. tion of snaring his soul, but later rejects it. This devil speaks in “a whining voice” that has “a shrill under- COMMENTARY tone.” Possessed of an “exceedingly lean” figure, he The tale is considered one of Poe’s successes in the is poorly dressed in clothing that is not only old-fash- comic vein, and it is typical of his tales of comic ioned but also apparently made for “a much shorter encounters with demons.Under the earlier name person than their present owner,” which leaves his of “The Bargain Lost,” the story was originally ankles and wrists bare for several inches. In his too- a shorter piece about a Venetian metaphysician tight suit of faded black cloth, he has the physical named Pedro Garcia who has a strange encounter appearance of a poorly paid accounting clerk. Only with a messenger of the devil. When he revised the his shoes, adorned with “a pair of very brilliant buck- story and renamed it “Bon-Bon,” Poe moved the les gave the lie to the extreme poverty implied by the setting from Venice, Italy, to France and made the other portions of his dress.” In the breast pocket of protagonist a chef-philosopher to increase the pos- his coat, he carries a small black book bearing the sibilities for comic commentary. words Rituel Catholique in white letters, and the precision with which he has tied his dirty white cravat PUBLICATION HISTORY ironically gives him the appearance of an ecclesiastic, Poe first published the story under the title “The an idea that Poe extends through physical descrip- Bargain Lost” in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier tion: “The forehead was lofty, and deeply furrowed for December 1, 1832, then revised it for later pub- with the ridges of contemplation. The corners of the lication under the title “Bon-Bon—A Tale” in the mouth were drawn down into an expression of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER for August 1835. most submissive humility. There was also a clasping of the hands, as he stepped toward our hero—a deep ADAPTATIONS sigh—and altogether a look of such untter sanc- The tale has not been dramatized for the screen, tity as could not have failed to be unequivocally but it was rewritten for the stage and enjoyed a prepossessing.” When he removes the green spec- brief off-Broadway run in 1920. tacles, Bon-Bon sees that “simply a dead level of flesh” exists where eyes should have been. When his CHARACTERS host becomes disgustingly drunk and offers his soul Bon-Bon, Pierre Renowned in his town as a as “a bargain,” this devil declines, protesting that master chef and a brilliant metaphysician, there he is “supplied at present” and would not want to is much in “the restaurateur calculated to impress take advantage of Bon-Bon’s “present disgusting and the imagination of the quadruped,” and his cat ungentlemanly situation.” and dog show appropriate respect for him. Barely three feet tall, he has a “diminutively small” head Nimrod Figure mentioned in the story. In bar- and a rotund stomach that carries with it “a sense gaining for the soul of Monsieur Bon-Bon, the devil of magnificence nearly bordering upon the sub- says he has made “innumerable purchases of the lime.” In dress, Bon-Bon cuts quite a figure, from kind” in his day, “and the parties never experienced his conical-shaped white flannel cap through his any inconvenience. There were Cain and Nimrod, yellow-satin breeches, sky-blue cloak, and his and Nero, and Caligula . . . and a thousand oth- bright purple slippers with their “exquisite point- ers.” Nimrod is mentioned in Genesis as “A mighty ing of the toes.” Proud of his erudition, Bon-Bon hunter before the Lord” and the founder of Babylon. welcomes a visit from the devil, with whom he hopes to discuss the ancient philosophers and FURTHER READINGS the knowledge of the ages. Instead, he drinks too Christie, James W. “Poe’s ‘Diabolical’ Humor: Revi- much wine and offers his soul to the devil as “a sions in ‘Bon-Bon’.” Library Chronicle 41 (1976): bargain.” 44–45.

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 38 10/12/07 12:01:53 PM “Business Man, The” 39 “Bridal Ballad” (1829) “Business Man, The” (1839)

Poem written in 1829. Short story written in 1839.

SYNOPSIS SYNOPSIS Told from the point of view of the bride just after The story is narrated by Peter Proffit, a man who her marriage, the poem recounts her regrets for alerts readers at the outset: “I am a business man. a lover, D’elormie, “who fell / In the battle down I am a methodical man.” He prides himself on his the dell, / And who is happy now.” As she lies in “general habits of accuracy and punctuality,” and the arms of her new husband, she feels obliged to he provides readers with a smug self-evaluation of remain faithfully married to him even though she his rise that reveals his egotistical satisfaction at feels that doing so will probably disrupt the eternal achieving commercial success. The story contains peace of her dead lover to whom she has broken accounts of his eight business “speculations” on the her vow to love him eternally: “For I dream I know road to success. He begins his career by running not how, / And my soul is sorely shaken / Lest an away from home at the age of 16, although “the evil step be taken,—/ Lest the dead who is forsaken most of boys run away from home at ten or twelve / May not be happy now.” Because her memory of years of age.” His delay would have been even lon- him is strong, she is unable to give herself com- ger had he not overheard his mother planning to pletely to a new husband. set him up in the grocery business. The horror of this line of work sends him into the world where he first COMMENTARY works as a “Tailor’s Walking-Advertisement,” “the This early poem is viewed by critics as being the onerous duties of this profession” that he survives first articulation of Poe’s theme regarding the issue only by concentrating on “a scrupulous method.” of faithfulness to a dead loved one when remar- When his employers, Mssrs. Cut and Comeagain, ried. Daniel Hoffman observes that “The theme Merchant Tailors, refuse to honor his meticulously was one Poe had early tried to use in poetry, pro- detailed bill, reproduced in the story, he leaves the ducing only the bathetic ‘Bridal Ballad’.” Poe expe- job. As he moves into other businesses, the reader rienced greater success in developing the theme in sees that the businessman Proffit uses marginally what critics have termed the “Marriage Group” of legal tactics, as indicated in his description of prof- stories, which include “ELEONORA,” “LIGEIA,” and its gained in “the Eye-Sore trade,” a slum build- “MORELLA.” ing scheme to drive down real estate prices, and the “Assault and Battery Business,” which is insur- PUBLICATION HISTORY ance fraud. Proffit engages in similarly shady deal- “Bridal Ballad” was first published under the title ings such as Mud-Dabbling, Cur-Spattering, and “Ballad” in the January 1831 issue of the SOUTH- Organ-Grinding. The latter, however legal, is not ERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe revised the poem profitable enough, so Proffit gives it up and takes and retitled it “Bridal Ballad,” then submitted it for up Sham-Posting, which involves collecting postage publication in the July 31, 1831, issue of the Satur- for counterfeit letters. Proffit finally devises a “cat- day Evening Post. Under this title, it was also one growing” scheme that brings him the financial suc- of the selections Poe included in The RAVEN AND cess that he desires. This, coupled with Poe’s use of OTHER POEMS in 1845. names such as Peter Proffit, makes the story a harsh satire on the values of the American businessman. FURTHER READINGS Hoffman, Daniel. “The Marriage Group.” In Edgar COMMENTARY Allan Poe: Modern Critical Views, edited by Harold Critics have determined that this story reflects Poe’s Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1985. often-strained relationship with his foster father,

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JOHN ALLAN, as well as his own ambivalence over fight, Snap doubles his fist and knocks Proffit down. the desire to write for art’s sake and the need to Proffit promptly sues him for $500 in damages. write to survive. Poe took the name “Peter Pendu- lum” for his hero in the early version of the story from FURTHER READINGS sketches that appeared in Farmer’s Museum, written Lemay, J. A. Leo “Poe’s ‘The Business Man’: Its Con- by Joseph Dennie and published in 1795–99. Crit- texts and Satire of Franklin’s Autobiography.” Poe ics also identify “The Business Man” as a parody of Studies 15, no. 2 (1982): 29–37. JOSEPH C. NEAL’s characterizations of “honest loaf- ers,” lazy men and women, that appeared in Charcoal Sketches (1838), a collection of character sketches, with a hero who is exactly the opposite in all areas. “Cask of Amontillado, The” PUBLICATION HISTORY (1846) An early version of the story appeared under the title of “Peter Pendulum, the Business Man” in the Short story written in 1846. February 1840 issue of BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S SYNOPSIS MAGAZINE. The story was published with a new Set in Italy and told 50 years after the events have title in the August 2, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY occurred, the story is one of revenge, which the JOURNAL. vindictive narrator, Montresor, has plotted with the CHARACTERS careful planning required of a military campaign. Bag Peter Proffit’s lawyer, who seems to have more He begins by telling readers why he seeks revenge: integrity than his client. When Proffit demands that “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as Bag bring a suit against an associate who “doubled I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I his fist” and knocked Proffit down, and that he vowed revenge.” Neither the reader nor Fortunato demand $1,000 in damages, Bag cautions him that is made aware of the exact nature of these injuries, for so simple a knockdown any amount over $500 and one can only assume that the “insult” of which is excessive. Proffit considers such common sense Montresor speaks is the failure of the inebriated unacceptable and determines to fire Bag for having Fortunato to remember the motto that appears on “no system at all.” the Montresor family arms: Nemo me impune laces- sit (No one provokes me with impunity). The arms Proffit, Peter Character and narrator who alerts evidently stand as a warning to all enemies of the readers at the outset: “I am a business man. I am a Montresors: The design depicts a huge golden foot methodical man.” He prides himself on his “gen- in an azure field, and “the foot crushes a serpent eral habits of accuracy and punctuality” and pro- rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.” vides readers with a smug self-evaluation of his rise “The Cask of Amontillado” is a story charac- that reveals his egotistical satisfaction at achieving terized by contrasts, which ends with a horrifying commercial success. The story contains accounts death for one of the characters. Although Mon- of his eight business “speculations” on the road tresor’s need for revenge is intense throughout, to success. The reader sees that Proffit uses mar- what Fortunato has done and the reason for the ginally legal tactics in such businesses as a slum revenge is never made clear to either the readers building scheme to drive down real estate prices, or to the victim. Montresor relates his sense of insurance fraud, even collecting postage for coun- grievance in a matter-of-fact tone, but his uneven terfeit letters. account of events leads readers to suspect that he is an unreliable narrator. Perhaps the greatest con- Snap A victim of the assault-and-battery business trast is that between the happy jingling bells on run by Peter Proffit. Antagonized by Proffit into a the fool’s cap worn by Fortunato and the increas-

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ingly gloomy atmosphere of the journey through it as Poe’s fictional response to libelous attacks the catacombs. written by THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH that appeared Montresor takes advantage of Fortunato’s care- first in the May 1846 issue of the New York EVE- less mood during “the supreme madness of the car- NING MIRROR and continued in ensuing months. nival season,” while the motley-wearing partygoer The initial article spoke harshly of Poe’s drinking is celebrating Mardi Gras. Aware that Fortunato and criticized his physical appearance, creating a is “a man to be respected and even feared,” Mon- verbal caricature that proclaimed he had “a chin tresor takes advantage of his one weak point, his narrow and pointed, which gives his head upon the pride on his connoisseurship of wine. He suggests whole, a balloonish appearance which may account that another wine connoisseur, Luchesi, has aided for his supposed lightedness.” him in obtaining a bargain on a pipe (about 130 “The Cask of Amontillado” is a complex story gallons) of amontillado, an aged, dry, light sherry. that combines a confessional style with gothic ele- Unable to ignore the implied challenge, Fortunato ments to produce a work of psychological intensity. insists that Montresor let him sample the amontil- Critics have examined the process of doubling, the lado, so that he might ascertain if it is genuine. To relationship between the victim and the victim- do so, the two must leave the carnival festivities izer, and issues of opposition and disharmony in and crowds and venture to Montresor’s deserted attempting to fathom Poe’s intentions in writing villa, devoid even of the servants, who are also the story. away and celebrating. The two descend into the “The Cask of Amontillado” consists of a lengthy catacombs that house both Montresor’s stock of monologue by a character who objectively tells the wine and a large crypt, of which the niche in one story of a terrible crime he committed, without pro- wall has been cleared. viding any insight into the extent of the insult he As the two walk through the catacombs, Mon- has suffered or any significant justification of the tresor offers his guest wines at several intervals so crime. Told from the first-person point of view, the that Fortunato is completely inebriated when they tale offers an especially dark view of human nature, reach the exposed crypt wall. Within moments, because readers are discerning the mind and heart Montresor has chained Fortunato to the granite of a narrator who is without remorse for the terrible walls of the niche and proceeds to apply stone and crime he has committed. The voice of Montresor is mortar to seal the niche. After completing all but calm and confident and lacking all emotion as he one stone of 11 tiers, Montresor hears his prisoner’s relates his story without explanation and without low laugh and the nervous words “. . . a very good diversion. The language he uses is balanced and joke indeed—an excellent jest. We will have many detached, even as he is about to complete walling a rich laugh about it at the palazzo.” When Mon- up his victim for eternity: “I had scarcely laid the tresor fails to confirm that the action is a joke, first tier of the masonry when I discovered that the Fortunato panics and cries out, “For the love of intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure God, Montresor.” When no more words emerge, worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was Montresor throws his torch into the opening, then a low mourning cry from the depth of the recess. It places the final stone in the wall and seals it with was not the cry of a drunken man. There was then mortar. Montresor’s final words, uttered 50 years a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, after the crime are “In pace requiescat!” and the third, and the fourth.” Poe infused the story with numerous gothic COMMENTARY elements and deliberately made the setting of the The tale, one of Poe’s most popular short stories, story vague. As Wagenknecht relates, Poe uses is considered a masterpiece because of its blend of gothic conventions in many of his stories to cre- horror at the protagonist’s actions with the ironic ate an atmosphere of terror, but then subverts the humor of the situation. When the story was first convention by using only human agents for ter- published, New York publishing insiders recognized rible deeds. In line with gothic conventions, the

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story takes place in an atmosphere of mystery and ations in the story are based upon actual historical growing horror as the participants travel through figures and address social class issues of 19th-cen- the dark catacombs toward an even darker cham- tury America (20). Kathryn Harris views the signif- ber. An admirer of CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN, icance of the conflict between the Roman Catholic an American gothic writer, Poe also borrows from Montresor and the Mason Fortunato as one of the the gothic tradition the palazzo of the Montresors, Church defending against its enemies. James Rocks which contains many rooms, the archway that leads concludes in an article in the Poe Newsletter that to “the long and winding staircase” that will end at Montresor kills Fortunato because “he must pro- the catacombs, the damp and dank catacombs with tect God’s word and His Church against His ene- the dripping moisture and piles of bones, and the mies” (50). Many critics have examined the issue flickering and fading torches. To provide the sense of remorse in the story. Some critics, such as Daniel of a vague distant past, Poe inserts evidence of vary- Hoffman, suggest that Montresor is overcome by ing nationalities into the story. Montresor appears guilt, even 50 years after the act of killing. Hoff- to be of French background, while Fortunato and man asks, “Has not Montresor walled up himself Luchesi are Italians who speak with knowledge in this revenge? Of what else can he think, can about Italian wines (Richard Benton 19). Amon- he have thought for the past half-century, but of tillado is a Spanish wine. The Montresor family that night’s vengeance upon his enemy?” (221). motto is in Latin, but it is also the motto of the In contrast, other critics, such as Bettina Knapp, royal arms of Scotland. The story also makes note call the story amoral. “No judgmental forces are at of Montresor’s palazzo, roquelaire, rapier, and flam- work. Crime is neither a negative nor a positive act. beaux, among other non-English terms Poe uses to Poe’s psychopaths do not distinguish between good keep the reader from pinpointing a location for the and evil, nor do they usually feel remorse or guilt” story. The time in which the story takes place is (152–153). similarly only hinted at, and readers must carefully “The Cask of Amontillado” contains numerous examine the few clues that exist to establish that instances of doubling in both the characters and the story probably takes place in the 1780s. Benton the situations. The characters’ names echo simi- suggests that the short cape and rapier worn by lar ideas, in that “Montresor” suggests “treasure” Montresor and the history of laws governing the and “Fortunato” fortune. Poe provides other, some- Mardi Gras carnivals in France support this time times humorous, similarities between the men and frame (20–21). Missing from the story, however, in regard to doubling of items. As Cynthia Bily is the supernatural element relied upon by most points out, the two men walk along a damp pas- gothic writers. For Poe, it is not supernatural beings sageway during which Montresor offers Fortunato that people should fear; the real horror lies in what two bottles of wine. The first is Medoc, which was human beings themselves are capable of. In “The believed to protect one’s health and “defend us Cask of Amontillado,” Montresor’s crime is ter- from the damps.” The second wine is De Grave, rible, but it is believable, and it is committed with- which literally means “of the grave.” During the out magic or superhuman power. Although there walk, Fortunato makes a gesture that indicates he may be a hint of the supernatural in his remark that is a member of the secret organization the Free and “for the half of a century no mortal has disturbed” Accepted Masons, and moments later Montresor the pile of bones outside Fortunato’s tomb, those reveals he is carrying a trowel beneath his cloak to beings that might not be mortal are not described, indicate that he is a mason as well, but of a differ- and Fortunato does not reappear as a ghost or a ent type. At the end of the final passageway, Poe vampire or a zombie. presents two men in the interval between two of Critics have sought to identify sources for the the “colossal supports” confronted with “two iron story as a means of determining Poe’s intentions. staples, distant from each other about two feet.” Benton suggests that the story can be read as histor- When Montresor tells his story 50 years after comical fiction and asserts that the characters and situ- mitting the crime, he appears to identify strongly

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with his victim. He recalls Fortunato’s demise and still ornamented in this manner. From the utters the line, “In pace requiescat” (rest in peace), fourth the bones had been thrown down, and but the reader is left to question if he wishes peace lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at upon Fortunato or for himself. one point a mound of some size. Within the Several critics make the case that Poe intended wall . . . we perceived a still interior recess, in the two men to be understood as twins or doubles. depth about four feet, in width three, in height Hoffman explores Poe’s theme of “the fate of the six or seven. man haunted by his own double, his anima, his Montresor urges Fortunato to enter the “inte- weird” (224). With reference to other stories by rior crypt” to taste the Amontillado, then moves Poe in which murderous doubles appear, such as quickly to chain Fortunato to the granite and works “The TELL-TALE HEART” and “WILLIAM WILSON,” Hoffman observes that when one of Poe’s protago- quickly “to wall up the entrance of the niche.” nists is wrestling with guilt, he sometimes “doubles Montresor takes pleasure in the means he has cho- his character and then arranges for one self to sen for disposing of Fortunato and pauses at one murder the other by burying him alive.” He sug- point to enjoy the sound of Fortunato clanking his gests that these “are two sides of the same man; chains: “The noise lasted for several minutes, dur- Edgar Poe as he saw himself while drinking” (218). ing which, that I might hearken to it with the more Knapp states that the shadow figure emerges as satisfaction, I ceased my labors and sat down upon “a personification of the narrator’s hostile feelings the bones.” The homicidal victimizer Montresor is and thoughts, symbolizing the repressed instincts fully aware of the horrors of enclosure and enjoys of the personality” and perceives that Poe “felt them, after having planned to make them as ter- himself striking back, at those forces in society or rifying as possible. particularly individuals who might have wronged Leonard Engel suggests that the enclosure is him” (180). employed for a dual purpose. “While it is Mon- In “The Cask of Amontillado,” Poe uses physi- tresor’s main source of delight in planning his cal enclosure to focus the action, a technique that revenge, it does create momentary flashes of panic which almost disrupt his carefully planned revenge. he discusses in his work “The PHILOSOPHY OF COM- One wonders if on a subconscious level Montresor POSITION,” in which he observes that “A close cir- cumspection of space is absolutely necessary to the is not trying to isolate, and enclose, a part of himself effect of an insulated incident—it has the force of and a neurosis he hates—symbolized by Fortunato” a frame to a picture.” In this story, the use of an (27). The reader anticipates that once the evil deed enclosure exerts a strong effect on the main char- is completed, Montresor will regain his equilibrium, acter and assists in plot development. By limiting but the fact that he tells his story in specific detail a the freedom of characters, Poe uses such confine- half a century later indicates that he is still obsessed ment to exert a power over the narrative action, with his crime. Fortunato is only significant as the as well as over the characters. Poe emphasizes the object of Montresor’s guilt and apparent hatred for importance of enclosure to the narrative in the the decline of his formerly large and aristocratic language used by Montresor as he and Fortunato family, feelings evident in Montresor’s response to approach their destination: Fortunato’s comment regarding the extensiveness of the vaults: “the Montresors . . . were a great and We passed through a range of low arches . . . numerous family.” As no mention is made of the and . . . arrived at a deep crypt. . . . At the immediate family of Montresor and because the past most remote end of the crypt there appeared tense is used, the author implies that their days of another less spacious. Its walls had been lined glory are past. Engel asserts, “Montresor is making with human remains, piled to the vault over- Fortunato a scapegoat and symbolically enclosing head, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Fortunato, his own identity, in a hidden crypt deep Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were within his own soul—out of sight but certainly not

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forgotten.” He observes that the enclosure serves I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no as a metaphor for Montresor’s obsession and “the matter.” He appears submissive, almost beaten by complex relationship between the reality of his dis- what he views to be the loss of birthright, the turbed inner self and his controlled, rational outer theft of ancestral claims, and the disgrace of his appearance. They emphasize his neurosis and sym- glorious name. During this carnival period, how- bolize the guilt he wishes to bury” (30). ever, Montresor becomes purposive, and his sub- “The Cask of Amontillado” contains instances mission turns to an aggression that Fortunato will of opposition and disharmony that transform the come to fear. Montresor appears to hold Fortunato world of the characters into one of ambiguity in responsible for his family’s demise and considers which appearances and words take on multiple himself the vindicator of the perceived injustices. meanings. James Gargano observes that “every His family coat of arms, which consists of a human aspect of life is potentially deceptive because it has foot poised to crush the “serpent rampant whose a double face” (120). Action and dialogue that on fangs are imbedded in the heel,” and his motto, first appearance appear innocuous gradually take “No one insults me with impunity,” instill in him on greater meaning as the story proceeds and the a forcefulness that belie his behavior early in the interaction of the characters increases. The setting story. He is transformed into an intellectual mas- of the masquerade furthers the sense of unreal- ter who easily baits his powerful adversary, Fortu- ity, because the activities and behavior engaged nato, and ably cajoles him into moving deeper and in during the festive time are quite different from deeper through the underground passages. Gar- the daily business of ordinary life. Such opposi- gano observes that Montresor has become “the tion between appearance and reality carries over master of the man who has mastered and humili- into the characters. The narrator describes For- ated him” and asserts that during the subterranean tunato as being a “man to be respected and even trip, “Montresor momentarily regains his birthright feared,” and notes that he is a man who is capable and reestablishes his family’s importance by giving of inflicting a “thousand injuries” and “insults.” dramatic substance to the meaning of his coat of More than once, Montresor asserts to Fortunato, arms and motto” (124). “You are rich, respected, admired, beloved.” For- Throughout the story, opposites appear, as the tunato expresses a sense of his importance as a carnival world parodies the actual world of daily member of the Freemasons and patronizingly life. Montresor genially greets Fortunato with an questions Montresor, “You are not a member of evil motive in mind. What appears to be a casual the Masons . . . You? Impossible! A mason?” He meeting between the two men is actually the result flaunts that association and derides Montresor, of a carefully constructed stratagem. The two men forgetting the Montresor family coat of arms and who greet each other as friends are actually, in the its aristocratic history. The carnival atmosphere eyes of one at least, enemies. The words of kindness creates a contrast to Fortunato’s obsession with uttered by Montresor and his generous invitation his self-importance. Despite being a man of status are filled with deceit. Every aspect of life and of and wealth, he has allowed himself to degenerate behavior becomes ambiguous. Ironically, Fortunato into the role of a drunken fool, both in costume appears to represent all that Montresor and his and behavior. “The man wore motley. He had on family have lost, and Montresor seems to believe a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was that he can regain his former life by destroying surmounted by the conical cap and bells.” Unlike Fortunato. That he cannot does not occur to him. his usually vigilant self, he feels a drunken camara- As Gargano states, “He does not understand that derie with Montresor and allows himself to be led his hatred of Fortunato stems from his inner quar- into danger. rel with ’fortune’ itself. Undoubtedly, Fortunato In a similar manner, the bitter Montresor, symbolizes Montresor’s lost estate, his agonizing whose family has lost its social prestige, announces remembrance of lapsed power and his present spiri- at the outset to Fortunato, “You are happy, as once tual impotence.” (125)

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PUBLICATION HISTORY wick Productions (1967) that analyzes and presents The story was first published in the November 1846 excerpts from the story. issue of GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND LADY’S BOOK, CHARACTERS where New York publishing insiders recognized it as Poe’s fictional response to libelous attacks writ- Fortunato A drunken self-important man whose ten by Thomas Dunn English that appeared first in name means “the fortunate one” and the victim the May 1846 issue of the New York EVENING MIR- of the story. Fortunato’s pride allows Montresor ROR and continued in ensuing months. to lure him into the catacombs and to kill him. Although described by Montresor as “a man to be ADAPTATIONS respected and even feared,” Fortunato has allowed the celebratory atmosphere of the carnival to Several audio recordings have been made of “The lower his guard and to subvert his normally vigi- Cask of Amontillado.” The audio cassette col- lant nature. He appears wearing carnival motley lection The Best of Edgar Allan Poe (Listening and fool’s bells, and he acts in a gullible manner Library, 1987), read by Edward Blake, includes as no more than an innocent drunk who has no “The Cask of Amontillado.” A radio play version fear that Montresor intends him any harm. Mon- of the story, originally broadcast on the NBC Uni- tresor’s references to Fortunato’s normal character versity Theater, is available on the audiocassette and daily nature suggest that he is a man of status Nosology; The Cask of Amontillado; The Fall of the and wealth who is normally ruthless in his busi- House of Usher (Golden Age of Radio Thrillers, ness dealings. As he walks through the catacombs Metacom, 1991). Audio recordings of “The Cask toward his doom, his sense of superiority emerges of Amontillado’’ also appear in the Edgar Allan in chance comments that sting Montresor and of Poe collection (Westlake House, 1987), An Hour whose effect Fortunato remains unaware. When with Edgar Allan Poe (Times Cassettes, 1979), and Montresor walls him up behind bricks and then Basil Rathbone Reads Edgar Allan Poe (Caedmon, taunts him, Fortunato still has no idea why he will 1960). die, even though he has become sober. As the final Several film productions have made use of the bricks are put into place, Montresor describes “a plot of this tale, although no early production low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It carried its name. In 1931, the German film Funf was not the cry of a drunken man.” Unheimliche Geschichten (released in the U.S. as The Living Dead) included the plot in its story line, Luchesi He is a wine expert whose name Mon- as did the 1948 French remake Histoires Extraor- tresor invokes to lure Fortunato into Montresor’s dinaires (Extraordinary Tales). Master of Horror, a wine cellar. Fortunato disdainfully states that 1961 film made in Argentina, also included the “Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry” story within the larger plot but did not give specific and “cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado.” attention to Poe or to his protagonist. When Fortunato appears to falter in his steps on The story has also been captured on film and the way to the wine cellar, Montresor again invokes videotape more faithfully. Videotapes include Luchesi’s name, to which Fortunato immediately The Cask of Amontillado (Films for the Humani- responds, “He is an ignoramus.” ties, 1991); The Cask of Amontillado (AIMS Media, 1982); Tales of Edgar Allan Poe (Troll, 1987); and Montresor The narrator of the story, Montresor a three-tape set that includes six stories by six provides an account of an ancient enmity that authors, Classic Literary Stories (Hollywood Select exists between his family and that of Fortunato, Video, 1987). Film versions include a 16mm film against whom he extracts his revenge during “the from BFA Educational Media that is accompanied supreme madness of carnival season.” Montresor by a teacher’s guide; another 16mm film from Films is an arrogant man who prides himself as a buyer of Incorporated, 1975; and a 35mm film from Bruns- wine. He cunningly tricks his enemy into insisting

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that they sample the barrel of Amontillado that Engel, Leonard W. “Victim and Victimizer: Poe’s he claims to have purchased, first luring Fortunato ‘The Cask of Amontillado’.” Interpretations: A into the catacombs containing his wine cellar, Journal of Idea, Analysis, and Criticism 15 (1983): then encasing him behind a wall and sealing it 26–30. off. Montresor is a compulsive man whose crime Gargano, James W. “ ‘The Cask of Amontillado’: A against Fortunato remains a crime against himself Masquerade of Motive and Identity.” Studies in because he is still telling the story 50 years after Short Fiction 4 (1967): 119–26. the occurrence. In “The Question of Poe’s Nar- Gruesser, John. “Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado’.” rators,” James W. Gargano writes that Montresor The Explicator 56 (1998): 130. is “one of the supreme examples in fiction of a Harris, Kathryn Montgomery. “Ironic Revenge in deluded rationalist who cannot glimpse the moral Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado’.” Studies in Short implications of his planned folly” (169). We do Fiction 6 (1969): 333–335. not know where Montresor is, at present, but his Hoffman, Daniel. Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe. Garden need to recall in detail the murder after 50 years City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972. exhibits his obsession with its result. Although Knapp, Bettina L. Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Freder- he claims to have had a code of behavior for ick Ungar, 1984. the manner in which he carried out his revenge, Platizky, Roger. “Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontil- Montresor recognizes that he has failed to per- lado’.” The Explicator 57, no. 4 (Summer 1999): form an act of honorable vengeance: “A wrong 206–209. is unredressed when retribution overtakes its Randall, John H., III. “Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontil- redresser.” He suspects that he has also failed in lado’ and the Code of the Duello.” Studia Ger- taking an honorable revenge because Fortunato manica Gandensia 5 (1963): 175–184. never learns why he must die. Thus, Montresor Rocks, James E. “Conflict and Motive in ‘The also fails to fulfill a second requirement of his Cask of Amontillado’.” Poe Newsletter 5 (1972): code: “It is equally unredressed when the avenger 50–51. fails to make himself felt as such to him who has Strepp, Walter. “The Ironic Double in Poe’s ‘The Cask done the wrong.” of Amontillado.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction 13 (1976): FURTHER READINGS 447–453. Benton, Richard P. “Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado’: Its Cultural and Historical Backgrounds.” Poe Stud- ies 29 (1996): 19–21. Bily, Cynthia. “The Cask of Amontillado: Some Fur- “City in the Sea, The” ther Ironies.” In Short Stories for Students. New (1829) York: Gale Research Group, 2000. Bittner, William. Poe: A Biography. Boston: Atlantic Poem written in 1829. Monthly Press, 1962. Buranelli, Vincent. Edgar Allan Poe. Boston: Twayne, SYNOPSIS 1977. “The City in the Sea” is one of Poe’s earliest Cody, Daniel. “ ‘What a Tricke Wee’le Serve Him’: poems. The poem consists of four stanzas, each A Possible Source of Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontil- with a different rhyme scheme. Although the lado’.” ANQ 17, no. 1 (Winter 2004): 36. poem does not develop a specific narrative per- Cooney, James F. “ ‘The Cask of Amontillado’: Some sona, the speaker does offer a series of observa- Further Ironies.” Studies in Short Fiction 11 (Spring, tions about the sights that appear before him. 1974): 195–196. Death is clearly the topic of the poem, as the Delaney, Bill. “Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado’.” The speaker makes clear at the outset by relating that Explicator 64, no. 1 (Fall 2005): 33–35. Death has established a city beneath the waves of

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Illustration for “The City in the Sea” (Edmund Dulac)

the sea that serves as a place of eternal rest for the In the fourth and final stanza, the narrator souls of all people, whether good or bad. The first relates that the air seems to move and that the three stanzas describe the city and create a mood towers of the city shake and sink very slightly as the of solemnity. Although the city contains shrines, result of the movement of a wave. After the slight palaces, and towers, as might a city above the movements subside, the waves of the sea appear water, the speaker asserts that he cannot describe to emit a more vibrant glow. The narrator senses the structures adequately because they “resemble these motions and prophesies a time when the city nothing that is ours.” The realm is characterized will eventually settle downward toward hell and by sadness. Instead of receiving the illumination cause the spirits there to rise from their thrones of the Sun’s rays, the city is illuminated by “an and revere the dead. infernal light” from below by beams that move up the shrines “Whose weathered friezes intertwine COMMENTARY / The viol, the violet, and the vine.” The lighting “The City in the Sea” has been described as one makes the buildings indistinguishable from their of Poe’s most romantic works. The poem attracted shadows, thus making the city appear to float on the admiration of the English Pre-Raphaelite air. The sole structure that appears to be perma- poets, particularly Swinburne, to whom such lines nent is the “proud tower” in which Death resides as “Whose wreathed friezes intertwine / The viol, and governs all. As a city of dead souls, the city the violet, and the vine” embodied the view that is filled with graves, and the sea surrounding is poetry should possess a lyrical, unified structure “hideously serene.” that combines sensual sound with sensuous imag-

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ery. The poem is a meditation that centers on an Coliseum speak of their past glory and insist, “We underwater necropolis illuminated from an infer- are not impotent—we pallid stones / Not all our nal energy below its surface rather than from “rays power is gone—not all our fame.” The poet insists from holy heaven,” and where the buildings and that the essence of ancient Rome’s greatness still streets “[r]esemble nothing that is ours.” This is a lives in his imagination and in the visions of those city without people, sound, or movement, devoid of who retain the memories that “clothe us in a robe of spiritual hope, over which Death presides and sur- more than glory.” veys with satisfaction his authority and handiwork: “while from a proud tower in the town / Death COMMENTARY looks gigantically down.” “The Coliseum” is introduced in Poe’s play “POLI- TIAN,” a drama in which Lalage, a young orphaned PUBLICATION HISTORY ward of the di Broglio family, has been seduced Poem written by Poe that appeared first in the April and abandoned by the family’s son Castiglione. 1845 issue of the AMERICAN REVIEW. The poem, Lalage cries and despairs for her life when she thus titled, was also included in Poe’s collection learns that Castiglione has become engaged to The RAVEN AND OTHER POEMS, published late in his cousin, and she plans to take her life. When 1845 by Wiley & Putnam and believed to be “the the English visiter, Politian, the earl of Leicester, most important volume of poetry that had been hears Lalage singing a sad ballad in English, he issued up to that time in America.” Under the title approaches her and tells her he loves her. Lalage, “The DOMED CITY,” an earlier version of the poem however, challenges him to avenge her honor by had appeared in Poe’s third book, POEMS, published dueling with Castiglione. After failing to do so, by Elam Bliss in 1831. Politian meets with Lalage amid the ruins of the Coliseum, at which point Poe introduces his poem FURTHER READINGS “The Coliseum.” The words suggest, as the play Garrison, Joseph M., Jr. “Poe’s ‘City in the Sea.’ ” Poe comes to an abrupt halt, that Politian seems deter- Studies 22, no. 2 (1989): 43–44. mined to try to carry, once again, the attempt to Thorpe, Dwayne. “Poe’s ‘City in the Sea’: Sources and duel as he leaves Lalage. Interpretation.” American Literature 51 (1979): 394–399. PUBLICATION HISTORY “The Coliseum” first appeared in the October 26, 1833, issue of the BALTIMORE SUNDAY VISITER.

“Coliseum, The” (1832) FURTHER READINGS Ljungquist, Kent. “ ‘The Coliseum’: A Dialogue on Poem written in 1832. Ruins.” Poe Studies 16 (1983): 32–33. SYNOPSIS The poem is a dark meditation in which the poet speaks of Rome’s shadowy past and present of “grandeur, gloom, and glory.” He speaks of the doomed “Colloquy of Monos and Una, fame of ancient Rome, now with “these crumbling The” (1841) walls; these tottering arcades / These mouldering plinths—these sad and blacken’d shafts.” Short story written in 1841. The destroyed surroundings of the poet contain “shattered cornices—this wreck—this ruin—these SYNOPSIS stones,” as the poet hears sounds emerging “from The story is preceded by an epigraph taken from all ruin” that still speak of hope. The stones of the SOPHOCLES’ Antigone and translated by Poe as

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“These things are in the future.” The tale is an CHARACTERS allegorical fantasy in the form of a celestial dia- Monos Character in Poe’s short story “The COL- logue between two lovers, reunited centuries after LOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA.” Monos describes their death. Critics have noted the similarity of in painful detail his dying and death, the funeral thought between this tale and Poe’s “CONVERSA- preparations, the grieving by those left behind, TIONS OF EIROS AND CHARMION,” both of which and the bodily sensations remaining after death. examine the nature of existence after earthly He also describes the sensations of dying, includ- death. The tale consists entirely of a dialogue ing the hyperexcitation of his senses and his eerie between two characters, Monos (“the single one”) awareness, exhibiting more of life than he experi- and Una (“the one”) on the nature of death. In enced while fully living. He disparages passion as the opening lines, Una poses the question “Born “the affliction of an impure nature” that marks one again?” to Monos, who answers that Death has who is not sufficiently devoted to transcending the resolved for him the meaning of those words. The earthly state to become worthy of inhabiting the exchange consists largely of Una posing questions paradise where pure spirits dwell. As the tale ends, and Monos providing profound explanations, yet Monos expresses the peace that he felt when, at it is Una who states, “in Death we have both last, all form and sentience had left him and “for learned the propensity of man to define the inde- all this nothingness, yet for all this immortality, the finable.” To this, Monos provides a lengthy philo- grave was still a home, and the corrosive hours, sophical discussion on the nature of humankind’s co-mates.” self-destructive nature, which has meant the “widest ruin as the price of highest civilization.” The Una Character in Poe’s short story “The COL- speakers recall their own deaths a century earlier, LOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA.” Una poses a series of and Monos describes in painful detail his dying questions to Monos, newly arrived on the ethereal and death, the funeral preparations, the grieving planet, who describes in painful detail his dying by those left behind, and the bodily sensations and death, the funeral preparations, the grieving remaining after death, including the ability to feel by those left behind, and the bodily sensations Una being buried above him in the grave. Monos remaining after death. He also describes for her the describes the sensations of dying, including the sensations of dying, including the hyperexcitation hyperexcitation of his senses and his eerie aware- of his senses and his eerie awareness, as exhibiting ness, as exhibiting more of life than he experi- more of life than he experienced while fully living. enced while fully living. He disparages passion as He disparages passion as being “the affliction of an “the affliction of an impure nature” that marks impure nature.” one who is not sufficiently devoted to transcending the earthly state to become worthy of inhabiting the paradise where pure spirits dwell. The tale ends with Monos expressing the peace that he felt when, at last, all form and sentience had left “Conqueror Worm, The” him and “for all this nothingness, yet for all this (1843) immortality, the grave was still a home, and the corrosive hours, co-mates.” Poem written in 1843.

PUBLICATION HISTORY SYNOPSIS First published in the August 1841 issue of GRA- The poem characterizes life as a struggle between HAM’S MAGAZINE, the story was later collected with mankind and the inevitable death, a “play is the 11 other tales in TALES BY EDGAR A. POE, published tragedy, Man / And its hero, the conqueror Worm.” by Wiley & Putnam in 1845. The Worm, which is death, achieves its end amid

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 49 10/12/07 12:01:55 PM 50 “Conversation of Eiros and Charmion, The” “. . . much of Madness, and more of Sin / And Hor- “Conversation of Eiros and ror, the soul of the plot!” As mankind engages in this battle of horror, the “pallid and wan” angels Charmion, The” (1839) fail to act on behalf of humans and, instead, seem amused by the struggle. Although originally pub- Short story written in 1839. lished separately from the tale, the poem is represented as the creation of Ligeia, and it functions to SYNOPSIS reveal her anxiety about the decay of the body and “The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion” is a dia- her desire to escape death. The death envisioned in logue between two celestial beings, both of whom the poem is violent: “And the seraph sob at vermin have long before experienced the dissolution of the fangs / In human gore imbued.” earthly existences. The epigraph accompanying the story is taken from Euripides’ drama Andromache: COMMENTARY “I will bring fire to thee.” Eiros and Charmion have both “passed into “The Conqueror Worm” represents death as a con- Night through the grave.” Charmion eagerly ques- queror, a victor over humankind’s struggle to live tions Eiros to learn more about the “stupendous and survive. Despite all efforts to overcome the con- event” of the fiery catastrophe that consumed queror worm (death), humans are the tragic players the Earth. Eiros had observed the fiery blast that in the struggle in which death is always triumphant. destroyed Earth, and Charmion urges him to “con- The characterization of death as a “conqueror worm” verse of familiar things, in the old familiar language is appropriate, because the entombed body has been of the world which has so fearfully perished.” The represented in much of literature as the food of story reflects the apocalyptic visions that obsessed worms. The poem contains a familiar theme in Poe’s many Americans in 1839. Four years earlier, Hal- writing, and it was published separately two years ley’s comet had appeared, and many people were before the short story “LIGEIA.” He appears to have gripped in a frenzy that the end of the world was included the poem in the story as doomed Ligeia’s imminent. Poe’s tale, with its vision of the Earth dying words as an attempt to correct the impression being consumed in a fiery ball, suited the taste of that her return suggests too strongly that she has the times. successfully escaped death. Through her utterance The brief story consists solely of a dialogue of the poem, readers are made aware that no one, between two characters, one dead 10 years and even Ligeia, can escape the conqueror worm. the other newly arrived on Aidenn. Their earthly names have been sloughed off with their earthly PUBLICATION HISTORY existences, and the two disembodied entities “The Conqueror Worm” was first published in now must forget both as they begin to experience the January 1843 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGA- “the full joys and wonders” of this new existence. ZINE and later included in Poe’s The RAVEN AND Charmion has preceded Eiros in death, and she OTHER POEMS, published in 1845 by Wiley & cautions him that he will need time to adjust: “It Putnam. The poem was also incorporated into is now ten earthly years since I underwent what the text of “Ligeia” when the story was reprinted you have undergone—yet the remembrance of it in the September 27, 1845, issue of the BROAD- hangs by me still.” Before enlightening Eiros about WAY JOURNAL. the adjustments they must make in “their perception of the new,” however, Charmion asks for FURTHER READINGS a detailed description of “that stupendous event Lubbers, Klaus. “Poe’s ‘The Conqueror Worm.’ ” which threw you among us.” Most of the tale is American Literature 39 (1967): 375–379. devoted to Eiros’s description of events preced- Tritt, Michael. “ ‘Ligeia’ and ‘The Conqueror Worm.’ ” ing the Earth’s destruction by collision with a Poe Studies 9 (1976): 21–22. comet. Their exchange reveals that the survival

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of the soul is not dependent upon moral, pious, Robinson, Douglas. “Poe’s Mini-Apocalypse: ‘The or good behavior while alive on Earth. Instead, Conversation of Eiros and Charmion.’ ” Studies in the survival of the soul means the survival of the Short Fiction 19 (1982): 329–337. mind capable of pure thought. The explanation of “that last hour” that Eiros gives to Charmion is a lengthy and detailed mix of astronomy, philosophy, religion, chemistry, and human behavioral “Descent into the Maelstrom, science. The combination of these studies leads A” (1841) Earth’s inhabitants into a false security, “As if by some sudden convulsive exertion, reason had at Short story written in 1841. once hurled superstition from her throne. The fee- blest understanding had derived vigor from exces- SYNOPSIS sive interest.” Soon, as Eiros states, humankind “A Descent into the Maelstrom” is preceded by was overtaken by “the bitterness of despair,” as Poe’s paraphrase of an epigraph taken from JOSEPH they realized their danger and understood that the GLANVILL’s essay “Against Confidence in Phi- scientists and not the theoreticians had been cor- losophy and Matters of Speculation,” collected in rect in their predictions. The world was destroyed Essays on Several Important Subjects (1676): in an instant. “For a short moment there was a The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, wild lurid light alone, . . . then there came a great are not as our ways; nor are the models that we pervading sound, as if from the very mouth of frame any way commensurate to the vastness, HIM” before the world exploded into “a species of profundity, and unsearchableness of His works, intense flame.” which have a depth in them greater than the well of Democritis. PUBLICATION HISTORY The original is as follows: The story appeared in the December 1839 issue of BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE, and it was The ways of God in Nature (as in Providence) simultaneously published in Poe’s short story col- are not as ours are: Nor are the models we frame lection TALES OF THE ARABESQUE AND GROTESQUE any way commensurate to the vastness and pro- in December 1839, although the title page read fundity of his Works, which have a Depth in 1840. them greater than the Well of Democritus. Democritus (born 460 B.C.) states that truth lies at CHARACTERS the bottom of a well. Charmion A former inhabitant of Earth who is The story opens with a striking similarity to SAM- now a celestial specter. She converses with Eiros, UEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE’s Rime of the Ancient Mari- who has experienced a similar dissolution of his ner (1798), in which a wild-eyed old man accosts earthly existence, and questions him about the wedding guests and seeks to tell them his horren- destruction of the Earth. dous story of shipwreck and survival. At the outset, the seemingly old man assures the narrator that he Eiros A former inhabitant of Earth who is now a is not very old, and protests that “the six hours of celestial specter. He provides Charmion an account deadly terror which I then endured have broken of the end of the world. me up body and soul.” He informs the narrator that his presumptions are incorrect. “You suppose me FURTHER READINGS a very old man—but I am not. It took less than a Kock, Christian. “The Irony of Oxygen in Poe’s ‘Eiros single day to change these hairs from a jetty black and Charmion.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction 22 (1985): to white, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my 317–321. nerves, so that I tremble at the least exertion, and

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am frightened at a shadow.” The old man takes the are made fairly to feel yourself on the descend- narrator to the pinnacle of a cliff where they both ing round of the vortex, convoying fleets of drift gaze over the ocean and, as the mountain trembles, timber, and fragments of wrecks; the terrible whirl the narrator sees and feels a series of whirlpools makes you giddy as you read.” As the three young that lead to the “the great whirlpool of the Mael- brothers attempt to steer clear of the whirlpool, the strom.” Once the old man is certain that the nar- reader is made to feel the movements they are hop- rator fully appreciates the power and mysteries of ing to avoid: the maelstrom, he tells the story of how he and his Here the vast bed of the waters, seamed and two brothers, with their “schooner-rigged smack scarred into a thousand conflicting channels, of about seventy tons of burthen” on which they burst suddenly into phrensied convulsions— fished, were pulled into the whirlpool. One brother heaving, boiling, hissing—gyrating in gigan- grasped the mast in the effort to survive, while the tic and innumerable vortices, and all whirling second brother took hold of a ringbolt fastened to and plunging into the eastward with a rapidity the ship, but their “sensible” efforts were in vain. which water never elsewhere assumes except in The old man describes the descent of the ship and precipitous descents. all its contents into the vortex. He explains that he used his powers of ratiocination and observed the Most of the tale is occupied in setting up the movement of the objects around him before decid- story. Three years after the incident occurred, the ing to lash himself to a water cask rather than wait old man is relating his story to the current listener / to go down with the ship. His action, which shows narrator, and the reader does not learn if this is the a remarkably detached self-control, is based on the first time or the hundredth time he has accosted a observation that “the larger the bodies, the more stranger, whom he has taken to the top of the cliff rapid their descent.” After several wild gyrations, and to whom he has told the story. the barrel “sunk very little than half the distance The shipwreck survivor relates information between the bottom of the gulf and the spot at regarding his experiences on the sea and informs which I leaped overboard,” then the gyrations begin the listener / narrator about dangers in the nearby to lessen and finally cease. When a ship picks up the waters, as well as the particular danger that they sole survivor, his hair has turned white in only one have climbed onto the cliff to observe. The two day, and he is fatigued and speechless. Despite the discuss the descriptions of the whirlpools that have change in his physical appearance, even those fish- appeared in various scientific accounts and in the ermen who knew him refused to believe his story. Encyclopedia Britannica, but the survivor asserts that such accounts do not come close to provid- COMMENTARY ing accurate descriptions of the intensity and the The tale is one of Poe’s most fantastic efforts of violence of the sea. ratiocination, yet it remains believable in its Unlike typical descriptions, which are the methodical and logical account of the sole survivor results of external observations, the survivor’s of a shipwreck who is hurled into a whirlpool and description of the fury of the maelstrom derives survives. Bettina Knapp states that the basis for from having experienced a journey inside the the story may have come from reading an article in whirlpool. Thus, he provides a unique viewpoint an 1838 issue of ALEXANDER’S WEEKLY MESSENGER that has never before appeared. The story differs “which described the vast Drontheim whirlpool; significantly in this respect, because Poe presents supplemental readings in the Encyclopedia Britan- a character who has experienced an event that nica may have filled in what Poe himself did not has never happened to any human and who feels know about such a force from a technical point of compelled to tell everyone about it. The survi- view” (117). In a review published in the January vor admits to fear, but he also relates that he 1848 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, was curious to see what the whirlpool was like P. Pendleton Cooke observed that in the story “you inside. After attempting to hold tight to the mast

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of the ship and other objects, he lashes himself to white while experiencing the terrors of being a cask and maneuvers overboard, freefalling as he trapped in a whirlpool. He claims to be an inad- observes the sensation. After relating “the result equate storyteller because it is “folly to attempt was precisely what I had hoped it might be” and describing” the hurricane and the experience in telling the listener / narrator that the whirlpool the whirlpool and asserts that “no one will know subsided, the survivor changes his speech from what my feelings were at that moment.” Despite past tense to present tense and addresses the nar- the terror of the experience, the survivor tells his rator directly: “As it is myself who tells you this story in a calm and logical manner. He relates tale—as you see that I did escape—and as you are that, even while fearful, he felt a curiosity about already in possession of the mode in which this the whirlpool: “I positively felt a wish to explore escape was effected, and must therefore antici- its depths, even at the sacrifice I was going to pate all that I have farther to say—I will bring make; and my principle grief was that I should my story quickly to conclusion.” In the final lines never be able to tell my old companions on shore of the story, despite the attempt at verisimilitude about the mysteries I should see.” maintained throughout, the survivor relates that the fishermen, who were once his friends and who unnamed listener/narrator The unnamed listener knew him well, rescued him but did not believe to whom the shipwreck survivor (also unnamed) his story. In like manner, he addresses the narra- tells the tale functions as little more than a con- tor (and also the reader): “I now tell it to you— text for the tale. He is never identified as anything and I can scarcely expect you to put more faith more than an inhabitant of Lofoden whom the in it than did the merry fishermen of Lofoden.” survivor accosts and takes up to the top of a very This final statement is ironic, because as the sur- high cliff to show him the maelstrom. Once at vivor lashes himself to the barrel and falls into “the summit of the loftiest crag,” the listener / the whirlpool to explore the depths, he claims to narrator becomes terrified at the height and the not fear death but to just have the regret “that I ferocity of the wind: “I fell at full length upon should never be able to tell my old companions on the ground, clung to the shrubs around me, and shore” about the experience. He does survive to dared not even glance upward at the sky—while I tell the story, but they fail to believe him. struggled in vain to divest myself of the idea that the foundations of the mountain were in danger PUBLICATION HISTORY from the fury of the winds. It was long before I The story was first published in the April 1841 could reason myself into sufficient courage to sit issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. up and look out into the distance.” As he reacts with fear to the increasingly violent crashing of ADAPTATIONS the waves below and the shaking of the cliff, he No film has been made of “Descent into the Mael- acts as a perfect foil to the calm manner in which strom” to date, although elements of the tale the survivor tells his tale. appear in the silent film The Raven (1912) and in War Gods of the Deep (1965; also released as City FURTHER READINGS Under the Sea). Finholt, Richard D. “The Vision at the Brink of the Abyss: ‘A Descent into the Maelstrom’ in the Light CHARACTERS of Poe’s Cosmology.” Georgia Reviews 27 (1973): shipwreck survivor Norwegian fisherman and 356–366. sole survivor of a shipwreck that has taken the Knapp, Bettina L. Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Con- lives of his two brothers three years earlier. He tinuum—A Frederick Ungar Book, 1984. accosts a man in the city of Lofoden, seeking to Ware, Tracy. “ ‘A Descent into the Maelstrom’: The tell his story, and informs him that he is really Status of Scientific Rhetoric in a Perverse Rheto- a young man whose formerly black hair turned ric.” Studies in Short Fiction 29 (1992): 77–84.

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 53 10/12/07 12:01:56 PM 54 “Devil in the Belfry, The” “Devil in the Belfry, of sinecures, [so] he is the most perfectly respected of any man in the world. He is the chief dignitary of The” (1839) the borough, and the very pigs look up to him with a sentiment of reverence.” When the “very diminu- Short story written in 1839. tive foreign-looking man” enters the town and disrupts the clockwork paradise by overpowering the SYNOPSIS belfry-man and making the town clock chime 13 “The Devil in the Belfry” opens as an unnamed strokes at noon, “all Vondervotteimittiss flew at narrator in the persona of a historian expresses the once into a lamentable state of uproar.” Mealtimes desire to “give a history of the calamitous events are off schedule, food is overcooked, pipes run out which have so lately occurred within the limits” of tobacco, and the population is nearly unable to of the Dutch borough of Vondervotteimittiss. In function as every clock in town also strikes 13. The the manner of many learned treatises, the story devil disorders their mechanical reality, which can contains mock attempts to provide readers with be restored only in one way. As the narrator impor- an etymology of such people and place names as tunes readers, “Let us proceed in a body to the “Kroutaplenttey” [“kraut-a-plenty,” suggesting Ger- borough, and restore the ancient order of things man origins as it obviously refers to the well-known in Vondervotteimittiss by ejecting the little fellow German cabbage dish sauerkraut], and “Vonder, from the steeple.” Until the little devil in the belfry lege Donder—Votteimittis, quasi und Bleitziz—Bleitziz obsol: pro Blitzen.” The stuffy and erudite narrator further refers “the reader desirous of information” to the invented “Oratiunculae de Rebus Praeter-Vet- eris, of Dundergutz [Little Discussions of the Most Ancient Things by Dunderhead]” and additional learned works complete with marginal notes and folio numbers for verification. After admitting that the date of the founding of the borough is unknown, the narrator relates that “it has always existed as we find it in this epoch. The oldest man in the borough can remember not the slightest difference in any portion of it; and, indeed, the very suggestion of such a possibility is considered an insult.” Vondervotteimittiss is a place of precision, order, neatness, uniformity, and punctuality where “[t]he buildings themselves are so precisely alike that one can in no manner be distinguished from the other.” Every house is decorated with the same carvings of cabbages and timepieces, and all are exactly alike, as are the citizens. The pride of the borough—and its source of precision and harmony—is the seven- faced town clock, which strikes the hours regularly and which “was never yet known to have any thing the matter with it.” As is the custom in the borough, “people who hold sinecure offices are held in more or less respect,” and the reliability of the town clock has Illustration by D. Wagel for “The Devil in the Belfry” in made the position of belfry-man “the most perfect The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (1902)

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can be evicted, the borough of Vondervotteimittiss that is identified by the narrator as a source for the will never know the correct time again. In keeping name of the fictional Dutch borough of Vondervot- with his efforts throughout the story to mock the teimittiss, the setting of the story. pretentiousness of the pseudo-learned, Poe prefaces the tale with the following epigraph: “What devil, the (2) Disrupts the happy ignorance o’clock is it?—Old Saying.” of the residents of a village who run their lives according to their seven-faced steeple clock. The COMMENTARY devil, something of a dandy, is “a very diminu- The tale is by Poe’s admission a true grotesque that tive foreign-looking man” with a snuff-colored deals comically with the German intellectualism countenance, “and he had a long hooked nose, of his day and that also satirizes the credulity and pea eyes, a wide mouth, and an excellent set of conventionality of the mob. In the first publica- teeth.” His “audacious and sinister kind of face” tions of the story, Poe provided a footnote to the is covered with “mustachios and whiskers,” and name Vondervotteimittiss to pronounce the town his hair is “neatly done up in papillotes [curling name as “Vonder vaat time it is,” to make certain papers].” His clothing is well cut and elegant, that his readers understood the target of his satire. consisting of “a tight-fitting swallow-tailed black The tale might be seen as a comic variation of the coat, . . . black kerseymere kneebreeches, black theme of too much timekeeping and reliance on stockings, and stumpy-looking black pumps, with rationality, which Poe also handles in “A PREDICA- huge bunches of black satin ribbon for bows.” He MENT” and “The PIT AND THE PENDULUM.” The carries a huge silk three-cornered hat under one satiric sketch brought to mind for readers of Poe’s arm and a fiddle “nearly five times himself” under time WASHINGTON IRVING’s A History of New-York, the other. His appearance is disconcerting to the written under the pseudonym of Diedrich Knick- townspeople, but more upsetting is his “cutting erbocker, in the creation of the Dutch borough of all manner of fantastic steps . . . a fandango here, Vondervotteimittiss. and a whirligig there” without having the “remot- PUBLICATION HISTORY est idea in the world of such a thing as keeping time in his steps.” The story was first published on May 18, 1839, in the Philadelphia Saturday Chronicle and Mirror of Dundergutz Narrator of the story who cites the the Times. treatise Oratiunculae de Rebus Praeter Veteris (Little ADAPTATIONS discussion of the most ancient things) of this fictional scholar as a source for the derivation of the The French composer CLAUDE DEBUSSY obsessed town’s name. The name is intended to evoke a about turning the tale into an opera; he began writing it in 1902, but the opera remained unfinished relationship to the term dunderhead. at his death in 1918. Debussy sought to make the work “a happy blending of the real and the fantas- Grogswigg T Traces the derivation of the name tic” and to create a devil that would “put an end of the borough of Vondervotteimittiss, but his work to the idea that the devil is the spirit of evil. He is is portrayed as a relatively useless exercise—Poe’s simply the spirit of contradiction.” The devil also private mockery of academics. would remain silent throughout the opera and only whistle, and the one singing part would be that of Kroutaplenttey Traces the origin of the name the crowd. of the borough of Vondervotteimittiss. The name seems to translate to “plenty of Krauts,” with kraut CHARACTERS used as a slang term for German and obviously Blunderbuzzard Cited as the author of a make- coming from sauerkraut, a well-known German believe scholarly work entitled De Derivationibus cabbage dish.

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 55 10/12/07 12:01:56 PM 56 “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences”

Teufel German word for devil. The name is used and serious manner the numerous ways of did- when the large clock strikes 13 and the old men of dling—stealing, swindling, and committing petty Vondervotteimittiss cry out, “Der Teufel!” larceny. Poe contends that “the principle of diddling is, in fact, peculiar to the class of creatures FURTHER READINGS that wear coats and pantaloons” and asserts that Forbes, J. Christopher. “Satire of Irving’s A History of man “was made to diddle. This is his aim—his New York in Poe’s ‘The Devil in the Belfry.’ ” Studies object—his end.” He identifies the elements of suc- in American Fiction 10 (1982): 93–100. cessful diddling as “minuteness, interest, perseverance, ingenuity, audacity, nonchalance, originality, impertinence, and grin” and explains each aspect in detail before offering a range of instructive “Diddling Considered as One examples. Among the confidence games identified are means of obtaining free tobacco by confusing of the Exact Sciences” (1843) the shopkeeper about the change, cheating greedy reward seekers of money for turning in what seem Short story written in 1843. to be valuable finds, skipping out on rent due, and SYNOPSIS bilking gullible job seekers of fees for jobs that do not exist. Poe shows the “diddlers” to be a clever “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sci- and enterprising group. He shows little sympathy ences” is constructed as parody of serious treatises, for their victims, whose greed and stupidity lead to most notably of the sort published by the British their downfall. The work reveals Poe’s fascination philosopher and economist Jeremy Bentham, whose with hoaxes of every kind. doctrine of utilitarianism and treatises on law and morality were lauded by Poe’s contemporaries and PUBLICATION HISTORY had great influence on early 19th-century thought. The story was first published under the title “Rais- Poe makes his intentions clear in the opening lines ing the Wind; or, Diddling Considered as One of of the work: the Exact Sciences” in the October 14, 1843, issue Since the world began there have been two of the Philadelphia Saturday Courier and reprinted Jeremys. The one wrote a Jeremiad about usury, under the present title in BROADWAY JOURNAL on and was called Jeremy Bentham. He has been September 13, 1845. much admired by Mr. John Neal, and was a CHARACTERS great man in a small way. The other gave name to the most important of the Exact Sciences, unnamed narrator A self-proclaimed “diddler,” and was entitled Jeremy Diddler. He was a great he presents an objective and methodical examina- man in a great way—I may say, indeed, in the tion of the arts of stealing, swindling, and petty very greatest of ways. larceny. Poe appends to the story an epigraph of lines FURTHER READINGS from a Mother Goose nursery rhyme, but he identi- Baym, Nina. “Emerson’s Transcendental Etudes / The fies the source as a lofty epic written by the pseud- After Life of Edgar Allan Poe.” American Literature. onymous “Flaccus,” actually the amateur poet 77, no. 2 (June 2005): 414. THOMAS WARD, whom Poe had dubbed “a ninety- Pollin, Burton R. “Poe’s ‘Diddling’: The Source of ninth-rate poetaster” in a March 1843 review: Title and Tale.” Southern Literary Journal 2, no. 1 “ ‘Hey, diddle, diddle, / The cat and the fiddle.’— (1969): 106–111. From an Epic by ‘Flaccus’.” Whalen, Terrence. “Poe’s ‘Diddling’ and the Depres- Classified as a tale, the piece is actually a mock sion: Notes on the Sources of Swindling.” Studies in scientific study that discusses in a methodical American Fiction 23 (1995): 195–201.

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 56 10/12/07 12:01:56 PM “Domain of Arnheim, or the Landscape Garden, The” 57 “Domain of Arnheim, or PUBLICATION HISTORY The story was first published in its present form in the Landscape Garden, the March 1847 issue of Columbian Lady’s and Gen- The” (1842) tleman’s Magazine. An early, briefer version of the story appeared as “The Landscape Garden” in the Short story written in 1842. October 1842 issue of Snowden’s Ladies’ Compan- ion. Poe enlarged the story, incorporating most of SYNOPSIS “The Landscape Garden” in the first 15 paragraphs “The Domain of Arnheim, or the Landscape Gar- of the present story. den” combines the essay form with that of the tale in an effort to improve on nature. Critics have CHARACTERS praised the story as a marvelous prose poem that Ellison A friend of the narrator, he is a wealthy contains a musical element similar to that which aesthete who has devoted himself to creating Poe attempted to achieve in his poetry. An epigraph the ideal landscape plot as his private domain of from “Christ’s Victorie and Triumphe in Heaven beauty. Profoundly enamored of music and poetry, and Earth” (1610) by Giles Fletcher (1588–1623) he ignores the advice of friends and family and precedes the story: the applications of others and decides to use his wealth to construct a picturesque and private The garden like a lady fair was cut, paradise “which still is nature in the sense of the That lay as if she slumbered in delight, handiwork of the angels that hover between man And to the open skies her eyes did shut. and God.” The azure fields of Heaven were ’sembled right In a large round set with the flowers of light. Ellison, Mr. Seabright The rich ancestor of Elli- The flowers de luce and the round sparks of dew son, the narrator’s friend. Through various modes of That hung from their azure leaves did shew investment, he “minutely and sagaciously” amasses Like twinkling stars that sparkle in the evening a fortune, but he has no immediate relatives to blue. whom he may leave it. As an alternative, he directs Ellison inherits “four hundred and fifty millions that the fortune should be left to accumulate for a [sic] of dollars” from an ancestor who died a cen- full century, and he bequeathed it to “the nearest tury before and “bequeathed the aggregate amount of blood, bearing the name of Ellison, who should to the nearest of blood, bearing the name of Elli- be alive at the end of the hundred years.” son, who should be alive at the end of the hundred years.” A man “profoundly enamored of music FURTHER READINGS and poetry,” despite the importuning of friends and Hess, Jeffry A. “Sources and Aesthetics of Poe’s Land- family and the applications of others, he decides scape Fiction.” American Quarterly 22 (1970): to use his wealth to construct a picturesque and 177–189. private paradise “which still is nature in the sense Kehler, Joel R. “New Light on the Genesis and Prog- of the handiwork of the angels that hover between ress of Poe’s Landscape Fiction.” American Litera- man and God.” Ellison searches “for several years” ture 47 (1975): 173–183. for a spot that is suitable for his garden, rejecting Mainville, Stephen. “Language and the Void: Gothic “a thousand spots” in that time. When he finally Landscapes in the Frontiers of Edgar Allan Poe.” settles on a suitable locale, he names his romantic Genre 14 (1981): 347–362. domain Arnheim. The garden is a physical and Michael, John. “Narration and Reflection: The Search sensuous Eden “upspringing confusedly from amid for Grounds in Poe’s ‘The Power of Words’ and all, a mass of semi-Gothic, semi-Saracenic architec- ‘The Domain of Arnheim.’ ” Arizona Quarterly 45 ture, sustaining itself by miracle in mid-air.” (1989): 1–22.

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 57 10/12/07 12:01:57 PM 58 “Dream, A” “Dream, A” (1827)

Lyric poem written in 1827. SYNOPSIS “A Dream” is a lyric poem in which the poet expresses his inability to distinguish between the dream and the reality, because he is haunted by memories of “a dream of joy departed.” Entangled within his reverie, the speaker finds his faculties clouded “with a ray / Turned back upon the past.” The poet and critic Richard Wilbur identified the source of Poe’s poem as LORD BYRON’s lyric “I Would I Were a Careless Child.” COMMENTARY The poem represents another attempt by Poe to recapture the state of lost innocence by which he seems haunted. Having known the loss of his parents at an early age and separated from his brother WILLIAM POE and ROSALIE POE, he romanticizes a fictional past as he feels unloved in the home of his adoptive father, JOHN ALLAN. He writes of joy as a dream that has been lost, and with this lost dream has gone all foreseeable chance of future happiness. Illustration for “Dreamland” (Edmund Dulac) PUBLICATION HISTORY place “[w]here an Eidolon named Night” reigns “A Dream” first appeared in TAMERLANE AND over a realm somewhere beyond time and space. OTHER POEMS (1827) and was republished in the The destination is a forsaken landscape of “moun- collection AL AARAAF, TAMERLANE, AND MINOR tains toppling evermore / Into seas without a shore” POEMS (1829). and filled with gothic images of ghouls dwelling by FURTHER READINGS dismal tarns and pools, shapes of dark memory, and Postema, James. “Edgar Allan Poe’s Control of Read- a general sense of loss and anguish. Yet the dreamers: Formal Pressures in Poe’s Dream Poems.” voyager perceives the beauty within the horror, “a Essays in Literature 18 (1991): 68–75. peaceful, soothing region . . . an Eldorado” that can never be apprehended by the rational restraints of the waking state: “Never its mysteries are exposed / To the weak human eye unclosed.” “Dream-Land” (1844) COMMENTARY Lyric poem written in 1844. “Dream-Land” was written in 1844, but the general sense of loss and anguish is as stark in this poem SYNOPSIS as in the earlier “A DREAM” (1827), although the “Dream-Land” contains identical opening and clos- terrain is darker and the images more frightening. ing stanzas to indicate the dream-voyager’s arrival In the 17 years since the publication of the ear- in and decision to remain in the extraterrestrial lier poem, Poe eliminates the subtleties in which

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 58 10/12/07 12:01:57 PM “Duc de l’Omelette, The” 59

he views his faculties as clouded “with a ray” and tion of whether all we actually experience or view is turns to a more horrific scene of chaos, ghouls, merely “a dream within a dream” evokes a compari- and intense feelings of loss and pain. Despite such son to Plato’s allegory of the cave in The Republic. images, however, Poe remains hopeful and asserts Plato postulates that prisoners chained together in that within the dark realm filled with frightening a cave with a fire behind them and facing a wall on shapes exists a peaceful and beautiful place that which their flickering shadows appear come to view people can reach, but only in their dreams. those shadows as reality. Even when removed from the cave and confronted with objects in the real PUBLICATION HISTORY world, they will reject this “reality” in favor of the Lyric poem in five stanzas that first appeared in reality that they have come to accept, the flickering the June 1844 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE and shadows on the wall. In like manner, Poe questions was republished in the June 28, 1845, issue of the if everything the poet (and the reader) experiences BROADWAY JOURNAL. and sees is merely a dream, which leaves reality beyond his grasp. FURTHER READINGS Bailey, James O. “The Geography of Poe’s ‘Dreamland’ PUBLICATION HISTORY and “Ulalume.’ ” Studies in Philology 45 (1948): “A Dream Within a Dream” first appeared in the 512–523. March 31, 1849, issue of the FLAG OF OUR UNION. Postema, James. “Edgar Allan Poe’s Control of Read- ers: Formal Pressures in Poe’s Dream Poems.” FURTHER READINGS Essays in Literature 18 (1991): 68–75. Postema, James. “Edgar Allan Poe’s Control of Read- ers: Formal Pressures in Poe’s Dream Poems.” Essays in Literature 18 (1991): 68–75. “Dream within a Dream, A” (1849) “Duc de l’Omelette, The” Poem written in 1849. (1832)

SYNOPSIS Short story written in 1832. The poet questions what is needed to distinguish between the dream and reality and states firmly at SYNOPSIS the end of the first stanza, “All that we see or seem The epigraph preceding “The Duc de l’Omelette” is / Is but a dream within a dream.” In the second taken from The Task (1785) by WILLIAM COWPER, a stanza, the poet expresses the torment of not being long poem in which the descriptions of country life able to grasp the grains of sand within his hand and foretell the 19th-century romantic movement: “And asks “can I not grasp / them with a tighter clasp?” stepped into a cooler clime.” The story opens as the The realization that he cannot save one grain of Duc de l’Omelette is about to dine on an ortolan, sand from “the pitiless wave” leads to his final ques- “the most delicate of birds.” When dinner is served, tion of doubt: “Is all that we see or seem / But a “the door gently opens to the sound of soft music,” dream within a dream?” and the duc is confronted by the incorrectly prepared dish, “this little bird which you have stripped COMMENTARY the feathers from and which you have served with- “A Dream Within a Dream” was written seven out paper” (the sign of a well-dressed bird is that months before Poe’s death, and during a time in it is served with the paper cuffs on the ends of the which he felt an increasing frustration with his legs). Shocked by the impropriety of the situation, writing and more intense feelings of loss. His ques- “the Duc expired in a paroxysm of disgust.” Three

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days later, he finds himself in hell, where the devil Belial One of the devil’s assistants, his “Inspector tells him, “I took thee now from a rose-wood coffin of Cemeteries,” who conveys the duc to hell. inlaid with ivory. Thou wast curiously scented, and labelled as per invoice.” For the duc, hell is a lavish Duc de l’Omelette A self-important aristocrat apartment filled with statuary and sumptuous paint- who dies of shock after being served roast fowl ings, but a single uncurtained window that gives him without the socially requisite paper cuffs on its legs. full view of the hellfires just beyond the pleasure He is taken from his expensive rosewood coffin to chamber. The devil, who has haughty disdain for face Baal-Zebub, who proposes a game of cards with the self-important aristocrat, orders de l’Omelette to the duc’s soul as the prize. The devil loses when de strip off his clothing and to meet his fate. When his l’Omelette draws a king from the deck. victim suggests a game of cards to wager for his soul, Baal-Zebub agrees to a game of double or nothing, FURTHER READINGS but the overly confident devil fails to give the game Carson, David L. “Ortolans and Geese: Origin of Poe’s his full attention. When de l’Omelette draws a king ‘Duc de L’Omelette.’ ” College Language Association from the deck, the devil loses both the game and his Journal 8 (1965): 277–283. claim on the aristocrat’s soul. Hirsch, David H. “ ‘The Duc de L’Omelette’ as Anti- Visionary Tale.” Poe Studies 10 (1978): 36–39. COMMENTARY This tale was conceived as a humorous assessment of the career of NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS, whose critics had long predicted the end of his popularity “Eldorado” (1849) as a writer. The same florid literary style that elicited disdain from most literary reviewers, however, Poem written in 1849. attracted readers to his work. Critics generally agree that this short, simple story is one of Poe’s most SYNOPSIS successful comic tales, providing as it does a sympa- “Eldorado” is a ballad constructed of four six-line thetic main character whose antagonist is the devil. stanzas, with short lines replicating a journey on In its link between gourmet dining and the horrors horseback. The heroic striving of the knight to find of damnation, the story is closely related to another Eldorado has dominated his life since his youth, of Poe’s stories, “BON-BON.” and now he has little hope of completing his quest before mortality takes its toll. The knight meets the PUBLICATION HISTORY “pilgrim shadow,” which encourages him to travel The story was first published under the title “The “Over the Mountains of the Moon, / Down the Duke of l’Omelette” in the March 3, 1832, issue of the Philadelphia Saturday Courier. CHARACTERS Baal-Zebub The devil who, with haughty disdain for the self-important aristocrat, takes de l’Omelette from his rosewood coffin to hell, then orders him to strip off his clothing and meet his fate. Referring to himself at one point as the Prince of the Fly, Baal-Zebub insults, goads, and torments de l’Omelette. When his victim suggests a game of cards to wager for his soul, Baal-Zebub agrees to a game of double or nothing, but the overly confident devil fails to give the game his full attention. Illustration for “Eldorado” (Edmund Dulac)

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and reality states, this poem also speaks of a happiness or fulfillment that cannot be recaptured. The “pilgrim shadow” may be the muse urging the artist forward, and it may also be a demon or ghoul who seeks to deprive the knight / Poe of all possibility of stable happiness. PUBLICATION HISTORY “Eldorado” was first published in the April 21, 1849, issue of the FLAG OF OUR UNION. FURTHER READINGS Pollin, Burton R. “Poe and Frances Osgood, as Linked Through ‘Lenore.’ ” Mississippi Quarterly 46 (1993): 185–197.

“Eleonora” (1842)

Short story written in 1842. SYNOPSIS The story begins with an epigraph that appears in Illustration for “Eldorado” (Edmund Dulac) Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris, in chapter six of book seven: Sub conservatione forme specificae salva anima. (Under the protection of a specific Valley of the Shadow,” and to “Ride, boldly, ride” form the soul is safe.) The first-person narrator of beyond all earthly limits. This was one of Poe’s last the tale is obsessed with the strange beauty of his poems. Rather than the idealistic quest of Arthur, cousin Eleonora, with whom he lives innocently Poe’s knight seeks material enrichment, yet he, too, for 15 years with her mother, the narrator’s aunt, must accept that the only lasting reward is the spir- “beneath a tropical sun in the Valley of Many- itual reward. Colored Grass.” The narrator never explains why the three live so solitary an existence, although COMMENTARY critics have found the relationship similar to Poe’s Critics suggest that the poem was Poe’s response to living arrangement with MARIA CLEMM and her the excitement of the great gold rush to California daughter, VIRGINIA CLEMM, who later became his in 1849. The poem reflects the Arthurian tradition wife. The characters’ surroundings are paradisia- in the questing knight, the pilgrim shadow, and cal, where “no unguided footsteps ever came upon the unfinished search and task to which the now- that vale. . . . No path was trodden in its vicin- old knight has dedicated himself. Instead of a holy ity.” They live in solitary bliss, “knowing nothing grail or a maiden in distress, however, the knight of the world.” Once the narrator and Eleonora of the poem seeks the mythical Eldorado, a city become aware of their love, the world changes and of gold. “Eldorado” was written six months before becomes even more lush to mirror “the passions Poe’s death, during a time in which he suffered which had for centuries distinguished our race, increasing bouts of despair and self-doubt. Similar came thronging with the fancies for which they to his poems questioning the substance of dream had been equally noted.”

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One day, Eleonora cries uncontrollably and tells lished in the May 24, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY the narrator that “she had seen that the finger of JOURNAL. Death was upon her bosom,” but her fears are not of death. Instead, she fears that after she is dead the CHARACTERS narrator will leave the valley and fall in love with a Eleonora A young and beautiful woman who was woman in the outside world. Prostrate with grief, born and has been raised in the secluded Valley of the narrator pledges undying devotion and vows to the Many-Colored Grass, apart from the corrupting never marry anyone else. After Eleonora dies, the outside world. With the narrator of the story, she narrator remains in the valley for several years, but experiences the freedom of their paradise: She falls changes eventually force him to leave. He journeys in love with him, and he returns her love. Her hap- to a strange city where he finds work at the court piness is short-lived, however, and she soon sees of a king, and where he also begins to experience that “the finger of Death was upon her bosom.” “burning thoughts” and “terrible temptations.” He Similar to other Poe heroines, “she had been made falls in love with Ermengarde, “with the fervor, and perfect in loveliness only to die.” the delirium, and the spirit-lifting ecstasy of adoration” that leads him to marry her without a thought Ermengarde The narrator’s second wife, “the of his promise to Eleonora. One night, he believes ethereal Ermengarde . . . the seraph Ermengarde . . . he hears Eleonora’s “sweet voice” reassure him that the angel Ermengarde,” whose beauty and “memo- he is absolved from his vows to her “in taking to thy rial eyes” make him forget his vow to his first wife passionate heart her who is Ermengarde.” Thus, to never marry again after her death. Ermengarde the narrator is inexplicably released from his earlier inspires in the narrator “the fervor, the delirium, vow of devotion to find happiness in a second, pas- and the spirit-lifting ecstasy of adoration.” sionate marriage with a woman from the outside world. FURTHER READINGS Baskett, Sam S. “A Damsel with a Dulcimer: An COMMENTARY Interpretation of Poe’s ‘Eleonora’.” Modern Lan- This tale is Poe’s most romantic, and it is written in guage Notes 78 (1958): 332–338. the style of his prose poems “SILENCE,” “SHADOW,” Robinson, E. Arthur. “Cosmic Vision in Poe’s ‘Ele- and “The ISLAND OF THE FAY.” This is one of Poe’s onora.’ ” Poe Studies 9 (1976): 44–46. few stories that contains a romantic male-female relationship without a multitude of morbid details. The plight of the young husband may also mirror Poe’s concerns. Although Poe’s wife, Virginia “Enigma, An” (1847) Clemm, would not die for five more years, she experienced her first hemoptysis (expectoration of blood Sonnet written in 1847. from the lungs) in 1842, which undoubtedly made Poe consider the seriousness of her condition and SYNOPSIS the possibility of her death. Critics have also linked “An Enigma” is a light and humorous sonnet that the death of Eleanora to that of Poe’s mother, ELIZ- contains an odd rhyme scheme (ababbccb cddbdd), ABETH ARNOLD POE. In both cases, a spiritual, non- which combines the two-part octave-sestet con- physical relationship ends, leaving the poet to hope struction of the Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet form for a later, adult, passionate relationship. with the final couplet of the Shakespearean (or English) sonnet. Also a name puzzle, the sonnet PUBLICATION HISTORY contains a concealed anagram of SARAH ANNA The story was first published in The GIFT: A LEWIS. The light mood and the wordplay of the CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR’S PRESENT (1842), an poem make a mocking reference to “Petrarchan annual published by Carey and Hart, then repub- stuff,” and the subject is a comic lament over the

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superficiality of periodical poetry, using such lines also appeared in The RAVEN AND OTHER POEMS, as “Trash of all trash!” and “The Owl-downy non- published by Wiley & Putnam in October 1845, sense that the faintest puff / Twirls into trunk-paper a collection deemed by critics of the period as the the while you con it,” to sustain the mood. most important volume of poetry that had been issued up to that time in America. PUBLICATION HISTORY “An Enigma” was first published in the March 1848 issue of the Union Magazine of Literature and Art under the title “Sonnet.” The poem was retitled by “Eureka: An Essay RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD, Poe’s literary executor. The poem was originally written as a gift to Sarah on the Material and Anna Lewis, a poet and friend of Poe’s during his Spiritual Universe” (1848) days living at the Fordham cottage; the sonnet was presented to her in a letter dated November 7, “Eureka: An Essay on the Material and Spiritual 1847. Universe” is a cosmological treatise and Poe’s longest nonfiction work. SYNOPSIS “Eulalie—A Song” (1844) Eureka is a deeply thought-out spiritual exploration. Poe states in the preface, “Nevertheless it is as Poem written in February 1844. a Poem only that I wish this work to be judged after I am dead.” He addresses his work “to the dreamers SYNOPSIS and those who put faith in dreams as in the only “Eulalie” is a bridal song that describes the speak- realities—I offer this Book of Truths, not in its er’s salvation from loneliness, despair, and “a world character of Truth-Teller, but for the Beauty that of moan” through marriage to “the yellow-haired abounds in its Truth; constituting it true.” young Eulalie.” She is “fair and gentle,” a “smil- The work, in which Poe created metaphysic-cos- ing bride” whose eyes are far brighter than “the mic theories intended to identify all life as being a stars of the night.” In Eulalie’s radiance, her “most part of God, originated as a lecture called “On the unregarded curl” and “most humble and careless Cosmogony of the Universe,” which Poe delivered curl” exceed in beauty and wonder “the morn-tints on February 3, 1848, at the Society Library in New of purple and pearl.” The speaker’s “yellow-haired York. He had hoped to raise funds to resuscitate the young Eulalie” with “her violet eye” is beautiful Stylus, but the cold and stormy weather on the night within, as well, “for her soul gives me sigh for sigh.” of the lecture brought an audience of only 60— She draws her beauty and strength from the goddess who, nonetheless, listened to Poe read for about Astarte, the Semitic goddess of fertility and sexual two and a half hours what would become nearly love: “ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron the whole text of Eureka, in which he unveiled the eye—/ And ever to her young Eulalie upturns her mysteries of God and Nature. The lecture did not violet eye.” The speaker feels secure in his love for make the expected money to resuscitate the Stylus. “Now Doubt—now Pain / Come never again,” for His audience left confused, and newspaper reports he has found a soulmate who derives her strength the following day painted the lecture as ludicrous. from the celestial goddess Astarte. One reviewer called it “hyperbolic nonsense.” Poe’s friend EVERT DUYCKINCK, an editor at Wiley & Put- PUBLICATION HISTORY nam who was usually sympathetic to Poe’s work, The poem first appeared in the July 1845 issue of wrote to his brother that the lecture had bored him the American Review, as well as in the August 9, to death and that it was “full of a ludicrous dry- 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. The poem ness of scientific phrase—a mountainous piece of

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absurdity for a popular lecture.” Undeterred, Poe FURTHER READINGS offered the renamed lecture to the publisher George Brooks, Curtis M. “The Cosmic God: Science and the P. Putnam with enthusiasm, expressing his faith in Creative Imagination in Eureka.” American Tran- the importance of the “discoveries” in the work and scendental Quarterly 26 (1975): 60–68. suggesting that Wiley & Putnam publish an edition of 50,000. The more levelheaded Putnam published an edition of 500, which sold very slowly and provided only small financial returns. “Evening Star” (1826) COMMENTARY Lyric poem written 1826. Eureka was both a financial and a critical failure; reviewers condemned it as filled with wild specu- SYNOPSIS lations and scientific errors. In particular, critics The speaker stares at the stars and “the brighter, pointed out that Poe’s statements violated Newto- cold moon,” finding them “Too cold—too cold for nian principles in their representation of the rotation me.” Gazing into the distance, he spies the “Proud and density of the planets. As his General Proposi- Evening Star, In thy glory afar,” which exudes a tion, Poe states: “Because Nothing was, therefore All warmth and attraction that the nearer stars do not. Things are.” He attempts to connect the individual His contemplation brings joy when he comes to soul and the mind of God, identifying the universe recognize that the “distant fire” of the star is far itself as a cosmic masterpiece and “a plot of God.” more admirable than “the colder, lowly light.” Poe sought to transcend the limits of death and to “reach these lands but newly from some ultimate COMMENTARY dim Thule.” Various passages in Eureka echo seg- Critics suggest that the poem bears some compari- ments of Poe’s poems and short stories that speak of son with JOHN KEATS’s sonnet “Bright Star” and penetrating death’s barrier to find the beautiful truth Thomas Moore’s “While Gazing on the Moon’s of some great beyond: “Guiding our imaginations by Light.” that omniprevalent law of laws, the law of periodic- ity, are we not, indeed, indulging a hope—that the PUBLICATION HISTORY process we have ventured to contemplate will be Lyric poem by Poe that first appeared in the collec- renewed forever, and forever, and forever?” With tion TAMERLANE AND OTHER POEMS, published by this pseudoscientific explanation of the creation and Calvin F. S. Thomas, Printer, in 1827. destruction of the universe, Poe attempted to unite his concept of highest beauty in final and highest FURTHER READINGS form. Critics do not suggest that he succeeded. Kilburn, Patrick. “Poe’s ‘Evening Star.’ ” Explicator 28 PUBLICATION HISTORY (May 1970): item 76. Eureka was Poe’s 10th published volume, the last published in his lifetime, and it appeared in March 1848. A small hardcover book, this cosmological treatise is Poe’s longest nonfiction work, at nearly “Facts in the Case of 40,000 words, and was published by Wiley & Put- M. Valdemar, The” (1845) nam as Eureka: A Prose Poem. Poe dedicated the work “With profound Respect” to Friedrich Hein- Short story. rich Alexander Baron von Humboldt (1769–1859), author of The Cosmos, whose work inspired Poe to SYNOPSIS construct a cosmological synthesis based on math- P———, a professional mesmerist, narrates the ematics, poetics, and intuition. story, which tells of a hypnotic experiment that he

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has conducted on a dying friend, M. Ernest Valde- son Davis, whose lectures on mesmerism he had mar, to determine if the mesmeric process can fore- attended. Poe was also deeply aware of the experi- stall death and decomposition. When physicians ments of DR. FRANZ FRIEDRICH ANTON MESMER, determine that Valdemar has only 24 hours to live, an Austrian physician who treated his patients by Valdemar sends P——— a note summoning the using a method of putting a subject into a trance- mesmerist to his bedside. Together, they relieve the like state, what is today called HYPNOTISM. Mesmer attending physicians, Dr. D——— and Dr. F———, believed that he had discovered a new life-giving of their care and ask only that one or the other force in the form of a magnetic force that flowed look in on him during the course of P———’s from his hands into the patient’s body. Motivated intended experiment. In the presence of Mr. Theo- in part by Mesmer’s writings, others undertook a dore L———l, a medical student who will take large number of scientific investigations in the 18th notes on the proceedings, the mesmerist places the and 19th centuries, and experiments in divination, immobile Valdemar into a trance when he is just clairvoyance, and attempts to maintain life through about to expire—a state in which he remains for hypnosis were reported in the newspapers, which seven months, during which nurses attend him. Poe undoubtedly read. Although Valdemar seems to be technically alive, The story expresses Poe’s ambivalence toward the mesmerist also realizes that to bring Valdemar the mesmeric science that preoccupied the think- out of the trance “would be merely to insure his ing of his time. On the one hand, the process instant, or at least, his speedy dissolution.” Sensing fascinates and offers Poe the possibility of prolong- that no progress can be made, the narrator, with ing life, yet the truly scientific side of his nature the agreement of Dr. F———, decides to awaken admits the impossibility of anything but the ulti- Valdemar, whatever the consequences. After mak- mate decomposition of the human body, despite ing “the customary passes,” P——— asks, “ ‘M. all efforts at maintaining life. Thus, the adventure Valdemar, can you explain to us what are your feel- ends in even greater loathsomeness than simple ings or wishes now?’ ” The response comes quickly, death and decomposition as Valdemar is reduced as Valdemar’s “hideous voice” intones, “ ‘For God’s to “detestable putridity.” Whatever his personal sake!—quick!—quick!—put me to sleep—or, views regarding mesmerism, to present the story in quick!—waken me!—quick!—I say to you that a scientific perspective, Poe includes the presence I am dead!’ ” As P——— “made the mesmeric of doctors who witness the experiment, a literary passes, amid ejaculations of ‘dead! dead!’ ” the body touch that impressed readers. of M. Valdemar “absolutely rotted away beneath Perhaps more intriguing is the examination of my hands. Upon the bed, before that whole com- the relationship between life and death that occurs pany, there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome— in the story. J. Gerald Kennedy notes that Poe “illu- of detestable putridity.” minates the disjunction between body and soul, as disclosed by mesmeric experiment; it postulates the COMMENTARY threshold experience of a man in articulo mortis.” The realistic tone of the narrative and the popular This aspect of the work made it extremely popular belief in the powers of MESMERISM in the United in Europe. In a letter to Poe dated June 15, 1846, States in the 1840s led many readers to believe that English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote that Poe’s tale was fact rather than fiction. The publica- the facts of the story had created a “most admired tion in the December 27, 1845, issue of the BROAD- disorder” in her and her friends who tried to deter- WAY JOURNAL of a letter from the Scottish druggist mine “whether it can be true.” She complimented ROBERT COLLYER, who claimed to have restored “to Poe on his extraordinary abilities of “making horri- active animation” someone who had died “from ble improbabilities seem near and familiar” (quoted excessive drinking of ardent spirits,” further blurred in Bettina Knapp, 198). the line between fiction and fact. Poe is said to The manner in which Poe treats death contrasts have sought technical data from Andrew Jack- with the concept of the Beautiful Death that many

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of his time espoused, and that they celebrated with MAN also included the story as one of the three short all manner of mourning furnishings, jewelry, and films that made up the 1962 film Tales of Terror. clothing. Instead, Poe provides a gruesome and graphic description of death in the immediate dis- CHARACTERS solution and putrefaction of Valdemar’s body, an Marx, Issacher Pseudonym of Valdemar, who act that one critic suggests “exemplifies the natu- has supposedly written Polish versions of Wal- ralistic horror inherent in death” (Kennedy, 131). lenstein, which was originally written by Johann Rather than romanticizing death, “Poe rejected the Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, and Gargantua, illusion of ‘the Beautiful Death’ which beguiled his written by François Rabelais. The name is actu- generation” (Kennedy, 133). ally an example of Poe’s sly humor, for the name appears in the Bible, in Genesis 49:14: “Issachar is a PUBLICATION HISTORY strong ass crouching down between two burdens.” The story appeared simultaneously in the Decem- Valdemar, M. Ernest Although he has a Danish ber 1845 issue of the American Review, and in last name, he lives in Harlem, New York, and appar- the December 20, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY ently writes and speaks Polish, for he is the author JOURNAL. The story also appeared in the first issue of “the Polish versions of ‘Wallenstein’ and ‘Gar- of Amazing Stories in 1926 as a work of “scientifi- gantua’ ” under the pseudonym of Issachar Marx. cation.” The second English reprint of the work Valdemar is also the subject of a mesmeric experi- appeared in booklet form in London in 1846 under ment as he nears death in order to determine if the the title “Mesmerism / ‘In Articulo Mortis’ / An mesmeric process can forestall death and decompo- Astounding and Horrifying Narration / Shewing sition. He is dying of tuberculoisis but has agreed to the Extraordinary Power of Mesmerism / In Arrest- be hypnotized just before his death. Just 10 days after ing the / Progress of Death / By Edgar A. Poe, Esq. he agrees, he summons the narrator, who performs / of New York / London / Short & Co., 8, King the hypnosis in the presence of doctors. After being Street, Bloomsbury. / 1846./ Three pence” The fol- hypnotized, Valdemar sighs deeply, stops rolling his lowing advertisement appeared on the cover of the eyes, and appears to be in a deep trance, yet he booklet: responds to commands and opens his eyes when the narrator questions him. The following day, Valde- The following astonishing narrative first ap- mar’s skin becomes cadaverous, his jaw falls, and his peared in the American Magazine, a work of tongue blackens and swells. His blood pressure and some standing in the United States, where the breath disappear, and his limbs show no movement. case has excited the most intense interest. He remains in this state for seven months until the The effects of the mesmeric influence, in mesmerist / narrator decides to awaken him. The this case, were so astounding, so contrary to awakened Valdemar begs to be allowed to die. After all past experience, that no one could have Valdemar makes this request, the narrator reports possibly anticipated the final result. The nar- that his “whole frame at once—within the space of rative though only a plain recital of facts, is of a single minute, or even less, shrunk—crumbled— so extraordinary a nature as almost to surpass absolutely rotted away beneath my hands. Upon the belief. It is only necessary to add, that credence bed, before that whole company, there lay a nearly is given to it in America, where the occurrence liquid mass of loathsome—of destable putridity.” took place. Dr. D——— Attending physician at the bedside ADAPTATIONS of M. Valdemar. The tale has appeared as one segment of a 1960 Argentinian film Masterpieces of Horror, which was Dr. F——— Attending physician at the bedside shown in the United States in 1965. ROGER COR- of M. Valdemar.

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M. P——— The narrator and a mesmerist who COMMENTARY conducts a hypnotic experiment on his dying The poem was originally named “Heaven.” Like friend. He uses a pseudoscientific approach of other poems Poe wrote during this time, such as mesmerism in the effort to control the life (and “TO HELEN,” “The SLEEPER,” “A PAEAN,” and “The death) of M. Valdemar. Rather than an act of VALLEY OF UNREST,” “Fairy-Land” hints of the dim friendship or mercy, the narrator states that his northern twilight of Scotland and the Celtic folk objective is to identify the effect of mesmerism tales that Poe had heard from the old people at and “to what extent, or for how long a period, Irvine, Scotland, where JOHN ALLAN had taken his the encroachment of Death might be arrested.” family and the young Poe in 1815, as well as the He exhibits a showman’s approach to issuing mystic landscapes of South Carolina and exotic commands to the hypnotized Valdemar, and he influence of his “Oriental” readings. becomes irritated when the awakening Valdemar begs to be released from his mesmeric trance and PUBLICATION HISTORY to be allowed to die. “Fairy-Land” first appeared in AL AARAAF, TAMER- LANE, AND MINOR POEMS, published by Hatch & Mr. Theodore L——— A medical student who Dunning in December 1829. Some 14 lines were takes notes during the mesmerism experiment con- excerpted from the poem and appeared in the Yan- ducted on M. Valdemar. kee and Boston Literary Gazette for November 1829. FURTHER READINGS Carter, Steve. “A Possible Source for ‘The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,’ ” Poe Studies 12 (1979): 36. Frank, Adam. “Valdemar’s Tongue, Poe’s Telegraphy.” “Fall of the House of Usher, ELH 72, no. 3 (Fall 2005): 635–663. The” (1839) Kennedy, J. Gerald. “Phantasms of Death in Poe’s Fic- tion.” In The Tales of Poe, edited by Harold Bloom, Short story written in 1839. 111–133 (New York: Chelsea House, 1987). Knapp, Bettina L. Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Con- SYNOPSIS tinuum—A Frederick Ungar Book, 1984. “The Fall of the House of Usher” opens with the following epigraph: Son coeur est un luth sus- pendu; / Sitot qu’on le touche il resonne [His heart is a suspended lute; / Whenever one touches it, it “Fairy-Land” (1828) resounds]. The lines are taken from the poem “Le Refus” by Pierre-Jean de Beranger (1780–1857). Lyric poem written in 1828. The story also includes the first appearance of Poe’s poem “The HAUNTED PALACE,” spoken by Roder- SYNOPSIS ick as he contemplates mortality. The plot of the The lyric poem contrasts the eerie beauty of a story was familiar to readers of gothic romances moonlit landscape, where “Huge moons there wax in Poe’s time. A young man is mysteriously sum- and wane,” with the daylight, when “They use that moned to an ancient home that holds long-hid- moon no more / For the same end as before-.” / The den secrets imbued with power over life and death. fairy beings have “forms we can’t discover” and The decaying Usher mansion has vacant, staring “they put out the star-light / With the breath from windows and a nearly invisible crack that scars the their pale faces.” The daylight breaks the spell and façade. While visiting, the narrator is involved in a provides only a mundane version of the magical series of bizarre and supernatural events for which fairy wings that populate the moonlit fairyland of he can provide no scientific explanation. Usher night. has appealed to the narrator to visit as “his only

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personal friend,” for he suffers “of acute bodily ill- romance. Madeline rises from her coffin and then ness—of a mental disorder which oppressed him.” appears to them, as Usher informs the narrator Roderick Usher has a cadaverous appearance, with that Madeline was buried alive. The enshrouded large and liquid eyes, thin and pallid lips, a nose “of Madeline falls onto her brother, dragging him “to a delicate Hebrew model,” and “a finely moulded the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he chin.” His skin has “a ghastly pallor,” his hair is had anticipated.” As brother and sister fall dead, wild and uncut, and it “floated rather than fell the house begins to collapse, and the narrator runs about the face.” He appears to suffer from “a con- out to avoid being killed. Having barely escaped stitutional and family evil. . . . a morbid acuteness with his life, the narrator gapes in horror as “the of the senses” that allows him to eat only “the most deep and dank tarn at [his] feet closed sullenly and insipid food” and to wear “only garments of certain silently over the fragments of the House of Usher,” texture.” He cannot stand the smells of any flowers, and he is left to tell the tragic story of the Ushers. and “his eyes were tortured by even faint light.” He lives in a constant state of nervousness, dreading COMMENTARY “even the most trivial incident, which may oper- “The Fall of the House of Usher” is the most popular ate upon this intolerable agitation of soul.” When of Poe’s stories, and one that attracted considerable pressed by the narrator, Usher admits that much attention when it first appeared. The publication of of his gloomy disposition is due to the severe and the story brought acclaim to Poe as a serious writer, long illness of his sister, Madeline, his only relative. and the tale has inspired numerous interpretations. The narrator and Usher spend many solitary hours Multiple layers of meaning spring from the gothic together, among the “rare and curious” books, trappings of the plot and the mysterious relation- some of them on divination and other subjects of ship of the brother and sister characters. Many crit- the supernatural. ics believe this tale reveals the most about Poe’s As the narrator speaks with her brother, Mad- life—from one critic’s assertion that the description eline passes slowly through a remote portion of the of Roderick Usher is “the most perfect pen-portrait apartment without noticing either. The source of of Poe which is known” to another’s suggestion her illness “had long baffled the skill of her physi- that references to “the morbid condition of the cians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of auditory nerve” and the shifting visual imagery in the person, and frequent although transient affec- the mansion unmistakably reflect a familiarity with tations of a partially cataleptical character, were the effects of opium. Certainly, the wasting away of the unusual diagnosis.” Up to the time of the narra- Madeline Usher strongly calls to mind the suffer- tor’s arrival, she has been ambulatory, but she takes ings of Poe’s child-bride VIRGINIA CLEMM, though to her bed, succumbing “to the prostrating power Virginia suffered her first serious illness in 1842, of the destroyer.” One evening, the narrator is after the story’s publication. informed by her brother that “that the lady Made- The complex nature of the story has led scholars line was no more.” She later appears to the narrator to disagree over its exact meaning. While some and Roderick, with “blood upon her white robes, prefer to see “Usher” as simply a story of the super- and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every natural, others see in the events and characters portion of her emaciated frame.” She stands and the workings of the human mind on the brink of stares, then falls forward against her brother and insanity, with Madeline and Roderick each repre- “in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore senting the unconscious and the conscious, respec- him to the floor a corpse.” The narrator is called tively. When the conscious (Roderick) strives to upon to take part in a strange task—in this case, deny the existence of the unconscious (Madeline), to assist Roderick Usher in providing Madeline the human mind (the house encompassing both) with “temporary entombment” after her apparent must fall into destruction. A third approach moves death. Later, while a violent storm rages outside, the meaning of the story into the realm of creativ- the narrator reads aloud to Usher from a medieval ity and the role of the romantic artist in achiev-

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ing an ideal creative plane. The dilemma faced by tration are symbolized by the house as well as by the romantic artist is represented by Roderick, who the character of Roderick Usher. When the nar- effectively plunges into madness when he leaves rator enters the house, he finds that the interior is the real world behind in his search for the sublime. morbidly depressing, with its “vaulted and fretted” Madeline contrasts with the cerebral Roderick, ceilings, “comfortless, antique, and tattered” fur- whose readings have led him into untold areas of niture, and “dark draperies hung upon the walls.” the occult. Roderick suggests that the house is one of the Many critics have noted that “The Fall of the causes of his agitated behavior, and the narrator House of Usher’ ” is an excellent example of gothic relates that Roderick “was enchained by certain short fiction. Beverly Voloshin argues that the superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling story is a turning point in Poe’s development of the which he tenanted, and whence, for many years, gothic tale. She says it contains all the necessary he had never ventured forth.” The story is told ingredients: romance, mystery, darkness, supernat- from the point of view of the rational and objec- ural, decay, a corpse, and even the suggestion of tive narrator, who tries valiantly to ascribe logical vampirism. In addition to providing readers with causes for the seemingly supernatural occurrences the requisite elements of horror, supernatural, ter- that take place in the house. He seeks to explain minal illness, incest, and death, the story is set in a Roderick’s nervousness and anxiety as grounded in desolate, decaying mansion. his mental anguish, but explaining through the use Other critics, however, point out that the story of logic becomes increasingly difficult as the story departs from the usual gothic fare in its emphasis progresses and the narrator begins to doubt his upon introspection rather than action and incident. own perceptions. The focus is placed on the narrator’s perceptions Poe uses a number of symbols to express the dis- and observations of a disintegrating intellect—of a integration of the Usher family. The most evident crumbling Roderick Usher rather than a crumbling symbol is the house itself, which with its isolation, castle or abbey. The effect produced is not one decay, and atmosphere of death serves as a repre- of physical terror but of the psychological, which sentative of the Usher family. This association is requires the reader to enter Roderick’s mind and expressed clearly by the narrator, who states that to join him in fearing the onslaught of insanity. “about the whole mansion and domain there hung The end of the standard gothic tale brings resolu- an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their tion through revelations of familial relationships, immediate vicinity—an atmosphere which had no old vendettas, and interpersonal debts. The end of affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked “The Fall of the House of Usher” serves no such up from the decayed trees, and the grey wall, and purpose. Instead, it raises questions that can never the silent tarn.” The vegetation around the house be answered because the characters who may pos- is dead; although water is usually a symbol of life, sess vital knowledge perish. the “black and lurid tarn” seems dead and reflects Critics agree that Poe uses setting, symbolism, the house in “remodelled and inverted images.” and imagery to explore themes of evil, madness, The narrator feels “an ici-ness” and “a sickening of and insanity. Beginning with the title, the crum- the heart.” He sees “about the whole mansion . . . bling house is a major character in the story. The a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly Usher family mansion is an isolated, dreary, and discernible and leaden-hued.” The apparent split decaying structure in “a singularly dreary tract between the twin personalities of the last of the of country” and evokes in the narrator “a sense Ushers, Madeline and Roderick, is symbolized by of insufferable gloom.” The house has a distinct the crack in the house noted by the narrator, and personality, and it is described as having “vacant it suggests the anticipated final destruction of the eye-like windows,” “bleak walls,” and “minute family and the house. Poe also conveys the sense fungi [that] overspread the whole exterior.” The of death and Roderick’s madness by the “fantastic themes of isolation and self-destructive concen- character” of Roderick’s guitar playing, as well as his

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“phantasmagoric” abstract painting and his lyrical ADAPTATIONS poem, “The Haunted Palace.” A radio play version of the story, originally broad- Images appear throughout the story to empha- cast on the NBC University Theater, is available size the foreboding atmosphere of “The Fall on the audiocassette Nosology; The Cask of Amon- of the House of Usher” and to convey Poe’s tillado; The Fall of the House of Usher (Golden Age themes. The narrator’s fear at the start of the of Radio Thrillers, Metacom, 1991). story becomes evident when he sees the physi- The visually graphic content of the story has cian standing on the staircase and observes, “His also made it the subject of several films. The earli- countenance, I thought, wore a mingled expres- est one appeared in France in 1929 as Le Chute de sion of low cunning and perplexity. He accosted la Maison Usher, directed by Jean Epstein and Luis me with trepidation and passed on.” Madeline Buñuel. This impressionistic version, which fea- is portrayed as ghostlike and mysterious: “The tures flying drapery, low-lying mists, sudden gusts lady Madeline passed slowly through the remote of wind, and artistically flickering candle flames, portion of the apartment, and, without having earned critical acclaim. Television movie versions noticed my presence, disappeared. A sensation appeared in England in 1950; in the United States of stupor oppressed me, and my eyes followed her in 1958, as part of the NBC-TV Matinee Theater; retreating steps.” An atmosphere of evil pervades “The Fall of and in 1982, as an amateurish production with the House of Usher,” expressed through the narra- cardboard sets. tor’s descriptions of his hosts and their crumbling “The Fall of the House of Usher” was adapted to mansion. The house is “a mansion of gloom,” and film in 1952. Directed and produced by Ivan Bar- Roderick has “a ghastly pallor of skin” and hair nett, this black-and-white, 70-minute film starred of a “wild gossamer texture.” He tells the narra- Kay Tendeter as Roderick Usher and Gwen Wat- tor that he and Madeline are cursed and that he ford as Madeline Usher and is available from Vigi- suffers from a “nervous agitation” which is “con- lant Distributors. It is generally considered a poor stitutional and family evil.” Madeline is portrayed adaptation of Poe’s story. ambiguously, with clear indication that she is ill ROGER CORMAN’s low-budget 1960 version, but also with the suggestion that she is sapping the titled House of Usher in the United States and The life force from Roderick, as well. Throughout, the Fall of the House of Usher in Great Britain, is consid- narrator attempts to present an unbiased account ered by many film critics the best film adaptation of that avoids ascribing the sense of foreboding to the story, despite the liberties it takes in making the supernatural forces, but he fails as the situation narrator Madeline’s fiancé and in having the house worsens and Roderick’s hysteria increases. Rod- first burn, then sink into the ground. This film was erick’s growing mental and emotional instability the first of eight Poe adaptations by Corman. and increasing list of mysterious complaints lends The story was also adapted to film in 1980. Star- credence to the belief that madness and insan- ring Martin Landau as Roderick Usher and Dimitra ity afflict the Usher family. The narrator states Arliss as Madeline Usher, this 101-minute color that Roderick suffers from “morbid acuteness of film was produced by Charles E. Sellier, Jr. and the senses,” and that he is overwhelmed by fear directed by James L. Conway. It is available from and anxiety. Madeline’s fatal illness, which causes Sunn Classic. her to lapse into a cataleptic state, then later to A dramatization of “The Fall of the House of appear to rise from the dead, increases the agita- Usher” was taped in 1965 as part of the “American tion. His time is also spent in reading books on Story Classics” series. Available from Film Video the occult. The story leaves unanswered questions Library, this adaptation runs 29 minutes and is in as to whether Roderick’s strange behavior is the black-and-white. result of psychological disturbance or whether he Another dramatization of the story was taped is truly the victim of supernatural forces. in 1976 by Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational

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Corporation. Also produced by Britannica in 1976, a faint blush upon the bosom and face, and that The Fall of the House of Usher: A Discussion fea- suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so tures science fiction writer Ray Bradbury discussing terrible in death.” Nearly a week later, Madeline’s the gothic traditions of “The Fall of the House of shrieks are heard, as are the sounds of her escaping Usher” as well as Poe’s influence on contemporary from the tomb. She had fallen into a catatonic state science fiction. and was entombed alive. Madeline appears at the The story also became an obsession of the French doorway to Roderick’s studio in the final throes of composer CLAUDE DEBUSSY, who worked sporadi- death and falls onto her brother, who dies with her, cally from 1890 through his death in 1918 on an “a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had antici- opera based on the story, yet left it unfinished. The pated.” At the outset of the tale, Roderick is the composer told friends that he had become obsessed stronger twin and Madeline the weaker. As Maurice with the “heir of the Usher family” and had nearly Beebe observes, “It is Roderick who affects, Mad- finished a long monologue of “poor Roderick’s. It is eline who is affected” (125). At the end of the story, sad enough to draw tears from a stone,” he said. Madeline appears to have drained whatever vitality remained in Roderick, and she has taken him with PUBLICATION HISTORY her to death. The story was first published in the September 1839 issue of BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE Usher, Roderick The twin brother of Madeline and was later collected among the 12 tales appear- Usher. He and the narrator were “boon compan- ing in TALES BY EDGAR A. POE, published by Wiley ions in boyhood.” Although the unnamed narra- & Putnam in 1845. tor survives the destruction of the house, the story he relates is actually told from the perspective of CHARACTERS Roderick, who displays a naked sensitivity to light Usher, Madeline The twin sister of Roderick and sound and exhibits similar heightening of his Usher. The two are the only surviving members other senses. The narrator states that Roderick of the Usher family line. They live with a scarcely “suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the referred to valet and never-seen servants in the senses; the most insipid food was alone endur- gloomy and dilapidated family mansion, the House able; he could wear only garments of a certain of Usher. The narrator first learns that Madeline is ill texture; the odours of all flowers were oppres- when he enters the house and proceeds up a winding sive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; staircase, on which he encounters a valet and the and there were but peculiar sounds, and these Usher family physician, who wears an expression of from stringed instruments, which did not inspire “low cunning and perplexity.” Glimpsed briefly as him with horror.” Poe presents a clear analogy she appears to float through the back of Roderick’s between the crumbling state of the mansion and studio, Madeline makes only a brief appearance in the deteriorating mental and physical states of the story and does not speak at all. At the moment that the narrator does see her in the studio, Roderick Roderick Usher, who suggests that his depressed state may largely be due was enchained by certain superstititious impres- to the severe and lengthy illness of his sister, who sions in regard to the dwelling which he ten- has been “his sole companion for long years—his anted, and whence, for many years, he had last and only relative on earth.” A few days after never ventured forth—in regard to an influence the narrator arrives, Roderick frantically tells him whose suppostitious force was conveyed in terms that Madeline has died and asks his help in placing too shadowy here to be re-stated—an influence her body into the family tomb. The narrator experi- which some peculiarities in the mere form and ences discomfort as he observes that she retains the substance of his family mansion, had, by dint coloring of a living woman: “As usual in all maladies of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his of a strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of spirit—an effect which the physique—of the grey

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walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which once occasional huskiness of his voice was heard they all looked down, had, at length, brought no more.” about upon the morale of his existence. unnamed narrator Childhood friend of Rod- Roderick is the human reflection of the house, erick Usher who is summoned to the crumbling which has “eye-like windows” and doors like Usher mansion and witnesses the death of Mad- “ponderous and ebony jaws.” Comparable to Rod- eline and Roderick Usher and the destruction of erick’s hair, described by the narrator as “of a their home. He is the reluctant observer and teller more than weblike softness and tenuity,” the top of this tale, who comes from the outside world after of the house is covered with “minute fungi” that receiving an urgent summons from Roderick. Upon hang “in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves.” viewing the crumbling mansion surrounded by wild As Beebe observes, the fissure that extends in undergrowth, he is immediately conscious of the a jagged line from the roof of the house to its isolated and self-contained nature of the house and foundation “corresponds to Roderick’s struggle approaches it with apprehension. He relates that against insanity, his effort to maintain his compo- upon arriving at the house, “a sense of insuffer- sure against what may be called the ‘kingdom of able gloom” pervades his spirit, a gloom that deep- inorganization’ ” (125). A highly sensitive and cre- ens when he enters Roderick’s studio. Once inside ative individual, Roderick expresses an awareness the house, the narrator becomes a recipient of the of his circumstances through his paintings and his many impressions transmitted by Roderick, who is music. The narrator states of the paintings that the motivator of events in the story. “an excited and highly distempered ideality threw a sulphurous luster over all.” The paintings show a FURTHER READINGS close relationship to his gradually crumbling san- Bailey, J. O. “What Happens in ‘The Fall of the House ity. Before he buries Madeline in the tomb, he of Usher’.” American Literature 35 (1964): 445–66. paints a picture that “presented the interior of Baym, Nina. “ ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ Char- an immensely long and rectangular vault or tun- acter Analysis.” Norton Anthology of American Lit- nel, with low walls, smooth, white, and without erature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995. interruption or device.” The painting contains no Beebe, Maurice. “The Universe of Roderick Usher.” means of outlet, nor does it contain any artificial In Poe: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by light source such as a torch, “yet a flood of intense Robert Regan, 121–133 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: rays rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a Prentice-Hall, 1967). ghastly and inappropriate splendour.” His music, Benoit, Raymond. “Poe’s ‘The Fall of the House of shown in the singing of “The Haunted Palace,” Usher’.” The Explicator 58, no. 2 (Winter 2000): also reveals an awareness of his movement toward 79–81. insanity. The narrator describes Roderick’s voice Bieganowski, Ronald. “The Self-Consuming Narrator as having “that leaden, self-balanced, and per- in Poe’s ‘Ligeia’ and ‘Usher.’ ” American Literature fectly modulated guttural utterance, which may 60 (1988): 175–188. be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaim- Boyd, Molly. “ ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, able eater of opium, during the period of his most Simm’s Castle Dismal, and The Scarlet Letter: Liter- intense excitement.” He and Madeline are twins, ary Interconnections.” Studies in the Novel 335, no. and on entombing her he entombs half of himself. 2 (Summer 2003): 231. After she is buried, Roderick undergoes a major Brennan, Matthew C. “Turnerian Topography: The transformation, “his ordinary occupations were Paintings of Roderick Usher.” Studies in Short Fic- neglected or forgotten,” and his “ordinary man- tion 27 (Fall, 1990): 605–608. ner had vanished.” The narrator reports that “the Coviello, Peter. “Poe in Love: Pedophilia, Morbidity, luminousness of his eye had utterly gone out.” and the Logic of Slavery.” ELH. 70, no. 3 (Fall Rather than the deep, leaden singing voice, “the 2003): 875.

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Dougherty, Stephen. “Foucault in the House of Usher: Mr. Blackwood Blackwood; Mr. Rouge-et-Noir; Some Historical Permutations in Poe’s Gothic. ” Chronologos Chronology; and two unnamed Dun- Papers on Language and Literature. 37, no. 1 (Win- derheads, “a very little man in a black coat with very ter 2001): 3–24. black eyes” and “a stout gentleman who admired Evans, Walter. “ ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ and Sir Walter Scott.” The members would each read a Poe’s Theory of the Tale.” Studies in Short Fiction 14 story at one of the monthly meetings. (Spring, 1977): 137–144. Hoffman, Michael J. “The House of Usher and Nega- PUBLICATION HISTORY tive Romanticism.” Studies in Romanticism 4 (1965): The collection was completed in 1833. Six sto- 158–168. ries from the collection were published in various Johansen, Ib. “The Madness of the Text: Decon- magazines earlier and the remaining five stories struction of Narrative Logic in ‘Usher,’ ‘Berenice,’ were also published in individual magazines—all ‘Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether.’ ” Poe Studies 22 acknowledged by Poe. (1989): 1–9. Marrs, Robert L. “ ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’: A CHARACTERS Checklist of Criticism Since 1960.” Poe Studies 5 Dictu, Mr. Horribile One of the 10 men, “as ill- (1972): 23–24. looking as they are stupid,” who form Poe’s fictional May, Leila S. “ ‘Sympathies of a Scarcely Intelligible Folio Club. Dictu, a man with white eyelashes, has Nature’: The Brother-Sister Bond in Poe’s ‘The graduated from the pompous-sounding university Fall of the House of Usher.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction at Göttingen and thus matches the collective intel- 30 (1993): 387–396. ligence of which Poe is clearly disdainful. Timmerman, John H. “House of Mirror: Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher’.” Papers on Dunderheads Members of the Folio Club who Language and Literature 39, no. 3 (Summer 2003): are contributing authors to a collection of 11 tales 227. titled Tales of the Folio Club. Voloshin, Beverly R. “Explanation in ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’.“ Studies in Short Fiction 23 (Fall Rouge-et-Noir, Mr. A member of the Folio Club. 1986): 419–428. He admires Lady Morgan, and his “Tale was condemned at the previous monthly meeting.” This choice of name for one of the Dunderheads may (1833) be a reference to Marie Henri Beyle (1783–1842), Folio Club, The who wrote under the pseudonym Stendhal and whose most noted work was Le rouge et noir (The Collection of 11 stories. Red and the Black). SYNOPSIS An imaginary literary society comprising 11 Dun- derheads, to whom Poe attributed the writing of his “For Annie” (1848) collection Tales of the Folio Club. Poe labeled his imaginary authors “a mere Junto of Dunderhead- Poem written in November 1848. ism. I think too the members are quite as ill-looking as they are stupid. I also believe it is their settled SYNOPSIS intention to abolish literature, subvert the Press, and “For Annie” is a tender and melodious poem that overturn the Government of Nouns and Pronouns.” describes Poe’s gratitude in recovering from the Among the members of this imaginary literary soci- severe illness that ensued when he attempted suicide ety are Mr. Snap, the president, and nine other mem- by overdosing on laudanum in November 1848. It bers: Mr. Convolvulus Gondola; De Rerum Natura, speaks of Poe’s conquest at last of “the fever called Esqr.; Mr. Solomon Seadrift; Mr. Horribile Dictu; ‘Living’,” and the cessation of “The moaning and

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groaning, / The sighing and sobbing” that had Journal on the same day. The poem was written tortured him. A little more than halfway through for Nancy Richmond after their close friendship the poem, the speaker has “A dream of the love ruptured. / And the beauty of Annie” in which the Annie of the poem is tenderly maternal, comforting Poe FURTHER READINGS with a gentle and protective embrace: “She ten- Hogue, L. Lynn. “Eroticism in Poe’s ‘For Annie.’ ” Poe derly kissed me, / She fondly caressed, / And then Symposium, Emerson Society Quarterly 60 (1970): I fell gently / To sleep on her breast—Deeply to 85–87. sleep / From the heaven of her breast.” From his Robbins, J. Albert. “A New Manuscript of Poe’s ‘For suffering state at the beginning of the poem, the Annie.’ ” Studies in Bibliography: Papers of the Bib- speaker develops a heart “brighter / than all of the liographical Society of the University of Virginia 39 many / Stars of the heaven / For it sparkles with (1986): 261–265. Annie.” He suggests in the poem that he recovered because of the loving care that Annie had provided to him. “Four Beasts in One: The COMMENTARY Homo-Cameleopard” (1835) “For Annie” was written in honor of NANCY RICH- Short story written in 1835. MOND. Critics have viewed the poem with differing degrees of favor. Gregory Jay likens the poem to SYNOPSIS Poe’s stories of lost love and observes that “The “Four Beasts in One: The Homo-Cameleopard” lament for the lost lady increasingly becomes the begins with the epigraph Chacun a ses vertus (each hysterical confession of her willful entombment, or, person has his virtues), taken from Xerxes, a play in the poems, the delightful expression of necro- written in 1714 by Prosper Joylot de Crébillon. The philia” (94). Claude Richard labels the “privileged narrator appears to be a historian of antiquity who poetic state” a state of mind and body in which the tells the tale in the Syrian city of Antioch in the poet experiences a detachment from the ordinary year 175 B.C. and invites the reader to enjoy a rare restraints of life, after Poe’s description of “the spectacle. The story tells of the triumphant return fever called ‘Living’ ” has subsided. The narrator of a legendary ruler, Antiochus Epiphanes, whose of the poem expresses his own distress in having private life and reputation are made up of “impious, recently come through an illness that is symbolic of dastardly, cruel, silly, and whimsical achievements.” the difficulties of his life. He has struggled greatly He is a man of gigantic height, also referred to as to become well, to return to life, and the analogy Antiochus Epimanes, or Antiochus the Madman. between the two states is strongly developed. The He is hailed by his people as “The Prince of Poets,” poem becomes an expression of love in the second “Glory of the Earth,” and “most remarkable of Cam- half in which the narrator tells of the love that he eleopards.” Wild animals roam the streets “entirely has discovered and the tenderness with which the without restraint,” for leopards, tigers, and lions beloved Annie has treated him. It expresses the have been domesticated and “trained without dif- longing of the narrator to be nurtured and cared ficulty to their present profession, and attend upon for. The optimism of the latter part of the poem their respective owners in the capacity of valets-de- lightens the gloom of the early lines and ends the chambre.” Despite the “prodigious number of stately poem on a hopeful note. palaces . . . the numerous temples, sumptuous and magnificent” in Antioch, the city also contains “an PUBLICATION HISTORY infinity of mud huts, and abominable hovels.” The “For Annie” first appeared in the April 28, 1849, quietly domesticated animals contrast strongly with issue of the FLAG OF OUR UNION and in the Home the strange, bestial behavior of King Antiochus,

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who enters the city “ensconced in the hide of a SENGER under the title of “Epimanes,” and it was beast and doing his best to play the part of a cam- included under this title again in TALES OF THE eleopard,” a four-part animal with the head of a GROTESQUE AND ARABESQUE in 1839. When Poe man and a tail “held aloft by his two principal con- revised the story for publication in the December cubines.” The returning troops sing “Mille, Mille, 6, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL, he also Mille,” a Latin hymn meaning “A thousand, a thou- changed the title. sand, a thousand” to praise the valor of the king as he and his army march triumphantly into Antioch CHARACTERS after battling and beating the Hebrew army, having Antiochus Epiphanes Also known as Antiochus “knocked over a thousand so fine.” The spectacle the Illustrious, he is the king of Syria. so offends the domesticated wild animals that they mutiny and attack the citizens of Antioch, devour- Elah Gabalah Referred to in the story as “his ing some. The citizens then pursue the royal four- Sunship,” this is the name given in Syria to the sun part beast to the Hippodrome, where it will either god, correctly spelled “Ela Gabal” or “Elagabalus,” be presented a wreath for outrunning them or be who is represented in the form of a huge, cone- torn to pieces in anger. The ending is ambiguous, shaped stone. as the narrators propose to leave town before either event takes place, although they believe it more Elline One of the “two principal concubines” of likely that, despite the lives lost, the people will Antiochus Epimanes who holds the ruler’s giant fake “invest his [the king’s] brows . . . with the wreath of tail aloft when he is dressed as the “cameleopard.” victory in the stadium of the foot races.” COMMENTARY The “homo-cameleopard” created by Poe in this story is a combination of man, camel, lion, and “Gold-Bug, The” (1843) panther that looks like a bizarre giraffe. The name Short story written in 1843. “cameleopard” is taken from the Greek word for giraffe, kamelopardalis, modified by Poe to reflect SYNOPSIS his “four beasts in one.” The story is one of Poe’s most successful comic “The Gold-Bug” is a tale of treasure hunting and efforts, although comedy seems to mask a serious deciphering of secret messages that features Wil- statement about the relationship between despots liam Legrand, a cryptographer who lives alone and those they rule. In the midst of a city through on Sullivan’s Island in the harbor of Charleston, which domesticated wild animals roam streaks an South Carolina. The story is preceded by a falsely undignified ruler who seeks to associate with him- attributed epigraph: “ ‘What ho! what ho! this fel- self the characteristics of the camel, the lion, and low is dancing mad! / He hath been bitten by the the panther. He assumes the skins and the behav- Tarantula.’—All in the Wrong.” These lines are iors of the animals and creates chaos, destruction, not found in Arthur Murphy’s comedy All in the and death, yet regains the love of the populace Wrong (1761). Poe made up the lines to exploit when he exhibits “superhuman agility” and offers the folk belief of southern Italy that dancing the a promise of victory “at the celebration of the next tarantella, a folk dance, can cure a bite by the Olympiad.” One can perpetrate any number of hor- tarantula, thought to be the cause of tarantism, rors upon a people, as long as physical efforts are a nervous disorder characterized by spasms and shown to be successful. twitching. As the story opens, the unnamed narrator PUBLICATION HISTORY has arrived to visit Legrand and his old African- “Four Beasts in One” was first published in the American servant, Jupiter, who has been with the March 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MES- Legrand family through its changes in fortune.

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immediately after permission is given. As Legrand tells the unnamed narrator of the story, “you know how enthusiastic he is on all subjects connected with Natural History.” The characters soon uncover a treasure chest worth $1.5 million in “gold of antique date and of great variety,” as well as precious stones and two complete skeletons apparently left behind by the legendary pirate Captain Kidd. Afterward, Legrand explains his “methodical investigation of the affair” and reveals the shrewd methods and the ratiocinative abilities that he used to crack the codes and to find the wealth. The key lies in a small, dirty scrap of parchment on which Legrand had drawn the bug. Really a treasure map, it contains the solution, lodged between the emblems of a skull and a goat, that Legrand needs in order to solve the This illustration accompanied the original publication cipher, which discloses the exact location of the of “The Gold-Bug” in the Philadelphia Dollar treasure. Once the treasure hunters have reached Newspaper. (Courtesy of Library of Congress) the final location, Legrand uses the gold beetle as a surveyor’s plumb bob to pinpoint the spot, thus providing an explanation of his attaching the bug Even though the present Legrand cannot afford to a bit of whipcord and twirling it as the treasure to keep servants, Jupiter “could not be induced, hunters search. neither by threats nor by promises, to abandon what he considered his right of attendance upon COMMENTARY the footsteps of his young ‘Massa Will’.” The nar- “The Gold-Bug” was the most widely read and rator of the story suggests that Jupiter’s steadfast- most popular of Poe’s short stories during his life- ness is less the result of devotion and more due to time, despite a warning from NATHANIEL PARKER the commands of Legrand’s relatives who consider WILLIS that using the word bug in the title might their young nephew unbalanced and who are using hurt sales in England, because the word is syn- Jupiter to engage in “supervision and guardian- onymous with “louse” in that country. This is one ship of the wanderer.” Although wary of Legrand’s of the earliest serious stories to use the search for excursion, he is devoted to his master and helps in buried treasure as its theme and the first to intro- the digging that reveals Captain Kidd’s treasure. duce a message in cipher. “The Gold-Bug” con- Legrand has discovered a “scarabaeus,” or dung tains many of the same qualities and attitudes that beetle, “of a brilliant gold color” that dialect-speak- appear in Poe’s detective tales, for Legrand must ing Jupiter insists “is a goole-bug, solid, ebery bit of use his ratiocinative abilities to solve the puzzle him, inside and all.” The bug’s unusual markings of the Gold-Bug. Like Auguste Dupin, Legrand is and lack of antennae suggest to Legrand that it is a misunderstood by those who lack his vision and clue to a greater treasure, and he decides to lead an think him mad, yet these men also exact their expedition into the hills of the island. Lieutenant revenge, as does Legrand, who had “resolved to G———, the army officer, takes the scarabaeus punish [him] quietly, in my own way, by a little bit shortly after Legrand finds it but promptly returns of sober mystification.” it the following morning after studying it. Lieuten- The inclusion of the cryptogram represents ant G——— begs Legrand to allow him to take the another of Poe’s special talents. Michael Wil- beetle to the fort and thrusts it into his waistcoat liams asserts that modern cryptographic experts

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rank Poe’s skills in decoding very highly. He Poe’s personality and tendency toward retribution, established his reputation as a cryptographer by Legrand realizes that Jupiter could have dropped a creating and solving cryptographs in Alexander’s small rock or any small heavy object through the eye Weekly Messenger. In December 1839, Poe issued socket and achieved the same result. Legrand, how- a challenge to readers to solve cryptograms that ever, shows aggravation with the narrator’s doubt of appeared in the publication, motivating a strong his sanity and uses the gold bug as revenge to pro- reader response and increasing circulation. When vide him with “a little bit of sober mystification.” Poe moved to GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE, he took the Mark Hennelly points out that “The Gold-Bug” interest with him. In July 1841, Poe’s article “A is somewhat unusual in Poe’s work because it is set FEW WORDS ABOUT SECRET WRITING” presented in a locale in which Poe actually lived and with his cryptographic principles and motivated let- which he was personally familiar. While in the ters from readers and attempted solutions to the army, similar to the lieutenant to whom Legrand puzzles that he included in the article and in gives the gold bug, Poe had been stationed at three supplements that were added to the August, Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island. Poe provides October, and December issues. Poe’s interest in detailed accounts of the island terrain and foliage cryptographs was confined to his nonfiction and in the manner of an amateur naturalist, an aspect appears only once in his fiction in “The Gold Bug” of the story that appealed to Poe’s early readers. in which he included a simple cryptograph. In Another unusual fact about “The Gold-Bug” is the story, Legrand recognizes symbol marks on that it has a happy ending, and, despite the refer- the parchment as a cryptogram, and he assumes ence to a “devil bug” and the uncovering of two that each symbol represents a letter of the alpha- skeletons, it lacks any of the overtones of horror bet in a simple cryptogram in English, because he common to Poe’s tales. knows that Captain Kidd was not an educated The thickness of the dialect that Poe places in man. He uses standard puzzle-solving methods Jupiter’s mouth has been viewed by critics as “the and provides readers with a lesson in cryptogram most embarrassing feature of Poe’s prose,” and his solving, as he first develops a table based on the portrayal reflects Poe’s upbringing as a son of the normal frequency distribution of the letters and South, who viewed African Americans as “inferior, letter combinations, then substitutes a letter of little more than childlike, and with the affection the alphabet for each symbol. After adjusting for and intellect of the family dog.” Those who defend blanks between words, he unveils the following Poe’s portrayal point out that while he does exploit message: “A good glass in the bishop’s hostel in Jupiter’s comical qualities, notably his crude speech, the devil’s seat—forty-one degrees and thirteen Jupiter holds his own and proves an admirably loyal minutes—northeast by north—main branch sev- friend to his master. enth limb east side—shoot from the left eye of the death’s head—a beeline from the tree through the PUBLICATION HISTORY shot fifty feet out.” “The Gold-Bug” was first published in two install- In keeping with the structure of a mystery, ments in the June 21 and 28, 1843, issues of the Legrand must also unravel the meaning of what Dollar Newspaper in Philadelphia after winning a Kidd meant by the terms bishop’s hostel and the dev- first prize of $100 in a contest sponsored by the il’s seat. Using information provided by an elderly paper. It was reprinted in newspapers across the female slave, he surmises that the first structure is country after winning the prize. In 1847, a pirated actually “Beesop’s Castle,” a large rock, and that the edition was published in England, and the story was “devil’s seat” is a rocky area on which he can only translated into French for several publications. maintain his balance at one spot. The “gold bug,” which appears in the title and which has a major ADAPTATIONS role in finding the map, actually has only negligible In August 1843, a stage production of the story value in finding the treasure. In a move that reflects appeared in Philadelphia. Although no film has

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been made of this story, Manfish (1956) contains a melancholy,” fluctuates between great hope that similar plot of murder and treasure hunting in the he will break the code and dark moods of despair. Caribbean. He is a cryptographer and proud of his abilities, and he believes that only he is capable of decod- CHARACTERS ing the map. Given that the only alternatives are Lieutenant G——— An army officer whose the unnamed narrator and Jupiter, that supposi- name was most likely inspired by Captain Henry tion may be true. He is fascinated by the seeming Griswold, one of Poe’s officers at Fort Moultrie, coincidence that the drawing of the bug that he South Carolina. makes on the parchment to show as an example to the narrator is exactly the same size as the skull Jupiter Former slave and current old black ser- drawing that the heat of the fire brings out on the vant of William Legrand. Poe employs his elemen- other side: “The mind struggles to establish a tal vocabulary and often garbled dialect to provide connexion—a sequence of cause and effect—and comic relief in the story. Jupiter is intensely loyal being unable to do so, suffers a species of tempo- to Legrand, despite his master’s reduced finan- rary paralysis.” To break the secret code, Legrand cial circumstances, and his efforts to carry out must interpret the relationship between the char- Legrand’s orders are sincere, even though they acters of the code and their meaning. Although are not always successful. Jupiter misinterprets he appears companionable to Jupiter, his arro- standard English, transforms what he hears into gance and condescension regarding Jupiter’s men- what he thinks he hears, and expresses it in words tal processes and ability to express himself make he knows. For example, when Legrand speaks of him less admirable a character than his servant. the antennae of the gold bug, Jupiter answers, “Dey aint no tin in him. . . . de bug is a goole bug.” In relaying a message to the narrator regard- Wolf A Newfoundland retriever belonging to ing Legrand, who is ciphering, Jupiter states that William Legrand. Its natural action of jumping on Legrand is a “syphon.” When Legrand follows the his master helps to uncover the secret of the parch- map and seeks the skull it depicts, Jupiter discov- ment map. ers the skull in the tree, but he becomes confused when Legrand asks him to “find the left eye of the unnamed narrator Friend of the central char- skull” to complete the search for Captain Kidd’s acter, Legrand. He expresses skepticism regarding treasure. In a comic verbal exchange with himself, Legrand’s search for treasure. At the outset, the Jupiter ponders which left eye his master wants to narrator exhibits condescension toward Legrand locate—the eye that is on his left or the eye that as he identifies how the two met: “Many years is on the skulls’s left side. Despite Poe’s use of ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William caricature to depict Jupiter, the man emerges as Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, the most admirable among the three characters, and had once been wealthy; but a series of misfor- because he is unpretentious, loyal, and sincere in tunes had reduced him to want. To avoid the mor- his efforts. tification consequent upon his disasters, he left New Orleans, the city of his forefathers, and took up William Legrand A somewhat arrogant eccen- his residence at Sullivan’s Island, near Charleston, tric and relatively impoverished expert in solving South Carolina.” The narrator relates that, years puzzles. He finds a real gold bug and an old piece after their initial acquaintance, he receives a note of parchment containing a mysterious cipher on from Legrand requesting his company, and he the isolated island where he resides and resolves questions “What ‘business of the highest impor- to locate the treasure, which he believes to be tance’ could he possibly have?” Once in Legrand’s that of Captain Kidd. Legrand, who the narra- company, the narrator’s self-centered behavior tor says has “moods of alternate enthusiasm and continues. When Legrand expresses regret that

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he cannot show the narrator the “totally new” COMMENTARY scarabaeus because he has sent it to Lieutenant “The Happiest Day, the Happiest Hour” was writ- G——— for analysis, the narrator’s response ten while Poe was serving in the army, and it was deals only with his own comfort. He feels chilly published after Poe sent the poem to his brother in the night air and wishes “the whole tribe of WILLIAM HENRY POE, who sent it to the magazine. scarabaei at the devil.” Unlike Jupiter, who joins Despite the relative youth of the author, the poem in completely with Legrand’s plans to find the is a self-pitying lament for the lost visions of youth treasure, the narrator scoffs and remains aloof in and the “highest hope of pride and power” that a manner that suggests his mockery of Legrand’s “have vanish’d long, alas!” The time of composi- efforts. tion suggests that the poem also reflects Poe’s feelings of despondence over losing the love of ELMIRA FURTHER READINGS ROYSTER. Hennelly, Mark M. Jr. “Le Grand Captain Kidder and His Bogus Bug.” Studies in Short Fiction 17 (1980): PUBLICATION HISTORY 77–79. “The Happiest Day, the Happiest Hour” was first McLaughlin, Kevin. “Just Fooling: Paper, Money, Poe.” published in the September 15, 1827, issue of the Differences 11, no. 1 (Summer 1999): 38–67. North American and as part of Poe’s first collection Williams, Michael. “ ‘The Language of the Cipher’: in TAMERLANE AND OTHER POEMS in 1827. Interpretation in The Gold-Bug.” American Litera- ture 53 (1982): 646–660. “Haunted Palace, The” (1838) “Happiest Day, the Happiest Poem written in 1838. Hour, The” (1827) SYNOPSIS “The Haunted Palace” is an allegory that focuses Poem written in 1827. on a king who feels that sinister forces threaten him and his palace: “evil things in robes of sor- SYNOPSIS row, / assailed the monarch’s high estate.” The “The Happiest Day, the Happiest Hour” contains six eight-line stanzas describe “a hideous throng” six quatrain stanzas in which the speaker laments that “rush out forever, / And laugh—but smile no the lost opportunities of his life. He writes of his more.” Windows are “red-litten” through which “seared and blighted heart” and observes that may be seen “vast forms that move fantastically to “the highest hope of pride and power, / I feel a discordant melody; / While, like a rapid ghastly hath flown.” The speaker feels that his best days river, Through the pale door” rush the throng. The are behind him and states in the fourth quatrain: changing tone and content of the stanzas are simi- “The happiest day—the happiest hour / Mine eyes lar to the development of the story “The FALL OF shall see—have ever seen / The brightest glance THE HOUSE OF USHER,” leading to the eventual col- of pride and power / I have feel have been.” He lapse of the house and the accompanying destruc- writes that even if he could revive some of that tion of the family. “hope of pride and pain,” he would not because he now knows that it comes with a price. “For on COMMENTARY its wing was dark alloy / And as it fluttered—fell “The Haunted Palace” was incorporated by Poe into / An essence—powerful to destroy / A soul that “The Fall of the House of Usher” under the pretense knew it well.” that the poem was written by Roderick Usher. Like

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then incorporated by Poe into “The Fall of the House of Usher,” published in September 1839.

“Hop-Frog” (1848)

Short story written in 1848. SYNOPSIS Originally titled “Hop-Frog; Or, The Eight Chained Ourangoutangs,” this tale of terror relates the effective revenge taken by a court jester against his abusive king and the king’s ministers. The plot relates the story of Hop-Frog and Trippetta, male and female respectively, who were taken from their homelands and who must endure abuse and humiliation by the king and his ministers. Named for his distorted legs and odd manner of walking, Hop- Frog is compelled to wear the motley outfit, cap, and bells of a court jester and to play the fool for the king and his court. In contrast to Hop-Frog’s deformed appearance, Trippetta is an exquisitely proportioned and beautiful little woman who is Illustration for “The Haunted Palace” (Edmund Dulac) usually admired and favored by all. At a meeting to plan the grand masquerade ball, the king forces Hop-Frog to drink wine, which he knows will affect the story, the poem depicts the progress of mad- the jester’s brain in a bizarre manner. When Trip- ness as the king sinks further into paranoia. RUFUS petta pleads with the king to stop, she is hit in the WILMOT GRISWOLD included the poem in his 1842 face with a goblet full of wine. anthology Poets and Poetry of America. For the That action motivates Hop-Frog to plan a biographical sketch, Poe informed Griswold that deadly revenge. In a move of apparent reconcilia- “by ‘The Haunted Palace’ I meant to imply a mind tion, the jester suggests a novel masquerade for the haunted by phantoms—a disordered brain.” king and his ministers. He suggests that they pretend to be orangutans, an idea made more appeal- ADAPTATIONS ing by the prospect of frightening all of the ladies In 1963, ROGER CORMAN directed a film titled The present. The costume requires that the king and Haunted Palace, which used only Poe’s title for its ministers dress in closely fitting shirts and pants story of a New Englander in 1875 who inherits an and coat themselves with tar, then cover the tar old mansion and is haunted by his violent ances- with strands of flax. To make the scene realis- tor. Corman’s movie has all the elements of a Poe tic, Hop-Frog suggests that they be chained into a horror story, but the plot is not specific to one circle, with chains crossing the circle in the man- story. ner that animals from the wild have been paraded. The group agrees to the plan. On the night of PUBLICATION HISTORY the ball, the doors are all locked from the outside “The Haunted Palace” was first published in the on the pretense of keeping the frightened guests April 1839 issue of Baltimore Museum magazine, captive to fully carry out the practical joke. The

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“orangutans” march into the ballroom and elicit sameness.” When the king throws wine into Trip- the desired effect. The agitated crowd urges the etta’ s face, after she begs the king to stop forcing disguised men to reveal themselves, and Hop-Frog Hop-Frog to drink the wine that destabilizes him, grabs a torch and pretends to draw close to the Hop-Frog decides to take his revenge on the court costumed men to give the crowd a better look. and show the king and his seven ministers for what The flames of the torch set the flax on fire, and the they really are. Hop-Frog plots to exact poetic jus- locked doors prevent anyone from rushing out to tice on the men who have tortured him for so obtain help. As the king and his ministers burn to long. By dressing them in costumes of animals, he death, Hop-Frog hoists himself up a chain to the externalizes their bestial natures. When the eight skylight and disappears. Neither he nor Trippetta men hear of the plan, they heartily endorse it, and are ever seen again. they are especially intrigued by Hop-Frog’s suggestion that they lock the doors in order to scare COMMENTARY the ladies at the ball with their costumes. Pleased The inspiration for this story may have come by the plan, the king says, “Hop-Frog! I will make from a historical incident involving Charles VI of a man of you.” As May observes, however, “the France and five of his nobles, who dressed in simi- verbal irony is that whereas Hop-Frog is taken to lar disguises and chained themselves together to be a repulsive creature, he is actually already a amuse a wedding party in 1393. A curious noble man; while the king, taken to be a man, is really accidentally set the chained party aflame when he a repulsive beast” (39). The opening lines of the brought a torch too close to the costumes while story relate that the king lived for practical jokes: seeking their identities. Four of those men died, “I never knew any one so keenly alive to a joke as but the king and one other survived. The story the king was. He seemed to live only for joking.” was chronicled in history, but an account entitled Hop-Frog arranges that his last joke, one which “Barbarians of the Theater” also appeared in the the king has clamored for, is one for which the February 1, 1845, issue of BROADWAY JOURNAL, king dies. edited by Poe. Charles May writes that the “Hop-Frog” “is a ADAPTATIONS generically problematical story in the Poe canon The story was adapted in 1910 and filmed by the because, uncharacteristically, it is told in the third Gaumont Company in France with director Henry person, “much the way a parable or a folktale is Desfontaines in a production titled Hop-Frog. The told” (38). In other words, the story is told from story was also the inspiration for a symphony, also an omniscient point of view rather than filtered entitled Hop Frog, written in 1926 by EUGENE through the perspective of one character. The king COOLS. is presented as a coarse and unfeeling monarch who likes jokes, especially those at the expense PUBLICATION HISTORY of other people, and who has a special “admira- The story first appeared in print on March 17, 1849, tion for breadth in a jest, and would often put up in the FLAG OF OUR UNION, a Boston newspaper. with length, for the sake of it. Over-niceities wearied him. He would have preferred Rabelais’ ‘Gar- CHARACTERS gantua’ to the ‘Zadig’ of Voltaire: and upon the Hop-Frog A physically impaired “dwarf” who whole, practical jokes suited his taste far better serves as the court jester and whom the king abuses than verbal ones.” In contrast, his jester is more physically and psychologically. adept at verbal jokes, until he chooses to take his final revenge. The king demands that Hop-Frog king, the Unnamed royal character who keeps plan the next masked ball and demands “char- the physically impaired dwarf Hop-Frog as his court acters—characters, man—something novel—out fool and heaps abuse upon the weaker members of of the way. We are wearied with this everlasting his court.

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Trippetta A young girl who is “very little less tor is Signora Psyche Zenobia, who appears again dwarfish” than Hop-Frog, she is a court dancer for in “A Predicament.” She is proud of her unusual the king and the partner of Hop-Frog. name, Psyche, “which is good Greek,” and resents the alias of “Suky Snobbs,” given to her by the gos- FURTHER READINGS sip Miss Tabitha Turnip. Zenobia learns the “how” Jones, Paul Christian. “The Danger of Sympathy: of writing a successful Blackwood article in an Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Hop-Frog’ and the Abolitionist interview with William Blackwood himself, whose Rhetoric of Pathos.” Journal of American Studies 35 advice consists of representative passages from (August 2001): 239. Schiller and Cervantes mixed in with Chinese and Lucas, Mary. “Poe’s Theatre: ‘King Pest’ and ‘Hop- Chickasaw expressions and the encouragement to Frog.’ ” Journal of the Short Story in English 14 throw in some “nice Latin phrases” and Greek, (1990): 25–40. whether she knows the language or not. He gives Martin, Bruce K. “Poe’s ‘Hop-Frog’ and the Retreat her guidance in writing stories of imminent hor- from Comedy.” Studies in Short Fiction 10 (1973): rible death, telling her, “[T]hen only think of the 288–290. sensations”—a piece of advice that she follows to May, Charles. Edgar Allan Poe: A Study of the Short Fic- the letter in composing “A Predicament.” Black- tion. Boston: Twayne, 1991. wood advises her to learn “the exact method of composition” used by the publication and gives a final bit of advice to her that writing the successful Blackwood article is to “get into some immediate difficulty.” Zenobia professes to take “How to Write a Blackwood Mr. Blackwood’s advice to wander around Edin- Article” (1838) burgh seriously, and while doing so is “attended by one negro-servant Pompey, and my little lap-dog Short story written in 1838. Diana, whom I had brought with me from Phila- delphia.” This advice mirrors Poe’s approach in SYNOPSIS such tales as “The PIT AND THE PENDULUM” and Originally entitled “The Psyche Zenobia” and “A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM.” Each of these written in the form of a mock essay, “How to stories creates a slow and steady progression of Write a Blackwood Article” is one of Poe’s best events that evoke increasingly intense sensations comic writings, and it also provides insight into in the characters and readers as we are led toward his writing methods. An epigraph that is the com- what seems to be an inevitable death. The final mon cry of a Turkish fig-peddler prefaces the action is less important to the story than are the story: “In the name of the Prophet—figs!!” The sensations that lead to it. phrase provides a burlesque of the usually solemn language that appears in everyday common PUBLICATION HISTORY verbal interaction in Middle Eastern countries. The story was first published under the title “The In the same manner, Poe’s story burlesques the Psyche Zenobia” in the November 1838 issue of manner of story that Blackwood presented with all the Baltimore American Museum. The same issue seriousness. also printed “The SCYTHE OF TIME” (later titled “How to Write a Blackwood Article” is a com- “A Predicament”), which appears to offer a sample panion piece to “A PREDICAMENT” and contains of a model Blackwood article and is characterized Poe’s only female narrator. Poe appears to engage by repetitive horror writing and sensationalizing. in self-parody as he mocks some of his own meth- The story appeared under the title “How to Write ods and the repetitive types of horror writing that a Blackwood Article” in the July 12, 1845, issue of were typical of Blackwood magazine. The narra- the BROADWAY JOURNAL.

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CHARACTERS Zenobia states that “No one but Tabitha Turnip Blackwood, William A character based on WIL- calls me Suky Snobbs.” LIAM BLACKWOOD (1776–1834), the founder and Zenobia, Signora Psyche The correspond- editor of BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE, which abounded ing secretary to the society named “Philadelphia, in stories of garish psychological states and tales of Regular, Exchange, Tea, Total, Young Belles, Lettres, solitary victims in lethal predicaments. The char- Universal, Experimental, Bibliographical, Associa- acter named Blackwood interviews Signora Psyche tion, To, Civilize, Humanity,” otherwise known as Zenobia, who wishes to be published, and tells her P.R.E.T.T.Y.B.L.U.E.B.A.T.C.H. She joins the the way to do so is to use real experiences and society with the goal of introducing “a better style embellish them with foreign phrases. of writing. . . . as good papers now . . . as any to be found even in Blackwood.” She also appears in “A A poodle lapdog owned by Signora Psyche Diana Predicament.” Zenobia in both “How to Write a Blackwood Arti- cle” and “A Predicament.” FURTHER READINGS Baym, Nina. “Emerson’s Transcendental Etudes / The Juniper Character mentioned in “How to Write After Life of Edgar Allan Poe.” American Literature a Blackwood Article.” Signora Zenobia receives 77, no. 2 (June 2005): 414. instruction in the art of article writing from Mr. McNeal, Thomas. “Poe’s Zenobia: An Early Satire on William Blackwood himself. He tells her that Margaret Fuller.” Modern Language Quarterly 9 many believe that SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1950): 215–226. wrote Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, but asserts the truth is that “it was composed by my pet baboon Juniper, over a rummer of Hollands [a brand of gin] and water, ‘hot, without sugar.’ ” The “Hymn” (1845) baboon is appropriately named after the plant producing the berries that give gin its distinctive taste, Poem written in 1845. the juniper. SYNOPSIS Moneypenny, Dr. An acronymist, and “such a “Hymn” is a poem first published as a song sung by queer little man that I am never sure when he is Morella in the first printing of the story “MORELLA,” telling the truth.” He is also “[a] vulgar man . . . and later published separately as “A Catholic Hymn” but he’s deep,” and is a member of the Society for in the August 16, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOUR- the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. His pretentious NAL. Addressed to the Holy Virgin, the poem, which comments allow Poe to satirize the pseudointel- consists of 12 lines of rhyming couplets, is a plea by lectuals whose articles found a home in Blackwood’s the heroine to the Blessed Virgin, and it is unusual Magazine. in its hopeful expression of a radiant future.

Snobbs, Suky Name given to Signora Psyche Zenobia, a character in both “How to Write a Blackwood Article” and “A Predicament,” by her “Imitation” (1826) enemies. In “A Predicament,” Zenobia declares, “I am not Suky Snobbs.” Poem written in 1826.

Turnip, Miss Tabitha A gossip who falsely reports SYNOPSIS that Signora Psyche Zenobia is Suky Snobbs, and “Imitation” first appeared in the 1827 collection she “propagated that report through sheer envy.” TAMERLANE AND OTHER POEMS. A 20-line medi-

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tation in rhymed couplets, the poem appears to COMMENTARY reflect Poe’s deteriorating relationship with JOHN The tale has two primary interpretations among ALLAN. The speaker contemplates his youth as critics. The first is that the Imp of the Perverse a beautiful dream that contrasts sharply with an represents the self-destructive tendencies of the uncertain and increasingly difficult present. The narrator, and that this tendency is present in all speaker appears despondent and views his past as people. The second is that the imp is the narrator’s forever lost: “For that bright hope at last / And that excuse for avoiding moral responsibility. Critics light time have past [sic], / And my worldly rest have identified passages in this story that reflect hath gone / With a sigh as it pass’d on.” the narrator’s unconscious desire to be caught, a desire also found in the narrators of “The TELL- TALE HEART” and “The BLACK CAT.” Critical biographers of Poe have also identified connec- “Imp of the Perverse, The” tions between the tale and the many self-destruc- (1845) tive choices Poe made throughout his life and in his interpersonal relationships, including his self- Short story written in 1845. indulgence, his feuds with authority figures, his alcohol abuse, and his erratic treatment of both SYNOPSIS friends and colleagues. Unlike most stories written by Poe, “The Imp of “The Imp of the Perverse” contains two per- the Perverse” is not prefaced by an epigraph. The spectives, as the narrator shifts from a relatively tale begins as an essay in which the narrator com- detached philosophical discussion on human ments objectively upon the perversity of human nature to becoming an obsessed narrator who is nature and the tendency to commit morally ques- intimately involved in the topic under discussion. tionable acts, after which he states, “you will easily The story begins as a philosophical discussion, perceive that I am one of the many uncounted something of an essay on the subject of a human victims of the Imp of the Perverse.” After relat- propensity, which the narrator calls a “prima mobi- ing the way in which he committed a murder by lia of the human soul.” The narrator argues for burning a poisoned candle in the “narrow and ill- the existence of a human perverseness that would ventilated” room of the victim, the narrator happily be evident to thinkers if they argued from observ- relates, “having inherited his estate, all went well able evidence rather than using previous assump- with me for years.” For a time, the narrator revels tions about God’s plan: “an innate and primitive in the perfect nature of his crime and states, “The principle of human action, a paradoxical some- idea of detection never once entered my brain,” thing, which we may call perverseness, for want of but he soon becomes plagued by “the spirit of the a more characteristic term.” The narrator provides Perverse,” which leads people to perform actions numerous examples of such human perverseness, “merely because we feel we should not.” Unable first citing such minor examples as procrastina- to offer any explanation, he determines that one tion in completing a task and circumlocution by might attribute “this perverseness to be a direct a speaker, before examining the ultimate implica- instigation of the arch-fiend, were it not occasion- tion: “To indulge for a moment, in any attempt at ally known to operate in furtherance of good.” The thought, is to be inevitably lost; for reflection but narrator’s self-destructive impulses, embodied by urges us to forbear, and therefore it is, I say, that the Imp, make him “fool enough to confess the we cannot.” murder of which I had been guilty,” and he shouts After discussing motiveless obsession, the nar- out testimony of his crime—not from any desire to rator explains why he is incarcerated, and he loses unburden his soul but only from the perverse desire his formerly detached tone. The crime he com- to publicize his actions. mitted was not the result of the perverseness of

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which he philosophizes early in the story, so he I had murdered—beckoned me on to death.” He is not incarcerated for that reason. Instead, he is shouts out his confession and is apprehended. incarcerated because of his perverse need to utter the phrase “I am safe.” As Charles May asserts, “By FURTHER READINGS thinking that he is safe if only he does not confess, Brown, Arthur A. “Death and Telling in Poe’s ‘The he is perversely drawn closer and closer to making a Imp of the Pervese.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction 31 confession. . . . The man confesses only because he (1994): 197–205. knows he should not, not because he feels guilty. He is caught only because he says, ‘I am safe’ ” (74). The narrator is also proud of his having gotten away with the murder. However paradoxical it may “In Youth I Have Known One seem, there is no pleasure for him in having gotten (1827) away with the murder unless he can reveal his suc- with Whom the Earth” cess to someone. Poem written in 1827. PUBLICATION HISTORY SYNOPSIS The story was first published in the July 1845 issue “In Youth I Have Known One with Whom the of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Earth” was untitled when it first appeared. In a CHARACTERS letter to JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, Poe identified the poem as influenced by LORD BYRON’s poem “The He has committed a murder unnamed narrator Island,” which was “a powerful influence” on his and inherited the victim’s large estate. As he tells thinking and artistic expression. JOHN R. THOMP- the story, he is incarcerated, “wearing these fetters” SON, one-time editor of the SOUTHERN LITERARY and “tenanting the cell of the condemned.” The MESSENGER, suggested to friends that Poe’s account narrator carefully planned the murder for months, to him of “a dream vision” seems to have provided rejecting one plan after another with the great- an additional influence for the poem, in the form est caution. He read a French memoir in which a of an early experience in which “the soul separates woman was accidentally poisoned by a candle and itself from the body.” Poe related that he dreamt decides that this method would be the least detect- of having been “taken out over Philadelphia by a able. The narrator substituted a poisoned candle woman of seraphic beauty who later turned into for the victim’s bedroom candle, knowing that the a vast black bird, typifying the cholera epidemic man liked to read in bed at night, then waited. which was then raging there.” The poem consists After the death, he inherited the large estate and of four octaves addressed to “one with whom the lived well for years, with no thought of being found Earth / In secret communing held—as he with it, / out. He had taken all precautions: “I had left no In day light, and in beauty from his birth: / Whose shadow of a clew by which it would be possible fervid, flick’ring torch of life was lit / From the to convict, or even to suspect, me of the crime. It sun and stars.” A “wild light” infuses the world of is inconceivable how rich a sentiment of satisfac- the poem, and other images of luminosity exist to tion arose in my bosom as I reflected on my abso- exhibit “the intense / Reply of HERS [Nature’s] to lute security.” After a while, the narrator catches OUR intelligence!” himself murmuring at different times, “I am safe.” When he does so one day on a crowded street, he PUBLICATION HISTORY panics and begins to run: “And now my own casual “In Youth I Have Known One with Whom the self-suggestion that I might possibly be fool enough Earth” first appeared in Poe’s first poetry collection to confess the murder of which I had been guilty, TAMERLANE AND OTHER POEMS, published in July confronted me, as if the very ghost of him whom 1827. The poem was retitled “Stanzas” by GEORGE

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E. WOODBERRY and Edmund C. Stedman when and her life span short. The narrator views the fay they compiled a 10-volume edition of Poe’s works as representing the cruel impermanence that exists in 1894–96. in both the natural and the supernatural world, “and I beheld her magical figure no more.” PUBLICATION HISTORY “Irene” The story first appeared in the June 1841 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. To the first publication of See “The SLEEPER.” the story, Poe attached the following early poem “TO SCIENCE,” in which the scientific spirit and the spirit of poetry are opposed. He did not iden- “Island of the Fay, The” tify the poem as his, and he changed the final two lines. The original lines appear in brackets, (1841) as follow:

Short story written in 1841. Has thou not dragged Diana from her car, And driven the Hamadryad from the wood SYNOPSIS To seek shelter in some happier star? One of four writings in which Poe expressed a rap- Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, turous appreciation of natural beauty; the others The elfin from the grass?—the dainty fay, [The are “The ELK,” “The DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM,” and Elfin from the green grass, and from me] “LANDOR’S COTTAGE.” In this work, people are not The witch, the sprite, the goblin—where are the center of attention; nature is. The story was they? [The summer dream beneath the written to accompany a steel engraving by JOHN tamarind-tree?] SARTAIN of a painting by the melodramatic English When the story was published a second time painter John Martin (1789–1854), who developed in the October 4, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY a type of enormous canvas crowded by tiny figures JOURNAL, Poe replaced the epigraph with “Nullus set in elaborate architectural and natural settings. enim locus sine genio est” (no place is without its The tale offers a serene vision of nature and an genius), from Servius’s commentary on Virgil’s appreciation of God’s role in “nature’s holy plan.” Aeneid, book five. Critics suggest that Poe prob- The lonely, wandering narrator experiences a tran- ably did not use the original source but, most scendental vision while experiencing “the dark valleys, and the gray rocks, and the waters that silently likely, found the quotation prefacing chapter five smile, and the forests that sigh in uneasy slumbers, of book seven of Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel Notre- and the proud watchful mountains that look down Dame de Paris. upon all.” In contrast, the landscape changes when the narrator comes upon the race of the fay at the ADAPTATION eastern end of the island, becoming haunted and In 1904, American composer HENRY GILBERT wrote bleak. He sees “the form of one of those very fays a piano piece inspired by the story. . . . as it made its way slowly into the darkness from out the light at the western end of the island. . . . FURTHER READINGS [H]er shadow fell from her, and was swallowed up Ljungquist, Kent. “Poe’s ‘Island of the Fay’: The Pass- in the dark water, making its blackness more black.” ing of Fairyland.” Studies in Short Fiction 14 (1977): The vision of paradise dissolves as the fay disap- 265–271. pears “into the region of the ebony flood . . . and I Miller, F. DeWolfe. “The Basis for Poe’s ‘The Island beheld her magical figure no more.” As with all liv- of the Fay.’ ” American Literature 14 (1942): ing things, the natural beauty of the fay is transitory 135–140.

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 86 10/12/07 12:02:02 PM Journal of Julius Rodman, Being an Account of the First Passage across the Rocky Mountains . . . 87 “Israfel” (1831) Mediterranean and stories of “the mysterious interior of Arabia” as well as the “secondary Oriental Poem written in 1831. literature” that dominated his reading at West Point. Poe uses Israfel to examine the plight of SYNOPSIS earth-bound poets whose mortality places burdens “Israfel” is a poem in eight stanzas. Israfel is the on them and interferes with their ability to sing symbol of the ideal poet who sings in heaven and joyously and melodiously. Critics have frequently captivates everyone with his sublime voice, which identified Poe with Israfel, and one of the most causes “the stars [to] be mute.” In contrast, the comprehensive studies of Poe’s life and work, a earth-bound poet must reside in “a world of sweets study published by critic Hervey Allen in 1934, and sours.” The burdens of the earthly world make makes the connection in the title, Israfel: The Life the poet dream of changing places with Israfel and Times of Edgar Allan Poe. and entering his poetic paradise. Chained to the Earth, Israfel “would not sing so wildly well,” but, PUBLICATION HISTORY given freedom from “mortal melodies,” the poet “Israfel” first appeared in April 1831 in POEMS OF would strike “a bolder note” upon his “lyre within EDGAR A. POE, printed by Elam Bliss while Poe the sky.” was a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. It also was published in a reworked COMMENTARY and refined form in the August 1836 issue of the In his note to the poem, Poe incorrectly states SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. that in the Koran, Israfel is described as an angel “whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the FURTHER READINGS sweetest voice of all God’s creatures.” The real Allen, Hervey. Israfel: The Life and Times of Edgar source is George Sale’s “Preliminary Discourse,” Allan Poe. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1934. his 1764 introduction to the Koran, in which the St. Armand, Barton Levi. “Poe’s Unnecessary Angel: quotation appears as follows: “the angel Israfil ‘Israfel’ Reconsidered.” In Ruined Eden of the Present: [sic], who has the most melodious voice of all Hawthorne, Melville, Poe, edited by G. R. Thompson, God’s creatures.” Critics suggest that Poe was Virgil L. Lokke, and Chester E. Eisinger, 283–302 likely influenced by his readings of voyages to the (West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1981). Taylor, Walter F. “Israfel in Motley.” Sewanee Review 42 (1934): 330–340.

Journal of Julius Rodman, Being an Account of the First Passage across the Rocky Mountains of North America Ever Achieved by Civilized Man, The (1840)

Illustration for “Israfel” (Edmund Dulac) Unfinished serialized novel written in 1840.

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 87 10/12/07 12:02:02 PM 88 Journal of Julius Rodman, Being an Account of the First Passage across the Rocky Mountains . . . SYNOPSIS what eccentric turn of mind, but still one of the The unfinished adventure is heavily padded with best-hearted fellows in the world, and certainly as factual material taken from accounts of the explo- courageous a man as ever drew breath, although rations of JOHN JACOB ASTOR, CAPTAINS MERI- of no great bodily strength.” Pierre is of Canadian WETHER LEWIS and WILLIAM CLARK, and CAPTAIN descent and experienced in excursions for the Fur BENJAMIN BONNEVILLE, as well as with details Company, for which he acted as a voyageur. He regarding the weather and geography of the little was a close acquaintance of James Rodman and “a explored regions. Set in 1792 and presented as a great favorite” with Jane Rodman, Julius’s younger journal to aid in its acceptance as factual, this fic- sister who dies, but Julius believes that “they would tional work seeks to tell the story of the first cross- have been married had it been God’s will to have ing of the Rocky Mountains. spared her.” Pierre becomes vital to the success of Poe’s hero is Julius Rodman, an English adven- the expedition, and Julius depends upon him to turer who braves the dangers of the wilderness with hire able men and to acquire appropriate supplies. a party of companions. Rodman’s initial impetus Julius and he agree to share equally in the profits, for the adventure is that it will serve as a health with each taking one-third of the proceeds and the cure; he has lost his father and his two sisters to remaining third to be divided by remaining mem- smallpox. He is a melancholy man who seeks “in bers of the expedition. Despite their amiable busi- the bosom of the wilderness, that peace which his ness relationship, Rodman relates that “there was peculiar disposition would not suffer him to enjoy not the tie of reciprocal thought between us—that among men.” strongest of all mortal bonds. His nature, although The Greeley brothers join Rodman on the jour- sensitive, was too volatile, to comprehend all the ney. They are all bold and fine-looking men, as devotional fervor of my own.” well as “experienced hunters and capital shots,” The party also includes Andrew Thornton, but two stand apart. John, the eldest, “was the a Virginian who Julius Rodman notes came “of stoutest of the five and had the reputation of being excellent family, belonging to the Thorntons of the strongest man, as well as the best shot in Ken- the northern part of the State.” Readers learn that tucky.” Six feet tall and “of most extraordinary he has been “rambling around the western coun- breadth across the shoulders, with large strong- try, with no other companion than a large dog.” knit limbs,” he is “exceedingly good-tempered.” Thornton has no goal and has collected no pelts, Poindexter is as tall as John, “but very gaunt, and nor has he any object in view. Instead, he simply of a singularly fierce appearance, but, like his older enjoys “the gratification of a roving and adven- brother, he was of peaceable demeanor.” The five turous propensity.” He entertains members of the brothers agree to divide five ways a one-third share expedition with tall tales, with the real task “to of the proceeds of their adventure with Julius Rod- depict them to the hearer in sufficiently distinct man and Pierre Junot. colors.” Jules, the Canadian, serves as interpreter with The expedition also includes Toby, a servant the Sioux Indians. When bears attack, he becomes who had been in the Junot family for many years “frightened out of his senses” and runs away, then and who “had proved himself to be a faithful leaps over the edge of a precipice. The rest of negro.” Although he is advanced in years, Junot the party loses sight of him and presumes that he refuses to leave him behind, for he is able-bod- has been killed. The party later finds him “cruelly ied and “still capable of enduring great fatigue.” bruised” but alive, for he had lodged in one of Poe’s physical description of Toby shows a rac- the ravines and made his way down to the river ism characteristic of the author’s time: “as ugly shore. an old gentleman as ever spoke—having all the Pierre Junot is an integral part of the expedi- peculiar features of his race; the swollen lips, large tion. He is “a man of strange manners and some- white protruding eyes, flat nose, long ears, dou-

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ble head, pot-belly, and bow legs.” The Native with the January 1840 issue and ending with the Americans whom members of Rodman’s expedi- sixth installment in the June 1840 issue, after the tion meet are “struck with sudden amazement at proprietor, WILLIAM BURTON, removed Poe as edi- the sooty appearance of our negro, Toby,” and the tor. In response to the dismissal, Poe refused to members of the expedition appease their curiosity continue the novel serialization. completely by sending him ashore “in naturalibus [unclothed]” so they might examine him more CHARACTERS completely. Toby “took the matter as a very good Greely brothers Frank, John, Meredith, Poin- joke” and allows “the inquisitive savages” to satisfy dexter, and Robert Greely are brothers from Ken- their curiosity, as they do by “spitting upon their tucky who participate in the exploring adventure. fingers and rubbing the skin of the negro to be sure that it was not painted. The wool on the head Hearne, Samuel According to the “journal,” elicited repeated shouts of applause, and the bandy Hearne conducted an important expedition in the legs were the subject of unqualified admiration. northern portion of America from 1769 to 1772, A jig dance on the part of our ugly friend brought “with the object of discovering copper mines.” In matters to a climax.” doing so, he traversed from the Prince of Wales’s The group must confront dangerous illnesses, Fort, in Hudson Bay, as far as the shores of the attacks by wild animals, stampeding antelopes, Arctic Ocean. capsized boats, and ferocious Sioux Indians. Poe’s abrupt dismissal from BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S Jules, the Canadian One of Rodman’s Canadian MAGAZINE ended his interest in the story, and he men who serve as interpreters, and who transacts made no further attempts to complete the work. business for Rodman when they first meet the Sioux Indians. COMMENTARY Junot, M. After Julius Rodman’s sisters and father The work is heavily reliant upon sources, many of die, he sells the family plantation “at a complete which Poe mentions in the text of the story. Poe sacrifice to M. Junot.” The new owner gives his son reviewed his main source, WASHINGTON IRVING’S Pierre Junot $300 and agrees that he join Rodman “ASTORIA,” in the January 1837 issue of the SOUTH- on the first river expedition. ERN LITERARY MESSENGER, and also included material found in Alexander Mackenzie’s Voyages in Junot, Pierre The eldest son of the neighbor 1789 and 1793, published in 1801, and History of who purchases the family plantation from Julius the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis Rodman. and Clark, published in 1814. The realism of the work deceived many read- Lauzanne, Jacques A Canadian who accom- ers, and many accepted it as being factual. In an panies Rodman on his journey and dies of a ironic twist, Poe’s heavily borrowed tale became snakebite. part of a government report prepared for the U.S. Senate in 1840, when details of the geography Little Snake A Native American chief who and geology contained in the work were incor- befriends the members of Rodman’s expedition and porated into the official report on the Oregon temporarily provides them with safe passage and Territory. supplies.

PUBLICATION HISTORY Misquash A member of the Minnetaree tribe The unfinished novel was published in six install- and the son of Chief Waukerassah, he joins Julius ments in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, beginning Rodman as interpreter for the expedition for part of

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the journey. He is especially valuable to the party and who “had proved himself to be a faithful when they confront the Assiniboin tribe, members negro.” of which seem to be hostile when they are merely exhibiting curiosity about the white travelers. Waukerassah, Chief A Minnetaree chief “who behaved with much civility, and was of service to Neptune Huge dog that belongs to Andrew us in many respects.” He directs his son Misquash Thornton and seems to listen “with profound to accompany the expedition and to serve as an attention to every word that was said.” He has been interpreter. trained to react to various points in the anecdotes. When Thornton would say, “ ‘Nep can swear to the Wormley, Alexander The sixth man that the truth of that—can’t you, Nep?’ ” the dog “would expedition enlists from the return boat and “a good roll his eyes up immediately, loll out his monstrous recruit.” A Virginian who once fancied himself a tongue, and wag his great head up and down, as preacher, he had spent some time “going about the much as to say—‘Oh, it’s every bit as true as the country with a long beard and hair, and in his bare Bible.’ ” feet, haranguing every one he met.” When Julius Rodman meets him, Wormley has turned his fervor Perrine An agent of the Hudson Bay fur com- to finding gold and “upon the subject he was as pany who accompanies the Rodman expedition for entirely mad as any man could well be.” 10 miles with three members of the Ricaree tribe. He leaves the expedition to return to the village FURTHER READINGS where, as the voyagers learn afterward, “he met Pollin, Burton R., ed. The Collected Writings of Edgar with a violent death from the hands of a squaw, to Allan Poe: (Vol. 1—The Imaginary Voyages, including whom he offered some insult.” The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, The Unparal- leled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall and The Journal Rodman, James E. The person “from whom we of Julius Rodman). Boston: Twayne, 1981. obtained the MS., [who] is well known to many Teunissen, John J., and Evelyn J. Hinz. “Poe’s ‘Journal readers of this Magazine; and partakes in some of Julius Rodman’ as Parody.” Nineteenth Century degree, of that temperament which embittered the Fiction 27 (1972): 317–338. earlier portion of the life of his grandfather, Mr. Julius Rodman, the writer of the narrative.”

Rodman, Julius An English adventurer who “King Pest the First. braves the dangers of the wilderness with a party of A Tale Containing an companions. Rodman initially begins the adventure as a health cure after he loses his father and his two Allegory” (1835) sisters to smallpox. A melancholy man, he seeks “in the bosom of the wilderness, that peace which his Short story written in 1835. peculiar disposition would not suffer him to enjoy among men.” SYNOPSIS “King Pest” is considered by critics to be one of Poe’s Thornton, Andrew A Virginian whom the expe- most puzzling stories in its disturbing combination of dition picks up in the woods; he joins the explorers horror and humor. In reviewing JOHN H. INGRAM’s “upon the instant as soon as we mentioned our edition of Poe’s works in 1875, Robert Louis Ste- design.” venson determined that this story, which describes wanton drunkenness during a plague, marked Poe as Toby He is “a negro belonging to Pierre Junot” an unsympathetic individual: “He who could write who had been in the Junot family for many years ‘King Pest’ had ceased to be a human being.”

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An epigraph from Gorboduc: Ferrex and Porrex, wears her shroud in a “graceful and dégagé man- a drama published in 1561 by Thomas Norton and ner,” and “her hair hung in ringlets over her neck; Thomas Sackville, baron Buckhurst, prefaces the a soft smile played around her mouth.” At the same tale: “The gods do bear and well allow in kings / The time exists the horror of her long thin nose, “flex- things which they abhor in rascal routes.” The play, ible and pimpled,” which hangs down far below the earliest English tragedy in blank verse, is named her lower lip, forcing her to move it to one side after the two sons of the mythical English king or the other with her tongue in a “delicate man- Gorboduc and relates the manner in which Porrex ner.” Queen Pest is “evidently in the last stage first drove his brother Ferrex from Britain and then of a dropsy,” a large woman with a face that is killed him when Ferrex returned with an army. Por- “exceedingly round, red, and full” and a body that rex was later put to death by their mother. resembles an ale barrel. Her mouth is her distin- Set in one of the three periods in which the Black guishing feature: “Commencing at the right ear, it Death, or plague, struck England during the rule of swept with a terrific chasm to the left—the short Edward III, who reigned from 1327 to 1377, the pendants which she wore in either auricle continu- tale mixes macabre horror with disgusting humor in ally bobbing into the aperture.” This noble lady recounting the adventures of a pair of seamen, Legs lifts the seaman Hugh Tarpaulin high into the air, and Hugh Tarpaulin. After running out without then drops him into a huge open barrel of ale. King paying their bar bill at the Jolly Tar alehouse while Pest is tall, gaunt, and emaciated, with a face “as “intoxicated beyond moral sense,” they wander into yellow as saffron” and “a forehead so unusually and the area of London where the plague ban remains in hideously lofty, as to have the appearance of a bon- effect. The district resembles a metropolitan mortu- net or crown of flesh superadded upon the natural ary where “the whole mass of forbidden buildings head.” His mouth is “puckered and dimpled into was, at length, enveloped in terror as in a shroud an expression of ghastly affability, and his eyes, as . . . leaving the entire vast circuit of the prohibited indeed the eyes of all at the table, were glazed district to gloom, silence, pestilence, and death.” over with the fumes of intoxication.” He is dressed As they run through the streets, in which “the most completely in richly embroidered black silk velvet, fetid and poisonous smells everywhere prevailed,” and “his head was stuck full of sable hearse-plumes, the two find the bodies of plague victims strewn which he nodded to and fro with a jaunty and everywhere, and “it was by no means seldom that knowing air; and, in his right hand, he held a huge the hand fell upon a skeleton or rested upon a more human thigh-bone.” fleshy corpse.” They reach what appears to be a wel- “Before each of the party lay a portion of a skull, coming doorway and “staggered into the midst of which was used as a drinking cup.” Each character things with a volley of curses,” only to find that the also represents a different type of “pest,” from the structure is the shop of an undertaker. They open intellectual who produces nothing original to the a trapdoor that leads to a wine cellar and find the drunkard. Hugh Tarpaulin, six-and-a-half-feet tall, family court of King Pest with a company of rela- walks with “an habitual stoop in the shoulders [that] tives in various stages of decay. seemed to have been the necessary consequence of The narrator describes each member of the Pest an altitude so enormous.” He is also extremely thin, court, offering the reader the horrendous details and his fellow crewmen assert that he might “have of the emaciation of one, the dropsy of another, answered, when drunk, for a pennant at the mast- the delirium tremens of a third, and so on. Ana head, or, when sober, have served for a jib-boom.” Pest, Her Serene Highness the Arch Duchess, is “a He has high cheekbones, a large hawk-nose, retreat- diminutive young lady” whose trembling “wasted ing chin, fallen underjaw, and huge protruding white fingers,” “livid hue of her lips,” and “the slight hec- eyes, all joined to convey an attitude of “dogged tic spot that tinged her otherwise leaden complex- indifference to matters and things in general.” ion” signal that she is suffering from consumption, King Pest accuses the two seamen of treason but her appearance is one of high tone, for she for violating his privacy and that of his family

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and sentences them to “ ‘be tied neck and heels of our family,” who wears “the insignia of the blood together and duly drowned as rebels in yon hogs- royal” under the title of archduke. head of October beer!’ ” When Tarpaulin is dunked into the barrel of beer, Legs goes to his rescue Pest-Ilential, The Duke One of five rotting rela- and knocks over the barrel, creating a “deluge of tives of King Pest, the “exalted personages . . . all liquor” that drowns most of King Pest’s court. Tar- of our family,” who wears “the insignia of the blood paulin and Legs seize two of the women and rush royal” under the title of duke. away with them, heading for their ship, the Free and Easy. Pest the First, King The king of plague and death. PUBLICATION HISTORY Tarpaulin, Hugh With his shipmate from The story was first published in the September the Free and Easy, he wanders the streets of a 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSEN- plague-ridden city and ducks into a funeral parlor GER and signed by LYTTLETON BARRY, one of Poe’s containing King Pest and his court. Tarpaulin is pseudonyms. He later included the story as one dunked into the barrel of beer, and his shipmate of the “grotesques” in the short story collection Legs rescues him by knocking over the barrel, cre- TALES OF THE GROTESQUE AND ARABESQUE, pub- ating a “deluge of liquor” that drowns most of the lished in 1839, then revised it for republication in Pest court. Tarpaulin and Legs seize two women the BROADWAY JOURNAL in the October 18, 1845, and rush away with them, heading for their ship. issue. Tem-Pest, Duke The cadaverous duke is one of CHARACTERS the king’s relatives decaying in the basement of the Ana-Pest, Her Serene Highness the Arch Duch- mortuary. ess One of the five rotting relatives of King Pest’s family court. FURTHER READINGS Goldhurst, William. “Poe’s Multiple King Pest: A Jones, Davy Reference to a term that is a sailor’s Source Study.” Tulane Studies in English 20 (1972): name for the evil spirit of the sea; it seems to have 107–121. grown out of a corruption of the word duffy or duppy, Lucas, Mary. “Poe’s Theatre: ‘King Pest’ and ‘Hop- a term used among the black population of the West Frog.’ ” Journal of the Short Story in English 14 Indies for a haunting spirit or ghost, and “Jonah,” (1990): 25–40. the Old Testament prophet who is thrown into the sea. In “King Pest,” when the pseudointellectual King Pest pontificates upon “that earthly sovereign whose reign is over us all, whose dominions are “Lake, The” (1826) unlimited, and whose name is ‘Death,’ ” Hugh Tar- paulin retorts “Whose name is Davy Jones!” before Poem written in 1826. pouring a skull-full of wine. SYNOPSIS Legs Crew member of the ship Free and Easy. The poem is both a celebration of solitude and a meditation on the self inspired by the lake. The narrator Pest, Queen The cadaverous “Serene Consort” states “So lovely was the loneliness / Of a wild lake,” of King Pest. an isolated body of water surrounded by tall pines in which he experiences exquisite pleasure for “that Pest-Iferous, Arch Duke One of five rotting rel- terror was not fright— / But a tremulous delight.” atives of King Pest, the “exalted personages . . . all The speaker finds that “Death was in that poisonous

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wave,” yet he is not frightened because the terror of created one cohesive picture—he concludes that the lonely lake is actually a path to the hidden imagi- “Everywhere was variety in uniformity.” In the dis- nation, “For him who thence could solace bring / To tance, he sees a peninsula on which has been built his dark imagining.” The inspiration of his surround- a cottage that strikes him “with the keenest sense ings would stimulate the speaker “Whose wild’ring of combined novelty and propriety—in a word, of could even make / An Eden of that dim lake.” poetry.” The narrator is mesmerized by the house and describes it in detail, stating that “nothing PUBLICATION HISTORY could be more simple—more utterly unpretending Poem first published in 1827 in the collection than this cottage.” The chief attraction lies in its TAMERLANE AND OTHER POEMS. The poem also artistic placement among the natural beauty sur- appeared under the title “The Lake—To———” in rounding, as if “some eminent landscape-painter the 1829 collection AL AARAAF, TAMERLANE, AND had built it with his brush.” When he approaches MINOR POEMS, Poe’s second collection of poetry the cottage, he is greeted by a slender woman of and the first to be commercially published. medium height and approximately 28 years old, whose “spiritual gray” eyes captivate him. From inside the cottage, he hears someone call “Annie, darling!” as she issues to him “her most courteous of invitations” to enter the cottage. There he “Landor’s Cottage. A Pendant meets Mr. Landor himself, whose “keenest sense of to ‘The Domain combined novelty and propriety” has given perfect artistic balance to the neat and graceful cottage of Arnheim’ ” (1849) and the sublime natural scenery.

Short story written in 1849. COMMENTARY “The Lake” expresses the narrator’s changing moods SYNOPSIS from the opening of “In youth’s spring” in the first “Landor’s Cottage” is a descriptive narrative and line to the intrusion of the “darken’d mind” which the last story of Poe’s printed in his lifetime. Friends brings about thoughts of death and deterioration. of Poe such as MARY GOVE have written that the Hervey Allen states that the poem is “doubly inter- cottage Poe describes is actually an idealized ver- esting because it is the first which shows definitely sion of his Fordham cottage, his “little cottage at how early the strange spell of melancholy and the the top of a hill.” The “Annie” of the story has preoccupation with death entered into his [Poe’s] been identified as Poe’s friend Mrs. ANNIE RICH- work” (166). He suggests that the young Poe must MOND, who is similar in appearance and for whom have experienced deep periods of extreme sensitivity Poe wrote the poem “FOR ANNIE.” The speaker and painful emotions that lead him to speak so clearly states that the only purpose of the work is to “give, of Death. In the poem, the narrator expresses a “ter- in detail, a picture of Mr. Landor’s residence—as I ror of the lone lake” but assures the reader that it is found it.” To this end, the unnamed narrator takes not fright; rather it is “a tremulous delight, / And a a walk throughout one or two river counties of New feeling undefin’d, / Springing from a darken’d mind.” York State with no particular direction or goal. He The tone of the poem makes clear that the poet, wanders into a gorge, where he is overwhelmed speaking through his narrator, has already become by the luxuriant beauty of the natural world, then aware of his propensity toward “a dark imaging.” moves on to listen to the murmur of water and to watch the fog dissipate and the sun making PUBLICATION HISTORY its way over the hills. As he marvels at the har- The story was first published in the June 9, 1849, mony among the disparate entities of nature—the issue of the FLAG OF OUR UNION. It contains no rocks, trees, lake, and other natural elements that epigraph.

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CHARACTERS her only because she is rich. Lenore is a dead Annie Some have identified her with Annie Rich- young woman who has been sent to her death mond. The hostess of the cottage, she is “a young by a wicked and unfeeling family. Her bereaved woman of about twenty-eight years of age—slender, husband, Guy De Vere, mourns her and claims or rather slight, and somewhat above the medium her family “loved her for her wealth, and ye hated height.” What most attracts the narrator is the her for her pride; / And when she fell in feeble “modest decision of her step” and her “unworldli- health, ye blessed her—that she died.” Guy De Vere fails to weep when he looks at her beautiful ness,” which he sees in her eyes of “ ‘spiritual gray’ ” form lying on the funeral bier, yet the conflicting and her light chestnut hair. He finds that “peculiar views that he expresses about her death as he expression” of her eyes “is the most powerful, if not rants throughout the poem show his deep devo- absolutely the sole spell” that rivets his attention in tion to her. De Vere accuses Lenore’s family and a woman. friends of treating her in a cold and unfeeling manner while she was alive, and he states that in Described as “civil, even cordial in Landor, Mr. his love for her “No dirge will I upraise.” Instead his manner,” and he offers no further description of mourning, he will sing a song of triumph as because the intention of the tale is to describe the “her sweet soul” leaves the Earth that caused her cottage. The name is taken from the pseudonym so many tears. WILLIAM LANDOR, used by American novelist Hor- ace Binney Wallace. COMMENTARY FURTHER READINGS “Lenore” originally consisted of 11 simple quatrains with only one speaker, the bereaved husband; the Dayan, Joan. “The Road to Landor’s Cottage: Poe’s poem did not originally contain the name Lenore. Landscape of Effect.” University of Mississippi Stud- The poem went through eight revisions in Poe’s life- ies in English 3 (1982): 136–154. time. In the first version, Poe achieves a dramatic Hess, Jeffry A. “Sources and Aesthetics of Poe’s Land- contrast by dividing the poem into a tale between scape Fiction.” American Quarterly 22 (1970): two speakers, in which he shortens the lines and 177–189. creates stanzas that are from 13 to 16 lines long. In Kehler, Joel R. “New Light on the Genesis and Prog- the final version, the poem is compressed into three ress of Poe’s Landscape Fiction.” American Litera- stanzas that contain longer lines with interstanzaic ture 47 (1975): 173–183. rhyme. The lamentation for a young woman whose Mainville, Stephen. “Language and the Void: Gothic death is welcomed, and perhaps caused, by a “slan- Landscapes in the Frontiers of Edgar Allan Poe.” derous tongue / That did to death the innocence Genre 14 (1981): 347–362. Rosenfeld, Alvin. “Description in Poe’s ‘Landor’s Cot- tage.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction 4 (1967): 264–265.

“Lenore” (1830)

Poem written in 1830. SYNOPSIS “Lenore” relates the death of a beautiful young woman and the grief of her lover who believes that her family has treated her cruelly and valued Illustration for “Lenore” (Edmund Dulac)

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that died, and died so young” is similar to the death devoted that he did not care, or whether he has in “ANNABEL LEE,” a poem that also contains a cal- forgotten what he once knew. His later admission of lous family. his opium addiction—“for I was habitually fettered in the shackles of the drug”—and the description PUBLICATION HISTORY of her beauty as “the radiance of an opium dream” “Lenore” first appeared under the title “A Paean” suggest that blurred memory rather than mystery in Poe’s first commercially printed poetry collec- may be at fault. Nonetheless, he does remember tion, POEMS, published by Elam Bliss in 1831. Poe “the person of Ligeia” and can describe her beauty revised the poem, and it appeared in the Febru- in detail, from her strange, large eyes to the propor- ary 1843 issue of Pioneer, a periodical published tions and contours of her skull. For all of her seem- by poet JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. The poem went ing outward calm, “the ever-placid Ligeia, was the through seven more revisions, and the final ver- most violently a prey to the tumultuous vultures sion appeared in the August 16, 1845, issue of the of stern passion,” of which the narrator is made BROADWAY JOURNAL. aware through “the wild words which she habitually uttered.” The physical beauty of Ligeia is far less FURTHER READINGS enticing to the narrator than her great learning, and Broderick, John C. “Poe’s Revisions of ‘Lenore.’ ” he soon yields “with a child-like confidence, to her American Literature 35 (1964): 504–510. guidance through the chaotic world of metaphysical Pollin, Burton R. “Poe and Frances Osgood, as Linked investigation at which I was most busily occupied Through ‘Lenore.’ ” Mississippi Quarterly 46 (1993): during the early years of our marriage.” 185–197. Ligeia’s philosophy seems to be a variation of that expressed in the epigraph to the story, falsely attributed to the mystic theologian JOSEPH GLAN- VILL, that views the will as stronger than death “Ligeia” (1838) or decay. Ligeia succumbs to a fatal illness, but not before the narrator must watch “the fierce- Short story written in 1838. ness of the resistance with which she wrestled with the Shadow. . . . [N]ot until the last instance, SYNOPSIS amid the most convulsive writhings of her fierce “Ligeia” combines three of Poe’s most common spirit, was shaken the external placidity of her themes: the death of a mysterious and beautiful demeanor.” Ligeia asks the narrator to recite “The woman, a bereaved narrator of doubtful stability, CONQUEROR WORM,” a poem she has composed, and a gruesome resurrection. In an indefinite set- which he does “at the high noon of the night in ting, the story opens with the narrator’s statement which she departed.” “I cannot, for my soul, remember how, when or After Ligeia dies, the narrator abandons his even precisely where, I first became acquainted with home in “the dim and decaying city by the Rhine” the lady Ligeia.” After racking his brain, he fee- and purchases an ancient abbey “in one of the wild- bly recalls: “Yet I believe that I met her first and est and least frequented portions of fair England.” most frequently in some large, old, decaying city At the same time, he degenerates into “a bounden near the Rhine.” He states with wonder, “a recol- slave in the trammels of opium.” Within a short lection flashes upon me that I have never known time, the narrator marries once again, this time to the paternal name of her who was my friend and “the fair-haired and blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trev- my betrothed, and who became the partner of my anion, of Tremaine,” whose appearance contrasts studies, and finally the wife of my bosom.” Seem- sharply with that of the darkly beautiful Ligeia. ingly unconcerned by this lack of knowledge, the Even more of a contrast is the extent to which the narrator muses only briefly whether Ligeia kept this narrator knows Rowena’s family, as he questions, information from him, whether he was simply so “Where were the souls of the haughty family of the

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bride, when, through thirst of gold, they permitted has really happened in the story. Is this simply a tale to pass the threshold of an apartment so bedecked, of the opium-induced hallucinations of the narra- a maiden and a daughter so beloved?” The room to tor in which either or both Ligeia and Rowena are which he alludes is the bridal chamber, which con- figments of the narrator’s imagination? Is the story tains “wild and grotesque specimens,” “melancholy meant to provide a validation of Ligeia’s theory of vaulting,” and a bridal couch “low, and sculptured willpower, in which the narrator uses his willpower of solid ebony, with a pall-like canopy above.” Add- to summon her back to life? Is Ligeia a vampire- ing to the sepulchral air, “in each of the angles of like creature who has fed on the soul of Rowena the chamber stood on end a gigantic sarcophagus and inhabited her body to be reanimated? Numer- of black granite, from the tombs of the kings over ous critics have advanced theories to support each against Luxor.” of the preceding, but no consensus regarding the Within days, the narrator loathes his bride meaning of the tale has been reached. “with a hatred belonging more to demon than to man” and takes pleasure that she “dreaded the COMMENTARY fierce moodiness of my temper.” At the beginning The tale is one of Poe’s most critically acclaimed of the second month of the marriage, Rowena stories, as well as the one that he identified as his becomes seriously ill and hallucinates. After seem- personal favorite. Critics have considered this story ing to recover, she suffers a relapse and becomes one of his most complex, and it has aroused consid- even more violently ill than before. When he erable critical controversy and disagreement as to rushes to obtain a goblet of wine prescribed by the meaning of the plot and the characters’ actions. Rowena’s doctor, the narrator thinks that he sees Many critics echo the words of George Bernard “a faint, indefinite shadow of angelic aspect” and Shaw: “The story of the Lady Ligeia is not merely believes that he sees “three of four large drop- one of the wonders of literature: it is unparalleled lets of a ruby colored fluid” fall into the goblet, and unapproached. There is really nothing to be emanating as if “from some invisible spring in the said about it: we others simply take off our hats and atmosphere of the room.” He cannot, however, let Mr. Poe go first.” be sure because he is “wild with the excitement of Poe included his poem “The Conqueror Worm” an immoderate dose of opium, and heeded these in the second and later reprinting of the story. He things but little.” made the poem the dying words of the doomed Rowena dies three days later. On the fourth day, Ligeia to correct the impression that Ligeia’s return as the narrator watches by the body, he hears a suggested too strongly that she had successfully sigh and watches as the cheeks and forehead of the escaped death. Although originally published sepa- dead woman seem to fill with color. He momen- rately from the tale, the poem is represented as the tarily believes that he has been too quick in declar- creation of Ligeia, and it functions to reveal her ing Rowena dead, but the color soon fades and the anxiety about the decay of the body and her desire body remains still. As he has visions of Ligeia, the to escape death. The death envisioned in the poem narrator sees the corpse move and rise, until “the is violent: “And the seraph sob at vermin fangs / In thing that was enshrouded advanced boldly and human gore imbued.” palpably into the middle of the apartment.” As the Aside from the disagreement as to what actually wrappings fall from the body, the narrator joyously happens in the tale, scholars question the source of sees streaming downward “huge masses of long and the epigraph that precedes the story: dishevelled hair; it was blacker than the raven wings of midnight!” When the corpse opens her eyes, the And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. narrator shrieks aloud, “these are the full, and the Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with black, and the wild eyes—of my lost love—of the its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading lady—of the LADY LIGEIA.” The story ends here, all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth leaving critics and other readers to question what not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death

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utterly, save only through the weakness of his Poe uses a variety of literary techniques in feeble will. “Ligeia” to convey a sense of the twisted thinking of the narrator. He uses elaborate sentences, highly Although Poe attributes this passage to Joseph Glan- formal and sometimes archaic vocabulary, obscure vill, scholars have not located the source and suspect allusions, and highly descriptive phrasing. Poe por- that Poe merely created a convenient quotation, trays Ligeia in terms of the beauty of antiquity, which he also integrates into the text of the story at making her a symbol of feminine perfection and two points, and falsified its attribution. The choice human aspiration. He refers to art works and myths of Glanvill is appropriate, nonetheless, because of the Muslims and Greeks in his description. He mixed among his treatises on the “new science” and describes her as a timeless being who is beyond ordi- religion are writings that show his belief in spiritual nary human frailties. In contrast, Rowena receives manifestations and the eternal nature of the soul. little description and seems to appear only so that D. H. Lawrence wrote in Studies in Classic she can die. The narrator’s use of allusions and American Literature that the dominating vision in elaborate word choices in describing his turret room Poe’s work is scientific, and he observes that Poe further displays his twisted thinking. Through his reduces even love stories to quests for knowledge. description, the reader learns that his room is filled Lawrence describes “Ligeia” as a horror-filled story with grotesque artifacts that defy ordinary reality, that focuses on the assertion of human will, the horrifying carvings and other items, some even of will-to-love and the will-to-consciousness, and sug- a design named “Bedlam” after London’s infamous gests that it represents a battle against death itself. asylum. He reveals his obsession with death in his Lawrence considers the main irony of the story the description of the sarcophagi and in the mention of drive of Ligeia and her husband to assert their own the imprecise figures on the cloths and the trem- consciousness over Rowena, and he suggests that bling of the draperies and describes his own design they have murdered her to achieve Ligeia’s resur- selections as “hideous” and “phantasmagoric.” rection, although the murder of Rowena to give life Most of the text of “Ligeia” contains highly emo- to Ligeia has no moral effect on the characters. The tional description, as the narrator provides long, same point is made by David Halliburton, who con- loving appreciation for his dead wife, asserting her siders the story the strongest testimonial Poe ever talents without, however, providing any scenes of made, in story form, for the indestructibility of life. proof of her superiority. Although the story is about He questions whether Ligeia is returning only in the renewal of life, Poe places strong emphasis the narrator’s mind, or whether the things that are upon scenes of death, and the primary actions of happening in the room are really happening; thus, the story are dying and rising. “the psychological interest lies in the narrator’s “Ligeia” is one of many works that Poe wrote attempts to come to terms with them.” about an obsessive love that survives the death of Poe biographer Kenneth Silverman argues that a loved one. The most famous is “The RAVEN,” Poe’s obsession to portray obsessive grief springs from in which the speaker obsessively mourns his lost Poe’s own unresolved bereavements over a father he Lenore and learns that his grief will never abate. In never knew, the loss of his mother while he was still “The OBLONG BOX” a man secretly keeps his dead an infant, the experience of the deaths of people wife’s coffin in his room during a sea voyage, then close to him when he was young, and the failure ties himself to the coffin as the ship sinks so that to find loving substitutes for his parents when he he will never be separated from her. “Ligeia” is one was a child. He suggests that Poe’s early experience of four stories, all named for their dead heroines, with death had led him to treat death as an illusion which portray narrators who struggle with how to or a mistake in several of his stories and notes that remain faithful to the memories of their dead loves. Ligeia’s rebirth provides significant evidence of Poe’s In “ELEONORA,” the narrator can only feel freed need to keep writing plots of returns from the dead from his need to mourn when he remarries. The as a means of dealing with his own difficult past. narrator in “BERENICE” desires to retain souvenirs of

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his love, who is still alive in her coffin, but he opens betrothed, and who became the partner of my stud- her coffin and cuts out her teeth. In “MORELLA,” the ies, and finally the wife of my bosom.” Although title character dies in childbirth, but the husband the narrator claims to not have known his wife’s names his daughter Morella, and her spirit enters paternal name, he says she is the daughter of an and takes over the child’s form. When the daughter ancient family who brings to the marriage wealth, dies, the father enters his wife’s tomb and finds it “very far more than ordinarily falls to the lot of empty. In each of the four stories, the woman of the mortals.” Ligeia and the narrator meet in a “dim title exerts influence over her husband after death, and decaying city by the Rhine” and make their and each appears to be stronger than death. home there until she falls victim to a fatal illness, which remains unspecified. During earlier philo- ADAPTATIONS sophical discussions, and in the painful writhings The tale was made into a film titled The Tomb of Ligeia experiences during her illness, she expresses Ligeia (also distributed in the United States and her desire for life and belief that she will conquer abroad as, variously, The House at the End of the death. World, Ligeia, and Last Tomb of Ligeia), produced and directed in 1964 by ROGER CORMAN and star- Trevanion, Lady Rowena The narrator’s second ring VINCENT PRICE. The movie was the last of wife, in appearance she is the opposite of Ligeia, Corman’s eight screen adaptations of works written having blond hair and blue eyes and a family his- by Poe, and it has been acclaimed by critics as his tory that is fully known to the narrator. Rather best, closer in spirit to the original than most adap- than residing in an unnamed and mysterious city, tations of Poe’s work. Rowena is from Tremaine. Her family appears to be impoverished nobility, whose values the narra- PUBLICATION HISTORY tor taunts in asking: “Where were the souls of the The story was first published in the September 1838 haughty family of the bride, when, through thirst issue of the Baltimore American Museum. Although of gold, they permitted to pass the threshold of this the story would remain essentially the same in later apartment so bedecked, a woman and a daughter so publications, the first printing of the tale did not beloved?” Although her family has turned a blind include the poem “The Conqueror Worm,” which eye to the macabre furnishings of the bridal cham- was incorporated into the text when the story was ber in the ruined abbey, Rowena approaches her published in the February 15, 1845, issue of the new home and husband with fear and avoids him New York World and reprinted in the September with dread in the “unhallowed hours of the first 27, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. month of our marriage.” She is persecuted by the narrator, who claims, “I loathed her with a hatred CHARACTERS belonging more to demon than to man.” During Ligeia The narrator’s first wife, he describes her the second month of the marriage, Rowena experi- as having the features of a goddess, whom he wor- ences a “sudden illness,” which the narrator exac- ships while she is alive as well as after her death. erbates by creating strange sounds and movements She possesses a “lofty and pale forehead” and fault- in her bedchamber. “In her perturbed state of half- less features: “the skin rivaling the purest ivory, the slumber, she spoke of sounds, and of motions, in commanding extent and repose, the gentle promi- and about the chamber of the turret.” As the narra- nence of the regions above the temples; and the tor creates further sounds and introduces “a strong raven-black, the glossy, the luxuriant, the natu- current of wind behind the draperies” to produce rally curling tresses.” Allan Tate suggests that the the illusion of movement, Rowena’s fears intensify description is not that of a living love, rather: the and produce symptoms of hysteria and physical col- description of Ligeia’s head is that of a dead wom- lapse. She dies after the narrator provides her with an’s” (48). She has been more than a wife to the a cup containing poison and urges her to drink it narrator, who describes her as “my friend and my on doctor’s orders. As Rowena writhes in agony,

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approaching death, the narrator believes he sees Bieganowski, Ronald. “The Self-Consuming Narrator the spirit of Ligeia overtake the body. in Poe’s ‘Ligeia’ and ‘Usher.’ ” American Literature 60 (1988): 175–188. unnamed narrator The narrator of the tale has Griffith, Clark. “Poe’s ‘Ligeia’ and the English Roman- a monomania about his late wife, whom he believes tics.” University of Toronto Quarterly 24 (1954): to be the highest level of womanly beauty and spiri- 8–25. tual perfection. After her death, he continues to Hoffman, Daniel. Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe. Garden adore her and becomes obsessed with the desire City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972. to restore her to life in another woman’s body. He Lawrence, D. H. Studies in Classic American Literature. admits that he possesses an “incipient madness” New York: Viking Press, 1966. and describes his “childlike perverseness” in select- McEntee, Grace. “Remembering Ligeia.” Studies in ing macabre furnishings for the bridal chamber and American Fiction 20 (1992): 75–83. his pleasure in making Rowena avoid him with Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and dread after their marriage. The narrator professes Never-Ending Remembrance. New York: HarperCol- to loathe Rowena and justifies his mistreatment of lins, 1991. her as being the result of his devotion to the spirit Tritt, Michael. “ ‘Ligeia’ and ‘The Conqueror Worm.’ ” of Ligeia and the pure, ethereal love he retains for Poe Studies 9 (1976): 21–22. her. He admits to heavy use of opium and claims von Mucke, Dorothea. “The Imaginary Materiality “I was habitually fettered in the shackles of the of Writing in Poe’s ‘Ligeia’.” Differences 11, no. 2 drug.” While under the influence of opium, he calls (Summer 1999): 53–75. out Ligeia’s name “during the silence of the night, Zlotnick-Woldenberg, Carrie. “Edgar Allan Poe’s or among the sheltered recesses of the glens by ‘Ligeia’: An Object-Relational Interpretation.” day.” During his drug-related hallucinations, he American Journal of Psychotherapy 53, no. 3 (Sum- also experiences visions of resurrecting the spirit of mer 1999): 403–412. Ligeia in the body of Rowena. Convinced that his sheer willpower and efforts by Ligeia from beyond the grave can effect this transference, the narrator initiates a campaign of terror against Rowena, “Lionizing. A Tale” (1835) once she has become ill. He claims to feel a “presence” in Rowena’s sickroom and suggests that is Short story written in 1835. Ligeia’s spirit. He also has a hallucination that he sees a shadow upon the carpet, “a faint, indefinite SYNOPSIS shadow of angelic aspect—such as might be fancied “Lionizing: A Tale” satirizes the social milieu that for the shadow of a shade.” After consuming “an makes sought-after celebrities out of sometimes immoderate dose of opium,” he claims to see “as foolish and unworthy individuals. The following if from some invisible spring in the atmosphere of epigraph precedes the story: “ ‘—all people went / the room, 3 or 4 large drops of a brilliant and ruby Upon their ten toes in wild wonderment.’—Bishop colored fluid,” which he administers to Rowena. Hall’s Satires.” This is an altered version of the fol- While Rowena’s life fades, the narrator thinks of lowing quotation that appeared in Satires, published Ligeia, and he believes that he sees signs of Ligeia by Bishop Joseph Hall in 1597: “Genus and Species in the dying woman’s features. long since barefoote went / Upon their ten-toes in wilde wonderment.” FURTHER READINGS The cult of celebrity is best exposed through Poe’s Basler, Roy P. “The Interpretations of ‘Ligeia’.” In Poe: burlesque account of a literary banquet in the city of A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Robert Fum-Fudge attended by the self-proclaimed “nosol- Regan, 51–63 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice- ogist” Robert Jones, whose monograph on the topic Hall, 1967). has earned him instant fame. The true meaning of

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the term nosology is the classification of diseases, a is no competing with a lion who has no proboscis term known to Poe, who uses the misappropriation at all.” of meaning to further satirize pseudointellectualism. Jones encounters a gallery of oddly named, eccen- COMMENTARY tric men and women to whom he proudly shows The tale is one of Poe’s best comic efforts. It was his source of celebrity, his proboscis, then sends the one of the six tales that Poe submitted to a liter- royal family “the ninety-ninth edition of the ‘Nosol- ary competition sponsored by the the BALTIMORE ogy,’ ” with a portrait of his nose. In gratitude, he is SUNDAY VISITER that he won with “MS. FOUND IN invited to dine with the Prince of Wales. A BOTTLE.” In reference to “Lionizing” and other Poe further satirizes the egotistic business of tales, JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY wrote to Poe in becoming a literary lion as Jones lists the names 1835, “Several of your bizarreries have been mis- of the guests also at the Prince of Wales’s ban- taken for satire—and admired, too, in that charac- quet and the reasons for their celebrity. Speaking ter. They deserved it, but you did not, for you did of himself, Jones provides the ultimate example of not intend them so.” In a reply to Kennedy, dated lionizing: “There was myself. I spoke of myself;—of February 11, 1836, Poe wrote that the story is a myself, of myself, of myself;—of Nosology, of my satire “properly speaking—at least so meant— . . . pamphlet, and of myself. I turned up my nose, and I of the rage for Lions and the facility of becoming spoke of myself.” Jones states at the beginning of the one.” A lion is a person or celebrity who is socially story that “the first action of my life was the taking sought after, without established criteria as to the hold of my nose with both hands,” which makes his value of the reason for that celebrity status. mother call him a genius and his father weep for joy. The story is a parody of experiences recounted by He decides to develop the full power of his nose, NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS in a series of articles that after he “came to understand that, provided a man were later collected and published in 1835 in Pencil- had a nose sufficiently conspicuous, he might, by lings by the Way. Among the adventures that Willis merely following it, arrive at a Lionship.” Not con- claimed to have enjoyed during his 1831 tour of tent to depend upon mere theory, Jones becomes Europe are a duel, friendships with English royalty, a serious student of nosology, which he calls “the and meetings with members of the British literati. science of Noses,” although the true meaning is the classification of diseases, and also actively develops PUBLICATION HISTORY the physical qualities of his nose: “Every morning I The story was first published in the May 1835 gave my proboscis a couple of pulls and swallowed a issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, then half dozen of drams [of liquor].” This misappropria- revised for inclusion in TALES BY EDGAR A. POE, tion of terms is further evidence of Poe’s satire on published in 1845 by Wiley & Putnam. pseudointellectuals and false erudition. Jones becomes a welcome guest in the houses CHARACTERS of the rich and mighty, offering his profound theo- Bas-Bleu, Big Miss Literary bluestocking (“Bas- ries among all of the other intellectual lions, and Bleu” means bluestocking in French) who welcomes drawing praise from all who view his nose. He the author of a pamphlet on the science of noses enjoys wide fame until he engages in a duel with with the delighted exclamation: “What can he be?” the Elector of Bluddennuff, whose nose he shoots off. Within an instant, Jones is proclaimed “Bete!” Bas-Bleu, Mrs. Literary bluestocking who wel- “Ass!” “Fool!” “Dolt!” “Ninny!” and “Noodle!” comes the author of a pamphlet on the science of and condemned to obscurity. He returns home to noses with the delighted exclamation, “Who can his father to inquire, “what is the chief end of my he be?” existence?” His father informs him that “in Fum- Fudge the greatness of a lion is in proportion to Bless-My-Soul, Duchess of Woman who is sit- the size of his proboscis—but, good heavens! there ting for her portrait when Robert Jones enters the

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artist’s studio. Enthralled by Jones’s newly gained Rocher de Cancale, a fictional country Poe named celebrity following the publication of his mono- after a well-known Paris restaurant of the time. graph on “nosology,” the duchess later invites him Fricassee mentions real dishes, such as muriton to accompany her to an exclusive gathering at of red tongue, cauliflowers and velouté sauce, and Almack’s, where being admitted is as great a dis- other foods for which recipes appear as recently tinction as being presented at court. as in the 1961 edition of Larousse Gastronomique, often referred to by culinary masters as the French Bluddennuff, Elector of His name translates national cookbook. from the German as “blood enough,” but in slang also means “sufficiently stupid.” He insults the great Grenouille, Prince de His name means “frog” authority on “nosology,” Robert Jones, by shouting in French and he greets the nosologist narrator at his appearance “Tousand teufels” (thousand dev- with the phrase, “Mille tonnerres!” (A thousand ils). This initiates a duel between the two, during thunders!) at the uproar that ensues with Robert’s which Bluddennuff’s nose is shot off, and this turn appearance. of events makes him the most revered of the inhabitants of Fum-Fudge, replacing Jones. Jones, Robert Large-nosed expert on nosology who states at the beginning of the story that “the Bubastis The name of the moon in Egypt, first action of my life was the taking hold of my according to the pseudo-learned president of Fum nose with both hands,” which makes his mother Fudge University. call him a genius and his father weep for joy.

Capricornutti, Count One of the guests at O’Bumper, Bibulus Guest at the literary dinner Almack’s, apparently the center of social/intellec- given by the Prince of Wales, he is an expert on tual activity of London in the 19th century, he wines and seems conversant on all of the famous jealously mutters “Diavolo!” when the revered nosol- wine regions. ogist Robert Jones enters the salon and witnesses Jones’s challenge to the elector of Bluddennuff. Paradox, Sir Positive Guest at the dinner given by the Prince of Wales, where he observes that “all Ethix, Aestheticus Pseudo-scientist whom Poe fools were philosophers, and that all philosophers mocks. “He spoke of fire, unity, and atoms; bipart were fools.” and preexistent soul; affinity and discord; primitive intelligence and homoomeria,” Poe wrote. So-and-So, Marquis of Guest at a literary salon, “Homoomeria” refers to homoeomery, the belief but Poe mocks such literary dilettantes by portray- of the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras that the ing the Marquis “holding the Duchess’ poodle” ultimate particles of matter are all of the same while she sits for her portrait. kind. In this reference to Newtonian theory, Poe mocks the scientists who pretended to have com- Stiletto, Don Watches as Robert Jones chal- prehensive knowledge of the natural and the spiri- lenges the Elector of Bluddennuff to a duel, and he tual worlds. exclaims “ ‘Dios guarda!’ ” (“God protect us!”).

Feltspar, Ferdinand Fitz Fossillus One of the Theology, Theologus Guest at the dinner given many pseudo-intellectual guests at the Prince of by the Prince of Wales; he is another of the pon- Wales’s literary banquet and an expert on obscure tificating intellectuals who are more air than facts regarding rocks. substance.

Fricassee A gourmet and a guest at the Prince This-and-That, Earl of Pays court to the Duch- of Wales’s literary banquet. He has come from ess of Bless-My-Soul by flirting with her.

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Tintontintino, Signor Resident of Florence and permits him to hack up literary adversaries through one of the pretentious guests at the dinner given by savage reviewing, or “tomahawking.” Thingum Bob the Prince of Wales. A pseudo-intellectual, he dis- finally succeeds in the magazine world by launching courses casually about the tendencies of the great a huge magazine of his own, “one magnificent Maga- painters. zine known everywhere as the Rowdy-Dow, Lollipop, Hum-Drum, and Goosetherumfoodle,” a feat attempted Touch-Me-Not, Royal Highness of Present in by Poe but never achieved. In a speech on literary the artist’s studio when Robert Jones first appears fame in the final paragraphs of the story, Poe speaks there, and he is leaning upon the back of the chair through Thingum Bob to candidly reveal his own in which the Duchess of Bless-My-Soul is seated. experiences in the periodical world and to express frustrations that he often felt in their dealings with FURTHER READINGS contributors: “Look at me!—how I labored—how I Arnold, John. “Poe’s ‘Lionizing’: The Wound the Baw- toiled—how I wrote! Ye Gods, did I not write? I knew dry.” Literature and Psychology 17 (1967): 52–54. not the word ‘ease.’ By day I adhered to my desk, and Thompson, Gary R. “On the Nose—Further Specula- at night, a pale student, I consumed the midnight oil. tions on the Sources and Meaning of Poe’s ‘Lion- You should have seen me—you should.” izing.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction 6 (1968): 94–97. COMMENTARY The tale is one of Poe’s most highly autobiographical and ironic sketches. He returns to the scenes “Literary Life of Thingum of his youth in Richmond in this thinly disguised satire of his conversations with JOHN ALLAN about Bob, Esq. Late Editor of the a literary future, and in incidents that reflect his life ‘Goosetherumfoodle.’ by in Richmond and around the warehouse of Ellis & Allan, the mercantile company co-owned by Allan. Himself, The” (1844) Poe may have taken special pleasure in publishing the story first in a Richmond publication. The Short story written in 1844. revised version contained more specific sarcasm directed at Poe’s literary enemy LEWIS GAYLORD SYNOPSIS CLARK. Poe might have left the story unsigned had The tale satirizes the publishing profession, and espe- not JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL identified him as the cially the pettiness of the editors of literary magazines author in an article published in the February 1845 who did not always deal fairly with such writers as issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE, “Our Contributors, Poe but who often rewarded the lesser-quality work No. XVII: Edgar Allan Poe.” of hacks and “quill drivers.” From the opening sentence, the reader is aware that the story is told tongue PUBLICATION HISTORY in cheek, as Thingum Bob, the narrator, observes, The short story originally appeared, unsigned, in “I understand that Shakespeare and Mr. Emmons the December 1844 issue of the SOUTHERN LIT- are deceased—it is not impossible that I may even ERARY MESSENGER, which was published in Rich- die.” The story is framed as the autobiography of mond, Virginia, the locale it satirized. Poe revised Thingum Bob, who has “resolved at once to become the story for republication the following year, and it a great man” by his pen and who never misses the appeared under his name in the July 26, 1845, issue opportunity to extol his literary virtues or brag of his of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. successes. He achieves literary fame with the publication of his two-line ode, “The Oil-of-Bob,” and is CHARACTERS offered the position of Thomas H. Hawk, or “Toma- Bob, Thingum A mysterious author who explains hawk,” by Mr. Crab, publisher of the Lollipop, which how he attained literary success. Eager to avoid his

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father’s profession of merchant-barber, he resolved young writer that his magazine never pays for a first to be a great man “and to commence by becoming effort: “For the most part, we are paid for the inser- a great poet.” With his father’s approval, Thingum tion of a maiden attempt.” Crab exhibits the same then buys numerous ancient editions of poems, reaction whenever Thingum makes future attempts recopies them in his own hand, and signs them to be paid. with his pseudonym, Oppodeldoc. He then sends his plagiarized poetry to the editors of four princi- Fatquack, Mr. Decreed one of the “galaxy of pal magazines, “with a request for speedy insertion genius,” he received 62-and-a-half cents for his and prompt pay,” but they are not fooled and they domestic novelette, Dish-Clout. The character is criticize him broadly in print. Now convinced that associated with James Fenimore Cooper, whose “honesty is the best policy,” Thingum sends out writing abilities Poe viewed with contempt. In his original efforts under his own name and has “A FEW WORDS ABOUT BRAINARD,” Poe reviews “the proud satisfaction of seeing my poem printed the works of various “native writers” and states, at length.” As his fame increases, he becomes the “It is not because we have no Mr. Coopers but darling of the literary set, eventually managing because it has been demonstrated that we might, to inherit one famous literary magazine, then to at any moment, have as many Mr. Coopers as we buy the three remaining rivals and combine them please.” into one. With great pride, Thingum becomes the quotable Mr. Bob: “You cannot take up a common Fibalittle, Mrs. One of the writers who provide newspaper in which you shall not see some allusion “numerous magnificent contributions” to the Lol- to the immortal Thingum Bob. It is Mr. Thingum lipop, a literary magazine, a part of the “galaxy of Bob said so, and Mr. Thingum Bob wrote this, and genius.” Mr. Thingum Bob did that.” Hawk, Thomas Thingum Bob uses this pseud- Bob, Thomas, Esq. The father of the narrator onym to write savage reviews for a magazine named of the story, Thingum Bob, and a merchant-barber the Lollipop. The name is a variation on the term who stands “at the summit of his profession” in the tomahawk, a term applied by writers to Poe himself city of Smug. When his son approaches him about because of the vicious way in which he “chopped” becoming an editor and a poet, Thomas encourages up their work in his reviews. him and offers to provide Thingum with “a garret; pen, ink, and paper; a rhyming dictionary . . . you would scarcely demand any more.” He collaborates Mumblethumb, Mr. Notice appears in the with his son on a two-line poem that catapults “Toad,” a fictional gossip column, that the Lollipop, Thingum to literary fame, but the ungrateful son a literary magazine, paid Mumblethumb 50¢ for the soon views his father as an “old bore” who must be literary contribution “Monody in a Mud-Puddle.” removed if he is to achieve his full potential. Slyass, Mr. He is “the great Slyass,” whose work Crab, Mr. Editor of the magazine Lollipop, he appears in the Lollipop, the magazine for which appears to be involved in a heated professional Thingum Bob works. Slyass is a writer of renown and personal rivalry with another editor. After a who “received no less than thirty-seven-and-a-half lengthy discourse upon the unsavory characteris- cents for his inimitable paper on ‘Pigs.’ ” Critics tics of his rival publication, Crab shows his miserly have associated the character with WILLIAM CUL- nature when the young Thingum asks about remu- LEN BRYANT, whom Poe thought overrated. neration for his work. Crab takes on the appearance of “a highly agitated elderly duck in the act Squibalittle, Mrs. One of the contributors to of quacking.” Speechless in his astonishment, Crab the Lollipop and among those whom Thingum Bob takes several minutes to recover, then informs the labels “so rich a galaxy of genius.”

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 103 10/12/07 12:02:05 PM 104 “Loss of Breath: A Tale à la Blackwood” “Loss of Breath: A Tale à la burial vault after they use “the united strength of our resuscitated voices” to attract attention. There Blackwood” (1832) is no further reference to Lackobreath’s wife nor indication of his future. Instead, Poe waxes philo- Short story written in 1832. sophical and recalls the belief “among the ancient Hebrew . . . that the gates of Heaven would be SYNOPSIS inevitably opened to that sinner, or saint, who, “Loss of Breath” is preceded by the epigraph “O with good lungs and implicit confidence, should breathe not, &c. —Moore’s Melodies.” The quota- vociferate the word ‘Amen!’ ” tion is taken from the title of “Oh! Breathe Not His Name,” a song in the collection Irish Melodies, writ- COMMENTARY ten by Thomas Moore. The newly married Mr. Lack- This tale is not ranked by critics as among Poe’s obreath wakes up one morning and begins to shout best. It has received little critical attention aside viciously at his new wife, who appears to have been from a lengthy psychological interpretation under- unfaithful. In the middle of his shouting, he begins to taken by the psychologist MARIE BONAPARTE, who lose his breath, a condition he attempts to hide from has characterized it as an unconscious parable his wife until he is sure of the extent of his loss. about Poe’s fears of impotence and castration. She As he begins a search for his breath, Mr. Lacko- interprets the “loss of breath” as an expression of breath discovers “a set of false teeth, two pair of psychological castration. hips, an eye, and a number of billets-doux [love letters] from Mr. Windenough to my wife,” proof that PUBLICATION HISTORY his wife has been carrying on a romantic extramari- The story first appeared under the title “A Decided tal relationship. Throughout the remainder of the Loss” in the November 1832 issue of the Philadel- story, the narrator attempts to catch his breath in phia Saturday Courier. Poe changed the title to a series of darkly absurd adventures. On one occa- “Loss of Breath: A Tale à la Blackwood” and used sion, a surgeon pronounces the narrator dead, and the pseudonym LYTTLE BARRY when the story was on another he is partially eviscerated despite his published in the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. “most furious contortions.” As he escapes from the autopsy by leaping from a window into the passing CHARACTERS cart of a hangman, he finds that the cart is on its Lackobreath, Mr. A man who learns his new way to the gallows, where he is promptly hanged. wife has been unfaithful and whose shouting at her “Interred in a public vault,” he inspects the “numer- leaves him at a loss of breath. ous coffins” and pries them open in “speculation about the mortality within.” One coffin brings a Pinxit Attends the public hanging of the narrator surprise, because it contains the corpse of Mr. Win- and “availed himself of the opportunity to retouch, denough, who has also been interred mistakenly. from a sketch taken upon the spot, his admirable After Lackobreath tugs at Mr. Windenough’s painting of the Marsyas flayed alive.” He has been nose to drag the corpse into a sitting position, the identified with the painter Raphael (1483–1520), man revives so energetically that Lackobreath who created the painting mentioned. decides “the breath so fortunately caught by the gentleman (whom I soon recognized as my neighbor Scissors He is “the Whig editor” who hears the Windenough) was, in fact, the identical expiration voices coming from the dungeons of the sepulchre mislaid by myself in the conversation with my wife.” and, instead of acting, republishes “a treatise upon Still unable to speak, Lackobreath now attempts to ‘the nature and origin of subterranean noises’.” recapture his lost breath from Windenough, whom he believes to have been his wife’s lover. The story Windenough, Mr. He has sent love letters to ends with the two men being rescued from the another man’s wife. He is later mistaken for dead

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and buried alive, being interred in the same tomb contain his excitement as he hurries out of the cof- as Mr. Lackobreath, where the two first fight then feehouse to follow the man throughout the night. think of a way to escape. The old stranger races through the London streets, then aimlessly forces his way through a large street bazaar and later enters shop after shop—looking at everything but buying nothing. As time passes, the “Man of the Crowd, The” old man heads to a less desirable part of the city, “where every thing wore the worst impress of the (1840) most deplorable poverty, and of the most desperate crime.” The dammed-up gutters of the streets con- Short story written in 1840. tain “horrible filth,” and the people are “the most abandoned of London.” They stop in front of “one SYNOPSIS of the huge suburban temples of Intemperance— “The Man of the Crowd” opens with mysterious ref- one of the palaces of the fiend, Gin,” but the man- erences to dark secrets “which do not permit them- ager is closing up, so the stranger turns and begins selves to be told” and “the hideousness of mysteries to walk back to “the heart of the mighty London.” which will not suffer themselves to be revealed.” All day, the stranger and the nameless narrator The story is preceded by the following epigraph: walk through the busy streets of London, until the “Ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir etre seul” (That narrator becomes too tired to continue. He steps in great misfortune, not to be able to be alone). The front of the old man and “gazed at him steadfastly in quotation is taken from Les Caractères de l’homme the face,” but even then the man fails to notice him. (The characters of man), by Jean de La Bruyère As the narrator then ceases his endless walking, (1645–1696), and Poe also uses the quotation in he concludes that the old man “is the type and the “METZENGERSTEIN.” genius of deep crime. He refuses to be alone. He is The nameless narrator, convalescing after a long the man of the crowd. It will be in vain to follow; for I illness, sits in a coffeehouse, observing a busy street shall learn no more of him, nor of his deeds.” scene. The “tumultuous sea of human heads” fascinates him and expresses the irony that people in a COMMENTARY city feel “solitude on account of the very denseness This tale is one of conscience, featuring a stranger of the company around.” Taking careful note of who seems doomed to wander forever in order to how passersby are dressed, as well as their “air, gait, make up for some unnamed crime. It contains Lon- visage, and expression of countenance,” he deduces don scenes that Poe probably recollected from his their occupations and social classes based on their time spent there as a young boy with JOHN ALLAN physical characteristics. The story begins in early and his family. The story is unusual among Poe’s evening on one day and proceeds until early eve- work because none of the characters is given a ning the next, while the narrator keeps time for the name, nor does Poe reveal the crime committed reader, indicating as deep night falls, when eleven by the nameless narrator that is responsible for his in the evening strikes, the coming of daybreak, and aimless wanderings. Critics have also viewed the the coming of “the shades of the second evening.” story as exceedingly modern with its themes of the With the deepening of the evening, which sig- isolation of the artist and the alienation of the indi- nals the “retiring in the gradual withdrawal of the vidual in an urban environment. more orderly portion of the people, and its harsher The reader is never told why the narrator is ones coming out into bolder relief,” the narrator’s haunted by the old man, but the story implies that attention becomes focused on “a decrepit old man, the two are each sides of the same person and that some sixty-five or seventy years of age” who is the old man, thus, represents a secret side of the nar- dressed in filthy, ragged clothes through which peek rator. A similar situation appears in “WILLIAM WIL- a diamond and a dagger. The narrator can hardly SON,” but that story contains a confrontation that

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never occurs in the current story despite the best and keeps following the man. The narrator claims efforts of the narrator. As a result, this is more a story that, despite the many miles and hours he follows of noncommunication and of unresolvable loneliness, the old man, he manages “to keep him within reach for after overtaking the man of the crowd, the narra- without attracting his observation.” Finally, at the tor gazes at him steadfastly in the face. “He noticed beginning of the second evening, the narrator grows me not, but resumed his solemn walk, while I ceasing too tired to continue and “stopping fully in front of to follow, remained absorbed in contemplation.” the wanderer, gazed at him steadfastly in the face.” Ignored by the man, the narrator gives up his quest PUBLICATION HISTORY and decides that he will never be able to learn any- The story first appeared simultaneously in the thing about the man “nor of his deeds.” December 1840 issues of Atkinson’s Casket and of BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE, the latter peri- unnamed old man A figure of interest to the odical’s last issue. narrator and the titular “man of the crowd.” He CHARACTERS is “a decrepid old man, some sixty-five or seventy years of age” whose facial expression is very differ- unnamed narrator Convalescing after a long ill- ent from any that the narrator has ever seen before. ness, he becomes obsessed with a shabbily dressed The narrator forms an instant impression of the elderly stranger whom he sees while seated in a man: “the ideas of vast mental power, of caution, London coffeehouse during his first journey out- of penuriousness, of avarice, of coolness, of malice, side the house since his illness. At the opening of of blood-thirstiness, of triumph, of merriment, of the story, he is in a buoyant mood, “one of those excessive terror, of intense—of supreme despair.” happy moods which are so precisely the converse The old man is short, very thin, and seemingly of ennui—moods of the keenest appetency, when very feeble. “His clothes, generally, were filthy and the film from the mental vision departs . . . and the ragged; but as he came, now and then, within the intellect, electrified, surpasses as greatly its everyday strong glare of a lamp,” the narrator “perceived condition.” He claims to feel “a calm but inquisitive interest in every thing” as he sits smoking a cigar and that his linen, although dirty, was of beautiful tex- reading a newspaper. He watches the large number ture.” Through a worn spot in the man’s overcoat, of people walking past on the busy thoroughfare, the narrator sees that he is also carrying a diamond but the crowd seems to be made up of “that which and a dagger. He takes a long walk through the is pointedly termed the decent,” and they hold little main and side streets of London, enters a square interest for him. He categorizes the crowd, based that he walks around repeatedly, and enters numer- upon their facial expressions and manner of dress, ous shops, where he looks at everything but buys finding among the crowd “the common-places of nothing. At 11 in the evening, when the shops society” and, in the later evening, gamblers, ped- began closing their doors, he begins to run “with lars, street beggars, and “women of the town of all incredible swiftness” through numerous crooked kinds and of all ages.” The narrator becomes more and deserted streets until he reaches the same cof- intrigued by the changing population as the night feehouse where the narrator had first seen him. progresses: “As the night deepened, so deepened He does not remain there, but leads the narrator to me the interest of the scene . . . as the late hour on a further chase, into the filth-infested part of brought forth every species of infamy from its den.” town. As he had in earlier crowds, the old man Once he spots the unnamed old man, he stalks back and forth among the throng of people, becomes obsessed with learning all about him and then leaves at daybreak and returns to “the heart follows him. Although rain begins, he welcomes it of mighty London.” Throughout the day, he con- because “the lurking of an old fever in my system tinues his constant walking to and fro among the rendering the moisture somewhat too dangerously turmoil of the crowd. He refuses to acknowledge pleasant.” He ties a handkerchief around his mouth the existence of the narrator.

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FURTHER READINGS would have called up a blush of conscious inferi- Berkley, James. “Post-human Mimesis and the ority into the countenance of the marble Apollo,” Debunked Machine: Reading Environmental “a mouth utterly unequalled,” and other physical Appropriation in Poe’s ‘Maelzel’s Chess-Player’ attributes that speak of “the supreme excellence and ‘The Man That Was Used Up’.” Comparative of his bodily endowments.” The general’s speeches Literature Studies 42, no. 3 (2004): 356. are as grand as his appearance, containing as they Elbert, Monika M. “ ‘The Man of the Crowd’ and the do boasts of his triumphs over his inferiors and Man Outside the Crowd: Poe’s Narrator and the magnificent statements about the progress of the Democratic Reader.” Modern Language Studies 21, age. Despite being initially impressed, the narrator no. 4 (1991): 16–30. seeks to learn more about this military hero and finds that everyone he asks simply hints about this Hayes, Kevin J. “Visual Culture and the Word in Edgar being “a wonderful age for invention . . . a won- Allan Poe’s ‘The Man of the Crowd’.” Nineteenth- derfully inventive age . . . the age of invention.” Century Literature 56, no. 4 (March 2002): 445. Convinced that Smith is hiding some secret, the Maxson, Helen F. “Richard Poirier and Edgar Allan narrator decides to make an unexpected visit to Poe: Reassessing the ‘World Elsewhere’.” The Mid- the general’s home. He is ushered into the gener- west Quarterly 41, no. 4 (Summer 2000): 416–431. al’s bedroom where he finds “a large and exceed- Mazurek, Ray. “Art, Ambiguity, and the Artist in Poe’s ingly odd looking bundle of something which lay ‘The Man in the Crowd.’ ” Poe Studies 12 (1979): close by [his] feet on the floor,” which he nudges 25–28. with his foot. The bundle begins to talk, and as its one arm draws a stocking on its single leg, the narrator realizes that this is all remaining of the general after his many losses in battle. As the “Man That Was Used Up, fascinated narrator watches, the general’s valet, The. A Tale of the Late Pompey, literally assembles the general, piece by piece. A second leg and arm are screwed on, Bugaboo and Kickapoo shoulders and a chest are added, as are a wig, a Campaign.” (1839) glass eye, and false teeth, until finally the handsome general emerges once more. “The manipula- Short story written in 1839. tions of Pompey” make “a very striking difference” in the appearance of Smith, turning him from “a SYNOPSIS large and exceedingly odd looking bundle of some- “The Man That Was Used Up” is preceded by the thing” to the stalwart-looking general. Without following epigraph, taken from Le Cid (III, iii, 7–8) self-consciousness, the general assures the amazed by Pierre Corneille (1606–84): narrator that, should the need ever arise, he can recommend any number of skilled men to perform “Pleurez, pleurez, mes yeux, et fondez-vous en eau! similar services for him. La moitiè de ma vie a mis l’autre au tombeau.” After the reconstruction is complete, the narra- (“Weep, weep, my eyes, and float yourself in tor leaves the general “with a perfect understanding tears! / The better half of my life has laid the of the true state of affairs—with a full comprehen- other to rest.”) sion of the mystery which had troubled me so long. Upon first meeting Brevet Brigadier General It was evident. It was a clear case. Brevet Brigadier John A. B. C. Smith, the narrator believes him to General John A. B. C. Smith was the man—was be “one of the most remarkable men of the age,” the man that was used up.” This creation of apparent a magnificent physical specimen six feet tall with substance from literally nothing suggests the story is “richly flowing” black hair, eyes that are “large an allegory that signals a contempt on the author’s and lustrous,” a powerful set of shoulders “which part for the masses who can so easily be fooled.

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COMMENTARY Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith in This tale has been identified by Poe’s contemporary a military campaign, a “tremendous swamp-fight NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS as one of Poe’s personal away down South.” favorites among his satires. Critics associate “the man A sculptor and friend who the that was used up” in the story with GENERAL WIN- Chiponchipino narrator wishes might see the properly propor- FIELD SCOTT, a Virginian as well as a close relative of tioned calf and the leg of Brevet Brigadier General JOHN ALLAN’s second wife, LOUISA GABRIELLA PAT- John A. B. C. Smith. TERSON. A professional military officer, Scott won early fame fighting in the War of 1812 and was a Her last name means leader in military campaigns against the Seminole Cognoscenti, Arabella “one in the know.” She is one of two “exquisite and Creek tribes, in which he was wounded. He was specimens of affability and omniscience” with whom an unsuccessful candidate for president in 1852. Crit- the narrator of the story converses when he visits ics suggest that Scott the well-known public figure is the box overlooking the stage during a play at the reflected in the self-promotion of the central charac- Rantipole Theatre. Her short attention span and ter as well as in the way that he greets the narrator: failure to make sense in her conversation frustrates “Man alive, how do you do? why, how are ye? very the narrator, who abruptly leaves her company. glad to see ye, indeed!” In addition, similar to the general in the story, Scott was also a “brevet,” an offi- Cognoscenti, Miranda Her last name means cer who is raised by government action to a nominal “one in the know.” The narrator of the story rank without a corresponding increase in pay. describes her and her sister, Arabella, as “those exquisite specimens of affability and omniscience.” PUBLICATION HISTORY She expresses her adoration of the general and tells The story was first published in the August 1839 the narrator of Smith’s “inimitable grace,” “just issue of BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE, then appreciation of stage effect,” and “delicate sense of revised for publication in 1840 in TALES OF THE the true beauties of Shakespeare.” GROTESQUE AND ARABESQUE. Drummummupp, Rev. Doctor Minister of the CHARACTERS church where the narrator encounters Miss Tabitha Bas-Bleu, Miss One of the guests at Mrs. Kathleen T., he delivers a “very capital discourse” at the top O’Trump’s party. Miss Bas-Bleu (French for “blue- of his voice, and “with a thump that came near stocking”) is a shrill-voiced “little feminine inter- knocking the pulpit about our ears.” loper” and literary know-it-all who appeals to the narrator to settle a dispute with another guest who Mann, Captain The story of his duel becomes has identified LORD BYRON’s poetical drama as Man the focus of Mrs. O’Trump’s story that interrupts Friday. Stuck with “a very bitter animosity against the narrator’s attempt to obtain information about the whole race of Bas-Bleus,” the narrator sides with Brevet Brigadier General Smith. Mrs. O’Trump bab- her opponent in the dispute. See also “LIONIZING.” bles on “all about a certain Captain Mann who was either shot or hung, or should have been both shot Bonfanti’s A provider of the unusual where Bre- and hung.” When the narrator asks another char- vet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith claims to acter for information, he is, once again, confronted have purchased a palate, for “there isn’t Bonfanti’s with an offer of information about Captain Mann, to equal, however, in America, for really good articles which he replies, “ ‘Captain Mann be d———d!’ ” of this description.” O’Trump, Mrs. Kathleen A “lovely widow” Bugaboo and Kickapoo Indians Names of who hosts a party attended by the narrator. She tribes coined by Poe to identify the opponents of is encouraged by “some feminine interloper” to go

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on to tell a story totally irrelevant to the narrator’s Thompson, Mr. When Brevet Brigadier General purposes: “Yes! Mrs. O’Trump, she went on, and John A. B. C. Smith first meets the narrator, he does I—I went off.” not wait to be introduced before glad-handing and simply speaking out about his own interests, while Pirouette, Mrs. One of the women whom the inaccurately addressing the narrator as “Mr. Thomp- narrator encounters at the party given by Mrs. son,” a name that he repeats twice. As the narrator Kathleen O’Trump, all of whom are eager to dis- walks away, he says, “Thompson, to be sure, is not cuss Brevet Brigadier General A. B. C. Smith. The my name; but it is needless to say that I left General “bewitching little angel, the graceful Mrs. Pirou- Smith with a heightened interest in the man.” ette” dances with the narrator, alternately speaking of “the dreadful business” of Smith and admonish- FURTHER READINGS ing her dance partner “do turn out your toes” until Alekna, Richard A. “ ‘The Man That Was Used Up’; she is “quite out of breath.” Further Notes on Poe’s Satirical Targets.” Poe Stud- ies 12 (1979): 36. Pompey He is “an old negro valet” who attends Baym, Nina. “Emerson’s Transcendental Etudes / The to the needs of Brevet Brigadier General John A. After Life of Edgar Allan Poe.” American Literature B. C. Smith, screwing on arms and a leg, inserting 77, no. 2 (June 2005): 414. Smith’s teeth, and attaching and adjusting his wig. Blake, David Haven. “ ‘The Man That Was Used Up’: Edgar Allan Poe and the Ends of Captivity.” Sinivate, Mr. Theodore The narrator’s “particu- Nineteenth-Century Literature 57, no. 3 (December lar friend” who he believes will give him “some- 2002): 323. thing like definite information.” Instead, Sinivate Curran, Robert T. “The Fashionable Thirties: Poe’s “insinuates” information but says nothing directly Satire in ‘The Man That Was Used Up.’ ” Markham about General A. B. C. Smith’s injuries, leading the Review 8 (1978): 14–20. narrator to leave the house “in high dudgeon, with a firm resolve to call my friend, Mr. Sinivate, to a speedy account for his ungentlemanly conduct and ill-breeding.” “Masque of the Red Death, The” (1842) Smith, Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. At their first meeting, Smith strikes the nar- Short story written in 1842. rator as “remarkable—yes, remarkable . . . six feet in height, and of a presence singularly command- SYNOPSIS ing.” In truth, Smith has been physically decimated “The Masque of the Red Death” appears similar by his tremendous feats “during the Bugaboo and to Boccaccio’s Decameron, written in 1353, in its Kickapoo campaigns.” premise of gathering a group of aristocrats in a secluded abbey in the attempt to escape a devas- T., Miss Tabitha She meets the narrator when he tating plague, as well as in the author’s revelation sits next to her during the sermon by the Reverend that this attempt is futile. The story is not preceded Doctor Drummummupp. by an epigraph, making it unusual in that respect among Poe’s tales. Tattle, Mr. He plays whist with Mrs. Kathleen The wealthy and powerful Prince Prospero seeks O’Trump as she explains to the narrator that this safety from the raging plague of the “Red Death” is “the age of invention” and speaks of the “horrid with his “thousand hale and light-hearted friends.” affair” and the “terrible wretches those Kickapoos.” Because all within the walls of the abbey remain He does not respond, and his only concern is his safe and secure, no one seems concerned about the game of whist, for which he refuses any hearts. fate of those left to confront the pestilence outside

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the walls of the abbey in his “half-depopulated” COMMENTARY dominions where the plague rages: “Without was Critics generally regard this tale as an undisputed the ‘Red Death.’ The external world could take masterpiece and one of Poe’s most unusual. One care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve of Poe’s few stories to use a third-person narrator, or to think.” Poe names his protagonist after Pros- the story contains opulent, highly descriptive lan- pero, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’s exiled duke of Milan guage that imparts a dreamlike rhythm to the nar- in The Tempest, who creates his own private world rative. Poe originally entitled the story “The Mask and uses magic to control the destinies of other of the Red Death: A Fantasy,” to place focus on characters in the play. In contrast, Poe’s Pros- the mysterious figure who appears at the end of the pero makes the same attempt but learns that his story, but later changed the title to focus attention attempts are only illusion. He decorates the abbey on the masque, a private ball that flourished in to please the senses of his guests, providing them Renaissance Italy. Throughout, the story retains with seven elaborately decorated rooms, each a dif- a dreamlike quality that has led many critics to ferent color—blue, purple, green, orange, white, question if Poe intended the story to be enjoyed violet, and black—and has provided his retinue as a nightmarish narrative—or if he sought to with “a voluptuous scene” even as the plague rages offer readers insight into the mental state of a mad outside the abbey walls: “There were buffoons, narrator. there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, Written soon after Poe’s beloved wife, VIRGINIA there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was CLEMM, was diagnosed with tuberculosis, “The wine. All these and security were within.” Critics Masque of the Red Death” personifies the deadly suggest that the abbey’s seven pleasure chambers red death disease that he characterizes as being correspond to the seven ages of man, as well as to incurable, fatal, and inescapable, much as his con- the seven deadly sins, the worst of which is pride. temporaries viewed tuberculosis. A sense of horror Connected by a corridor running from east to west pervades the story, largely due to the gothic ele- to track the movement of the sun, the chambers ments of the story, which include the supernatu- end with the westernmost, “decorated entirely in ral, gruesome scenes of horror, dark settings, and black with a giant ebony clock that chimes and a preoccupation with death and madness common makes the giddiest grow pale.” to the genre. Further in keeping with the gothic At the height of the plague, Prince Prospero genre, the story takes place in an unnamed country, entertains his guests with a lavish masque, a mas- in no specific time period or geographical location, querade ball during which “the license of the which has been ravaged by a deadly “pestilence.” night was nearly unlimited.” The appearance of an The ambiguity of the exact setting lends the story uninvited guest wearing a mask and costume that a mystical element and suggests that the author resembles “the countenance of a stiffened corpse” may have meant it to function as a parable or fable. infuriates the prince, who pursues it to the black The story also contains elements of an allegory that chamber, then threatens the “tall and gaunt” figure represents death as being inescapable despite one’s with a dagger. As the figure turns to confront him, social status and all human efforts to run from it Prince Prospero falls dead. The revellers attack the and to shut it out. figure, then gasp “in unutterable horror at finding Poe examines the themes of madness, the the grave-cerements and corpse-like mask which passage of time, and the nature of death in this they handled with so violent a rudeness. . . . [O]ne story, and he uses the symbolism of the number by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed 7 in advancing the progress of the Red Death. halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing The story is set in seven rooms, through which posture of his fall.” As the story ends, death tri- Prospero and his guests proceed until the figure of umphs once more, as “the Red Death held illimit- the Red Death leads them into the final chamber, able dominion over all.” where their deaths will occur. The seven rooms

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reflect the passage of time for humanity, as in the the “mad revelers” and writing that the Red Death seven days of the week. Time comes to an end for takes on “mad assumptions.” the prince and his guests when they reach the sev- The nature and appearances of the seven rooms enth room. Despite the efforts of Prince Prospero of the abbey have received particular scrutiny from and his “thousand friends” to seal themselves in critics. H. H. Bell, Jr., suggests that the placement the abbey of his castle in the effort to escape the and the colors of each chamber represent “an Red Death and entertain themselves with “all the allegorical representation of Prince Prospero’s life appliances of pleasure,” they cannot escape the span.” He observes that the placement of the first inevitability of death. The progress toward death room in the east where the Sun rises represents is marked by the hourly chiming of a “great ebony birth, while the placement of the final room in the clock” in the seventh room of the abbey, which west where the Sun sets represents death. Further, upsets the guests with each chime. Prince Prospero he views the colors of the seven rooms—blue, pur- has provided numerous distractions for his guests ple, green, orange, white, violet, black with red—to and has sought to provide a sense of gaiety among symbolize “Prospero’s physical and mental condi- them, but he is unable to stop the progress of time tion in that decade of his life.” While the narrator and the fears of those who realize their mortality: tells readers that in the first six rooms “beat fever- “more of thought crept, with more of time, into ishly the heart of life,” death comes in the final the meditations of the thoughtful among those room, which is decorated with the black of night who reveled.” Finally, at midnight, their lives are and the red of blood. The first six rooms have two ended. As the last of the revelers die, the clock Gothic windows and two doors, while the seventh and Time also come to an end as “the clock went room—the room of death—has only an entrance- out with the last of the gay.” way. The Gothic windows do not look outside but G. R. Thompson interprets the story as “the face closed corridors. Each window has a fire bra- interior monologue of a profoundly disturbed mind” zier behind it in the closed corridor, and the effect and suggests that this is a tale woven from the of the fire shining through the colored glass of the mad imagination of Prince Prospero. He observes windows creates “a multitude of gaudy and fantas- that the narrator relates the opinion of acquain- tic appearances.” Since the only light in any of the tances of the prince that “there are some who rooms is that of the fires sifted through the stained would have thought him mad” and the narrator’s glass windows, the effect is eerie and worthy of defense that “his followers felt that he was not.” “delirious fancies such as the madman fashions.” Poe has provided sufficient ambiguity to permit this The story is told in the third person by one interpretation, as well as other elements to support who readers must assume survived the devasta- the existence of Prince Prospero and his “thou- tion of the Red Death, but if Prince Prospero and sand friends.” The story may well be the reflec- his “thousand friends” have all died, who is left? tion of the prince’s imaginative madness, because Leonard Cassuto speculates that the Red Death Poe describes the guests at the masque as being “a may be the narrator. Contrary to most other crit- multitude of dreams” and as “fantasms.” Prospero ics, he asserts that although subtle, a first-person admits that he has determined what each of his narrator is present and strongly denies that the revelers must wear, and “it was his guiding taste use of the “me” reference is either casual or simply which had given character to the masqueraders.” a figure of speech. The first use of “me” occurs Whether real or imaginary, the guests at the ball after the author has provided an in-depth descrip- are the creation of their host and extensions of tion of the manner in which Prospero and his him. Poe describes the specific costumes as “deliri- friends have isolated themselves and spent five or ous fancies such as a madman fashions” and states six months in their fortress. Preparations are being that Prospero designed the costumes using his own made for the opulent masked ball: “It was a volup- “delirious fancies.” The author also uses the word tuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me mad in other references in the story in describing tell of the rooms in which it was held.” Cassuto

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asserts that the narrator is a character in the story story reflects a reverse concept of baptism; where and that he must be present at the festivities to be baptism is seen as freeing people from the domin- able to describe the manner in which the festivi- ion of death, in this case the Red Death achieves ties end at midnight: “And then the music ceased, “illimitable dominion.” He observes that Poe’s sym- as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers bolism becomes particularly noteworthy in the last were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of paragraph, where the language, rhythm, and allu- all things as before.” The narrator intrudes a third sion are unmistakably biblical: time, establishing he has been present from the And now was acknowledged the presence of beginning of the revelry, when he relates that the the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the striking of the clock would stop the orchestra. He night. And one by one dropped the revellers in describes the appearance of the Red Death at the the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died festivities and states: “In an assembly of phantasms each in the despairing posture of his fall. And such as I have painted, it may be supposed that no the life of the ebony clock went out with that of ordinary appearance could have excited such sensa- the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods tion.” Cassuto writes that the survival of the narra- expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red tor represents a contradiction, because the narrator Death held illimitable dominion over all. states that no one in the prince’s castle survives the “illimitable dominion” of the Red Death. He concludes, thus, that since the Red Death is the ADAPTATIONS only one who lives, the narrator must be the Red Several film versions of the story have appeared. Death. The story inspired A Spectre Haunts Europe, a Rus- Poe also suggests the possibility that the story sian film directed by Vladimir R. Gardin in 1921. springs solely from the mad imagination of Prince ROGER CORMAN has made two versions of the film. Prospero, making all of the characters the products Corman’s The Masque of the Red Death (1964), an of his “dreams,” and his death psychological rather ultrastylish adaptation starring VINCENT PRICE as than actual, representing man’s fear of death or a the dissipated Prince Prospero and featuring Hazel madman’s delusions. In conveying this possibility Court, Jane Asher, Patrick Magee, and Nigel Green, that Prospero is insane, Poe describes the rooms concentrated on the literary and symbolic aspects as filled with dreams such as those a man with of the story in what has generally been viewed as a a tortured mind might have. He says that in the fine film. Corman also worked in elements of Poe’s rooms “there was much of the beautiful, much of short story “HOP-FROG” as a subplot. In his 1989 the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the remake, titled Masque of the Red Death, starring terrible, and not a little of that which might have Adrian Paul, Clare Hoak, Jeff Osterhage, Patric excited disgust.” Macnee, and Tracey Reiner, Corman makes Prince Edward Wagenknecht writes that “Prince Pros- Prospero more troubled and thoughtful, but the pero, in shutting himself away from the plague, more literate and more verbose Red Death slows is shutting himself away from life and from God” the pace of the production and detracts from the (217). Other writers observe that the story contains suspense. allusions to both William Shakespeare’s play The The story has inspired symphonic works by the Tempest and to the Bible. As Patrick Cheney points French composer Andre Caplet and the English out, Shakespeare’s Duke Prospero has become composer Joseph Holbrooke. Prince Prospero in Poe’s story, and Calilban’s curse of the “red plague” on Miranda has become the PUBLICATION HISTORY central idea of Poe’s story. In an elaborate analysis The story first appeared in the May 1842 issue of of the repetition patterns of certain phrases and the GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE under the title “The Mask use of such biblical language as “dominion” and of the Red Death.” Poe changed the title to “The “like a thief in the night,” Cheney suggests that the Masque of the Red Death” when he published a

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revised version of the story in the July 19, 1845, Pollin, Burton R. “Poe’s ‘Shadow’ as a Source for His issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. ‘The Masque of the Red Death.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction 6 (1968): 104–107. CHARACTERS Roppolo, Joseph. “Meaning and ‘The Masque of the Prospero, Prince After a horrible plague called Red Death.’ ” Tulane Studies in English 13 (1963): the Red Death has depopulated half of his king- 59–69. dom, the “happy and dauntless and sagacious” Thompson, G. R., Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. prince takes a thousand of his friends with him 3: Antebellum Writers in New York and the South, to a secluded rural hideaway, where “the prince edited by Joel Myerson, 249–297. Detroit: Gale had provided all the appliances of pleasure.” He Research, 1979. believes that he can keep the external world at bay, Vanderbilt, Kermit. “Art and Nature in ‘The Masque but his plan fails when he hosts a masked ball and of the Red Death.’ ” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 22 the Red Death appears as a guest, killing the prince (1968): 379–389. and all of his revelers. Wagenknecht, Edward. Edgar Allan Poe: The Man Behind the Legend. New York: Oxford University Red Death The uninvited guest at the masked Press, 1963. ball given by Prince Prospero, he is the embodi- Wheat, Patricia H. “The Mask of Indifference in ‘The ment of the plague that has decreased the Masque of the Red Death’.” Studies in Short Fiction population of Prospero’s kingdom by half. At 19 (Winter 1982): 51–56. the end of the story he conquers both Prospero and the revelers, demonstrating that no one can escape him. “Mellonta Tauta” (1848) unnamed guests While a deadly plague devas- tates his country, Prince Prospero invites “a thou- Short story written in 1848. sand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court” to escape the SYNOPSIS plague by hiding in the abbey with him. While there “Mellonta Tauta” is framed as “a long gossiping are no individual characters among the Prince’s letter” from the intrepid Pundita to the editor of guests, the “thousand friends” share a collective Godey’s Lady’s Book in which she promises to pun- role as characters in the story. Like the prince, his ish the editor for all “impertinences by being as “thousand friends” cannot escape the inevitability tedious, as discursive, as incoherent, and as unsat- of their own deaths. isfactory as possible.” The story does not open with an epigraph. The title is taken from Sophocles’ FURTHER READINGS tragic drama Antigone, but Poe must also have Bell, H. H., Jr. “ ‘The Masque of the Red Death’—An found it in EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON’s 1837 novel Interpretation.” South Atlantic Bulletin 38, no. 4 Ernest Maltravers, in which the author states that (1973): 101–104. in Greek Mellonta Tauta means “these things are in Cassuto, Leonard. “The Coy Reaper: Unmasque-ing the future.” the Red Death.” Studies in Short Fiction 25 (1988): The writer of the letter quotes liberally from 317–320. Pundit, whose relationship to Pundita is not speci- Cheney, Patrick. “Poe’s Use of The Tempest and the fied but whose name is derived from the Hindu Bible in ‘The Masque of the Red Death.’ ” English word for a Brahmin who is thoroughly versed in Language Notes 20, no. 3–4 (March–June, 1983): 34. Sanskrit, philosophy, law, and religion, making him Holsapple, Cortell King. “ ‘The Masque of the Red the authority to whose great wisdom Pundita defers Death’ and I Promessi Sposi.” University of Texas throughout. The letter, dated April Fool’s Day, Studies in English 18 (1938): 137–139. April 1, 2848, relates details of a voyage on the

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hot-air balloon Skylark. The philosophy expounded CHARACTERS by Pundita is that of Poe, who held a pessimistic John Futuristic narrator states of Poe’s time that view of politics and claimed to have an aversion to from “a hasty inspection of the fac-similes of news- democracy, calling it “a very admirable form of gov- papers, &c. &., I find that the great men in those ernment—for dogs.” The guarantees of equality for days among Amriccans [sic], were one John, a all men that appear in the Declaration of Indepen- smith, and one Zacchary, a tailor.” dence, democratic institutions, and rule by the mob all come under severe criticism during the course Pundit Passenger on the hot-air balloon Skylark. of the voyage, while Pundit and Pundita exchange His profound, if erroneous, thoughts appear fre- intellectual and pseudoscientific nonsense. quently in the letter that Pundita writes to the editor In the process, the two examine theories from the of Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book, and he is quoted research of “the Hindoo Aries Tottle” and his dis- liberally. He “is the only conversible person on board; ciples “one Neuclid and one Cant.” They also con- and he, poor soul! can speak of nothing but antiqui- fuse the philosopher Sir Francis Bacon with the poet James Hogg, noting that “ ‘Baconian,’ as you must ties.” He strives at length to convince Pundita “that know, was an adjective invented as equivalent to the ancient Amriccans [sic] governed themselves!” Hog-ian and more euphonious and dignified.” The She sends “a long gossiping letter” to English logician and economist JOHN STUART MILL, Pundita “one Miller,” is also dismissed among “these ancients the editor of Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book and so much because their logic is, by their own showing, promises to punish the editor for all “impertinences utterly baseless, worthless and fantastic altogether, by being as tedious, as discursive, as incoherent, and as because of their pompous and imbecile proscrip- as unsatisfactory as possible.” The letter is conveyed tion of all other roads to Truth, of all other means in a bottle that she has corked and thrown into the for its attainment.” This tale, which Poe dates as sea. She is “cooped up” in the hot-air balloon Sky- having been written on April Fool’s Day in the year lark and relates details of a voyage. Pundita is used 2848, contains some of Poe’s most important infer- by Poe to express his pessimistic views of politics. ences about the future. It also provides an interesting satire on Poe’s era, especially its social theories, Zacchary Pundita refers to “facsimiles” of news- fashions, and architecture. Poe quoted from this papers that she has reviewed regarding the past and story in the introduction to “EUREKA: AN ESSAY ON finds that “the great men in those days were one THE MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE,” and the John, a smith, and one Zacchary, a tailor [President tale elaborates many of the points discussed in the Zachary Taylor].” prose poem. Critics have identified views in the story that are similar to those in such Poe stories as “The FURTHER READINGS UNPARALLELED ADVENTURE OF ONE HANS PFAALL,” Pollin, Burton R. “Politics and History in Poe’s ‘Mel- “SOME WORDS WITH A MUMMY,” “The ANGEL OF lonta Tauta’: Two Allusions Explained.” Studies in THE ODD,” and “The BALLOON-HOAX.” Short Fiction 8 (1971): 627–631. PUBLICATION HISTORY The story was first published in the February 1849 issue of GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND LADY’S BOOK, “Mesmeric Revelation” (1844) although Poe wrote the story early in 1848. Poe submitted the story soon after he completed writing Short story written in 1844. it, but Godey’s Lady’s Book waited to publish it, so he made minor changes in the tale, retitled it “A SYNOPSIS Remarkable Letter,” and attached it to his prose “Mesmeric Revelation” develops the theme of poem “Eureka.” using MESMERISM to place a person into a hyp-

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notic trance in order to explore survival after CHARACTERS death. As the story opens, the unnamed physi- P. Unnamed physician who attempts to bring a cian, P., has been summoned to the bedside of dying patient back to life. an invalid patient “suffering with acute pain in the region of the heart, and breathed with great difficulty, having all the ordinary symptoms of asthma.” The patient, Mr. Vankirk, whose name “Metzengerstein: means “of a church,” tells P. that “the mesmeric exaltation enables me to perceive a train of ratio- A Tale In Imitation cination which, in my abnormal existence, con- of the German” (1832) vinces, but which, in full accordance with the mesmeric phenomena, does not extend, except Short story written in 1832. through its effect, into my normal condition.” He asks P. to place him into a “mesmeric sleep,” SYNOPSIS during which P. interviews him on a variety of “Metzengerstein” contains many of the standard metaphysical topics, including the nature of God, devices found in such 18th-century GOTHIC thrill- the materiality of deity, and postmortem survival. ers as Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, pub- The interview terminates suddenly when Vankirk lished in 1764, as well as the warning at the outset dies. P. attempts to bring Vankirk back to life, that “horror and fatality” have existed throughout but Vankirk refuses the effort because while on “all ages.” Following the conventions of the genre, the “other side” during the trance he has experi- the story includes dark and brooding castles, hints enced a mesmeric revelation induced by “keenly at secret obsessions and sins, foreboding prophe- refined perception.” This convinces Vankirk to cies, family rivalry, a nightmarelike atmosphere, choose to remain in this ideal state of being, and and horrible conflagrations. Poe’s contribution to he smiles blissfully as he dies, leaving P. frus- this standard fare is the introduction of an unusual trated and alarmed without answers regarding the phenomenon, the psychic transmigration of a soul soul’s immortality or any control over his subject’s from a human to a horse. The following epigraph, condition. taken from a hexameter by Martin Luther and directed to the papacy, prefaces the story: Pestis COMMENTARY eram vivus—moriens tua mors ero. (“Living I have The framing of the story as the report of a scien- been your plague, dying I shall be your death.”) tific investigation using mesmerism was so convinc- The young Baron Frederick Metzengerstein ing that it was reprinted as an authentic scientific inherits his family’s vast possessions at the age of report in the September 1845 issue of the American 18 and immediately “the behavior of the heir out- Phrenological Journal. Poe was upset that the journal Heroded Herod. . . . Shameful debaucheries—fla- editors had taken his writing as fact and that they grant treadcheries—unheard-of atrocities—gave failed to realize, as Poe stated, “The story is pure his trembling vassals quickly to understand that fiction from beginning to end.” Critics suggest that no servile submission on their part—no punctilios “The FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR” is a of conscience on his own—were thenceforward to sequel to the present story. prove any security against the remorseless fangs of a petty Caligula.” PUBLICATION HISTORY On the fourth day of Metzengerstein’s celebra- The story was first published in the August 1844 tion of his inheritance, the stables of his family’s issue of the Columbian Magazine and reprinted rival Berlifitzing burn, taking with them the life without modification in the August 31, 1844, issue of the “infirm and doting old man.” During the of the Philadelphia Saturday Museum. fire, the young baron sits in his private apartment

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and stares at a tapestry that pictures an epic battle ADAPTATIONS between the two families, and his eyes are drawn to The tale was filmed as one segment of the French- “an enormous and unnaturally colored horse” that Italian film titled Tales of Mystery and Imagination, belonged to an ancestor of his rival. Metzenger- directed in 1968 by Roger Vadim and starring Jane stein looks away, and when his gaze returns to the Fonda and Peter Fonda. Although the segment tapestry he sees that the head of the gigantic horse is entitled “Metzengerstein,” the plot bears little appears to have moved, and the eyes “now wore an resemblance to Poe’s story. energetic and human expression.” He staggers out of his room and learns that his rival burned to death PUBLICATION HISTORY trying to save his horses. His grooms have with them “a gigantic and fiery-colored horse,” which bears the The story first appeared in the January 14, 1832, initials W. V. B. on its forehead but which no one issue of the Philadelphia Saturday Courier. at the Berlifitzing stables will claim, so the grooms assume that it belongs to the young baron. CHARACTERS The baron soon develops “a perverse attach- Berlifitzing, Count Wilhelm An “infirm and ment to his lately acquired charger . . . an attach- doting old man,” he is “loftily descended” and ment which seemed to attain new strength from “remarkable for nothing but an inordinate and every fresh example of the animal’s ferocious and inveterate personal antipathy to the family of his demonlike propensities.” From this point, the baron rival” Metzengerstein. He participates daily in the begins to isolate himself from all social events, chase, despite his age and the danger of the sport. and lives “utterly companionless” aside from his After he dies in a stable fire, his spirit returns to unusual attachment to the strange stallion with its Earth and inhabits the body of a horse to become “human-looking eye.” One night, while the young an agent of supernatural revenge against the rival baron is out riding, a raging fire spreads throughout family. the Palace Metzengerstein. When he returns to the castle, the strange horse he is riding plunges into Metzengerstein, Baron Frederick His parents the castle, “far up the tottering staircases of the die when he is young, and he inherits vast proper- palace,” and into the flames. As the white smoke ties at the age of 18. After four days of debauch- rises above the flaming Castle Metzengerstein, the ery and celebration, he sets fire to the stable of onlookers see a cloud of smoke “settled heavily over the longtime family rival, Count Berlifitzing. His the battlements in the distinct colossal figure of—a strange attachment to a horse that appears on the horse.” The reader is left to believe that Count Ber- night of the fire leads to his isolation and, eventu- lifitzing has returned to wreak his revenge on the ally, to his death. sole remaining bearer of the name Metzengerstein. COMMENTARY Metzengerstein, Lady Mary She is Baron Fred- This tale was Poe’s first to appear in print. Because erick Metzengerstein’s mother, who dies shortly this story is the earliest of Poe’s horror tales, critics after her husband’s death, leaving the baron an have questioned if the tale is a spoof or a hoax of orphan at the age of 18. the very popular hair-raising German gothic thrillers that were prevalent in the magazines of the FURTHER READINGS period, or if it is a “serious imitation of the German” Hirsch, David H. “Poe’s ‘Metzengerstein’ as a Tale of as the subtitle proclaims. Whichever it is, “Metz- the Subconscious.” University of Mississippi Studies engerstein” confirms Poe’s early and longstanding in English 3 (1982): 40–52. attraction to the elements of gothic fiction, which Lee, Maurice S. “Absolute Poe: His System of Tran- he later tempered with extensive psychological scendental Racism.” American Literature 75, no. 4 insight. (December 2003): 751.

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Soule, George H., Jr. “Byronism in Poe’s ‘Metzenger- “at its too perfect identity—that her eyes were like stein’ and ‘William Wilson.’ ” Emerson Society Quar- Morella’s.” He determines that he will have her terly 24 (1978): 152–162. baptized as “a present deliverance from the ter- Thompson, Gary R. “Poe’s ‘Flawed’ Gothic: Absurdist rors of my destiny.” During the ceremony, when Techniques in ‘Metzengerstein’ and the Courier he must provide the young woman a name, some Satires.” Emerson Society Quarterly (supplement) “fiend spoke from the recesses of my soul,” and he 60 (1970): 35–58. whispers Morella’s name to the priest. The reaction is immediate, and his daughter “turned her glassy eyes from the earth to heaven, and, falling prostrate on the black slabs of our ancestral vault “Morella” (1835) responded—‘I am here!’ ” The narrator watches his daughter convulse and die. When he inters Short story written in 1835. Morella (2) in the family tomb, he laughs “a long and bitter laugh” as he finds no traces of his dead SYNOPSIS wife. She appears to have wreaked her revenge for “Morella” is related by the unnamed narrator his hatred toward her during her first physical life, who marries Morella (1) with a soul that “burned as Morella (1). with fires it had never before known; but the fires were not of Eros, and bitter and tormenting to my COMMENTARY spirit was the gradual conviction that I could in no The tale is one of metempsychosis, the passage of manner define their unusual meaning, or regulate the soul from one body to another, with which Poe their vague intensity.” His new wife’s “erudition also dealt in “METZENGERSTEIN,” “LIGEIA,” “A TALE is profound. . . . [H]er talents were of no common OF THE RAGGED MOUNTAINS,” and “The BLACK order—her powers of mind were gigantic,” and the CAT.” narrator enters into study with her, including her “Morella” relates the theme of the psychic sur- studies “over forbidden pages.” vival of a malign spirit that transfers from the dying As the two delve more deeply into mysti- mother to the daughter at the moment of birth. An cal writings, the narrator states, “I found a for- epigraph taken from Plato’s Symposium and adapted bidden spirit kindling within me.” He becomes by Henry Nelson Coleridge, who placed it in his weary, “when the mystery of my wife’s manner 1831 Introduction to the Study of the Greek Clas- oppressed me as a spell.” He soon can no longer sic Poets, where Poe found it, precedes the story: bear her touch, and Morella (1) appears to sense “Itself—alone by itself—eternally one and single.” the narrator’s “consuming desire for the moment The theme of one entity eternal reverberates of [her] decease.” As she is dying in childbirth, throughout the story, which relates the domination she warns the narrator, “thy days shall be days of one malign spirit over those bodies it inhabits. of sorrow—that sorrow which is the most lasting of impressions.” She vows to return and predicts ADAPTATIONS “her whom in life thou didst abhor, in death thou The story was one of three stories by Poe, with shalt adore.” As Morella (1) dies, their daugh- “The FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR” and ter is born and becomes the reincarnation of her “The Black Cat,” that were filmed by the director mother. The narrator refuses to name his child, ROGER CORMAN as Tales of Terror (1962), starring who “was the perfect resemblance of her who had VINCENT PRICE, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone, and departed,” and he grows to love her “with a love Debra Paget. more fervent than I had believed it possible to feel for any denizen of earth.” PUBLICATION HISTORY When the child is an adult, she is so much like The story was first published in the April 1835 her mother that the narrator becomes frightened issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER and

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reprinted in the November 1839 issue of BURTON’S Rose, Marilyn Gaddis. “ ‘Emmanuele’—‘Morella’: GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE. The first publication of Gide’s Poe Affinities.” Texas Studies in Language and the story contained “HYMN,” a poem of 16 lines Literature 5 (1963): 127–137. first published as a song sung by Morella (1) in the first printing of the story and later published separately as “A Catholic Hymn” in the August 16, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. The poem, “MS. Found in a Bottle” which consists of 12 lines of rhyming couplets, is a plea by the heroine to the Blessed Virgin, and (1833) it is unusual in its hopeful expression of a radiant future. Short story written in 1833. CHARACTERS SYNOPSIS “MS. Found in a Bottle” is similar in setting, char- Morella (1) An erudite woman who shuns society and attaches herself to her husband alone, she acterization, and situation to two later sea tales by has “a Pressburg education”; Pressburg, in Hun- Poe, “The NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM” gary, was in 1835 not only the site where kings and “A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM.” The epi- were crowned and the home of a great university, graph that precedes the story is taken from Philippe but was also considered the center for “the Black Quinault’s Ays, I, vi., 15–16: Arts,” so-called by Poe, whose meaning appears Qui n’a plus qu’un moment a vivre to be the use of magic for evil purposes. Mysti- cal writings are Morella’s “favorite and constant N’a plus rien a dissimuler. study.” Soon hated by her husband, she dies in [He who has but a moment to live / has no lon- childbirth, but on her deathbed she warns that ger anything to dissemble.] he will love her in death as much as he has hated her in life. She seems to return to life through her Told in the first person, the tale is framed as an daughter. account in a journal found in a bottle that has been floating in the ocean. The story tells of a shipwreck Morella (2) Born at the moment that her mother and of the strange voyage that the narrator makes dies, she lives her life nameless until she reaches aboard the ship that rescues him, “a gigantic ship, adulthood and resembles her late mother Morella of perhaps four thousand tons. . . . Her hull was of a (1) so completely that her father decides that she deep dingy black, unrelieved by any of the customary must be baptized to protect them both from the carvings of a ship.” The ship has a spectral crew of evil that her mother’s studies had generated. When ancient mariners: “their shriveled skins rattled in the she and her father stand with the priest at the wind; their voices were low, tremulous, and broken; baptismal font and her father must select a name, their eyes glistened with the rheum of years; and he utters her mother’s name, “Morella.” Within their gray hairs streamed terribly in the tempest.” moments, Morella the daughter convulses and falls The ship appears to be caught in a current that dead to the ground after responding “I am here!” is pulling it toward the South Pole, a phenomenon that leads the narrator to write of the bizarre expe- FURTHER READINGS rience in a journal as the ship moves ever closer to Fukuchi, Curtis. “Repression and Guilt in Poe’s the abyss. Not merely moving passively, the ship is ‘Morella.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction 24 (1987): propelled toward the immense whirlpool by nature, 149–154. in the form of the simoom, tempest, hurricane, and Richmond, Lee J. “Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Morella’: Vam- tornado. pire of Volitoin.” Studies in Short Fiction 9 (1972): The journal gives accounts of the mysterious 93–95. crew, as well as of the overwhelmingly destruc-

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tive power of nature. The narrator also writes in set a practical description of the ship and its cargo: his journal about the opportunity for knowledge “We had onboard coir, jaggeree, ghee, cocoanuts, in such a self-destructive moment, noting, “Yet a and a few cases of opium. The stowage was clumsily curiosity to penetrate the mysteries of these awful done, and the vessel consequently crank.” When the regions, predominates even over my despair, and simoom hits the ship, the storm rages for five days, will reconcile me to the most hideous aspect of after which the Sun rises with a sickly yellow color, death. It is evident that we are hurrying onward only to sink quickly as if “hurriedly extinguished by to some exciting knowledge—some never-to-be- some unaccountable power.” After this occurs, the imparted secret, whose attainment is destruction.” events of the story take on an “unnatural” turn as When the end is imminent, the narrator sees the the remaining men alive wait for relief, and the nar- ice open suddenly and the ship begin to whirl in rator states, “we waited in vain for the arrival of the immense concentric circles. He writes his final words, sixth day—that day to me has not arrived—to the recording that “the ship is quivering, Oh God! and— Swede, never did arrive.” Instead of the formerly going down.” As the ship disappears into “the borders credible occurrences, a series of incredible occur- of a gigantic amphitheatre,” the narrator places the rences are described, including the disappearance of manuscript in a bottle, then eagerly goes down with the Sun and the appearance of a giant ship with a the Discovery, submitting to the force of the whirl- ghostly looking crew that will lead to the later expe- pool, as do Arthur Gordon Pym and the unnamed rience in the maelstrom. The narrator observes that narrator of “A Descent into the Maelstrom.” the only food he has eaten during the five days is a “small quantity of jaggeree, procured with great diffi- COMMENTARY culty from the forecastle.” May suggests that this jag- Joseph Conrad considered this tale “about as fine geree, which is similar in appearance to sugar, may as anything of that kind can be—so authentic in have mixed with the carelessly stowed opium and detail that it might have been told by a sailor of the narrator has ingested the mix. Thus, he notes, sombre and poetical genius in the invention of the “we perhaps have the immediate answer as to why phantastic.” In 1833, this story won the top prize of the narrator’s perception and his description of his $50 and publication as the best prose tale entered experience change radically after consuming small in a contest sponsored by the BALTIMORE SUNDAY quantities of such a diet” (24). VISITER. The judges declared that Poe’s tale was “eminently distinguished by a wild, vigorous and PUBLICATION HISTORY poetical imagination, a rich style, a fertile inven- The story was first published in the October 19, tion, and varied and curious learning.” Critics have 1833, issue of the Baltimore Sunday Visiter. characterized this tale as an allegory, seeing meaning in the nature of the storm and the treatment of CHARACTERS the ship. Daniel Hoffman asserts that the journey captain of the ghostly ship He is described by in this tale represents the journey of the soul back the narrator but does not speak nor acknowledge to its beginnings in the vortex of birth (146), while the narrator’s existence in his cabin or on the ship. David Ketterer interprets the tale as providing a He is “of a well-knit and compact frame of body, journey through life and into death (119). David neither robust nor remarkable, otherwise.” The Halliburton takes the allegory further and argues narrator relates that it is not the man’s position as that the story is a fantasy that represents man as captain that interests him, but “it is the intense, being cut off from both past and future and forced the wonderful, the thrilling evidence of old age so to live forever in a “kind of indefinite present, an utter, so extreme, which excites within my spirit eternal moment of terror” (250). a sense—a sentiment ineffable.” The captain’s Charles E. May offers a more radical reading of cabin contains “obsolete, long-forgotten charts” the tale. He notes that the “MS. Found in a Bottle” and “mouldering instruments of science,” and he begins in a realistic style and offers readers at the out- murmurs to himself “some low peevish syllables

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of a foreign tongue” as he reads a paper which hoary old age.” None of them seem to notice the the narrator “took to be a commission, and which, narrator. He goes freely into the captain’s cabin at all events, bore the signature of a monarch.” and takes paper, pen, and ink to write the journal, The reader does not learn anything more about the and no one notices him. Although frightened by captain. the violence of the sea, the narrator seeks “to penetrate the mysteries of these awful regions,” and he old Swede Crew member on the ship who had hopes that the knowledge he acquires “will recon- shipped with the boat at the last moment before cile me to the most hideous aspect of death.” He it left port. He and the narrator are the sole sur- is excited by the journey and expects it to end in vivors of the shipwreck. After the ship is nearly “some never-to-be-imparted secret, whose attain- destroyed and the captain and remaining crew are ment is destruction.” The narrator ends his journal swept overboard, he and the narrator try to steer with an account of the ship surrounded by ice, what remains of the ship toward safety. After six whirling round “in immense Concentric circles.” days, the ship enters dark and sweltering waters, FURTHER READINGS and “superstitious terror crept by degrees into the spirit of the old Swede.” He and the narrator secure Halliburton, David. Edgar Allan Poe: A Phenomeno- themselves to the stump of the mizzenmast to pre- logical View. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University vent being washed overboard, but he dies when Press, 1973. the ship is battered by huge waves as the dark and Hoffman, Daniel. Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe. Garden mysterious ghost ship verges upon them. City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972. Hoffman, Stephen K. “Sailing in the Self: Jung, Poe, and ‘MS. Found in a Bottle.’ ” Tennessee Studies in unnamed narrator Surviving crew member who Literature 26 (1981): 66–74. writes his strange account right to the moment in Ketterer, David. The Rationale of Deception in Poe. Baton which the ship enters the whirlpool, then places Rouge: Lousiana State University Press, 1973. the account in a bottle and throws it into the sea. May, Charles E. Edgar Allan Poe: A Study of the Short Rather than an ordinary seaman of little education, Fiction. Boston: Twayne, 1991. the writer of the manuscript states, “Hereditary Shear, Walter. “Poe’s Fiction: The Hypnotic Magic wealth afforded me an education of no common of the Senses.” The Midwest Quarterly 47, no. 3 order, and a contemplative turn of mind enabled (2006): 276–290. me to methodise the stores which early study garned up.” He claims to have often “been reproached with the aridity of my genius; a deficiency of imagination has been imputed to me as a crime.” The narrator “Murders in the Rue Morgue, relates his interest in science and explains that he puts no stock in superstition, as means of defend- The” (1841) ing the veracity of the story that will unfold.: “I have thought proper to premise thus much, lest the Short story written in 1841. incredible tale I have to tell should be considered rather the raving of a crude imagination, than the SYNOPSIS positive experience of a mind to which the rever- “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” opens with a ies of fancy have been a dead letter and a nullity.” prelude in which the unnamed narrator considers He and the Old Swede are the only survivors of a the logic of the mind and compares chess moves shipwreck. He survives when their ship finally sinks with the possible moves that an analytical mind and manages to hide in the hold of a huge ghostly might take: “It will be found, in fact, that the inge- ship that appears when their ship is sinking. He nious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative soon leaves his hiding place and mingles with the never otherwise than analytic.” Poe prefaces the crew, which all “bore about them the marks of a story with an epigraph taken from chapter five of

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Urn-Burial by SIR THOMAS BROWNE: “What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, although puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture.” The narrator assists Dupin in solving the horrifying murders of two women, a mother and daughter, in Paris. The narrator and Dupin first meet in an obscure library, “where the accident of our both being in search of the same very rare and very remarkable volume brought us into closer communion.” The two become roommates in “a time-eaten and grotesque mansion, long deserted through superstitions into which we did not inquire, and tottering to its fall.” The two have sequestered themselves from the world, admitting no visitors and waiting until dark to set out to walk the streets, “arm in arm, continuing the topics of the day, or roaming far and wide until a late hour.” Dupin becomes intrigued with the newspaper account of a double murder, in which the mother’s body is badly mutilated “with her throat so entirely cut that, upon an attempt to raise her, the head fell off.” The daughter’s body is found stuffed up Illustration for “Murders in the Rue Morgue” in the chimney, feet first, with many scratches and Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (1902) bruises on the face and throat. The numerous witnesses contradict one another in their accounts. Each professes to be certain that the voice he or nonhuman killer is at fault and places an adver- she heard spoke a foreign language, but no witness tisement in the newspaper. When a sailor answers agrees with any other on the language spoken by the ad, the detectives learn that an “OurangOou- the murderer. tang” brought from Borneo is responsible for the Dupin asks the police for permission to inves- murders. tigate the premises. The lack of agreement about After Dupin solves the crime, the prefect of the language spoken leads him to conclude that police “was fain to indulge in a sarcasm or two, no human speaker uttered those sounds. Once in about the propriety of every person minding his the apartment, he observes clues that the police own business.” Unfazed by the annoyance of the have overlooked: One of the nails that supposedly prefect, Dupin pronounces him “too cunning to be secured a locked window from the inside is broken, profound.” for example, although only an agile beast or a creature of superhuman strength could have climbed COMMENTARY into the apartment by means of a lightning rod and This tale introduced the world to the DETECTIVE window shutters. STORY, a genre (distinct from the mystery story) Based on this information, Dupin shifts “the that emphasizes the “detector” as well as the crime, question from the mode of egress to that of ingress” and analysis instead of trial-and-error. The original as he avoids the error of the police, who assume title was “Murders in the Rue Trianon,” but Poe a human perpetrator and a human motive. After changed the title to connect more directly with he finds a hair that is “most unusual—this is no death. “Rue Morgue” suggests a street that con- human hair,” Dupin explores the possibility that a tains a building that houses dead bodies.

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The story also introduced C. Auguste Dupin as clever manner in which the crime is carried out. the model for the detective—professional or ama- The story contains little action, because the detec- teur, a member of the official police force or a private tive reads about the crime in the newspaper and investigator—who uses his intellectual abilities to makes only a brief visit to the scene of the crime, solve crimes. Dupin’s remarkable powers of deduc- then uses details derived from news accounts and tion and idiosyncrasies, as well as the dual national the sparse clues from his visit to deduce the solu- association of a French detective created by an tion. Thus, while the action of the crime itself and American writer, led to a range of successors both the attendant details are presented, they are present in the United States and abroad, the most famous only in newspaper accounts, and the action in the of whom was SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE’s Sherlock story exists primarily in Dupin’s mental processes. Holmes. Critics have also suggested that Agatha Poe’s creation of the model of the brilliant and Christie had Poe’s Dupin in mind in creating her idiosyncratic detective whose adventures are chron- Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, who insists that icled by the patient narrator and sidekick led to his powers of detection reside in his use of “the little similar successful creations by later authors who also gray cells” and whose idiosyncrasies are abundant. made their highly observant detectives both egocen- Bettina Knapp praises Dupin as “a transcendental tric and relatively reclusive. In contrast, his chron- hero, the first of a long line of scientifically endowed, icler, unlike Doyle’s Dr. Watson, is an unnamed, creative, and imaginative solvers of crime” (30). He plain-thinking man who serves only as a foil for the is a hunter of clues, which he treats as individual ratiocinations of Dupin. As the narrator notes, “Had pieces of a larger puzzle that is the solution to the the routine of our life at this place been known to crime. Poe describes his creation within the story: the world, we should have been regarded as madmen.” The reader recognizes early that the explana- The analyst throws himself into the spirit of tion of how Dupin solves the crime is the focus, not his opponent, identifies himself therewith. . . . the action of the crime itself. While the police are It is a question of imagination and artistry. . . . confounded by the apparently impenetrable room The analytical power should not be confounded where the murders occurred and the contradictions with simple ingenuity; for while the analyst in the reports regarding the language they believe is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man is was heard spoken in the apartment at the time of the often remarkably incapable of analysis. Between murder, these serve as important clues for Dupin. ingenuity and the analytic ability there exists a Through a series of mental steps, he determines difference far greater, indeed, than that between that only an animal could have gained access to the the fancy and the imagination, but of a char- room, then uses his reasoning abilities to eliminate acter very strictly analogous. It will be found, all possibilities until the right one emerges, that an in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, escaped OurangOutang killed the women. and the truly imaginative never otherwise than David Van Leer observes that Poe’s tales of analytical. detection “are less interesting for their detective “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and the later plots than for their theories about how detection “The MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET” were highly pop- works” (67). Earlier authors had employed similar ular in America when they first appeared, and the feats of ratiocination in uncovering mysteries. In third and final story focusing on the ratiocinative addition to GOTHIC novels, such as Horace Walpo- powers of Auguste Dupin, “The PURLOINED LET- le’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), which followed a TER,” has been critically acclaimed for its ironic and pattern similar to that of the detective story with its tightly structured plot. Of the three stories, “The mysterious and unexplained events and a denoue- Murders in the Rue Morgue” has been the most ment that provided an explanation of the puzzle, popular because of its unusual combination of the several other authors delved into ratiocination. wildly imaginative yet brilliant deductive reasoning Two of the most notable happen also to be French, powers of Dupin with the horrific events and the as is Poe’s Dupin. In 1748, Voltaire’s Zadig, in the

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work of the same name, deduces the description of interpretation of what he has heard delays the solu- the king’s horse and the queen’s dog by examining tion to the crime and mistakenly leads the authori- tracks left on the ground and hair left on bushes. ties away from the true perpetrator. Poe was also familiar with the adventures of real-life detective Eugene François Vidocq, whose Memoirs Chantilly A delicate-featured man whose “dimin- of Vidocq, Principal Agent of the French Police were utive figure unfitted him for tragedy.” A one-time published in 1828–29. Dupin refers to Vidocq in cobbler in the Rue St. Denis, he had become “stage- passing as a “good guesser.” mad, had attempted the role of Xerxes, in Crebil- lon’s tragedy” and was severely lampooned for his ADAPTATIONS efforts. Dupin sees him as an early link in the chain The tale has inspired a number of films, some of that leads to the solution of the murders. which use only portions of the story. The first full- length version to use the story’s title appeared in Dubourg, Pauline Her name in French means 1932, directed by Robert Florey and starring Bela “of the borough or market town,” appropriate for Lugosi, Sidney Fox, Leon Ames, Brandon Hurst, a laundress of low social class. A newspaper article and Arlene Francis. This expressionist effort, which published the day after the murders reports that used shadowed lighting and a variety of other film Dubourg “deposes that she has known both the techniques to soften the evidence of reality, cast deceased for three years, having washed for them Lugosi as the fiendish Dr. Mirakle, who eyes Fox during that period.” She provides little insight as a potential bride for his pet ape. In 1954, Phan- tom of the Rue Morgue was directed by Roy Del regarding the personal habits of the murdered Ruth and starred Karl Malden, Claude Dauphin, mother and daughter, aside from reporting that Patricia Medina, Steve Forrest, and Merv Griffin. they “seemed on good terms” and paid her well. The plot here is closer to Poe’s original, but the ape is replaced by a mad killer on the loose in Dumas, Paul The physician who is first called Paris. In 1971, director Gordon Hessler reworked to give medical evidence as to the cause of death the story into a sensationalistic version, Murders in in the double murder. He states his opinion that the Rue Morgue, placing the action in a Grand Gui- Mademoiselle l’Espanaye “had been throttled to gnol–style theater. This film starred Jason Robards, death by some person or persons unknown” and Herbert Lom, Christine Kaufmann, Lilli Palmer, describes at length the injuries to both victims. and Adolfo Celi. The most recent reworking of the story appeared in 1986, in The Murders in the Rue Dupin, C. Auguste Poe’s amateur detective is Morgue, directed by Jeannot Szwarc and starring the major character in three short stories: “The George C. Scott, Rebecca de Mornay, Ian Mac- Murders in the Rue Morgue,” the “The Mystery Shane, Neil Dickson, and Val Kilmer. Although of Marie Rogêt,” and “The Purloined Letter.” made for television, this film adaptation is largely The detective, who resides at no. 33 Rue Dunot, true to Poe’s story, enhanced by atmospheric loca- Faubourg St. Germain, uses his unofficial status tions and high production values. and his superior mental powers to identify with the criminal mind and to help the police in solv- PUBLICATION HISTORY ing crimes. His personality, his use of clues, his The story was first published in the April 1841 employment of postulation, and his use of logic issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. in revealing the criminal are traits that later writers incorporated into their fictional detectives. CHARACTERS Despite Dupin’s peculiar and solitary personality, Bird, William An English tailor who first sug- his consciousness allows him to understand the gests that the voice that he believes to belong to mundane and the practical to crack cases that the murderer was speaking German. His erroneous baffle everyone else, including the police. His

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sharpest mental weapon is “ratiocination,” a higher He is the prefect of Parisian police who seeks the form of reasoning that permits him to detect what assistance of C. Auguste Dupin in solving crimes others have overlooked or dismissed as unimport- that baffle official law enforcement. Poe may have ant. Dupin’s remarkable powers of deduction and selected a name beginning with G because Henri- his idiosyncrasies, as well as the dual national asso- Joseph Gisquet was prefect of the Paris police from ciation of a French detective created by an Ameri- 1831 to 1836, immediately preceding the publica- can writer, led to a range of successors both in the tion in 1841 of the first of the stories, “The Mur- United States and abroad. Doyle used Poe’s tech- ders in the Rue Morgue.” The prefect grudgingly nique of narrating his detective’s exploits through approaches Dupin “to consult us, or rather to ask the viewpoint of a less-talented, often bumbling the opinion of my friend, about some official busi- companion. He also gave Holmes not only intel- ness which had occasioned a great deal of trouble,” lectual capabilities similar to those of Dupin, but and often reacts in an ungracious manner after bizarre habits as well. Dupin solves the crime. In “The Murders in the To solve the crime, Dupin creates a series of Rue Morgue,” he “could not altogether conceal his connections, constructing that chain primar- chagrin . . . and was fain to indulge in a sarcasm ily from newspaper accounts of the murders. His or two, about the propriety of every person mind- keen powers of observation detect inconsistencies ing his own business.” In “The Mystery of Marie in the reports and conflicting statements about Rogêt,” Dupin makes an agreement with the pre- the nature of the language overhead at the scene. fect and states to his unnamed assistant that he Unlike the tendency of the French police to focus “knows this gentleman well. It will not do to trust too closely on individual facts, Dupin professes to him too far.” When Monsieur G——— reappears look at the overall pattern and links what Dupin in “The Purloined Letter,” Dupin’s assistant says describes as “unusual activity” with the descrip- they “gave him a hearty welcome, for there was tion of the “very peculiar” voice to identify the nearly half as much of the entertaining as of the murderer. contemptible about him.” Despite the irritating behavior of the prefect, Dupin remains mildly Duval, Henry A silversmith, he is a neighbor of amused by the man’s intellectual obtuseness, not- the murder victims and “one of the party who first ing at the end of “The Purloined Letter”: “I like entered the house.” He testifies that even though he him especially for one master stroke of cant, by “was not acquainted with the Italian language,” he which he has attained his reputation for ingenu- “was convinced by the intonation that the speaker ity. I mean the way he has ‘de nier ce qui est, et was Italian.” He also tells investigators that he was d’expliquer ce qui n’est pas’ [of denying what is, and sure that the voice did not belong to either of the explaining what isn’t].” victims, for he had spoken with both frequently. Garcio, Alfonzo He is a native of Spain and an Etienne, Alexandre A Parisian surgeon, he is undertaker who resides in the Rue Morgue. He called in with Doctor Paul Dumas and corrobo- swears that he heard the gruff voice of a Frenchman rates the testimony as to the cause of death. Poe arguing with a shrill-voiced Englishman before the may have named his character after Alexander murders, although he claims that he could not dis- Stephens, a Georgia state legislator and member tinguish what was said. Garcio does not understand of Congress from 1843 through 1859, who later the English language, only its intonations, but he served as the vice president of the Confederacy; swears that the murderer was speaking English. Etienne is Stephen in French. Le Bon, Adolphe He is a clerk in the banking G———, Monsieur Character in Poe’s short sto- firm Mignaud et Fils who accompanies Madame ries “The Purloined Letter,” “The Mystery of Marie L’Espanaye to her residence, carrying with him Rogêt,” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” 4,000 francs divided into two bags. He claims

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that when he reached her residence, Madame Moreau, Pierre A Parisian tobacconist who tes- L’Espanaye took one bag of money from him and tifies that Madame L’Espanaye has been one of Mademoiselle L’Espanaye took the other, after his customers, buying “small quantities of tobacco which he simply bowed and left the two women. and snuff” for nearly four years. He also provides His name, Le Bon, means “the good” in French, the police with some history of the residents of the and he ironically is the first person whom the police victims’ house, the personality and habits of the old accuse of the murders. After C. Auguste Dupin woman and her daughter, and the existence of any enters the case, Le Bon is exonerated. visitors.

L’Espanaye, Madame She is one of the murder Muset, Isidor A police officer who is called to victims; her body is found in a small paved yard in the house where the murders are in progress, he the rear of the building in which she lived, “with gives testimony that he heard “screams of some her throat so entirely cut that, upon an attempt to person (or persons) in great agony” and reports raise her, the head fell off.” The body is also exten- hearing “two voices in loud and angry contention,” sively mutilated, “so much so as scarcely to retain but he is unable to identify the gender of the speak- any semblance of humanity.” C. Auguste Dupin ers or repeat what was said. also mentions her case in “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.” Odenheimer He is a restaurateur who volunteers his testimony regarding what he heard on the L’Espanaye, Mademoiselle Camille She is one night that Madame and Mademoiselle L’Espanaye of the murder victims. Her body is stuffed into were murdered. A native of Amsterdam, he does the fireplace chimney, “head downward,” and the not speak French, so he must be questioned police have to drag the still-warm body out, “it hav- through an interpreter. In his testimony, Oden- ing been thus forced up the narrow aperture for a heimer states that he was passing the house where considerable distance.” The police observe that the the murders occurred and heard the shrill voice of body is covered with numerous scrapes and bruises, a man—“of a Frenchman”—but he could not dis- as well as many severe scratches on the face and, tinguish the words. He claims, however, that “the “upon the throat, dark bruises, and deep indenta- gruff voice said repeatedly ‘sacré,’ ‘diable’ and once tions of finger nails, as if the deceased had been ‘mon Dieu’.” throttled to death.” FURTHER READINGS Mignaud, Jules A banker with the firm of Mign- aud et Fils, he confirms Madame L’Espanaye’s bank- Bronzwaer, W. “Deixis as a Structuring Device in ing habits. He tells investigators that she opened an Narrative Discourse: An Analysis of Poe’s ‘The account with his firm eight years previously, made Murders in the Rue Morgue.’ ” English Studies 56 frequent small deposits, and withdrew the sum of (1975): 345–359. 4,000 francs in gold three days prior to her death, Garren, Samuel B. “The ‘too long unjoin’d chain’: Gil- receiving the money from a clerk dispatched by the bert Adair’s Use of Edgar Allan Poe in His Trans- bank. lation of Georges Perec’s La Disparition. CLA Journal 44, no. 2 (March 2001): 373. Montani, Alberto The first person to ascend the Knapp, Bettina L. Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Freder- stairs that lead to the apartment of the murdered ick Ungar—A Continuum Book, 1984. women. An Italian confectioner, he claims to have Martin, Terry J. “Detection, Imagination, and the heard a gruff voice speaking in French and a sec- Introduction to ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue.’ ” ond shrill voice that is “the voice of a Russian,” Modern Language Studies 19 (1989): 31–45. although he admits that he has “never conversed Thompson, Kenneth. “Victorian Detective Fic- with a native of Russia.” tion and the Nature of Evidence: The Scientific

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Investigations of Poe, Dickens, and Doyle.” Vic- tobacco shop, and the Parisian police conduct the torian Studies 47, no. 4 (Summer 2005): 613. investigation, which they invite Dupin to join. One Van Leer, David. “Detecting Truth: The World of the major similarity between the actual case and Poe’s Dupin Tales.” In New Essays on Poe’s Major Tales, story is the role of the media: The fictional Pari- edited by Kenneth Silverman, 65–92. (New York: sian media sensationalizes the case as did the New Cambridge University Press, 1993). York City newspapers, with both adding their own Werner, James V. “The Detective Gaze: Edgar P. Poe, inventive details and solutions. As Dupin observes, the Flaneur, and the Physiognomy of Crime.” “We should bear in mind that, in general, it is the American Transcendental Quarterly 15, no. 1 (March object of our newspapers rather to create a sensa- 2001): 5–21. tion—to make a point—than to further the cause White, Ed. “The Ourang-Outang Situation.” College of truth.” Dupin is equally dismissive of the courts Literature 30, no. 3 (Summer 2003): 88. and of formal hearings: “I would here observe that very much of what is rejected as evidence by a court, is the best evidence to the intellect.” To make sense of the facts, Dupin attempts to enter “Mystery of Marie Rogêt, The. the murderer’s mind and to determine the pattern of this “ordinary, although an atrocious, instance A Sequel to ‘The Murders in of crime” using diverse newspaper accounts and the Rue Morgue.’ ” (1842) the reports provided by his sidekick, the unnamed narrator. Short story written in 1842. Using his skills of ratiocination, Dupin determines that the cloth belt reported to have been SYNOPSIS fastened around her waist was used to drag the “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” is a lengthy short body to the river. He similarly refutes the sugges- story based upon the actual and unsolved mur- tions of several newspapers that she was attacked der of Miss MARY CECILIA ROGERS, and includes a and murdered by a gang, and suggests, instead, reappearance by Poe’s detective C. Auguste Dupin. that a single man killed her, then dumped the The epigraph that precedes the story is a trans- body from a boat into the river and set the boat lation from “Moralische Anisichten” that appears adrift. Unlike his brilliant revelation of the mur- in Novalis Schriften by Friedrich von Hardenburg, derer in “The MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE,” although Poe may have found it in Sarah Aus- Dupin’s manner is more subdued in this story. tin’s Fragments from German Prose Writers, which The detective suggests that the police will find the he reviewed in GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE in December killer if they find the boat used: “This boat shall 1841: “There are ideal series of events which run guide us, with a rapidity which will surprise even parallel with the real ones. They rarely coincide. ourselves, to him who employed it in the midnight Men and circumstances generally modify the ideal of the fatal Sabbath. Corroboration will rise upon train of events, so that it seems imperfect, and its corroboration, and the murderer will be traced.” consequences are equally imperfect. Thus with Dupin plays a less significant role in this story the Reformation; instead of Protestantism came and exhibits less analytic brilliance than he does Lutheranism.” in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Poe also transferred the American murder to PURLOINED LETTER.” Paris and made changes in the story and characters to suit the French setting. The last name “Rogers” COMMENTARY became “Rogêt” (the names are pronounced the Poe transferred to Paris the tantalizing events that same way in French), the mutilated body of the vic- make up this story of a real murder that occurred tim is found in the Seine rather than in the Hudson in New York, making this the first DETECTIVE River, the victim works at a perfumery instead of a STORY to attempt to solve an actual crime. The

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murder of Mary Cecilia Rogers, a beautiful girl PUBLICATION HISTORY who worked in John Anderson’s New York City The story was first published in serialized form in cigar store, dominated the newspapers in August the November and December 1842 and February 1841. Using news reports and visits to the location 1843 issues of Snowden’s Ladies’ Companion. where the body had been found, Poe finished one version of the story by June 1842 with an ending CHARACTERS that suggested that the culprit was a secret lover. Beauvais, Monsieur Makes inquiries for Marie In a letter written to George Roberts on June 4, Rogêt and is present when fishermen retrieve her 1842, Poe wrote: corpse from the Seine River in Paris, where it is I believe not only that I have demonstrated the found floating. Beauvais is asked to identify the fallacy of the general idea—that the girl was body and does so after some hesitation. His conten- the victim of a gang of ruffians—but have indi- tion that he recognized the body because of the hair cated the assassin in a manner which will give on the arm raises doubts of his veracity. Despite renewed impetus to investigation. My main this, he later takes control of the family and brings object, nevertheless, as you will readily under- suspicion on himself: “For some reason, he deter- stand, is an analysis of the true principles which mined that nobody should have anything to do with should direct inquiry in similar cases. the proceedings but himself and he has elbowed all of the male relatives out of the way, according to Five months later, an article published in the their representations, in a very singular manner.” November 26, 1842, issue of the NEW YORK TRI- BUNE forced Poe to revise the story. The newspaper reported that Mrs. Frederica Loss, “the woman Deluc, Madame The proprietor of a roadside inn who kept the refreshment house nearest the scene not far from the bank of the river in which Marie of her [Marie Rogers’s] death,” revealed on her Rogêt’s body is found floating. She tells investiga- deathbed that Marie Rogers had died in her house tors that Marie visited her inn in the company of a after a physician “undertook to procure for the young man with a dark complexion and recalls that unfortunate girl a premature delivery [abortion].” after they left, “a gang of miscreants made their Mrs. Loss’s son had then taken the body and placed appearance, behaved boisterously, ate and drank it in the Hudson River. without making payment, followed in the route of Although subtitled “A Sequel to ‘The Murders the young man and girl, returned to the inn about in the Rue Morgue,’ ” the only elements that the dusk, and re-crossed the river as if in great haste.” two tales have in common are the Paris setting, She claims to have heard a woman screaming soon the involvement of C. Auguste Dupin, and the after dark and asserts that she recognizes a scarf heavy emphasis on newspaper accounts. Unlike his found in the thicket and the dress on the corpse as analysis of evidence in “The Murders in the Rue belonging to the girl. Marie’s relatives later identify Morgue,” Dupin in this story spends his time dis- the articles as hers. puting the newspaper accounts and suggests ways in which the crime could be solved, but Poe does Dupin, C. Auguste Amateur detective who not commit himself to a solution. resides at no. 33 Rue Dunot, Faubourg St. Germain, and uses his unofficial status and his superior men- ADAPTATIONS tal powers to identify with the criminal mind and to The film The Mystery of Marie Rogêt, released in help the police in solving crimes. His personality, 1942, was directed by Phil Rosen and starred Maria his use of clues, his employment of postulation, and Montez, Maria Ouspenskaya, John Litel, Patric his use of logic in revealing the criminal are traits Knowles, and Charles Middleton. The plot is modi- that later writers incorporated into their fictional fied to feature a detective who must search for a detectives, especially SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE in music-hall actress who has disappeared. his creation of Sherlock Holmes. Despite Dupin’s

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peculiar and solitary personality, his consciousness us, or rather to ask the opinion of my friend, about allows him to understand the mundane and the some official business which had occasioned a great practical to crack cases that baffle everyone else, deal of trouble,” and often reacts in an ungracious including the police. His sharpest mental weapon is manner after Dupin solves the crime. In “The Mur- “ratiocination,” a higher form of reasoning that per- ders in the Rue Morgue,” he “could not altogether mits Dupin to detect what others have overlooked conceal his chagrin . . . and was fain to indulge in or dismissed as unimportant. Dupin’s remarkable a sarcasm or two, about the propriety of every per- powers of deduction and his idiosyncrasies, as well son minding his own business.” In “The Mystery of as the dual national association of a French detec- Marie Rogêt,” Dupin makes an agreement with the tive created by an American writer, led to a range prefect and states to his unnamed assistant that he of successors both in the United States and abroad. “knows this gentleman well. It will not do to trust Doyle used Poe’s technique of narrating his detec- him too far.” When Monsieur G——— reappears in tive’s exploits through the viewpoint of a less-tal- “The Purloined Letter,” Dupin’s assistant says they ented, often bumbling companion. He also gave “gave him a hearty welcome, for there was nearly Holmes not only intellectual capabilities similar to half as much of the entertaining as of the contempt- those of Dupin, but bizarre habits as well. Crit- ible about him.” Despite the irritating behavior of ics have also suggested that Agatha Christie had the prefect, Dupin remains mildly amused by the Poe’s Dupin in mind in creating her Belgian detec- man’s intellectual obtuseness, noting at the end of tive Hercule Poirot, who insists that his powers of “The Purloined Letter”: “I like him especially for detection reside in his use of “the little gray cells” one master stroke of cant, by which he has attained and whose idiosyncrasies are abundant. his reputation for ingenuity. I mean the way he has In “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,” the second ‘de nier ce qui est, et d’expliquer ce qui n’est pas’ [of story in which Dupin appears, he exposes the fic- denying what is, and explaining what isn’t].” tional conventions of the newspapers as part of the approach he uses to solve the crime. In the first story, Le Blanc, Monsieur The proprietor of a parfum- “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” Dupin had to erie, a perfume shop, in the Palais Royal. Marie create an unusual pattern to fit the events of the Rogêt had worked there three-and-a-half years ear- case. As he said, the crime could not be solved by lier, at which time she disappeared for a week, then asking “what has occurred?” Rather, Dupin suggested was reemployed by Le Blanc until her final disap- that one must ask, “What has occurred that has pearance prior to her murder. never occurred before?” He cannot use this approach Rogêt, Estelle The widowed mother of the mur- in “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” because the story is dered Marie Rogêt, she keeps a boardinghouse, an ordinary crime that will have an ordinary solution, assisted by Marie. rather than an orangutan as the murderer. Thus, he must examine the stories that the newspapers have Rogêt, Marie A fictional character based on the created about the disappearance and expose the fic- real-life Mary Cecilia Rogers, she works for a per- tions they have created if he is to reach the truth. fumer who occupies one of the shops in the Palais Royal. As Poe describes her early in the tale, she is G———, Monsieur The prefect of Parisian “a sprightly grisette,” a young woman of the work- police who seeks the assistance of C. Auguste Dupin ing class, usually a shop assistant, whose “Christian in solving crimes that baffle official law enforce- and family name will at once arrest attention from ment. Poe may have selected a name beginning their resemblance to those of the unfortunate ‘segar with G because Henri-Joseph Gisquet was prefect [sic]-girl’ [Mary Rogers].” of the Paris police from 1831 to 1836, immediately preceding the publication in 1841 of the first of the St. Eustache, Jacques He is the boyfriend of the stories, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” The murdered young woman and immediately comes prefect grudgingly approaches Dupin “to consult under suspicion for her death.

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Valence An omnibus driver who testifies that he impressiveness, and an affectionateness of manner, saw Marie Rogêt cross a ferry on the Seine on the which elicited the warmest enthusiasm from his lis- Sunday that she disappeared. He claims that she teners.” So effective is his discussion that he excites was accompanied by “a young man of dark com- the animosity of one of the “gentleman duelists,” plexion.” To quell doubts, he asserts that he knew Johann Hermann, who belittles Von Jung’s com- Marie and “could not be mistaken in her identity.” mand of the topic and insults him: “ ‘I would say, sir, that your opinions are not the opinions to be FURTHER READINGS expected from a gentleman.’ ” Hermann is jeal- Roth, Martin. “The Mysteries of ‘The Mystery of ous of the attention that the baron commands, for Marie Rogêt.’ ” Poe Studies 22, no. 2 (1989): 27–34. he considers himself to be the leading authority Seltzer, Mark. “The Crime System.” Critical Inquiry at the university on dueling. He prides himself on 30, no. 3 (Spring 2004): 557–593. knowing the intricate details of the etiquette of the Thompson, Kenneth. “Victorian Detective Fiction activity, “and the nicety of his sense of honor that and the Nature of Evidence: The Scientific Inves- he most especially prided himself.” tigations of Poe, Dickens, and Doyle.” Victorian The baron decides to make a fool of Hermann and Studies 47, no. 4 (Summer 2005): 613. misleads him into thinking that a duel is imminent. Walsh, John. Poe, The Detective: The Curious Circum- In mock anger, the baron hurls a decanter of wine stances Behind “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.” New into the mirror facing Hermann, so that it smashes Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1968. the duelist’s reflection. Uncertain if the action con- Werner, James V. “The Detective Gaze: Edgar P. Poe, stitutes an insult. Hermann retreats to his room to the Flaneur, and the Physiognomy of Crime.” consult his books on dueling etiquette. When the American Transcendental Quarterly 15, no. 1 (March two exchange letters, the baron directs Hermann 2001): 5–21. to consult “the opinions of the Sieur Hedelin, as set forth in the ninth paragraph of the chapter of ‘Injuriae per applicationem, per constructionem, et per se,’ in his ‘Duelli Lex scripta, et non, aliterque.’ ” The “Mystification” (1837) passage satisfies him that “the explanation offered was of the fullest, the most honorable, and the most Short story written in 1837. equivocally satisfactory nature,” yet this is a second humiliation that the baron has perpetrated on him, SYNOPSIS because the book is nonsense. Hermann’s stupid and “Mystification” relates the efforts of the Baron pompous nature makes him unable to admit that he Ritzner Von Jung to teach a pompous and sneer- does not understand what he reads, for the Duelli Lex ing duelist a lesson by using his pseudo-learning Scripta is “framed so as to present to the ear all the against him. The epigraph that precedes the story outward signs of intelligibility, and even of profun- is taken from Ben Jonson’s play Every Man in His dity, while in fact not a shadow of meaning existed.” Humour (1616), and Poe attributes it to a name To Hermann’s greater embarrassment, when the adapted from Jonson’s “Edward Knowell”: “Slid, if second and third words of the sentences are alter- these be your ‘passados’ and ‘montantes,’ I’ll have none nately omitted as the treatise is read aloud, the text o’ them.”–Ned Knowles. becomes “a most horribly absurd account of a duel The clever intellectual Von Jung visits the between two baboons.” Hermann would rather die unnamed narrator of the story at the university a thousand deaths than admit his ignorance. Thus, a and becomes embroiled in a heated discussion of duel of wits is fought, and Hermann loses. the gentlemanly benefits of dueling—an amazing feat, because the baron holds only contempt for PUBLICATION HISTORY the activity. Despite his aversion, the baron speaks The tale was first published in the June 1837 issue on the subject “with an ardor, an eloquence, an of the New York American Monthly Magazine under

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the title “Von Jung, the Mystific.” It was published provided a preface signed by “A. G. Pym.” Accord- in 1840 under the same title in TALES OF THE GRO- ing to “Pym,” TESQUE AND ARABESQUE. Poe changed the title to accident threw me into the society of several “Mystification” when he published a revised ver- gentlemen in Richmond, Va., who felt deep sion in the December 27, 1845, issue of the BROAD- interest in all matters relating to the regions I WAY JOURNAL. had visited, and who were constantly urging it CHARACTERS upon me, as a duty, to give my narrative to the Hermann, Johann He shows exceptional inter- public. . . . Among those gentlemen in Virginia est in Baron Ritzner Von Jung’s pontificating upon who expressed the greatest interest in my state- the history, nature, and etiquette of the duel. He ment, more particularly in regard to that por- is “an original in every respect—except, perhaps, tion of it which related to the Antarctic Ocean, in the singular particular that he was a very great was Mr. Poe. fool.” Highly successful in a great many duels, he The preface also states that Poe merely wrote a also prides himself “upon his minute acquaintance narrative of the opening of the earlier portion of with the etiquette of the duello, and the nicety of his Pym’s adventures, from facts Pym provided, and sense of honor.” In short, he is an “especial object” published the accounts “in The Southern Literary for the “whimsical nature” of the baron, who was Messenger under the garb of fiction . . . and, in order “ever upon the lookout for the grotesque.” that it might certainly be regarded as fiction, the name of Mr. Poe was affixed to the articles in the Von Jung, Baron Ritzner The Baron Ritzner table of contents of the magazine.” To complete Von Jung teaches a pompous and sneering duelist the effort at convincing readers that the account is a lesson by using his pseudo-learning against him. real, “Pym” asserts that those noting the differences The baron holds only contempt for dueling, but he in writing style between Poe’s early pages and his speaks on the subject impressively. When another own will see clearly “where his portion ends and character challenges his knowledge and the two my own commences; the difference in point of style exchange letters, the baron directs him to consult will be readily perceived.” a passage in Latin that the man cannot read but The tale relates five voyages undertaken by pretends he can. Arthur Gordon Pym, who introduces himself to readers in a manner that resembles the realistic FURTHER READINGS beginnings of such novels as Daniel Defoe’s The Pollin, Burton R. “Poe’s ‘Mystification’: Its Source Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flan- in Fay’s Norman Leslie.” Mississippi Quarterly 25 ders, Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of (1972): 111–130. Tristram Shandy, and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, whose authors all sought to convey a sense of verisimilitude by setting their characters into a specific social class and providing biographi- Narrative of Arthur Gordon cal details: “My name is Arthur Gordon Pym. My Pym, The (1836–1837) father was a respectable trader in sea-stores at Nan- tucket, where I was born. My maternal grandfather Poe’s only completed novel, written in 1836 and was an attorney in good practice. . . . He was more 1837. attached to myself, I believe, than to any other person in the world, and I expected to inherit the most SYNOPSIS of his property at his death.” The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is presented Pym’s journey begins in Nantucket when he and as the true adventures of Pym. Poe did not place a friend named Augustus Barnard drink too much his name on the title page of the novel. Instead he liquor and impulsively sail away in Pym’s sloop.

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The pair soon must be rescued when a whaler the public through the medium of the daily press,” crushes the boat. In their second voyage, Pym is a and the last three or four chapters “have been stowaway aboard the Grampus, of which Barnard’s irrecoverably lost through the accident by which father is the captain. The crew soon mutinies and, he perished himself.” This conflicts with “Pym’s” after tremendous fighting, only four remain: Pym, statements in the preface that suggest he survived Augustus Barnard, Dirk Peters, and a crew member the experience and returned to the United States named Parker. They must resort to cannibalism “after the extraordinary series of adventures in the to survive. Parker is sacrificed, and Augustus soon South Seas and elsewhere.” dies of a gangrenous infection in his leg. Pym and Peters survive to endure a few more adventures COMMENTARY before falling into a cataract, or waterfall, at the The novel contains bloodcurdling murders, mutiny, South Pole. The tale is left unfinished, a condi- shipwreck, strange characters, and cannibal feast- tion that Poe attempts to explain with a “Note” at ing, all in an effort to attract a popular audience. the end of the novel. According to the note, “the The work shows the influence of Poe’s reading at circumstances connected with the late sudden and the time, including CAPTAIN BENJAMIN MORRELL’s distressing death of Mr. Pym are already known to Narrative of Four Voyages to the South Seas, JER-

Title pages for the American and the English editions of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (Robert Gregor)

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EMIAH N. REYNOLDS’s “ADDRESS ON THE SUBJECT a later reminiscence that appeared in the Octo- OF A SURVEYING AND EXPLORING EXPEDITION TO ber 1869 issue of Putnam’s Magazine, that “whole THE PACIFIC OCEAN AND SOUTH SEAS,” the Harper columns of these new ‘discoveries,’ including the Family Library Description of Pitcairn’s Island and Its hieroglyphics (!) found on the rocks, were copied Inhabitants with an Authentic Account of the Mutiny by many of the English country papers as sober of the Ship Bounty, WASHINGTON IRVING’s “ASTO- historical truth.” RIA,” and JOHN LLOYD STEPHENS’s Travels in Arabia Petraea (see “REVIEW OF ARABIA PETRAEA”). Silver- PUBLICATION HISTORY man states critics have observed that “the main Poe began to write the novel after the publisher and central part of the story is largely a compilation Harper & Brothers rejected the short story collec- of mutinies, murders, and the sufferings of ship- tion TALES OF THE FOLIO CLUB in 1836. In a let- wrecked mariners taken sometimes almost verbatim ter dated March 3, 1836, that accompanied news from the literary sources mentioned.” of the rejection, New York City author James K. Critical reception of the book was unfavorable. Paulding suggested, “I think it would be worth your Writing in BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE, the while, if other engagements permit, to undertake a editor WILLIAM E. BURTON was sarcastic in assess- Tale in a couple of volumes, for that is the magical ing the travel tale. He expressed indignation with number.” Poe took the suggestion and wrote The the work, stating that “a more impudent attempt at Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, which appeared as humbugging the public has never been exercised.” a serial in the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER in In a letter written on June 1, 1840, responding to 1836 and 1837. Burton’s assertion that Poe owed him $100, Poe After the successful serialization of the novel, alluded to the review: Harper & Brothers published the novel in book form in July 1838. The publisher described the You once wrote in your magazine a sharp cri- novel as follows: tique upon a book of mine—a very silly book— Pym. Had I written a similar criticism upon a The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym; Com- book of yours, you feel that you would have prising the Details of a Mutiny and Atrocious been my enemy for life, and you therefore imag- Butchery on Board the American Brig Gram- ine a latent hostility towards yourself. . . . Your pus, on Her Way to the South Seas, in the criticism was essentially correct, and therefore, Month of June, 1827. With an Account of the although severe, it did not occasion in me one Recapture of the Vessel by the Survivors; Their solitary emotion either of anger or dislike. Shipwreck and Subsequent Horrible Sufferings from Famine; Their Deliverance by Means of Poe was not so amiable toward criticism pub- the British Schooner Jane Guy; the Brief Cruise lished by LEWIS GAYLORD CLARK, editor of the of this Latter Vessel in the Antarctic Ocean; Knickerbocker Magazine, who used his column “Edi- Her Capture, and the Massacre of Her Crew tors’ Table” to print a particularly virulent attack Among a Group of Islands in the Eighty-Fourth on The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. He chas- Parallel of Southern Latitude; Together with the tised Poe for the “loose and slip-shod style, seldom Incredible Adventures and Discoveries Still Far- chequered by any of the more common graces of ther South to Which That Distressing Calamity composition.” Moreover, Clark asserted that the Gave Rise. 12 mo., pp. 198. New York: Harper novel “is too liberally stuffed with ‘horrid circum- and Brothers, 1838. stance of blood and battle.’ ” The realistic nature of the title and the narrative fooled many readers into believing that the work CHARACTERS actually was a first-person account of adventures Allen, William A member of the cook’s party at sea. Even the publisher George Putnam believed aboard the ship Jane Guy, he joins the mutineers the book to be a true account, and he noted, in and is later tossed over the bulwarks.

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Barnard, Augustus The son of Captain Bar- Enderby, Messieurs They are the London- nard, he joins Pym in becoming drunk and revel- based owners of a whale ship who employ Captain ing aboard the sailboat Ariel, then sails with him Briscoe. on the Grampus. When the two become stranded, Barnard reluctantly joins Pym in becoming a can- Glass, Corporal He is a former corporal in the nibal as the two are forced by starvation to eat British artillery who claims to be “supreme gover- the corpse of seaman Richard Parker. Barnard nor of the islands” with a constituency of 21 men later dies at sea, and his body is thrown to the and three women. Glass sells Captain Guy 500 seal- sharks. skins and some ivory.

Barnard, Captain He is the captain of the Gram- Greely He is one of the mutinous sailors aboard pus, the ship on which Pym stows away, and he is the Grampus who is killed by Dirk Peters after the also the father of Augustus Barnard. loyal sailors learn that he and William Allen “had gone over to the mate, and were resolved to turn Bennet He never appears in the story and noth- pirates.” ing is told about his life, but Guy gives Bennet’s name to an islet situated at 82° 50′ south latitude, Guy, Captain He is skipper and part owner of 42° 20′ west longitude. the Jane Guy, the vessel that picks up Pym and Dirk Peters after the shipwreck of the Grampus. He is “a Block, Captain E. T. V. He is the captain of the gentleman of great urbanity of manner” who has Penguin, the whaling ship that runs down the sail- had extensive experience in sailing the South Seas, boat Ariel. “to which he has devoted a great portion of his life.” He has been assigned to cruise the South Seas Bonner, Jim A sailor aboard the Grampus, he is in search of any cargo of interest, for which he will thrown off the deck during an argument. trade the beads, mirrors, saws, and other objects on the ship. The narrator finds him deficient in energy Carson, John A member of the Jane Guy crew and lacking in the spirit of enterprise “which is here and a native of London, he is one of three men so absolutely requisite.” who volunteer their services to stay on the island and to complete the building of structures in Harris, Alfred One of the sailors aboard the Jane which to dry the beche de mer, an unusual mollusk Guy and a London native, he volunteers to remain that the crew finds in the waters surrounding the behind on the island to clear the land and to com- uncharted island on which they land. He is killed plete the buildings for the captain and crew of the by savages. ship. He is later killed by the natives.

Colquhon, Captain One of the many sea cap- Henderson He is the first mate of the Penguin tains who have visited Tristan d’Acunha, he is and rescues Arthur Gordon Pym and Augustus the skipper of the American brig Betsey, which Barnard when their boat, the Ariel, is run down. “touched at the largest of the islands for the pur- When the ship’s captain grows angry and denies pose of refreshment.” While there, he and his men that he has a responsibility to save people who planted onions, cabbages, potatoes, and numerous have put themselves in danger, Henderson stands other vegetables, “an abundance of all which are up to him, stating that the captain is “a fit subject now to be met with.” for the gallows” for his views, and takes control of the helm. Edmunds The young Arthur Gordon Pym accidentally encounters his grandfather near Edmunds’s Hicks, Absalom One of the 13 surviving sailors well just before going to sea. aboard the Grampus, he is murdered by Dirk Peters,

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who “seized him by the throat, and, by dint of sheer To hide his baldness, Peters usually wears a wig strength, strangled him instantaneously.” “formed of any hair-like material . . . the skin of a Spanish dog or American grizzly bear.” His pro- Morrell, Captain Benjamin The captain of the truding teeth, “never even partially covered, in any American schooner Wasp, he has sailed through instance, by the lips,” give his face a look of laugh- the same waters as Arthur Gordon Pym on January ter, “but a second look would induce a shuddering 11, 1823, “with a view of penetrating as far south as acknowledgment . . . the merriment must be that possible” to the Antarctic Circle. Morrell is unable of a demon.” Ferocious as he seems, Peters saves to complete the journey, and, “nearly destitute of the lives of Augustus Barnard, Richard Parker, and fuel and water, and without proper instruments,” Pym after the mutiny. he must turn back without completing his journey. Captain Guy reads his account in the ship’s log and Peterson, Mr. The grandfather of Arthur Gor- resolves to push the crew of the Jane Guy “boldly to don Pym; he objects when Pym seeks to indulge his the southward.” desire for travel and to sail with Captain Barnard aboard the Grampus. Pym states, “my grandfather, Oyarvido, Captain Manuel de The commander from whom I expected much, vowed to cut me off of a ship named Aurora, owned by the Royal Phillip- with a shilling if I should ever broach the subject to pine [sic] Company, he is said to have discovered as him again.” Pym decides to run off to sea and, while early as 1790 the islands to which the Jane Guy sails. disguised with a dirty and thick seaman’s cloak, runs into his grandfather on the day of embark- Parker, Richard One of the mate’s party after the ment. When Peterson recognizes his grandson, mutiny and later the only one left alive of the group Pym assumes a seaman’s dialect and berates the old that opposes Pym’s group. Pym knocks him down man for being “sum’mat mistaken.” with a pump handle at the beginning of the mutiny, and, when he comes to, Parker begs for mercy. At Psalemoun Also called Tsalemon, he was king first, Pym has him bound but later releases Parker of the eight islands visited by the crew of the Jane so that he can help work the pumps of the ship. Guy, and he lived on the smallest of the islands. When the only four survivors are cast out into the open sea, Parker turns to Pym and the others “with Pym, Arthur Gordon The son of “a respectable an expression of countenance which made [Pym] trader in sea-stores in Nantucket,” and his mater- shudder” and proposes “that one of us should die nal grandfather was “an attorney in good practice.” to preserve the existence of the others.” The irony Despite such solid forebears, Arthur is a rebellious is that Parker becomes the first victim of the can- youth who runs away to sea by stowing away on a nibalism that he suggested. New Bedford whaler. When a mutiny erupts, he tries to suppress it. He then survives a storm that Patterson, Mr. He is the chief mate aboard the leaves only him and three other survivors. After a Jane Guy, and he takes the boats out to search for series of other difficulties, including enduring can- seal. nibalism, Pym and the one other remaining sailor are left drifting toward the South Pole in a canoe. Peters, Dirk The son of an Indian woman of The last sight that Pym reports is a giant human the tribe of Upsarokas and a fur-trader father, figure with skin white as snow standing guard. he “was one of the most ferocious-looking men” Arthur Gordon Pym has ever seen. He is short, Ricketts, Mr. The headmaster of the school that “But his limbs were of Herculean mold.” He has Pym attends from age six to 16. Well known “to thick and powerful hands and arms, and a head almost every person who has visited New Bedford,” that is “deformed, being of immense size, with an Ricketts is a gentleman with only one arm and “of indentation on the crown . . . and entirely bald.” eccentric manners.”

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Rogers, Hartman After the mutiny, he is one of cook accidentally strikes the deck with an ax and the 13 men remaining aboard the Grampus and a makes “a gash of considerable depth.” With his member of the cook’s gang. He is first mentioned in help, the sailors guide the Jane Guy safely through the narrative on July 5th, and he dies on July 10th, the reefs. “having been attacked on the eighth with spasms after drinking a glass of grog.” He tells one of the Vredenburgh, Peter A native of New York, as other crew members that he believes that he was well as “one of the most valuable hands on board poisoned. the schooner.” On January 10, Arthur Gordon Pym records in his journal that Vredenburgh was lost Ronald, Mr. E. Arthur Gordon Pym leaves Mr. overboard when his foot slipped while he was going Ricketts’s school to attend Mr. E. Ronald’s acad- over the bows: “he fell between two cakes of ice, emy on the hill. Here Pym meets August Barnard, never rising again.” the son of a sea captain, who will join him in running off to sea. Wilson After the mutiny, he becomes a member of the mate’s party. Ross, Mr. A relative of Arthur Gordon Pym, he lives in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where Pym Yampoos Their chief Too-Wit guides the sur- is “in the habit of spending occasionally two or vivors of the Jane Guy wreck through treacherous three weeks at a time.” Ross becomes an unwitting reefs to his village of Yampoos, “the great men accomplice in Pym’s plan to run away to sea when of the land.” They are “muscular and brawny,” Pym and his friend Augustus Barnard send Pym’s with jet black complexions and thick and long father a forged note asking that Pym be allowed “woolly” hair. Their lips are “thick and clumsy,” to spend a fortnight with Ross’s sons, Robert and and, even when they laugh, “the teeth were Emmet. never disclosed.” Only “the men of the canoes” wear skins to cover their bodies, and the rest of Seymour He is “the black cook” and leads one the men, women, and children in the village are of the two mutinous factions on board the Gram- naked. The homes are extremely primitive and pus. One of “the common hands” and a member “of the most miserable description imaginable, of the cook’s gang after the mutiny, he falls over- and unlike those of even the lowest of the savage board, “being very much in liquor,” and drowns. races with which mankind are acquainted, were No attempt is made to save him. of no uniform plan.” Some of the Yampoos live in holes dug in the ground, with branches covering Tiger Arthur Gordon Pym’s dog, he stows away the holes, while others simply sleep under skins aboard the Grampus without his master’s knowl- draped over tree branches. edge, leaving Pym to conjecture as to how the animal got there: “for the presence of Tiger I tried in FURTHER READINGS vain to account.” Pym relates that he and Tiger, Canada, Mark. “Flight into Fancy: Poe’s Discovery of who has been his inseparable companion for seven the Right Brain.” Southern Literary Journal 33, no. 2 years, are especially close: “I had an affection far (Spring 2001): 62–89. more ardent than common; and never, certainly, Frank, Frederick S. “Polarized Gothic: An Annotated did any creature more truly deserve it.” Bibliography of Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.” Bulletin of Bibliography 38 (1981): 117–127. Too-Wit A native chieftain who leaps onboard Kopley, Richard. “Readers Write: Nineteenth-Century one of the exploratory boats from the Jane Guy and Annotations in Copies of the First American Edi- seats himself next to Captain Guy. He and his men tion of Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.” perceive the ship as a living entity, and he howls Nineteenth-Century Literature 55, no. 3 (December and whines in sympathy with the ship when the 2000): 399.

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Kennedy, J. Gerald. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon By the time readers complete reading the tale, they Pym and the Abyss of Interpretation. New York: realize that Poe has used his comic sketch to skewer Twayne, 1995. TRANSCENDENTALISM. Nadal, Marita. “Beyond the Gothic Sublime: Poe’s The tale is that of Toby Dammit, “a sad dog, it Pym or the Journey of Equivocal (E)motions.” The is true,” who is overrun by vices for which he is not Mississippi Quarterly 53, no. 3 (Summer 2000): to blame: “They grew out of a personal defect in his 373–388. mother.” Toby’s villainous behavior at the age of Pollin, Burton R., ed. The Collected Writings of Edgar five months leads his mother to flog him, but her Allan Poe. Vol. 1, The Imaginary Voyages, including left-handedness detracts strongly from the benefits The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, The Unparal- that might otherwise result from a flogging. As the leled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall and The Journal narrator explains, “The world revolves from right to of Julius Rodman. Boston: Twayne, 1981. left. It will not do to whip a baby from left to right. Pritchett, Patrick. “Abandoning Ship: Face to Face at If each blow in the proper direction [from right to Zero Degree Interpellation in Poe’s The Narrative left] drives an evil propensity out, it follows that of Arthur Gordon Pym.” English Language Notes 42, every thump in an opposite one knocks its quota no. 2 (December 2004): 41. of wickedness in.” Thus, Toby is doomed to a life Rosenszweig, Paul. “ ‘Dust within the Rock’: The Phan- of unalterable wickedness, and as an adult his chief tasm of Meaning in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon wickedness is gambling. At the slightest provoca- Pym.” Studies in the Novel 14 (1982): 137–151. tion, “he could scarcely utter a sentence without Rudoff, Shaindy. “Written in Stone: Slavery and interlarding it with a proposition to gamble.” At Authority in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.” first, Dammit wagers a dollar or states “I’ll bet you American Transcendental Quarterly 14, no. 1 (March what you please,” until he reaches a point at which 2000): 61–83. “he abandoned all other forms of wager, and gave Taylor, Peter. “Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon himself up to ‘I’ll bet the Devil my head’.” Pym of Nantucket.” The Explicator 59, no. 1 (Fall As the narrator walks across a bridge with Dam- 2000): 17–19. mit, they find their path blocked by a turnstile. The narrator walks through the stile. Dammit, however, insists on leaping over it and bets the narrator that he can do so, uttering the phrase, “I’ll bet the Devil “Never Bet the Devil my head.” As Dammit utters this fateful phrase, the two hear the sound of “Ahem” and turn to see a Your Head: A Tale very old, lame man wearing a full suit of black. The With a Moral” (1841) stranger assures Dammit that he will probably be able to clear the turnstile, but that they must have Short story written in 1841. a trial to prove Dammit’s ability. Dammit seems to be at a loss for words. The narrator muses that this SYNOPSIS is a remarkable situation and wonders if it is the “Never Bet the Devil Your Head” opens with the result of his last lecture, due to which “he [Dammit] narrator’s rebuttal to “certain ignoramuses” who is cured of the transcendentals.” Within moments, have charged him with having never written a the narrator watches as Dammit takes a leap, runs moral tale, “or, in more precise words, a tale with forward, and springs up from the floor of the bridge, a moral,” and promises that the current effort will then lands on the same side of the turnstile that he precisely fill that void. The tale opens with a quo- started. The old stranger reaches to the floor and tation from Cuentos en verso castellano, written in quickly grabs something that he wraps in his coat 1828 by Tomas Hermenegildo de las Torres: “As before he rapidly limps away. The narrator discov- long as the habits of an author are pure and chaste, ers that Dammit struck a sharp iron bar five feet it matters very little if his works are less austere.” above the turnstile and was beheaded, but the head

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is nowhere to be found. The narrator assumes the my head.” When he wagers that he can jump a costs for Dammit’s funeral, then “sent in my very bridge turnstile and his head collides with a bridge moderate bill to the transcendentalists. The scoun- support, he loses both the bet and his head. drels refused to pay it, so I had Mr. Dammit dug up at once and sold him for dog meat.” FURTHER READINGS Glassheim, Eliot. “A Dogged Interpretation of ‘Never COMMENTARY Bet the Devil Your Head.’ ” Poe Newsletter 2 (Octo- This satire was Poe’s literary response to the charge ber 1969): 44–45. by critics writing in the transcendentalist magazine The Dial that his fiction lacked moral content. He takes the inclusion of a moral in the story to a ridiculous extreme by making every incident he relates “Oblong Box, The” (1844) a cause for the expression of yet another moral principle. (See TRANSCENDENTALISM.) Short story written in 1844. ADAPTATIONS SYNOPSIS The story has been dramatized as “Toby Dammit” “The Oblong Box” opens as the unnamed narra- as one sequence in the 1968 film Tales of Mystery tor begins a sea journey from Charleston to New and Imagination, directed by Federico Fellini. York City aboard the packet ship Independence. He learns that his college acquaintance, the artist Cor- PUBLICATION HISTORY nelius Wyatt, is aboard the ship with his sisters and The story was first published in the September 1841 his wife, renowned for her beauty. As the narrator issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE under the title “Never renews their acquaintance, he learns that Wyatt has Bet Your Head: A Moral Tale.” Poe revised the also brought aboard the ship an oblong box, six feet title to the present one when the story was revised long and two-and-half feet wide, that he keeps in for publication in the August 16, 1845, issue of his stateroom; the narrator believes that it contains the BROADWAY JOURNAL. Despite assertions of his a valuable copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting The contemporaries that Poe’s satire is aimed at liter- Last Supper. The narrator is surprised to find that ary pedanticism, transcendentalism, and The Dial, the artist’s wife is physically unattractive, despite Poe denied having any specific targets. Instead, he what he had heard earlier, yet Wyatt claims to have wrote, “The tale in question is a mere Extravaganza married “for love, and for love only; and his bride levelled at no one in particular, but hitting right was far more than worthy of his love.” Each night, and left at things in general.” she sneaks out of the conjugal stateroom and stays in the extra stateroom until sunrise, when she then CHARACTERS returns to Wyatt’s room. While she is gone, the Dammit, Toby He begins life as a child preco- narrator hears in Wyatt’s stateroom sounds of the cious in vice: “At five months of age, he used to get box being pried open and what seems to be sobbing. into such passions that he was unable to articulate. When the Independence is hit by a hurricane and is At six months, I caught him gnawing a pack of about to sink, the captain and passengers manage to cards. At seven months he was in the constant reach a lifeboat, but Wyatt refuses to leave without habit of catching and kissing the female babies. At the box. The captain refuses to take the box aboard, eight months he peremptorily refused to put his so Wyatt uses a rope to lash himself securely to signature to the Temperance pledge.” By the age of the box and sinks with it into the stormy waters. one, he not only insists upon wearing “moustaches” Months after they are rescued, the narrator meets but also contracts “a propensity for cursing and Captain Hardy while in New York City and learns swearing, and for backing his assertions by bets.” that the box actually had contained the body of As a man, his favorite wager is “I’ll bet the Devil Wyatt’s late wife. Because the passengers and crew

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would not have sailed on a ship that contained a Wyatt has been bargaining about “something he dead body, his wife’s maid had pretended to be her wishes not to be put in the hold—something to mistress by day and retreated to her own stateroom be kept under his own eye.” He is said to possess a each night. copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting The Last Sup- per, “done by Rubini the younger at Florence,” and COMMENTARY the narrator suspects that the painting is contained This tale uses Poe’s experience while stationed in in the mysterious oblong box. Charleston, South Carolina, to provide a portion of the setting, especially in regard to life along the Wyatt, Cornelius An artist who has brought docks and the departure of the sailing packets from aboard the ship an oblong box, six feet long and the Charleston harbor. The story raises questions two-and-half feet wide, that he keeps in his state- about the nature of the artist and love for the beau- room. Each night the narrator hears in Wyatt’s tiful. The narrator believes that the oblong box, stateroom sounds of the box being pried open and really a casket, contains a priceless piece of art and what seems to be sobbing. When the ship is hit by that the artist weeps nightly over its beauty, when, a hurricane and is about to sink, Wyatt refuses to in fact, it is the beauty of his dead wife that he leave without the box. He lashes himself securely views as he sobs. When Wyatt lashes himself to the to the box with a rope and sinks with it into the casket during the storm after the captain refuses to stormy waters. take the box aboard the lifeboat, he is metaphorically attaching himself to beauty and to the eter- Wyatt, Marian The sister of the artist Cornelius nal love that he professes to feel for his late wife. Wyatt and “a very sweet and intelligent girl,” she Rather than allow himself to be separated from that introduces the narrator to the artist’s wife when the beauty, he is willing to perish. artist fails to do so.

ADAPTATIONS Wyatt, Mrs. The real Mrs. Wyatt is dead and The 1969 British-American film The Oblong Box, lying in the box that is placed in the artist’s state- directed by Gordon Hessler and starring VINCENT room. The woman who portrays Mrs. Wyatt in the PRICE and Christopher Lee, has only the title in story is actually the maid of the late woman. common with Poe’s story. The plot deals with a witch doctor who uses a special potion to make FURTHER READINGS individuals appear dead. McMullen, Bonnie Shannon. “Lifting the Lid on Poe’s ‘Oblong Box.’ ” Studies in American Fiction 23 PUBLICATION HISTORY (1995): 203–214. The story was first published in the September 1844 issue of GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND LADY’S BOOK. CHARACTERS “Oval Portrait, The” (1842) Curtis, Mrs. Adelaide The artist’s mother-in- law living in Albany, New York, to whom the mys- Short story written in 1842. terious box is addressed. SYNOPSIS Hardy, Captain The captain of the packet-ship First entitled “Life in Death,” the story opens as the Independence, he helps a passenger secretly bring his narrator enters a recently abandoned chateau that dead wife’s body aboard ship. appears to be less of a home than a monument to art. The walls are hung with tapestry and armorial Nicolino He is spoken of as “Nicolino, the Ital- trophies, “together with an unusually great number ian Jew” with whom the narrator’s friend Cornelius of very spirited modern paintings in frames of rich

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golden arabesque.” Of particular interest is an oval rator’s imbalance of mind he had shifted his portrait of a beautiful young woman, actually “a intent from the psychological to the occult. young girl just ripening into womanhood,” a paint- “The Oval Portrait” may be read, just as it ing that appears to pulse with life. stands, as an ironic, fully dramatized, psycho- Obsessed by the image, the narrator eagerly seeks logical portrait. (108) the volume that contains discussions of the paint- Thus, Thompson states that regardless of its revi- ings of the chateau and their histories. From Pedro, sion, “The Oval Portrait” is a psychological tale a manservant who lives there, he learns that the that depicts the imbalance between reason and young woman is the wife of the man who painted madness. the portrait and that the artist has endowed this Critics have provided a range of diverse inter- painting with his young wife’s life. The painting pretations of the story and of the author’s inten- drew so much from its living model that she died tions. William J. Scheick suggests that “The Oval as the portrait was completed and the artist placed Portrait” has an inspirational motif that leads the final color in her cheeks. In essence, the artist readers toward increasingly higher levels of con- transferred the very life from his wife to the paint- sciousness as they move from one oval to another. ing: So absorbed had he been in completing the He compares Poe’s structure of “The Oval Por- painting that he ignored his wife and allowed her trait” to a mandala and writes that Poe’s story to wither away. begins with a large oval, the turret of the chateau, COMMENTARY and ends with the small oval eyes of the woman in the portrait in which the light of life is contained. The tale appears to adapt ideas later expressed in “Similar to a mandala or yantra, the story’s struc- The Picture of Dorian Gray, an 1891 novel written ture covertly depicts to the wary concentric stages by Oscar Wilde, who had praised Poe’s rhythmical of gradual awareness, an inward progression away expression in poetry in 1886. The difference is that from ignorance and toward a nearly-glimpsed Wilde’s novel offers a portrait that ages while the trance-inducing ultimate reality or ‘spiritual’ cen- subject of the portrait retains his youthful good ter symbolizing the source of the phenomenal lay- looks, but in Poe’s story the subject withers and ers characteristic of existence.” (7) Other critics dies while the portrait assumes the appearance of have viewed the story as being a statement on healthy young life. artistic creation. Mary Ann Caws states that the G. R. Thompson relates that the original version model of the portrait has actually died repeatedly, of the story, “Life in Death,” contained extensive as her tale is told to successive listeners. The first passages in which the narrator prepared and smoked death occurs when her artist-husband takes pos- opium, as well as passages containing his reasoning session of her life by extracting the essence of her for using the drug in the isolated mountain cha- existence and placing it on canvas; the model- teau to alleviate his feverish symptoms. Poe deleted wife allows this dispossession with no apparent those passages in revisions because he believed the protest. Thus, each time the death of the model is emphasis upon the hallucinatory effects of the drug presented, “she is dispossessed of her life all over created a dreamlike effect in the story that dulled again, and each time the essence of the painting the horror. Thompson observes that the percep- is put into words, its image loses its power” (685). tions of the narrator in the second version seem Robert N. and Shernaz Mollinger suggest that Poe more grounded in reality than they would be if he depicts in this tale the “inescapable fusion of life, were under the influence of a narcotic: death, and creation” (148) and assert that Poe’s The fact that Poe’s first intention . . . was to mother and wife, as well as the artist and the art- paint a portrait of a disturbed imagination does ist’s wife, are integral parts of the tale. They state not, however, necessarily lead to the view that that Poe writes in “The Oval Portrait” of his own because Poe reduced the obviousness of his nar- artistic dilemma, that art imitates life and that

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artists are destroyers as well as creators: “Artis- CHARACTERS tic creation is, in a sense, murder” (152). They Pedro A manservant whom the narrator bade also suggest that Poe’s tragic losses of his mother, “to close the heavy shutters of the room—since it ELIZABETH POE, and wife, VIRGINIA CLEMM Poe, was already night,—to light the tongues of the tall provided the sources for his artistic creations and candelabrum which stood by the head of my bed, fueled his ability to create, just as the artist does and to throw open far and wide the fringed curtains in this tale. Sylvie Richards elaborates on this of black velvet which enveloped the bed itself.” observation and views the story as representing the depersonification of the woman model: unnamed narrator He enters the chateau and As described in the volume that the narrator is reviews a volume that identifies the nature and reading, Art is no longer just an enterprise or source of the paintings. a perception, but it becomes an actual woman who will rival with the young woman who serves FURTHER READINGS as model for the affection of the painter. Along Caws, Mary Ann. “Insertion in an Oval Frame: Poe with the personification of Art, there occurs a Circumscribed by Baudelaire (Part I).” The French de-personification of the woman. . . . The copy Review 56 (April 1983): 679–687. becomes the reality, thereby achieving the ulti- Gross, Seymour. “Poe’s Revision of ‘The Oval Por- mate of man’s ego fantasies: the need to pre- trait’.” Modern Language Notes 74 (1959): 16–20. serve himself, and that which he loves, against Mollinger, Robert N. and Shernaz Mollinger. “Edgar the ravages of time, to create a stasis, but at the Allan Poe’s The Oval Portrait: Fusion of Multiple same time to enclose and capture the ephem- Identities.” American Imago 36 (1979): 147–53. eral beauty of life. (309–310) Richards, Sylvie L. F. “The Eye and the Portrait: The Fantastic in Poe, Hawthorne and Gogol.” Studies in Richards suggests that this transference of life Short Fiction 20 (Fall 1983): 307–315. from the model-wife to the painting is akin to Scheick, William J. “The Geometric Structure of Poe’s vampirism, a motif that James Twitchell has also ‘The Oval Portrait.’ ” Poe Studies 11 (1978): 6–8. examined in assessing the manner in which artists Thompson, Gary R. “Dramatic Irony in ‘The Oval Por- take life from an animate object and transfer it to trait’: A Reconsideration of Poe’s Revisions.” En glish an inanimate object. He writes, “The paradox the Language Notes 6 (December 1968): 107–114. artist doesn’t recognize is that the vitality of his Twitchell, James. “Poe’s ‘The Oval Portrait’ and the art drains the very life-strength of the people he Vampire Motif.” Studies in Short Fiction 14 (1977): loves. . . . The vampire myth was an ideal para- 387–93. digm for love that is too demanding or, in the case of ‘The Oval Portrait,’ art that is too life-consuming” (388). ADAPTATIONS “Pit and the Pendulum, The” No film has been made of the story, although ele- (1843) ments of it appear in the French film The Fall of the House of Usher (1925), directed by Jean Epstein. Short story written in 1843. PUBLICATION HISTORY SYNOPSIS The story was first published under the title “Life in “The Pit and the Pendum” relates the experiences Death” in the April 1842 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGA- of the nameless narrator, who is dragged before a ZINE. Poe retitled the story when he shortened and court of the Spanish Inquisition in Toledo after revised it for republication in the April 26, 1845, long suffering, then sentenced to death by his issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. nameless accusers and judges for a crime that is

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never revealed. His punishment involves a range of instead a huge pendulum. As the narrator stares at ingeniously devised and increasingly horrible tor- the pendulum, it begins to move. He quickly turns tures. Placed in a rat-infested cell without light, he his attention to the floor, where “several enormous explores his surroundings through touch, attempt- rats” have left the abyss and are headed toward ing to determine the size and shape of his cell as he him. After he spends an hour or more scaring away gropes his way around. Unable to see, he trips after the rats, he looks up at the pendulum, only to find catching his foot in the hem of his robe and falls to that it has now increased in sweep and velocity and the ground, where he discovers “a somewhat star- that is has perceptibly descended. Agonized, the tling circumstance”—that he has nearly fallen into narrator watches and counts the sweeps as the pen- a deep pit. His chin rests on the ground, but his lips dulum continues its downward descent. When it is and the upper portion of his head, “although seem- near enough for him to smell “the odor of the sharp ingly at a less elevation than the chin, touched steel,” he swoons, then recovers and reaches for the nothing. At the same time, my forehead seemed remaining food, for “even amid the agonies of that bathed in a clammy vapor, and the peculiar smell period the human nature craved food.” of decayed fungus arose to my nostrils.” To test Consuming the food reawakens the narrator’s the depth, the narrator dislodges a small chunk of hope and his ability to think. In minute detail, stone from the rim of the pit and throws it in. The he considers the actions of the pendulum as it stone takes several seconds to hit the water, signal- approaches. He imagines where it will make con- ing a great depth. When the narrator hears a door tact, what it will sever, and the sensations he will overhead open and close rapidly, as if someone is experience. He also recalls that a cut at any point checking on him, he realizes that “To the victims of on the one strap that binds him would set him free. [the Inquisition’s] tyranny, there was the choice of He reaches for the meat in the dish and rubs it death with its direct physical agonies, or death with all over the strap wherever he can reach, hoping its most hideous moral horrors. I had been reserved to attract the rats to gnaw at it. The plan works for the latter.” The realization discomfits him, and only moments after the pendulum has begun to he crawls back to the wall to avoid the abyss, “the pit cut through his robe and the linen beneath. As the typical of hell, and regarded by rumor as the Ultima pendulum swings to one side, the narrator slides Thule of all their punishments.” Exhausted, the off the frame and watches with amazement as the narrator falls asleep and later awakens to find a loaf movement of the pendulum stops and it is drawn of bread and a pitcher of water, which he drains “at upward through the ceiling. He is horrified to real- a draught.” He then falls asleep again because the ize that his every movement is being watched, but water has been drugged. When he awakens once his attention is soon occupied by the glowing heat more, the room is visible because of “a wild sulphu- he sees around the perimeter of the cell and realizes rous lustre,” perhaps meant to suggest hellfire, that that the metal walls are being heated by the flames allows him to see the extent and appearance of his of a furnace. For a moment, he contemplates the prison. The metal walls surrounding him contain coolness of the pit, but he draws back from the “all the hideous and repulsive devices to which edge. The shape of the room is also changing, from the charnel superstition of the monks has given its once square form to a shape with two acute rise. The figures of fiends in aspects of menace, angles and two obtuse, “that of a lozenge.” The with skeleton forms, and other more really fearful heated walls press more closely onto the narrator, images, overspread and disfigured the walls.” forcing him closer to the pit in the center of the Now lying on his back and securely bound to a room and leading him to cry out for “Death . . . wooden frame by one long strap that covers most of any death but that of the pit!” He is pressed closer, his body and leaves only his head and left arm free until “for my seared and writhing body there was to reach a nearby plate of meat, the narrator looks no longer an inch of foot-hold on the firm floor of up and sees, 30 or 40 feet overhead, a painted pic- the prison.” As he totters on the brink, he hears “a ture of Time holding not the traditional scythe but discordant hum of human voices . . . a loud blast as

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of many trumpets . . . a harsh grating as of a thou- lies on the brink of the pit, on the very verge of the sand thunders.” An outstretched hand catches him plunge into unconsciousness, he is still unable to just before he falls into the abyss. General Lasalle disengage himself from the physical and temporal has arrived with the French army, and “the Inquisi- world. The physical oppresses him in the shape tion was in the hands of its enemies.” of lurid graveyard visions; the temporal oppresses him in the form of an enormous and deadly pendu- COMMENTARY lum” (63). The narrator is forced to adapt to what This most widely read of Poe’s tales deals with the Charles E. May calls “an alternate realm of reality” Spanish Inquisition, which was independent of (95). Readers are never informed how the narrator the medieval Inquisition and controlled entirely has gotten into his situation, and a great amount of by the Spanish kings. The Spanish Inquisition was time in the story is spent on the narrator’s attempt launched in 1478 to discover and punish converted to determine whether he is in a dream or a wak- Jews (Marranos), and later converted Muslims ing state. Rather than identifying what the narra- (Moriscos), who were not viewed as “true believers” tor has done to deserve the tortures, the author because they had not been born into the Roman “simply recounts, in excruciatingly exact detail, the Catholic faith. By 1483, 2,000 people are reputed step-by-step means by which the torturers try to to have been burned at the stake in Spain. The break the protagonist’s spirit and his own methodi- Spanish Inquisition differed from the Inquisition cal attempts to escape each new horror they put in in southern France, Italy, and Germany in severity his path” (May, 95). The story has been described and cruelty. The Spanish Inquisition investigated as a symbolic story about everyone’s worst night- crimes against morality as well as heresy, and the mare and an allegory of the most basic human situ- use of torture was common. Punishments ranged ation and dilemma (Levin, 152–154). The task of from reprimands and warnings to burning at the the narrator is to survive, to save himself even as stake. he oscillates between waking and sleeping, between The introduction of General Lasalle as the sav- orienting himself and becoming disoriented as he ior of the narrator appears to have been taken from falls into unconsciousness. He finds his senses are Thomas Dick’s account in the Philosophy of Religion heightened and possibly exaggerated into accuracy. (1825), which recounts the arrival in Toledo of the Edward Wagenknecht observes, “Abnormal sensi- French in 1808 during the Peninsular War. Dick tiveness persists in the face of imminent deadly wrote, “General Lasalle visited the palace of the peril, so that the hero of ‘The Pit and the Pendu- Inquisition. The great number of instruments of lum’ smells ‘the odor of sharp steel’ descending” torture, especially the instruments to stretch the (49). Bound and surrounded by rats, the narrator limbs, and the drop-baths, which cause a lingering finds a pendulum, “the scythe of time and thus death, excited horror, even in the minds of soldiers death over his head” (May, 97), as he continues to hardened in the fields of battle.” move in and out of consciousness. At the end, as Critics have viewed “The Pit and the Pendu- he is about to fall into the pit, the walls draw back lum” as Poe’s finest suspense story and one that and an outstretched arm pulls him back, whether provides sustained psychological horror while it from death or from a nightmare the reader is not incorporates many concepts familiar to readers of certain. Poe. Rather than using a coffin to confine his narrator, Poe has introduced the iron-walled torture ADAPTATIONS chamber, which reinforces the nightmare state of Films made of the story include such early versions the tale. Richard Wilbur observes that the angles of as the 1910 Le Puits et le pendule, directed by Henri the chamber walls grow more angular as the torture Desfontaines, and a 1913 English-language version intensifies and finds this appropriate because “the directed by the film pioneer Alice Guy Blanche. dreamer is imaginatively impotent, and can find In 1961, ROGER CORMAN directed The Pit and the no refuge from reality, even in dreams. Though he Pendulum, a commercial success that started the

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cycle of Poe films in the 1960s and starred VIN- Impia tortorum longos hic turba furores CENT PRICE, John Kerr, and Barbara Steele. The Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit. story borrowed only the setting and the devices Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro, of torture in this version that is set right after the Mor ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent. Spanish Inquisition in which the character played [Here the wicked mob, unappeased, by Price believes himself to be his late father, the Long cherished a hatred of innocent blood. most vicious torturer of the Inquisition. The plot Now that the fatherland has been saved, and acquires a new framework of a brother arriving at the cave of death demolished; a Spanish castle to investigate what he has been Where grim death has been, life and health told is the mysterious death of his sister, while appear.] the sister, still alive but devious, and her lover plot to drive the brother mad for his money. The CHARLES BAUDELAIRE wrote that the Marché St. film ends with a shot of Steele being accidentally Honoré, which was built on the site of the Old enclosed in the Iron Maiden by Price, to be locked Jacobin Club, had no gates and, of course, no in it forever. inscription. The Jacobins were a political group led The Blood Demon, a 1967 German film that is by Maximilien Robespierre (1748–94) during the loosely based on “The Pit and the Pendulum,” tells French Revolution responsible for the 1793 Reign the bloody tale of an aristocrat who is resurrected of Terror. from the dead and who seeks revenge on the two men whom he blames for his demise. He lures CHARACTERS them to his castle, where he subjects them to a LaSalle, General Leader of the French army who range of mental and physical tortures. The film rescues the narrator. was also distributed as The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism and released on video as Castle of the Walk- unnamed narrator Victim of the Spanish Inqui- ing Dead. sition who has been sentenced to torture and death. The 1991 film The Pit and the Pendulum, directed Readers are not told anything of the narrator’s for- by Stuart Gordon and starring Lance Henrik- mer life nor of the transgressions that landed him sen, Rona De Ricci, Frances Bay, Jeffrey Combs, in the hands of the Inquisitors. At the outset, the and Oliver Reed, offers a twisted love story set in narrator relates that he was “sick—sick unto death Spain in 1492 and uses a setting inspired by the with that long agony” of waiting for the Inquisi- atmosphere and torture devices of Poe’s story but tion judges to pronounce sentence. When they do, nothing of Poe’s plot. Torquemada, Spain’s grand “The sentence—the dread sentence—was the last inquisitor, has lust-filled desires for a baker’s wife of distinct accentuation which reached my ears.” accused of witchcraft, and, because he cannot give He swoons, and when he awakened unbound, on in to those desires, she and her husband must suffer his back and in the dark, he tries to use reason the consequences. to determine where he is and how soon he might expect to be put to death. He is imprisoned in an PUBLICATION HISTORY underground dungeon cell and, as his senses begin The story first appeared in the annual THE GIFT: to awaken, the absolute horror of his situation fills A CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR’S PRESENT for 1843, his mind. The narrator examines his surround- published by Carey & Hart. The story was repub- ings as well as he can, using ingenious methods to lished with only slight revision in the May 17, 1845, determine the size of his cell and to avoid the pit issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. into which he could fall to his death. When he Poe identifies the epigraph that precedes the falls into an exhausted sleep, unseen jailers leave story as a “quatrain composed for the gates of a bread and water, which he eats eagerly. He then market to be erected upon the site of the Jacobin sleeps deeply and awakens groggy, realizing that the Club House at Paris”: food had been drugged so that his jailers could bind

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him in a wooden frame. Rats slither around the Point Military Academy, Poe collected poems that narrator, and a highly sharpened pendulum swings he had published in BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, as ominously above him. The situation calls for the well as new poems written while living with MARIA narrator, to continuously devise ways in which to CLEMM, in Richmond, Virginia, and at West Point, escape the various instruments of death provided into a book that would become his third published by the Inquisitors. After escaping the abyss, he must collection. While at West Point, he submitted the avoid being cut in half by the razor sharp blade of poems to COLONEL THAYER, superintendent of the the pendulum, which he does by smearing his ropes academy, and asked him to give the cadets permis- with food to attract the rats to chew through the sion to subscribe to the publication of the poems ropes that bind him. Once freed from the threat of at 75¢ each, to be deducted from their pay. With the pendulum, he watches the walls of his cell close this permission, Poe had guaranteed sales of several in on him, forcing him closer to the edge of the pit. hundred copies, and he wrote to ELAM BLISS, the The burning hot walls nearly push him in, and he New York City publisher, telling him of the guar- gives up: “I struggled no more, but the agony of my anteed advance sales. The cadets were unaware soul found vent in one loud, long, and final scream of what the collection would contain, but they of despair.” At that moment the French army led by expected Poe would include humorous verse satiriz- General LaSalle enters, and the narrator is saved. ing officers and the academy faculty. The collection was preceded by the following: “To the U.S. Corps FURTHER READINGS of Cadets This Volume Is Respectfully Dedicated.” Clark, David L. “The Source of Poe’s ‘The Pit and Those cadets who read the work felt that Poe had The Pendulum.’ ” Modern Language Notes 44 deceived them. Much of the work was incompre- (1929): 349–356. hensible to them, and they expressed derision for Hirsch, David H. “The Pit and the Apocalypse.” it. The collection contained 11 poems: “ISRAFEL,” Sewanee Review 76 (1968): 632–652. “TO HELEN,” “THE SLEEPER,” “LENORE,” “The VAL- May, Charles E. Edgar Allan Poe: A Study of the Short LEY OF UNREST,” “ROMANCE,” “FAIRY LAND,” “A Fiction. Boston: Twayne, 1991. PAEAN,” “The DOMED CITY,” “AL AARAAF,” and Robinson, Douglas. “Trapped in the Text: ‘The Pit “TAMERLANE.” and the Pendulum.’ ” Journal of the Short Story in The collection also contained a preface enti- English 7 (1986): 63–75. tled “Letter to Mr.——— ———,” and addressed Wagenknecht, Edward. Edgar Allan Poe: The Man “Dear B———.” In the preface, Poe discusses the Behind the Legend. New York: Oxford University works of SHAKESPEARE and MILTON. He also dis- Press, 1963. cusses the lessons that he has learned by paring and Wilbur, Richard. “The House of Poe.” In Edgar Allan revising his earlier poems to those included in the Poe: Modern Critical Views, edited by Harold current edition with “the trash taken away from Bloom, 51–70. New York: Chelsea House Publish- them in which they were embedded.” ers, 1985. COMMENTARY The slender booklet of poems, bound in green cardboard, received little attention aside from a review Poems by Edgar A. Poe (1831) appearing in the May 7, 1831, issue of the NEW YORK MIRROR that said, “The poetry of this little Poetry collection published in 1831. volume has a plausible air of imagination, inconsistent with the general indefiniteness of the ideas. SYNOPSIS Everything in the language betokens poetic inspira- Poems by Edgar A. Poe was the third collection of tion, but it rather resembles the leaves of the sybil Poe’s poems to be published and his second com- when scattered by the winds.” “Letter to B———” mercial publication. While attending the West is a rambling epistolary essay that marks Poe’s early

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and expresses the strong influence of SAMUEL TAY- LOR COLERIDGE’s ideas in defining his distinctions between a poem and other works. As he would later insist in “The Poetic Principle,” poetic pleasure arises by virtue of the musical qualities inherent in the poem itself: “Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music, without the idea, is simply music; the idea, without the music, is prose from its very definitiveness.” PUBLICATION HISTORY Poems by Edgar A. Poe was published by Elam Bliss in 1831. The title of the preface was changed to “Letter to B——” and appeared in the July 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.

Politian (1835)

Unfinished drama written in 1835. SYNOPSIS The drama opens as servants in the di Broglio family discuss the debauchery of Castiglione and the recent “base seduction and abandonment” of his father’s orphaned ward Lalage, to which they attribute “his low debaucheries—his gambling habits / And all his numerous vices.” Castiglione becomes engaged to his cousin Alessandra, leading Lalage to cry and despair for her life. She gives all of her jewels to her maid Jacinta, as if she were dying. Instead, she finds strength in the appearance of Politian, the earl of Leicester, whom she seems to know from a past visit to England. Lalage catches Politian’s attention by singing a traditional ballad in English, Title page of Poems by Edgar A. Poe, published in and his reaction hints that his recent melancholy 1831 (Robert Gregor) has been, in part, due to a loss of love. When the two meet, he speaks to her of love, but Lalage reproaches him and challenges him to avenge her effort to establish himself as a critic and theorist honor by dueling with Castiglione. Despite his of American literature. Critics find the epistle sig- resolve, Politian is unable to carry out her request, nificant primarily because it contains for the first and they meet amid the ruins of the Coliseum, at time Poe’s theory of poetic criticism, as well as the which point Poe introduces his poem “The COLI- germ of the famous later lecture on “The POETIC SEUM.” As the play comes to an abrupt halt, Poli- PRINCIPLE.” Poe speaks of the difficulty of being tian seems determined to try to carry out, once taken seriously experienced by American writers again, the attempt to duel as he leaves Lalage.

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COMMENTARY him from Great Britain to Rome. Baldazzar not only Written in blank verse and set in 16th-century rouses the earl from his deep melancholy but also Rome, the play is based on the Beauchamp-Sharp sternly reminds him of his responsibility to exhibit a murder case, a celebrated crime of passion, also pleasant demeanor as a guest and visitor. Although known as “The Kentucky Tragedy,” that occurred he disagrees with the reason, Baldazzar also acts as in 1825. The case involved Ann Cook of Frank- a go-between when Politian challenges the host’s fort, Kentucky, who was seduced by Solomon P. son Castiglione to a duel after falling in love with Sharp, the state solicitor general. Cook gave birth the younger man’s betrothed. to Sharp’s child, then agreed to marry Jeroboam O. Beauchamp in 1824 on the condition that he Broglio, Duc Di The patriarch of an old and promise to kill Sharp. Beauchamp kept his prom- distinguished family in 16th-century Rome, he is ise and stabbed Sharp to death on November the uncle of Alessandra, who is betrothed to his 5, 1825. Beauchamp was arrested and subjected son, Castiglione. He is eager to gain favor with the to a long and sensational trial, during which he earl of Leicester, who is visiting from England; he pleaded not guilty. After the judge convicted is unaware that the earl had met his ward, Lalage, Beauchamp for murder and ordered his execu- earlier and has fallen in love with her. Although tion, Ann Cook joined him in his cell on the he assumes that he knows and controls every- eve of his execution. The two attempted suicide. thing that occurs in his palazzo, he is ignorant of Ann Cook died of a laudanum overdose and stab his son’s recent erratic behavior and unrestrained wounds, while Beauchamp survived to be hanged drinking. on July 7, 1826. Poe was not the only author inspired by the real-life tragedy. The authors Castiglione The heir and cowardly son of the WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS and THOMAS HOLLEY duc di Broglio, who seems ignorant of Castiglione’s CHIVERS incorporated details of the tragedy into drinking and carousing. In a short time, his charac- their respective novels, Beauchampe (1842) and ter appears to deteriorate from being “A very noble- Conrad and Eudora (1834). man in heart and deed” to being a habitual drunk The hero of the play is named after a 15th- whom the family servants must pull “from under century poet, humanist, scholar, and teacher of the table where he lay / And tumbled him into the Italian Renaissance whose many works include bed.” His “low debaucheries—his gambling habits / Latin poems, Miscellanea, and Orfeo, a lyrical And all his numerous vices” seem to date from the drama with musical accompaniment. After reading time that he seduced his father’s orphaned ward, the play, JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY suggested to Lady Lalage, and the servants surmise that “the sin Poe that he return to writing poetry and tales. sits heavy on his soul.”

PUBLICATION HISTORY Jacinta A servant maid to Lalage, ward of the Excerpts from the play appeared in the December duc di Broglio. At the outset of the play, she 1835 and January 1836 issues of the SOUTHERN LIT- demands that the other servants call her “Madame ERARY MESSENGER, in celebration of Poe’s appoint- Jacinta if you please” and proclaims herself “the ment as editor. Poe also included the play in The richest waiting maid in Rome / The richest vint- RAVEN AND OTHER POEMS, published in 1845. ner’s daughter owning these jewels!” She wears a variety of jewels, including pearls, rubies, emer- CHARACTERS alds, and a topaz, as well as the distinctive cross Alessandra The niece of duc di Broglio and of rubies that once belonged to Lalage and a ring betrothed to his son, Pastiglione. that the count Castiglione gave to Lalage “as a token of his love / Last year.” When Ugo, another Baldazzar, Duke of Surrey A close friend and servant, leers at her and suggests that she has attendant of the earl of Leicester who travels with received the jewels from his master the count,

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she sets him right and tells him that Lalage gave off the jewels that she has received from Lalage, her the jewels “as a free gift, and for a marriage he hints that she has earned them in an immoral present / All of her jewels!—every one of them!” manner. When certain that Lalage has given her all the jewels available, Jacinta turns sullen and insulting FURTHER READINGS to her mistress, then leaves her to serve Ales- Goldhurst, William. “The New Revenge Tragedy: sandra, “a change for the better.” Believing that Treatments of the Beauchamp Case.” Southern Lit- Lalage has been dishonored, Jacinta dresses up erary Journal 22 (1989): 117–127. in the jewels she has been given and parades in Jillson, Willard Rouse. “The Beauchamp-Sharp Trag- front of the other servants while condemning her edy in American Literature.” Kentucky State His- former mistress as having “nothing of the lady torical Society Register 36 (January 1938): 54–60. about her—not a tittle! One would have thought Kimball, William J. “Poe’s Politian and the Beauchamp- / She was a peasant girl, she was so humble.” In Sharp Tragedy.” Poe Studies 4, no. 2 (1971): 25–27. contrast, she idolizes her new mistress for being “so loud, so lady-like, and so commanding!”

Lalage The last surviving member of an illus- “Power of Words, The” trious family and the ward of the duc di Broglio. Count Castiglione, the duke’s son, has seduced (1845) Lalage and abandoned her to marry another woman. Although the duke forgives his son for Short story written in 1845. the indiscretion, he “is most wroth with her / And SYNOPSIS treats her with such marked severity / As hum- bles her to the dust.” She must now watch while The story is structured as a dialogue about the cre- Castiglione marries his cousin Alessandra, once ative propensities of divine intelligence in which “the bosom friend of the fair lady Lalage / Ere Oinos, newly arrived from Earth, questions Aga- this mischance.” Late in the play, she learns that thos about the nature of creative power and the she is loved by Politian, an English nobleman who role of God in creation. Their dialogue takes place saw her sometime before and fell in love with her. as the two “swoop outward from the throne into When he learns of what Castiglione has done to the starry meadows beyond Orion, where, for pan- her, he vows revenge. sies and violets, and heart’s-ease, are the beds of the triplicate and triple-tinted suns.” Oinos begs Monk Lady Lalage’s religious adviser, he urges Agathos to speak “in the earth’s familiar tones,” as her to “Give up thy soul to penitence, and pray!” he explains the method of creation and the star- When she asks for a crucifix, he offers his own, tling revelation that “the Deity does not create.” then shrinks back in horror as she holds a dagger Agathos relates the example of how the movement high and calls it her crucifix. He begs her to “tempt of a hand sets off vibrations to the air surrounding. not the wrath divine!” These vibrations, in turn, give “impulse to every particle of the earth’s air, which thenceforward, Politian Actually the earl of Leicester, he has and for ever, was actuated by the one movement come to Rome from England to avenge the lost of the hand.” These impulses must then have an honor of Lalage, who has been seduced and aban- effect on “every individual thing that exists within doned by Castiglione, the son of her guardian, the the universe.” Questioned by Oinos if impulses or duc di Broglio. motion, then, are the source of all creation, Aga- thos gives a qualified positive response and states Ugo He is a servant in the household of the duc that the source of all motion (impulse) is thought di Broglio. When Jacinta, a lady’s maid, shows as he teaches Oinos “the physical power of words.”

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 147 10/12/07 12:02:14 PM 148 “Predicament, A” Agathos offers a syllogism to explain creation and “Predicament, A” (1838) concludes that if motion is the source of creation and thought is the source of motion, then Short story written in 1838. thought is the source of creation. As the story ends, Agathos and Oinos hover over a “fair star,” SYNOPSIS the greenest they have seen, which is filled with “A Predicament” is preceded by an epigraph taken brilliant flowers and “fierce volcanoes like the from JOHN MILTON’s masque Comus, whose theme passions of a turbulent heart.” Agathos reveals is the struggle between chaste temperance and that he is the creator of “this wild star—it is now sensual pleasure. The line selected is spoken by three centuries since with clasped hands, and Comus, the Roman god of sensual pleasure, to a with streaming eyes, at the feet of my beloved—I young woman left in the woods by her brothers, spoke it—with a few passionate sentences—into who go to find food for her: “What chance, good birth.” This tale is another of Poe’s metaphysi- lady, hath bereft you thus?” The first title of the cal speculations, similar to “The COLLOQUY OF story is highly appropriate, for the “huge, glittering, MONOS AND UNA” and “The CONVERSATION OF scimitar-like minute-hand” of a clock serves as a EIROS AND CHARMION.” scimitar that beheads the narrator, Signora Psyche PUBLICATION HISTORY Zenobia. The story first appeared in the June 1845 issue of The story opens as Zenobia walks through the the Democratic Review. It was reprinted in the Octo- city of Edina with her two faithful companions, her poodle Diana and her servant Pompey. Zenobia ber 25, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. views “a Gothic cathedral—vast, venerable, and CHARACTERS with a tall steeple” containing a huge clockface, Agathos Dead for 300 years, he is one of two and she feels an intense desire to climb into the “angelic intelligences” engaged in a dialogue in the peak of the steeple. As she makes her ascent, she story and speaks lyrically of the divine power of ponders in grand philosophical terms the mean- words. In contrast to his counterpart, Oinos, who ing of life and that “upon one such little step in is “a spirit new-fledged with immortality,” Agathos the great staircase of human life how vast a sum of has learned through experience that “happiness human happiness or misery depends!” Once at the lies in the acquisition of knowledge.” He also pro- top, accompanied by Diana and Pompey, the signo- claims “the physical power of words” and instructs ra’s curiosity takes over, and she “looked about the his companion that every word is “an impulse on room for an aperture through which to survey the the air.” city.” Finding one, she commands Pompey to lift her onto his shoulders, so that she can thrust her Oinos He is “a spirit new-fledged with immortal- head through the opening in the dial-plate. For ity” who recently arrived from Earth. He turns to more than a half hour she enjoys the view, despite Agathos and asks to be instructed in “the modes the suffering and complaints of Pompey, whom she or the methods of what, during mortality, we were bullies into silence. Losing track of time, Zeno- accustomed to call Creation.” Agathos teaches him bia is surprised to feel that the exceedingly sharp “the physical power of words.” Oinos also appears in minute hand is touching her neck, pressing harder “SHADOW—A PARABLE.” and harder into the skin. There follows a slow and methodical description of her gradual decapitation, FURTHER READINGS as the minute hand first buries itself two inches into Michael, John. “Narration and Reflection: The Search her neck, then four-and-a-half inches. “At twenty- for Grounds in Poe’s ‘The Power of Words’ and five minutes past five in the afternoon, precisely,” ‘The Domain of Arnheim.’ ” Arizona Quarterly 45 the minute hand completely severs Zenobia’s head (1989): 1–22. from her body, but the head and body both remain

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alive and aware of each other. “Shortly afterward, “The Scythe of Time” in the November 1838 issue it [the head] made me a speech, which I could hear of the Baltimore American Museum. The stories but indistinctly without ears.” were presented separately and titled “How to Write Zenobia is “attended at a respectful distance” by a Blackwood Article” and “A Predicament” when Diana as they walk through the city that Poe now they were published in Poe’s short story collection calls Edina. Readers learn that Diana is a poodle TALES OF THE GROTESQUE AND ARABESQUE in 1840. with “a quantity of hair over one eye, and a blue riband tied fashionably around her neck.” She is CHARACTERS not more than five inches tall with a head that Morphine, Dr. Original name of Dr. Ollapod. appears to be somewhat bigger than her body, “and her tail being cut off exceedingly close, gave an Ollapod, Dr. The ticking of a huge clock puts air of injured innocence to the interesting animal the narrator “in mind of the grateful sermonic which rendered her a favorite to all.” So obedient harangues of Dr. Ollapod.” The name appears is the dog to her master that she continues to sit to derive from a character in the farce The Poor in the corner as ordered even when attacked by a Gentleman by George Colman (1762–1836). In the rat that picks her bones clean, leaving the trapped play, he looks for wit in the conversations of others Zenobia to see only “the departed spirit, the shade, and tries himself to speak in a witty manner. the ghost of my beloved puppy, which I perceive sitting with a grace so melancholy in the corner.” Pompey Signora Psyche refers to him as “my In grief, Zenobia hears the dog speak, “and heav- negro!—sweet Pompey!” He is approximately three ens! is in the German of Schiller: Unt stubby duk, feet tall, about 70 or 80 years old, and corpulent so stubby dun / Duk she! duk she!” (And if I died with bow legs. “Nature had endowed him with no at least I died / For thee—for thee.) The poodle has neck, and had placed his ankles (as usual with that sacrificed itself for Zenobia. Pompey deserts her, race) in the middle of the upper portion of the while only the bones of Diana remain in a corner feet.” He wears a “nearly-new drab overcoat” that after a rat has attacked her. Thus, the headless was owned formerly by “the tall, stately, and illus- Zenobia laments, “Dogless, niggerless, headless, trious Dr. Moneypenny.” Although he serves the what now remains for the unhappy Signora Psyche signora faithfully, she tears out “a vast quantity Zenobia? Alas—nothing! I have done.” of the black, and crisp, and curling material [his hair]” after he accidentally trips her, but they make COMMENTARY up. Later, he holds her upon his shoulders as she Although treated as two separate stories, “A Pre- looks through the keyhole of a giant clock but des- dicament” and “HOW TO WRITE A BLACKWOOD erts the signora in terror when the clock’s minute ARTICLE” were originally published together, with hand beheads her. “A Predicament” originally titled “The Scythe of Time” and offered as an example of a Blackwood Zenobia, Signora Psyche The corresponding article produced by following the directions in the secretary to the society named “Philadelphia, Reg- companion piece. The combined works contain ular, Exchange, Tea, Total, Young Belles, Lettres, Poe’s only use of a female narrator. As a parody Universal, Experimental, Bibliographical, Associa- of the typical Blackwood tale, the story uses psy- tion, To, Civilize, Humanity,” otherwise known as chological mannerisms to elaborate a great show P.R.E.T.T.Y.B.L.U.E.B.A.T.C.H. Zenobia takes of learning, and it is centered on a protagonist iso- advice given by William Blackwood in “How to lated by a bizarre turn of events. Write a Blackwood Article” seriously, and her successful effort to get into difficulty is recounted in this PUBLICATION HISTORY story in which she is beheaded by “the huge, glitter- The story was first published with “How to Write a ing, scimitar-like minute-hand” of a clock mounted Blackwood Article” and published under the title on the tower of a Gothic cathedral in Edinburgh.

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Diana A poodle lapdog owned by Signora Psyche that she revives fully. After he nurses her back to Zenobia in the satiric “How to Write a Black- health, she leaves with him for America, where the wood Article” and “A Predicament: The Scythe two remain for 20 years. When they later return, of Time.” Victorine’s husband recognizes her and asserts his claim, but “a judicial tribunal sustained her in her FURTHER READINGS resistance.” Baym, Nina. “Emerson’s Transcendental Etudes / The Because the catalepsy seizures render the narrator After Life of Edgar Allan Poe.” American Literature “senseless and externally motionless . . . while the 77, no. 2 (June 2005): 414. closest scrutiny, and the most rigorous medical tests, Pollin, Burton R. “Poe’s Dr. Ollapod.” American Lit- fail to establish any material distinction between the erature 42 (1970): 80–82. state of the sufferer and what we conceive of absolute McNeal, Thomas. “Poe’s Zenobia: An Early Satire on death,” he has taken every precaution to avoid being Margaret Fuller.” Modern Language Quarterly 9 buried alive. He has horrifying fantasies in which (1950): 215–226. he imagines entombment, and he talks “of worms, of tombs, and epitaphs.” In his obsession, the narrator makes modifications to the family vault, making arrangements for “the free admission of air and “Premature Burial, light, and convenient receptacles for food and water, within immediate reach of the coffin.” He relates The” (1844) having one seizure while on a gunning expedition aboard a small sloop traveling on the James River in Short story written in 1844. Virginia. He awakens in a very narrow lower berth, and he imagines that the bottom of the berth above SYNOPSIS him is the lid of a coffin. He believes that strang- “The Premature Burial” is recounted by an unnamed ers “had buried me as a dog—nailed up in some narrator who for several years has “been subject to common coffin—and thrust deep, deep, and forever, attacks of the singular disorder which physicians into some ordinary and nameless grave.” After he is have agreed to term catalepsy.” The story opens awakened by the crew of the sloop, he becomes “a with several accounts of people buried alive and new man, and lived a man’s life.” He changes his then rescued from their premature graves. Among attitude and dismisses “forever my charnel appre- these accounts is that of Mademoiselle Victorine hensions, and with them vanished the cataleptic Lafourcade. A beautiful young girl of a wealthy and disorder of which, perhaps, they had been less the illustrious family, she was said to have fallen in love consequence than the cause.” with Julien Bossuet, a young Parisian journalist, but pride made her reject him and marry, instead, COMMENTARY Monsieur Renelle, “a banker and diplomatist of “The Premature Burial” begins as an essay, similar some eminence.” After several “wretched years” of in structure to “The IMP OF THE PERVERSE,” but marriage, during which her husband was rumored the story recounts only the narrator’s delusions. to have neglected and, “perhaps, more positively Poe plays upon the public preoccupation in his ill-treated her,” she dies, or “at least her condition time with the fear of being buried alive, a fear that so closely resembled death as to deceive every one was fed by published reports of hungry cadavers who saw her.” When Bossuet hears of her death, and cries heard coming from graves. Nonfiction he frantically seeks her grave with the goal “of dis- accounts tell of people leaving instructions to delay interring the corpse, and possessing himself of its their burials and to test their corpses by inflicting luxuriant tresses.” As her coffin opens, Victorine pain on their feet in the effort to provoke a reac- slowly opens her eyes to reveal that she was buried tion. Among ingenious precautions invented in the alive. It is only through Bossuet’s frantic efforts 19th century to avoid accidental live burial were

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attaching bells to corpses, installing speaking tubes starred Ray Milland, Hazel Court, Richard Ney, and air tubes in coffins, and providing a flag a vic- Heather Angel, Alan Napier, and John Dierkes. tim could wave in distress. This adaptation casts Milland as a medical student The narrator appears to be an objective chroni- who has a terrifying phobia of being accidentally cler of accounts of premature burial at the outset entombed. Corman’s adaptation includes elements of the story, but his personal interest in the subject of Poe’s short story “BERENICE.” becomes apparent in the last half. He claims that some themes are too horrible for fiction and states PUBLICATION HISTORY that such themes can be presented with propriety The story first appeared in the July 31, 1844, issue only if “severity and majesty of truth sanctify and of the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper. sustain them.” Although he points to earthquakes, plagues, and massacres as horrors that excite read- CHARACTERS ers, the narrator states that the ultimate horror is Lafourcade, Mademoiselle Victorine The sub- specific: “the ghastly extremes of agony are endured ject of one of the case studies of premature inter- by man the unit, and never by man the mass.” The ment created by Poe for this story. story is one of Poe’s hoax stories, because despite the lengthy discussion of case studies in which peo- Renelle, Monsieur He is “a banker and a diplo- ple have experienced premature burials, the narra- matist of some eminence.” After marrying the lovely tor only dreams that this has happened to him. Madame Lafourcade, he neglected and “even more The narrator is obsessed with the possibility that positively ill-treated her.” his catalyptic condition will result in his premature burial and admits that he is preoccupied with what Stapleton, Edward His experience in being bur- he calls this “one spectral and ever-prevalent Idea.” ied alive is one of the case studies presented at the To prevent this from happening, he turns the tomb beginning of the story. and coffin into places that will sustain life rather than places of death by stocking the family vault unnamed narrator A man prone to cataleptic with food and water, padding his coffin, and install- seizures who is obsessed with the fear of being bur- ing a bell in it. Charles May writes, “The narrator’s ied alive. He expresses this obsession in the first obsessive belief that he will be buried alive is like a half of the story in his detailed presentation of case fiction he creates; a psychological obsession is like studies of people who have experienced premature the short story in that the obsessed character cre- burials, then relates his own nightmares on the ates a story about his experience that is completely coherent, even though it may have no correspon- subject. His account of having been interred, of dence with the external reality” (72). While the nar- feeling the wood surrounding him and having the rator presents two kinds of accounts of premature sensation of being smothered, is revealed to be a burial, true-life histories and his own nightmares nightmare that he has while sleeping in a closed about the possibility, the experience he provides in berth on a boat. When he returns home after the the story is neither. Instead, he relates an actual experience, he feels free of the obsession and vows event that simulates premature burial and makes it to refrain from speaking, talking, and reading about appear that the narrator’s obsession has come true. the phenomenon: “I read no ‘Night Thought’—no “But what he discovers is that what seemed so ‘real’ fustian about churchyards—no bugaboo tales such (fulfillment of his obsession) was indeed merely real as this.” (a similitude of his obsession)” (May 72). FURTHER READINGS ADAPTATIONS Kennedy, J. Gerald. “Poe and Magazine Writing on The story was made into a film in 1962. The Pre- Premature Burial.” Studies in the American Renais- mature Burial was directed by ROGER CORMAN and sance (1977): 165–178.

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May, Charles E. Edgar Allan Poe: A Study of the Short Minister D———, “who dares all things, those Fiction. Boston: Twayne, 1991. unbecoming as well as those becoming a man,” has stolen an incriminating letter from the royal apartments. He has taken the letter in full sight of the female personage, who could not protest because Prose Romances “the other exalted personage from whom it was her wish to conceal it” had also entered the room. of Edgar A. Poe, The (1843) Dupin is even more intrigued by the case because he has had a previous encounter with Minister Collection of Poe’s short stories that was published D———, who “at Vienna once, did me an evil by William H. Graham in 1843. Designed as a turn, which I told him, quite good-humoredly, that cheap edition for the popular market, the collec- I should remember.” The prefect tells Dupin that tion was to be part of a series that would be com- the police have thoroughly searched the premises pleted by further numbers, although only one issue where the minister lives, but they have found noth- appeared. Priced at 12 and a half cents, the edition ing. They have looked into chair legs, on walls, in included “The MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE” and books, and in all other possible hiding places. After “The MAN THAT WAS USED UP.” Although two the prefect tells the story, Dupin’s advice is that bookstores in Philadelphia sold the work, it had lit- the police should return to the minister’s home tle success and was soon allowed to go out of print. and “make a thorough re-search of the premises.” Before leaving, the prefect provides Dupin with a thorough description of the letter. A month later, the prefect again visits Dupin, “Purloined Letter, The” (1844) but he has had no further success. He is especially despondent because the reward, the size of which Short story written in 1844. he refuses to identify, has lately doubled. When he tells Dupin that he would gladly pay 50,000 francs SYNOPSIS to anyone who would aid him in the matter, Dupin “The Purloined Letter” is a tale of revenge as tells him “you may as well fill me up a check for the much as it is a tale that reminds readers of the amount mentioned. When you have signed it, I will highly refined inductive powers of the detective hand you the letter.” The prefect grabs the letter C. Auguste Dupin. An epigraph attributed to the and rushes out, as Dupin explains to the narrator Roman playwright Seneca precedes the story: Nil that he visited Minister D———’s and observed sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio (“Nothing is more the letter arranged in an open rack, but “inside out, disagreeable to wisdom than too much cunning”). re-directed, and resealed.” He replaced the letter Critics have not found a source in Seneca’s writing with his own that contains a few lines guaranteed for the quotation. to reveal him to the minister. Rather than solving The story opens with the unnamed narrator the mystery by searching for the letter, as the police and Dupin sitting in “profound silence” in Dupin’s have done, Dupin uses his intellect and enters the “little back library,” as the narrator is “mentally mind of the criminal to determine where the crimi- discussing certain topics which had formed matter nal would hide the letter. for conversation between us at an earlier period of the evening.” He refers to their earlier cases COMMENTARY that are documented in “The MURDERS IN THE RUE The story is the third and most tightly constructed MORGUE” and “The MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGÊT.” of Poe’s tales of ratiocination. In May 1844, Poe Their reverie is disturbed by the arrival of the pre- made a list for JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL of works that fect of police, Monsieur G———, who has come to he believed to be his best compositions. He stated, consult Dupin for advice about a puzzling case. The “The Purloined Letter . . . is perhaps the best of my

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tales of ratiocination” and informed Lowell that explains to the narrator, some items can “escape it was yet unpublished but in the hands of an edi- observation by dint of being excessively obvious.” tor. As in the two earlier tales featuring Dupin as Poe refutes the value of the prefect’s scrupu- the central character, “The Purloined Letter” uses lously scientific methods of investigation of the deductive reasoning rather than horror as the nar- minister’s home, in which “we divided its entire rative tool. In examining the situation of a letter surface into compartments, which we numbered, stolen from the queen, one which she has sought to so that none might be missed” and used a “power- hide from the king, Poe examines themes of logic, ful microscope” on such items as chairs and tables, politics, and the science of investigation. The tale in an attempt to find any hidden compartments. is not one of strict detection because the identity “There is a certain amount of bulk—of space—to of the criminal is known, for he stole the letter be accounted for in every cabinet. Then we have in plain sight of the queen; second, the letter is a accurate rules. The fiftieth part of a line could not threat to the lady from whom he stole it only so escape us.” Thus, by comparing an object’s exte- long as he does nothing with it. What does amaze rior dimensions to the actual interior space that the reader, however, is that the Paris police can- can be seen, the prefect and the police are able not find the letter, even though they use the most to determine whether there is any extra space—a sophisticated and exhaustive methods of searching hidden compartment in any of the cabinets in the for it, because it is in plain sight. This is, instead, a apartment. By paying such close attention to min- story about political intrigue and manipulation. ute details, they lose sight of the larger picture and As Peter A. Mauckley points out, Dupin’s mys- miss the obvious. Poe uses foreshadowing to sug- terious nature, his civilian position, and his deduc- gest the solution twice before his detective solves tive reasoning have become the standard elements the case, but neither the narrator nor the prefect of later detectives found in both literature and film. respond to the hint. At the beginning, after briefly Using the same facts possessed by the police, he describing the mystery, the prefect tells Dupin that applies abstract logic to examine all facets of the “we have all been a good deal puzzled because the case as a whole and, thus, arrives at a solution. As affair is so simple, and yet baffles us altogether.” he tells the narrator, “I dispute the availability, and Dupin responds that “perhaps the mystery is a little thus the value, of that reason which is cultivated in too plain, a little too self-evident,” an idea that any especial form other than the abstractly logical.” makes the prefect laugh. Later, at the end of their Poe explores this use of logic, and Dupin’s reason- first visit, Dupin offers another clue as to the out- ing is based on three factors: what he knows of come of the mystery, when he has heard all of the the prefect’s behavior and thought processes, what methods the police have used. In response to the he knows of the minister’s behavior and thought prefect’s request for advice, Dupin states, “make processes, and what he knows of human nature in a thorough re-search of the premises,” the obvious general. As Dupin states to the narrator, the pre- and open areas rather than only the hiding spots in fect follows “principles of search, which are based the minister’s home. upon the one set of notions regarding human inge- The story also exhibits Poe’s fascination with nuity” to which the prefect was accustomed. Dupin what some critics have called the bi-part soul, notes that the prefect has “taken it for granted that which is half imagination and half reason. Roger all men proceed to conceal a letter. . . . in some Asselineau writes, “His works reflect this double out-of-the-way hole.” He also realizes that, being aspect of his personality: the abandonment of the very clever, the minister is aware that the police self-destructive romantic artist and the self-con- have secretly searched his home and that the police trol of the conscious and conscientious craftsman.” would rely on tried-and-true search methods, so Kenneth Graham notes in the “Introduction” he deduces that the minister “would be driven, as to Selected Tales that Dupin “is the most famous a matter of course, to simplicity, if not deliberately instance of the fusion of the faculties, in his ‘bi- induced to it as a matter of choice.” As Dupin part soul’.” The idea of the bi-part soul is especially

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prevalent in “The Purloined Letter,” where Poe sonality, his use of clues, his employment of postu- uses both characterization and dialogue to empha- lation, and his use of logic in revealing the criminal size and demonstrate the possibilities of this dual- are traits that later writers incorporated into their ity. Dupin and the minister embody the author’s fictional detectives, especially SIR ARTHUR CONAN idea of the “bi-part soul,” and they are the political DOYLE in his creation of Sherlock Holmes. Despite power brokers in the story, engaged in an intel- Dupin’s peculiar and solitary personality, his con- lectual war, employing both their analytical and sciousness allows him to understand the mundane creative powers against their opponent. In con- and the practical to crack cases that baffle every- trast, the prefect relies on logic alone and assumes one else, including the police. His sharpest mental that the letter can be found by logical methods. weapon is “ratiocination,” a higher form of reason- As Dupin points out, “He never once thought it ing that permits Dupin to detect what others have probable, or possible, that the minister had depos- overlooked or dismissed as unimportant. Dupin’s ited the letter immediately beneath the nose of remarkable powers of deduction and his idiosyn- the whole world.” The letter becomes invisible to crasies, as well as the dual national association of the prefect and his police force because they can- a French detective created by an American writer, not understand why someone would want to hide led to a range of successors both in the United something in plain view. States and abroad. Doyle used Poe’s technique of narrating his detective’s exploits through the view- ADAPTATIONS point of a less-talented, often bumbling companion. The story was very popular in France. Dramatist He also gave Holmes not only intellectual capabili- Victorien Sardou (1831–1908) wrote a play based ties similar to those of Dupin, but bizarre habits as on the story that was performed with great success well. Critics have also suggested that Agatha Chris- onstage at the Gymnase. tie had Poe’s Dupin in mind in creating her Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, who insists that his pow- PUBLICATION HISTORY ers of detection reside in his use of “the little gray The story first appeared in The GIFT: A CHRISTMAS cells” and whose idiosyncrasies are abundant. AND NEW YEAR’S PRESENT for 1844. It was reprinted In “The Purloined Letter,” Dupin projects his in the 1845 collection TALES BY EDGAR A. POE. intellect into the mind of the suspected letter thief to find and retrieve the letter. He relates to Minis- CHARACTERS ter D———, whom the prefect of police considers D———, Minister He steals a letter from “the a fool, “because he has renown as a poet”—Dupin, royal apartments” with the intent of blackmailing too, has been “guilty of certain doggerel.” Dupin “a personage of most exalted station” in the hope argues that the prefect of police, who is only a of political gain. Described as a man “who dares all “functionary,” fails to find the letter because his things, those unbecoming as well as those becom- method of scientific rationalism is too limiting. ing a man,” he acquires the incriminating letter by Instead, Dupin joins reason to the imagination of a exchanging it for a worthless one of his own. To poet in order to solve the crime. fool the police, who are thorough in their search of his premises and person, he places the letter in an G———, Monsieur The prefect of Parisian obvious place in plain sight, knowing that it will be police who seeks the assistance of C. Auguste Dupin overlooked during a search. in solving crimes that baffle official law enforcement. Poe may have selected a name beginning Dupin, C. Auguste Amateur detective, who with G because Henri-Joseph Gisquet was prefect resides at no. 33 Rue Dunot, Faubourg St. Ger- of the Paris police from 1831 to 1836, immediately main, and uses his unofficial status and his superior preceding the publication in 1841 of the first of the mental powers to identify with the criminal mind stories, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” The and to help the police in solving crimes. His per- prefect grudgingly approaches Dupin “to consult

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us, or rather to ask the opinion of my friend, about New York and the South, edited by Joel Myerson, some official business which had occasioned a great 249–297 (New York: Gale Research, 1979). deal of trouble,” and often reacts in an ungracious Thompson, Kenneth. “Victorian Detective Fiction manner after Dupin solves the crime. In “The Mur- and the Nature of Evidence: The Scientific Inves- ders in the Rue Morgue,” he “could not altogether tigations of Poe, Dickens, and Doyle.” Victorian conceal his chagrin . . . and was fain to indulge in Studies 47, no. 4 (Summer 2005): 613. a sarcasm or two, about the propriety of every per- Whalen, Terence. “Poe and the American Publish- son minding his own business.” In “The Mystery of ing Industry.” In A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Marie Rogêt,” Dupin makes an agreement with the Poe, edited by J. Gerald Kennedy, 87. (New York: prefect and states to his unnamed assistant that he Oxford University Press, 2001). “knows this gentleman well. It will not do to trust him too far.” When Monsieur G——— reappears in “The Purloined Letter,” Dupin’s assistant says they “gave him a hearty welcome, for there was nearly “Raven, The” (1844) half as much of the entertaining as of the contemptible about him.” Despite the irritating behavior of Poem written in 1844. the prefect, Dupin remains mildly amused by the man’s intellectual obtuseness, noting at the end of SYNOPSIS “The Purloined Letter”: “I like him especially for “The Raven” tells a story of a grieving lover visited one master stroke of cant, by which he has attained “upon a midnight dreary” by the ill-omened raven, his reputation for ingenuity. I mean the way he has which the lover in his solitude labels “Prophet! . . . ‘de nier ce qui est, et d’expliquer ce qui n’est pas’ (of thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!” The denying what is, and explaining what isn’t).” FURTHER READINGS Asselineau, Roger. “Edgar Allan Poe.” In American Writers, vol. 3. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974, 409–432. Blythe, Hal, and Charlie Sweet. “The Reader as Poe’s Ultimate Dupe in ‘The Purloined Letter.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction 26 (1989): 311–315. Graham, Kenneth. “Introduction.” Selected Tales. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967, vii–xxii. Grimstad, Paul C. “Algorithm—Genre—Linguistic: ‘Creative Distortion’ in Count Zero and Nova Express.” Journal of Modern Literature 27, no. 4 (Summer 2004): 82–92. Morrison, Robert. “Poe’s De Quincey, Poe’s Dupin.” Essays in Criticism 51, no. 4 (October 2001): 424. Muckley, Peter A. “The Radicalness of These Differ- ences: Reading ‘The Purloined Letter.’ ” University of Mississippi Studies in English 8 (1990): 227–242. Stockholder, Kay. “Is Anybody at Home in the Text? Psychoanalysis and the Question of Poe.” American Sir John Tenniel, the original illustrator of Lewis Imago 57, no. 3 (Fall 2000): 299. Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, made this Thompson, G. R., “Edgar Allan Poe.” In Dictionary engraving of “The Raven” in the Poetical Works of of Literary Biography, vol. 3, Antebellum Writers in Edgar Allan Poe (1858).

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emotional nature of the exchange between the raven and the melancholy speaker develops and changes in the course of the poem, as the speaker is, at first, seemingly amused by the raven’s precoc- ity, then angered, and finally driven to despair. While the reader might be drawn by the seeming evil qualities of the bird and its remarkable propensity for appropriately responding “Nevermore” to the speaker’s queries, Poe’s description of the dramatic action of the poem, revealed in “THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION,” is simple: “A raven, having learned by rote the single word ‘Never- more,’ and having escaped from the custody of its owner, is driven at midnight, through the violence of a storm, to seek admission at a window from which a light still gleams—the chamber-window of a student, occupied half in poring over a volume, half in dreaming of a beloved mistress deceased.” The narrator’s grief is in his “sorrow for the lost Lenore” as he glorifies her “whom the angels name Lenore.” As the torment of the speaker in the poem increases, he asks for “respite and nepen- the from thy memories of Lenore” and asks to “forget this lost Lenore.” Her status as “a sainted Illustration for Poe’s “The Raven” by Edouard Manet maiden” and “a rare and radiant maiden” remains (Courtesy of Library of Congress) intact throughout the poem, and near the end of the poem the speaker states twice that she is the solely creative—artist. He claimed to have pondered maiden “whom the angels name Lenore.” the poem for years and so was able to write the Some critics have taken Lenore to represent the final draft late in 1844 in one sitting. In “The Phi- loss of the love of Poe’s young life—SARAH ELMIRA losophy of Composition,” Poe writes, “I pretend to ROYSTER—to marriage, not death. Others have no originality in either the rhythm or metre of the interpreted the name as a symbol of the creative ‘Raven.’ . . . [T]he latter is octameter acatalectic impulse that is rare, precious, and too easily lost. alternating with heptameter catalectic and terminat- ing with tetrameter catalectic.” The metrical form of COMMENTARY the lines was modified from that used by ELIZABETH “The Raven” is Poe’s most famous poem. The poem BARRETT (later Browning) in her poem “Lady Geral- made Poe a celebrity during his first nine months dine’s Courtship,” but Poe asserted “what originality living in New York City. To take advantage of the the ‘Raven’ has, is in their [the lines’] combination poem’s recognition and his own newfound fame, into stanza; nothing even remotely approaching this Poe also published The RAVEN AND OTHER POEMS combination has ever been attempted.” Barrett may in 1845. Poe enhanced his fame and aroused discus- have recognized his borrowing, but she was not at sion of the poem by publishing “The PHILOSOPHY first enamored of the poem. She wrote in a letter OF COMPOSITION” in 1846, in which he purports to to the English poet RICHARD HENRY HORNE, dated give an account of how he wrote the poem, from the April 1845, that she found “The Raven” unsettling: selection of his theme to the choice of meter and “There is certainly a power—but [‘The Raven’] does refrain, thus giving further weight to those critics not appear to me the natural expression of a sane who have viewed Poe as a conscious—rather than intellect in whatever mood.”

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Many critics, the earliest being JAMES RUSSELL We are permitted to copy (in advance of pub- LOWELL in A Fable for Critics, have traced Poe’s plot lication) from the 2d No. of the American of introducing a raven into the life of a nameless Review, the following remarkable poem by narrator to a novel written by CHARLES DICKENS. In Edgar Poe. In our opinion, it is the most effec- 1841, Poe reviewed Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge and tive single example of ‘fugitive poetry’ ever wrote in his review about the raven that follows published in this country; and unsurpassed in Barnaby Rudge even to prison: English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification, and consistent, sus- The raven, too, intensely amusing as it is, might taining of imaginative lift and ‘pokerishness.’ It have been made, more than we now see it, a is one of these ‘dainties bred in a book’ which portion of the conception of the fantastic Barn- we feed on. It will stick to the memory of every- aby. Its croakings might have been prophetically body who reads it. heard in the course of the drama. Its character might have performed, in regard to that of the The poem was reprinted a month later in the Feb- idiot, much the same part as does, in music, ruary 1845 issue of the AMERICAN WHIG REVIEW. the accompaniment in respect to the air. Each might have been distinct. Each might have dif- FURTHER READINGS fered remarkably from each other. Yet between Merivale, Patricia. “The Raven and the Bust of Pallas: them there might have been wrought an ana- Classical Artifacts and the Gothic Tale.” PMLA 89 logical resemblance, and although each might (1974): 960–966. have existed apart, they might have formed Miller, Perry. The Raven and the Whale. New York: together a whole world which would have been Harcourt, Brace, 1956. imperfect in the absence of either. Person, Leland S., Jr. “Poe’s Composition of Philoso- phy: Reading and Writing ‘The Raven.’ ” Arizona In “The Raven,” Poe appears to have accomplished Quarterly 46 (1990): 1–15. what he had suggested that Dickens might have Richards, Eliza. “Outsourcing ‘The Raven’: Retroac- done in Barnaby Rudge: to create the narrator and tive Origins.” Victorian Poetry 43, no. 2 (Summer the raven as distinct entities that remain forever 2005): 2–5. bound together in experience. PUBLICATION HISTORY The work first appeared in the January 29, 1845, Raven and Other Poems, The issue of the New York EVENING MIRROR, preceded by the following announcement: (1845)

Collection of poems written before 1845. SYNOPSIS Originally titled The Raven and Other Poems but commonly referred to as “The Edition of 1845,” the volume contained 20 poems that had been printed previously in such publications of Poe’s time as the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, GRAHAM’S MAG- AZINE, and the BROADWAY JOURNAL. The volume also contained Poe’s glowing dedication to the Eng- lish poet ELIZABETH BARRETT [Browning]. He had reviewed her work The Drama of Exile and Other Illustration for “The Raven” (Edmund Dulac) Poems in January 1845, after which the two had

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poems: “The Raven,” “The VALLEY OF UNREST,” “BRIDAL BALLAD,” “The SLEEPER,” “The COLISEUM,” “LENORE,” “Catholic Hymn” (see “MORELLA”), “ISRAFEL,” “DREAMLAND,” “SONNET TO ZANTE,” “The CITY IN THE SEA,” “TO ONE IN PARADISE,” “EULALIE—A SONG,” “TO F——S O——D,” “TO F———,” “SONNET—SILENCE,” “The CONQUEROR WORM,” and “The HAUNTED PALACE.” PUBLICATION HISTORY “The Raven and Other Poems” was published in 1845 by Wiley & Putnam.

“Romance” (1828)

Poem written in 1828. SYNOPSIS “Romance” first appeared under the title “Pref- ace” and originally contained seven stanzas rather than the final two. Earlier versions of the poem contained references to “drunkenness of soul” and Illustration for “The Raven” (Edmund Dulac) “the glories of the bowl,” which Poe eliminated from later versions. The poem portrays romance as a bird “with drowsy head and folded wing . . . corresponded. His tribute was gracious, if highly far down some shadowy lake” that has been part emotive: of the speaker’s life since childhood and “Taught me my alphabet to say— / To lisp my very earliest To the Noblest of her Sex— word / while in the wild-wood I did lie.” The exotic To the author of bird of romance follows the speaker into adulthood, The Drama of Exile— where he finds, “I could not love except where To Miss Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Death / Was mingling his with Beauty’s breath— / Of England, Or Hymen, Time, and Destiny / Were stalking I Dedicate This Volume between her and me.” After “the eternal Condor With the most Enthusiasm Admiration years / So shook the very Heavens on high, / With And with the most Sincere Esteem. tumults they thunder’d by,” the speaker no longer In an April 1845 letter to Poe, Barrett acknowl- has the time for idle considerations or dreams, for edged the introduction and told Poe that “The “dreams—of those who dream as I, / Aspiringly, are RAVEN” had “produced a sensation, a ‘fit horror,’ damned and die.” here in England. Some of my friends are taken by the fear of it and some by the music. I hear of per- PUBLICATION HISTORY sons haunted by the ‘Nevermore,’ and one acquain- “Romance” first appeared under the title “Preface” tance of mine who has the misfortune of possessing in the 1829 collection AL AARAAF, TAMERLANE, a ‘bust of Pallas’ never can bear to look at it in the AND MINOR POEMS, then was reprinted under the twilight.” The collection contained the following title “Introduction” in the 1831 POEMS BY EDGAR

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A. POE. Poe titled the poem “Romance” for publi- “but of a multitude of beings, and, varying in their cation in the February 25, 1843, issue of the Phila- cadences from syllable to syllable . . . the well- delphia Saturday Museum. remembered and familiar accents of many thousand departed friends.” FURTHER READINGS Lavin, Audrey. “A Birder’s Re-Reading of Poe’s COMMENTARY ‘Romance.’ ” University of Mississippi Studies in Eng- “Shadow—A Parable” is one of three stories writ- lish 9 (1991): 199–204. ten by Poe that are placed during a time of plague, the others being “KING PEST” and “The MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH.” The word shadow is used in various of Poe’s works to mean fear, darkness, the “Shadow—A Parable” (1835) unknown, ghost, and death.

Short story written in 1835. PUBLICATION HISTORY The tale was first published in the September 1835 SYNOPSIS issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. “Shadow—A Parable” is written to those “who are still among the living,” but the writer “shall have CHARACTERS long since gone . . . into the region of shadows.” A Oinos Narrator of the story. Oinos also appears line from the “Psalm of David” (Psalm 23) in the in “The POWER OF WORDS.” Old Testament precedes the story: “Yea! though I walk through the valley of the Shadow.” Although Shadow A “vague, and formless” being whose most modern readers are accustomed to the King voice combines the voices of “many thousand James Version of the psalm, “Yea! though I walk departed friends.” through the valley of the shadow of death . . .,” biblical scholars assert that “valley of the shadow” and Zoilus The dead member of a group of eight peo- “valley of darkness” are also correct as translations ple who had taken refuge from the plague. of the Hebrew. The narrator, “the Greek Oinos,” tells of an FURTHER READINGS experience that occurs in the city of Ptolemais in De Falco, Joseph. “The Sources of Terror in Poe’s the plague year 794, when “the peculiar spirit of ‘Shadow—A Parable’.” Studies in Short Fiction 6 the skies . . . made itself manifest, not only in the (1969): 643–649. physical orb of the earth, but in the souls, imagi- Pollin, Burton R. “Poe’s ‘Shadow’ as a Source for His nations, and meditations of mankind.” A com- ‘The Masque of the Red Death.’ ” Studies in Short pany of seven people has taken refuge in a room Fiction 6 (1968): 104–107. with thick walls and a heavy brass door where they drink wine that “reminded us of blood” and try to forget the “dead weight [that] hung upon us.” An eighth member of the group, Zoilus, lies “Silence. A Fable” (1838) dead and enshrouded in the room, “the genius and the demon of the scene.” As the revelers try Short story written in 1838. to keep their spirits up, a “vague, and formless, and indefinite” shadowy figure steps out from the SYNOPSIS “sable draperies” and addresses the group: “I am “Silence, A Fable” was originally subtitled “In the SHADOW, and my dwelling is near to the Cata- Manner of the Psychological Autobiographists.” combs of Ptolemais.” The seven revelers shiver at Early manuscripts show that Poe originally began the sound, for the tones are not of any one being the story with a line from his poem “AL AARAAF”:

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“Ours is a world of words: Quiet we call / ‘Silence’— popular at the time. Critics view the tale as one of which is the merest word of all.” The story is Poe’s most bewildering, for the narration appears preceded by an epigraph taken from a speech by to proceed in an understandable manner until the Apollonius of Rhodes in a fragment of “Homeric ending, which leaves the reader with an unsolved Lexicon,” a poem by Spartan Alcman (fl. 600 B.C.), mystery. The only clue that Poe has left to the who founded the Dorian school of choral lyric meaning of the ending lies in his poem “SILENCE— poetry, which emphasized simplicity and clarity: A SONNET.” “The mountain pinnacles slumber, valleys, crags, and caves silent.” PUBLICATION HISTORY A demon recounts his unsettling experience on The story first appeared as “Siope—A Fable” in the shores of the River Zaire, where “there is nei- the 1838 Baltimore Book, edited by W. H. Car- ther quiet nor silence.” Rain falls and becomes penter and T. S. Arthur, then was collected with blood. At the roots of tall, primeval trees, “strange other stories in Poe’s TALES OF THE GROTESQUE poisonous flowers lie writhing in perturbed slum- AND ARABESQUE. In the September 6, 1845, issue ber.” The demon tells of finding a large gray rock of the BROADWAY JOURNAL, Poe published the story into which is carved the word “DESOLATION,” under the title of “Silence—A Fable.” and of having watched the actions of a man who stood upon the summit of that rock and “who CHARACTERS trembled in the solitude” as the demon created demon, the The demon of imagination who chaos in the world around. The man was “tall and demands that the narrator of the tale listen to his stately in form and was wrapped up from his shoul- story. He becomes angry when the narrator does ders to his feet in the toga of old Rome . . . his not join him in laughing at the frailty of humans. features were the features of a deity. . . . his brow was lofty with thought, and his eye wild with care; unnamed man in a toga One of the ancients and in the few furrows upon his cheek I read the who trembles when confronted with solitude but fables of sorrow, and weariness, and disgust with reacts in terror when faced with silence. mankind, and a longing after solitude.” The demon remains hidden and watches the man, then curses unnamed narrator A human male who refuses everything around so that they are still. The man to join the demon in laughing at human frailty. remains steadfast until the letters in the rock have transformed to “SILENCE,” which leads the man FURTHER READINGS to react in terror. The demon finishes his story, Claudel, Alice M. “What Has Poe’s ‘Silence—A Fable’ then laughs at human frailty, becoming angry when to Say?” Ball State University Forum 10 (1969): the narrator does not join him in laughing, for “I 66–70. could not laugh with the Demon, and he cursed me because I could not laugh.” The story told by the demon is intended to make a point about the nature of the ancient thinkers, who might have “Silence—A Sonnet” (1839) trembled in their solitude but felt terror in silence. The demon becomes upset with the narrator, who Poem written in 1839. expresses his kinship with the ancients in his refusal to laugh. SYNOPSIS “Silence—A Sonnet” states its objective at the COMMENTARY beginning: “There is a two-fold Silence—sea and Poe subtitled the story “In the manner of the Psy- shore—Body and Soul.” The speaker tells the chological Autobiographists,” and it exhibits the reader to not fear the silence of the body, the German metaphysics and morbid spiritualism so “corporate silence” death, which “human memo-

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ries and tearless lore, / Render him terrorless.” In the death of a young and beautiful woman and the contrast, that other silence, “his shadow (name- efforts of a grieving narrator to come to terms with less elf, / Who haunteth the dim regions where that death. Poe also makes his first exploration hath trod / No foot of man)” is evil. Should the of the indefinite nature of the states of life and reader encounter that silence, the speaker advises death. him to “commend thyself to God!” Thus, the death of the body should be accepted as a natural PUBLICATION HISTORY occurrence and considered to mean simply “No “The Sleeper” was entitled “Irene” when it first more,” but the death of the soul dooms one for appeared in the 1831 volume POEMS BY EDGAR A. all eternity. POE, in which version it contained 74 lines. After numerous revisions in text and structure, the poem PUBLICATION HISTORY was pared down to 60 lines for publication in the “Silence—A Sonnet” was first published in the May 22, 1841, issue of the Philadelphia Saturday January 4, 1840, issue of the Philadelphia Saturday Chronicle and in Poe’s 1845 collection The RAVEN Courier. Poe revised the poem and submitted it AND OTHER POEMS. for publication in the July 26, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL and included it in the collec- FURTHER READINGS tion The RAVEN AND OTHER POEMS in 1845. Mabbott, Thomas Olive. “Poe’s ‘The Sleeper’ Again.” American Literature 21 (1949): 339–340.

“Sleeper, The” (1830)

Poem written in 1830. SYNOPSIS “The Sleeper” has a narrator who refers to the lady in the poem in terms that relate to both the living and to the dead, first noting “Soft may the worms about her creep!” then stating “I pray to God that she may lie / Forever with unopened eyes.” Irene is dead and the subject of the speaker’s grief, as she lies in a vault “Against whose sounding door she hath thrown, / In childhood, many an idle stone—.” The grieving lover fanta- sizes that the moon will address his love and call to her “Lady, awake! lady awake!” but he also realizes that “The lady sleeps: the dead all sleep.” Still, he hopes that the dead woman will rest peacefully, praying that “No icy worms about her creep: / I pray to God that she may lie / Forever with as calm an eye.” COMMENTARY The poem appears on Poe’s list of his best compositions, which he sent to JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL in 1844. “The Sleeper” explores Poe’s favorite theme, Illustration for “The Sleeper” (Edmund Dulac)

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 161 10/12/07 12:02:17 PM 162 “Some Words with a Mummy” “Some Words with a except for one. The doctor asks Allamistakeo, “upon its honor as a gentleman, if the Egyptians Mummy” (1845) had comprehended at any period, the manufac- ture of either Ponnonner’s lozenges [fictitious] or Short story written in 1845. Brandeth’s pills [one of the many sometimes dangerous pills, elixirs, powders, and nostrums popu- SYNOPSIS lar in Poe’s time].” The mummy appears defeated “Some Words with a Mummy” opens as the narra- and “hung down his head.” Unable to deal with tor is roused from his anticipated rejuvenative sleep “the spectacle of the poor mummy’s mortifica- on the evening after recovering from a hangover. tion,” the narrator rushes home, where he writes He receives a hurried note from Dr. Ponnonner, of the night’s adventures for his family. He then stating that the directors of the City Museum have resolves to “just step over to Ponnonner’s and get agreed to allow the doctor to examine a mummy, embalmed for a couple of hundred years.” The “to unswathe it and open it, if desirable,” which achievements that the mummy lists are all sig- he intends to do “at eleven to-night.” The mummy nificant to civilization and have stood the test case is placed on a dining table, and the charac- of time, but to the men present at the museum ters open the three protective cases to find the they are insignificant when compared to a modern mummy, wrapped in papyrus and bejeweled. Strip- lozenge. ping away the papyrus, the group finds “the flesh was in excellent preservation, with no perceptible COMMENTARY odor. . . . The skin was hard, smooth, and glossy. This story capitalizes on the craze in Poe’s day for The teeth and hair were in good condition.” The ancient Egyptian history and artifacts. Hieroglyph- group examines the body for the usual openings ics recently deciphered using the Rosetta Stone, through which internal organs often were removed discovered in 1799, had fueled the enthusiasm. before embalming, but they can find none, so they Poe also uses the story as a vehicle for criticiz- plan a dissection the next day. Not willing to waste ing the political and scientific thinking of his day, the opportunity afforded by so perfectly preserved especially the overly lauded concepts of progress and intact a body, they decide to experiment with and democracy. Mr. Gliddon is probably based on a galvanic battery to see if they can reanimate the George Robins Gliddon, whose book Ancient Egypt corpse. As they apply the wires to an exposed mus- was reviewed in the New World in April 1843 and cle, the mummy’s knee rises, connects with Dr. to whom John Lloyd Stephens referred as British Ponnonner’s stomach, and knocks him out of the consul in Egypt in Arabia Petrae. window. The group rushes out of the room to rescue the doctor. PUBLICATION HISTORY When the men return, the mummy, whose The story was first published in the April 1845 name is Count Allamistakeo, sits up and admon- issue of the American Review and reprinted with- ishes them. A dialogue ensues, “carried on in out revision in the November 1, 1845, issue of the primitive Egyptian, through the medium . . . of BROADWAY JOURNAL. Messieurs Gliddon and Buckingham, as interpreters.” The mummy explains that he is of the Scara- CHARACTERS baeus, which did not disembowel people before Allamistakeo, Count Mistakenly embalmed while embalming, but instead embalmed people while still alive. The hieroglyphic cartouche on the sar- they were alive so that they could be reanimated cophagus indicates that Allamistakeo is the mum- in a later time. my’s name. Dead and buried 5,000 years before, The men and the count compare scientific and he comes to life when members of a museum team political achievements in their respective periods, apply electrical current to the corpse in a “Voltaic and ancient Egypt proves to be superior in all areas experiment.”

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Buckingham, Mr. Silk Interpreter in primi- PUBLICATION HISTORY tive Egyptian who hides under the table when the “Song” appeared in TAMERLANE AND OTHER POEMS, mummy’s eyelids move. published in 1827.

Gliddon, Mr. Serves as translator and intermediary between the mummy and the learned men. “Sonnet—To Science” (1829) Jennings Coat maker. The doctor provides “a black dress coat, made in Jennings’ best manner” to Poem written in 1829. the naked, shivering mummy. SYNOPSIS Ponnonner, Doctor Invites the narrator of the “Sonnet—To Science” argues that science has story and others to join him in unraveling a mummy destroyed mysticism and magic, as its “dull reali- at the City Museum. ties” displace fantasy. FURTHER READINGS COMMENTARY Long, David A. “Poe’s Political Identity: A Mummy Primarily a romantic protest against scientific ratio- Unswathed.” Poe Studies 23, no. 1 (1990): 1–22. nalism, the poem condemns science for displacing Pollin, Burton R. “Poe’s ‘Some Words with a Mummy’ mythology, whose stories of Diana, Hamadryad, Reconsidered.” Emerson Society Quarterly 60 (Fall and “the gentle Naiad” had nourished the soul. Sci- 1970): 60–67. ence is a “Vulture” with “piercing eyes,” which has “dragged” and “driv’n” figures of mythology that nourish and sustain the creative imagination—just as the speaker has been dragged and driven from “Song” (1827) “the summer dream beneath the shrubbery.” In this defiant protest against cold reason, the scientific Poem written in 1827. spirit and the spirit of poetry stand opposed. SYNOPSIS PUBLICATION HISTORY “Song” is also known by its first line, “I saw thee “Sonnet—To Science” first appeared in the 1829 on thy bridal day.” Critics and biographers assert AL AARAAF, TAMERLANE, AND MINOR POEMS, his that the poem is addressed to Poe’s lost love, second poetry collection. The poem also was pub- SARAH ELMIRA ROYSTER, because the breaking of lished in the October 1830 issue of the Philadel- their engagement by her father was traumatic and phia Casket. because the poem was written after her marriage to Alexander Barrett Shelton, a man of means and of some social distinction. The four stanzas, each four lines long, contain ballad rhyme (abab) that “Sonnet: To Zante” (1837) conveys the sound quality of a song. The first and fourth stanzas are nearly identical to provide the “Sonnet: To Zante” is a Shakespearean sonnet repetition of a song. The speaker addresses the that expresses the narrator’s longing for the past. bride, who experiences “a burning blush,” despite The roots of this sonnet may actually lie in “AL the happiness all around her, and he knows that AARAAF,” which was published in 1829, as lines blush “was maiden shame” for having abandoned and images from the longer poem echo in the 14- him. The tone of the speaker’s words suggests a line rhapsody praising the beauties of the island curse or the unhappy expectation that the bride Zante. Critics suggest that the idealized setting of will regret her choice. that “Fair isle, . . . How many memories of what

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radiant hours / At sight of thee and thine at once awake!” that is “No more!” is the home of JOHN ALLAN, from which Poe was exiled, and that the “visions of a maiden that is no more” may actually refer to SARAH ELMIRA ROYSTER. PUBLICATION HISTORY “Sonnet: To Zante” was first published in the Janu- ary 1837 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSEN- GER and later appeared in The RAVEN AND OTHER POEMS in 1845.

“Spectacles, The” (1844)

Short story written in 1844. SYNOPSIS “The Spectacles” relates the experience of a man whose vain refusal to wear spectacles leads him to marry his 82-year-old great-great-grandmother. When Napoleon Bonaparte Simpson attends the opera with a friend, he falls in love with the vision Illustration by F. C. Tilney for “The Spectacles” in of loveliness that he sees in one of the distant Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (1902) boxes. “Being youthful and good-looking,” he “res- olutely refused” to wear glasses, so he cannot see her in clear focus. Still, the “divine form” of “this twenty-seven years and seven months.” He believes queenly apparition” makes him fall “deeply, madly, that is her present age. The two marry, and he irrevocably in love—and this even before seeing keeps his promise. When he puts on his spectacles, the face of the person beloved.” He is charmed he finds that his wife is a wrinkled, toothless woman by her appearance and falls even more deeply in of 82. As he rages, she reveals that she is his great- love after hearing her sing, but he still does not see great-grandmother and has played a trick on him to her clearly. She is immensely wealthy, having been cure him of his vanity. She then introduces him to widowed twice without any children, and “by the the lovely widow Madame Stephanie Lalande, with aid of pearl-powder, or rouge, of false hair, false whom she is traveling. Simpson marries Lalande, teeth, and false tournure, as well as of the most and the story ends with Simpson’s promise that he skilful modistes of Paris, she contrived to hold a is “never to be met without SPECTACLES.” respectable footing among the beauties peu passées of the French metropolis.” When the two meet, she PUBLICATION HISTORY alludes to an age difference but does not tell him The story was first published in the March 27, 1844, her age. Rather, she drops a miniature in the grass issue of the PHILADELPHIA DOLLAR NEWSPAPER. and promises that it will give him the information When the story was reprinted in the March 1845 he seeks. She also agrees to marry him if he would issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL, Poe acknowledged promise to wear glasses. He promises, and, after she the excessive length of the story and wrote that he leaves, he inspects the back of the miniature while was “not aware of the great length of ‘The Spec- wearing glasses. It reads: “Eugènie Lalande—aged tacles’ until [it was] too late to remedy the evil.”

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CHARACTERS Talbot, Mr. He accompanies Napoleon Bonaparte Croissart, Mademoiselle The eldest daughter of Simpson to the opera and later aids Madame Eug- a banker, she marries at age 15 and becomes the enie Lalande in tricking Simpson into marrying his mother of the protagonist of the story, Napoleon own 82-year-old great-great-grandmother. Bonaparte Froissart. Voissart, Victor The great-grandfather of the Froissart, Monsieur Born in Paris, he is the narrator. father of Napoleon Bonaparte Froissart. FURTHER READINGS Froissart, Napoleon Bonaparte Birth name of a Pollin, Burton R. “ ‘The Spectacles’ of Poe—Sources character who proudly traces his descent “from the and Significance.” American Literature 37 (1965): immortal author of the ‘Chronicles’ ” but changes 187–190. his surname to Simpson “in order to receive a large Salzberg, Joel. “Preposition and Meaning in Poe’s ‘The inheritance left by a distant male relative, Adol- Spectacles.’ ” Poe Newsletter 3, no. 1 (1970): 21. phus Simpson.”

Lalande, Madame Eugenie An 82-year-old woman with whom the nearsighted Napoleon “Spirits of the Dead” (1826) Bonaparte Froissart falls in love, fooled by his bad Poem written in 1826. eyesight into thinking that she is a young woman of 27. She is actually the great-great-grandmother of SYNOPSIS Froissart and joins his friends in deceiving him into The poem relates a dialogue between the spirit of proposing and carrying out a marriage to her as a the dead speaker and a visitor to his gravesite. The means of reproof for his refusal to wear spectacles. spirit advises his visitor that “The spirits of the dead, who stood / In life before thee, are again / In Lalande, Madame Stephanie A relative of death around thee.” The spirit advises the visitor Madame Eugenie Lalande’s second husband. She not to feel lonely, but to “Be silent in that solitude / is the true object of Napoleon Bonaparte Froissart’s Which is not loneliness.” passion and becomes his wife after he is humiliated when his poor eyesight has led him to propose mar- PUBLICATION HISTORY riage to his own great-great-grandmother. Poem by Poe published in June 1827 in TAMERLANE Moissart, Mademoiselle Known as Madame AND OTHER POEMS under the title “Visit of the Eugenie Lalande, she tricks the hero of the story, Dead.” Poe changed the title when the poem was Napoleon Bonaparte Froissart, her great-great- republished in the 1829 AL AARAAF, TAMERLANE, grandson, into thinking that he has married her to AND MINOR POEMS. teach him a lesson.

Simpson, Adolphus A distant male relative of the narrator, he is a wealthy man who leaves a “System of Doctor Tarr and bequest that requires the inheritor to take his sur- Professor Fether, The” (1845) name, Simpson. Short story written in 1845. Stubbs He serves as the footman to Mr. Talbot. Napoleon Simpson bothers him continuously for SYNOPSIS information when he arrives and Talbot is not at “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether” home. is a comic story that begins with the slow and

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apprehensive approach of a rather naïve and PUBLICATION HISTORY somewhat slow-witted young man to a private The story first appeared in the November 1845 insane asylum, the Maison de Santé [House of issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Health], simply to satisfy his morbid curiosity. The approach parodies the approach taken by the CHARACTERS narrator in “The FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER,” Bouffon, Le Grand One example of the type as he rides through “a dense forest . . . the dank of inmates with which the superintendent of an and gloomy wood” and comes upon “a fantastic asylum dealt. Deemed an “extraordinary personage chateau, much dilapidated . . . scarcely tenable in his way,” he becomes deranged after a failed love through age and neglect.” The superintendent of affair and imagines that he has two heads. The first the facility, Monsieur Maillard, greets him at the is the head of Cicero, but the second is far more door. Maillard appears rational, sane, in control, complicated. He imagines that his second head is and eminently sociable. He leads the narrator to a composite of “Demosthenes from the top of the a lavish feast where people of all ages are dressed forehead to the mouth, and Lord Brougham from in elegant, if ill-fitting, clothing, and relates the the mouth to the chin.” The narrator states that Le story of how the former “soothing system” of Grand Bouffon is a man of great eloquence, with letting the inmates run free, without restraints, “an absolute passion for oratory” who could not was ineffective. Maillard tells him the inmates refrain from displaying ability. had taken over the asylum and that restoring One of the inmates in an order had been difficult, but that a new system Boullard, Monsieur asylum for the mentally ill, he is called a “tee- is now in place. As the narrator questions the totum” because “he was seized with the droll, but behavior of some of the people at the feast, Mail- not altogether irrational crotchet, that he had been lard assures him that they are simply eccentric. converted into a tee-totum.” He spends hours at a Soon an uproar draws everyone’s attention, and time turning around and around upon one heel, an what appear to be 10 black orangutans charge action that earns him the title of “a madman, and a into the banquet room. They are actually the very silly madman at best; for who, allow me to ask asylum guards whom the inmates have covered you, ever heard of a human tee-totum?” with tar and locked in the basement cells. All of the people, including Maillard, with whom the De Kock, Monsieur Pretends to be one of the narrator has spent the previous few hours, are caretakers of an asylum for the insane, but he is the former inmates. The inmates used the system actually a patient who believes that he is a donkey. of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether to take control At intervals, he kicks violently to demonstrate his of the institution. mania. COMMENTARY Desoulières, Jules An inmate of an insane asylum, “a very singular genius, indeed,” who believes This tale has been read by some critics as a self- that he is a pumpkin. He persecutes the cook to parody of “The Fall of the House of Usher,” because make him up into pies—“a thing which the cook the description of the long approach to the insane indignantly refused to do.” asylum is similar in description to the course taken by the visitor to the house of Usher, and the visitors Fether, Professor He is credited with having dis- in both stories arrive on horseback. Other critics covered, with Doctor Tarr, a novel and effective have viewed the story as Poe’s warning of the con- medical treatment system of “rigorous severity” in sequences of allowing slaves the freedom that the place of the “soothing system” in dealing with “the abolitionists demanded. The allusion to tarring and caprices of madmen.” feathering also evokes the way in which southern- ers often punished abolitionists whom they caught Gaillard, Petit His name in French means “little in the South. sprightly dance.” He is one of the inmates of the

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mental asylum in the story and believes that he and the Roman army control the city. An epigraph is a pinch of snuff. As one onlooker relates, Gail- from Lucan’s Pharsalia, act two, lines 375–76, fol- lard “was truly distressed because he could not take lowed by Poe’s “translation,” precede the story: himself between his own finger and thumb.” “Intonsos rigidam in frontem ascendre canos / Joyeuse, Madame An old woman whose name Passus erat—” means “joyful,” she tells the visitors to the asylum —Lucan—De Cantone about a woman who “found, upon mature delibera- —a bristly bore. tion, that, by some accident, she had been turned —Translation. into a chicken-cock; but, as such, she behaved with Poe replaced the word descendre in the original propriety.” While telling the story, she begins to flap quotation with ascendre so that the line no longer her wings and to crow loudly and repeatedly, until reads “He let his uncut gray hair hang down over she is reprimanded. The reader recognizes that the his stern forehead,” but instead “his uncut gray hair woman she has described is Madame Joyeuse herself. stood on end.” This retranslation permits Poe his Laplace, Mam’selle One of the asylum inmates joke of “a bristly bore [boar].” A Pharisee and two who attend the mad banquet, she is an old lady Gizbarim negotiate with the Romans for a lamb to who reprimands Monsieur De Kock for kicking up use in their religious sacrifice. Although they are his heels like a donkey and spoiling her brocade grateful, they question if it is avarice or generosity dress. She is appeased when De Kock apologizes, that has changed the minds of the Romans and kisses her hand “with much ceremony,” and drinks made them finally provide the lamb for offering. a glass of wine with her. The subcollectors believe of the sacred offering: “It is a fatted calf from the pastures of Bashan.” The Maillard, Monsieur He is the former superin- term refers to a region east of Jordan and north tendent of the Maison de Santé, or madhouse, who of Arnon in the Bible, characterized by smooth, becomes insane. After he is imprisoned, he incites fertile land and distinguished for its fine cattle. The his fellow inmates to rebellion and aids them in three stand at the top of the walls of the temple imprisoning the guards, whom they cover with tar and slowly lower a basket filled with shekels, then and feathers. wait until the money is counted and their sacrifice is loaded into the same basket. They wait a long FURTHER READINGS while as the Romans count the money, wondering Drabeck, Bernard A. “ ‘Tarr and Fether’: Poe and if they will be defrauded, and they rejoice when Abolitionism.” American Transcendental Quarterly they feel the tug on the rope, a signal to raise the 17 (1972): 177–184. basket. As they pull the basket up, the three praise Johansen, Ib. “The Madness of the Text: Decon- the Romans, believing that “the Lord hath soft- struction of Narrative Logic in ‘Usher,’ ‘Berenice,’ ened their hearts to place therein a beast of good ‘Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether.’ ” Poe Studies 22 weight!” When the contents of the basket are in (1989): 1–9. sight, the trio sees not a fatted calf, lamb, or ram, but a hog: “it is the unutterable flesh.” They let the basket containing the hog drop on the heads of the Romans below. “Tale of Jerusalem, A” (1832) COMMENTARY Short story written in 1832. This story appears to poke fun at Jewish religious dietary laws. Roman soldiers play a practical joke SYNOPSIS on the Pharisee and the Gizbarim: Instead of the “A Tale of Jerusalem” takes place in Jerusalem on sacrificial ram or lamb they expect, they receive the 10th day of the month of Thammuz, as Pompey “a hog of no common size.” Critics view the tale as

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offering a very clever reversal; rather than present- Roman Catholics, for which the modern Hebrew ing anti-Semitic criticism or mockery, the Pharisee word translates as Katholim. and the Gizbarim manage to pay back their oppres- sors and “accidentally” drop a hog on their heads. Simeon the Pharisee He accompanies the members of the Gizbarim, the subcollectors, or PUBLICATION HISTORY lower-level lackeys in charge of gathering the holy “A Tale of Jerusalem” was first published in the offering, in seeking to obtain the offering for their June 9, 1832, issue of the Philadelphia Saturday Cou- altar. He belongs to a sect called the Dashers, “that rier, then revised and reprinted in the September little knot of saints whose manner of dashing and 20, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. lacerating the feet against the pavement was long a thorn and a reproach to less zealous devotees.” CHARACTERS Abel-Phittim One of the Gizbarim, the three col- FURTHER READINGS lectors of the offerings in the Holy City, and the one Varner, Cornelius. “Poe’s ‘Tale of Jerusalem’ and The who carries the shekels to the Romans in trade for Talmud.” American Book Collector 6 (February lambs that the conquered Jewish faithful will sacri- 1935): 56–57. fice on the altar. When the story first appeared in the June 9, 1832, issue of the Philadelphia Saturday Courier, the character was named Abel-Shittem. In Hebrew, “shittem” refers to the camping place on “Tale of the Ragged the Plain of Moab where the people of Israel began to mix freely with the nonbelievers and to reject Mountains, A” (1844) their Jewish faith, giving up dietary laws and wor- shipping the gods of the Moabs. To avoid the obvi- Short story written in 1844. ous scatological references, Poe changed the name SYNOPSIS for later publication of the story in the April 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains” is set in the mountains near Charlottesville, Virginia. The Buzi-Ben-Levi One of the three Gizbarim, sub- story focuses on Augustus Bedloe, a wealthy collectors of the offering in the holy city of Jeru- young gentleman subject to severe bouts of neur- salem. Of the three, he is the most optimistic that algia, who has for years been attended to by the the Ammonites will be fair and sell for 30 sil- 70-year-old physician Dr. Templeton. The two ver shekels each of the lambs that the Hebrews make an arrangement in which Bedloe becomes need for their religious sacrifice. He is “read in Templeton’s only patient, “in consideration of a the laws of the Gentiles, and has sojourned among liberal annual allowance” for the doctor. The doc- them who dabble with the Teraphim” (ancient tor treats his patient with mesmeric techniques household idols of the Jews used for divination, (see MESMERISM), and the two have developed so mentioned in the Old Testament books of Judges, strong a rapport that “the will of the patient suc- Hosea, and Genesis). cumbed rapidly to that of the physician.” Bedloe is also a habitual user of morphine, “which he Katholim When facing failure in obtaining the swallowed in great quantity, and without which necessary offerings for their altar sacrifices, the he would have found it impossible to exist.” One Pharisee becomes upset and states that their failure Indian summer morning after breakfast and the will result in their being “turned out of office by usual dose of morphine, Bedloe takes a walk into the Katholim.” Critics disagree whether Poe refers the Ragged Mountains and enters a chasm that here to Katholikin, who were overseers of the trea- seems “absolutely virgin,” as if no other human sury, or if he had in mind an ironic reference to has ever been in it. He is late returning home, and

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he has a strange tale to tell Templeton and the Despite having a physical resemblance to Oldeb, narrator when he finally appears. Bedloe dies when his temple is bled by a poisonous Bedloe claims that he was transported back in leech that Dr. Templeton accidentally uses. In an time to the 1780 [sic] Hastings revolt in Benares, ironic twist, the newspaper article announcing his India, and killed by an arrow to the right temple. death misspells his name as Bedlo and, when ques- Templeton’s response is equally surprising: He first tioned about the error, the printer tells the narrator shows Bedloe a watercolor miniature that seems that it was merely a typographical error. The narra- to portray Bedloe but which the doctor explains is tor notes that “Bedlo” is “Oldeb” spelled backward. the image of a friend named Oldeb, killed 50 years Although Bedloe foresees his death in the vision or earlier in the revolt in Benares. The doctor also dream, he is unable to prevent it. explains that Bedloe’s resemblance to Oldeb drew PUBLICATION HISTORY him to make Bedloe’s acquaintance and to become his physician. “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains” first appeared A week after the incident, the narrator reads in in the April 1844 issue of GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND the newspaper of “the death of Augustus Bedlo.” LADY’S BOOK and was reprinted without change He died after Dr. Templeton accidentally applied a in the November 1845 issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. venomous leech to his right temple while trying to reduce a fever contracted during the excursion into CHARACTERS the mountains. The narrator questions the news- Bedloe, Augustus An apparently young gentle- paper editor about the misspelling of the last name, man, “remarkable in every respect,” who excites in observing that “ ‘Bedloe, without the e, what is it the narrator “a profound interest and curiosity.” A but Oldeb conversed!’ ” tall and thin man, Bedloe appears cadaverous: “He stooped much. His limbs were exceedingly long and COMMENTARY emaciated. His forehead was broad and long. His This contemplative story deals with two themes that complexion was absolutely bloodless. His mouth was are popular in Poe’s work, mesmerism and reincar- large and flexible, and his teeth were more wildly nation. The story also harks back to Poe’s days at uneven . . . than I had ever before seen teeth in a the University of Virginia, when he probably walked human head.” Bedloe is also highly excitable, with a through the Ragged Mountains soon after the rup- vigorous imagination that the narrator attributes to tured relationship with SARAH ELMIRA ROYSTER. Jef- his habitual use of morphine. The character usually frey Meyers characterizes the tale as a “supernatural takes a very large dose of morphine after breakfast tale of narcotic visions, reincarnation and tragically each morning, then goes for his morning walk into foreshadowed death” (153). Bedloe is under the the Ragged Mountains. Upon his return from one influence of morphine when he takes a walk during of these walks, Bedloe tells an extraordinary story which he professes to have entered another realm, of having seen a battle and being wounded, then one with palm trees, hyenas, and Middle Eastern feeling the sensation of dying. His attending physi- appearing buildings. When challenged by the doctor cian shows the narrator a portrait of a British offi- that he must have dreamt his adventure and death, cer named Oldeb, who resembles Bedloe and who Bedloe protests that he was fully aware of the onset actually died 50 years earlier in such a battle with of a dream state, and if “the vision had occurred to the doctor present. Within a week after his vision, him without his suspecting it was a dream, then it Bedloe is dead. The newspaper obituary reports that may have been a dream, but having suspected it was he died while being bled with “one of the venomous a dream, he is convinced it was not.” Poe creates a vermicular sangsues,” a poisonous leech. His name is double for Bedloe in the soldier Oldeb, whom Dr. nearly the opposite spelling of the long-dead soldier. Templeton knew many years earlier and who had, as Bedloe does in his dream, died in the battle at Bena- Oldeb, Mr. British army officer who is shot with res when he was struck in the temple by an arrow. a poisoned arrow and dies during an insurrection of

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 169 10/12/07 12:02:18 PM 170 Tales by Edgar A. Poe Cheyte Sing in the Indian city of Benares in 1780. Tales of the Grotesque and Augustus Bedloe, 50 years later, who looks exactly like a miniature portrait of Oldeb, tells a physician Arabesque (before 1839) who knew Oldeb that he has had visions from the insurrection. A week later, Bedloe dies, and the news- Collection of short stories written before 1839. paper obituary leaves off the final “e” of his name, making it the exact opposite spelling of Oldeb. SYNOPSIS Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque is a collection Templeton, Doctor A 70-year-old man who of 25 stories and the sixth volume of Poe’s work. causes the death of a patient when he applies a The stories designated “grotesque” were actually venomous leech to the patient’s temple. He uses satires or comic efforts, while the “arabesques” mesmerism in his practice and suggests that an old were serious, imaginative, and poetic and showed friend has been reincarnated as his patient. a Middle Eastern influence. Poe dedicated the collection to JUDGE WILLIAM DRAYTON, a congress- FURTHER READINGS man who had befriended him. Reviews of the book May, Charles E. Edgar Allan Poe: A Study of the Short were mixed. An enthusiastic review that appeared Fiction. Boston: Twayne, 1991. in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier called the Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. tales “generally wildly imaginative in plot; fanciful New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1992. in description; . . . indicating the polished writer, Thompson, Gary R. “Is Poe’s ‘A Tale of the Ragged possessed of rare and varied learning.” The NEW Mountains’ a Hoax?” Studies in Short Fiction 6 YORK MIRROR asserted that the stories exhibited “a (1969): 454–460. power for vivid description, an opulence of imagination, a fecundity of invention, and a command over the elegances of diction which have seldom been displayed.” ALEXANDER’S WEEKLY MESSENGER Tales by Edgar A. Poe thought that the tales showed a “playful effusion of a remarkable and powerful intellect.” In con- (before 1845) trast, the Boston Nation called the work “a wild, unmeaning, pointless, aimless set of stories, . . . Collection of short stories written before 1845. without anything of elevated fancy or fine humor to redeem them.” Volume One of the collection SYNOPSIS contained the following 14 tales: “BON-BON,” “The Tales by Edgar A. Poe is a collection of 12 sto- DEVIL IN THE BELFRY,” “The DUC DE L’OMELETTE,” ries. Included are the following stories: “The BLACK “The FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER,” “HOW TO CAT,” “The COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA,” WRITE A BLACKWOOD ARTICLE,” “KING PEST,” “The CONVERSATION OF EIROS AND CHARMION,” “LIGEIA,” “LIONIZING,” “The MAN THAT WAS USED “A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM,” “The FALL OF UP,” “MORELLA,” “MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE,” “A THE HOUSE OF USHER,” “The GOLD-BUG,” “LIONIZ- PREDICAMENT,” “SHADOW,” and “WILLIAM WIL- ING,” “The MAN OF THE CROWD,” “MESMERIC REV- SON.” Volume Two contained 11 stories: “The ELATION,” “The MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE,” ASSIGNATION,” “BERENICE,” “The CONVERSATION “The MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGÊT,” and “The PUR- OF EIROS AND CHARMION,” “FOUR BEASTS IN ONE: LOINED LETTER.” THE HOMO-CAMELEOPARD,” “LOSS OF BREATH,” “METZENGERSTEIN,” “MYSTIFICATION,” “SILENCE. PUBLICATION HISTORY A FABLE,” “A TALE OF JERUSALEM,” “The UNPAR- Short story collection that was published in 1845 by ALLELED ADVENTURE OF ONE HANS PFAALL,” and Wiley & Putnam as part of their Library of Ameri- “WHY THE LITTLE FRENCHMAN WEARS HIS HAND can Books series. IN A SLING.”

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PUBLICATION HISTORY Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque was published in two volumes in 1839 by Lea & Blanchard of Philadelphia. FURTHER READINGS Bernstein, Susan. “Q, or, Heine’s Romanticism.” Stud- ies in Romanticism 42, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 369. Roth, Marty. “Gilman’s Arabesque Wallpaper.” Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature 34, no. 4 (December 2001): 145–162.

“Tamerlane” (before 1827)

Poem written before 1827. SYNOPSIS “Tamerlane” takes place in an indefinite distant time and relates an incident in which the conqueror Tamerlane suffers the conflict of having sacrificed “the loveliness of loving well” for the reward of achieving stature and renown. The poem does not pretend to historical accuracy, as it stresses four main themes in Poe’s work: love, beauty, death, Illustration for “Tamerlane” (Edmund Dulac) and pride. Poe makes his experience that of Tamer- lane, with such lines as “We grew in age, and love is “home no more” and he has only “despair—/ A together, / Roaming the forest and the wild.” As kingdom for a broken—heart.” Tamerlane ages and nears death, he regrets the love that he wasted and cries out for the love that he COMMENTARY rejected while on his quest for “power and pride.” Biographers assert that the poem was inspired by In the end, he rethinks his choices and revisits his Poe’s broken love affair with SARAH ELMIRA ROYS- land “in a peasant’s lowly guise,” but finds that it TER, whom he renames Ada in the first version of the poem. Sarah Elmira Royster was the first of Poe’s loves, a neighbor’s daughter whom he had met four years before writing the poem, when he was 15. Dark and brooding, the poem was written while Poe was reading works by the English romantic poets, most pointedly George Gordon, LORD BYRON, whose daughter Augusta Ada Gordon was popularly known as Ada. The 20th-century Russian emigré author Vladimir Nabokov, who acknowledged his own fascination with Poe, adopted the name as the title of his novel Ada, or Ardor (1969). When Poe revised the original 403-line poem to Illustration for “Tamerlane” (Edmund Dulac) 243 lines for publication in 1845, he removed the

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name Ada, much as her model had disappeared from his life, thus creating a lament for all lost love rather than only one specifically named. PUBLICATION HISTORY “Tamerlane” first appeared in the 1827 collection TAMERLANE AND OTHER POEMS. The poem in its earliest incarnation was published in the pared- down version of 243 lines in the 1829 collection AL AARAAF, TAMERLANE, AND MINOR POEMS. FURTHER READINGS Wegelin, Oscar. “The Printer of Poe’s Tamerlane.” New York Historical Society Quarterly Bulletin 24 (January 1940): 23–25.

Tamerlane and Other Poems. By a Bostonian (1827)

Poetry collection published in 1827. SYNOPSIS Tamerlane and Other Poems. By a Bostonian is Poe’s Original jacket of Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827) first published collection of poems. The volume (Robert Gregor) contains “TAMERLANE,” “The LAKE,” “VISIT OF THE DEAD,” “EVENING STAR,” and “A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM.” PUBLICATION HISTORY COMMENTARY Tamerlane and Other Poems was self-published by Tamerlane and Other Poems was published anony- Poe in 1827. Only 50 copies of the collection were mously, signed only “By a Bostonian,” possibly published, and few were sold, because Poe had no because Poe did not want JOHN ALLAN to know means of distributing the work. In later years, he where he was, an assumption given further cre- said that the collection “was suppressed for private dence by Poe’s enlistment in the army under the reasons,” which means that he ran low on funds. assumed name EDGAR A. PERRY the same year. Poe wrote in the preface to the volume that most of the poems were written between 1821 and 1822, “when the author had not completed his fourteenth year.” “Tell-Tale Heart, The” (1842) He indicates that they were not originally intended for publication, and “why they are now published Short story written in 1842. concerns no one but himself. Of the smaller pieces very little need be said, they perhaps savour too SYNOPSIS much of egotism; but they were written by one too Poe appended the following epigraph to the young to have any knowledge of the world but from first version of the story, but omitted it in later his own breast.” versions:

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Motto: Art is long and Time is fleeting, him and holding it until he is sure the old man is And our hearts, though stout and brave, dead, although he claims that he continues to hear Still, like muffled drums, are beating the sound of the old man’s heart beating. To com- Funeral marches to the grave. plete his plan, the narrator dismembers the body, —Longfellow, “Psalm of Life” cutting off the old man’s head, arms, and legs. He then pries up floorboards in the old man’s room, “The Tell-Tale Heart” is the monologue of a mur- places the body parts into the floor, then replaces derer, the nameless narrator, who reveals having the boards. To the presumed reader who might developed “the sense of acute hearing” and who question how he manages to remove all evidence of has “heard all the things in the heaven and in the what must be a bloody scene, the narrator gleefully earth. . . . I have heard all things in hell.” relates that he has used a tub to catch the blood: “I Having presented these credentials, the narrator had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all— then asks how one who has heard all of this can ha, ha!” The narrator relates these actions, “the be mad. To further convince the reader of his san- wise precautions,” as further proof of his sanity. ity, the narrator recounts how carefully the crime After everything is put away, the police arrive at was committed, then questions how one who has four o’clock in the morning after a neighbor reports been so methodical and who has planned so care- having heard a shriek. They search the house thor- fully could be mistaken for mad: “You fancy me oughly but find nothing. Afterward, the narrator mad. Madmen know nothing.” The narrator really sits in the old man’s room, talking with the police has no reason for committing the murder, and he and with his own chair on the floorboards under admits as much. As caretaker of an old man, the which the body lies. The police suspect nothing, narrator tends to the old man’s needs: “I loved but the narrator tells readers that he soon develops the old man. He had never wronged me. He had a headache and a ringing in his ears. He soon begins never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire.” to hear the loud beating of the old man’s heart and Pressed to justify the murder, the narrator settles believes that the police must hear it, as well, but on the old man’s eye as his reason: “One of his eyes that they are mocking him by not acknowledging resembled that of a vulture—a pale blue eye, with the sound. Even though he is safe from discovery, a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood he jumps from his seat and confesses, because of ran cold.” After methodically working up to the “the beating of his hideous heart!” murder, by looking into the old man’s room each night for a week and shining a thin ray of light from COMMENTARY a lamp’s shutter onto the offending eye, the narra- Critics have described this tale as the ultimate tor decides to kill the man on the eighth night. He GOTHIC story, for its mood and its narrator, who relates that the sound of the lamp shutter awoke is trapped in an old, dark house without the pros- the old man, who cries out, “Who’s there?” before pect of escape. Some critics have suggested that falling back onto the bed with a groan. Convinced the narrator might be a woman, for the absence of that the groan was one of the terror that the old pronouns fails to indicate either sex. The sense of man’s eye has caused him, not simply pain, the nar- helpless entrapment escalating into a murderous rator decides that the time is right. rage might as easily apply to a woman as to a man. He enjoys the moments leading up to the mur- “The Tell-Tale Heart” is both a horror story and der, considering how the old man’s mind must a psychological portrait of the guilty narrator. Told be trying to explain away the strange sound by from the first-person point of view, the story allows thinking it is the wind or a mouse running across the reader to see into the mind of the madman who the floor. When the narrator decides that the “old commits so heinous a crime. The reader, thus, sees man’s hour has come,” he yells out and leaps into what the narrator sees and thinks, even when he the room, causing the old man to shriek. He then attempts to take on the role of an omniscient third- smothers the old man by dragging the mattress onto person narrator and seeks to relate what he believes

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that the old man thinks or feels when the noise telling the reader specifically that over seven nights awakens him. The first-person point of view allows he has looked into the room to observe the old man the reader to share in the narrator’s oscillation sleeping, and the eighth night is the one chosen between sanity and insanity, as he first boasts of his for the crime. He relates that he waited one hour cool and calculated planning, then later insists that after first looking in the room on the eighth night, the heart continued to beat for quite some time waiting until the time was right for his move. The after the old man is dead. Although the narrator is old man also experiences this passage of time, and unreliable, this point of view is highly effective in the narrator conveys the terror of the old man, who revealing the unstable feelings he experiences. had endured “night after night hearkening to the Poe explores several themes in the narrative, death watches in the wall.” The narrator emphasizes including those of sanity versus insanity, guilt versus death and time throughout the story. He explains innocence, and the issue of time. The mental state that “the old man’s hour had come.” The narrator is of the narrator is at issue from the first line of the also distressed by hearing the overwhelming sound story—“True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully ner- of a heartbeat, which he compares to “a low, dull, vous I had been and am, but why will you say that I quick sound, such as a watch makes when envel- am mad?”—although he appears obsessed with con- oped in cotton.” After killing the old man, the nar- veying to his audience that he is sane. This effort, rator relates that for “many minutes, the heart beat however, only increases the reader’s conviction on.” It is also the sound of the heart beating like a about his lack of sanity. Despite the narrator’s pro- ticking watch that leads him to confess the crime. testations to the contrary, the first sign of his mad- James W. Gargano asserts that Poe created a ness appears early in the story, when he compares psychological drama that blatantly advertises “Poe’s the old man’s eye to a vulture’s eye and explains conscious intention; the protagonist’s painful insis- his decision to “take the life of the old man” in tence in ‘proving’ himself sane only serves to inten- order to free himself from the curse of the eye. The sify the idea of his madness” (178). He observes that reader cannot agree with the narrator’s argument in allowing the narrator to tell this tale, Poe “skillfully that he is sane, calculating, and methodical because contrives to show also that he [the narrator] lives in his confused language exhibits that he is disordered, a haunted and eerie world of his own demented despite his meticulous and well thought out plans to making” (178). Thus, the unreliable narrator lies to carry out the murder and dismemberment. both himself and to his audience. E. Arthur Robin- A second theme is that of guilt versus inno- son observes that “The Tell-Tale Heart” consists of a cence. The narrator is fully guilty of the act of monologue in which an accused murderer “protests murdering the old man, but he justifies his action his sanity rather than his innocence” (369). He notes by pointing out the terror with which the pale blue that the narrator seeks to convince readers that his eye with a film over it has caused him. Thus, while ability to engage in systematic action must prove he acknowledges having commited the vile act, he him to be sane, despite the fact that such action is suggests that he has been driven to do so by forces directed toward committing a heinous crime. Robin- beyond his control. Although he protests that no son asserts that the two psychological themes of the other reason but the eye has led him to commit indefinite extension of subjective time and the merg- murder, and he seems logical in his own defense, ing of killer and killed are linked closely in the story. he knows that his action was wrong. While sitting “The madman feels compelled to delay the murder with the police, who seem satisfied with the narra- until his subject is overcome by the same nameless tor’s innocence, he becomes overwhelmed by guilt fears that have possessed his own soul” (374). and confesses the crime because he believes that he hears the loud beating of the dead man’s heart. ADAPTATIONS Time is also an important theme in the story. The Tell-Tale Heart, filmed in 1928, in a version Using flashback, the narrator details the many nights directed by Charles Klein and starring Otto Mat- that he has passed in contemplating the murder, iesen and Darvas, is faithful to the details of the

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story. The 1934 British version, also marketed as week, looking into the man’s room each night, but Bucket of Blood, directed by Brian Desmond Hurst the offending eye is closed and “it was impossible and starring Norman Dryden and Yolande Terrell, to do the work; for it was not the old man who is based on the short story but contains numerous vexed me, but his Evil Eye.” When the eighth night additional details to lengthen the feature. The film occurs, the old man hears the slight noise made by was remade, once again in Britain, in 1963. This the narrator, who takes joy in hearing the old man’s version was directed by Ernest Morris and starred “groan of mortal terror.” He claims to have lain Laurence Payne, Adrienne Corri, Dermot Walsh, awake many nights himself, due to “the terrors that and Selma Vaz Dias. In this version, Poe’s basic distracted me.” Although he claims to pity the old story remains, but a jealous love enlivens the plot. man and claims to be able to relate to his present terror, the narrator also takes sadistic pleasure in PUBLICATION HISTORY knowing that his victim has been lying awake ever The story was first published in the January 1843 since the first slight noise and “His fears have been issue of JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL’s The Pioneer and ever since growing upon him.” As the narrator takes reprinted in the August 23, 1845, issue of the each step in the murder, he asserts that he cannot BROADWAY JOURNAL. be considered mad, because of the efficient manner in which he kills the old man, then dismembers CHARACTERS and hides the body. He considers his hiding of the unnamed narrator A possibly criminally insane body under the floorboards of the old man’s room man who murders an old man whom he claims to “so cleverly, so cunningly” that no one will discern love. The narrator takes great pains at the begin- his crime. When three police officers appear, the ning of the story to convince his listener (never narrator greets them with a light heart, “For what identified) that he is not insane. had I now to fear?” As he speaks with them and conducts them throughout the house, he repeats to True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully ner- his listener “for what had I to fear?” His inflated ego vous I had been and am! But why will you say leads him to take chairs into the old man’s room and that I am mad? The disease had sharpened to invite the policemen to sit and talk with him. As my senses—not destroyed—not dulled them. the four sit and talk, the narrator soon begins to feel Above all was the same sense of hearing acute. nauseated and experience a ringing in his ears. His I heard all things in the heaven and in the head aches and he grows pale. He then begins to earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, hear “a low, dull, quick sound—much such a sound as am I mad? Hearken! And observe how health- a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.” This is the ily—how calmly I can tell you the whole story. sound he heard when he smothered the old man and He claims to have had no grudge against the old believed it to be the beating of the old man’s heart. man, who had never wronged him or insulted him. The policemen continue speaking companionably as And he further claims to have had no desire to the narrator begins to lose psychological control: “I acquire the man’s money. Rather, he struggles to foamed—I raved—I swore.” He imagines that the produce a reason for having murdered the old man sound is getting louder and louder and believes that and finally decides that the reason was because of the policemen hear it but are mocking him. Finally, the old man’s “pale blue eye, with a film over it.” after claiming throughout the story to be cool and The narrator decides that if he murders the old man, calm in committing the deed, the narrator admits he will be free of the eye forever. He asserts that his crime. he cannot be a madman because “Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should unnamed old man Murdered by the man who have seen how wisely I proceeded—with what cau- was his caretaker. He is a seemingly helpless indi- tion—with what foresight—with what dissimulation vidual who has one pale blue eye, which the nar- I went to work!” The narrator bides his time for a rator believes resembles the eye of a vulture. His

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room “was black as pitch with the thick darkness, makes his narrator the detective, who also solves (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear the mystery. The title of the story is taken from of robbers)” so he cannot see when the narrator the Old Testament. The words appear in II Samuel peeks in the door to see if he is asleep. He dies 12:7, in which the prophet Nathan accuses King when the narrator pulls him out of bed, then pulls David of desiring Bathsheba and having her hus- the heavy mattress onto his body and smothers band killed to achieve that aim: “And Nathan said him. His body is later dismembered, and the pieces to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord are placed beneath the floorboards of his room. By God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and the narrator’s own admission, the old man has not I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul.” When the given the least offense to the narrator nor wronged wealthiest man in town, Barnabas Shuttleworthy, him in any way; he is murdered only because the disappears, everyone suspects foul play. His best narrator claims “my blood ran cold” when he friend, Charles Goodfellow, bemoans that he will looked at the old man’s one pale blue eye. never receive the shipment of Chateau Margaux, a fine wine, that Shuttleworthy had promised. Fears FURTHER READINGS for the missing man’s life are intensified when a Cotte, Pierre. “Le Titre et L’Incipit d’Un Conte d’Edgar bloody waistcoat, bullet, and knife belonging to his Allan Poe.” Etudes Anglaises 57, no. 2 (April–June nephew Mr. Pennifeather are found. Pennifeather 2004): 173–186. is placed on trial and, based on circumstantial evi- Drain, Kim. “Poe’s Death-Watches and the Archi- dence and with no corpse, he is declared “Guilty of tecture of Doubt.” New England Review 27, no. 2 murder in the first degree” and sentenced to death. (2006): 169–178. The narrator conducts his own investigation, finds Gargano, James W. “The Question of Poe’s Narra- the corpse, and sets out to prove that Goodfellow is tors.” College English 25, no. 3 (December, 1963): the murderer. He sends Goodfellow a note that the 177–81. expected wine will arrive in a few days, then places ———. “The Theme of Time in ‘The Tell-Tale Heart.’ ” the corpse in the wine crate and rigs it so that the Studies in Short Fiction 5, no. 1 (Fall 1967): 278–82. corpse will spring into the sitting position when Maxson, Helen F. “Richard Poirier and Edgar Allan the box is opened. When this occurs, the narrator Poe: Reassessing the ‘World Elsewhere’.” The Mid- throws his voice to make it seem that the corpse west Quarterly 41, no. 4 (Summer 2000): 416–431. has intoned to Goodfellow, “ ‘Thou art the man!’ ” Pritchard, Hollie. “Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart.’ ” The The shock leads Goodfellow to confess. Mr. Pen- Explicator 61, no. 3 (Spring 2003): 144. nifeather is freed and receives his uncle’s estate. Robinson, E. Arthur. “Poe’s ‘Tell-Tale Heart.’” Nine- teenth Century Fiction 19 (1965): 369–378. PUBLICATION HISTORY Tucker, D. “ ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ and the ‘Evil Eye.’ ” “Thou Art the Man” first appeared in the Novem- Southern Literary Journal 13, no. 2 (1981): 92–98. ber 1844 issue of GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND LADY’S Zimmerman, Brett. “Frantic Forensic Oratory: Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ ” Poe Studies 35, no. 1 (Spring BOOK. 2001): 34–50. CHARACTERS Goodfellow, Charles The alcoholic friend and the next door neighbor of Mr. Barnabas Shuttle- “Thou Art the Man” (1844) worthy. Sometimes called “Charley Goodfellow” or “Old Charley Goodfellow,” he possesses an Short story written in 1844. “ingenuous face which is proverbially the very ‘best letter of recommendation’.” He fools the towns- SYNOPSIS people into charging another man with the murder “Thou Art the Man” is a further experiment by Poe that he commits and for which he nearly escapes in writing the DETECTIVE STORY. In this effort Poe punishment.

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Pennifeather, Mr. A young man “of very dis- of interest whatsoever from either her sister or the sipated habits, and otherwise of rather bad char- king, Scheherazade begins the sequel and fills it acter.” The nephew of Barnabas Shuttleworthy, with absurd adventures that gradually irritate the “one of the wealthiest and most respectable citi- king and lead him to grunt his disapproval. When zens of the borough,” he is “so intimately cogni- his wife persists, the king becomes irate and shouts zant of all the circumstances connected with his at her, “I can’t stand that, and I won’t. You have wealthy uncle’s disappearance, as to feel authorized already given me a dreadful headache with your to assert, distinctly and unequivocally, that his lies. You might as well get up and be throttled.” uncle was a murdered man.” Pennifeather is falsely The narrator states that the “Isitsoornot” relates accused of and tried for the murder of his uncle, Scheherazade’s reaction to her fate: She achieved but the true murderer is revealed right before Pen- “great consolation” from knowing that she left nifeather is doomed to die. Once he is released much of the story yet untold, and “that the petu- from jail, he inherits his uncle’s fortune. lance of her brute husband had reaped for him a most righteous reward, in depriving him of many Shuttleworthy, Barnabas He is “one of the inconceivable adventures.” wealthiest and most respectable citizens” of Rattle- borough. He has “a sad habit of swearing,” and he COMMENTARY is not overly fond of people eating and drinking at “The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade” his expense. When he goes missing for several days, is Poe’s addition to the The Thousand-and-One the citizens suspect foul play. The narrator finds his Nights, also known as the Arabian Nights, but his corpse, engineers it to pop out of the wine crate, title includes a serious miscalculation. The original and throws his voice to accuse the murderer. contained one thousand and one nights, not tales— many of the tales are continued over several nights. Thus, Poe’s story should be of the thousand-and- “Thousand-and-Second Tale second night. of Scheherazade, The” (1845) PUBLICATION HISTORY The story first appeared in the February 1845 issue Short story written in 1845. of GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND LADY’S BOOK, and it was later republished in the October 25, 1845, issue of SYNOPSIS the BROADWAY JOURNAL. “The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade” is prefaced by an epigraph: “ ‘Truth is stranger than CHARACTERS fiction.’—Old Saying.” The narrator professes to Cock-neighs The “men-vermin” or “man-animals,” have uncovered startling information while “in the they have the size and shape of men, “altogether course of some Oriental investigations” respect- resembling them, except they wore no garments (as ing the fate of the vizier’s daughter Scheherazade, men do).” They attach themselves to the back of a whom the literary world had supposed lived happily “sea-beast” and goad it through “their nibblings and ever after the thousand-and-first night of her tales. stingings” into “that degree of wrath which was req- Consulting the “ ‘Tellmenow Isitsoornot,’ ” which “is uisite to make it roar and commit ill.” The narrator of scarcely known at all, even in Europe; and which the tale presumes that they are called Cock-neighs, has never been quoted . . . by any American,” the “because their language formed the connecting link narrator learns that Scheherazade experienced between that of the horse and that of the rooster.” pangs of conscience after her ordeal was over. She admitted to her sister “a grievous piece of miscon- Jochaides, Simeon Cited as the author of a fic- duct,” that she had withheld the full conclusion tional title, Tellmenow Isitsoornot, “which (like of the story of Sinbad the sailor. Despite no show the “Zohar” of Simeon Jochaides) is scarcely known

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at all, even in Europe.” The work, attributed to words for his uncle: “You hard-hearted, dunder- Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai (first century A.D.), actu- headed, obstinate, rusty, crusty, musty, fusty, old ally exists, and it is a commentary on the Penta- savage.” But such courage is only in his imagina- teuch, the first five books of the Old Testament. tion, because “some discrepancy did exist, just then, WASHINGTON IRVING mentions the work in a simi- between what I said and what I had not the courage lar manner in his History of New York by Dietrich to say.” Instead, Bobby cautiously approaches his Knickerbocker, published in 1809. uncle and asks him to name a precise date when he and Kate might marry. Thus pressed, Rumgudgeon Scheherazade Poe presents her as being the responds, “you shall have Kate and her plum when original teller of the Arabian Nights, and humor- three Sundays come together in a week—but not till ously projects her as having pangs of conscience then.” The young lovers believe their situation to be that she did not complete for her husband, the hopeless until they hear the conversation of two sea king, the story of Sinbad the sailor. The daugh- captains who visit Rumgudgeon on a Sunday—one ter of the grand vizier (from the Turkish word who thinks that the preceding day is Sunday and vezir and the Arabic word wazir, both meaning a the other who believes that the following day will high-ranking executive officer), she insists upon be Sunday. Captain Pratt has sailed west around marrying the king despite knowing that he has the Earth and lost a day, while Captain Smitherton made a vow to marry each night the most beautiful has sailed east around the Earth and gained a day. maiden in his dominion and have her executed the Thus, for Smitherton the previous day was Sunday, following morning. Scheherazade’s plan is to marry for Pratt the next day will be Sunday, and for every- the king and then tell him a tale each night, leav- one else the current day is Sunday. As Rumgudgeon ing just enough of the story untold at daybreak to must admit, “Three Sundays all in a row!” tempt him to keep her alive to finish the story the COMMENTARY following evening. She succeeds for 1,001 nights, “Three Sundays in a Week” is the most simple love but she makes the mistake of wanting to continue story of Poe’s oeuvre, and it has not been held in the story even as the king demands that she stop. high regard by critics, but it is the first of Poe’s tales Scheherazade appears to have lost her touch, to be translated into Spanish. The story was first because the king is not amused and, instead, con- published under the title “A Succession of Sun- demns her to the original punishment. days” in the February 15, 1857, issue of the Madrid- FURTHER READINGS based El Museo Universal. Critics have questioned whether the story might have inspired Jules Verne Deniccio, Jerone D. “Fact, Fiction, Fantality: Poe’s ‘The and given him an idea for his novel Around the Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade.’ ” World in Eighty Days (1873), which is based on the Studies in Short Fiction 27 (1990): 365–370. same concept: A day is lost when going westward around the world, and a day is gained when going eastward around the world. “Three Sundays PUBLICATION HISTORY in a Week” (1841) The story was first published under the title “A Succession of Sundays” in the November 27, 1841, Short story written in 1841. issue of the Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post and republished under the present title in the May 10, SYNOPSIS 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. “Three Sundays in a Week” is a lighthearted love story that opens as Bobby asks his uncle Rumgud- CHARACTERS geon for permission to marry his daughter Kate. In Bobby The narrator and the nephew of the cur- his imagination, Bobby shakes his fist and has hard mudgeonly granduncle Rumgudgeon, whom he

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thrashes and argues with in his imagination but “a little, pursy, pompous, passionate, semicircular to whom he shows the utmost respect in person, somebody, with a red nose, a thick skull, a long because he is dependent upon the uncle for his living. purse, and a strong sense of his own consequence.” Eager to marry his beloved Kate, he asks his uncle to He works hard “to earn for himself . . . the char- name a time when it would be most convenient for acter of a curmudgeon,” and “To every request, a the wedding to occur, and Rumgudgeon responds positive ‘No!’ was his immediate answer.” “when three Sundays come together in a week.” Bobby is used to being abused by his granduncle, for Smitherton, Captain He has been absent from he tells readers that “it was a dog’s existence that he England for a year “in foreign travel,” having made led me, after all. From my first year until my fifth, he a journey in which he “doubled the Cape of Good obliged me with very regular floggings. From five to Hope.” His assertion that the day preceding his visit fifteen, he threatened me, hourly, with the House of was Sunday, countered by Captain Pratt’s assertion Correction. From fifteen to twenty, not a day passed that the day following their visit is Sunday, provides in which he did not promise to cut me off with a shil- the solution to the main predicament of the story— ling.” In the end, because of Kate’s acuity, Bobby is an uncle’s demand that his niece may marry only finally granted permission to marry her. “when three Sundays come together in a week.”

Dee, Doctor Dubble L. Cited as an authority FURTHER READINGS on “the extraordinary concurrence of events.” Freeman, Elizabeth. “Honeymoon with a Stranger: Pedophiliac Picaresques From Poe to Nabokov.” Kate Betrothed of the narrator, Bobby, also her American Literature 70, no. 4 (December 1998): cousin. “Barely fifteen” but “a firm friend,” as well 863–897. as “a good girl,” she has promised to marry the Roth, Martin. “Poe’s ‘Three Sundays in a Week.’ ” narrator “whenever I could badger my grand-uncle Sphinx 4, no. 4 (1985): 258–267. [and Kate’s father] Rumgudgeon into the necessary consent” required by her youth. Her father only consents to the marriage “when three Sundays come together in a week!” Despite her young age, Kate lis- “To ———” [“Should my tens as Captain Smitherton and Captain Pratt tell of their journeys and, after hearing that one went early life seem”] (before 1829) round Cape Horn and the other doubled the Cape of Good Hope, proves the assembled group actually Poem written before 1829. has experienced three Sundays in a week. SYNOPSIS Pratt, Captain He has been absent from England “To ———” [“Should my early life seem”] details for a year “in foreign travel,” having made a jour- the speaker’s loss of love and of early hopes that ney “round Cape Horn.” His assertion that the day “went gloriously away.” The speaker appears to after his visit will be Sunday, countered by Captain equate parting from his beloved as a sign of one Smitherton’s assertion that the day preceding their more failure, for he is no longer as young, nor as visit is Sunday, provides the solution to the main stoic, nor as proud as he appears to the outside predicament of the story—an uncle’s demand that world. his niece may marry only “when three Sundays come together in a week.” PUBLICATION HISTORY The poem first appeared in the 1829 collection Rumgudgeon The grand-uncle of Bobby the nar- AL AARAAF, TAMERLANE, AND MINOR POEMS. The rator and the guardian of Kate, whose marriage he original 40-line poem was shortened to 13 lines will only agree to “when three Sundays come together for publication in the December 1829 issue of the in a week!” The narrator describes him as being Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette.

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 179 10/12/07 12:02:20 PM 180 “To ———” [“Sleep on, sleep on, another hour—”] “To ———” [“Sleep on, “To Elizabeth” (1835)

sleep on, another hour—”] Poem written in 1835. (1833) SYNOPSIS Poem written in 1833. “To Elizabeth” was written for Poe’s cousin ELIZA- BETH REBECCA HERRING, and he actually wrote the SYNOPSIS poem in her album. Some 15 years later, he made “To ———” [“Sleep on, sleep on, another hour—”] a minor revision to the first line of the poem and is a 20-line lyric poem, a lullaby that repeats three addressed it to FRANCES S. OSGOOD, while retitling times the words “Sleep on, sleep on” as the speaker it “To F———S S. O———D.” The poem was urges that all is angelic, all is bright, all is like first published under this title in the 1845 collection The RAVEN AND OTHER POEMS. Only eight lines “some fairy dream / But, O, thy spirit, calm, serene, long, the version addressed to Elizabeth Herring / Must wake to weep.” Poe dedicated the poem begins with the question “Would’st thou be loved?” to an anonymous woman and signed the poem and the revision simply rephrases the question to “Tamerlane.” “Thou would’st be loved?” The remaining seven lines are identical to those in the original version, as PUBLICATION HISTORY they urge that to be loved one should be everything The poem appeared in the May 11, 1833, issue of “which now thou art / And nothing which thou art the BALTIMORE SATURDAY VISITER. not.” If the person to whom Poe addresses the poem will follow his advice, then her “gentle ways” and “unassuming beauty” will make “love—a duty.” “To ———” [“The bowers PUBLICATION HISTORY “To Elizabeth” first appeared in the September whereat, in dreams, I 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSEN- see”] (before 1829) GER and was reprinted in the August 1839 issue of BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE under the title “To———” (1) [“Wouldst thou be loved? Then Poem written before 1829. let thy heart”]. SYNOPSIS “To ———” [“The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see”] is a brief, 12-line poem which deals with the “To F———” (1845) speaker’s loss in which “Thine eyes . . . desolately fall . . . on my funereal mind / Like starlight on a Poem written in 1845. pall.” Yet, even as he must wake he sighs and looks forward to go to sleep again “to dream till day / Of SYNOPSIS truth that gold can never buy—/ Of the trifles that “To F———” is a poem that Poe dedicated to it may.” FRANCES OSGOOD. The speaker states that “amid the care—the woes / Crowding my earthly path—” he at PUBLICATION HISTORY least has solace “In dreams of thee” whose memory is First appearing in the 1829 collection AL AARAAF, “Like some enchanted far-off isle” in the “tumultu- TAMERLANE, AND MINOR POEMS, the poem later ous sea of his life.” For Poe, Frances Osgood provides appeared in the September 20, 1845, issue of the a calming influence in his life, “Serenest skies con- BROADWAY JOURNAL. tinually / Just o’er that one bright island smile.”

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PUBLICATION HISTORY the glories of antiquity and writes two lines that “To F———” first appeared under this title in the have since become famous on their own merit: “the April 1845 issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. Dedi- glory that was Greece, / And the grandeur that was cated to Frances S. Osgood, the poem was also Rome.” From the classical Helen, Poe returns in the revised to four lines and appeared in the September last stanza to his very own Helen and refers to the 6, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL under the vision that he viewed as a lonely boy who warmed title “To Frances.” to her kindness and attention: “in that little window-niche / How statue-like I see thee stand.” COMMENTARY “To Helen” (1) (1831) The first of two poems by Poe entitled “To Helen” was addressed to JANE STITH STANARD, the mother Poem written in 1831. of a school friend from the academy he attended in Richmond. Poe met her when he was 14 and imme- SYNOPSIS diately began to idolize her for her “gentle and gra- “To Helen,” written in 1831, consists of 15 lines, cious words of welcome . . . the sweet and gracious and it is the first of two poems by Poe of this title. words that made the desolate world so beautiful to The narrator characterizes his “Helen” as possess- him.” Poe thought her first name was too prosaic ing sustaining loveliness, peace, serenity, and sol- for such an extraordinary woman, and he preferred ace for “The weary, way-worn wanderer.” He recalls to think of her as the classical Helen of Troy, a fact that he revealed in later years. His “Helen” died in 1824 at the age of 31. Acquaintances and critics have generally accepted that “To Helen” (1), written in 1831, was inspired by her. PUBLICATION HISTORY “To Helen” was first published in the 1831 collection POEMS BY EDGAR A. POE, then reprinted in the March 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. FURTHER READINGS Gargano, James W. “Poe’s ‘To Helen.’ ” Modern Lan- guage Notes 75 (1960): 652–653.

“To Helen” (2) (1848)

Poem written in 1848. SYNOPSIS “To Helen,” written in 1848, consists of 66 lines and it is the second of two poems by Poe of this title. The poem recounts Poe’s first meeting with SARAH HELEN WHITMAN and offers an idealized and roman- Illustration for “To Helen” (Edmund Dulac) ticized version of the encounter. At the outset of

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the poem: “I saw thee once—once only—years ago: single stanza of 18 lines, Poe speaks of “the seraphic / I must not say how many—but not many. / It was glancing” of her eyes and he credits her with “the a July midnight; and from out / A full-orbed moon, resurrection of deep-buried faith / In Truth—in that, like thine own soul, soaring.” He describes her Virtue—in Humanity—” as he tells her that he dressed in white, “half-reclining; while the moon / owes her most “whose gratitude / Nearest resem- Fell on the upturn’d faces of the roses.” The rest of bles worship.” As Poe writes the lines, he “thrills to the poem remains appropriately vague, as Poe had think / His spirit is communing with an angel’s.” yet to meet his “Helen of a thousand dreams.” COMMENTARY COMMENTARY “To M. L. S.———” was written to MARIE LOUISE The second of the two poems entitled “To Helen” SHEW. The poem was a Valentine gift to Shew was addressed to Sarah Helen Whitman. Poe wrote in which Poe expressed his appreciation for her the poem before he met Whitman. He had seen her unselfish assistance and tender ministering to VIR- three years earlier while visiting Providence in July GINIA CLEMM in the final year of her illness. 1845 to deliver a lecture; although the two did not speak, Poe was captivated by her appearance. She PUBLICATION HISTORY was dressed in white and standing in a rose garden. “To M. L. S.———” was published in the March Poe recalls their first meeting at the outset of the 13, 1847, issue of the Home Journal. poem. Sarah Helen Whitman, a widow, was the great love of Poe’s later life, and the woman to whom he addressed at least one impassioned letter: “Helen— my Helen—the Helen of a thousand dreams!” The “To My Mother” (1849) widow and Poe, by then a widower, coincidentally shared the same birthdate. They became engaged in Poem written in 1849. 1848, despite the dire warnings of friends and family about Poe’s unstable nature and continued drinking, SYNOPSIS but the strains of the outside disapproval of Poe as “To My Mother” is a deeply felt and morbid son- the choice of husband drove them apart. net that Poe addressed to MARIA CLEMM, his mother-in-law, and in which he also refers to his PUBLICATION HISTORY biological mother, ELIZABETH POE, writing: “My The second poem entitled “To Helen” was first mother—my own mother, who died early / Was published in the November 1848 issue of SARTAIN’S but the mother of myself.” In contrast, not only UNION MAGAZINE. has Maria Clemm been kind to him, “but you / Are mother to the one I loved so dearly.” She is, FURTHER READINGS to Poe, “more mother unto me” and “dearer than Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. the mother I knew.” New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1992. COMMENTARY “To My Mother” was published only four months before Poe died. The poem is both a tribute to “To M. L. S.———” (1847) Maria Clemm’s steadfast support and love that he experienced over the years and a morbid reminder Poem written in 1847. of his early loss. The poem is a deeply personal expression of the grief that Poe carried throughout SYNOPSIS his life, of not having had the presence of his bio- “To M. L. S.———” is a poem of appreciation logical mother and of having been subjected to the written by Poe after the death of his wife. In a cold and unyielding household of JOHN ALLAN.

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PUBLICATION HISTORY FURTHER READING “To My Mother” was first published in the July Morisi, Eve Celia. “Poe’s ‘To One in Paradise’.” The 7, 1849, issue of the FLAG OF OUR UNION and Explicator 63, no. 3 (Spring 2005): 141–144. reprinted in the annual Leaflets of Memory for 1850. “To the River———” “To One in Paradise” (1834) (before 1829)

Poem written in 1834. Poem written before 1829. SYNOPSIS SYNOPSIS “To One in Paradise” contains Poe’s favorite theme “To the River———” is a 14-line poem that of grieving for the loss of a beautiful woman: “Thou relates the beauty of a pastoral setting to the wast that all to me, love, / For which my soul did beauty of a woman. The speaker states that when pine.” the beautiful young woman looks into the “laby- rinth-like water” of the brook, “then the pret- COMMENTARY tiest of brooks / My pretty self resembles.” Her The poem expresses a deep-rooted gloom that allows image becomes part of the speaker’s heart when no escape into a dream world. The poem was origi- she looks at him with “her soul-searching eyes,” nally included in Poe’s short story “The ASSIGNA- just as her image becomes part of the brook when TION” under the pretense of having been written she looks into it. by a young unnamed Byronic stranger to the married Marchesa de Mentoni. They make a suicide PUBLICATION HISTORY pact in the story and both die. “To One in Para- “To the River———” first appeared in the 1829 dise” expresses a hopelessness about love and life collection AL AARAAF, TAMERLANE, AND MINOR that remains unrelieved by the hope of an afterlife POEMS. It was reprinted in the August 1839 issue together. The final stanza provides a sly summary of BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE; the March of the story that is contained within “The Assigna- 4, 1843, issue of the PHILADELPHIA SATURDAY tion,” of a young woman who has spent time in MUSEUM, and the September 1845 issue of the London and who may have met and loved the young BROADWAY JOURNAL. Byronic stranger, but who is betrothed by her family to an older and wealthy Italian nobleman. “Alas! For that accursed time / They bore thee o’er the billow, / From Love to titled age and crime, / And an unholy “Ulalume” (1847) pillow!—/ From me, and from our misty clime, / Where weeps the silver willow!” This stanza was Poem written in 1847. omitted in later publications of the poem on its own. SYNOPSIS PUBLICATION HISTORY “Ulalume” represents the dual yearnings that the “To One in Paradise” was originally included in the speaker feels a year after his love has died. Psyche first version of Poe’s short story “The Assignation” accompanies him on his walk through the gloomy that was published under the title of “The Vision- woods “in the lonesome October of my most mem- ary” in the January 1834 issue of GODEY’S MAGA- orable year,” representing the soul and his spiri- ZINE AND LADY’S BOOK. The poem also appeared in tual side, yet he confesses that he is attracted by the 1845 collection The RAVEN AND OTHER POEMS. Astarte’s bediamonded crescent, for “she is warmer

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than Dian; / she rolls through a nether of sighs— / moods of the narrators. In “Ulalume,” the Soul She revels in a region of sighs.” Astarte the moon is aware that following Venus will only lead the goddess represents sexuality, fertility, and the pos- narrator to increased sadness. Although Psyche is sibility of new happiness, but Psyche cautions the unwilling to face an idealized beauty gone forever, speaker, stating, “ ‘Sadly, this star I mistrust— / Her the insistent narrator persists in his quest to know. pallor I strangely mistrust.” The speaker states that Despite his efforts to follow a light that promises he wanders “In the ghoul-haunted woodland of hope and beauty, the narrator arrives at a place of Weir” with “my Soul / —Of cypress, with Psyche, despair and darkness and realizes that contemplat- my Soul.” Psyche leads the speaker to “the door of ing the lost Ulalume will lead him only to a dead a tomb,” the tomb of his lost love, Ulalume, whom and desolate domain. As James O. Bailey suggests, he had interred in “October, / On this very night “Ulalume” can be read as a tragedy that reveals the of last year.” Their wandering leads the speaker limitations of humans as they strive to attain perfect to the door of a tomb, “a legended tomb,” and ideals such as beauty and truth. At the same time, he asks Psyche to tell him what is written on the however, the poem illuminates the strength of the door. As she replies, “Ulalume—Ulalume!— / ’T human will in its drive for the unattainable. is the vault of thy lost Ulalume!’ ” the speaker’s heart grows “ashen and sober,” and he remembers PUBLICATION HISTORY that on this same night a year earlier he had made “Ulalume” was published anonymously in the the same journey. He cries out “I brought a dread December 1847 issue of the AMERICAN WHIG burden down here” and questions “of all nights in REVIEW. After the first publication, Poe wrote to the year, / Oh, what demon has tempted me here?” NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS, who reprinted it in the As the nine stanzas end, the speaker concedes that Home Journal with a query as to its author in order he will always be under the spell of the lost Ulal- to stir up attention. The first version of the poem ume. The 10 lines of the final stanza of the original contained 10 stanzas, but Poe omitted the final poem convey a bitterness and despair that plunges stanza in later printings. the speaker—already suffering the melancholy grief of the first nine stanzas—into a contemplation of FURTHER READINGS “woodlandish ghouls— / The pitiful, the merciful Bailey, James O. “The Geography of Poe’s ‘Dreamland’ ghouls” and of “the limbo of lunary souls— / This and “Ulalume.’ ” Studies in Philology 45 (1948): sinfully scintillant planet / From the Hell of the 512–523. planetary souls.” She is the speaker’s beloved who Robinson, David. “ ‘Ulalume’: The Ghouls and the died a year before and for whom he continues to Critics.” Poe Studies 8 (1975): 8–10. grieve deeply. Tromly, Lucas. “Impurifying Poe: Robert Penn War- ren’s ‘Brother to Dragons.” The Mississippi Quar- COMMENTARY terly 53, no. 2 (Spring 2000): 225–236. Biographers associate Ulalume with Poe’s dead wife, VIRGINIA CLEMM, because the poem was published the year that she died. Although the timing suggests this link, “Ulalume” is one among many of “Unparalleled Adventure of Poe’s poems and short stories that relate a narrator’s One Hans Pfaall, The” (1835) loss of a beautiful woman who dies tragically young. Further, several poems with this theme are similarly Short story written in 1835. set in an imaginary landscape and portray narrators interacting with mythical figures or celestial beings SYNOPSIS as they attempt to achieve a reunion with their “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall” lost loves. Such efforts are futile, and the failures is viewed as one of the first true science fiction to achieve reunions only increase the melancholy tales. The epigraph preceding the story is a four-

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line excerpt from “Tom O’Bedlam’s Song,” a a distance.” Furthermore, Gluck the printer recog- “mad song” appearing in the 1661 collection Wit nized some of the newspapers that were stuck all and Drollery and reprinted in a chapter entitled over the balloon as newspapers of Holland. More “Tom O’Bedlam’s” in Isaac D’Israeli’s 1832 Curiosi- damaging, Hans Pfaall and his three companions ties of Literature. The term Tom O’Bedlam refers to had been seen only two or three days earlier “in a someone who begs for alms on the basis of insan- tippling house in the suburbs, having just returned, ity instead of physical impairment. The term was with money in their pockets, from a trip beyond applied to patients who were released half-cured the sea.” from St. Mary’s of Bethlehem (contracted to “Bed- lam”) hospital for the insane in London, after which COMMENTARY they would wander the streets and beg, while sing- As one of the first true science fiction tales, the ing mad songs and wearing outlandish clothing to story also provides entertainment as a hoax that attract donors. The practice soon inspired various speaks to the fascination with international balloon scams, as others began to impersonate these “Tom flight in Poe’s time. For its publication in the antici- O’Bedlams” to beg money. pated 1850 collection of his works edited by RUFUS The story opens with the announcement of an WILMOT GRISWOLD, Poe felt compelled to follow the event that has caused “a high state of philosophi- story with a lengthy explanation of the ways in which cal excitement” in the city of Rotterdam and is this story differs from RICHARD ADAMS LOCKE’s expected to keep Europe in an uproar, “all physics “Moon-Hoax” and other works that it resembled. In in a ferment, all reason and astronomy together by the conclusion of his defense, Poe writes, “In ‘Hans the ears.” A hot-air balloon piloted by a little old Pfaall’ the design is original, inasmuch as regards an man appears in the city and drops a scrolled letter attempt at verisimilitude, the application of scientific sealed with red wax at the feet of the “burgomas- principles (so far as the whimsical nature of the sub- ter.” [sic] The lengthy letter is addressed as follows: ject would permit), to the actual passage between “To their Excellencies Von Underduk and Rubadub, the earth and the moon.” President and Vice-President of the States’ College of Astronomers, in the city of Rotterdam.” In it is an PUBLICATION HISTORY account of an adventure undertaken by a “humble The story was first published in the June 1835 issue artizen,” Hans Pfaall, with three companions, all of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER under the of whom had disappeared from the city five years title “Hans Pfaall.” Poe changed the title to the before. The letter describes Pfaall’s discovery of a current one when preparing the story in 1842 for gas 37 times lighter than hydrogen and his experi- inclusion in a proposed short story collection titled ments in creating a craft to travel to the Moon. Phantasy Pieces, which never saw publication. Among the adventures described in great detail are visits to the North Pole, explosions, crash land- CHARACTERS ings, and trips to the Moon. The account is filled Gluck Printer who is called upon to verify the with references to scientific devices and proce- source of the newspapers that are stuck all over dures, thus adding a learned air and credibility to the hot-air balloon. He observes that they are from the story. Pfaall ends his letter with a request that Holland and that they were “dirty papers—very he receive a pardon from the city fathers for “the dirty—and Gluck, the printer, would take his Bible crime of which I have been guilty in the death of oath to their having been printed in Rotterdam.” the creditors upon my departure from Rotterdam” in trade for the extensive scientific knowledge that Grimm, M. Inventor of an apparatus that he purports to bring back. The town leaders feel improves “the condensation of the atmosphere air.” that no pardon is in order, because the aeronaut Using “the very ingenious apparatus of M. Grimm,” did not wait for a response and “no one but a man Pfaall is able to condense the air “in sufficient in the moon would undertake a voyage to so vast quantities for the purposes of respiration.”

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 185 10/12/07 12:02:22 PM 186 “Valentine, A” Pfaall, Hans A “humble artizan [sic], by name “Valentine, A” (1846) Hans Pfaall, and by occupation a mender of bel- lows” who had disappeared from Rotterdam via Poem written in 1846. hot-air balloon five years before the story occurs. He had disappeared with three others “in a man- SYNOPSIS ner which must have been considered unaccount- In “A Valentine,” Poe indulges his fascination with able,” but sends a letter to the president and vice puzzles and cryptograms while he manages to convey president of the States’ College of Astronomers to readers a message about his feelings for FANNY that provides a journal of his adventures. The let- OSGOOD, with her “luminous eyes, / Bright and ter is supposedly delivered by “an inhabitant of the expressive as the swan of Leda” and “musical name.” moon,” where Pfaall claims in the epistle to live. The lines reveal her name as one reads the first let- Pfaall, Grettel The wife of the balloonist Hans ter of the first line, the second letter of the second Pfaall, she utters “an exclamation of joyful surprise” line, the third letter of the third line, and so on. when she sees the “enormous drab beaver hat” COMMENTARY suspended from an unusual flying vehicle. Grettel “declared it to be the identical hat of her good man The poem is the only poem among several dedi- himself.” cated to Fanny that Poe composed exclusively for her. Poe had recycled two early poems and retitled Rubadub, Professor Satirized for his pedantry, them. “To F———S S. O———D” was originally he is the “Vice-President of Rotterdam College of titled “TO ELIZABETH” and written in 1835 for ELIZ- Astronomy” and one of the two people to whom ABETH HERRING, then retitled for Fanny in 1845. “the aeronaut” in the hot-air balloon drops Hans The poem “To F———” published in 1845 was Pfaall’s letter. After reading “this very extraordi- originally titled “To Mary” when it was first pub- nary document,” the professor “dropped his pipe lished in 1835. upon the ground in the extremity of surprise,” then ventures to suggest that the odd messenger has dis- PUBLICATION HISTORY appeared because of “the savage appearance of the Poe wrote “A Valentine” expressly for Frances Sar- burghers of Rotterdam.” gent Osgood. Composed on February 13, 1846, as a Valentine’s Day gift, the poem was later published Unterduk, Mynheer Superbus von The burgo- in the February 21, 1846, issue of the NEW YORK master of Rotterdam. The aeronaut drops the huge MIRROR under the title “To Her Whose Name Is letter sealed with red sealing wax at his feet, then Written Below.” unloads a half-dozen bags from the balloon onto the burgomaster, sending him tumbling to the ground. Through it all, however, Unterduk holds fast to the pipe in his mouth, emitting “no less than half a “Valley of Unrest, dozen distinct and furious whiffs from his pipe.” The” (before 1831) FURTHER READINGS Pollin, Burton R., ed. The Collected Writings of Edgar Poem written before 1831. Allan Poe: (Vol. 1—The Imaginary Voyages, including The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, The Unparal- SYNOPSIS leled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall and The Journal “The Valley of Unrest” opens with the speaker’s of Julius Rodman). Boston: Twayne, 1981. question regarding “All things lovely—are not they Pollin, Burton R. “Hans Pfaall: A False Variant of the / Far away—far away?” The speaker seems to exist Phallic Fallacy.” Mississippi Quarterly 31 (1978): in a surreal state and expresses confusion about 519–527. “the valley Nis,” although he knows that it means

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“the valley of unrest” and that it is associated with ist and physicist SIR HUMPHRY DAVY regarding the “Something about Satan’s dart— / Something about transmutation of lead into gold and made them his angel wings— / Much about a broken heart— / All own. The unnamed narrator refuses to give cre- about unhappy things.” Once silent and peaceful, dence to Kissam’s assertion, stating, “It does not “Now the unhappy shall confess / Nothing there is look true. Persons who are narrating facts, are sel- motionless.” The violets are “uneasy,” the reedy dom so particular as Mr. Kissam seems to be, about grass waves over “the old forgotten grave,” and day and date and precise location.” He suggests “some lilies wave / All banner-like, above a grave.” that “Mr. Kissam’s (or is it Mr. Quizzam’s?) preten- At two points in the poem, Poe speaks to “Helen, sions to the discovery” are very hard to believe and like thy human eye / There th’ uneasy violets lie” have “an amazingly moon-hoax-y air.” The inclu- and “Helen, like thy human eye, / Low crouched sion of various reports of the arrest that are attrib- on Earth, some violets lie.” uted to different periodicals is an attempt to bring verisimilitude to the story, as is Poe’s description COMMENTARY of von Kempelen’s physical appearance and family In both instances, the mention of Helen is fol- associations. The reports relate that the authorities lowed by mention of the grave, which has led crit- became suspicious when von Kempelen purchased ics to believe that this poem must refer to his first “a considerable property in Gasperitch Lane” but “Helen,” JANE STANARD. The peace of his child- refused, when questioned, to divulge how he came hood had been forever transformed by her death, by the money for the purchase. The police place and now “Eternal dews come down in drops. . . . him under surveillance, follow him to the garret in Eternal dews come down in gems!” which he worked, and search the premises, but they find nothing suspicious aside from a huge trunk PUBLICATION HISTORY filled with bits of brass under the bed. The authori- “The Valley of Unrest” was first published under ties learn later that the substance in the trunk is the title “The Valley Nis” in Poe’s 1831 collection “gold, in fact, absolutely pure, virgin, without the POEMS BY EDGAR A. POE. The poem appeared in slightest appreciable alloy!” Despite questioning, the April 1845 issue of the American Review under von Kempelen refuses to reveal his secret, and “it is the current title, as well as in the 1845 poetry col- more than probable that the matter will remain, for lection The RAVEN AND OTHER POEMS. years, in statu quo.” Speculating that von Kempelen will be forced eventually to reveal the process, peo- FURTHER READINGS ple buy lead in anticipation, and “In Europe, as yet, Bledsoe, Thomas F. “On Poe’s ‘Valley of Unrest.’ ” the most noticeable results have been a rise of two Modern Language Notes 61 (1946): 91–92. hundred percent in the price of lead.”

COMMENTARY “Von Kempelen and His Discovery,” inspired by “Von Kempelen and His the 1848–49 gold rush in California, is a satire of Discovery” (1849) the human lust for gold. In a letter to publisher EVERT AUGUSTUS DUYCKINCK, dated March 8, 1849, Poe wrote of the story: Short story written in 1849. I meant it as a kind of “exercise,” or experi- SYNOPSIS ment, in the plausible or verisimilar style. Of “Von Kempelen and His Discovery” purports to course, there is not one word of truth in it from relate the arrest in Bremen of an American chemist beginning to end. I thought that such a style, named von Kempelen, who has taken ideas con- applied to the gold-excitement, could not fail of tained in the diary of the renowned English chem- effect. My sincere opinion is that nine persons

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out of ten (even among the best-informed) will believe the quiz (provided the design does not leak out before publication) and thus, acting as a sudden, although of course a very temporary check to the gold fever, it will create a stir to some purpose. The story is another of Poe’s hoaxes, in addition to “The BALLOON-HOAX” and “MELLONA TAUTA,” although the educated reader will identify the clues that he places throughout, such as von Kempelen’s association with Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, whom Poe had exposed as a fraud in his essay “MAELZEL’S CHESS-PLAYER;” the falsified reports by actual scientists; the fictionalized locales in Bremen; and the repeated references to the “science” of alchemy.

PUBLICATION HISTORY “Von Kempelen and His Discovery” appeared in the April 14, 1849, issue of the FLAG OF OUR UNION, but it did not receive the extent of exposure that Poe had hoped for.

CHARACTERS Illustration by F. C. Tilney for “Why the Little Kissam, Mr. Claims to have made the discovery Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Sling” in Collected of how to turn lead into gold that has been widely Works of Edgar Allan Poe (1902) attributed to Baron Von Kempelen. Mr. Kissam, of Brunswick, Maine, is the subject of a “paragraph from the Courier and Enquirer, which is going the are believed to be of German birth. In appearance, rounds of the press, and which purports to claim he is short and stout, “with large, fat, blue eyes, the invention” of how to turn lead into gold for sandy hair and whiskers, a wide but pleasing mouth, him. The narrator disputes that possibility and the fine teeth, and I think a Roman nose. There is evidence that Kissam provides, “because Persons some defect in one of his feet. His address is frank, who are narrating facts are seldom so particular as and his whole manner is noticeable for bonhomie.” Mr. Kissam seems to be, about day and date and The narrator relates that Von Kempelen has been precise location.” Instead, the narrator questions arrested in Bremen, Germany, where police had why, if Mr. Kissam did discover the process, “how him under surveillance because he had “purchased happens it that he took no steps, on the instant, to a considerable property in Gasperitch Lane, and reap the immense benefits which the merest bump- his refusing, when questioned, to explain how he kin must have known would have resulted to him became possessed of the purchase money.” The individually, if not to the world at large, from the police suspected him of being a counterfeiter, and discovery.” they followed him to his secret garret laboratory, where they did not find a printing press or counter- Von Kempelen, Baron An American chemist feit bills, only a furnace, crucibles, and lead—and a whom the narrator asserts has discovered a process suitcase “full to the brim of old bits of brass!” The to turn lead into gold. He claims to have been born brass was found to be gold, and the secret of the in Utica, New York, although both of his parents discovery was revealed.

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unnamed narrator Journalist who presents a thick Irish brogue and intended to explain why the gossipy and superficial look at the presumed sci- “little Frenchman” must wear his arm in a sling. It entific topic of the transmutation of lead into gold. recounts the competition of the Irish “Barronitt” He claims that he does not “have any design to O’Grandison and the French suitor Maiter-di- look at the subject in a scientific point of view. My dauns over the “purty widdy” Misthress Tracle. As object is simply . . . to say a few words of Von Kem- the narrator of the story, Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, pelen himself . . . since every thing which concerns Barronitt, states in his thick Irish brogue, Maiter- him must necessarily, at this moment, be of inter- di-dauns is “the little ould furrener Frinchman as est.” Despite the acknowledged lack of scientific lived over the way” from the narrator. The two knowledge, the narrator proceeds to disparage the compete for the attention of a lady, one sitting on fact-supported claims in a newspaper report that each side of her, and each putting an arm around Mr. Kissam discovered the process eight years ear- her back to clasp what they believe is her arm lier and the evidence that scientist Sir Humphrey on the other side. As they compete with witty Davy wrote in his diary detailed notes regarding the remarks, they alternately squeeze what they believe process. Instead, because Von Kempelen is the sub- to be her arm and receive a squeeze in return. After ject of much speculation and publicity, and because she leaves them, they realize that they have been the narrator can claim a slight acquaintance with squeezing each other’s arm, and O’Grandison then him, he supports Von Kempelen’s claim. “We were gives Maiter-di-dauns’s arm “a nate little broth of fellow-sojourners for a week about six years ago, a squaze, as made it all up into a raspberry jam.” at Earl’s Hotel, in Providence, Rhode Island; and The result is an injury to the Frenchman, who must I presume that I conversed with him, at various wear his left hand in a sling. times for some three or four hours together. His principal topics were those of the day; and noth- COMMENTARY ing that fell from him led me to suspect his scien- Poe seems to recall his youth in this story, because tific attaintments.” He reports that the discovery the address on the visiting cards of Sir Pathrick of Von Kempelen’s perfection of the process for O’Grandison, “39 Southampton Row, Russell Square, transmuting lead into gold will not make gold of no Parish o’Bloomsbury,” is the address of the third set of greater value than lead, and certainly of less value quarters that JOHN ALLAN rented in September 1817 than silver. for his family while they lived in London. FURTHER READINGS PUBLICATION HISTORY Hall, Thomas. “Poe’s Use of a Source: Davy’s Chemi- The story appeared in the 1840 collection TALES OF cal Researches and ‘Von Kempelen and His Dis- THE GROTESQUE AND ARABESQUE, and it was first covery.’ ” Poe Newsletter 1 (October 1968): 28. reprinted in the United States in the September 6, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. It was the first of Poe’s tales to be pirated in London, appearing in the July 1840 issue of Bentley’s Miscellany. “Why the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Sling” CHARACTERS Maiter-di-dauns, Mounseer (the Count A. (before 1840) Goose; Look-aisy) A challenger to Sir Pathrick O’Grandison for the affections of the Misthress Short story written before 1840. Tracle.

SYNOPSIS O’Grandison, Sir Pathrick Possessed of a thick “Why the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Irish brogue, O’Grandison trades witty insults with Sling” is a comic monologue written in a simulated “the little ould furrener Frinchman as lived over

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the way” as they vie for the affection of Misthress William Chamberlayne (1619–89): “What say of Tracle. it? What say CONSCIENCE grim, / That spectre in my path?” This is actually a garbled version of Tracle, Misthress The “purty widdy” over whom a quotation from Chamberlayne’s play Love’s Vic- Sir Pathrick Grandison and Mounseer, the Count tory: “Conscience waits on me like the frightening A. Goose, Look-aisy Maiter-di-dauns contest. shades, / Of ghosts when gastly [sic] messengers of death.” The story begins as the narrator assumes for readers the name of “William Wilson,” for “the “William Wilson” (1840) page now lying before me need not be sullied with my real appellation.” This William Wilson relates Short story written in 1840. his family background, blaming his behavior— “self-willed, addicted to the wildest caprices, and SYNOPSIS a prey to the most ungovernable passions”—on “William Wilson” deals with the theme of the having inherited the family character. When he is double, which has become a popular literary and sent away to school, he encounters another student film device in the form of the “evil twin” whom who, “although no relation, bore the same Chris- the “good twin” must vanquish. The epigraph that tian and surname as myself,” a fact that does not precedes the story is misidentified as an excerpt immediately seem remarkable because his name is from Pharonnida by the minor English playwright “one of those everyday appellations which seem . . . the common property of the mob.” The two were also born on the same day, January 19, 1813 (the day, but not the year, of Poe’s birth). The second William Wilson begins to compete with the first scholastically and athletically, and he begins an “impertinent and dogged interference with my purposes.” The second Wilson also begins to copy the habits of dress, walking, and general manner of the first. The only consolation to the first Wilson is that “the imitation, apparently, was noticed by myself alone.” The second Wilson is constantly at the side of the first, calling him to account, stopping him from enjoying his vices, and playing both conscience and guardian angel. He mysteriously appears at significant moments, then disappears before he can be confronted, but he often leaves behind a sign of his presence, such as a cloak of the type that only the two Wilsons wear. From Dr. Bransby’s school to Eton, Oxford, and areas of Europe, the second Wil- son follows the first, exposing the first for cheating Lord Glendinning at cards in one instance and preventing the seduction of a young and beautiful noblewoman in another. This final interference pushes the first Wilson to violence, and he plunges Illustration by F. C. Tilney for “William Wilson” in a sword into the second Wilson. Immediately after- Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (1902) ward, he sees a mirror on the wall where none

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had been before and, looking into it, sees his own Galeen and starring Conrad Veidt, and the 1935 reflection covered with blood. As he looks on the version, directed by Arthur Robison and starring floor where the second Wilson lies, he sees “Not Anton Walbrook, focus more closely on the theme a thread in all his raiment—not a line in all the of the doppelgänger, or double. In 1968, the French marked and singular lineaments of his face which filmmakers Roger Vadim and Louis Malle and the was not, even in the most absolute identity, mine Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini directed Alain own!” He hears Wilson’s voice, but “could have Delon, Brigitte Bardot, Jane Fonda, Peter Fonda, fancied that I myself was speaking while he said, and Terence Stamp in a French-Italian production ‘You have conquered and I yield. Yet, henceforward art entitled Spirits of the Dead, with a freely adapted thou also dead—dead to the World, to Heaven, and to “William Wilson” as one of the three segments. Hope! In me didst thou exist—and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou has PUBLICATION HISTORY murdered thyself.’ ” The story first appeared in The GIFT: A CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR’S PRESENT for 1840, which appeared COMMENTARY in mid-1839, and it was reprinted in the October Poe created a semiautobiographical story, to the 1839 issue of BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE. point that Wilson shares Poe’s birthday, and experiences a synthesis of Poe’s educational experi- CHARACTERS ences as a nine-year-old in Irvine, Scotland, and in Bransby, Reverend Dr. John Young William Stoke Newington, outside of London. The descrip- Wilson’s schoolmaster, as well as the principal of tions of the school and its haunted surroundings the gloomy school. Possessed of a “sour visage” and are taken from Poe’s memories, as is the name, wearing “snuffy habiliments,” Bransby regularly although not the personality and demeanor, of the administers corporal punishment with a cane to character, “the Reverend Dr. Bransby.” REVEREND enforce “the Draconian laws of the academy.” He JOHN BRANSBY, only 33 years old when he taught is also the pastor of the church, who ascended the Poe, expressed irritation in later years regarding pulpit “with step solemn and slow . . . with coun- the use of his name. Critics have also associated tenance so demurely benign, with robes so glossy the drinking and gambling that ruin Wilson’s life and so clerically flowing” that the young William at Eton and Oxford with Poe’s dissipations at the Wilson found his behavior to be a “giant paradox, University of Virginia. Overall, critics view “Wil- too monstrous for solution!” liam Wilson” as Poe’s attempt to come to terms with his own dual nature, to reconcile his self- Glendinning Described as “a young parvenu destructive behavior with the rational need to nobleman” with easily acquired riches, Glendin- restrain such behavior. ning is a fitting subject to be cheated at cards. After German author and critic Thomas Mann identi- allowing Glendinning to win considerable sums of fied the story as a classic story of the doppelgänger, money in several games, Wilson draws him into the theme of the double that is part of the folklore a card game and aims to cheat him of all of his and storytelling of many different cultures through- money. Within a short period of time, Glendin- out the centuries. ning loses so heavily to Wilson that the game has “effected his total ruin.” The unpitying Wilson con- ADAPTATIONS tinues to play, nonetheless, until his double enters The story inspired three German films, all called the room and exposes him. The Student of Prague and all based in part on “Wil- liam Wilson.” The 1913 version, directed by Stel- Preston, Mr. A fellow commoner with Wil- lan Rye, modifies the story into that of a student liam Wilson at Oxford, Preston is the owner of who signs away his mirrored reflection to a mysteri- the chambers in which Wilson meets the wealthy ous man. The 1926 version, directed by Henrik nobleman Glendenning and where Wilson also

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 191 10/12/07 12:02:23 PM 192 “X-ing a Paragrab”

tries to cheat him out of a considerable sum of Soule, George H., Jr. “Byronism in Poe’s ‘Metzenger- money in a game of cards. stein’ and ‘William Wilson.’ ” Emerson Society Quar- terly 24 (1978): 152–162. Wilson, William (1) Character described as “self-willed, addicted to the wildest caprices, and a prey to the most ungovernable passions” The name of “William Wilson” is an alias, and the narrator “X-ing a Paragrab” (1849) explains at the outset why he will not reveal his true name: “Let me call myself, for the present, William Short story written in 1849. Wilson. The page before me need not be sullied with my real appellation. This has already been too SYNOPSIS much an object for scorn—for the horror—for the “X-ing a Paragrab” mocks literary rivalries as it pits detestation of my race.” He is a libertine whose life Bullet-Head, the fiery editor and upstart publisher is lived without restraint and who believes himself to of the Tea-Pot, against Smith, the editor of the be beyond the laws of ordinary morality. He states, Nopolis Gazette. Smith prints an article that mocks “I am the descendant of a race whose imaginative Bullet-Head’s overuse of the letter o, to which Bul- and easily excitable temperament has at all times let-Head responds by publishing a paragraph that rendered them remarkable.” He believes that he is uses o 175 times. When the Tea-Pot editor directs killing the second William Wilson when he plunges his typesetter to ready the paragraph for the next a sword into an image that looks like him, then sees day’s paper, the printer’s devil finds not one o in in the mirror that he is covered in blood. In essence, the print bin. The foreman then directs him to do this action achieves poetic justice, because “He slew his best, which he does, and creates a paragraph his conscience and then himself.” filled with the letter x. When people read their papers, they find the x-filled paragraph so annoying Wilson, William (2) Unnamed character who that they are ready to ride Bullet-Head out of town the first William Wilson says look and dresses like on a rail, but he has already vanished from the him and who mysteriously appears at significant town, leaving Smith to take their wrath. moments, then disappears before he can be con- This comic tale has a foundation in reality. fronted. He serves as the objectified conscience to Printers in Poe’s day who ran out of a given let- the libertine first William Wilson. Throughout the ter while typesetting commonly substituted x in its story, the second William Wilson is represented as place. being another man who has assumed the role of a double who keeps a moral watch on the first Wil- PUBLICATION HISTORY liam Wilson. He exposes his cheating at cards and The story first appeared in the May 12, 1849, issue later prevents the first William Wilson from seduc- of the FLAG OF OUR UNION. ing a young woman. This final action sends the first William Wilson into a terrible and murderous rage, CHARACTERS and he is destroyed by the sword of his dissolute Bob, the devil Printer’s devil (i.e., an appren- counterpart. tice) and errand boy for the newspaper the Tea-Pot. At 12 years old and only four feet tall, “he was FURTHER READINGS equal to any amount of fight, in a small way.” He Hubbs, Valentine C. “The Struggle of the Wills in is pressed to typeset a paragraph of copy that must Poe’s ‘William Wilson.’ ” Studies in American Fiction be run off for the next morning’s edition, but he 1 (1983): 73–79. finds that all of the o letters, both capital and lower Jay, Gregory S. “Poe: Writing and the Unconscious.” case, have disappeared. Unable to find the needed In The Tales of Poe, edited by Harold Bloom, 83– vowel, Bob substitutes the letter x wherever an o is 109 (New York: Chelsea House, 1987). needed, which places the town in an uproar.

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Bullet-Head, Mr. Touch-and-Go Serves as the per editor Touch-and-Go Bullet-Head by quoting temperamental editor of the Alexander-the-Great- paragraphs from his newspaper and pointing out o-nopolis publication, Tea-Pot. the overuse of the vowel o.

Smith, John For many years in “Alexander-the- FURTHER READINGS Great-o-nopolis,” he “had there quietly grown fat in Perkins, Leroy, and Joseph A. Dupras. “Mystery and editing and publishing the ‘Alexander-the-Great-o- Meaning in Poe’s ‘X-ing a Paragrab.’ ” Studies in nopolis Gazette.’ ” He aggravates the rival newspa- Short Fiction 27 (1990): 489–494.

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 193 10/12/07 12:02:23 PM 013-284_Poe-p2.indd 194 10/12/07 12:02:23 PM ESSAYS, REVIEWS, LITERARY CRITICISM

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 195 10/12/07 12:02:23 PM 013-284_Poe-p2.indd 196 10/12/07 12:02:23 PM “Addendum to ‘A Few Words on Secret Writing’” 197 “About Critics and Criticism: a theater manager who strongly condemned Poe’s scathing review of “The ANTIGONE AT PALMO’s” By the Late Edgar A. Poe” and threatened that Poe would no longer receive (1849) free theater tickets in New York. In his rebuttal, Poe reprinted Dinneford’s original letter, which first Essay written by Poe in 1849. It appeared posthu- accused Poe of having solicited free tickets for the play, then of writing a critique “characterized much mously in the January 1850 issue of GRAHAM’S MAG- more by ill nature and an illiberal spirit, than by AZINE. The piece reviews the diverse approaches of criticism, praising critics of greater “candor and fair and candid, or even just criticism.” Poe mocks more discriminating taste” while condemning those what he perceives to be the “gross discourtesy” of who shut their “eyes tightly to all autorial [sic] blem- the manager and claims that not only did Dinneford ishes, and open them, like owls, to all autorial mer- not answer his request for tickets, but also that none its.” In this analysis of the role played by critics, Poe were left for him at the box office. In a condescend- asserts that the true literary critic has the obligation ing manner, Poe details the words Dinneford wrote to do more than to merely offer readers a sum- in capital letters and itemizes the number of times mary of the work with all of its positive qualities. Dinneford underlined words for emphasis. Assert- Instead, “his legitimate task is still, in pointing out ing that he had asked for free tickets only because and analyzing defects and showing how the work he had been led to believe that “it was usual in might have been improved to aid the general cause New York, among editors newly established, to apply of Letters, without undue heed of the individual (by note) for the customary free admission to the literary men.” Poe cautions would-be critics that the theatres,” Poe calls the custom “a wretched one” merits of beauty in a literary work should not have and the task of asking for tickets “a dirty one.” The to be explained, and that to do so is to admit that nature of Poe’s attacks on Dinneford suggest that the negative tone of the play review was, at least in they are not merits altogether. He offers the exam- part, colored by the desire to avenge a humiliation. ple of the English historian and essayist THOMAS He makes this clear in stating: “And the blatherskite BABINGTON MACAULAY, whom he sees as able “to who could behave in so indecent a manner, as to fail accomplish the extremes of unquestionable excel- first in answering our note, and secondly in paying lences—the extreme of clearness, of vigor (depend- attention to the request it contained, has the audac- ing upon clearness), of grace, and very especially ity to find fault with us because we dared to express of thoroughness.” Although he praises Macaulay an unbiased opinion of his stupidity—that is to say, for “rhetoric which has its basis in common sense,” of the stupidity of a play gotten up by himself, Mr. Poe recommends that other critics not attempt to Dinneford.” merely imitate him “but to outstrip him in his own path—a path not so much his as Nature’s.” Poe presents this advice as an antidote to the propensity of American critics to exaggerate the merits of British authors and to “extol without discrimina- “Addendum to ‘A Few Words tion work that would be surely condemned if cred- on Secret Writing’ ” (1841) ited to American authors.” An article that appeared in the August 1841 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE that contained a cryptographic challenge to Poe—a message written in a “Achilles’ Wrath” (1845) complex code—which he published for his readers after he deciphered the message. Poe also includes Poe’s response in the BROADWAY JOURNAL of April several letters from the challenger and others famil- 19, 1845, to an angry letter from Mr. W. Dinneford, iar with his interest in cryptography who express

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 197 10/12/07 12:02:23 PM 198 “Address Delivered at the Annual Commencement of Dickinson College, . . . ” surprise at his speed in translating the passage and “Address Delivered before the praise his skill in doing so. He offers the cryptogram to his readers and assures them that the solution Baltimore Lyceum. Athenaeum will appear in the next issue of the publication. Society, William Wirt Society, Washington Lyceum, Philo- Nomian Society and Franklin “Address Delivered at the Association, Literary and Annual Commencement Scientific Societies of Dickinson College, July 21, of Baltimore, on the 4th 1836, by S. A. Roszel” (1836) of July, 1836. By Z. Collins Poe’s review in the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER Lee, Esq.” (1836) of October 1836 of a speech given by S. A. Roszel, principal of Dickinson’s grammar school. Poe takes A brief review in the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSEN- the opportunity both to praise the educator as “a GER of November 1836 of a speech by ZACCHEUS scholar, of classical knowledge more extensive, and COLLINS LEE, in which Poe praises its “impassioned far more accurate than usual” and to condemn him and scholar-like performance” and claims that for inventing words “at will, to suit the purpose of nothing less was expected, because he was “well the moment.” The review observes that Roszel’s aware of Mr. Lee’s oratorical powers . . . and from “Address on Education” is confined to a defense of the deep attention with which, we are told its deliv- “tutorial instruction as embraced under the divi- ery was received.” In a rare moment of restraint in sions of the subjects to be taught, and the manner critiquing a public address, Poe states that he has of teaching them.” Noting that the greater empha- no intention of examining the text in detail “at this sis of the address is on the “the loftier prospective late date” [six months after the fact] a presentation benefits, and true spiritual uses of classical attain- that “must have depended so largely upon anni- ments,” Poe praises Roszel’s “defence of the learned versary recollections.” Instead, Poe claims that he tongues from the encroachments of a misconceived alludes to the speech “now with the sole purpose of utilitarianism, and in urging their suitableness as a recording, in brief, our opinion of its merits, and of study for young.” He also observes that the educa- quoting one of its passages without comment.” tor is “not only forcible, but has contrived to be in a great measure, original,” and claims that the speaker’s remarks regarding the duties of a teacher and “stern sense of the elevated moral standing of the tutor” are deserving of admiration and respect. “Address Delivered before the Despite this, Poe is highly critical of the wording of Goethean and Diagnothian the address. He finds fault with the speaker’s “too frequent use of primitive meanings” and accuses Societies of Marshall College, Roszel of inventing word origins, “some few of Mr. at Their Annual Celebration, Roszel’s inventions are certainly not English.” In ending the review, Poe magnanimously suggests September 24, 1839. By that the fervor and the beauty of the address out- Joseph R. Chandler” (1839) weigh its faults: “But to these sins (for the world will have them such) a fellow-feeling has taught us A review in BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE for to be lenient.” December 1839 of an address given by JOSEPH R.

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CHANDLER on September 24, 1839, on the subject “Demosthenes appealed to the passions of a popu- of ancient versus modern oratory. Poe praises the lace; the modern orator struggles to sway the intel- speech, asserting that it stands apart from most lect of a deliberative assembly.” addresses, which, “in general, are very ordinary matters, and we dislike to say anything about them, because we seldom have anything more to say than a few brief words of utter condemna- “Address Delivered before the tion.” Characterizing most addresses of the day as composed of “stale wisdom, overdone sentiment, Students of William and Mary schoolboy classicalities, bad English, worse Latin, at the Opening of the College and wholesale rhodomontade,” Poe states that “Mr. Chandler has given us a good Address, and on Monday, October 10, 1835, done an original thing.” The originality lies largely An. By Thomas R. Dew, in the speaker’s willingness to deviate from the usual emphasis upon classical models and to pro- President, and Professor of fess, instead, “the vast superiority which modern Moral and Political Philosophy. intellect and its results maintain over the boasted civilization and proudest mental efforts of even the Published by Request of the golden Heathen ages.” Labeling Chandler a genius, Students. Richmond: and his address as “just such a turn as the man of genius might be led to give to a discourse upon an T. W. White” (1835) occasion of the kind, and such as only the man of genius would have given,” Poe bases his praise on An article in the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER the speaker’s “elevated knowledge of a futurity of for October 1836, in which Poe uses the address existence—and through the glowing and burning by THOMAS R. DEW, the president of William and hopes to which that knowledge of futurity gives Mary, as a basis for describing the curriculum and rise.” In typical fashion, the review is not wholly degrees granted by the college. After providing pre- complimentary: It finds fault with Chandler’s liminary words of praise for Dew, whom Poe singles willingness to concede that ancient rhetoricians out for “the influence of his character, and unusual were more eloquent than his contemporaries, a energy,” the article turns attention to the “brilliant concession that Poe views as “weakening his own prospects” of “this institution [which] has given the position.” Rather than agree with Chandler that world more useful men than any other—more truly the eloquence of the oratory of a speaker such as great statesmen.” Poe characterizes the college as Demosthenes was greater than that of any mod- respected and venerated, and asserts that it offers ern speaker, Poe asserts that the difference lies in an efficient education and a rigid discipline that the effects upon the listeners because “the circum- “relies strongly on the chivalry and honor of the stances of the audience make the important differ- Southern student.” Poe’s detailed description of the ence in the reception of the oration.” Describing courses of study provides insight regarding the pro- the Greeks as “a highly excitable and an unread grams, which include the “A.B., B.L., and A.M.” race” who had no printed books and to whom in classical studies, law, and civil engineering. In everything was new, he observes that “the incite- conclusion, Poe claims that space limitations have ments of the ancient rhetorician, were, when com- prevented him from making “long extracts from the pared with those of the modern, absolutely novel, excellent Address now before us.” He reassures his and therefore possessed an immense adventitious readers that “it is, as usual with every thing from force.” In contrast, the modern orator has a dif- that same source, comprehensive and eloquent, ficult task to convince listeners who have often and full of every species of encouragement to the heard the same exhortations many times. In short, searcher after knowledge.”

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 199 10/12/07 12:02:24 PM 200 “Address of the Carriers of the Cincinnati Daily American Republican to Its Patrons, . . . “

“Address of the Carriers of the SENGER of December 1835 in which Poe praises Minor’s innovative thinking for suggesting the Cincinnati Daily American establishment of district schools in Virginia. Char- Republican to Its Patrons, acterizing the text as filled with “brilliant eloquence, and impressive energy with which he has for January, 1845” (1845) enforced them,” Poe expresses the hope that the state legislature will create school districts similar The review of a poem written by the Cincinnati poet to those in New England as a means of reversing Mrs. Rebecca Shepard Reed Nichols, which appeared the fading glory of Virginia: “Her once great name in the March 22, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOUR- is becoming, in the North, a bye-word for imbecil- NAL. Highly complimentary of the work, Poe writes ity—all over the South, a type for ‘the things that that “although we should scarcely look for anything have been’.” The review expresses the hope that original in a News Address, still there is a great deal Minor’s words “may succeed in stirring up some- of originality and other high merit here.” The review thing akin to action in the legislative halls of the quotes “at random” four five-line verses, which Poe land,” in order to reverse the “dying condition” of assures his readers are scarcely sufficient “to convey the state. any just idea of the skill manifested in the general conduct of the poem.” The stanzas describe the human life cycle metaphorically as seasons of the year, from “Address on the Subject of “Bride of my youthful days, gentle and fair” through “Winter approached and enshrouded the dead!” Even a Surveying and Exploring as Poe acknowledges that all of the stanzas contain Expedition to the Pacific Ocean lapses, “except the second one quoted which is rhyth- mically perfect,” he defends these flaws as “variations, and South Seas. Delivered In [which] are strictly defensible, and show that Mrs. Nichols has, at all events, a well-cultivated ear.” the Hall of Representatives on the Evening of April 3, 1836. By J. N. Reynolds. “Address on Education, as Connected with the With Correspondence and Permanence of Our Republican Documents. New York: Institutions, An. Delivered Published by before the Institute of Harper & Row” (1837) Education of Hampden Sidney A review of explorer JEREMIAH REYNOLDS’s address that appeared in the SOUTHERN LITER- College, at Its Anniversary ARY MESSENGER of January 1837. Poe developed Meeting, September the 24th, a lifelong admiration for Reynolds’s exploits and used the address as his main source in writing The 1835, on the Invitation of the NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM. The review Body. By Lucian Minor, Esq., of supports the move by Congress to authorize an expedition to explore the Pacific Ocean and the Louisa. Published by Request South Seas after “ten years in litigation,” and of the Institute” (1835) credits Reynolds as “the originator, the persever- ing and indomitable advocate, the soul of the A review of a speech delivered by LUCIAN MINOR design.” Poe praises Reynolds’s eloquent address that appeared in the SOUTHERN LITERARY MES- and professes that the review is meant to give

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 200 10/12/07 12:02:24 PM “Alciphron: A Poem. By Thomas Moore, Esq., Author of ‘Lalla Rookh,’ . . . “ 201

“an outline of the history, object, and nature of all matters touching the nature, the management, the project” in order to tempt readers to read and especially the purchase of a horse.” the original in its entirety. With an eye to the profits that can be made, Poe cites details regarding the large number of seamen and ships already engaged in the maritime industry and suggests “Alciphron: A Poem. By that extending the reach of the United States through “a special national expedition could Thomas Moore, Esq., accomplish everything desired.” He states that Author of ‘Lalla Rookh,’ the scientific world will also benefit and that “the people demand it, and, thus there is a multiplic- Etc., Etc. Carey and Hart, ity of reasons why it should immediately be set Philadelphia” (1840) on foot.” The review, for the most part, devotes more space to the efforts that Reynolds made to A review of Moore’s poem that appeared in BUR- successfully obtain government backing for the TON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE in January 1840. expedition than to revising the actual text of the After describing the construction and content of address. the poem in detail, Poe proceeds to a lengthy discussion of the difficulties between imagination and fancy. He labels Moore “a poet of fancy,” after quoting British Romantic poet SAMUEL “Adventures of a Gentleman TAYLOR COLERIDGE on the definition of the two in Search of a Horse, The. By terms: “the fancy combines, the imagination creates.” Although he labels “Alciphron” a work of Caveat Emptor, Gent. One, fancy and says the poet’s “English is now and Etc. Philadelphia: then objectionable,” Poe praises the ease with which the poet “recounts a poetical story in a Republished by Carey, prosaic way.” The review expresses disapproval Lea, and Blanchard” (1836) of Moore’s penchant for recounting details and points specifically to the manner in which “the A review of a guide to buying a horse that appeared minute and conflicting incidents of the descent in the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER for August into the pyramid are detailed with absolutely 1836, in which Poe advises all amateurs “to look more precision than we have ever known a simi- well, and look quickly into the pages of Caveat lar relation detailed with in prose.” Poe ascribes Emptor.” The term caveat emptor is Latin for “let such facility to the mathematician, not the poet, the buyer beware,” and the book is a guide to the and he also criticizes the frequency with which legal aspects of horse-buying, “serviceable law, too, Moore “draws out the word Heaven into two intended as a matter of reference.” The review syllables—a protraction which it never will sup- states that “the first 180 pages are occupied with port.” The reviewer also disparages the poet’s what the title implies, the adventures of a gentle- seeming learnedness, as he points out that Moore man in search of a horse—the remaining 100 pages has “stolen his ‘woven snow’ from the ventum embrace, in all its details, difficulties, and intrica- textilem [woven wind] of Apuleius” and “either cies, a profound treatise on the English law of horse- himself has misunderstood the tenets of Epicurus, dealing warranty!” Poe expresses surprise that this or wilfully misrepresents them through the voice is the first such work of its kind, given the great of Alciphron.” In spite of the many flaws that Poe interest of most English gentry. He recommends the identifies, he credits Moore with a “vivid fancy, book highly to “all amateurs” and finds in it “much an epigrammatic spirit, a fine taste, vivacity, dex- fine humor, good advice and useful information in terity, and a musical ear.”

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 201 10/12/07 12:02:24 PM 202 “Alice Ray: A Romance In Rhyme. By Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale. Author of ‘Northwood’ . . .” “Alice Ray: A Romance several passages of “remarkable beauty” and suggests that Halleck is possessed of “an ideality of far In Rhyme. By Mrs. Sarah loftier character than that which is usually ascribed Josepha Hale. Author of to our poet.” Poe bestows moderate praise on Hal- leck’s verse, but declares that Drake is the supe- ‘Northwood’ Etc., Etc. rior poet. In June 1836, Poe received a letter from Philadelphia” (1845) WASHINGTON IRVING that declared his review to be “one of the finest pieces of criticism ever published A favorable review of a poetic romance that in this country.” appeared in the BROADWAY JOURNAL for Novem- ber 1, 1845. Poe claims to be pleasantly surprised by its “fancy of conception and the truthful sim- “Amelia Welby” (1844) plicity and grace of its manner.” He admits to having read many of SARAH JOSEPHA HALE’s Poe’s review of Amelia Ball Welby’s poem “Mus- poetic works, but “nothing so good” as the poem ings,” which appeared in the Democratic Review reviewed, which he suggests will add to her “well- of December 1844. Welby was a minor poet who earned reputation—providing always the unpre- published one volume of poetry—a collection of tending form in which it comes before the public, already published verse—in 1846. Poe says the does not injure it in that most worldly public’s “great demerit” of the poem is that “the subject has estimation.” Poe quotes whole passages from the nothing of originality,” but he praises its purity and poem and makes particular note of the long a naturalness. Impressed by the minor poet’s tone of sound (“a constantly recurring in ay”), which he “a gentle and melancholy regret,” he notes that her calls “one of the very happiest we have known in efforts to interweave them with a “pleasant sense poetical art.” of the natural loveliness surrounding the lost in the tomb” reflect his own poem “LENORE.” Poe’s conclusion is mixed: He characterizes her line endings as “grossly objectionable,” yet praises her “novel, “Alnwick Castle, with Other rich and accurate combination of the ancient musi- Poems. By Fitz-Greene cal expressions.” Halleck. New York: George Dearborn” (1836) “America and the American A collection of poems reviewed in the SOUTHERN People. By Frederick von LITERARY MESSENGER for April 1836. Because Poe Raumer, Professor of History compares FITZ-GREENE HALLECK’s work to that of Joseph Rodman Drake, the review generally is in the University of Berlin, referred to as “The Drake-Halleck Review.” Poe especially criticizes “Alnwick Castle” for its mix Etc., Etc. Translated from of ideality with low burlesque at the conclusion of the German by William W. the poem because it destroys “unity of effect.” Poe notes that the poem “is sadly disfigured by efforts Turner. New York; at the farcical introduced among passages of real J. & G. H. Langley” (1845) beauty” and accuses Halleck of “profanation” for creating verses that are “odd, and nothing more.” The review of a translation of Frederick von Not totally unfavorable, the review also points out Raumer’s book that appeared in the BROADWAY

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 202 10/12/07 12:02:24 PM “American Drama, The” 203

JOURNAL for November 29, 1845. The review an account of “Pauperism in the United States” opens with an excerpt from the translator’s pref- and greater information about the interaction ace, which praises profusely the German author’s between the United States and other nations. The thoroughness in researching the subject. Poe con- review ends with praise for the “mechanical execu- curs and adds that the commendable features of tion” of the books which are “worthy of the highest the work also include its “candor, evident desire recommendation.” for truth, freedom from prejudice, comprehensiveness, and masterly breadth of generalization.” Despite a stated intention to make allowance “for the foreigner’s imperfect means of information in “American Drama, The” detail,” Poe roundly criticizes von Raumer, who “has set forth with accuracy not one fact in rela- (1845) tion to American letters.” Citing as an example A critical essay published in the August 1845 the praise that von Raumer gives to American issue of AMERICAN WHIG REVIEW in which Poe publishing for paying a Mr. Prescott $6,000 as proposes to write a series of papers that would an advance for his book The Conquest of Mexico, take “a somewhat deliberate survey of some few Poe points out that the author had spent many of the most noticeable American plays.” Moti- years and much of his own money in research- vated by what he sees as an “ever recurring topic, ing the book. Poe reserves more virulent criticism the decline of drama,” Poe first makes a cursory for von Raumer’s praise of “POETS AND POETRY examination of engineering, sculpture, painting, OF AMERICA,” written by Poe’s bitter rival RUFUS and architecture to determine the extent to which WILMOT GRISWOLD. Poe claims that if Griswold’s book were accepted as accurately representing these arts have suffered decline. He concludes American poetry, then American literature is “in that engineering and architecture, in which “the a very ridiculous condition indeed.” Reason, which never retrogrades, or reposes, is called into play,” have not declined. In contrast, “the arts of Sculpture, Painting and the Drama have not advanced” because they depend more “American Almanac, upon feeling or taste. Poe asserts that “all seem to have declined, because they have remained sta- and Repository of Useful tionary while the multitudinous other arts (of rea- Knowledge for the Year 1837, son) have flitted so rapidly by them.” The review places the blame for the lack of public support, The. Boston: Published by and states that it is unsupported “because it does Charles Bowen” (1836) not deserve support.” Poe proposes to rectify this situation by examining examples of successful and The eighth in a series of yearbooks, Poe reviewed unsuccessful drama and to “speak with absolute the volume in the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSEN- frankness both of merits and defects.” Poe cites GER of October 1836. Poe praises the editor J. E. NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS’s Tortesa, the Usurer Worcester for having the “acute judgment” nec- as an example of the former and lambastes HENRY essary to select “the most needful topics” and to WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW’s The Spanish Student exclude those which are of only “a comparative as a failure, because it is a “hybrid and paradoxical value.” He recommends the book for its “perspi- composition.” After accusing Longfellow of “bor- cuity and brevity.” After listing the range of top- rowing” from his own play POLITIAN in writing ics covered in the volume, including state-by-state The Spanish Student, Poe asserts that Longfellow statistics on population, public facilities, and com- should “Let a poem be a poem only; let a play be a merce, Poe states that the next volume will contain play and nothing more.”

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 203 10/12/07 12:02:24 PM 204 “American in England, The. By the Author of ‘A Year in Spain.’ . . .” “American in England, The. it began, as Poe pronounces, “The Lieutenant’s book is an excellent book—but then it is excellent By the Author of ‘A Year in in spite of its style. So great are the triumphs of Spain.’ 2 vols. New York. genius.” Harper and Brothers” (1836)

A review written by Poe of LIEUTENANT ALEXAN- “American Parnassus, The” DER SLIDELL MACKENZIE’s book and published in the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER of February (1845) 1836. Poe both praises and finds serious fault with the book. The review at one point commends the A literary project that Poe proposed but never author’s literary skill for having “a fine eye for the completed for publication. He had intended to cre- picturesque” and describes his depictions of scenes ate a comprehensive study of American writers and as having “all the spirit, vigor, raciness and illusion their works, and, to this end, he wrote a letter on of a panorama,” yet only paragraphs later points June 26, 1845, to solicit an advance of $50 from out “the simplicity of its modus operandi.” In an Wiley and Putnam’s editor EVERT A. DUYCKINCK, apparent paradox, Poe compliments the author for promising to finish the work “as soon as possible.” taking a surface approach to his topic: “It appears Poe selected the term Parnassus as a reference to to us that Mr. Slidell has written a wiser book than the mountain in Greece, which the ancient Greeks believed to be sacred to the god Apollo as well as his neighbors by not disdaining to write a more to the Muses; by Poe’s time the word had come to superficial one.” The review meticulously recounts mean poets or poetry collectively or any center of the details of a journey, from embarkation through artistic activity. experiences on board the ship, which “are told with the gusto of a seaman,” to the eventual arrival and adventures in England. After his high praise of the work in the first half of the review, Poe heartily attacks the writing style of the work and tells “American Prose Writers. readers that “upon Mr. Slidell’s mechanical style No. 2. N.P. Willis. New we cannot bring ourselves to look with favor.” He expresses astonishment over “a few of his singu- Views—Imagination— larly ill-constructed sentences” and suggests that Fancy—Fantasy—Humor— only “great tedium and utter weariness with his labor” could be responsible for a sentence that Wit —Sarcasm—The Prose Poe claims to have read more than once before Style of Mr. Willis” (1845) he “could fathom its meaning.” In quick succession, the grammatical faults are delineated, from A critical evaluation of the work of NATHAN- incorrect pronoun references to repetition of words IEL PARKER WILLIS published in the BROADWAY such as how and only, proclaimed by Poe to be “dis- JOURNAL for January 18, 1845. Poe distinguishes agreeable.” Poe saves his most severe criticism for between “fancy” and “imagination,” using as his Slidell’s wordiness, pointing in example to one sen- foundation the definitions devised by SAMUEL TAY- tence that he abridged to 18 words from its original LOR COLERIDGE that “fancy combines—Imagination 54. Yet another sentence is denounced as being creates.” In assessing Willis’s work, Poe identifies “one of the most ludicrously ill-arranged, and alto- “innumerable merits” that are fanciful rather than gether ungainly pieces of composition which it has imaginative, and he concedes that “they are merits ever been our ill fortune to encounter.” The review which he shares with other writers.” The review concludes with significantly fainter praise than soon abandons consideration of Willis’s work and

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 204 10/12/07 12:02:25 PM “Animal and Vegetable Physiology Considered with Reference to Natural Theology. . . .” 205 turns to a consideration of the manner in which “Animal and Vegetable imagination, fancy, fantasy, and humor interact, and what they have in common with combination Physiology Considered and novelty. Declaring that “the range of Imagina- with Reference to Natural tion is therefore, unlimited,” Poe asserts that the interaction, two at a time, of the four determines Theology. By Peter Mark whether a work will exhibit harmony or novelty. Roget, M.D. Secretary to The review concedes that “when either Fancy or Humor is expressed to gain an end—is pointed at the Royal Society, &C., a purpose—whenever either becomes either objec- &C. Two vols. Large octavo, tive in place of subjective—then it becomes, also, pure Wit and Sarcasm, just as the purpose is well- Philadelphia: Published by intentioned or malevolent.” Poe returns to a con- Carey, Lea, sideration of Willis’s work in the closing paragraph of the review and traces its charm “to the brilliant and Blanchard” (1836) FANCY [sic] with which it perpetually scintillates or glows.” A review of a scientific study that appeared in the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER of January 1836. Fifth in a series of texts commissioned by the Royal Society, the work earned Poe’s praise for “Anastatic Printing” (1845) the appropriateness of the selection made by Roget “from an exuberance of materials.” Poe begins the An essay by Poe that appeared in the BROADWAY review by introducing readers to the Bridgewater JOURNAL for April 12, 1845. Poe describes the Treatises, created by a bequest of 8,000 pounds potential value and consequences of a printing made by Francis Henry, earl of Bridgewater, to the process using zinc plates that could inexpensively Royal Society of London, which was empowered to and quickly produce multiple copies of magazines appoint their choice of individuals to “ ‘write, print, or books, thus increasing the value of their liter- and publish, one thousand copies of a work, On the ary content while decreasing their worth as mere Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God, as manifested material objects. He states that with this discov- in the Creation; illustrating such work by all reasonable ery, “anything written, drawn, or printed, can be arguments, as, for instance, the variety and forma- made to stereotype itself, with absolute accuracy, tion of God’s creatures, in the animal, vegetable, and in five minutes.” The rather lengthy essay provides mineral kingdoms; the effect of digestion, and thereby readers with a detailed description of the process, of conversion; the construction of the hand of man and which Poe predicts will revolutionize the produc- an infinite variety of other arguments; as also by dis- tion of printed matter and allow publishers to coveries ancient and modern, in arts, sciences and the release more cheaply many works that they would whole extent of literature.’ ” Poe asserts that Henry formerly have ignored. Moreover, the author also did not intend to divide the bequest among eight views the process as creating a new perception of writers, and he judges that the resulting works and books that will result in “the ascendancy to the their writers have suffered from the arrangement: literary value, and thus by their literary values “Treatises now published might have been readily will books come to be estimated among men.” discussed in one connected work of no greater bulk He warns, however, that this process of print- than the Physiology, whose title forms the heading ing will increase the need for strong national and of this article.” The final fifth of Poe’s review offers international copyright laws: “The necessity of the a specific description of Roget’s difficulties that are protection will be only the more urgent and more detailed in the preface to the work and delineated obvious than ever.” in the contents of the work.

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 205 10/12/07 12:02:25 PM 206 “Antediluvians, or the World Destroyed: A Narrative Poem, In Ten Books, The. . . .” “Antediluvians, or the World “Antigone at Palmo’s, The” Destroyed: A Narrative (1845)

Poem, In Ten Books, The. An extremely negative review of a revival of Anti- By James McHenry, M.D., gone, the tragic drama by SOPHOCLES, that appeared Author of the ‘Pleasures in the April 12, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOUR- NAL. Poe calls the production at Palmo’s Theatre of Friendship,’ ETC. One “an unintentional burlesque,” as well as “a piece of folly,” and relates that the full house of the open- Volume. J. B. Lippincott and ing night performance had dwindled to an audience Co., Philadelphia” (1841) of fewer than 100 by the second night. Poe first condemns the play itself, labeling Antigone “vastly A review by Poe that appeared in the February 1841 inferior to any one of the dramas by Aeschylus” and issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE and skewered JAMES consigning to it “an insufferable baldness, or plati- MCHENRY’s pretentious epic. Poe criticized the tude, the inevitable result of inexperience in Art.” numerous melodramatic elements in the poem that Decrying Sophocles’ lack of skill in writing Antigone, he saw as excessive and attacked what he saw as Dr. Poe asserts that the attempt to present a Greek James McHenry’s arrogance in presuming to associ- play before a modern audience “is the idea of the ate his work with that of JOHN MILTON. The review pedant and nothing beyond.” He warns his readers begins with the statement, “There are two species that they will be disappointed if they expect to learn of poetry known to mankind,—that which the gods from this performance how the Greeks wrote and love and that which men abhor. The poetry of the performed drama. He suggests that people attend doctor belongs to the latter class, though he seems the play only if they want others to assume that lamentably ignorant of this.” Poe attacks the poet’s “they have a scholastic taste, and could discourse pretentiousness in connecting his name with that learnedly on certain classical themes . . . [or] enjoy of Milton and likens McHenry in esteem to “a tom- a good joke.” The review also finds fault with the tit twittering on an eagle’s back.” The review then music, which Poe characterizes as “Greek thought methodically examines the contents of each of the adapted into German.” “The only excuse that can 10 books and points out McHenry’s contention that be offered for the miserable way in which the cho- in the Deluge he had found a theme “exalted and ruses were executed,” he continues, “is the want of extensive enough for the exercise of poetic talents sufficient time to study them.” Poe’s harsh review of the highest order.” Poe counters that the exten- motivated angry letters to the editor, several of sive catalog of minor incidents contains, instead, which he responded to, most notably one identified “the materials of a half a dozen bad novels woven as “ACHILLES’ WRATH.” into a worse poem.” As Poe quotes liberally from the epic, he identifies the flaws of each section and accuses the poet of plagiarizing whole passages from Milton’s Paradise Lost, with the intention of “Appendix of Autographs, An” “showing at once the grandeur of the model and the feebleness of the imitation.” In a sarcasm-filled (1836) conclusion, Poe advises McHenry to give up poetry and states, “We are satisfied that, if he should be Poe’s supplement to the “AUTOGRAPHY” articles arraigned for writing poetry, no sane jury would ever that appeared in the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSEN- convict him; and if, as most likely, he would plead GER in the February and August issues of 1836. The guilty at once, it would be as quickly disallowed, on 19 additional analyses of signatures that appeared that rule of law which forbids the judges to decide in the December 1841 and January 1842 issues against the plain evidence of their senses.” of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE included those of RALPH

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 206 10/12/07 12:02:25 PM “Ballads and Other Poems. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, . . . “ 207

WALDO EMERSON, OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, and ARY MESSENGER and the December 1841 and Janu- WASHINGTON ALLSTON. ary 1842 issues of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE in which Poe purports to analyze the actual signatures of writers and other public figures to determine their true personalities. Rather than solicit actual cor- “Astoria; or, Anecdotes of an respondence, Poe wrote a series of fictional letters Enterprise beyond the Rocky and claimed that they were written by contemporary figures, including 38 American writers. Poe Mountains. By Washington then created fake signatures for each writer and Irving. Philadelphia: Carey, proceeded to impute specific personality characteristics to the presumed writer on the basis of the Lea & Blanchard.” (1837) penmanship of the signature. In essence, he used the series as a means of praising people whom he Lengthy favorable review that appeared in the Jan- favored and to condemn and criticize those who uary 1837 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSEN- had offended him or whose work he disliked. GER. Poe describes WASHINGTON IRVING’s account of JOHN JACOB ASTOR’s fur trading enterprises beyond the Rocky Mountains and the founding of Astoria, Oregon, as written in a “masterly manner.” “Ballads and Other Poems. He asserts that the detailed work contains “fullness, By Henry Wadsworth comprehensiveness, and beauty, with which a long and entangled series of details, collected, necessar- Longfellow, Author of ‘Voices ily, from a mass of vague and imperfect data, has of the Night,’ ‘Hyperion,’ & c. been wrought into completeness and unity.” The review reveals the genesis of the work as well, and Second Edition. John Owen, describes the first meeting of Irving and Astor to Cambridge” (1842) propose the book as well as the subsequent means by which Irving gathered material for the book. Poe A two-part review of HENRY WADSWORTH LONG- weaves direct summary of the work and quoted FELLOW’s poetry that appeared in the March and material with comments upon Irving’s skill in April 1842 issues of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. In the recounting Astor’s adventures and the challenges first part, Poe disputes the validity of public taste to his endeavor. In careful detail, Poe also identifies in determining what constitutes good poetry, for the many individuals who collaborated with Astor, “it has been yielded to the clamor of the majority.” as well as the details of their expedition. Despite While he professes to admire Longfellow’s “genius,” Poe’s assertion of Irving’s “masterly manner” in Poe maintains that “we are fully sensible of his many writing Astoria, he points out several discrepancies errors of affectation and imitation.” In example, in names as well as in dates, afterward stating that the reviewer asserts that “his didactics are all out “these errors are of little importance in themselves of place,” and contends that Longfellow “has writ- but may as well be rectified in a future edition.” ten brilliant poems—by accident.” Poe finds fault with the poet’s overt didacticism, a theme that he pursues in great detail in the lengthy second part (1836, 1841, of the review. The reviewer claims that Longfel- “Autography” low’s “conception of the aims of poesy is erroneous” 1842) and his “inculcation of a moral as essential” detract from the artistic quality of the poetry. This observa- A series of articles that appeared in the February tion leads Poe into a lengthy digression to consider and August 1836 issues of the SOUTHERN LITER- the true aim of poetry. He insists that art must

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 207 10/12/07 12:02:25 PM 208 “Barnaby Rudge. By Charles Dickens (Boz), Author of ‘The Old Curiosity Shop,’ . . . “

serve the imagination first and states that the pre- judged inferior to the popular novels. Poe specifically mier purpose of poetry is “the Rhythmical Creation contests “the fallacy of one of their favorite dogmas; of Beauty.” In particular, Poe strongly denounces we mean the dogma that no work of fiction can fully any purpose of poetry beyond the following: suit, at the same time, the critical and the popular taste; in fact, that the disregarding or contraven- Beyond the limits of Beauty its province does ing of Critical Rule is absolutely essential to success, not extend. Its sole arbiter is taste. With the beyond a certain and very limited extent, with the Intellect or with the Conscience it has only col- public at large.” In evidence of his position, Poe offers lateral relations. It has no dependence, unless Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge, which he characterizes as incidentally, upon either Duty or Truth. “the legitimate and inevitable result of certain well- After espousing his theory of poetic principles understood critical propositions reduced by genius at length, Poe methodically applies that theory to into practice.” He claims that his intention is not to Longfellow’s poems, such as “The Village Black- enter into “any wholesale laudation.” Before offering smith,” “The Wreck of the Hesperus,” and “The a critique, Poe first provides a detailed summary of Skeleton in Armor,” finding faults with all. Poe is the novel, which he characterizes as “a very meagre particularly disdainful of the poet’s translations of outline of the story,” then points out the structural German poems into English and feels that “His time weaknesses of the novel and the inconsistencies that might be better employed in original conception.” emerge because the novel was published in installments rather than as a whole. These flaws aside, Poe turns to the strengths that he finds in the novel, particularly Dickens’s skill “as a delineator of character.” “Barnaby Rudge. By Charles Examining each character in the novel, Poe points out Dickens’s originality in handling even such stock Dickens (Boz), Author figures as Sir John Chester, “a vast improvement of ‘The Old Curiosity upon all his predecessors.” In the final analysis, the review asserts that Barnaby Rudge is not Dickens’s Shop,’ ‘Pickwick,’ ‘Oliver finest, “but there are few—very few others to which Twist,’ & c., & c. With we consider it inferior.” Poe asserts that Dickens “has done this thing well—he would do anything well in Numerous Illustrations, comparison with the herd of his contemporaries— By Cattermole, Browne & but he has not done it so thoroughly well as his high Sibson. Lea & Blanchard: and just reputation would demand.” Philadelphia” (1841–42)

A long and laudatory review of CHARLES DICKENS’s “Big Abel and the Little novel that appeared in both the Philadelphia Saturday Manhattan” (1845) Evening Post, on May 1, 1841, and GRAHAM’S MAGA- ZINE, in February 1842. When Dickens was on tour Review by Poe that appeared in the BROADWAY JOUR- in the United States in March 1842, Poe sent him a NAL of September 27, 1845. A lengthened version of copy of the review and requested an interview, which the review of Cornelius Mathews’s historical fantasy was not granted. Poe begins the review by denounc- appeared in GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND LADY’S BOOK ing the “literary Titmice” who judge works merely for November 1845. Poe characterized the novel, by the number of books sold and who sneer at criti- which concerns two claimants to the island of Man- cal excellence. He mocks their “little opinions” and hattan, as “an emblematical romance of homely life” states that “if the popularity of a book be in fact the that functions as an allegory contrasting the pres- measure of its worth,” most scientific tomes must be ent with “the true values of the savage and uncivi-

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 208 10/12/07 12:02:25 PM “Book of Gems, The. The Poets and Artists of Great Britain. Edited by S. C. Hall. . . . “ 209

lized state.” The rivals are “a houseless vagabond, Lucretia, whose work is reviewed in “POETICAL the great-grandson of Henry Hudson the navigator, REMAINS OF THE LATE LUCRETIA MARIA DAVID- and the descendant from the last Indian chief of the SON,” Margaret “perished (of consumption) in her Maunahatta” who have proposed to lay claim to var- sixteenth year” and left poetry that her mother ious areas of Manhattan based on papers that they compiled, arranging the material chronologically assert sustain their claims. In their rovings through- and inserting observations on her daughter’s life out the city, “these two being a little demented, or as well as a letter detailing the last moments of whimsical or ignorant” divide what they believe to the girl’s life. Poe commended Irving for conveying be their holdings, naming as they go such landmarks “a just idea of the exquisite loveliness of the pic- as Trinity Church and Delmonico’s. Poe calls it “an ture here presented to view,” but he also criticizes ingenious, an original, and altogether, an excellent Irving for overestimating the artistry of the works book,” but he also points out that the casual reader and states that “his words, however, in their hyper- will probably be confused by it, for “Its chief defect is bole, do wrong to his subject, and would be hyper- a very gross indefiniteness, not of conception, but of bole still, if applied to the most exalted poets of all execution.” In conclusion, he asserts that popularity time.” Nonetheless, Poe pays particular attention must not be Mathews’s intention, because “out of to her 2,000-line poem “Lenore” and credits her ten readers nine will be totally at a loss to compre- with “occasional bursts of the truest poetic fire.” hend the meaning of the author.” He further singled out two other poems for high praise: “To Mamma” and “My Native Lake.”

“Binney’s Eulogium” (1835) “Book of Gems, The. The Poe’s review of a eulogy delivered by Horace Binney on the death of Chief Justice JOHN MARSHALL; the Poets and Artists of Great review appeared in the SOUTHERN LITERARY MES- Britain. Edited by S. C. Hall. SENGER in December 1835. Poe asserts that “Mr. Binney speaks with no less truth than modesty, in London and New York: making it the consolation alike of the humblest, Saunders and Otley” (1836) and of the most gifted eulogist” when he states in the eulogy that “ ‘to give with simplicity the record of Poe’s review of an anthology edited by S. C. Hall. his life’ is most nearly to copy ‘the great original’.” The review appeared in the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER for August 1836. Poe lists the English poets included in the anthology and notes that the skill and artistry attributed to them is misplaced: “Biography and Poetical “Verses which affect us to-day with a vivid delight, Remains of the Late and which in some instances, may be traced to this one source of grotesqueness and to none other, Margaret Miller Davidson, must have worn in the days of their construction The. By Washington Irving. an air of a very commonplace nature.” Instead, he protests that “better extracts might be made” and Philadelphia, Lea and provides harsh criticism: “There are long passages Blanchard” (1841) now before us, of the most despicable trash, with no merit whatsoever, beyond that of their antiq- Review of WASHINGTON IRVING’s biography of the uity.” He also takes issue with the critiques by the child poet Margaret Miller Davidson, in GRAHAM’S editor, claiming that they “do not please us in a MAGAZINE for August 1841. Similar to her sister great degree” and observing that “he seems to have

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fallen into the common cant in such cases.” Of dians may as well spare us their abuse. We despise the choices in the anthology, Poe finds Andrew them and defy them (the transcendental vaga- Marvell’s “Maiden Lamenting for Her Fawn” an bonds!) and they may all go to the devil together.” example of the type of poetry that he would “prefer In response to the insinuation that he must have not only as a specimen of the elder poets, but, in been “ ‘intoxicated’ to have become possessed of itself, as a beautiful poem, abounding in the sweet- sufficient audacity to ‘deliver’ such a poem to the est pathos, in soft and gentle images, in the most Frogpondians,” Poe sinks to adolescent rhetoric. exquisitely delicate imagination, and in truth—to While he neither confirms nor denies that he may any thing of its species.” have been intoxicated—“We shall get drunk when we please”—he attacks his critic Cornelia Walter, stating that “we advise her to get drunk, too, as soon as possible—for when sober she is a disgrace “Boston and the Bostonians. to her sex—on account of being so awfully stupid.” Editorial Miscellany” (1845)

Two essays by Poe that appeared in the Novem- ber 1, 1845, and November 22, 1845, issues of the “Broken Vow and Other BROADWAY JOURNAL in which he responded to the Poems, The. By Amanda M. attacks on his work by specific critics. In the first essay, he defended himself against the criticism Edmond. Boston: Gould, of Cornelia Walter, whom he viewed as seeking Kendall & Lincoln” (1845) vengeance because he had written unflattering critiques of works by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFEL- A review of a volume of verse appearing in the LOW and called Walters “a pretty little witch” in October 11, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. one of his reviews. Poe also defended his choice of Poe lambasted the poet, labeling the poems “by no “AL AARAAF” for a reading at the Boston Lyceum means impressive” and characterizing them as con- and criticized the Boston audience “who evinced taining subjects that generally “find favor in boarding characteristic discrimination in under-standing, schools.” In assessing the collection, Poe stated that and especially applauding, all those knotty pas- some of the poems were “mere doggerel” and said sages which we ourselves have not yet been able to that they “have no right to the title of poem, and understand.” In the November 1 piece, Poe cites a should not be included in the volume.” Although he review of his Boston Lyceum reading of “The Mes- judges Edmond’s versification and imagery to be “at senger Star” (the name that the press assigned to least respectable,” Poe notes that “in the loftier and “Al Aaraaf” when Poe did not identify the poem distinctive attributes, we are pained to say that she by name) from the Sunday Times and Messenger of is totally wanting. We look in vain throughout her October 26, 1845, and accuses the Boston audi- volume for one spark of poetic fire.” ence of lacking soul: “They have always evinced towards us individually the basest ingratitude for the services we rendered them in enlightening them about the originality of Mr. Longfellow.” Poe “Brook Farm” (1845) opens the second piece by quoting extensively from a review of his poetry from the Charleston Patriot, A review that appeared in the December 13, 1845, after which he responds methodically and vituper- issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL in which Poe claims atively to disparaging remarks about his Lyceum to “sincerely respect” the Brook Farm weekly mag- lectures by the Bostonians, whom he calls Frogpon- azine Harbinger while calling it “the most reputable dians: “We knew that write what we would they organ of the Crazyites.” (Brook Farm was a utopian would swear it to be worthless. . . . The Frogpon- community founded by a group of New England

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transcendentalist [see TRANSCENDETALISM] writers “Byron and Miss and thinkers.) He indicates that the publication is “conducted by an assemblage of well-read persons Chaworth” (1844) who mean no harm—and who, perhaps, can do less” and asks what he has done that “should stop An article written by Poe and published with an the ordinary operations at Brook-Farm for the pur- engraving of LORD BYRON and his youthful sweet- pose of abusing us.” Poe includes in his review of heart Mary Chaworth in the December 1844 issue of the magazine a negative and condescending review the Columbian Magazine. The article emphasizes the of THE RAVEN AND OTHER POEMS that was written idealized vision of Byron’s passion for Mary, as Poe by John S. Dwight and published in the Decem- observes that every allusion to her in Byron’s work ber 6, 1845, issue of the Harbinger. Following the contains “a vein of almost spiritual tenderness and reprint, Poe methodically selects phrases and sen- purity, strangely in contrast with the gross earthliness tences from the review to refute and to ridicule, pervading and disfiguring his ordinary love poems.” responding, as he says, “like a Dutch uncle.” In Poe points out that “a hundred evidences of fact” concluding his attack, Poe observes that “it shocks exist in Byron’s poems and letters and in memoirs us to hear a set of respectable Crazyites talking in of his relatives to prove that the love was “earnest so disingenuous a manner.” He expresses the hope and abiding.” At the same time, Poe asserts that this that “in the future, ‘The Snook Farm Phalanx’ will was also a passion “of the most thoroughly roman- never have any opinion of us at all.” tic, shadowy, and imaginative character . . . born of the hour, and of the youthful necessity to love. . . . It had no peculiar regard to the person, or to the character, or to the reciprocating affection of Mary “Bubbles from the Brunnens Chaworth. . . . The result was not merely natural or of Nassau. By An Old Man. merely probable, it was as inevitable as destiny itself.” New York: Harper and Brothers” (1836) “Camperdown; or, News Poe’s review of travel sketches and stories written from Our Neighborhood— by “an old man,” whom Poe identified as “the present Governor of Canada.” The review appeared Being a Series of Sketches, in the April 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITER- by the Author of ‘Our ARY MESSENGER. Poe explains that the “bubbles” of the title are “hasty sketches of whatever chanced Neighborhood,’ &c. for the moment to please either the eyes or the Philadelphia: Carey, Lea mind” of the writer, who had been sent to drink the mineral waters of Nassau for his health. The “old & Blanchard” (1836) man” author pronounces his book to be “empty, light, vain, hollow and superficial: ‘but then,’ says Review that appeared in the July 1836 issue of the he, ‘it is the nature of ‘bubbles’ to be so.’ ” In his SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER and favorably rec- evaluation, Poe suggests that the sketches should ommended Mary Griffith’s collection of six short be called “whimsical” rather than “facetious,” as stories. The review contains a brief summary of others have commonly labeled them. He observes the content of the collection, and Poe observes that the manner of the sketches are “an agreeable that this is the second volume in a series that “will mixture of Charles Lamb’s and Washington Irving’s” be followed up by others—in continuation.” Poe containing the “same covert conceit, the same hid- found the stories “The Little Couple” and “The den humor, the same piquant allusion.” Thread and Needle Store” to be “skilfully told,

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and [to] have much spirit and freshness,” while writing deals with the exercise of intuition and the remaining four stories are full of “originality of contains 11 paragraphs, each dealing with a dif- thought and manner” and “sufficiently outre” to ferent area of intuitive life. Among the areas of make the collection a success. discussion are the steps by which a work of art goes from conception to formal realization; an examination of the reliability of intuition; suggestions about the metaphysical life; analyses of the power “Canons of Good Breeding, of the imagination and the nature of true genius; and a defense of the necessity of precision and or the Handbook of the clarity in matters of logic. The essay presents Poe’s Man of Fashion, The. By strong belief in the power of intuition, and he sums up its intellectual value by stating: “Great intel- the Author of the ‘Laws of lects guess well. The laws of Kepler were, profess- Etiquette.’ Lea and Blanchard, edly, guesses.” (1839) German astronomer Johannes Kepler helped to Philadelphia” establish the validity of the Copernican system by using an empirical formulation of the laws of plan- Review of a handbook to good manners that etary motion as well as the precise data of the Dan- appeared in the November 1839 issue of BURTON’S ish astronomer Tycho Brahe, yet Poe believes that GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE. The handbook’s author intuition played a bigger role and that Kepler only also wrote an earlier volume titled Advice to a Young guessed. Gentleman. Poe warns that those who casually peruse the volume “will, of course, be included to throw it aside with contempt upon perceiving its title;” however, he assures the reader that “the volume abounds in good things,” among them its “grouping “Chapter on Autography, A” together of fine things from the greatest multiplicity (1841–42) of the rarest works.” Praising the author for having a “radiancy of fine wit, so commingled with scholar- Alternate name for Poe’s analyses of the fabricated like observation and profound thought,” Poe high- handwriting and signatures of more literary per- lights some of the advice with a tongue-in-cheek sonalities. These appeared in a three-part series in approach, as in the following example: “ ‘The infe- GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE in issues published in Novem- rior classes of men, as you may see if you think fit ber 1841, December 1841, and January 1842. See to take notice of them, only press the rim of the hat “AUTOGRAPHY.” when they speak to women of their acquaintance, you should be careful, when you salute a lady or gentleman, to take your own entirely off, and cause it to describe a circle of at least ninety degrees.’ ” “Characters of Shakespeare, The. By William Hazlitt. “Chapter of Suggestions, Wiley & Putnam’s Library A” (1845) of Choice Reading. No. XVII” (1845) An essay written by Poe and published in the November 1845 issue of the New York annual The A review of the volume that appeared in the Opal, edited by NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS. The August 16, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOUR-

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NAL. Generally complimentary to Hazlitt’s efforts, lization, so long will it be almost an axiom that no Poe notes that “with his hackneyed theme he has extensively popular book, in the right application done wonders, and those wonders well.” Stat- of the term, can be a work of high merit, as regards ing that only seeing Hazlitt’s name affixed to the those particulars of the work which are popular.” In commentary “could induce us to read anything this largely negative review, Poe provides only a more in the way of commentary on Shakespeare,” brief summary of the plot, which he disparages as he declares the author to be “emphatically a having “more absurdities than we have patience critic, brilliant, epigrammatic, startling, para- to enumerate.” He notes that “in the story proper doxical, and suggestive, rather than accurate, are repetitions without end. . . . It would be dif- luminous, or profound.” In typical fashion, Poe ficult to convey to one who has not examined this devotes more than half of the review to expound- production for himself, any idea of the exceedingly ing upon his own theories. In this case, he takes rough, clumsy, and irrational manner in which issue with all who have commented on WILLIAM even this bald conception is carried out.” Using a SHAKESPEARE, faulting them for dealing with series of excerpts from the novel, Poe condemns the characters as if they were “actual existences the plot as “exceedingly meagre” and methodically upon earth.” Taking Hamlet as his example, Poe identifies by page number the errors and “vulgar- writes that if Hamlet had really lived, then critics isms” that he anticipates would be offensive to could “reconcile his inconsistencies and settle to readers. In the final analysis, Poe concludes that our satisfaction his true character. But the task the novel has been written by an author who is becomes pure absurdity when we deal only with “aping the airs of intellect” and who has done a phantom.” Poe views it as “little less than a “violence to the feelings and judgment even of the miracle, that this obvious point should have been populace.” overlooked.”

“Chaunt of Life and Other “Charles O’Malley, the Irish Poems, With Sketches and Dragoon. By Harry Lorrequer. Essays, A. By Rev. Ralph With Forty Illustrations Hoyt. In Six Parts. Part by Phiz. Complete in One II. New York: Le Roy & Volume. Carey & Hart: Hoyt” (1845) Philadelphia” (1842) Review that appeared in the July 26, 1845, issue of Review appearing in the March 1842 issue of GRA- the BROADWAY JOURNAL. Poe expressed admiration HAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe opens his review by noting for the collection of poetry and incidental writ- that the first point to be observed regarding the ings and quoted extensively from “The Chaunt of novel “is the great popularity” of the work. . . . Life,” which he declared to be itself “quite fine.” At all events it has met with a most extensive He argued, however, that some of the other poems sale.” He is quick, however, to point out that he were marred by missing feet or “peculiarities of would not insult readers “by supposing any one metre.” The review also contains the full text of of them unaware of the fact, that a book may be a poem titled “Old,” which Poe included because exceedingly popular without any legitimate literary it “has so many rare and peculiar excellences,” as merit.” To emphasize his point, Poe states that “so well as “some exquisite passages of pathos and of long as the world retains its present point of civi- imagination.”

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 213 10/12/07 12:02:26 PM 214 “Child of the Sea, and Other Poems, The. By S. Anna Lewis, . . . “ “Child of the Sea, and Other poetical selections as having been, for the most part, excellently chosen, and the prose commentaries on Poems, The. By S. Anna each article in good taste.” Poe concludes that the Lewis, Author of ‘Records of work “deserves the good will of all sensible persons.” the Heart,’ Etc., Etc.” (1848) A review that appeared in the September 1848 “Clinton Bradshaw; or the issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe’s praise for SARA ANNA LEWIS’s poetry collection Adventures of a Lawyer. was one way of repaying her for the financial and Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & emotional assistance she gave him after VIRGINIA CLEMM’s death. Citing various poems that she had Blanchard” (1835) published, Poe asserts, “All critical opinion must Review of F. W. Thomas’s novel published in the agree in assigning her a high, if not the very highest December 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY rank among the poetesses of her land.” The review MESSENGER. Poe states that he has “no doubt that identifies by name several of the poems in the col- this book will be a favorite with many readers,” but lection and copies stanzas to support his praise that he finds the novel “the very worst species of imita- “the versification, while in full keeping with the tion, the paraphrasical.” The review compares the general character of simplicity, has in certain pas- work with Henry Pelham, or the Adventures of a Gen- sages a vigorous, trenchant euphony which would tleman, a 1828 novel by EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON, confer honor on the most accomplished masters of and finds Thomas’s work lacking. Although Poe the art.” In conclusion, he predicts that the collec- claims to “dislike the novel, considered as a novel,” tion “will confer immortality on its author.” he admits that “some detached passages are very good” and identifies that “the chief excellence of the book consists in a certain Flemish caricaturing “Christian Florist; Containing of vulgar habitudes and action.” the English Botanical Names of Different Plants, with Their “Coming of the Mammoth— Properties Delineated and The Funeral of Time and Explained, The. Illustrated by Other Poems, The. By Henry Texts From Various Authors. B. Hirst, Boston: Philips & First American From the Sampson” (1845) Second London Edition. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Review of a poetry collection by the young Phila- delphia lawyer HENRY B. HIRST that appeared in Blanchard” (1836) the July 12, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. Although Poe praised extravagantly Hirst’s “com- A book review by Poe that appeared in the January mendable poems,” stating that “his versification is 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. superior to that of any American poet” and claiming Poe praises the book for being “well adapted for a that “ ‘Isabelle’ is the finest ballad ever written in Christmas present” and for the richly colored illus- this country,” he also observes that the poet “is apt trations, which he describes. The review praises the to overdo a good thing.” Poe identifies Hirst’s defects

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as including “a want of constructive ability, occa- ics in general.” Poe was unmerciful in his estimation sional extravagance of expression, and a far more of the work and began his review by stating, “The than occasional imitativeness,” and he asserts that most remarkable feature in this production is the “there is nothing in the book which is fairly entitled bad paper on which it is printed, and the typographi- to be called original, either in its conception, execu- cal ingenuity with which matter barely enough for tion, or manner, as a whole.” The title poem “The one volume has been spread over the pages of two.” Coming of the Mammoth” attracts Poe’s harshest Although he concedes that there is “some merit in criticism. He observes that it is one of Hirst’s earliest this book, and not a little satisfaction,” he determines literary efforts, and that the author “began to write that “the author has very few claims to the sacred at a very immature age.” After quoting from two name [poet] he has thought proper to assume” and passages in which a mammoth pursued by aborigines declares that “none but le vulgaire [the common or first leaps across the Mississippi River in one bound, low individual], to speak poetically, will ever think then ascends a summit of the Rocky Mountains, of getting through with the confessions.” from which it leaps to the Pacific Ocean, Poe mocks the author and notes that “from the summit of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific is a tolerably long leap even for a Mammoth—although he had had “Confessions of Emilia some previous practice in jumping the Mississippi.” Harrington, The. By Lambert He states that this work is “the most preposterous of all the preposterous poems ever deliberately printed A. Wilmer. Baltimore” (1836) by a gentleman arrived at the years of discretion. Nor has it one individual point of redeeming merit. Review of Lambert A. Wilmer’s novel that appeared Had Mr. Hirst written only this we should have in the February 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITER- thrown his book to the pigs without comment.” ARY MESSENGER. Poe praises “the simple verisimilitude of his narrative” and claims that the novel, which is written as the memoir of a young woman who goes morally astray, “will render essential ser- Conchologist’s First Book, The vices to virtue in the unveiling of the deformities of vice,” for it supports the viewpoint that “ignorance See PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION TO The Concholo- of wrong is not security for the right.” Although he gist’s First Book, 1839. finds the work highly believable and praises Wilm- er’s style as both good itself and well adapted to his subject, Poe maintains, “Yet, unhappily, books thus written are not the books by which men acquire a “Confessions of a Poet, contemporaneous reputation.” 2 vols. Carey, Lea, and Blanchard” (1835) “Conquest of Florida Review of an unsigned novel that appeared in the by Hernando De Soto, April 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSEN- GER. The author was first assumed to be JOHN NEAL The. By Theodore Irving. because of the colloquial tone and the flighty and Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & irregular manner of the narrative, but LAUGHTON OSBORN was identified as the author after the news- Blanchard” (1835) papers “unscrupulously misrepresented and abused” the work. Osborn retaliated by publishing what Poe Review appearing in the July 1835 issue of the described as “a bulky satirical poem, leveled at crit- SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe declares the

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 215 10/12/07 12:02:27 PM 216 “Continuation of the Voluminous History of the Little Longfellow War, A—. . . “

work “one of great interest . . . which Mr. Irving has DRAMA.”) Moreover, the anonymous “Outis” presented in a most attractive form.” Praising the points out similarities between “The RAVEN” conquests and explorations of the Spanish adven- and an anonymously published poem titled “The turers, Poe declares them to be suitably represented Bird of the Dream,” but the writer states, “I shall in Irving’s work, which “abounds with thrilling pas- not charge Mr. Poe with plagiarism—for, as I sages.” The review contains brief descriptions of the have said, such charges are perfectly absurd. Ten conquest of Florida by Hernando de Soto, as well as to one, he never saw this before.” Yet, the let- the adventures of Ponce de Leon, who sought the ter lists 15 “identities” of similar content in the Fountain of Youth in what is now Florida; Vasquest two poems, “without a word of rhythm, metre or de Ayllon, the ruthless kidnapper; and Pamphilo stanza, which should never form a part of such a de Narvaez, the well-known rival and opponent of comparison.” Hernando Cortez, conqueror of Mexico. Poe claims In reviews of Longfellow’s work, Poe had writ- that once someone begins to read the book, it is ten that the poet plagiarized liberally in producing impossible to “lay it aside until its perusal is con- much of his writing, most markedly in “The Span- cluded,” but refuses to attribute this fascination to ish Student,” which Poe claimed was stolen from “the merit of the writer or his subject (probably it is his drama POLITIAN, and “The Beleaguered City,” a combination of both).” which Poe asserted bore an undeniable resemblance to “The HAUNTED PALACE.” Poe had also charged that Longfellow’s “Midnight Mass for the Dying Year” was plagiarized from Alfred, Lord Ten- “Continuation of the nyson’s “Death of the Old Year” and that several of his collected ballads, significantly “The Good Voluminous History of the George Campbell,” were plagiarized from William Little Longfellow War, A— Motherwell’s Minstrelsy Ancient and Modern, published in Glasgow in 1827. Mr. Poe’s Further Reply to Each of the five replies to “Outis” presents a the Letter of Outis” (1845) different focus in the rebuttal. In “Imitation—Pla- giarism—Mr. Poe’s Reply to the Letter of Outis,” The subtitle of a series of five articles written by which appeared in the March 8, 1845, issue of the Poe and published in the BROADWAY JOURNAL in Broadway Journal, Poe quotes liberally from the let- response to a letter published in the NEW YORK ter by “Outis” and lists the 15 “identities” of simi- MIRROR on March 1, 1845, and signed “Outis,” larity between “The Raven” and the anonymous the Greek word for “Nobody.” The writer claims “The Bird of the Dream,” mocking their validity to have written the letter “from no personal without further discussion. motives, but simply because, from my earliest In the second reply, published in the March reading of reviews and critical notices, I have 15, 1845, issue of the Broadway Journal, Poe been disgusted with this wholesale mangling of focuses directly on the issue of plagiarism. He victims without rhyme or reason.” “Outis” cas- claims to afford “Outis” the opportunity of “fair tigates Poe both for his recent attack on HENRY play,” as he admits “not only the possibility of the WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW in a February 28, class of coincidences for which he contends, but 1845, lecture before the Society Library and for even the impossibility of there not existing just as earlier negative comments regarding and charges many of these coincidences as he may consider of plagiarism in Longfellow’s works in reviews necessary to make out his case.” Poe ends this published from 1838 to 1842. (See “HYPERION: section of the reply with the promise “that there A ROMANCE,” “VOICES OF THE NIGHT,” “BAL- will be some ‘interesting developments’ before I LADS AND OTHER POEMS,” and “The AMERICAN have done.”

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 216 10/12/07 12:02:27 PM “Conti the Discarded: with Other Tales and Fancies, by Henry F. Chorley. . . . “ 217

The third reply to the letter from “Outis,” pub- thus, in fact, a portion of his own intellect. It has lished in the March 22, 1845, issue of the Broadway a secondary origination within his own soul—an Journal, consists largely of Poe’s methodical refuta- origination altogether apart, although springing tion of the similarities cited in the charge that he from its primary origination from without. The plagiarized “The Raven.” He claims that “Outis” poet is thus possessed by another’s thought, and forced a similarity between the two poems, and can-not be said to take of it, possession . . . he that so lengthy a poem would naturally call to mind thoroughly feels it as his own.” Lest readers think myriad similarities to others. Poe ends the article that he is condoning plagiarism, Poe cautions that with the promise, not to be kept, that “in the next “the liability to accidents of this character is in number of the Journal, I shall endeavour to bring the direct ratio of the poetic sentiment . . . for the this subject to an end.” most frequent and palpable plagiarisms, we must The article appearing in the March 29, 1845, search the works of the most eminent poets.” issue of the Broadway Journal opens with a virulent attack on “the Outises who practise this species of bullyism” who are guilty of “insufferable cant and shameless misrepresentation practised “Conti the Discarded: with by just such persons.” To counter the charge by “Outis” that Poe’s “wholesale mangling of the Other Tales and Fancies, by victims without rhyme and reason” was unpopu- Henry F. Chorley. 2 vols. lar, Poe points out the increases in circulation in one year for the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSEN- New York: Published by GER from 700 to nearly 5,000 and, “in little more Harper and Brothers” (1836) than twice the same time,” for GRAHAM’S MAGA- ZINE from “five to fifty-two thousand subscrib- Review by Poe that appeared in the February ers.” He then reprints and methodically compares 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSEN- Longfellow’s “Midnight Mass for the Dying Year” GER. Poe identifies the author of the work as a with Tennyson’s “The Death of the Old Year,” man from whose pen “evidences of rare genius Longfellow’s “The Good George Campbell” have been perceptible,” and claims that in the with Motherwell’s “The Bonnie George Camp- current work of eight tales and essays “these evi- bell,” and Longfellow’s “The Spanish Student” dences are more distinct, more brilliant, and more with sections from his own Politian to reaffirm his openly developed.” Discussion of the tales leads charge that Longfellow is a plagiarist. Poe ends Poe to undertake a lengthy digression on the stat- the article with a suggestion that he would have ure of the artist and to ask, “When shall the art- no difficulty in citing numerous other instances ist assume his proper situation in society—in a of Longfellow’s “imitation” and that he should be society of thinking beings? How long shall he be admired “for great moderation in charging him enslaved? How long shall mind succumb to the with imitation alone.” grossest materiality?” To his own questions, Poe The final installment in the replies to “Outis” optimistically responds, “Not long. Not long will was published on April 5, 1845. Poe claims to have such rank injustice be committed or permitted.” brought the issue to a close in the previous article He proceeds to identify the superior qualities in and now feels “at liberty to add a few words of post- Chorley’s stories. He bestows the highest praise script, by way of freeing myself of any suspicion of upon the collection of tales, that “it bears no little malevolence or discourtesy.” He discourses on the resemblance to that purest, and most enthralling nature of “the poetic sentiment,” which results in of fictions, the Bride of Lammermuir [sic]; and we a rather strong defense of perceived borrowing by have once before expressed our opinion of this, poets: “What the poet intensely admires, becomes the master novel of Scott.”

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 217 10/12/07 12:02:27 PM 218 “Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of the United States of America—Virginia. . . . “ “Contributions to the consequence of its attachment to the Church of England.” Poe later wrote in the April 1836 issue of Ecclesiastical History of the the Southern Literary Messenger that an “injustice” United States of America— had been done to Mr. Bancroft, “not only by our- Virginia. A Narrative of selves, but by Dr. Hawks and others.” Events Connected with the Rise and Progress of the “Corse de Leon: Or the Protestant Episcopal Church Brigand. A Romance, by in Virginia. To Which G. P. R. James. Two Volumes. Is Added an Appendix, Harper and Brothers” (1841) Containing the Journals of Review by Poe that appeared in the June 1841 the Conventions in Virginia, issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe provides read- from the Commencement ers with a fairly lengthy plot synopsis of this historical novel that is set in the time of the French to the Present Time. By the king Henry II, then informs them that the novel is Reverend Francis, L. Hawks, “largely of the common-place, and marred by the conclusion . . . which was introduced only for the D.D., Rector of St. Thomas’s purpose of introducing the famous death of Henry Church, New York. New the Second, at a tournament.” Poe exhibits even greater contempt for the characters, which he York: Published by Harper decrees to be “still more common-place.” While and Brothers” (1836) two may be identified as “beneficent spirits” and two “are the evil geniuses,” the remaining char- Review of a historical study published in the March acters are condemned as “lifeless, common, and 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. uncharacteristic. They make no impression, and Poe praised the “large and handsome” appearance you almost forget their names.” Poe states that of the volume but protests that his very cursory the principal character, Corse de Leon, mim- examination of the work “will not warrant us in ics the characters of EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON speaking of the work in other than general terms.” in speaking philosophically, “and is altogether a After his disclaimer, Poe cites specific pages of the plagiarism from that bombastic, unnatural, cut- work on which appear “a few of the most strik- throat school.” In Poe’s final assessment, “this is ing points of the History before us.” Although the but a readable novel, and a mere repetition of the review is generally positive, Poe criticizes references author’s former works.” in the work to the historian George Bancroft, who had intimated in his own history of the United States that the Virginia colony had exhibited disloyalty during the protectorate of Oliver Crom- “Coxe’s Saul” (1845) well. Poe answers the charges of disloyalty point by point, and in defense of Virginia he enjoins readers, A brief review of the Reverend Arthur Coxe’s “that through faith alone it remained a slave—and lengthy poem Saul, A Mystery that appeared in the that its love of monarchy was a mere necessary September 6, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOUR-

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 218 10/12/07 12:02:27 PM “Critical and Miscellaneous Essays. By T. Babington Macaulay. Carey and Hart, . . . “ 219

NAL. Poe reprints “The Retort,” an unsigned poem INGTON IRVING’s descriptions of the homes of SIR that originally appeared in the Hartford Columbian, WALTER SCOTT and LORD BYRON as “the tribute of and defends Coxe’s poem, after first stating that it genius to its kindred spirits, and it breathes a sanc- had “been condemned in no measured terms by Poe tifying influence over the graves of the departed.” of the Broadway Journal, and Green of the Empo- The review relates that Irving provides a complete rium.” Following the poem, Poe expresses his hope image of the surroundings within which Scott cre- that “no one will think the worse of the one above ated the works that thrilled thousands of read- when we say that we have expressed no opinion ers, while his descriptions also “give a melancholy whatsoever of ‘Saul’.” Rather, he admits that “as yet interest to the early misfortunes of Byron.” Unlike we have not found time to read the poem—which, the earlier Crayon Miscellany, which dealt in leg- to say the truth, is an unconscionably long one.” ends, this work is based upon personal observation of the surroundings of two individuals who lived. Poe’s assessment is that Irving manages to illumi- nate fully the characters of the two individuals in “Crayon Miscellany, The. his sketches. By the Author of the Sketch Book No. 3—Containing Legends of the Conquest of “Critical and Spain. Philadelphia: Carey, Miscellaneous Essays. By Lea & Blanchard” (1835) T. Babington Macaulay. Carey and Hart, Review that appeared in the December 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe praises Philadelphia” (1841) WASHINGTON IRVING’s collections of legends for their “beauty of style,” and he singles out “The Review that appeared in the June 1841 issue of Story of the Marvelous and Portentous Tower” GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe began the review by as supreme in the collection. Despite such praise, declaring that THOMAS MACAULAY’s “deserv- Poe acknowledges that Irving has simply taken “a edly great” reputation was “yet in a remarkable few striking and picturesque legends possessing, measure undeserved” and stated that those who at the same time, some absolute portion of verity, viewed him as “a comprehensive and profound and to adorn them in his own magical language.” thinker, little prone to error, err essentially themselves.” The misperception, Poe suggests, lay in “a tendency in the public mind toward logic for logic’s sake” that leads people to “be so dazzled by “Crayon Miscellany, No. II, the luminousness with which an idea is set forth as to mistake it for the luminousness of the idea The. Containing Abbotsford itself.” Although he approves of the terse style and Newstead Abbey. and “simple vigour” with which Macaulay writes, Poe objects to the minutiae of detail contained Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & within the writings that fail to address the sub- Blanchard. 1835” (1835) ject of each essay as a whole. Poe concludes that “Mr. Macaulay, in short, has forgotten that he Review that appeared in the July 1835 issue of the frequently forgets, or neglects, the very gist of his SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe hails WASH- subject.”

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 219 10/12/07 12:02:27 PM 220 “Critical and Miscellaneous Writings of Henry Lord Brougham, to Which Is Prefixed . . . “

“Critical and Miscellaneous LITERARY MESSENGER. In the same article, Poe also reviewed “ALNWICK CASTLE” by FITZ GREENE HAL- Writings of Henry Lord LECK. Before dealing directly with the works, the Brougham, to Which Is review considers the “present state of American criticism” that has become “boisterous and arrogant in the Prefixed a Sketch of His pride of a too speedily assumed literary freedom.” He Character, The. Two Vols. Lea decries the tendency of those who choose to encourage native writers at the expense of writing quality & Blanchard” (1842) and condemns the “misapplied patriotism” that leads his contemporaries to “the gross paradox of liking Review that appeared in the March 1842 issue of a stupid book the better, because, sure enough, its GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE in which Poe derided miscel- stupidity is American.” The review also dedicates sig- laneous selections from the writings of Henry, lord nificant space to examining the nature of imagination Brougham. The review praises “Discourse on the and the “the sentiment of Poesy,” which Poe asserts Objects, Pleasures and Advantages of Science” as to be “the sentiment of Intellectual Happiness here, a well-written essay but condemns it as abounding and the Hope of a higher Intellectual Happiness herein misstatements and contestable facts and contain- after.” One-third of the way through the article, Poe ing “the strangest grammatical errors.” Poe scoffs at discusses The Culprit Fay and Other Poems, a poem of a statement in the preface to the work that decrees 640 lines divided into 36 stanzas. The review ridicules “there was only one individual living by whom it the premise of the poem, which relates the tribula- could have been produced” and professes to know tions of an Ouphe, one member of a race of fairies “at least a dozen individuals who could have writ- living in the vicinity of West Point on the Hudson ten this treatise as well as the Lord Chancellor has River in New York State. He has broken fairy law by written it.” The most severe criticism in the review falling in love with a mortal and, after suffering for his appears near the end, as Poe examines Brougham’s sin, is eventually redeemed by the love of his “sinless success with an article that considers the authorship mistress.” Poe states that the greater part of the poem of Junius. Poe’s sharp criticism of the piece, which “is utterly destitute of any evidence of imagination appeared in a recent issue of the Edinburgh Quarterly, whatever” and pleads “guilty to a predominant sense as having made “no attempt at analysis—no new of the ludicrous while occupied in the perusal of the fact is adduced—no novel argument is urged—and poem.” This disdain for the poem remained with Poe, yet the thing is called a criticism and liberally paid who referred to the poem as Drake’s “puerile abor- for as such” suggests envy for his own circumstances, tion” in a review of “ALCIPHRON” in 1840. which often were financially strained. He ends the review by declaring Brougham’s work to be among “the ordinary character of the English review-sys- “Dashes At Life with a Free tem,” which is “that of mystifying the reader by an artful substitution of the interest appertaining to the Pencil. By N. P. Willis. Part text for the interest aroused by the commentator.” III. Loiterings of Travel. New York. J. S. Redfield” (1845)

“Culprit Fay, and Other A review that appeared in the August 23, 1845, Poems, The, By Joseph issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. Poe was highly complimentary of the author’s skills and spoke of Rodman Drake. New York: Willis as “one of the truest men of letters in Amer- George Dearborn” (1836) ica” whose works “show his fine genius as it is.” He finds Willis and the work to be free of the “unorigi- A review, known as the Drake-Halleck review, which nal mediocrity” that marks most literary men and appeared in the April 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN their endeavors in his day.

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 220 10/12/07 12:02:28 PM “Doctor, &c., The. New York: Republished by Harper and Brothers” 221 “Dictionary of Greek and mously, in which Poe finds ideas that echo his own. This recognition motivates the statement, “We read Roman Antiquities, A. Edited it with that thrill of pleasure with which we always by William Smith, Ph.D., welcome our own long-cherished opinions, when we meet them unexpectedly in the language of another.” and Illustrated by Numerous Poe expresses similar delight and approval of essays in the collection, objecting only to a paper on phre- Engravings on Wood. Third nology that fails to treat the subject as a legitimate American Edition, Carefully metaphysical science. Charging Walsh with being “evidently ignorant,” Poe asserts that “Mr. Walsh is Revised, and Containing either ashamed of this article now, or he will have Numerous Additional Articles plentiful reason to be ashamed of it hereafter.” Relative to the Botany, Mineralogy, and Zoology of “Dissertation on the the Ancients. By Charles Importance of Physical Signs Anthon, LLD. New York: in the Various Diseases of the Harper and Brothers” (1845) Abdomen and Thorax, A.

Favorable review of the third American edition of By Robert W. Haxall, M.D. the classical compendium that appeared in the April of Richmond, Va. Boston: 12, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. The review praises both the work and its compiler, whom Perkins and Marvin” (1836) Poe designates “not only the best scholar in Amer- ica—but perhaps the most absolutely accurate one Poe’s review of a medical pamphlet. The review in the world.” Poe writes that the work is “the most appeared in the October 1836 issue of the SOUTH- valuable of its class—or rather it is a class by itself,” ERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe asserts that Haxall partly because it contains “all the recent discoveries “evinced too more than ordinary powers of analysis” and expects that the work would command of the Germans, and has all the fulness and accuracy “the entire respect of every well-educated man, as a for which the German scholars are noted.” literary composition in its own peculiar character.” Despite Poe’s praise of the writing, he finds fault with the content because it “does not respond, “Didactics—Social, Literary, in the fullest extent, to the category proposed.” and Political. By Robert Instead of focusing solely on diseases of the abdomen and thorax, Poe writes, “the most important Walsh. Philadelphia: Carey, and altogether the most original portion of the Lea, and Blanchard” (1836) Essay, is that relating to the fever called Typhoid.”

Review published in the May 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe generally “Doctor, &c., The. New York: praises Walsh as “one of the finest writers, one of the most accomplished scholars, and when not in Republished by Harper and too great a hurry, one of the most accurate thinkers Brothers” (1836) in the country.” He discusses several of the essays at length, giving particular attention to “a very excel- A critical review that appeared in the July 1836 lent Essay on the acting of Kean,” published anony- issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 221 10/12/07 12:02:28 PM 222 “Drake-Halleck Review, The”

states that the work “professes to be a Life of one criticizes, Poe reminds readers that “the writer of Doctor Daniel Dove and his horse Nobs—but we this article is himself the son of an actress—has should put no very great faith in this biography.” invariably made it his boast—and no earl was ever Although the review observes that “the wit and prouder of his earldom than he of the descent from humor of the Doctor have seldom been equalled,” a woman who, although well-born, hesitated not to it also points out the inconsistencies of the work consecrate to the drama her brief career of genius and suggests it was “written with the sole view and beauty.” Instead, Poe criticizes the venue, but (or nearly with the sole view) of exciting inquiry he gives high praise to Mrs. Mowatt’s acting ability and comment.” The review relates that the book and predicts for her a successful stage career. appeared to have achieved this goal in England and was expected to do so in America as well, where, Poe says, its publication already “has given rise to every variety of conjecture and opinion.” Poe also “Drama, The” (2) (1845) debates the nature of the book and writes that he has read it “with attention” but “can make nothing A review of Mrs. ANNA CORA MOWATT’s second of it,” and therefore is of the opinion “that the Doc- week of stage roles at Niblo’s Theatre, appearing tor is precisely—nothing. We mean to say that it is in the July 26, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOUR- nothing better than a hoax.” Poe was a good judge NAL. Poe writes that Mowatt has charmed audi- of such matters, given his own efforts in the area ences with her role as Lucy Ashton in SIR WALTER in such published work as “The BALLOON-HOAX,” SCOTT’s The Bride of Lammermoor, a role “for which “The UNPARALLELED ADVENTURE OF ONE HANS Mrs. Mowatt is peculiarly adapted.” The review PFAALL,” “VON KEMPELEN AND HIS DISCOVERY,” states that she should confine herself to “the more and “MAELZEL’S CHESS-PLAYER.” gentle sentiments and the most profound passions. Her sympathy with the latter is evidently intense.” So effective does the audience find her acting that they “grew pale, and were betrayed into silence “Drake-Halleck Review, The” and tears—and if anyone went away sneering that night, it is at least quite certain that he felt ashamed See “The CULPRIT FAY.” of the sneer.”

“Drama, The” (1) (1845) “Drama of Exile and Other

A review of the acting debut at Niblo’s Theatre Poems, The: By Elizabeth of Mrs. ANNA CORA MOWATT, who had already Barrett Barrett [sic], Author achieved a reputation as a playwright. The review of ‘The Seraphim,’ and Other appeared in the July 19, 1845, issue of the BROAD- WAY JOURNAL. Although her appearance on stage as Poems” (1845) Pauline in EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON’s The Lady of Lyons “has been very successful, [and] drew large Poe’s lengthy and enthusiastic review of ELIZABETH and fashionable as well as intellectual audiences,” BARRETT’s collected poems, which include “The the review states that she has “somewhat injured Drama of Exile,” a poem on the subject of the Fall the prestige of her name” by appearing on stage of Adam and Eve. The review was published in in the United States and “she would have gained two installments in the January 4 and 11, 1845, much by first appearing in London.” Quick to make issues of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. Poe provides clear that it is not the acting profession that he a detailed discussion of the contents and quotes

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 222 10/12/07 12:02:28 PM Elfrida, A Dramatic Poem in Five Acts 223

liberally from the poems, in addition to assessing tery of Southey as a prose writer, asserted despite their technical and aesthetic quality. Poe attributed what readers might deem to be “a deficiency of “Homeric force” to her story of Adam and Eve, but patriotic feeling.” he objected to what he termed “a continuous mystical strain of ill-fitting and exaggerated allegory.” The review provides details regarding other poems in the collection. Of “The Vision of Poets,” Poe “Editorial Miscellany” (1845) objected to its length and “the didacticism of its design.” He also reviewed in general the 28 sonnets A brief note that appeared in August 9, 1845, in the collection and asserted that her poems con- issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. Poe reprinted a firm that “[h]er sense of art is pure in itself.” In the brief column that had appeared in the New York collection, Poe finds “The Lady Geraldine” to be Morning Express, which had credited its source to “the only poem of its author which is not deficient, “the New York Correspondent” of the Cincinnati considered as an artistical whole.” In his summa- Gazette. The column claimed to have information tion of Barrett’s work, Poe concludes that her sense about a “flare-up in the Broadway Journal, which of art “has been contaminated by pedantic study prevented the appearance of one number of a week of false models” and suggests that her ill health or two since.” The correspondent also criticized the has “diverted her from proper individuality of pur- publication, claiming that it “needs more catho- pose—and seduced her into the sin of imitation.” licity—more liberality, and a little less attempt at severity,” and suggested that greater success would result “with its flashy name exchanged for something more dignified, and its main plan retained.” “Early Naval History of Poe responded with a complete denial that any “flare-up” had occurred and stated of the writer England by Robert Southey, that “he is right only in the proportion of one word LL.D., Poet Laureate. in ten.” Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard” (1835) Elfrida, A Dramatic Poem Poe’s review of Southey’s historical study, published in Five Acts (1846) in the September 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LIT- ERARY MESSENGER. Poe expresses a high opinion of A composition by FRANCES OSGOOD. Poe included Southey, calling him “a writer who has few equals a lengthy summary and criticism of the work in his anywhere, either in purity of English prose, or in article on Osgood that appeared in “The LITERATI melody of immortal verse” and the history “a work OF NEW YORK CITY.” The plot involves deception of no common merit.” The review observes that and ambition. King Edgar hears of Elfrida’s extraor- even though the reviewer might want to temper dinary beauty and sends his favorite, Athelwood, to some of the enthusiasm of Southey’s “too zealous determine if the reports are true. Athelwood falls in friends for overrating his merely poetical abilities, love with her and lies to the king, telling him that we could not find it in our hearts to place him sec- she is neither beautiful nor agreeable, then woos ond to any one.” Poe also heartily approves of the her himself. After telling the king that he merely subject of the history, for “in no national character- wants Elfrida for her money, Athelwood marries istic do we bear closer analogy to our progenitors in her. When another man later tells the king of this Great Britain than in the magnificence and glory of deception, he resolves to visit Athelwood’s castle to our many triumphs both over and upon the sea.” see for himself, and the panic-stricken Athelwood He ends the review with a reaffirmation of the mas- begs his wife to make herself look plain for the king’s

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 223 10/12/07 12:02:28 PM 224 “Elk, The” visit. Although she agrees, the devious Elfrida is “Elkswatawa; or the Prophet ambitious and makes herself look exceedingly beautiful for the king’s visit. Athelwood is destroyed, and of the West. A Tale of the Elfrida becomes King Edgar’s queen. Poe praised Frontier. New York: Harper Osgood’s artistry, stating that “the hand of the genius is evinced throughout,” and he was particu- and Brothers” (1836) larly complimentary of “the passionate expression of particular portions, to delineation of character, and Critical review by Poe that appeared in the August to occasional scenic effect.” He was less impressed 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. with her technical talents and noted that although Poe gives what he calls “a dry compendium” of the she had “unquestionably failed in writing a good novel, which he claims does “little more than afford play, has, even in failing, given indication of dra- some idea of the plan of the novel,” a romance of matic power.” Tecumseh and his brother Elkswatawa. The novel relates a tale of the abduction of a young white woman by the Indians and of the search for her by the young man who loves her. Although Poe “Elk, The” (1844) acknowledges that the characters of Tecumseh and Elkswatawa “appear to us well drawn,” he criticizes Travel essay and landscape sketch published in the novel as a whole as too imitative of James Feni- the annual The Opal for 1844. Poe first titled the more Cooper and SIR WALTER SCOTT, and warns work “Morning on the Wissahiccon,” because it that the mannerisms of Scott should be avoided “as describes the beauties of the Wissahiccon, a brook a little too much of a good thing.” He also finds that runs into the Schuylkill River near Philadel- the heroine to have no character whatsoever: “Miss phia: “Flowing in England, it would be the theme Foreman we dislike, because we cannot comprehend her.” In sum, Poe concludes that the author has of every bard.” The work is highly critical of “our done “just nothing at all” to advance his reputation. own most deliberate tourists,” from whom “the Edens of the land lie far away from the track.” He notes that foreign tourists, as well, see only “the most beaten thoroughfares of the country,” not “England in 1835. Being a the area to which he has become privy through his own explorations of “the truest, the richest, Series of Letters Written to and most unspeakable glories of the land.” Poe Friends in Germany. During describes the wild beauties of his surroundings, especially the meandering Wissahiccon. On one a Residence in London excursion, he sees upon a cliff a magnificent elk, and Excursions Into the standing “with neck outstretched, with ears erect . . . one of the oldest and boldest of those identi- Provinces. By Frederick Von cal elks which had been coupled with the red men Raumer, Professor of History in my vision.” Visions of the wild pass through Poe’s mind until he sees a man holding “a quan- at the University of Berlin, tity of salt” advance toward the elk, which does Author of the ‘History of not attempt to escape. The man attaches a hal- ter to the animal and leads it away, thus ruining the Hohenstaufen,’ of the Poe’s romantic vision, for he realizes that “it was ‘History of Europe from a pet of great age and very domestic habits, and belonged to an English family occupying a villa in the End of the Fifteenth the vicinity.” Century,’ of ‘Illustrations of

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 224 10/12/07 12:02:28 PM “Ettore Fleramosca, or the Challenge of Barletta, An Historical Romance of the Times . . . ” 225 the History of the Sixteenth begins the review with moderate praise for this first volume of poetry, pointing out that Gal- and Seventeenth Centuries,’ lagher “is fully a poet in the abstract sense of &c. &c. Translated from the word and will be so hereafter in the popular meaning of the term.” Although the review the German by Sarah describes the poet as having “a far more stable Austin and H. E. Lloyd. basis for solid and extensive reputation than we have seen in more than a few of our country- Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & men,” the reviewer finds considerable fault with Blanchard” (1836) Gallagher’s execution of his work: “Long passages of the merest burlesque, and in horribly bad A review that appeared in the July 1836 issue of taste, are intermingled with those of the loftiest the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe evaluates beauty.” As evidence of the poet’s failings, Poe the content of the work, the ability of the transla- reprints lines from one of the poems, “The Peni- tors, and the manner of the translation. He praises tent,” which he describes as “ill-conceived, ill- Von Raumer as “a man of unquestionable and lofty written, and disfigured by almost every possible integrity . . . profoundly versed in moral and politi- blemish of manner.” cal science” and reports that the work contains discussion of diverse topics, including political issues of the day and the current state and future prospects of England. Poe observes that Von Raumer “Ettore Fleramosca, or portrays honestly the state of affairs in England and the Challenge of Barletta, “presents a vivid picture of the miseries of Ireland.” For these reasons, he “has the honor of being called An Historical Romance of by the English organ of the High Church and Ultra the Times of the Medici, Tory Party, ‘a vagrant blackguard unfit for the company of a decent servant’s hall.’ ” Of the translator, by Massimo D’Azeglio. Sarah Austin, Poe notes that she “has taken some Translated from the Italian liberties in the way of omission, which cannot easily be justified.” In particular, Austin appears to have by C. Edwards Lester, U.S. removed passages that are unfavorable to her friend Consul at Genoa, Author Jeremy Bentham: “We learn this as well by her own acknowledgment as by ominous breaks in particu- of ‘The Glory and Shame lar passages concerning the great Utilitaran.” of England,’ Member of the Ateneo Italiano at Florence, “Erato. By William D. Etc. New York: Gallagher. No. 1, Cincinnati, Paine & Burgess” (1845) Josiah Drake—No. 11, Review by Poe that appeared in the August 9, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. Poe wel- Cincinnati, Alexander comes the translation, stating that the literature Flash” (1836) “of Italy has been of late altogether, or nearly altogether neglected.” Although he grants that Review by Poe that appeared in the July 1836 the work “is certainly a vivacious work,” he con- issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe demns the work as being “feeble, too frequently,

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 225 10/12/07 12:02:28 PM 226 “Euripides Translated by the Reverend R. Potter, Prebendiary of Norwich. . . .” from its excess of simplicity in form and tone” “Festus: A Poem by Philip because it lacks “the ‘autorial comment’—that which adds so deep a charm to the novels of James Bailey, Barrister at Scott, of Bulwer, or of D’Israeli.” According to Law. First American Edition. Poe, the most grievous fault of the work is that the author merely narrates, and “the interest of Boston: Benjamin P. Mussey. mere incident, is all.” For Sale in New York by Redfield & Company” (1845)

Review by Poe that appeared in the September 6, “Euripides Translated by 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. In this review, the Reverend R. Potter, Poe calls the narrative poem one “of the most remarkable power” and finds it strange that the poem, pub- Prebendiary of Norwich. lished six years earlier in Britain, has only appeared Harper & Brothers, New in the United States within the previous eight or nine months. Although he admits “we have read it York. [The Classical Family only in snatches,” Poe characterizes the poem as “a Library. Numbers XV, XVI, Vesuvius-cone at least—if not an Aetna—in the literary cosmos.” He expresses approval of the swag- and XVII.]” (1835) ger that pervades the poem, “its imperiousness—its egoitism—its energy—its daring—its ruggedness—its Review by Poe that appeared in the September contempt of law in great things and small,” and com- 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. mends the poet for issuing this American edition. The three volumes appearing in the Classical Fam- ily Library series are said to contain “the whole of Euripides,” for whom Poe claims to hold “no passion.” After quickly dismissing any discussion “Few Words About Brainard, of the translator’s skills by noting that “a hasty (1842) glance at the work will not enable us to speak posi- A” tively in regard to the value of these translations,” Review by Poe that appeared in the February 1842 the review becomes a critique of the techniques issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Although ostensibly a employed by Euripides. From the charge that “we review of The Poems of John G. C. Brainard. “A New behold only the decline and fall of that drama” in and Authentic Collection, with an original Memoir of his Euripides to his charge that the playwright misin- Life,” published by Edward Hopkins in Hartford, Con- terpreted the role of the chorus in his plays, Poe necticut, it also comments on the state of American finds Euripides wanting. Unlike SOPHOCLES and literature. In particular, Poe questions the dubious Aeschylus, Euripides introduces his heroes “famil- poetical standing of Joseph Rodman Drake’s “The iarly to the spectators,” and “his Divinities are very CULPRIT FAY” and expresses the view that “the gen- generally lowered to the most degrading and filthy eral merit of our national Muse has been estimated common-places of an earthly existence.” In con- too highly, and that the author of ‘The Connecticut cluding the review, Poe quotes August Wilhelm River’ has, individually, shared in the exaggeration.” von Schlegel (1767–1845), the German critic, Poe reviews Brainard’s “The Fall of Niagara” with translator, and scholar, who stated that Euripides disdain and questions whether he actually had seen had “destroyed the internal essence of tragedy, and the great falls before writing about them: “[N]o poet sinned against the laws of beauty and proportion in could have looked upon Niagara, in the substance, its external structure.” and written thus about it. If he saw it at all, it must

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 226 10/12/07 12:02:29 PM “Genius and the Character of Burns. By Professor Wilson. . . . “ 227

have been in fancy—‘at a distance’.” Examining the beautiful.” He compliments the choice of engrav- poem line by line, Poe finds that the poem “does ings and asserts that the poems accompanying the not deserve all the unmeaning commendation it has floral illustrations are all “above mediocrity.” Poe received.” He does, however, cite “The Tree Toad,” also compliments the author for her clever instruc- a brief, humorous composition, as imaginative and tions for a “Dial of Flowers,” in which flowers are “one of the truest poems ever written by Brainard.” planted according to their properties for opening and shutting at various times of the day “to indicate the succession of the hours, and to make them supply the place of a watch or clock.” “Fifty Suggestions” (1845)

A collection of 50 sometimes brief, often cynical observations by Poe that were published in the May “Fortune Hunter; or The 1845 and June 1845 issues of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. The statements range from observations on politics Adventures of a Man About to observations on human nature. They are often Town, The. A Novel of vitriolic and include the names of philosophers or other figures from history, as well as hints of the New York Society. By Mrs. names of contemporary authors. Anna Cora Mowatt, Author of Fashion, Etc. New York. “Flora and Thalia; Or Gems William Taylor” (1845) of Flowers and Poetry: Review by Poe that appeared in the August 2, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. Poe admits Being an Alphabetical in the review that the Journal received the novel Arrangement of Flowers, too late to do more than to merely mention it, and he promises that “Hereafter we shall do it that full with Appropriate Poetical justice which is demanded by the celebrity and var- Illustrations, Embellished ied talent of its fair author.” Poe reprinted chapter with Colored Plates. By a four of the novel with the review. Lady. To Which Is Added a Botanical Description of the “Genius and the Character Various Parts of a Flower of Burns. By Professor and the Dial of Flowers. Wilson. Wiley and Putnam’s Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, & Library of Choice Reading. Blanchard” (1836) No. XXI” (1845)

Review by Poe that appeared in the June 1836 issue Review by Poe that appeared in the September 6, of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe begins 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. Poe begins the the review by calling the work “a very pretty and review by praising Wilson’s “enthusiastic appreciation very convenient volume, on a subject which, since of the beautiful, conjoined with a temperament com- the world began, has never failed to excite curiosity pelling him into action and expression” and by com- and sympathy in all who have a proper sense of the plimenting him for possessing “ideality, energy and

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 227 10/12/07 12:02:29 PM 228 “George Balcombe. A Novel. New York. Harper and Brothers” audacity.” Within a few lines, however, the review “Georgia Scenes, Characters, lambastes Wilson for “his own inability to comprehend. He is no analyst. He is ignorant of the machin- Incidents, &c In the First Half ery of his own thoughts and the thoughts of other Century of the Republic. men.” Damning Wilson’s criticism as “superficial,” Poe relates that the reader learns nothing new about By a Native Georgian. either the poet Robert Burns or his poems, because Augusta, Georgia” Wilson has never “demonstrated anything beyond his own utter incapacity for demonstration.” In the end, Review by Poe that appeared in the March 1836 Poe can only recommend the work to readers who issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The would be happy with “mere rhapsody,” for herein local sketches written by Augustus Baldwin Long- they will not find “a guide to the real Burns.” street originally were published in newspapers under the two pseudonymous bylines of Hall and Baldwin. The collection, sketches that contain “fanciful combinations of real incidents and characters,” was sub- “George Balcombe. A Novel. mitted anonymously to Poe, who credited the author New York. Harper and as “a clever fellow, imbued with a spirit of the truest humor, and endowed, moreover, with an exqui- Brothers” (1837) sitely discriminative and penetrating understanding of character in general, and of Southern character Review by Poe that appeared in the January 1837 in particular.” As proof for his assertions, Poe pro- issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The vides summaries and quotations from many of the review is largely complimentary, and more than half sketches to support the humor of the material and is devoted to a detailed summary of the work and the pleasure of his own reaction: “Seldom—perhaps its characters. The novel was published and submit- never in our lives—have we laughed as immoder- ted for review without revealing an author, but Poe ately over any book as over the one now before us.” states teasingly at the end of the review that no other than Judge NATHANIEL BEVERLEY TUCKER, of William and Mary College, Virginia, could think in the manner of the main character. In his “AUTOG- “Geraldine, Athenia RAPHY” sketch of Tucker, Poe labels the work “one of Damascus, and of the best novels ever published in America” and notes that “for some reason the book was never a Miscellaneous Poems” (1842) popular favorite.” Discussing in the review the dramatis personae, Poe approves of Tucker’s delineation See “The POETRY OF RUFUS DAWES.” of women in the novel and notes, “Upon the whole, no American novelist has succeeded, we think, in female character, even nearly so well as the writer of “Gift: A Christmas and George Balcombe.” Despite the extensive praise, Poe expresses a few objections to the work, especially New Years Present for 1836, with Tucker’s “mere English.” He identifies faulty The. Edited by Miss Leslie. constructions at some length and suggests that the author rethink the manner in which “the occasional Philadelphia: E. L. Carey and philosophy of Balcombe himself” is expressed. Such A. Hart” minor flaws have little effect on Poe’s enthusiasm for the work: “Nothing is wanting to a complete whole, Review that appeared in the September 1835 issue and nothing is out of place, or out of time.” of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The Gift

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 228 10/12/07 12:02:29 PM “Hawks of Hawk-Hollow; a Tradition of Pennsylvania, The. By the Author of Calavar . . . “ 229 was a popular annual issued by the Philadelphia “Guy Fawkes; or, The publishers Carey and Hart that contained both illustrations and stories, and several of Poe’s tales Gunpowder Treason. An first appeared in the publication, including “WIL- Historical Romance. By William LIAM WILSON,” “ELEONORA,” “The PIT AND THE PENDULUM,” and “The PURLOINED LETTER.” “MS. Harrison Ainsworth. Author of FOUND IN A BOTTLE” was reprinted there. The ‘The Tower of London,’ ‘Jack review gives special attention to the engravings, noting that they “are not all of a high order of Sheppard,’ Etc. Philadelphia, excellence” and praising others as being “exquisite.” Lea & Blanchard” (1841) Of the writers whose works appeared, Poe stated, “Never had Annual a brighter galaxy of illustrious Review by Poe that appeared in the November 1841 literary names in its table of contents—and in no issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe declared the instance has any contributor fallen below his or her novel to be an “admixture of pedantry, bombast, general reputation.” and rigmarole.” Condemning the style as “turgid pretension,” Poe states that “the elaborately inter- woven pedantry irritates, insults, and disgusts.” As was customary in Poe’s reviews, this one contains more of Poe’s ideas than details of the work. “Grammar of the English The novel, however, is a highly romanticized ver- Language, in a Series of sion of a historical incident, the Gunpowder Plot. Led by Robert Catesby and Guy Fawkes, a group Letters, Addressed to of Roman Catholics plotted to blow up the Houses Every American Youth. By of Parliament while the king, lords, and commons were assembled. They were betrayed and arrested Hugh A. Pue. Philadelphia, on November 4, 1605. Fawkes was executed. Published by the The review accuses Ainsworth of padding the book by randomly inserting “second-hand bits of Author” (1841) classical and miscellaneous erudition” that do not add to the aura of scholarship; on the contrary, “he Review that appeared in the July 1841 issue of GRA- may be as really ignorant as a bear.” Poe declares HAM’S MAGAZINE. Early in the review, Poe points the plot to be “monstrously improbable,” and the out the irony that the two-page preface of a gram- author has “now accomplished exactly nothing. If mar book should contain “some half dozen distinct ever, indeed, a novel were less than nothing, then instances of bad Grammar.” After first question- that novel is ‘Guy Fawkes’.” ing if Pue “means to include himself among the ignoramuses,” Poe delineates the errors in the book. Following this analysis, he questions if he “Hawks of Hawk-Hollow; is, perhaps, “treating this gentleman discourteously. His book may be merely intended as a good joke.” a Tradition of Pennsylvania, He quotes Pue’s intention not only to inform stu- The. By the Author of Calavar dents but also to entertain them, then discards the assumption that this “queer little book” is a joke and the Infidel. Philadelphia: and concludes that whether the book “will meet Carey, Lea & Blanchard” (1835) the views of ‘Every American Youth’ ” will depend upon “whether ‘Every American Youth’ be or be Review by Poe that appeared in the December 1835 not as great a nincompoop as Mr. Pue.” issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 229 10/12/07 12:02:29 PM 230 “Heroine: or Adventures of Cherubina, The. By Eaton Stannard Barrett, Esq. . . . “

praises ROBERT MONTGOMERY BIRD for his earlier nov- “Historical Sketch; of the els and declares this work to be unfavorably written in imitation of the style and content of works by SIR Second War between the WALTER SCOTT. After providing a lengthy synopsis United States of America and of the complicated plot, Poe examines the numerous characters and finds them to be of inconsistent qual- Great Britain, Declared by ity, ranging from one described as “one of the sweetest Act of Congress, the 18th of creations ever emanating from the fancy of poet, or of painter” to one who is “a mere excrescence.” Poe June, 1812, and Concluded by asserts that despite a few passages “of great eloquence Peace, the 15th of February, and beauty,” many passages are guilty of “sinking into the merest childishness and imbecility,” In the final 1815. By Charles J. Ingersoll. analysis, the review declares the novel to have “no In Three Volumes. Vol. I. pretensions to originality of manner, or of style . . . and very few to originality of matter.” Embracing the Events of 1812–13. Philadelphia. Lea & Blanchard” (1845) “Heroine: or Adventures Review by Poe that appeared in the October 11, of Cherubina, The. By Eaton 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. After quot- Stannard Barrett, Esq. New ing two lengthy passages from the work, Poe criticizes what he finds to be the ambiguity of the Edition. Richmond: Published material and awkwardness in stating several facts. by P. D. Barnard” (1835) Despite such “trifles,” he praises the work because “it gives a plain, discerning and evidently faithful Review by Poe that appeared in the December 1835 view of the events of the war, and will be received issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe with favor by all who are competent to decide upon enthusiastically recommends the novel, which is a the worth of an historical treatise.” vicious and funny satire on the GOTHIC romance genre. Not only is the book “charmingly written,” but it also boasts a heroine who is “that most spiritual, that most ill-treated, that most accomplished of women—of that most consummate, most subli- “History of Texas: Or the mated, most fantastic, most unappreciated, and most Emigrants’, Farmers’, and inappreciable of heroines,” Cherubina Wilkinson. Poe asserts, “Everybody has read Cherubina. There Politicians’ Guide to the is no one so superlatively unhappy as not to have Character, Climate, Soil, and done this thing.” To those who have not, however, Poe commands that they purchase it “forthwith,” Productions of That Country; because there are “few books written with more tact, Geographically Arranged from spirit, naiveté, or grace.” After a detailed summary of the plot, and with further praise for the “varied and Personal Observation and brilliant talents of its author” and the “racy, dashing, Experience, The. By David B. and palpable” nature of the humor in the book, the review concludes that the novel “should be upon the Edward, Formerly Principal of shelves of every well-appointed library.” the Academy, Alexandria,

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 230 10/12/07 12:02:29 PM “Hyperion: A Romance. By the Author of ‘Outremer.’ Two Volumes. . . . “ 231 Louisiana; Late Preceptor singles out the overuse of the dash as particularly disruptive to the narrative and offers an example of Gonzales Seminary, Texas. from the work with his corrections. Overall, Poe Cincinnati: J. A. James recommends the work enthusiastically “to the lovers of the forcible, the adventurous, the stirring, and & Co.” (1836) the picturesque” and predicts that the work “will be eagerly read by all classes of people.” Review by Poe that appeared in the August 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe classifies the book as a “useful oddi[ty]. . . . Its style “Human Magnetism; Its Claim is somewhat over-abundant.” He praises the fortitude of the author, who spent six months in 1836 to Dispassionate Inquiry. Being “in examining the improvements made throughout an Attempt to Show the Utility every locality” and determined that the work provides a “flattering little picture of Texan comfort of Its Application for the and abundance.” In particular, the review expresses Relief of Human Suffering. By faith in the veracity of the author’s statements and regards the book “with a most favorable eye.” W. Newnham, Esq., M.R.S.L., Author of the ‘Reciprocal “Horse-Shoe Robinson: A Influence of Body and Mind,’ Tale of the Tory Ascendancy. Etc. New York: Wiley & By the Author of ‘Swallow Putnam” (1845) Barn.’ Philadelphia: Carey, Review by Poe that appeared in the April 5, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. Poe calls the work Lea & Blanchard” (1835) one “of vast importance and high merit, but one of which (on account of its extent of thesis) it is Review by Poe that appeared in the May 1835 issue almost impossible to speak otherwise than curso- of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe declares rily, or at random, within the limits of a weekly that this historical novel by JOHN PENDLETON KEN- paper.” Although Poe “disagree[s] with the author NEDY will place the author “at once in the very first in some of the ideas of the curative effects of mag- rank of American novelists.” After a brief summary netism,” he does not dispute “in any degree, the of the plot, Poe declares that Kennedy has made prodigious importance of the mesmeric influence in “good choices in regard to the epoch, scene and surgical cases.” He suggests that readers “dip into subject” and “has done them all the fullest justice.” some medical works of authority before forming an He praises the work as “a book of no ordinary char- opinion on such topics.” acter” and commends the author for having “made another innovation. He has begun at the beginning. We all know this to be an unusual method of pro- “Hyperion: A Romance. By cedure.” Poe is similarly impressed that Kennedy introduces the prominent characters at the outset the Author of ‘Outremer.’ of the novel, to allow the reader to “go with them at once, heart and hand, in the various and spirit-stir- Two Volumes. Samuel ring adventures which befall them.” The high praise Colman, New York” (1839) accorded this novel is only slightly diminished by Poe’s concern for punctuation: “[T]he two volumes Review appearing in the October 1839 issue of before us are singularly deficient in this respect.” He BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE. Poe attacks

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 231 10/12/07 12:02:29 PM 232 “Ideals and Other Poems. By Algernon Henry Perkins. Philadelphia”

the poem, written by HENRY WADSWORTH LONG- Published by Request of the FELLOW, as equivalent to placing “into a bag the lofty thought and manner” of one work with “the Board of Trustees. Richmond: quirks and quibbles and true humour” of another, T. W. White, 1835” (1835) “not forgetting a few of the heartier drolleries of Rabelais,” then shaking up and throwing out Review by Poe that appeared in the December 1835 the results. He accuses the author of producing issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe one of the works that “are the triumphs of Tom recounts the note that accompanied the manu- O’Bedlam, and the grief of all true criticism,” script, which stated that it was “prepared with great because he has made “no scruple of scattering at haste, amidst anxieties and efforts to regain health, random a profusion of rich thought in the pages of and amidst all the inquietudes of journeying and such farragos as ‘Hyperion’.” Poe does not analyze absence from home.” The review rejects the need the poem methodically, but instead dismisses it “in for such apology and, instead, praises both the text brief,” declaring it a work “without design, with- and its message of “moral influence.” Poe observes out shape, without beginning, middle, or end.” that “the conclusion of Mr. Carroll’s Address is full of fervid eloquence, rendered doubly interesting by a vein of that truest of all philosophy, the philosophy of the Christian,” to which he adds his approval. “Ideals and Other Poems. By Algernon Henry Perkins. Philadelphia” (1842) “Incidents of Travel in

Review by Poe that appeared in the April 1842 issue Central America, Etc. By of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe wrote that the author John L. Stephens. Two of the poetry in this collection could claim, at best, “a tripping prettiness, in thought and expression . . . Volumes. New York, Harper [but] the air of the whole is nevertheless common- and Brothers” (1841) place.” The review attacks the collection for imi- tating “with close precision” HENRY WADSWORTH Review by Poe that appeared in the August 1841 LONGFELLOW’s “Ballads” and for drawing heavily issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. After giving consider- upon the “hyper-ridiculous elisions in prose” of the able attention to perceived deficiencies in Stephens’s English critic and essayist THOMAS CARLYLE. Of earlier work, Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia merit, the review declares that the work “has noth- Petraea and the Holy Land, in which Poe believes ing, except its mechanical execution, to distinguish there exist “some errors of magnitude,” he admits it from the multitudinous ephemera with which our “we are not prepared to say that misunderstandings national poetical press is now groaning.” of this character will be found in the present.” Poe can speak only of the merits of the book “from a general report and from the cursory perusal which has been afforded us by the politeness of a friend,” “Inaugural Address of the for he had not yet received a copy of the book from Reverend D. L. Carroll, D.D., the publisher. Undaunted by the lack of a text, Poe nonetheless asserts that the book is “a magnificent President of Hampden Sidney one—perhaps the most interesting book of travel College. Delivered on His ever published.” He declares that the “incidents, moreover, are numerous and highly amusing . . . and Induction into That Office. his hair-breadth escapes are particularly exciting.”

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 232 10/12/07 12:02:30 PM “I Promessi Sposi, or the Betrothed Lovers; a Milanese Story of the Seventeenth Century: . . .“ 233 “Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Philadelphia: Carey, Lee & Arabia Petraea, and Blanchard” (1835)

the Holy Land” Review by Poe that appeared in the June 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe praised See “REVIEW OF STEPHENS’ ARABIA PETRAEA.” this second historical novel by ROBERT MONTGOM- ERY BIRD as “a work of great power.” After sum- marizing the plot, which takes place a few months “after the disastrous retreat of the Spaniards from “Indicator and Companion, Mexico,” Poe extracts a lengthy scene that shows The. By Leigh Hunt. Wiley & Bird’s power in painting “to us the vastness of the barbarian multitude. His descriptions of myri- Putnam’s Library of Choice ads appeal to the sense with graphic effect.” The Reading. No. XX. Part review also contains praise for the author’s “fertility of imagination [which] displays itself in the II” (1845) constant recurrence of dramatic situations, striking incidents and stirring adventures; so much so, Review by Poe that appeared in the August 30, 1845, that the interest of the reader . . . is often pain- issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. Poe expresses dis- fully excited.” Poe does identify one minor fault in dain for Hunt’s “easy writing which is not the easiest the writing, the author’s habitual use of “the word reading” and writes that “we find here too much of working in describing the convulsions of the coun- slipshodiness, both in thought and manner, and too tenance, under the influence of strong passions: as, little of determined purpose.” Rather than to attribute ‘his working and agonized visage’—‘his face worked the tone to that of “a bold genius uttering vigorous convulsively,’ &c.” Overall, the review asserts “the things carelessly and inconsiderately, with contempt enduring excellence of the work.” or neglect of method or completeness,” Poe labels Hunt’s process as resulting from “a naturally imme- thodical and inaccurate intellect.” The greater portion of the review is devoted to highlighting Hunt’s inadequacies as a writer and a critic, as “a rambling “I Promessi Sposi, or the essayist” who is more imitator than innovator and Betrothed Lovers; a Milanese as a critic who “is merely saucy, or lackadaisical, or falsely enthusiastic, or at best pointedly conceited.” Story of the Seventeenth In final summation, Poe declares, “as an author he is Century: as Translated for the fit for very little, if really for anything at all.” Metropolitan, from the Italian of Alessandro Manzoni, by “Infatuation” G. W. Featherstonhaugh.

See “SATIRICAL POEMS.” Washington: Stereotyped and Published by Duff Green. 1834. 8vo. pp. 259” (1835) “Infidel; or The Fall of Mexico, a Romance, by the Review by Poe that appeared in the May 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Author of Calavar, The. Poe’s review begins with a lengthy consideration

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 233 10/12/07 12:02:30 PM 234 “Joseph Rushbrook: or, The Poacher. By Captain Marryat, Author of ‘Peter Simple,’ . . . “ of the past “dynasties reigning over the regions of “Journal—By Frances romance,” each becoming less effective than those preceding, then focuses negative attention on Anne Butler. Philadelphia: EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON, who “learned the craft Carey, Lea & Blanchard. of plagiarism in the Spartan school, where detection was the only disgrace.” Poe then discusses the (Presented to the Editor of novel, which he assesses to be “in every sense of the Messenger, the word, original.” Impressed by Manzoni’s use of the Italian past, Poe commends the author for by Mr. C. Hall)” (1835) a willingness to depict honestly the abuses of the “Romish Church” and to present realistically the Review by Poe that appeared in the May 1835 issue scene of a young girl confined by her parents to of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The first a convent. He praises the original novel but also theatrical reminiscences of the English actress Fanny states that “the translation has many faults,” which Kemble (1809–93), who was only 26 years old at their publication, gathered high praise from Poe. are the result of haste because “the translator, we She had married an American plantation owner in fear was hungry; a misfortune with which we know 1834, becoming Mrs. Frances Butler and retiring how to sympathize.” The translation style mixes from the London stage. In 1848, she would divorce Italian rhythms with English words, “a great fault,” her husband and return to the theater, then publish yet Poe states that “it gives a quaint raciness which yet another journal of reminiscences in 1863. Poe is not unacceptable.” claimed to have read the first journal “with untiring interest,” and he praised it highly for “the vivacity of its style, the frequent occurrence of beautiful “Joseph Rushbrook: or, The descriptions, of just and forcible observations, and many sound views of the condition of society in this Poacher. By Captain Marryat, country.” Despite his enthusiasm for the anecdotes Author of ‘Peter Simple,’ regarding acting and travel, however, he felt that these “cannot redeem, her innumerable faults of lan- ‘Jacob Faithful,’ Etc., Etc. Two guage, her sturdy prejudices, her hasty opinions, and Volumes. Philadelphia, Carey her ungenerous sarcasms.” The review also finds that “the style and language is often coarse, we might say & Hart” (1841) vulgar; and her more impassioned exclamations are often characterized by a vehemence which is very Review by Poe that appeared in the September 1841 like profanity, an offence that would not be tolerated issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe states that Mar- in a writer of the other sex.” Poe concludes with the ryat “has always been a very popular writer in the most ambiguous judgment “that there is much to admire rigorous sense of the word. His books are essentially and much to condemn in this work.” ‘mediocre’. His ideas are the common property of the mob.” Claiming that he has looked in vain “for the slightest indication of originality,” Poe reviews Joseph “Judge Story’s Discourse on Rushbrook in detail, pointing out character “plagia- Chief-Justice Marshall” (1835) risms” from CHARLES DICKENS’s Oliver Twist and plot devices borrowed from other writers. Asserting that Brief review by Poe of two eulogies for “our great the later novels of Marryat “are evidently written to and lamented countryman, fell-townsman, neigh- order,” Poe declares that Joseph Rushbrook “deserves bor, and friend,” Chief Justice JOHN MARSHALL, little more than an announcement” for “its English that appeared in the December 1835 issue of the is excessively slovenly, . . . events are monstrously SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe stated that improbable, . . . it is a pitiable production.” Story’s Discourse, “pronounced . . . in Boston” had

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 234 10/12/07 12:02:30 PM “Letters Descriptive of the Virginia Springs—The Roads Leading Thereto . . . “ 235

arrived at the same time as “BINNEY’S EULOGIUM,” claims to “have been much interested in this book in “pronounced at Philadelphia” and promised “a spite of some very glaring faults and absurdities with more extended notice of them and of their great which it is besprinkled.” This book of seven tales is subject” in a subsequent issue. based on an old plot device: A heterogeneous group of people accidentally come together, then amuse one another by telling stories to pass the time. Although “Lafitte: The Pirate of the Poe finds several of the tales—most notably “The Hunter’s Vow”—well executed, others are assessed Gulf. By the Author of the to be “uninteresting,” “neither so verisimilar, nor so South-West. New York: well told,” “a failure,” or “not very good.” Despite such faultfinding, Poe recommends the work to read- Harper and Brothers” (1836) ers and states that “It is excellently gotten up.” Review by Poe that appeared in the August 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe asserts that the author of this historical novel, Pro- “Letters, Conversations, fessor Joseph H. Ingraham, seems to have based the novel “in a great degree” upon several historical and Recollections of S. T. accounts, but he does not use these as the basis upon Coleridge. New York: Harper which he will assess the current work: “We are not, however, to decide upon the merits of the story— and Brothers” (1836) which runs nearly thus—by any reference to historical truth.” Instead, Poe provides a lengthy summary Review by Poe that appeared in the June 1836 issue of the work, in which he finds deficiencies of the of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe asserts syntax, orthography, and typography. He chastises that the letters and conversations recounted in Ingraham for being “too minutely, and by far too the volume reviewed exhibited Coleridge’s “heart, frequently descriptive. We are surfeited with unnec- as in his own works we have beheld the mind, essary detail.” Poe states “our principal objection is of the man,” and he praises “Coleridge—the man to the tendency of the tale” to glorify Lafitte while to whose gigantic mind the proudest intellects of portraying the pirate hero as “a weak, a vacillating Europe found it impossible not to succumb.” He villain, a fratricide, a cowardly cut-throat. . . . Yet expresses a strong feeling of “indignation and dis- he is never mentioned but with evident respect.” In gust” that the “Narcissi of critical literature have the final analysis, Poe praises Ingraham’s talent but had the infinite presumption to breathe against the expresses the desire that he and others “would either majesty of Coleridge.” Declaring that “no man was think it necessary to bestow a somewhat greater more richly-gifted with all the elements of men- degree of labor and attention upon the composition tal renown, so none was more fully worthy of the of their novels, or otherwise, would not think it nec- love and veneration of every truly good man,” Poe essary to compose them at all.” chastises American publishers for not bringing out an edition of Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria. To do so, he asserts, would afford “a clearer view into his “Legends of a Log Cabin. mental constitution than any other of his works.” By a Western Man. New York: George Dearborn, Publisher” (1835) “Letters Descriptive of the Virginia Springs—The Roads Review by Poe that appeared in the December 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe Leading Thereto and the

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 235 10/12/07 12:02:30 PM 236 “Letters of Eliza Wilkinson, During the Invasion and Possession of Charleston, S.C. . . . “ Doings Thereat. Collected, “Letters to Young Ladies. By Corrected, Annotated, and Mrs. L. H. Sigourney. Second Edited by Peregrine Prolix. Edition. Hartford: Published With a Map of Virginia. by Wm. Watson” (1836)

Philadelphia: Published Review by Poe that appeared in the July 1836 issue by H. S. Tanner” (1836) of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe praised the collection “as a code of morals and manner for Review by Poe that appeared in the August 1836 the gentler sex” and stated “we have seen nothing issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe whatever which we would more confidently place heartily recommends the book, written under a in the hands of any young female friend.” The 12 pseudonym by Philip H. Nichelin, to “every person letters are on the following subjects: “Improvement about to pay a visit to our Springs . . . and every of Time,” “Domestic Employment,” “Health and person not about to pay them a visit . . . [so] that he Dress,” “Manners and Accomplishments,” “Books,” may have the pleasure of changing his mind.” The “Friendship,” “Cheerfulness,” “Conversation,” review states that the volume is “increased in value “Benevolence,” “Self-Government,” “Utility,” and by the addition of a Tanner’s Map of Virginia” on “Motives in Perseverance.” Poe contends that “it which are marked in different colors several routes would be difficult to find fault with the construc- to the springs. Poe ends with an endorsement for tion of more than a very few passages in the Let- Red Sulphur Springs, an establishment run by “our ters” and admits that the general quality of the old and highly esteemed friend, Mr. Burke,” who collection would make any fault-finding “a matter has made the business “every thing the tourist or of hyper-criticism.” the valetudinarian could desire.”

“Letters of Eliza Wilkinson, “Life and Literary Remains of During the Invasion and L. E. L. By Laman Blanchard. Possession of Charleston, Two Volumes. Lea and S.C. by the British, in the Blanchard” (1841)

Revolutionary War. Arranged Review by Poe that appeared in the August 1841 by Caroline Gilman” (1844) issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. In his review of this posthumous biography of the poet Letitia Eliza- Review of the 12 letters that comprise the book beth Landon, Poe praises her “genius” and states that Poe published in “MARGINALIA.” Although he that “few equalled her . . . in the passionate purity acknowledged the truth of the assertion in the pref- of her verse.” Although he regarded her as one ace that “few records exist of American women of the “loftiest of the female poets of the present either before or during the war of the Revolution, generation,” he also admits that “her great faults and that those perpetuated by History want the were a want of method, and a careless, rapid habit charm of personal narrative,” he judged these let- of composition.” As a result, she “consequently ters “silly” and stated that he could not “conceive was often trite, and always careless.” Still, in the why Miss Gilman thought the public wished to read final analysis, he notes, “we may say that she has them.” Poe claims to have looked “in vain” for any left no living female poet to compete with her in useful information in the book. fame.”

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 236 10/12/07 12:02:30 PM “Life of Petrarch. By Thomas Campbell, Esq., Author of ‘The Pleasures of Hope,’ Etc., . . . “ 237 “Life and Surprising confesses that he thought the early announcement of a life of George Washington written in Latin Adventures of Robinson was a hoax and that “the thing was improbable, we Crusoe, of York, Mariner: thought.” Once having read the work, Poe enthusiastically commends it and states that “we really With a Biographical Account can call to mind, at this moment, no modern Latin composition whatever much superior to the Wash- of Defoe, The. Illustrated with ington Vita of Mr. Glass.” Poe praises both the inge- Fifty Characteristic Cuts, from nuity and the grammatical skill of Francis Glass, but he claims that “a large proportion of the work—dis- Drawings by William Harvey, guise the face as we may, is necessarily not Latin at Esq. and Engraved by Adams. all” because it treats “of events and incidents occur- ring in a manner utterly unknown to the Romans, New York: Published by and at a period many centuries after their ceasing to Harper and Brothers” (1836) exist as a nation.” Despite Poe’s enthusiasm for the work, he observes that it has little value in teaching Review by Poe that appeared in the January 1836 students classical Latin, for “our object, then, at issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe present, is simply to imbue the mind of the student begins the review by rhapsodizing over the wide- with the idiom, the manner, the thought, and above spread popularity of the work and by recalling “those all, with the words of antiquity.” enchanted days of our own boyhood when we first learned to grow serious over Robinson Crusoe!— when we first found the spirit of wild adventure enkindling within us.” While he acknowledges the “Life of Petrarch. By Thomas power of the adventures to entertain, Poe asks readers to also view the work “in the light of a literary Campbell, Esq., Author of performance.” In addition to praising Defoe’s skills ‘The Pleasures of Hope,’ Etc., in writing this work, Poe reminds readers that Defoe wrote “no less than two hundred and eight works” Complete in One Volume. that receive considerably less attention. To correct Philadelphia, Carey and this lack, he identifies and describes briefly 17 of those works and also notes that Defoe edited a mag- Hart” (1841) azine of largely political material for nine years. Review by Poe that appeared in the September 1841 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe began the review by alerting readers to his lack of enthu- “Life of George Washington, siasm for Petrarch and his work: “[W]e are not among those who regard the genius of Petrarch in Latin Prose: By Francis as a subject for enthusiastic admiration.” Despite this lack of enthusiasm for the subject or his Glass, A.M. of Ohio, A. poetry, Poe praises the importance of Petrarch as Edited by J. N. Reynolds. New a historical figure and devotes nearly one-fourth of the review to identifying areas in which he York: Published by Harper excelled. Of the craftsmanship of the biography, and Brothers” (1835) he holds a low opinion, noting that Campbell is usually “scrupulously correct” but observing that Review by Poe that appeared in the December 1835 the author is guilty in this instance of a “slovenli- issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe ness of style” and “the want of comprehensive

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 237 10/12/07 12:02:31 PM 238 “Life of Washington, A. By James K. Paulding. New York: Harper and Brothers”

analysis of the poet’s character, and of the age in which contains “a rawness, a certain air of foppery which he lived.” In short, Poe contends that “the and ill-sustained pretension . . . which will cause biographer has swallowed the philosopher.” nine-tenths of the well educated men who take up the book, to throw it aside in disgust, after perusing the initial chapter.” Despite these defects, Poe states that the work can be found “a very amusing “Life of Washington, A. By performance” once these difficulties are overlooked. He ends the review by quoting from a “piquant James K. Paulding. New York: Indian Story, narrated by an Indian.” Harper and Brothers” (1836)

Review by Poe that appeared in the May 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe praised “Linwoods; or, ‘Sixty Years Paulding’s thorough examination of Washington’s life, including “the private affections, aspirations, Since’ in America, The. By and charities of that hero” and predicted that the the Author of ‘Hope Leslie,’ work would “not fail to take a deeper hold upon the public mind, and upon the public affections, than ‘Redwood,’ &c. New York: any work upon the same subject.” He also expressed Published by Harper and approval of Paulding’s style and stated that “there is no better literary manner than the manner of Mr. Brothers” (1835) Paulding.” Poe praised the character of the work under review for avoiding the mistakes of those who Review by Poe that appeared in the December 1835 substitute for “style the fine airs at second hand of issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Open- the silliest romancers” and recommended that cop- ing his review with substantial praise for the skills ies of the book should immediately be introduced of Catherine Sedgwick, the author of the novel, “into every respectable academy in the land.” Poe identifies her as “one among the few Ameri- can writers who have risen by merely their own intrinsic talents, and without the a priori aid of foreign opinion and puffery.” Declaring of Sedgwick, “Life on the Lakes: Being “of American female writers we must consider her the first,” Poe waxes poetic about the nature of all Tales and Sketches Collected women writers, stating that “woman is, after all, During a Trip to the Pictured the only true painter of that gentle and beautiful mystery, the heart of woman. She is the only Rocks of Lake Superior. proper Scheherazade for the fairy tales of love.” By the Author of ‘Legends Despite his praise of the author and description of the novel as being “full of deep natural inter- of a Log Cabin.’ New est, rivetting attention without undue or artificial York: Published by George means for attaining that end,” however, Poe finds fault with it. Aside from having “no pretensions to Dearborn” (1836) a connected plot of any kind,” the novel also contains characters that contain slight discrepancies in Review by Poe that appeared in the July 1836 issue portrayal, and “very few trifling inadvertences into of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe found which she [the author] has been betrayed.” Among the title to be “in shockingly bad taste” after the the flaws are one character’s deficiency in spelling, plethora of recent burlesques, “all partaking of “some slight liberties taken with the King’s English” caricature.” He also finds fault with the narrative, in the creation of verbs, and the use of “the vulgari-

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 238 10/12/07 12:02:31 PM “Literati of New York City, The” 239

ties of such a phrase as ‘I put in my oar’—meaning SCIENCE, LITERATURE, AND THE ARTS. Poe begins ‘I joined in the conversation.’ ” Although he claims his essay by refusing “to feel any goadings of con- to be “heartily ashamed of finding fault with such science for undue severity” and, instead, “my trifles,” Poe also objects to misspellings and suggests remorse lies somewhat in the other way.” He then that the author “should look over her proof-sheets, offers a critique of EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON’s or, be responsible for the blunders of her printer.” approach to writing, asserting that it “wants the In closing, Poe recommends the work “to all persons true vigour of intellect which would prompt him of taste” and warns “let none others touch it.” to seek, and enable him to seize the truth upon the surface of things.” Poe faults Lytton for “perpetually refining to no purpose upon themes which “Literary Remains of the have nothing to gain, and everything to lose in the process.” Lytton’s novel The Last Days of Pom- Late William Hazlitt, with peii is singled out for being “ridiculously full” of a Notice of his Life by his the author’s “love of the ‘far-fetched.’ ” Poe also scrutinizes Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of Son, and Thoughts on his the Roman Empire and expresses impatience with Genius and Writings, By E. L. Gibbon’s “indirectness of observation, then, which forms the soul of the style of Gibbon, of which Bulwer, M.P. and Mr. Sergeant the apparently pompous phraseology is the body.” Talfourd, M.P. New York: In further “small talk,” Poe also finds fault with work by the Abbé de la Breterie and his use of Saunders and Otley” (1836) a “laughable Gibbonism,” i.e., pompous phrasing, and Voltaire, who, Poe states, “betrays, on many Review by Poe that appeared in the September 1836 occasions, an almost incredible ignorance of antiq- issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe uity and its affairs.” presents an extensive summary of the content of the essays collected in the work and states that “there is a piquancy in the personal character and literary reputation of Hazlitt, which will cause this book to be sought with avidity by all who read.” He begins with a “Literati of New York City, sketch of Hazlitt’s life, using information drawn from The” (1846) the work, then identifies the content of essays and connects them with events. Poe also compares the Series of literary and biographical profiles that differences between Bulwer’s and Talfourd’s thoughts appeared in the May through October 1846 issues on Hazlitt’s life and works, identifying the efforts of of GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND LADY’S BOOK. The series the former as appearing “to be a compulsory thing” was so popular that the magazine reprinted the and the latter as appearing “to write with a vivid first six in the June 1846 issue when the additional interest in the man, and a thorough knowledge of his numbers were printed. The 38 writers discussed books.” Poe concludes the review by quoting the fol- included well-known literary lights, both male lowing words of Bulwer, that “a complete collection and female, who had distinguished themselves in of his works is all the monument he demands.” poetry, criticism, and journalism. Although Poe insisted that he had selected the names at random, the first six that appeared in the May 1846 issue “Literary Small Talk” (1839) seemed better known to Poe than to the general public: CHARLES F. BRIGGS, GEORGE BUSH, GEORGE Article by Poe that appeared in the January/Feb- HOOKER COLTON, JOHN WAKEFIELD FRANCIS, WIL- ruary 1839 issue of The AMERICAN MUSEUM OF LIAM M. GILLESPIE, and NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS.

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 239 10/12/07 12:02:31 PM 240 “Literati of New York City, The”

Most of the later literati profiled are poets, and the first series of profiles by denying any responsi- most are discussed with gentle praise instead of bility for the content: the excoriation that would be more typical of the We have several letters from New York, anony- fierce literary critic: WILLIAM KIRKLAND, ANNA mous, and from personal friends, requesting us CORA MOWATT, GEORGE B. CHEEVER, CHARLES to be careful what we allow Mr. Poe to say of ANTHON, RALPH HOYT, GULIAN VERPLANCK, the New York authors, many of whom are our FREEMAN HUNT, PIERO MARONCELLI, LAUGHTON personal friends. We reply to one and all that OSBORN, FITZ-GREENE HALLECK, ANN S. STE- we have nothing to do but publish Mr. Poe’s PHENS, EVERT A. DUYCKINCK, MARY GOVE, JAMES opinion, not our own. Whether we agree with ALDRICH, THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH, HENRY CARY, Mr. Poe or not is another matter. We are not CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH, SARAH MARGARET to be intimidated by a threat of the loss of FULLER, JAMES LAWSON, CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND, friends or turned from our purpose by honeyed PROSPER M. WETMORE, EMMA C. EMBURY, EPES words. . . . SARGENT, FRANCES S. OSGOOD, LYDIA M. CHILD, ELIZABETH BOGART, CATHERINE M. SEDGWICK, In the September 1846 “Editor’s Book Table,” LEWIS GAYLORD CLARK, ANNE C. LYNCH, CHARLES Godey once again addressed complaints and denied FENNO HOFFMAN, MARY E. HEWITT, and RICH- any involvement: ARD ADAMS LOCKE. Poe’s eagerly read column We hear of some complaints having been made commented upon the state of American letters by those writers who have already been noticed through his often intensely personal examination by Mr. Poe. Some of the ladies have suggested of literary friends and enemies, as well as of writers that the publisher has something to do with who had appeared in his earlier critical reviews. them. This we positively deny, and we as posi- The profiles, in which Poe often commented upon tively assert, that they are published as written the connection between the author’s work and his by Mr. Poe, without any alteration or suggestion or her personality, ranged from the complimen- from us. tary to the brutally scathing in describing both the author’s work and personal appearance, largely Poe eventually concluded the series because because the nature of each profile developed from “people insisted on considering them elaborate the nature of Poe’s relationship with his subject. criticisms when I had no other design than critical In announcing the planned series, LOUIS GODEY gossip.” Even when the critical judgments do creep stated with confidence, “We are much mistaken in, they are usually taken from Poe’s earlier reviews if these papers of Mr. Poe do not raise some com- and do not include new opinions. The truth about motion in the literary emporium.” Poe not only the sketches is that they were not meant as liter- discussed the literary character of his subjects, ary criticism. Rather, they were hastily completed but he also frequently evaluated their physical journalistic pieces meant for public consumption appearance, mental properties, habits of fashion and authorial profit. At the same time, Poe treated and dress, education, financial status, and general his subjects with a great deal of candor and used his standing in the community. The first series was so personal knowledge of them to create sketches that popular that Godey’s Lady’s Book reprinted Poe’s often read like a betrayal of conversational confi- first installment in the June 1846 issue with the dences. In his critical text Hawthorne, published second series, and further offered to buy back from in 1879, the American author Henry James exam- subscribers any and all copies of the May issue for ined the literati sketches and proclaimed them to resale. After the first series of profiles appeared, be “the most complete and exquisite specimen of several New York newspapers censured Poe for provincialism ever prepared for the edification of his intrusions into private lives. Godey’s also man. Poe’s judgments were pretentious, spiteful, responded in its “Editor’s Book Table” forum in vulgar, but they contained a great deal of sense and the June 1846 issue to reader complaints regarding discrimination as well.”

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 240 10/12/07 12:02:31 PM “Lost Pleiad; And Other Poems, The. By T. H. Chivers, M.D. New York: . . . ” 241 “Lives of the Cardinal de Magical Power. By William Richelieu, Count Oxenstiern, Godwin, Author of ‘Caleb Count Olivarez, and Cardinal Williams,’ &c. New York: Mazarin. By G. P. R. James. Published by Harper & Republished by Carey, Lea & Brothers” (1835)

Blanchard” (1836) Review by Poe that appeared in the December 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe Review by Poe that appeared in the October 1836 praises Godwin’s “air of mature thought” and his issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The “fuller appreciation of the value of words,” remark- major part of the review discusses the author as ing that “none is more nicely discriminative between novelist, and the biographies are not discussed closely-approximating meanings.” The review of the until the final paragraph of the review. Poe states Harper reprint of William Godwin’s collection of that G. P. R. James’s novels “have been of ques- biographical portraits of alchemists, sorcerers, and tionable character—neither veritable history, nor necromancers labels it “an invaluable work, evincing endurable romance—neither ‘fish, flesh, nor gude much labor and research, and full of absorbing inter- [sic] red herring.’ ” Labeling James “an indifferent est.” Poe states that rather than deal with the sen- imitator” of Scott, Poe observes that those who sational aspects of magic, the design of the work “is laud the author do so “from mere motives of duty, to display in their widest extent, the great range and not of inclination—duty erroneously conceived.” wild extravagancy of the imagination of man.” The Although he agrees that James’s “sentiments are only negative commentary in the review is Poe’s ref- found to be pure—his morals unquestionable, and erence to “the author’s unwelcome announcement pointedly shown forth—his language indisputably in the Preface, that for the present he winds up his correct,” Poe views these as duties that all authors literary labors with the production of this book.” owe their readers, not as signs of exceptional talent. “To genius of any kind, it seems to us, that he has little pretension.” Only the concluding paragraph of the review comments on the biographies, which it praises faintly: “Of the volumes now before us we are “Loiterings of Travel” enabled to speak more favorably—yet not in a tone See “DASHES AT LIFE WITH A FREE PENCIL.” of high commendation. What is done, however, is done with more than the author’s usual ability.” “Lost Pleiad; And Other “Lives of the Necromancers: Poems, The. By T. H. Chivers, Or An Account of the M.D. New York: Edward O. Most Eminent Persons in Jenkins” (1845)

Successive Ages, Who Have Review by Poe that appeared in the August 2, 1845, Claimed for Themselves, or issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. Poe praises the collection written by THOMAS HOLLEY CHIVERS as to Whom Have Been Imputed “evidently the honest and fervent utterance of an by Others, the Exercise of exquisitely sensitive heart which has suffered much

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 241 10/12/07 12:02:31 PM 242 “Madrid in 1835. Sketches of the Metropolis of Spain and Its Inhabitants, . . . ”

and long.” Although the poems are about death, ton dressed in Turkish clothing to play chess against the review makes clear that the collection “is no human opponents. A traveling confidence man mere Byronic affectation of melancholy.” Instead, named Johann Nepomuk Maelzel perpetrated the “the poet seems to have dwelt among the shadows hoax. Before focusing on the device in the title, Poe of tombs, until his very soul has become a shadow.” reviews other “automata,” or mechanical wind-up Poe ends the review by stating that he has no hesi- toys, including a coach invented by M. Camus for the tation in declaring the poetry in this volume “as amusement of the child Louis XIV, the Magician of possessing merit of a very lofty—if not of the very M. Maillardet, and the duck of Vaucanson, “so per- loftiest order.” fect an imitation of the living animal that all spectators were deceived.” Among these wonders, Poe also includes the “calculating machine of Mr. Babbage,” the precursor to modern computers, “which cannot “Madrid in 1835. Sketches of only compute astronomical and navigation tables to the Metropolis of Spain and any given extent, but render the exactitude of its operations mathematically certain through its power Its Inhabitants, and of Society of correcting its possible errors.” Before exposing the and Manners in the Peninsula. hoax of the chess-player, Poe first identifies BARON WOLFGANG VON KEMPELEN as the inventor of the By a Resident Officer. Two automaton chess-player in 1769 and informs readers Volumes in One. New York: that it was exhibited throughout the United States by Johann Nepomuk Maelzel. The chess-player was Saunders & Otley” (1836) built to appear as if a mechanical man were playing chess games with humans and beating them, but the Review that appeared in the October 1836 issue of contraption actually contained a human being inside the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe reviewed who operated it. In the process of his exposé, Poe both volumes and found the second volume “upon analyzes the steps that are followed in a game of chess the whole more entertaining” than the first. His chief and concludes that the nature of the game requires objection to the first volume is that several passages human intervention, “the only question then is the are “somewhat overcoloured,” but he concedes that manner in which human agency is brought to bear.” “the most striking features of the life and still-life of Poe then delineates the steps that Maelzel follows the Metropolis are selected with judgment, and given in introducing the chess-player to the audience and with effect.” The inclusion in the second volume of recounts the mechanical sounds that are heard when “some memorabilia of the year 1835—the Cholera Maelzel activates an automaton seated at a chess- and the Massacre of July” enhances its appeal for board. Poe exposes the hoax by observing that the Poe, who also compliments the way in which the chess-player played each game with his left arm only, author deals knowledgeably “with the Ministry, the and he lists 17 sequential points to support his deduc- Monasteries, the Clergy and their influence, with tive methodology. Prisons, Beggars, Hospitals and Convents.”

“Maelzel’s Chess- “Mahmoud. New York. Player” (1836) Published by Harper and Brothers” (1836) Essay by Poe that appeared in the April 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The title Review by Poe that appeared in the March 1836 refers to a device that purportedly used an automa- issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 242 10/12/07 12:02:31 PM “Master Humphrey’s Clock. By Charles Dickens. (Boz.) With Ninety-One Illustrations . . . ” 243

questions the origin of this anonymous collection Lady’s Book under the title of “Marginal Notes— of Turkish sketches, which claims in an accompa- No. 2: More ‘Marginalia’.” Additional installments nying advertisement that “with the exception of a of “Marginalia” appeared in the March, April, few of the inferior characters, and the trifling acces- November, and December 1846 issues of GRAHAM’S sories necessary to blend the materials, and impart MAGAZINE; the April and July 1846 issues of the a unity to the rather complex web of the narrative, Democratic Review; the January, February, and the whole may be relied upon as perfectly true.” March 1848 issues of Graham’s Magazine; and the The reviewer expresses limited interest in the work April, May, June, July, and September 1849 issues and asserts that it compares unfavorably to Thomas of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe’s tone Hope’s novel Anastasius (1819), “that most excel- throughout is one of amused cynicism. lent and vivid (although somewhat immoral) series of Turkish paintings.” “Master Humphrey’s Clock. “Marginalia” (1844–1849) By Charles Dickens. (Boz.) With Ninety-One Illustrations A series of “learned and gossipy paragraphs” on various subjects that appeared in different publi- by George Cattermole and cations over a period of five years, from Novem- Hablot Browne. Philadelphia, ber 1844 through September 1849. The passages reflect Poe’s “chit-chat habit” and contain many Lea & Blanchard” “The Old instances of repetition, such as recurrences of the Curiosity Shop, and Other same topic or discussions of the same literary men and women, extended over the five-year period. At Tales. By Charles Dickens. times, the passages are fragments of literary reviews With Numerous Illustrations or profiles that appeared in lengthier form in earlier publications. Some of the marginalia are self-con- by Cattermole and Browne. tained literary reviews, complete with reprints of stanzas of poetry; others are sarcastic, despondent, Philadelphia, Lea & or cynical observations, and still others seem to Blanchard” (1841) be pseudointellectual nonsense. All, however, are intentional, for Poe indicated in his preface to the Review by Poe that appeared in the May 1841 issue first installment of “Marginalia,” published in the of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe opens the review with November 1844 issue of the Democratic Review, that his criticism of the publisher’s confusing combina- their underlying feature would be a prevalent spirit tion of the novel with the stories in one volume, of nonsense: “It may be as well to observe, however, stating that it creates “a certain confusion and hesi- that just as the goodness of your true pun is in direct tation observable in the whole structure of the book ratio of its intolerability, so is nonsense the essential itself.” In particular, Poe objects to the practice of sense of the Marginal Note.” The second install- “intimating the entireness of the volume now before ment appeared in the December 1844 issue of the us, that ‘The Old Curiosity Shop, and Other Tales,’ Democratic Review, followed by a third installment has been made not only the primary and main title, that appeared in the August 1845 issue of GODEY’S but the name of the whole publication as indicated MAGAZINE AND LADY’S BOOK under the title “Mar- by the back.” In truth, the volume was only one of ginal Notes—No. 1: A Sequel to the ‘Marginalia’ a series—“only part of a whole.” Before his exami- of the ‘Democratic Review’.” A fourth installment nation of Master Humphrey’s Clock, Poe addresses was printed in the September 1845 issue of Godey’s rumors that Dickens had become mentally unsta-

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 243 10/12/07 12:02:32 PM 244 “Maury’s Navigation”

ble during the writing of the story collection, not- dency to encumber the work with too many unim- ing “we do not think it altogether impossible.” He portant rules and principles, Poe commends Maury qualifies this position: “[W]e mean to say that the for avoiding these errors: “With great propriety he mind of the author, at the time, might possibly have has rejected many statements and rules which in the been struggling with some of those manifold and progress of nautical science have fallen into disuse.” multiform aberrations by which the nobler order of Declaring that the manual’s “style is concise without genius is so frequently beset, but which are still very being obscure,” Poe asserts that Maury has worked far removed from disease.” Poe sees these presumed hard to credit a work of such merit and that doing “aberrations” in the “hesitancy and indefinitiveness so “required the exercise of a discriminating judg- of purpose” of the work and finds the design of ment, guided by a thorough acquaintance with all the work to be “simply the common-place one of the points in nautical science.” putting various tales into the mouths of a social party.” Dickens’s execution of the plan does not earn praise from Poe, who suggests that “because the work was done in a hurry, Mr. Dickens did not “Memoir of the Reverend precisely know his own plans when he penned the John H. Rice, D.D. First five or six first chapters of ‘Clock.’ ” He asserts, “we feel displeased to find Master Humphrey commenc- Professor of Christian ing the tale [The Old Curiosity Shop] in the first per- Theology in Union son. . . . All is confusion.” Poe provides an extensive analysis of the plot of The Old Curiosity Shop, find- Theological Seminary, ing Dickens’s approach to contrast greatly with that Virginia, A. By William of Master Humphrey’s Clock and expressing approval of its “excellences” in several instances, writing, “In Maxwell. Philadelphia: truth, the great feature of the ‘Curiosity Shop’ is Published by its chaste, vigorous, and glorious imagination. This is the one charm, all potent, which alone would J. Whetham” (1835) suffice to compensate for a world more of error than Mr. Dickens ever committed.” After extolling Review by Poe that appeared in the December 1835 the virtues of Dickens’s characterization and estab- issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe lishment of setting, Poe concludes, “we think the states that the memoir, which consists largely of ‘Curiosity Shop’ very much the best of the works Rice’s letters, “will be received and read with plea- of Mr. Dickens. It is scarcely possible to speak of it sure generally.” After identifying the three types of too well.” letters included—narrative accounts of the man in different periods of his life, pastoral letters to different members of the church, and ordinary letters of friendship—Poe states that all “give evidence of an “Maury’s Navigation” (1836) elevated, a healthy, cheerful, powerful, and well- regulated mind.” The review also praises Maxwell Review appearing in the June 1836 issue of the for allowing the letters to tell Rice’s story in his SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Written by United own words, and it ends with the reprint of one let- States Navy Lieutenant Matthew Maury, the manual ter as an example. earns Poe’s praise: [T]his volume . . . strongly commends itself to notice.” After identifying the many errors that most navy and general military personnel make in writing, which include a lack of “clearness “Memoirs and Letters of of arrangement” of facts and formulae and the ten- Madame Malibran.

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 244 10/12/07 12:02:32 PM “Memoirs of Lucian Bonaparte (Prince of Canino), Written by Himself. . . . ” 245 By the Countess de Merlin. of the epoch immediately preceding our Revolu- tion,” and, as such, it contains a means of compar- With Notices of the ing society with the present. Poe wrote that the Progress of the Musical book had long been out of print, but that it had remained a favorite of many readers, “and we are Drama in England. In Two glad to see it republished.” Although the review Volumes. Carey and Hart, states that the work will be read with pleasure everywhere, “as an authentic and well written Philadelphia” (1840) record of a most exemplary life,” Poe also writes that it will be of specific interest “[i]n Albany and Review by Poe that appeared in the May 1840 issue New York [where] it will possess a local interest of BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE. Poe begins of no common character,” and that remarks on the review by praising highly the life and career of slavery “will apply with singular accuracy to the Madame Malibran, who died tragically at the age present state of things in Virginia.” of 25. Poe chastises the author for not identifying a definite cause for the subject’s demise, for speaking only in vague terms, with “an indistinct- ness. . . . She seems never to approach the truth.” “Memoirs of Lucian On the other hand, the review praises the ability of the memoirs to “convey a vivid picture of their Bonaparte (Prince of subject.” The memoir appears in two volumes, Canino), Written by Himself. the first dealing with the subject’s life and career and the second providing a minute account of the Translated from the Original death and funeral. The work also includes critical Manuscript, Under the notices of her performances, both of which Poe finds “highly entertaining,” especially “the merely Immediate Superintendence private anecdotes.” of the Author. Part the First, (From the Year 1792, to the Year 8 of the “Memoirs of an American Republic.)” (1836) Lady. With Sketches of Manners and Scenery in Review by Poe that appeared in the October 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe America, as They Existed asserts that the work is “of deep interest” and states Previous to the Revolution. that it “must be read, by every person who pretends to read at all.” Nonetheless, he finds fault with the By the Author of ‘Letters author’s inclusion of “personal and private anec- from the Mountains.’ New dotes which have a very shadowy bearing, if any, upon the political movements of the times” and York: Published by George observes that the book possesses “many of those Dearborn” (1836) peculiarities of manner, which in so many a measure distinguished, and we must say disfigured, the Brief review by Poe that appeared in the July author’s poem. . . . the same affectations, the same 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Tacitus-ism, and the same indiscriminate elevation Written by Anne Grand, the book is “a memorial of tone.”

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 245 10/12/07 12:02:32 PM 246 “Memorials of Mrs. Hemans, with Illustrations of Her Literary Character . . . ” “Memorials of Mrs. Hemans, F. Williams, is condemned by Poe, who states that it “abounds with the coarsest and most malignant with Illustrations of Her satire, at the same time evincing less of the power Literary Character from Her than of the will for causticity—and being frequently most feeble when it attempts to be the most severe.” Private Correspondence. By Although Poe praises the work for containing imagi- Henry F. Chorley. New York: nation “of the most etherial [sic] kind . . . and bears on every sentence the impress of genius,” he also Saunders and Otley” (1836) finds that it seems “to have no just object or end.” Because of this lack, the reviewer states that “the Review by Poe that appeared in the October 1836 work must, therefore, as a whole be condemned.” issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. This lengthy review devotes almost as much space to a discussion of Chorley’s skill in portraying clearly the work of English poet Felicia Dorothea Hemans and “Mercedes of Castile, A her life as it does to examining her work. Clearly appreciative of Hemans’s skills, Poe states that Romance, By James Fenimore there exist “few persons now living upon whose Cooper. Two Volumes, Lea & appreciation of a poetical character we would look with a higher respect.” He also praises Chorley’s Blanchard, 1840” (1841) selection of details and “truly exquisite narration,” which has resulted in “something far more impres- Review by Poe that appeared in the January 1841 sive than we can imagine any legitimate biogra- issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe opens his review phy.” The review also includes brief analyses of by attacking the work as “the worst novel ever penned by Mr. Cooper” and states further, “as a select writings by Hemans, comparing her favorably history this work is invaluable; as a novel, it is well with other renowned writers of her time. In closing nigh worthless.” To prove that assertion, Poe pro- the review, Poe observes that “the reader will not vides readers with “a hasty sketch of the plot” as he fail to be struck with the evidence they contain of attacks Cooper’s lack of skill in characterization: a more than ordinary joyousness of temperament in “We did not look for character in it, for that is not Mrs. Hemans” and praises the memorialist for writ- Cooper’s forte; nor did we expect that his heroine ing a work in which “no shadow of vanity or affec- would be aught better than the inanimate thing she tation could be discerned in either the Memorialist is.” What does disappoint Poe is that Cooper fails or his subject.” to include “another of those magnificent sea-pictures for which, in all their sternness and sublimity, he is so justly celebrated.” Lacking this, the novel holds little attraction for Poe, who states that the “Mephistopheles in England, interest of the reader “does not begin until we are or the Confessions of a about to close the book.” Prime Minister, 2 vols. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard” (1835) “Morning on the Wissahiccon” (1844) Review by Poe that appeared in the September 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY REVIEW. The politi- Travel sketch by Poe; better known under the title cal satire, discovered later to have been written by R. “The ELK.”

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 246 10/12/07 12:02:32 PM Mysteries of Paris, The 247 “Mosses from an Old tempted to introduce. . . . [H]e has scarcely made us amends by introducing some one or two dozen Manse” (1847) whom we should have treated with contempt.” In the final summation, however, Poe pronounces The Short story collection by NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, Poets and Poetry of America to be “the most impor- reviewed by Poe as part of a lengthy review of works tant addition which our literature has for many years by Hawthorne, in an article titled “TALE-WRITING– received. It fills a void which should have been long NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE” in the November 1847 ago supplied.” issue of GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND LADY’S BOOK.

Mysteries of Paris, The (1846) “Mr. Griswold and the Criminal romance novel by Eugène Sue published Poets” (1842) in 1842 and reviewed by Poe in the “MARGINALIA” entry that appeared in the November 1846 issue of Review by Poe that appeared in the November GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe called the novel in trans- 1842 issue of Boston Miscellany. RUFUS WILMOT lation “a work of unquestionable power—a museum GRISWOLD wrote to Poe in July 1842 and offered of novel and ingenious incident—a paradox of him a fee to review his (Griswold’s) anthology The childish folly and consummate skill.” However, Poe FEMALE POETS OF AMERICA and include remarks was less favorable in his assessment of the transla- about an earlier anthology, The POETS AND POETRY tion from French into English: “The translation (by OF AMERICA. Griswold believed that “the name of C. H. Town) is very imperfect, and, by a too literal Poe—gratuitously furnished—might be of some rendering of idioms, contrives to destroy the whole consequence.” Because he paid for the review, tone of the original.” He contends that the transla- Griswold expected high praise for his work, but Poe tion “abounds in misapprehensions of the author’s retained his sense of integrity by assessing the work meaning” and provides examples of the errors that fairly and expressing reservations. Displeased with he has identified throughout. Poe uses the “Mar- the result, Griswold debated whether he should ginalia” entry to eliminate any misapprehensions withhold the review but decided to publish it to that readers may have about the relationship of the avoid a confrontation, “lest Poe should think I had novel to his short story “The MURDERS IN THE RUE prevented its publication.” Poe’s review disagreed MORGUE.” He is “not a little surprised” to find in with Griswold’s critical assumptions and taste in the novel a story related by one of the characters New England poets, and Griswold’s anthology of in which “one of its points has been suggested to female poets won Poe’s praise for being “a man not M. Sue by a tale of my own.” The story tells of an more of taste than—shall we say it?—courage.” Of ape that is “remarkable for its size, strength, feroc- The Poets and Poetry of America, Poe wrote that ity, and propensity to imitation.” The ape’s master “the work before us is indeed so vast an improve- wants to use it to commit a murder, so he teaches ment upon those of a similar character which have the ape “to imitate the functions of a barber, and preceded it, that we do its author some wrong in incites it to cut the throat of a child.” Poe expresses classing all together.” In the same vein, Poe iden- concern that “some of my friends would accuse tifies the structure of the work and content and me of plagiarising from it my ‘Murders in the Rue expresses his approval “of the general plan and exe- Morgue.’ ” His fears are soon allayed as he recalls cution of the work.” That said, he asserts, “We dis- for readers that his story first appeared in the April agree then, with Mr. Griswold in many of his critical 1841 issue of Graham’s Magazine and that it was estimates. . . . He has omitted from the body of his printed in the Paris Charivari in 1842 without any book, some one or two whom we should have been identification of him as its author. He generously

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 247 10/12/07 12:02:32 PM 248 “National Melodies of America. By George P. Morris, Esq.” refuses to accuse Sue of appropriating his idea and, Mathematical Academy, instead, observes, “The similarity may have been entirely accidental.” and Formerly Professor of the Ancient Languages of the College of Indiana. “National Melodies of Philadelphia: Harrison America. By George P. Hall” (1836) Morris, Esq.” (1839) Review by Poe that appeared in the October 1836 Review by Poe that appeared in the December issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. This 1839 issue of BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE brief notice appears after “the excellences of this under the title “George P. Morris.” The article was grammar have been so well proved, and the work revised and given this title for its publication in itself so heartily recommended by some of the first scholars in our country,” and the reviewer feels April 1840 in the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The review devotes a considerable number of words “called upon to say but little in its behalf.” Listing methodically the advantages of this grammar, Poe to explaining Poe’s theory of songwriting: “There expresses only praise for the work and concludes by are few cases in which mere popularity should be writing “were we a teacher, we would prefer its use considered a proper test of merit; but the case of to that of any other Latin Grammar whatever.” song-writing is, I think, one of the few.” Poe defines songwriting in terms of poetry: “I mean, of course, the composition of brief poems with an eye to their adaptation for music in the vulgar sense.” He des- “New and Comprehensive ignates Morris “very decidedly, our best writer of songs—and, in saying this, I mean to assign him Gazetteer of Virginia, and a high rank as poet.” He calls several of Morris’s the District of Columbia, works, including “Woodman, Spare that Tree” and “By the Lake Droops the Willow,” compositions A: Containing a Copious “of which any poet, living or dead, might justly be Collection of Geographical, proud. By these, if by nothing else, Morris is immortal.” The review closes with one of Morris’s poems. Statistical, Political, Commercial Religious, Moral and Miscellaneous “New and Compendious Latin Information, Collected and Grammar; With Appropriate Compiled From the Most Exercises, Analytical and Respectable, and Chiefly Synthetical, A. For the Use of From Original Sources; by Primary Schools, Academies, Joseph Martin. To Which Is and Colleges. By Baynard Added a History of Virginia, R. Hall, A. M., Principal of From Its First Settlement the Bedford Classical and to the Year 1754: With an

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 248 10/12/07 12:02:33 PM “New Dictionary of the English Language, A: By Charles Richardson. London: . . . ” 249 Abstract of the Principal in art based in the natural laws of man’s heart and understanding,” Poe identifies the numerous Events From That Period absurdities that occur on stage, “the crossings to the Independence of and recrossings of the dramatis personae” and the unnatural dialogue spoken by the unreal char- Virginia, Written Expressly acters that result in “a total deficiency in verisi- for the Work, by a Citizen militude.” The review finds that “the colloquy in Mrs. Mowatt’s comedy is spirited, generally terse, of Virginia. Charlottesville: and well seasoned at points” and compliments her Published by Joseph Martin. thorough knowledge of “ordinary stage effects,” as it makes clear that the condemnation is not 1835” (1836) for “Mrs. Mowatt’s comedy in particular, but the modern drama in general.” Review by Poe that appeared in the February 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe strongly praises the efforts of the author who “dis- avows all pretension to literary attainment, and “New Dictionary of the claims only the merit of enterprise and perseverance in the execution of his design.” In addition English Language, A: to providing an overview of the information con- By Charles Richardson. tained within the book, Poe takes the opportunity to chastise the “public indifference” of Virginians London: William Pickering— and “too little of that public spirit which has ani- New York: William mated other communities” that made Martin’s task “in amassing a large amount of valuable informa- Jackson” (1836) tion” harder. The review states that the study is invaluable to “the man of business and to the trav- Review by Poe that appeared in the August 1836 eller, and indeed to the general reader,” and sug- issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The gests that “public liberality” be used to sustain the review traces briefly the development of the dic- author in producing future editions of the work. tionary, beginning with DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON’s first effort in 1747, and examines the implications that Johnson’s approach hold for the effort under present discussion. Poe suggests that Johnson would have achieved even greater success had he fol- “New Comedy. By Mrs. lowed his original intention, stated in a 1747 letter Mowatt, The” (1845) to Lord Chesterfield, which “communicated a plan of his undertaking” to give first “the natural and Review by Poe that appeared in the March 29, primitive meaning of words; secondly, the conse- 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. Poe begins quential—and thirdly the metaphorical, arranging the review with a detailed plot summary of the play the quotations chronologically.” Johnson’s diction- Fashion, then attacks the author’s lack of original- ary was published in 1755, “without the plan, and ity in using hackneyed characters and situations, strange to say, in utter disregard of the principles writing that “not even the author of a plot such avowed in the letter to the Earl of Chesterfield.” as this, would be disposed to claim for it anything In Poe’s view, however, the principles “were well- on the score of originality or invention.” Claiming conceived, and that if followed out, they would that “our fault-finding is on the score of deficiency have rendered important service to English lexi- in verisimilitude—in natural art—that is to say, cography,” and Poe declares that “the necessity

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for something of the kind which was felt then, is of metaphor—metaphor always running into alle- more strongly felt now.” The review concludes by gory. . . . He is king-coxcomb of figures of speech. “heartily recommending” the new dictionary, not- His rage for personification is really ludicrous.” Poe ing the improvement Richardson has made in using concludes that he cannot agree with “that critical the principles of Johnson and adding the system opinion which considers it the best novel of the of Horne Tooke, “the greatest of philosophical author. It is only not his worst.” grammarians.”

“Noble Deeds of Woman. 2 “New Theoretical and vols. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, Practical Treatise on & Blanchard” (1836) Navigation, A” Review by Poe that appeared in the February 1836 See “MAURY’S NAVIGATION.” issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe wrote that he presumed from the date and place found in the preface that the work originally was published in London, but he could not find the “Night and Morning: A names of the author or original publisher. He thus assumed that the work was “merely a reprint. . . . Novel. By the Author of But, be the ‘Noble Deeds of Woman’ English or ‘Pelham,’ ‘Rienzi,’ ‘Eugene American, we recommend them heartily to public attention.” Poe identifies the chapter topics listed Aram,’ etc. Two Volumes. in the table of contents, but does not elaborate, and Republished by Harper & describes the structure of the work, which consists (1841) of numerous anecdotes related to household activi- Brothers, New York” ties traditional for a woman of the time, grouped under the chapter headings. The review ends with Review by Poe that appeared in the April 1841 issue the reprint of two paragraphs from the work as of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe begins this review of illustration of its merit. the novel by EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON with a summary of “the groundwork of the plot,” then examines the meaning of plot and how it relates to the specific work. Poe asserts, “so careful has been our author in this working-up . . . that it is difficult to “Norman Leslie: A Tale of detect a blemish in any portion.” Still, he does iden- the Present Times. New tify “a few defects,” and discussion of these occupies more than half of the review. Methodically working York: Published by Harper & through the novel, Poe identifies errors in plot, Brothers” (1835) characterization, and language: “His mere English is grossly defective—turgid, involved, and ungram- Review by Poe that appeared in the December matical. There is scarcely a page of ‘Night and 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSEN- Morning’ upon which a schoolboy could not detect GER. In the opening lines, Poe mocks the fanfare at least half a dozen instances of faulty construc- that had preceded this novel, which was repeat- tion.” The review singles out “the predominant and edly described in the NEW YORK MIRROR as “ ‘in most important failing” as Lytton’s “absolute mania press,’ ‘in progress,’ ‘forthcoming,’ and written

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 250 10/12/07 12:02:33 PM “Old World and the New, The; Or, a Journal of Reflections and Observations . . . ” 251 by or ‘attributed to’ Mr. Blank, and ‘said to be “Nuts to Crack: or Quips, from the pen’ of Mr. Asterisk.” Rather than continue the charade of the author’s anonymity, Poe Quirks, Anecdote and Facete immediately identifies him as Theodore S. Fay, an of Oxford and Cambridge editor at the Mirror, whose preface to the work claims that the material in the novel is founded Scholars. By the Author of on fact. Poe mockingly quotes phrases from the Facetiae Cantabrigienses, Etc., preface and writes that “we, at least, are neither solemn nor sapient, and therefore, do not feel our- Etc., Etc. Philadelphia: E. L. selves bound to show him a shadow of mercy.” Carey & A. Hart” (1835) The review then provides a lengthy and detailed summary of the convoluted plot of the work that Review by Poe that appeared in the December Poe declares to be “the most inestimable piece of 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. balderdash with which the common sense of the The collection of quizzes, oddities, and eccentrici- good people of America was ever so openly or so ties was not intended for an American audience, villainously insulted.” After pointing out specific but Poe declared, “never was there a better thing flaws in the novel, complete with page numbers for whiling away a few loose or unappropriate half and representative phrases, Poe concludes that the hours.” Although his comments on the collection novel is filled with absurdities and that not even generally are favorable, Poe points out inaccura- a schoolboy “would fail to detect at least two or cies in the attributions and a few blunders that three gross errors in Grammar, and some two or are to him shocking “in a volume professing to be three egregious sins against common-sense.” Anecdote and Facete (oh!—too bad) of Oxford and Cambridge scholars.” Poe ends the review by sharing a selection from the work with readers. “Notices of the War of 1812. By John Armstrong. New York: George “Old Curiosity Shop” Dearborn” (1836) See “MASTER HUMPHREY’S CLOCK.”

Review by Poe that appeared in the June 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The review praises the “Notices,” written by the former “Old World and the New, United States secretary of war, as “a valuable addition to our history, and to our historical literature, The; Or, a Journal of with especial attention to the Appendix, which Reflections and Observations will prove of great service to the future historian.” Despite his approval of the range of topics covered Made on a Tour in Europe. by the “Notices,” Poe indicates that he is “grieved, By the Reverend Orville however, to see a piquancy and freedom of expression, in regard to the unhappy sources of animosity Dewey. New York: Harper & between America and the parent land, which can Brothers” (1836) neither to-day nor hereafter answer any possible good end, and may prove an individual grain in a Review by Poe that appeared in the August 1836 future mountain of mischief.” issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 251 10/12/07 12:02:33 PM 252 “Oration on the Life and Character of the Rev. Joseph Caldwell, D.D. . . . ” review begins by contradicting the author’s con- Published by J. Miller: tention that the book is not an itinerary, for its methodical procedure “in which unconnected London” (1844) remarks follow one upon another—object upon object—day upon day—and all with a scrupulous Review by Poe that appeared in the March 1844 accuracy in regard to dates” disproves the author’s issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. The lengthy review assertion. The reviewer declares “we cannot under- begins with high praise for the author and the stand Mr. Dewey in declaring his book not to be reviewer’s admission of having been “among the what it most certainly is, if it is any thing at all.” most earnest admirers of his high genius;—for a Despite his approval of the book as an itinerary, man of high, of the highest genius, he unques- Poe does not recommend the book “as a whole,” tionably is.” This is followed by a vehement con- because it contains “very little, we think, of either demnation of the “cant” of the time, “of the mere novelty or morality,” although he heartily approves opinions of the donkeys who bray thus—of their of “its amusing naiveté of manner—a feature that mere dogmas and doctrines, literary, aesthetical, will arrest the attention of every reader.” or what not” but who understand very little about the creative process. Poe then uses the review as a forum for discussing his own ideas about poetry, and he creates a detailed summary of the epic poem “Oration on the Life and to provide examples for his theory. After conduct- ing “a careful methodical analysis,” the review con- Character of the Rev. cludes that “we have left unsaid a hundred things” Joseph Caldwell, D.D. Late and declares the poem “to be one of the noblest, if President of the University not the very noblest poetical work of the age.” of North Carolina, by Walter Andersen, A. M.” (1835) “Our Amateur Poets, No. Review by Poe appearing in the December 1835 I.—Flaccus” (1843) issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Admittedly a “hasty and imperfect notice” of the Review by Poe that appeared in the March 1843 pamphlet containing the oration, the review, none- issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe identifies the theless, praises the exemplary life of Caldwell and poet as “merely a Mr.———Ward, of Gotham, the capability of Andersen in rendering that life, as once a contributor to the New York ‘American,’ well as the “especial beauty, we think, in the way and to the New York ‘Knickerbocker’ Magazine.” in which he treats of his religious principles.” The The review states that the first poet is not “alto- review contains two extracts from the pamphlet as gether destitute of merit,” yet Poe finds some of proof of Andersen’s “fine powers as a biographical the entries to be affected and dull: “there is noth- writer” and expresses “the very great pleasure its ing very original in all this; the general idea is, perusal afforded us.” perhaps, the most absolutely trite in poetical literature.” In a review of the poems in the collection, Poe focuses special attention on the “Great Descender” and writes, “We are at a loss to know “Orion: An Epic Poem in by what right, human or divine, twaddle of this character is intruded into a collection of what pro- Three Books. By R. H. fesses to be Poetry.” As Poe methodically examines Horne. Fourth Edition. each of the poems, he grudgingly doles out limited

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praise with more frequent negative criticism of the William Ellery Channing of whom anybody in the poet’s technique. “To An Infant in Heaven” is world ever heard.” “feeble as a whole” and terminates “lamely,” while Ward’s imagery “is, indeed, at rare intervals, good, it must be granted, on the other hand, that, in general, it is atrociously inappropriate, or low”; “of “Our Contributors, the ineffable bad taste we have instances without number.” The review ends with Poe’s question, No. VIII.—Fitz-Greene “Who calls Mr. Ward a poet? He is a second-rate, Halleck” (1843) or a third-rate, or perhaps a ninety-ninth-rate poetaster.” Review by Poe that appeared in the September 1843 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe opens the review by observing that despite being firmly established in the literary world, FITZ-GREENE HALLECK “Our Amateur Poets, is unique among poets “of eminence” for having No. III. William Ellery written so little. The review briefly sketches the poet’s personal life and literary development, then Channing” (1843) quotes extensively what WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT has said about his work. Focusing on Halleck’s Review by Poe that appeared in the August 1843 skills in versification, Poe asserts that the poet’s issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Channing’s poetry rhythms are often defective, so that scanning his is mentioned in a satiric context in the short story poems “is impossible.” The review examines sev- “HOW TO WRITE A BLACKWOOD ARTICLE.” eral of Halleck’s best-known poems, including The review disparages both the poet and his “Fanny,” “Alnwick Castle,” and “Wyoming,” and work. Poe begins by making clear to readers that finds each “disfigured with some of the merest Channing “is a, and by no means the, William burlesque.” Although numerous lyrically rhyth- Ellery Channing. He is only the son of the great mic lines appear in these poems, they all have essayist deceased. . . . It may be said in his favor “rhythmical defects,” as well as lines that “form that nobody ever heard of him. Like an honest an imperfect rhyme.” The review concludes with woman, he has always succeeded in keeping himself Poe’s assertion that the poet is “in the maturity from being made the subject of gossip.” The review of his powers” and the regret that Halleck “has abounds with numerous other such clever insults. nearly abandoned the Muses.” Poe writes that Channing’s poems “are full of all kinds of mistakes, of which the most important is that of their having been printed at all.” He asserts that the poems “are not precisely English—nor will “Outis Paper” we insult a great nation by calling them Kickapoo; perhaps they are Channingese.” Comparing Chan- See “A CONTINUATION OF THE VOLUMINOUS HIS- ning unfavorably to Tennyson and Carlyle, Poe TORY OF THE LITTLE LONGFELLOW WAR—MR. POE’S writes that the poet has been “inoculated with virus FURTHER REPLY TO THE LETTER OF OUTIS.” from Tennyson” and examines lines that exhibit his pretensions and the defects of his writing. At the close of the review, Poe suggests that Chan- ning will ride to fame on his father’s reputation and “Palestine” (1836) that people will buy his books not because of his skill, but because they believe it to be “the posthu- Essay by Poe that appeared in the February 1836 mous work of that truly illustrious author, the sole issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 253 10/12/07 12:02:33 PM 254 “Paris and the Parisians in 1835. By Frances Trollope, Author of ‘Domestic Manners . . . ” writing provides a brief overview of the geography “Partisan, The: A Tale of the and the history of the area that Poe refers to as “The Holy Land.” The essay identifies the tribes Revolution. By the Author that have inhabited the region in various periods of “The Yemassee,” “Guy and explains the origins of divisions between the people of the region. The writer focuses particular Rivers,” &c. New York: attention on the Dead Sea, explaining the origin Published by Harper & of the name and the relationship of the contemporary region to biblical descriptions. In addition to Brothers” (1836) describing the topography, the essay also identifies the conquerors of the region. Review of William Gilmore Simms’s novel that appeared in the January 1836 issue of the SOUTH- ERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe begins the review by mocking the author’s dedication “To Richard Yeadon, Jr. Esq. Of South Carolina,” which also con- “Paris and the Parisians in tains a brief letter thanking Yeadon for “pleasant 1835. By Frances Trollope, rambles in the field of literature.” Poe’s objection is that “it affects excessive terseness, excessive appro- Author of ‘Domestic Manners priateness, and excessive gentility,” leading to the of the Americans,’ ‘The conclusion that the written dedication is Simms’s substitute for “certain oral communication” of most Refugee in America,’ &c. individuals to their friends. Poe has little good to New York: Published by say of the novel itself and notes that “there is very little plot or connexion in the book before us; and Harper & Brothers” (1836) Mr. Simms has evidently aimed at neither.” After relating the author’s assurance that the historical Review by Poe that appeared in the May 1836 facts in the novel are scrupulously accurate, Poe issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe suggests that Simms’s fact-driven design would methodically describes the work, and he gives par- have been “better carried into effect by a work of ticular attention to the “eleven most admirable a character purely historical,” because “the inter- copperplate engravings” that provide “the most weaving of fact with fiction is at all times hazard- effectual method of imparting to our readers . . . ous.” To prove the point, Poe summarizes the novel a just conception of the work itself.” Although in detail and praises the representations of histori- Poe admires the writing, he gives little weight to cal characters, but finds that the fictitious charac- the author’s views: “[H]er mere political opin- ters will not bear examination, and singles out for ions are, we suppose, of very little consequence to criticism one character who “deserves a separate any person other than Mrs. Trollope; and being paragraph of animadversion.” Quoting extensively especially sure that they are of no consequence to from the novel to support his position, Poe declares ourselves we shall have nothing further to do with “Mr. Porgy” to be “an insufferable bore” who never them.” Instead, he describes in detail each of the opens his mouth “without making us feel miserable 11 engravings that appear in the volume and, in all over.” Poe also finds offensive the novelist’s “vil- conclusion, recommends the book “to all lovers of lainously bad taste” in providing minute details of fine writing, and vivacious humor. It is impossible two murders committed by “a maniac;” one of the not to be highly amused with the book—and there murders described is “in a manner too shockingly is by no means any necessity for giving a second horrible to mention” in the review. He also objects thought to the political philosophies of Madame to Simms’s detailed description of a flogging, with Trollope.” the attendant “screeches of the wretch” and his

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mother’s cries of anguish, and the torture death poons Mattson’s florid writing as well as his convo- of a terrapin by Mr. Porgy, “more particularly in luted and confusing plot. He also mocks the hero’s the writhings and spasms of the head, which he numerous love affairs and adventures and relates assures us with a smile ‘will gasp and jerk long after lengthy passages containing absurd situations, such we have done eating the body.’ ” Poe praises Simms as Ulric’s imprisonment “in a cavern of banditti, for well-drawn concluding scenes and “exquisite” somewhere in the neighborhood of Philadelphia!!” descriptions of swamp scenery, crediting the author Poe finds that other fantastic adventures are drawn for having “the eye of a painter.” His final words, almost whole from the works of earlier writers. however, make his view of Simms’s skills clear: In the conclusion of the review, Poe declares “Perhaps, in sober truth, he would succeed better that “the book is despicable in every respect” and in sketching a landscape than he has done in writ- charges Mattson with producing a work that con- ing a novel.” tributes to the “daily discredit to our national literature.” He is particularly incensed that such a work found a publisher: “We have no right to complain of being laughed at abroad when so villainous a “Passaic, A Group of Poems compound, as the thing we now hold in our hand, of incongruous folly, plagiarism, immorality, inan- Touching That River: With ity, and bombast, can command at any moment Other Musings, by Flaccus” both a puff and a publisher.”

See “OUR AMATEUR POETS, NO. I.—FLACCUS.” “Peter Snook” (1836) “Paul Ulric: Or the Essay by Poe that appeared in the October 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe Adventures of an Enthusiast. took issue with an article in which EVERT DUYCK- INCK undervalued the power of “Magazine Lit- New York: Published by erature” in the United States. Poe argued that Harper & Brothers” (1836) magazine writing in America was far inferior to that of the French and the English because American Review by Poe published in the February 1836 issue magazine writing paid poorly and failed to attain the of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe states artistic fulfillment of “the true magazine spirit.” Poe that the novel in two volumes written by Morris noted that “we are lamentably deficient not only in Mattson, Esq., of Philadelphia, “is too purely imbe- invention proper, but in that which is, more strictly, cile to merit an extended critique,” but he does Art.” Poe offered as one example the differences promise readers that he will “have no hesitation, between the critical reviews written by Americans and spare no pains, in exposing fully before the compared with those published by the English and public eye its four hundred and forty-three pages the French: “What American, for instance, in pen- of utter folly, bombast, and inanity.” After quoting ning his criticism, ever supposes himself called upon the first-person narrator’s assertion that his life has to present his readers with more than the exact been “one of continual excitement, and in my wild stipulation of his title—to present them with a criti- career I have tasted of joy as well as of sorrow,” cism and something beyond? Who thinks of making Poe comments within brackets: “Oh remarkable his critique a work of art in itself—independently Mr. Ulric!” In response to the narrator’s declara- of its critical opinions?” Even more than in articles, tion “I am growing metaphysical,” Poe writes, “We Poe finds that Americans “evince the most remark- had thought he was only growing absurd.” Poe lam- able deficiency in skill” in “tale-writing.” To provide

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an example of the artistic superiority of British and pointing out that most authors are “in no condition French fiction over American fiction, he discusses to retrace the steps by which his conclusions have in detail the “longest and best” of James Forbes been attained,” Poe proposes to analyze for readers Dalton’s stories, “Peter Snook.” After the lengthy the composition process that he followed in writing summary and analysis, Poe ranks the tale “among “The Raven.” He identifies issues that determine the few tales which (each in its own way) are abso- the success or failure of a poem, with emphasis lutely faultless.” upon length, the effect to be conveyed, and the province, beauty in this case. Poe asserts, “there is a distinct limit, as regards length, to all works of literary art—the limit of one sitting.” Although “Philosophy of Composition, he allows that a novel may require more time, the (1846) limit should never be exceeded in a poem. The The” choice of effect is a second consideration, and Poe argues that the poet should determine in advance Essay by Poe published in the April 1846 issue of the effect that he wishes to create. For Poe, the GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe purports to demonstrate province of the poem should be Beauty, “because how he wrote “The RAVEN” and how it should be it is an obvious rule of Art that effects should read, as well. He claimed that many people would be made to spring form direct causes.” He then stop him and ask, “ ‘Why, Mr. Poe, how did you applies his observations to “The Raven” to pro- write ‘The Raven’?” This was his answer. Whatever vide examples of his theory. It is this very detailed its reason for creation, the essay is a vital text in and carefully delineated discussion that created understanding Poe criticism. It contains a thorough debate as to how honest Poe was in assessing his analysis of his creative process, which has led to writing of “The Raven.” Critics who doubted the significant debate regarding the accuracy of Poe’s premise expressed doubt that the creative process description of his compositional process. Poe sug- could be so straightforward and logical. This essay gests that the essay will reveal the method that also expresses Poe’s admiration for the works of any author might follow in producing successful NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. literature, beginning with “the consideration of an effect . . . after looking about me (or rather within) for such combinations of event, or tone, as shall best aid me in the construction of the effect.” The author writes that he has often thought “how inter- “Philosophy of Furniture, esting a magazine article might be written by any The” (1845) author who would—that is to say who could— detail, step by step, the processes by which any Essay by Poe first published in the May 1840 issue of one of his compositions attained its ultimate point BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE. Poe retitled the of completion.” Poe suggests that “autorial vanity” essay “House of Furniture” when he published it in may be the reason that writers have omitted such the May 3, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. analysis, because “most writers—poets in especial— The work contains Poe’s analysis of the differences prefer having it understood that they compose by a in national temperaments as they are revealed in species of fine frenzy—an ecstatic intuition.” The the “internal decoration, if not in the external archi- opposite is actually true, notes Poe, and most writ- tecture of their residences.” The focus of Poe’s criti- ers “would positively shudder at letting the pub- cism of taste appears directed mainly to Americans, lic take a peep behind the scenes . . . at the fully who “alone are preposterous” for their substitution matured fancies discarded in despair as unmanage- of “an aristocracy of dollars, the display of wealth,” able—at the cautious selections and rejections— for good taste. He laments what he sees as “an evil at the painful erasures and interpolations.” After growing out of our republican institutions, that here

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a man of large purse has usually a very little soul The review sets a positive tone at the outset by which he keeps in it.” In general, Poe finds most noting that the difference of this novel from works nations, although their faults are less egregious, have previously published by Child “places the fair writer little in the way of good taste in regard to inte- in a new and most favorable light.” Poe provides rior decoration. “The Italians have but little senti- readers with a lengthy summary of the plot, which ment beyond marbles and colours,” the French “are is set in ancient Athens and abounds with classical too much a race of gadabouts to maintain those names and references. The review warns that how- household proprieties. . . . [T]he Chinese and most ever well written and worthy in topic, the novel will of the eastern races have a warm but inappropri- likely not become popular, because “we have little ate fancy. . . . [T]he Scotch are poor decorists. . . . of purely human sympathy in the distantly antique; [T]he Russians do not furnish.” Of all nations, “the and this little is greatly weakened by the constant English are supreme” and “the Yankees alone are necessity of effort in conceiving appropriateness in preposterous.” Poe attacks what he perceives to be manners, costume, habits, and modes of thought, the American manner of confounding cost with so widely at variance with those around us.” The quality, decrying the fact that “the cost of an article plot should be regarded as a “mere vehicle” for of furniture has at length come to be, with us, nearly examining the aforementioned manners, costume, the sole test of its merit in a decorative point of habits, and modes of thought, rather than for itself. view.” He describes “the interior of what is termed The real value of the book is that it “might be in the United States—that is, to say, in Appallachia introduced advantageously into our female acad- [sic]—a well-furnished apartment. Its most usual emies. Its purity of thought and lofty morality are defect is a want of keeping.” This want of keeping unexceptionable. It would prove an effectual aid in is seen in the “inartistic arrangement” of pieces of the study of Greek antiquity. . . . [I]ts purity of lan- furniture or in the “undue precision” of the pieces of guage should especially recommend it to the atten- which “straight lines are too prevalent.” Convinced tion of teachers.” that “the soul of the apartment is the carpet,” Poe asserts that “a good judge of carpet must be a genius,” and he decries the reality that carpets are often cho- “Phrenology, and the Moral sen by men “who could not be entrusted with the management of their own moustaches.” The essay Influence of Phrenology: ends with Poe’s detailed description of the model Arranged for General apartment, “a small and not ostentatious chamber with whose decorations no fault can be found.” Study, and the Purposes of Education, from the First Published Works of Gall and “Philothea: A Romance. Spurzheim, to the Latest By Mrs. Child, Author of Discoveries of the Present the Mother’s Book, &c. Period. By Mrs. L. Miles. Boston: Otis, Broaders Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & & Co. New York: George Blanchard” (1836) Dearborn” (1836) Review by Poe that appeared in the March 1836 Review by Poe that appeared in the September issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. opens the review by stating that “Phrenology [the

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study of the shape and size of the skull to deter- tion of the collection.” The review also protests the mine mental ability and personality] is no longer prominent use of Dickens’s name and the use of to be laughed at. . . . It has assumed the majesty a title that so nearly reminds readers of Dickens’s of a science . . . involving consequences of the Pickwick Papers, suggesting that the current volume highest practical magnitude.” He defends its use was written by him. In conclusion, Poe asks, “Now as providing individuals with “a perfectly accurate what is this but the worst species of forgery?” estimate of their own moral capabilities,” before praising the “neat and convenient” work that places the study into perspective. Poe praises the work as being “lucid, compact and portable” and “Pinakidia” (1836) lists for the reader the classifications contained within, although he does note that the clarity of An article by Poe composed of a collection of brief the arrangement has resulted in the sacrifice of observations and random statements on miscella- “points of vital importance to the science.” neous subjects that appeared in the 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. In his preface to the 173 statements, Poe defines the title as “tab- lets” culled from his notebooks that shed an inter- “Pic Nic Papers, The. By esting sidelight on his secondary sources. Simply an unconnected collection, similar material might Various Hands. Edited be found in numerous periodicals of his time under by Charles Dickens, such headings as “Random Thoughts,” “Odds and Ends,” “Stray Leaves,” “Scraps,” and “Brevities,” Esq., Author of ‘The most having “pretensions to originality.” In con- Pickwick Papers,’ etc. Two trast, Poe admits that his collection “is not original, and will be readily recognized as such by the clas- Volumes. Lea & Blanchard, sical and general reader.” He has not cataloged Philadelphia” (1841) his work: “[N]o arrangement has been considered necessary; and, indeed, so heterogeneous a farrago Review by Poe that appeared in the November 1841 it would have been an endless task to methodize.” Thus, the reader of “Pinakidia” learns “during the issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. The “papers” consist whole period of the middle ages, the Germans lived of a collection of articles from CHARLES DICKENS, in utter ignorance of the art of writing,” “of the ten LEITCH RITCHIE, Allan Cunningham, THOMAS tragedies attributed to Seneca (the only Roman MOORE, WILLIAM H. AINSWORTH, G. P. R. James, tragedies extant), nine are on Greek subjects;” and Agnes Strickland, and others. Poe observes that “it “the translators of the Old Testament have used might be supposed, of course, that the collection the word Eternity but once.” would be one of high interest; but we are forced to say that it is not.” Instead, the review explains that when authors “are called upon to furnish gratuitous papers. . . . [T]hey content themselves with bestow- ing whatever Ms. they may have on hand, of least “Plato Contra Atheos.—Plato value.” In essence, such “refuse labour of a man of against the Atheists; or the genius is usually inferior” to his usual work because “the man of genius must write in obedience to his Tenth Book of the Dialogue impulses.” Thus, Poe views the collection under on Laws, Accompanied with review in the same light and states that he has never encountered in any respectable-looking book Critical Notes, and Followed “more consummate nonsense than the greater por- by Extended Dissertations

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Compared with the Holy Review appearing in the June 1836 issue of the Scriptures, by Tayler Lewis, SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The work is written under a pseudonym by Philip H. Nichelin, the LL.D., Professor of the Greek author of “LETTERS DESCRIPTIVE OF THE VIRGINIA Language and Literature, in SPRINGS—THE ROADS LEADING THERETO AND THE DOINGS THEREAT,” reviewed by Poe for the June the University in the City 1836 issue of the Messenger. Although Poe begins of New York.—New York, the current review with the statement, “We know nothing farther about Peregrine Prolix than that Harper & Brothers” (1845) he is the very clever author of a book entitled ‘Let- ters descriptive of the Virginia Springs,’ and that Review by Poe that appeared in the June 21, 1845, he is a gentleman on the wrong side of forty,” he issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. The review opens had already identified Nichelin as Prolix in the with the assumption that “the Laws of Plato were earlier review. Poe provides readers with synopses probably the work of his old age—of his extreme of the 10 letters detailing the ramblings of Prolix senility,” an assertion that disputes the opinion of from Philadelphia to points west, then home again, the annotator, Dr. Lewis, that this work represents and he assures them that “his book is a very excel- Plato’s mature and most settled opinions. Poe then lent thing.” provides a synopsis of the work, which deals with laws enacted against violators of religion, and offers editorial commentary on Plato’s views throughout. Although Poe acknowledges “the purity and nobil- “Poems. By Frances S. ity of the Platonian soul,” he suggests that Platonic thought is archaic: “But if the question be put to-day, Osgood. New York: Clark & what is the value of the Platonian philosophy, the Austin” (1845) proper answer is, ‘exactly nothing at all.’ We do not believe that any good purpose is answered by popu- Review by Poe that appeared in the December 13, larizing his dreams; on the contrary we do believe 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. Poe praises that they have a strong tendency of ill—intellectually the poet for having experimented in a wide range of of course.” Of Lewis’s work, Poe is similarly critical poetic forms and states “there is not one in which and expresses a regret that the book contains only she has not very creditably succeeded.” This is the Greek text without a translation, which seems to the first collection of her poems, and the reviewer belie the stated object of the annotator, which “seems feels that in selecting some and omitting others she to have been the placing of the doctrines of Plato “is in danger of losing the credit to which she is more immediately within the reach of the public.” so fairly entitled on the score of versatility.” The review examines in detail five of the poems—“The Spirit of Poetry,” “She Loves Him Yet,” “Aspira- tions,” “Lenore,” and “A Song”—and includes the “Pleasant Peregrination full text of each. Although Poe finds minor flaws in the poems, such as the need in one instance to sub- Through the Prettiest stitute “you” for “thee” throughout—“the modern Parts of Pennsylvania, The. and colloquial for the ancient and so-called poetical

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pronoun”—the review conveys “a high opinion of Further, the review observes minor errors in versi- the power of the poetess.” fication and “the harsh consonants are excessive.” With apologies for the brevity of the review, Poe ends by repeating that Lowell “has given evidence of at least as high poetical genius as any man in “Poems, by William Cullen America—if not a loftier genius than any.” Bryant. Boston: Russell, Odiorne & Metcalfe. 1834” (1835) “Poems—By Miss H. F. Gould. Third Edition. Review by Poe that appeared in the January 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe Boston: Hilliard, Gray & Co. praised the “new and beautiful edition” of poems 1835” (1836) and stated that “the pure white paper and excellent typography of the volume before us, will give Review by Poe that appeared in the January 1836 a richer lustre to the gems of Mr. Bryant’s genius.” issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The Behind the praise lies the suggestion that WILLIAM reviewer praises Hannah F. Gould for her disposi- CULLEN BRYANT’s best work is not contained within tion “to seek beauty where it is not usually sought— the attractive package, for Poe also makes the in the homelinesses . . . and in the most familiar point that “the majority of mortals are governed realities of existence.” He also praises her “abandon by appearances; and even a dull tale will appear of manner” as well as “a phraseology sparkling with respectable in the pages of a hot pressed and gilt antithesis, yet, strange to say, perfectly simple and bound London annual.” Placing the blame on the unaffected.” Poe focuses particular attention upon American public, which has largely ignored “native Gould’s poem “The Dying Storm,” which is “full, literature,” Poe observes that Bryant’s earlier “great forcible, and free from artificiality.” intellectual power” is not evident in the current volume, which reflects the poet’s “bitter regrets at the frowns of an unpoetical public.” “Poems; Translated and Original. By Mrs. E. F. Ellet. “Poems by James Russell Philadelphia: Key & Biddle. Lowell. Published by John 1835” (1836) Owen: Cambridge” (1844) Review by Poe that appeared in the January 1836 Review by Poe that appeared in the March 1844 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. The review opened review notes that 39 of the 57 poems in the collec- by praising JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL’s new collection tion are original and the rest are translations from and by declaring that this new volume would place the French, Spanish, Italian, and German, and “these him “at the very head of the poets of America.” translations are very creditable to her [ELIZABETH Poe examines in detail the poet’s “Legend of Brit- FRIES ELLET].” Poe asserts that in instances where he tany” and finds it “truly magnificent,” filled with has tested the accuracy of the translation by refer- “the loftier merits,” but he also observes that it ring to the originals, “we have always found reason suffers from “the error of didacticism. After every to be satisfied with her performances.” In examining few words of narration, comes a page of morality.” Ellet’s original compositions, the reviewer observes

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that “Mrs. Ellet is a poetess of no ordinary rank,” and is early matured only to be early in its decadence.” he prints from the volume “a little poem rich in vig- Although the review acknowledges “warmth of orous expression, and full of solemn thought. Its chief admiration for the personal character” of the poet, merits, however, are condensation and energy.” Poe asks that critics focus on the “appreciation of their poetic ability.” He notes that the distinction is “too obvious for comment; and its observation would have spared us much twaddle on the part of “Poe’s Reply to His Critics” the commentators upon ‘Amir Khan’,” one of the poems in the collection. (1836)

Essay published in a supplement to the July 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The “Poetical Writings of Mrs. essay consists of a selection from the notices that the Messenger has received and quotes liberally from the Elizabeth Oakes Smith, The. letters of criticism. Poe assures readers that care has First Complete Edition. New been taken in selecting among notices so that “no suspicion of unfairness in this selection should be York; J. S. Redfield” (1845) entertained.” The notices are quoted in their entirety, before Poe then responds to particular points. Review by Poe that appeared in the August 23, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. The review observes that ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH owes her reputation as a poet to the publication of “The Sinless Child,” “her longest and perhaps her most meritorious composi- “Poetical Remains of tion.” Poe does not accept the merits of the poem the Late Lucretia Maria in total, finding the conception to be “original, but Davidson. Collected and somewhat forced” and the execution effective in parts, but he observes that “the conduct, upon the Arranged By Her Mother, whole, is feeble, and the denouement is obscure, and With a Biography By Miss inconsequential.” The review suggests that critics should confine themselves to passages extracted from Sedgwick. Lea & Blanchard, the poem, for many of such passages “possess merits Philadelphia” (1841) of a lofty order.” Poe then examines sections from the work to illustrate this point. He also compares a Review by Poe that appeared in the December 1841 portion of Smith’s poem “The Water” with lines from issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe praises the bio- HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW and concludes graphical portion of the work and states “that noth- with the question, “If this is not a plagiarism, and a ing could be more intensely pathetic.” He is more very bold one, on the part of Professor Longfellow, skeptical when approaching the poetry and states will anybody be kind enough to tell us what it is?” that he was forced “to dissent from that extravagant eulogium which had its origin, beyond doubt, in a confounding of the interest felt in the poetess and her sad fortunes with a legitimate admiration of her “Poetic Principle, The” works.” The review asks that the works be judged on (1848) their present merit, not on what the author might have written had she lived, and asserts that no fur- Essay by Poe that appeared in the December 1848 ther development may have occurred for “the mind issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 261 10/12/07 12:02:35 PM 262 “Poetry of Life, The. By Sarah Stickney, Author of ‘Pictures of Private Life.’ . . . ” essay closely resembles, and is based on, Poe’s lec- Republished by Carey, Lea, & ture on the same topic, first delivered on December 20, 1848, in Providence, Rhode Island. Poe uses Blanchard” (1836) excerpts from 11 poems by such writers as WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON, Review by Poe that appeared in the January 1836 THOMAS HOOD, HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The Percy Bysshe Shelley, and ALFRED LORD TENNYSON review opens with a list of the categories into which to provide examples to support his ideas. This essay Stickney has sorted the poems in this anthology, and combines with “The RATIONALE OF VERSE” to form Poe’s comment that the title of the work should be the foundation of Poe’s critical theory. Poe suggests more specific to indicate the rather limited design of that true poetry results from a combination of “the the work. Examining Stickney’s intention to “treat simple elements which induce in the Poet himself of poetic feeling, rather than poetry,” Poe writes, the true poetical effect.” Despite his own sometime, “she is, we think, insufficiently alive to the delica- lengthy poems, Poe states that “A long poem does cies of the beautiful—unable to fully appreciate the not exist.” Instead, the epic and other long poems energies of the sublime.” To support that assertion, are simply composed of “a series of minor poems.” Poe reprints without comment Stickney’s attempt Some critics have seen this as Poe’s own explana- to bring a passage from LORD BYRON’s Childe Har- old “down to the level of ordinary composition.” In tion for the unpopularity of “AL AARAAF” and his failure to finish other long works. In the essay, he contrast, however, he cannot remain uncritical in also rejects didacticism and takes a stand against her handling of lines from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s using poetry to convey moral principles or to teach. “Ode to Naples,” “of whose exquisite beauty she has evidently not the slightest comprehension.” He He argues that the sole reason for a poem’s exis- ends the review with a recommendation that “Miss tence should be its aesthetic essence, and the poet Stickney should immediately burn her copy of Shel- should aim to create “this poem which is a poem ley—it is to her capacities a sealed book.” and nothing more—this poem written solely for the poem’s sake.” He writes that the poet should be a creator and perfector of beauty, not the manufac- turer of a tool that has a purpose to teach or preach. “Poetry of Rufus Dawes— Poe suggests that poets may find truth in the simple elements that surround them, such as “the volutes A Retrospective Criticism, of the flower . . . the clustering of low shrubber- The” (1842) ies . . . the waving of the grain-fields . . . the blue distance of the mountains . . . the grouping of the Review by Poe that appeared in the October 1842 clouds . . . the twinkling of half-hidden brooks issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe opens his review . . . the gleaming of silver rivers . . . the repose of of RUFUS DAWES’s work by quoting the opinion of sequestered lakes . . . the star-mirroring depths of RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD that “the standing of Mr. lonely wells.” The poet may also perceive truth in Dawes is as yet unsettled; there being a wide differ- “all noble thoughts—in all unworldly motives,” as ence of opinion respecting his writings.” The review well as in a woman’s beauty and love. then examines the factors that have resulted in what Griswold called “Dawes’s “high poetical reputation” and determines that this view “might be received as evidence of his actual merit . . . were it not too scan- “Poetry of Life, The. By Sarah dalously at variance with a species of criticism which will not be resisted.” To test the validity of Griswold’s Stickney, Author of ‘Pictures assertion, Poe has made “inquiry into the true char- of Private Life.’ Philadelphia: acter of the volume to which we have before alluded,

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and . . . this inquiry has but resulted in the confirma- tion of our previous opinion; and we now hesitate not to say, that no man in America has been more shamefully over-estimated than the one who forms the subject of this article.” To support this assertion, Poe analyzes in detail Dawes’s poem “Geraldine.” Calling it “a most servile imitation of the ‘Don Juan’ of Lord Byron” and “a mere mass of irrelevancy,” Poe quotes stanzas from the poem, pointing out that “this is a droll piece of business” in which the poet’s works “may be regarded as a theatrical world of mere verbiage, somewhat bedizened with a tinselly meaning well adapted to the eyes of the rabble.” Poe addresses those who insist on lauding Dawes’s poems that “his poems have not been condemned, only because they have never been read.”

“Poets and Poetry of America, with an Historical Introduction, The. By A youthful Rufus Griswold, whose Poets and Poetry of Rufus Wilmot Griswold. America Poe reviewed (Courtesy of Library of Congress) One Vol. Carey & Hart: Philadelphia” (1842) The reviewer also feels that the editor “has unduly favored writers of New England.” Aside from these Review by Poe that appeared in the June 1842 issue two negative observations, Poe finds the book, “as a of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe wrote that the one-vol- whole, is one of high merit,” and “a good work.” ume anthology “is the best collection of the American Poets that has yet been made, whether we consider its completeness, its size, or its literary worth.” The review provides details about the work, noting that “Posthumous Memoirs the selections begin with the poems of Philip Fre- neau and include the works of approximately 88 of His Own Time. By Sir authors, each selection “prefixed [with] a short but N. W. Wraxall, Baronet. clear biography.” Halfway through the review, Poe writes that while his “general opinion of the book” is Author of ‘Memoirs of My that it is superior to any other, “we do not, however, Own Time.’ Philadelphia: always coincide with the judgment of the editor.” Poe Republished by Carey, Lea & especially disagrees with RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD’s choice of poets and feels that he “has scarcely done Blanchard” (1836) justice to some of our younger poets,” in particular JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, “to whom others than our- Review by Poe that appeared in the October 1836 selves have assigned a genius of the highest rank.” issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 263 10/12/07 12:02:35 PM 264 “Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club: Containing a Faithful Record . . . ” reviewer praised the work, stating that “the Baron- Published by Carey, Lea & et’s pages will excite no ordinary attention, and will be read with unusual profit and pleasure.” Poe pro- Blanchard” (1836) vides a detailed account of the work and includes a description of the information contained within Review by Poe that appeared in the November as well as an account of the objections to various 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. portrayals voiced by members of the royal family Poe’s review of this novel by CHARLES DICKENS con- and leading political figures. Readers learn that tains the same high level of respect for the English first lord of the Treasury, the son of Charles Jen- author’s talent that he had expressed in an earlier kinson, “was offended at the ‘just and impartial’ review of Watkins, Tottle and Other Sketches, and character given his father.” The partisans “arose which he would repeat in reviewing The Old Curi- in arms at what they considered the gross abuse osity Shop and Barnaby Rudge. Before the review of their leaders.” The royal family “disliked the conducts a thorough examination of the incidents portrait drawn of King George the Third,” and in the novel, it praises the “comic power” and “the “the Earl of Bute would not be appeased.” Review- rich imaginative conception of Mr. Dickens” and ers in the British Quarterly Review had labeled the asserts that “his general powers as a prose writer are equalled by few.” Poe ends the review by quoting book an “ ‘imbecile and immoral work,’ ” while the the concluding portion of “a vigorous sketch” titled Edinburgh Review “joined in the hue and cry with “A Madman’s MS.” still greater virulence, and even more disgusting personal abuse.” Poe includes abridged versions of several of the more interesting narrations from the work to illustrate its general character with “Postscript to ‘A Reply its “political facts and inferences—attempts at explaining the hidden motives of ministers or their to Outis’ ” agents—rumors of the day—and remarks upon public events or characters abroad. Although the See “A CONTINUATION OF THE VOLUMINOUS HIS- reviewer seems to relish the details, he admonishes TORY OF THE LITTLE LONGFELLOW WAR—MR. POE’S the author and notes that “the Baronet is sadly FURTHER REPLY TO THE LETTER OF OUTIS.” given to scandal, and is peculiarly piquant in the indulgence of his propensity.” “Powhatan: a Metrical Romance in Seven Cantos. “Posthumous Papers of the By Seba Smith. New York, Pickwick Club: Containing Harper and Brothers” (1841) a Faithful Record of the Perambulations, Perils, Review by Poe that appeared in the July 1841 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe begins the review by Travels, Adventures, and correcting the error made in notices of the poem, Sporting Transactions which speak of the author as “Mrs. Seba Smith.” He points out the use of the personal pronoun “of of the Corresponding the masculine gender” throughout and questions Members, The. Edited if the error is made because “no gentleman has read even so far as the preface of the book. . . . by ‘Boz.’ Philadelphia: If so, they are decidedly right, too.” The review

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 264 10/12/07 12:02:35 PM Preface and Introduction to The Conchologist’s First Book, 1839 265

proceeds to denounce the work in the most scath- as having been closely paraphrased from Captain ing of terms. After stating that the book is free of Thomas Brown’s The Conchologist’s Textbook, pub- typographical errors “from one end to the other,” lished in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1837. The body Poe writes that “further than this, in the way of of The Conchologist’s First Book is not original; commendation, no man with both brains and con- by arrangement with the author, Poe paraphrased science should proceed.” Calling the poem “a flat Wyatt’s Manual of Conchology, a more expensive affair,” the reviewer condemns the author’s failure book published unsuccessfully by Harper’s. Wyatt to provide “any artistic arrangement of his facts.” paid Poe $50 to popularize the work and to lend Halfway through the review, Poe begins to refer his name to it by issuing an edition with Poe’s to SEBA SMITH by the name of the protagonist of name on the title page and leaving Brown entirely his epistolary novel Letters of Major Jack Downing. without credit. The arrangement, which helped The lack of explanation is confusing to the reader, Wyatt to avoid trouble over copyright, created but an explanation for this appears in Poe’s entry tensions between Harper’s and Poe that six years for Smith in “AUTOGRAPHY.” In that work, Poe later made them refuse his request that they issue stated that this poem is “precisely such a one as his collected works. we might imagine would be written by a veritable Jack Downing; by Jack Downing himself, had this creature of Mr. Smith’s fancy been endowed with a real entity. . . . [A]t least one-half of his character actually exists in the bosom of his originator. It was the Jack Downing half that composed ‘Powhatan.’ ”

Preface and Introduction to The Conchologist’s First Book, 1839 (1839)

Poe’s contribution to the scientific manual on conchology, whose complete title is The Con- chologists’s First Book: or, A System of Testaceous Malacology, published in April 1839 by Haswell, Barrington & Haswell and created for use in schools. The book was attacked for having been plagiarized, although Poe contended that aside from writing the preface and the introduction, he had served merely as editor of the work. The preface, which Poe signed E. A. P., explains the terms Malacology and Conchology and acknowledges Mr. THOMAS WYATT “and his late excellent ‘Manual of Conchology.’ ” The three pages of introduction contain quotations from scientists and are used to introduce 12 pages of engravings of shells, including their parts and hinges. Critics of Poe’s time identified much of the work contained in the pref- Poe wrote the preface and introduction and lent his ace and introduction, including the engravings, name to this scientific manual. (Robert Gregor)

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 265 10/12/07 12:02:36 PM 266 “Prose Works of John Milton, The, With a Biographical Introduction by . . . ” “Prose Works of John Milton, even one accidental whiff of the unadulterated air of truth.” Poe does not pretend to be oblivious to The, With a Biographical the “many defects” in the poem, and he notes that Introduction by Rufus Wilmot “its prevalent blemishes are referrible [sic] chiefly to the leading sin of imitation” of such writers as John Griswold. In Two Volumes. Dryden and GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON. A far Philadelphia: Herman harsher criticism is leveled at the “gross obscenity, the filth—we can use no gentler name—which dis- Hooker” (1845) graces the ‘Quacks of Helicon,’ ” which Poe asserts “cannot be the result of innate impurity in the mind Review by Poe that appeared in the September 27, of the writer.” Instead, he judges that Wilmer was 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. Poe praises simply engaging in “the slavish and indiscriminat- RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD for correcting with this ing imitation of the Swift and Rochester school.” work what he believes to have been an egregious The review states that Wilmer’s inclusion of vul- error among Americans, “that no edition of the Prose gar material has done the book “an irreparable Works of John Milton has hitherto been issued in injury, without effecting anything whatever on the America.” The review points out, nonetheless, that score of sarcasm, vigour, or wit.” Poe also finds Griswold has produced two volumes that “contain fault with the title for not being distinctive enough nearly all the prose works of Milton,” and he has nor for not confining itself to “American quacks, omitted a treatise entitled “The Christian Doctrine,” while the work does.” Despite such criticism, Poe which he mentions in the introduction as being of finds that this poem, “even in its mannerism, has doubtful authorship—“a work which [Milton] never imbued itself with the full spirit of the polish and would have given to the press himself.” Poe counters pungency of Dryden,” and it has the “far loftier that Griswold has little authority for this idea and merit of speaking fearlessly the truth, at an epoch asserts that despite this assertion, the introduction when truth is out of fashion.” He praises Wilmer, “is, nevertheless, well written, and well adapted to its who shows the courage to review by name “most purposes. . . . At points, however, it may be thought of our prominent literati, and treats them, gener- extravagant or dogmatic.” Although the review labels ally, as they deserve.” Poe adds his voice to that of them “trifles,” it points out further areas of disagree- Wilmer in condemning the literary “cliques” and ment with Griswold, particularly in his evaluation of “coteries,” from whom Poe the author also suffered, Bacon: “We have no patience with the initial sneer and notes that “we speak of these things in the bit- at Bacon, as ‘the meanest of mankind.’ ” Poe also terness of scorn.” Even in his approval of Wilmer’s finds that Griswold is too effusive in labeling JOHN attacks, Poe feels that the work fails to allow for MILTON “the greatest of all human beings,” suggest- exceptions to the charges, for “it cannot be gaining that “he should have appended the words—‘in said that the greater number of those who hold the opinion, at least, of Dr. Griswold.’ ” high places in our poetical literature are absolute nincompoops. . . . [N]either are we all brainless.” Poe asserts that Wilmer “as often tilts at what is “Quacks of Helicon: A Satire. true as at what is false,” but he feels that the fear- lessness and design of the book will “save it from By L. A. Wilmer, The” (1841) that dreadful damnation of ‘silent contempt’ ” to which he expects editors will consign it. Review by Poe that appeared in the August 1841 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. The reviewer decries the lack of satires by American writers and welcomes Wilmer’s book because it is new and well “Rambler in North America, executed. More important, he welcomes the book 1832–33, The. By Charles because “in the universal corruption amid which we gasp for breath, it is a really pleasant thing to get Joseph Latrobe, Author

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 266 10/12/07 12:02:36 PM “Reminiscences of an Intercourse with Mr. Niebuhr, the Historian, . . . ” 267 of ‘The Alpenstock,’ &c. the human enjoyment of equality, fitness. To this enjoyment, also, all the moods of verse—rhythm, New York: Harper and metre, stanza, rhyme, alliteration, the refrain, and Brothers” (1835) other analogous effects—are to be referred.” This rationale of verse states that the human enjoyment Review by Poe that appeared in the December 1835 of equality, whose “idea embraces those of similar- issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Writ- ity, proportion, identity, repetition, and adaptation ten by the son of English missionaries, the book or fitness,” is also an important factor in creating consists of 37 letters that the author sent to his verse. “Unpractised ears can appreciate only simple younger brother while traveling with WASHINGTON equalities, such as those found in ballad airs. . . . IRVING on “a late tour through the [American] Prai- Practised ears, on the other hand, appreciate both ries.” Poe expresses approval of Latrobe’s approach equalities at the same instant. . . . One is heard to his subject for “viewing us, not with a merely and appreciated from itself: the other is heard by English eye, but with the comprehensive glance of a the memory.” The essay also provides readers with citizen of the world.” The review includes a passage a lesson in scansion, both the nature of different from one of the letters in which Latrobe ponders metres and their uses by specific poets, although American social and political principles, which Poe Poe finds that when the ancient Greek and Latin believes to be the sole passage that exhibits a “false verse is “scanned by the Prosodial rules we can, for inference from data undeniably correct.” Despite the most part, make nothing of it whatever.” The this one point of disagreement, Poe declares this opposite is true of English verse in which “the more “the best work on America yet published.” emphatically we dwell on the divisions between the feet, the more distinct is our perception of the kind of rhythm intended.” “Rationale of Verse, The” (1843) “Reminiscences of an Critical essay by Poe conceived as a lecture and Intercourse with Mr. Niebuhr, first published as “Notes on English Verse” in the the Historian, During a March 1843 issue of the Pioneer. Poe revised the essay and added material to expand the earlier Residence with Him in Rome, emphasis upon English verse. The revised and final in the Years 1822 and 1823. version of the essay, now titled “The Rationale of Verse,” appeared in the October–November 1848 By Francis Lieber, Professor of issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Crit- History and Political Economy ics consider the essay to be Poe’s most complete account of his theory of metrics and poetic form. in South Carolina College. Poe elaborates in this essay upon topics that are Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & introduced in “The POETIC PRINCIPLE” and “The PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION,” with the aim of pro- Blanchard” (1836) viding a systematic analysis of versification. Poe argues for a formal approach to the composition Review by Poe that appeared in the January 1836 of a poem, rather than an approach that allows issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. creative whim free rein. For the poet to achieve a Although Lieber’s book professes to relate his dis- true totality of effect, Poe suggests that the poet courses in Rome with German historian Barthold must turn his attention in composition to the care- Georg Niebuhr (1776–1831), the major part of fully orchestrated use of parallelism, refrain, and the review is devoted to presenting background repetition. According to Poe, “Verse originates in information on Niebuhr’s accomplishment and

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 267 10/12/07 12:02:36 PM 268 “Reply to Outis, A”

to delineating Lieber’s misadventures in mak- expresses high praise for the “hardihood and daring a then-forbidden direct journey from Greece ing of that branch of our commercial marine to Rome. The review contains an account from employed in its trade” and suggests that their cour- the book that describes Lieber’s first interview with age and fortitude have been responsible for “our Niebuhr, after finally reaching Rome; the begin- enviable position among the great maritime pow- ning of their two-year sojourn in the Eternal City; ers.” Poe states that the report under review is and their nine-year correspondence. Despite a loss based upon information that supports such praise of many of his papers to the police, Lieber offers of these “daring men” who have pursued “a dan- what the review calls an invaluable account that gerous and arduous occupation, amid the perils enables the reader “to form a more accurate idea and casualties of an intricate navigation, in seas of the truly great man . . . than we have hitherto imperfectly known.” Judged by the reviewer to be entertained.” “clear, manly, decided,” the report also “enlists our sympathies in the hardships and difficulties they have encountered” and makes a case for increasing “the operations of our commerce in the quarter “Reply to Outis, A” indicated.” Poe also praises JEREMIAH REYNOLDS, whose “Address on the Subject of a Surveying and See “A CONTINUATION OF THE VOLUMINOUS HIS- Exploring Expedition to the Pacific Ocean and TORY OF THE LITTLE LONGFELLOW WAR—MR. POE’S South Seas” he reviewed in the SOUTHERN LIT- FURTHER REPLY TO THE LETTER OF OUTIS.” ERARY MESSENGER of January 1837. The address became his major source for the NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM. The review ends with Poe’s approval that Reynolds “has been appointed to the “Report of the Committee highest civil situation in the expedition; a station which we know him to be exceedingly well quali- on Naval Affairs, to Whom fied to fill.” Were Referred Memorials From Sundry Citizens of Connecticut Interested in the “Review of Stephens’ Arabia Whale Fishing, Praying That Petraea” (1837)

An Exploring Expedition Review by Poe that appeared in the October 1837 Be Fitted Out to the Pacific issue of the New York Review. Poe characterized the archaeological monograph and travelogue by Ocean and South Seas. John L. Stephens, titled Incidents of Travel in Egypt, March 21, 1836” (1836) Arabia Petraea and the Holy Land, as “two volumes of more than ordinary interest—written with a Review by Poe that appeared in the August 1836 freshness of manner, and evincing a manliness of issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe feeling, both worthy of high consideration.” In a asserts that the United States has long required lengthy review, Poe described in detail the jour- “a more accurate, defined, and available knowl- ney taken by Stephens and the obstacles that he edge” of the Pacific Ocean and environs, not only had to overcome in completing that journey. The for the sake of increased trade but also because review compliments Stephens for writing two vol- “the Pacific may be termed the training ground, umes with “an utter absence of pretension, which the gymnasium of our national navy.” The review will secure them the respect and good-will of all

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 268 10/12/07 12:02:36 PM “Russia and the Russians; or, a Journey to St. Petersburg and Moscow, . . . ” 269

parties.” Despite his assertion that “Mr. Stephens “in his pictures of the Roman populace, and in writes like a man of good sense and sound feel- those of the Roman nobles of the fourteenth cen- ing,” Poe challenges the accuracy of Stephens’s tury.” Poe writes that the work, while offered as account of the crossing of the Red Sea by Moses fiction, is “History. We hesitate not to say that and states that “Mr. Stephens is here greatly in it is History in its truest—in its only true, proper, error, and has placed himself in direct opposition and philosophical garb . . . vitality of Historic to all authority on the subject.” Poe also corre- Truth.” The review relates that the work presents sponded with CHARLES ANTHON and asked him to “a profound and lucid exposition” of the nature of translate several Hebrew quotations from the Old government and its relationship to freedom and Testament that he believed contained inaccurate ignorance, “Tyranny in the few and Virtue in the references. many,” and that it offers a viable argument for the role of people in determining their governance. The review contains a lengthy extract, chapter five of the sixth book, to substantiate Poe’s asser- “Rienzi, the Last of the tions, and ends with one more reminder of “the Tribunes. By the Author exceeding power” of the work. of ‘Eugene Aram,’ ‘Last Days of Pompeii,” &c. “Russia and the Russians; or, &c. Two Volumes in One. a Journey to St. Petersburg Philadelphia: Republished and Moscow, Through by E. L. Carey and A. Courland and Livonia; with Hart” (1836) Characteristic Sketches Review by Poe that appeared in the February of the People. By Leigh 1836 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Ritchie, Esq. Author of The historical novel written by EDWARD BULWER- LYTTON receives high praise in the review, as does ‘Turner’s Annual Tour,’ its author, of whom Poe writes, “We have long ‘Schinderhannes,’ &c. learned to reverence the fine intellect of Bulwer. We take up any production of his pen with a Philadelphia: E. L. Carey positive certainty that, in reading it, the wildest and A. Hart” (1836) passions of our nature, the most profound of our thoughts, the brightest visions of our fancy, and Review by Poe that appeared in the July 1836 issue the most ennobling of our aspirations will, in due of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The review turn, be enkindled within us.” After comparing praises the ability of the writer to make Russia and Bulwer-Lytton with a number of contemporary the Russians come alive with “all the spirit and writers and finding them wanting, Poe declares glowing vigor of romance.” Poe asserts that Ritchie him “unapproached.” He then summarizes the provides in the travelogue “a brilliant mass of anec- current work, which he has declared the writ- dote, narrative, description and sentiment” and er’s “best novel.” Assuring readers that “he has finds the book to be “full of every species of enter- adhered with scrupulous fidelity to all the main tainment.” The review ends with an excerpt of the events in the public life of his hero,” Poe also author’s sketch of St. Petersburg to show the vivid relates that Bulwer-Lytton has been scrupulous nature of Ritchie’s writing.

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 269 10/12/07 12:02:36 PM 270 “Sacred Mountains, The: By J. T. Headley,—Author of ‘Napoleon and His Marshalls,’ . . . ” “Sacred Mountains, The: By Important Additions, and J. T. Headley,—Author of Some Modifications to Adapt ‘Napoleon and His Marshalls,’ It To American Readers. ‘Washington and His By F. W. P. Greenwood. Generals, Etc.’ ” (1850) In Four Volumes. Marsh,

Posthumous review by Poe that appeared in the Capen, Lyon, and Webb, October 1850 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY Boston” (1840) MESSENGER. The review was published with the following announcement: “From advance sheets of Review by Poe that appeared in the March 1840 ‘The Literati,’ a work in press, by the late Edgar issue of BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE. Poe A. Poe, we take the following sketches of Headley approved of the careful arrangement of topics and and Channing—as good specimens of that toma- the vast amount of information about physical hawk-style of criticism of which the author was so science contained in the work, making it “espe- great a master. In the present instances the satire is cially well adapted to those educational purposes well-deserved. Neither of these sketches we believe for which the volumes are designed.” The review have been in print before.” This review focuses on digresses into a discussion of the accuracy of sev- Headley. A review of WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING’s eral translations from the Hebrew, but Poe soon work appears in “OUR AMATEUR POETS, NO. 3.” apologizes for having “been led from our immediate Poe begins his attack early in the review with purpose.” Poe concludes the review by declaring the statement that “Mr. Headley belongs to that that the work “is a book of which every one must numerous class of authors, who must be read to be think well.” understood, and who, for that reason, very seldom are as thoroughly comprehended as they should be.” Poe points out the weaknesses in Headley’s “design . . . to render more familiar and life-like, “Satirical Poems” (1845) some of the scenes of the Bible.” He takes issue Critical essay by Poe that appeared in the March with the created conversations among biblical fig- 15, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. The ures and asserts that the renderings of incidents essay observes that American journals and news- from the Old Testament are inaccurate. Despite papers have published some commendable prose his contention that “we mean no disparagement to satire, but they have been deficient in producing Mr. Headley,” Poe proclaims him “the Autocrat of satire in verse: “[We] are scarcely so much sati- all Quacks.” rists, as subjects for satire.” Poe acknowledges that recent works have been “intended either for satire or burlesque, on the ground that it is impossible “Sacred Philosophy of the to comprehend them as anything else,” but they fail to meet his standards. The essay ponders the Seasons, Illustrating the reason for this lack and compares it to the wealth Perfections of God in the of satire in England, which leads to the conclusion that “in America . . . the people who write are the Phenomena of the Year. By people who read—and thus in satirizing the people the Rev. Henry Duncan, D.D., we satirize only ourselves, and feel no real sympathy in the satire.” Nonetheless, Poe identifies PARK Ruthwell, Scotland. With BENJAMIN’s “Infactuation” as “full of nerve, point

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 270 10/12/07 12:02:37 PM “Sketches of Conspicuous Living Characters of France. Translated by R. M. Walsh. . . . ” 271 and terseness” and suggests that this is an effort in “Sheppard Lee: Written by the direction of producing good satire. He quotes 18 lines verbatim from the poem. Himself. New York: Harper and Brothers” (1836)

Review by Poe that appeared in the September 1836 “Saul, A Mystery” issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe provides a detailed summary of this novel, written See “COXE’S SAUL.” by ROBERT MONTGOMERY BIRD. The plot involves the transmigration of the hero’s soul through three bodies, touches on situations that reflect the author’s antislavery leanings, and incorporates “Secret Writing” comments on American manners and morals. The conclusion of the novel reveals that the hero has See CRYPTOGRAPHY. merely been ill; in that condition, he dreamed that he had died and that his soul had entered three other bodies. The review declares the novel to be “clever, and not altogether unoriginal” and the “Select Orations of Cicero: incidents “well conceived.” Poe objects, however, to the author’s conception of metapsychosis and with an English Commentary, the way in which Bird handles the narrative. and Historical, Geographical and Legal Indexes. By Charles Anthon, LL.D. Jay—Professor “Sketches of Conspicuous of Ancient Literature in Living Characters of France. Columbia College, and Rector Translated by R. M. Walsh. of the Grammar School. Lea & Blanchard” (1841)

New York: Harper and Review by Poe that appeared in the April 1841 Brothers” (1837) issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe briefly deals with each of the 15 “men now playing important parts in Review by Poe that appeared in the January 1837 the great drama of French affairs” and compliments issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The the original author, who published the sketches “in review opens with praise for CHARLES ANTHON: weekly numbers at Paris . . . someone who styles “[T]his gentleman has done more for sound schol- himself ‘un homme de rien’ [a man of nothing, i.e., a arship at home, and for our classical reputation nobody]—the better to conceal the fact, perhaps, abroad, than any other individual in America.” that he is really un homme de beaucoup” [a man After listing Anthon’s accomplishments, Poe of importance]. Poe takes the translator to task, examines his skills as a critic and commentator and however, for “the volume now before us is, in some feels that they “must be regarded with the highest respects, not very well done.” He asserts that the consideration.” Praising the simplicity of Anthon’s translator has taken “too little care . . . in rendering approach, Poe concludes “he has given the world the French idioms by English equivalents” and that evidence of a comprehensive as well as of an acute the manuscript contains “a thousand outrageous and original understanding.” typographical errors.”

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 271 10/12/07 12:02:37 PM 272 “Sketches of History, Life, and Manners in the West. By James Hall. Philadelphia: . . . ” “Sketches of History, Life, “Skimmings; or A Winter and Manners in the West. At Schloss Hainfeld in By James Hall. Philadelphia: Lower Styria. By Captain Harrison Hall” (1835) Basil Hall, Royal Navy,

Review by Poe that appeared in the December F. R. S. Philadelphia: 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSEN- Replenished By Carey, Lea & GER. The review briefly describes the content of (1836) the work, the object of which is “the sketching of Blanchard” character and life in the West,” rather than the Review by Poe that appeared in the October 1836 furnishing of topographical details, with which issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Not- similar books have been concerned. Poe reminds ing that “skimmings” is “hardly better, as a title, readers that Hall had made his name as an author than ‘Pencilling’ or ‘Inklings’,” Poe calls the use of by writing tales and legends—“Wild romance the term in the title “a little affectation.” The work and exciting adventure form its staple”—and provides a series of anecdotes about the Countess editing the Western Monthly Magazine. In con- Purgstall, who “had no little influence in the forma- trast, the book reviewed is nonfiction. The first tion of the literary character of Sir Walter Scott.” volume deals with the government treatment of This “elderly Scotch lady” was “an early friend” of the Aborigines, the adventures of white settlers the author’s father. Poe declares Captain Hall to be of Ohio, and the manners of the French in the “no ordinary writer.” Mississippi valley. The second volume deals with the Burr conspiracy and various military operations. Poe promises readers that they will find “in the book a fund both of information and “Slavery in the United States. amusement.” By J. K. Paulding. New York: Harper and Brothers / The “Sketches of Switzerland. By South Vindicated from the an American, Part Second. Treason and Fanaticism of Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & the Northern Abolitionists. Blanchard” (1835) Philadelphia: Published by H. Manly” Review by Poe that appeared in the December 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSEN- A review of two books that has often been referred to GER. Poe asserted that the volumes were “more as the “Paulding-Drayton Review,” after the author- entertaining upon the whole than those which ship of the previously anonymous second book was preceded them” and praises Cooper for looking identified as WILLIAM DRAYTON. Critics have dis- at Switzerland “with a more instructed eye than agreed as to who actually wrote this review, some the mass of travellers.” The review is brief by assigning authorship to Poe and others identifying design, because, Poe observes, “As the book will Judge NATHANIEL BEVERLEY TUCKER as the author, be universally read it is scarcely necessary to say because both men submitted material anonymously more.” to the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. William

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 272 10/12/07 12:02:37 PM “Some Account of Stonehenge, the Giant’s Dance, A Druidical Ruin in England” 273

Doyle Hull was the first to question the authorship invited by a benevolent lady in Philadelphia to leave in his 1941 dissertation for the University of Virginia, her mistress.” The slave was tempted to try to escape “A Canon of the Critical Reviews of Edgar Allan and to accept the “good wages” offered by the lady, Poe.” In contrast, Arthur Hobson Quinn, one of the until she learned that she would be responsible for most distinguished of Poe biographers, continued to her own health and well-being should she become attribute the reviews to Poe. In the six decades since ill. According to the account, the “negress” reacted the question first arose, critics continue to debate with shock when the woman answered “no” to her the authorship, with each side providing close read- following statement: “And if I am sick or any thing, I ings of Poe’s and Tucker’s writings and of their cor- am sure you will take care of me, and nurse me, like respondence. The major point of contention arises my good mistress used to do, and bring me some- from the blatantly proslavery nature of the review. thing warm and good to comfort me, and tie up my The lengthy article begins as a review of the two head and fix my pillow.” The writer offers a further works, both of which support the tradition of slavery example to support his assertion of “the moral effect in the South, but it quickly becomes an idealistic of slavery” in describing the devotion of a pregnant defense of the institution of slavery. After a lengthy slave who refused to leave the bedside of her dying digression on the “perfectibility of the human mistress, despite repeated commands by the mas- nature,” “the lawless appetite of the multitude for ter to do so. At the conclusion of the article, the the property of others,” and the issue of “public sen- writer berates those who, “in reforming the world timent,” the writer thanks Paulding, “a Northern address themselves exclusively to the faults of oth- man . . . for the faithful picture he has drawn of slav- ers, and the evils of which they know the least, and ery as it appeared to him in his visit to the South.” which least concern themselves.” Noting that critics He also praises the author of the second work, which of the institution of slavery are numerous, he writes, “is more calculated to excite our indignation against “Nothing is wanting but manly discussion to con- the calumnies which have been put forth against vince our own people at least, that in continuing to us . . . seeking our destruction under the mask of command the services of their slaves, they violate Christian Charity and Brotherly Love.” The writer no law divine or human, and that in the faithful dis- recommends both works and asks leave “to add a charge of their reciprocal obligations lies their true few words of our own.” In what becomes more than duty. . . . [S]ociety in the South will derive much one half of the article, he then paints an idealistic more of good than of evil from this much abused and picture of the master and slave relationship as one partially-considered institution.” of emotional codependence in which the sentiments and loyalties between the two “are stronger than they would be under like circumstances between individuals of the white race.” He maintains that “Some Account of “the habitual use of the word ‘my,’ used in the lan- Stonehenge, the Giant’s guage of affectionate appropriation . . . is a term of endearment. That is an easy transition by which he Dance, A Druidical Ruin who is taught to call the little negro ‘his,’ in this in England” (1840) sense and because he loves him, shall love him because he is his.” Taking his sentimental, if unrealistic, argu- Essay by Poe that appeared in June 1840 in BUR- ment further, the writer provides the example of TON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE. Poe writes that the kindly master who “prolongs the life of the aged despite having “excited more surprise and curiosity and decrepid [sic] negro, who has been, for years, than any other relic of antiquity in Great Britain,” a burthen [or] . . . labors to rear the crippled or the site is relatively unimpressive when viewed from deformed urchin, who can never be any thing but a distance and “even on a near examination it fails a burthen.” He also writes “of a negress who was to fulfill the expectations of the stranger who visits it

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 273 10/12/07 12:02:37 PM 274 “Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison-House”

with exaggerated prepossessions.” Instead, Poe sug- AND LADY’S BOOK in February 1846. The review gests that visitors should view it “with an artist’s eye” lauds the poet’s “poetic fervor, classicism of taste, and contemplate it with “an intellect stored with and keen appreciation of the morally as well as antiquarian and historical knowledge.” Following the physically beautiful.” In the first review, Poe these recommendations, Poe methodically describes reprints two of the poems and three of the sonnets the layout of the inner and outer circles of the site, in their entirety as examples of the superiority of citing the number of stones of which Stonehenge this “most exquisite volume of poems.” The second originally was composed (129) and the number of review omits the three sonnets and is more criti- stones remaining in 1840 (109). He is careful to list cal of the poet’s technique. Poe includes “Alone” various theories of the origins of Stonehenge, but he in both reviews. In the first, Poe declares that shows no favor to any one theory. “ ‘Alone’ evinces, we think, more of the true poetic inspiration—and undoubtedly more of originality in conception than any other of Mrs. Hewitt’s poems.” In the second review, he finds significant “Some Secrets of the Magazine technical fault obscuring the merit of the work Prison-House” (1845) “first, by its frequent inversions, and secondly, by its rhythmical defects . . . especially the excessive Article by Poe that appeared in the February 15, use of difficult consonants.” While Poe concluded 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. The focus the initial review “favorably impressed with the of the article is the need for an international copy- book,” the second is unenthusiastic: “Mrs. Hewitt right law, the lack of which prevented authors has, upon the whole, given indication rather than from collecting money due them by booksellers immediate evidence of poetic power. If not dis- and sent many writers “into the service of Maga- couraged, she will undoubtedly achieve, hereafter, zines and Reviews.” Although the magazines pay, a very desirable triumph.” See also MARY ELIZA- Poe asks “Why (since they must pay) do they not BETH HEWITT. pay with good grace, and promptly?” He provides the example of a starving writer who might die while waiting to receive payment for his work. At the end of the piece, Poe asks two favors of read- “Stanley Thorn. By Henry ers: not to think that he writes from any personal experience, and not to apply any of his remarks Cockton, Esq., Author to any living magazine publisher, for “they are of ‘Valentine Vox, the all as remarkable for their generosity and urbanity, as for their intelligence, and appreciation of Ventriloquist,’ &c., with Genius.” Numerous Illustrations, Designed by Cruikshank, “Songs of Our Land, and Leech, &c., and Engraved Other Poems, The. By Mary By Yeager. Lea & Blanchard: E. Hewitt. Boston. William D. Philadelphia” (1842) Ticknor & Co.” (1845) Review by Poe that appeared in the January 1842 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe begins the Review by Poe that appeared in the October 25, review by stating that the novel under review will 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL and was be attractive “to the uneducated, to those who read reprinted with revisions in GODEY’S MAGAZINE little, to the obtuse in intellect.” People “who can

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 274 10/12/07 12:02:37 PM “Synopsis of Natural History; Embracing the Natural History of Animals, with Human . . . ” 275

think but who dislike thinking,” and those “who able ‘work,’ ” Poe asserts that “in the name of ‘fate, have no brains with which to ‘work up’ the mate- fore-knowledge and free will,’ we solemnly consign rial” are also potential readers of the novel. In Poe’s it to the fire.” view, the book demands nothing of the reader and “it is not in the least degree suggestive;” thus, he finds it without interest. “Synopsis of Natural History; Embracing the Natural “Street Paving” (1845) History of Animals, with

Essay by Poe that appeared in the April 19, 1845, Human and General Animal issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. Poe begins the Physiology, Botany, Vegetable essay with the fact, “remarkable” to him, that in the last 2,000 years, “the world has been able Physiology, and Geology, to make no essential improvements in road-mak- A. Translated From the ing.” He then provides a detailed technical discussion of road-making in ancient Rome, with Latest French Edition of C. a thorough explanation of “Macadamizing,” the Lemmonnier, Professor of use of “true pavement,” and other approaches to road-making. He admits in the essay that all such Natural History in the Royal information is “very school-boyish,” but he justi- College of Charlemagne; With fies giving it to readers because it is used in “fairly collating the ancient and modern ideas on the Additions From the Works of general topic of road-making.” Having made a Cuvier, Dumaril, Lacepede, thorough study of the issue, Poe determines that wooden pavements are the road-making material Etc., Arranged as a Text Book of choice and suggests that they should be used for Schools. By Thomas to repair the deteriorating road surfaces in New York City. Wyatt, A.M., Author of Elements of Botany, a Manual of Conchology, Etc. Thomas “Swiss Heiress; or The Bride Wardle, Philadelphia” (1839)

of Destiny, The. Baltimore: Review by Poe that appeared in the July 1839 issue Joseph Robinson” (1836) of BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE. As the work is a translation, Poe writes, “we need say little more Review by Poe that appeared in the October 1836 in the way of recommendation than that all the issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe useful spirit of the original has been preserved— sets the tone for the review with his opening state- and this we say from personal knowledge, and the ment that the novel “should be read by all who closest inspection and collation.” Poe expresses have nothing better to do.” After a detailed sum- approval for Wyatt’s change of the form of text, mary, during which Poe makes snide remarks as which he recommends as a necessary textbook in he describes characters or situations, the review schools, from “the tabular form of the French pub- concludes with the assurance that “the whole story lication to one better suiting the purposes of our ends judiciously.” Declaring that the novel is “valu- American schools.”

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 275 10/12/07 12:02:37 PM 276 “Tales and Sketches. By Miss Sedgwick, Author of ‘The Linwoods,’ ‘Hope Leslie,’ . . . ” “Tales and Sketches. By Miss sion, a happy talent for working up a story, and, above all, a far more profound and philosophical Sedgwick, Author of ‘The knowledge of the hidden springs of the human Linwoods,’ ‘Hope Leslie,’ &c heart, and a greater skill in availing herself of that knowledge, than any of her female contemporaries.” &c. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, Poe provides a brief synopsis of each of the three & Blanchard” (1836) stories to show the extent of the author’s talents, then includes several passages from the first and Review by Poe that appeared in the January 1836 longest of the three stories, “Winifred, Countess of Nithsdale,” to provide “conclusive evidence of issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe writes that most of the 11 tales have been pub- [her] talent and skill.” The review ends with the lished before, and he provides a brief synopsis and recommendation that the author give more of “her critical commentary of each, selecting as the best time to the exaltation of her literary fame” to attain “The Eldest Sister.” The review compliments the lasting renown. author for finally pulling together these writings “which have been so long floating at random before the eye of the world,” yet suggests that the timing is not quite right. Because this is Sedgwick’s early “Tale-Writing—Nathaniel work, it compares unfavorably with her recently Hawthorne.—Twice- published and reviewed novel The Linwoods. Poe ends the review with the warning that “the descent Told Tales. By Nathaniel from good to inferior (although the inferior be very Hawthorne. James Munroe far from bad) is most generally detrimental to literary fame.” & Co., Boston. 1842.— Mosses From an Old Manse. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. “Tales of the Peerage and the Wiley & Putnam, New York. Peasantry, Edited by Lady 1846” (1847)

Dacre. New York: Harper & Review by Poe that appeared in the November Brothers” (1835) 1847 issue of GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND LADY’S BOOK. Although Poe allows that the stories of Review by Poe that appeared in the December both volumes “rivet the attention,” he faults Haw- 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. thorne for a lack of passion and a tendency to rely Poe begins the review by chastising Lady Dacre on the “abstract ideas of allegory.” This negative for “this excessive show of modesty, or rather this view of Hawthorne’s work contrasts sharply with most unpardonable piece of affectation” in list- his review of Twice-Told Tales that appeared in the ing herself as the editor on the title page of this April and May 1842 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE republication of her work. In the earlier publi- (see TWICE-TOLD TALES, below). Unlike the ear- cation she had claimed authorship, and, as Poe lier review in which he lauds Hawthorne as a man points out, despite the identification as editor on of genius, here, Poe notes “His books afford strong the title page, she continues to proclaim herself internal evidence of having been written to himself the author in the preface. The review is enthusias- and his particular friends alone.” Moreover, in this tic in its praise of Lady Dacre, who “is a writer of review, Poe asserts of Hawthorne, “He is peculiar infinite genius, possessing great felicity of expres- and not original. . . . He is infinitely too fond of

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 276 10/12/07 12:02:38 PM “Thoughts on His Intellectual Character” 277

allegory, and can never hope for popularity so long The review reveals nothing of the plot, stating only as he persists in it.” Although Poe praises Haw- that “there is no attempt at plot, but some of the thorne for having “the purest style, the finest taste, incidents are woefully inadapted and improbable.” the most available scholarship, the most delicate Poe is equally disdainful of the author’s “transpar- humor, the most touching pathos, the most radi- ent puerile attempt to throw ridicule upon the min- ant imagination, the most consummate ingenuity, isterial party” by giving them “silly names” that are and with these varied good qualities he has done meant to represent their characteristics. well as a mystic,” he also suggests that Hawthorne’s works are incomprehensible to ordinary readers. The rancor of this review might be explained by Poe’s negative opinion of the New England writers Thiodolf, The Icelander and in general. For more than three years, Hawthorne Aslauga’s Knight (1846) had been living at the Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s home. In German novel that Poe reviewed in an untitled Poe’s mind, such a residency aligned Hawthorne review in “MARGINALIA” in the December 1846 with the transcendentalist circle (see TRANSCEN- issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. The work is No. 60 DENTALISM) and, more particularly, with such jour- of Wiley & Putnam’s Foreign Series of The Library nals as The Dial and the North American Review, of Choice Reading. The review begins with a state- both inimical to Poe and his work. In his review, ment regarding the cultural inadequacies of the Poe berates Hawthorne for such associations and German people and states that the work “could ends the review with the following advice: “Let never have been popular out of Germany. It is too him mend his pen, get a bottle of visible ink, come simple—too direct—too obvious—too bald—not out from the Old Manse, cut Mr. Alcott, hang (if sufficiently complex—to be relished by any people possible) the editor of ‘the Dial,’ and throw out of who have thoroughly passed the first (or impul- the window to the pigs all his odd numbers of the sive) epoch of literary civilization.” To explain why North American Review.” literary German remains backward, the reviewer reminds readers that “during the whole of the middle ages they lived in utter ignorance of the art of writing.” As a result, the Germans are far behind such “Ten Thousand a Year. By literally enlightened nations as France and Eng- the Author of ‘The Diary of a land. The review expresses even greater contempt for German criticism, as Poe “cannot refrain from London Physician.’ Carey & laughing all the more heartily, all the more seri- Hart, Philadelphia” (1841) ously I hear it praised.” Of the work under scant consideration in this article, Poe states in the final Review by Poe that appeared in the November paragraph, “it’s kind can never be appreciated by 1841 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe found the Americans.” novel, a periodical novel written by Dr. Samuel Warren, to be “ ‘shamefully ill-written.’ Its mere English is disgraceful to an L.L.D.” The review asserts, “The book is full too of the grossest misus- “Thoughts on His Intellectual ages of language—the most offensive vulgarities of Character” speech and violations of grammar.” Poe finds the tone to be “mawkish and inflated,” the moralizing See “LITERARY REMAINS OF THE LATE WILLIAM HAZ- is “tedious in the extreme,” and “two thirds of the ILY, WITH A NOTICE OF HIS LIFE BY HIS SON, AND novel might have been omitted with advantage.” THOUGHTS ON HIS GENIUS AND WRITINGS.”

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 277 10/12/07 12:02:38 PM 278 “Thoughts on the Religious State of the Country; with Reasons for Preferring Episcopacy. . . . ” “Thoughts on the Religious notes that the plot of “the revulsion of feeling on the part of the usurer is a very antique conception at State of the Country; with best.” Despite the flaws, Poe concludes by esteeming Reasons for Preferring the play “by far the best American play.” Episcopacy. By Rev. Calvin Colton. New York: Harper & “Tower of London: A Harper” (1836) Historical Romance, The. Review by Poe that appeared in the June 1836 issue By W. H. Ainsworth. Author of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The review of ‘Jack Shepherd.’ One opens by noting that Colton’s previous book, Four Years in Great Britain, was accepted by the press Volume. Lea & Blanchard, “with universal approbation. We heard not a dis- Philadelphia, 1841” (1841) senting voice. . . . Nor in any private circle, we believe, were the great merits of the work disputed.” Review by Poe that appeared in the March 1841 Poe asserts that the book under review is a “suf- issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe opens the review ficiently well-written performance” but that Colton with the assertion that “it is rarely our lot to review “excuses himself for apparent inconsistency in now a work more utterly destitute of every ingredient declaring an opinion against the expediency of the requisite to a good romance.” He declared that the practices which were scandalized.” Although Poe novel “is, at once, forced and uninteresting. It is writes that “all classes of the Christian community such a novel as sets one involuntarily to nodding.” who admire perspicuity, liberality, frankness, and Poe observes that the incidents are dull and the unprejudiced inquiry” will read the book “with plea- character unrealistic, and he declares this novel to sure and profit,” he concludes, “in style the work be “a blot on our literature and a curse to our land.” appears to us excessively faulty—even uncouth.”

“Tortesa, the Usurer: A “Traits of American Life. Play. By N. P. Willis. Samuel By Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, Colman, New York” (1839) Editor of ‘The American Ladies’ Magazine,’ and Review by Poe that appeared in the August 1839 Author of ‘Northwood,’ issue of BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE. Poe also included a discussion of the play in his essay “The ‘Flora’s Interpreter,’ &c &c. AMERICAN DRAMA” that appeared in the August Philadelphia: E. L. Carey and 1845 issue of the AMERICAN WHIG REVIEW. Poe determined that the merits of the play lay in “the higher A. Hart” (1835) and more difficult dramatic qualities . . . naturalness, truthfulness, and appropriateness, upon all occasions, Review by Poe that appeared in the December of sentiment and language.” Although Poe lauds the 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. “refined taste upon every page,” he asserts that “the Poe writes that the volume is “beautifully printed,” plot is inconsequential. . . . The characters, generally, and he assures readers that “its neat external are deficient in prominence—in individuality.” Poe appearance is its very least recommendation.” He also points out a large number of improbabilities and does, however, question the author’s assertion in

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the preface that the sketches and stories in the poem,” but concedes that the tale is an excellent work “have not entirely the attraction of novelty to venue which treats “terror, or passion, or horror, plead in their favor—but the author trusts that the or a multitude of such other points.” The exami- sentiments inculcated, and principles illustrated, nation of the merits of tales as a form is supported are such as will bear a reiteration.” Although Poe by numerous references to Hawthorne’s collection, believes that he has read some of the selections ear- which “belong to the highest region of Art—an Art lier, he questions if Sedgwick is indicating that the subservient to genius of a very loftly order.” Poe sin- material is previously published or if she is alluding gles out specific stories in the collection to support to the manner of presentation as not exhibiting his assertions that “Mr. Hawthorne’s distinctive trait novelty. Whichever her meaning, Poe declares that is Invention, Creation, Imagination, Originality—a all 14 of the articles “are all written with grace and trait which, in the literature of fiction is positively spirit and form a volume of exceeding interest.” worth all the rest. . . . Mr. Hawthorne is original at all points.” He relates that “ ‘The Wedding Knell’ is full of the boldest imagination—an imagination fully controlled by taste. The most captious critic could “Twice-Told Tales. By find no flaw in this production.” Of “The Minister’s Black Veil,” he states that it “is a masterly composi- Nathaniel Hawthorne. Two tion in which the sole defect is that to the rabble its Volumes. Boston: James exquisite skill will be caviare,” while “ ‘Mr. Higginbo- tham’s Catastrophe’ is vividly original and managed Munroe and Co.” (1842) most dexterously” and “ ‘Dr. Heidegger’s Experi- ment’ is exceedingly well imagined, and executed Review by Poe that appeared in two parts in the with surpassing ability.” Poe concludes his review by April and the May 1842 issues of GRAHAM’S MAGA- lauding the intellectual capabilities and literary skills ZINE. Poe lavishes praise on the collection of stories of NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, claiming he “is a man and the author. He writes: of the truest genius. We only regret that the limits They are each and all beautiful, without being of our Magazine will not permit us to pay him that characterised by the polish and adaptation so full tribute of commendation, which, under other visible in the tales proper. A painter would at circumstances, we should be so eager to pay.” Five once note their leading or predominant feature, years later, Poe seemed to change his mind about and style in repose. There is no attempt at effect. Hawthorne’s genius. See also “TALE-WRITING.” All is quiet, thoughtful, subdued. Yet this repose may exist simultaneously with high originality of thought; and Mr. Hawthorne has demonstrated the fact. At every turn we meet with novel com- “Undine: A Miniature binations; yet these combinations never surpass Romance; From the German the limits of the quiet. We are soothed as we read; and withal is a calm astonishment that of Baron De La Motte ideas so apparently obvious have never occurred Fouqué. Colman’s Library of or been presented to us before. Romance, Edited by Grenville Poe uses the tales, which he further describes as “the product of a truly imaginative intellect,” as Mellen. Samuel Colman, a springboard for the discussion of the differences New York” (1839) between other literary forms and the tale, “as Mr. Hawthorne has here exemplified it.” He notes that Review by Poe that appeared in the September the author who aims to represent beauty cannot do 1839 issue of BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE. so in prose, “For Beauty can be better treated in the Poe provides a lengthy summary of the translated

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 279 10/12/07 12:02:38 PM 280 “Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman. . . . ” work and uses the review as a forum in which to “Vicar of Wakefield, The, A point out the flaws of allegory, an “indefensible species of writing—a species whose gross demerits Tale. By Oliver Goldsmith, we cannot now pause to examine.” He does, how- M.B. Illustrated with ever, observe that the “undercurrent of meaning” of the allegory “does not afford the fairest field to Numerous Engravings. With the romanticist,” but surmises that Fouqué took an Account of the Author’s that route for his novel consciously “and that a personal object alone induced him to choose it.” Life and Writings. By J. Poe expresses high praise for the novel, which “is Aikin, M.D., Author of Select a model of models, in regard to the high artistical talent which it evinces.” He praises the unity of the Works of the British Poets. D. novel, which he calls “the finest romance in exis- Appleton & Co.: tence.” In the final analysis, Poe asks, “What can be more intensely beautiful than the whole book?” New York” (1842)

Review by Poe that appeared in the January 1842 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe opens the review “Ups and Downs in the Life with praise for the publication, as it is “one of a class which it behoves every editor in the country of a Distressed Gentleman. to encourage, at all times . . . of well-printed, and By the Author of ‘Tales and especially, of well-illustrated works from among the standard fictions of England.” He discusses at con- Sketches, Such as They Are’ siderable length the pleasures to be derived from New York: Leavitt, good illustrations but does not discuss the novel itself. The review also praises the biographical essay Lord & Co.” (1836) provided by the editor, Aikin, which provides all that “need be known of Oliver Goldsmith.” Poe Review by Poe that appeared in the June 1836 issue finds only one flaw in the work, an error on the first of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe makes page of the biographical sketch, in which Aikin his dislike of this novel clear from the beginning refers to the masculine Goldsmith with the femi- of the review: “The book is a public imposition.” nine word form protégée instead of protégé. The negative observations escalate as he provides detailed summaries of each chapter in turn. Poe asserts that the introduction “is by much the best portion of the work—so much so, indeed, that we fancy it was written by some kind, good-natured “Voices of the Night. friend of the author.” The review continues in an By Henry Wadsworth ironic tone, pointing out such insignificant details from the novel as “the young gentleman was exces- Longfellow. John Owen, sively fond of oysters.” After describing “the entire Cambridge” (1840) pith and marrow of the book,” Poe asserts that “the term flat, is the only general expression which Review by Poe that appeared in the February 1840 would apply to it. In it is written, we believe, by Col. issue of BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE. Poe Stone of the New York Commercial Advertiser, begins the review by briefly complimenting HENRY and should have been printed among the quack WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW for being a man of imagi- advertisements in a space corner of his paper.” nation and for having “ability as regards the very

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 280 10/12/07 12:02:38 PM “Wigwam and the Cabin, The. By William Gilmore Simms. First Series. . . . ” 281

loftiest qualities of the soul.” He then devotes the mean?” As he concludes the review, Poe gives the greater part of the review to attacking Longfellow’s poet the following advice: “Mr. Mathews, you have deficiencies and identifying sources from which he clearly mistaken your vocation, and your effusion as plagiarized the poems in the volume. Poe says the little deserves the title of poem, (oh sacred name!) poet “is singularly deficient in all those important as did the rocks of the royal forest of Fontainebleu faculties which give artistic power, and without that of ‘mes déserts’ [my deserts] bestowed upon which never was immortality effected.” The review them by Francis the First.” One can only conclude condemns Longfellow for having “no combining or that Poe credits Mathews with the same ignorance binding force” and “nothing of unity.” Although or inability to correctly perceive what exists that Poe asserts “it is by no means our design to speak Francis the First showed in calling rocks his desert. of the volume before us in detail,” he gives detailed attention to several of the poems, pointing out that Longfellow’s “Midnight Mass for the Dying Year” is remarkably similar to Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “Watkins Tottle, and Other “The Death of the Old Year.” The review professes to “have no idea of commenting, at any length, upon Sketches, Illustrative this plagiarism,” but Poe does castigate Longfellow of Every-Day Life, and for the act “which belongs to the most barbarous class of literary robbery.” Every-Day People. By Boz. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Blanchard” (1836) “Wakondah; The Master of Review by Poe that appeared in the June 1836 issue Life. A Poem. George L. Curry of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The review & Co.: New York” (1842) lists the names of the sketches contained in the book, noting that “broad humor is . . . the prevail- Review by Poe that appeared in the February 1842 ing feature of the volumes,” but it also praises “The issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe’s negative feel- Black Veil” for being “an act of stirring tragedy, and ings toward the poem, written by the magazine edi- evincing lofty powers in the writer.” Poe never iden- tor CORNELIUS MATHEWS, are clear from the outset tifies “Boz” as CHARLES DICKENS, but he does praise of the review as he questions why Curry & Co. had highly the author’s artistry: “we pause at every sen- been “at the trouble of its [the poem’s] republica- tence, not to dwell upon the sentence, but to obtain tion” and states, “We are vexed with these gentle- a fuller view of the gradually perfecting picture.” men for having thrust this affair the second time before us.” The reviewer expresses regret at having to review the poem but vows to speak “very distinctly.” In short, Poe writes, “ ‘Wakondah,’ then, “Wigwam and the Cabin, from beginning to end, is trash. With the trivial The. By William Gilmore exceptions which we shall designate, it has no merit whatever.” To prove his assertions, the reviewer Simms. First Series. Wiley & then quotes extensively from the poem, noting, “Were it possible, we would quote the whole poem Putnam’s Library of American in support of our opinion.” The tone of the review Books. No. IV” (1846) is sarcastic throughout. At one point, after quoting a passage, Poe writes, “Now, Mr. Mathews, we put Review by Poe that appeared in the January 1846 it to you as to a man of veracity—what does it all issue of GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND LADY’S BOOK. This

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 281 10/12/07 12:02:39 PM 282 “Wiley & Putnam’s Library of American Books. No. IV. The Wigwam and the Cabin. . . . ”

was Poe’s second of two different reviews of this work. and takes the opportunity first to discuss Simms’s (See “WILEY & PUTNAM’S LIBRARY OF AMERICAN work as a novelist, then to identify briefly the plots of BOOKS. NO. IV. THE WIGWAM AND THE CABIN. BY several of the novels before turning to the collection. WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS.”) Poe opens both reviews Poe selects “Murder Will Out” as “the most meritori- with a discussion of the writer’s earlier work, but in ous” of the stories and expresses “no hesitation in this one he points out the “bad taste” that WILLIAM calling it the best ghost-story we ever read.” He adds GILMORE SIMMS showed in his anonymously pub- that “the other tales of the volume are all excellent lished Border Beagles, and which might also be seen in in their various ways” and provides their titles. The The Yemasseee, The Partisan, and “one or two other of review ends with an excerpted passage from “Murder the author’s earlier works.” The “bad taste” to which Will Out,” although Poe cautions readers to bear Poe refers is Simms’s “strange propensity for min- in mind “the absolute impossibility of conveying, by ute details of human and brute suffering, and even extract, any just conception of a story whose main indulged at times in more unequivocal obscenities.” element is its skilful adaptation of parts.” Poe also finds Simms’s English “exceedingly objectionable—verbose, involute, and not unfrequently ungrammatical.” He objects to the use of what he calls pet words, “of which we remember at present Wreath of Flowers from New ‘bug,’ ‘coil,’ and the compound ‘old-time’.” To clarify England, A (1846) the title and nature of the collection, Poe quotes from the author’s preface, in which Simms writes that Poe reviewed this work by FRANCES SARGENT in the delineation of the character of the planter, the OSGOOD in her entry in “The LITERATI OF NEW squatter, the Indian, the negro, the bold and hardy YORK CITY,” appearing in the September 1846 issue pioneer, and the vigorous yeoman, “I have mostly of GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND LADY’S BOOK. Poe wrote drawn from living portraits,” As in the earlier review, that Osgood exhibits “deep feeling and exquisite Poe finds the first story in the collection “Murder taste” and that her work had not been as widely Will Out” to be the best of the collection, “an admi- circulated as it deserved. rable tale, nobly conceived, and skilfully carried into execution.” In this review Poe does not list the other stories in the collection, nor does he excerpt a passage, as he did in the original version. “Writings of Charles Sprague. Now First Collected. Charles S. Francis, New York” (1841) “Wiley & Putnam’s Library of American Books. No. Review by Poe that appeared in the May 1841 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe opens the review by IV. The Wigwam and the questioning assertions in the “ ‘publisher’s preface’ ” that the author had done “ ‘nothing to promote’ ” Cabin. By William Gilmore the work, but that he has “ ‘only not forbidden’ ” Simms” (1845) it. Poe finds this “unnecessary rigamarole, not to say of superfluous humbug,” and suggests that the Review by Poe that appeared in the October 4, 1845, poet might be guilty of “counterfeit[ing] a modesty issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. This is Poe’s first of which he does not feel.” In reviewing the poems, two different reviews of the work. (See “The WIGWAM Poe criticizes popular taste, selecting “Shakespeare AND THE CABIN.”) Poe writes that this book is one of Ode” as “the best of them. It carries the essential the most interesting of the books yet published, as error to the height of its perfection.” He observes well as “decidedly the most American of the Ameri- that public opinion would disagree and dismisses its can books.” The review praises the collection of tales importance, writing that “Public opinion, however,

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 282 10/12/07 12:02:39 PM “Zanoni, A Novel. By the Author of ‘Pelham,’ ‘Rienzi,’ &c. Two Volumes. . . . ” 283 is a certain intangible something of which we have and Domestic Duties, The. no opinion at all.” Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, & Blanchard” (1836) “Wyandotté, or The Hutted Review by Poe that appeared in the January 1836 Knoll. A Tale, By the issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe Author of ‘The Pathfinder,’ describes the book as “made up of mingled amusement and instruction” and recommends it to both ‘Deerslayer,’ ‘Last of the “that particular class of fair friends for whom it is Mohicans,’ ‘Pioneers,’ ‘Prairie,’ most obviously intended,” as well as to “all lovers of good reading.” Although the lessons on moral duties, &c., &c. Lea & Blanchard: manners, fashion, and like subjects meet with Poe’s approval, he finds fault with the manner of publica- Philadelphia” (1843) tion. Unable to locate information on the title page or in the preface, Poe writes: “[E]very reader, in Review by Poe that appeared in the November 1843 perusing a book, feels some solicitude to know, for issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe opens the review example, who wrote it; or (if this information be not by stating that the present work is “precisely similar attainable,) at least where it was written—whether to the novels enumerated in the title.” He notes that in his native country, or in a foreign land—whether as with the other novels, interest in the novel does it be original or a compilation—whether it be a not stem from plot but depends upon “first the nature new publication or a re-publication of old matter— of the theme; secondly, upon a Robinson-Crusoe- whether we are indebted for it to one author, or to like detail in its management; and thirdly, upon the more than one.” Of the 73 articles in the book, Poe frequently repeated portraiture of the half-civilized identifies only 24, leaving him frustrated regarding Indian.” The review then follows these observa- the sources of those remaining. tions with a detailed summary of the novel, and the reviewer points out that “It will be at once seen that there is nothing original in this story. . . . it is even excessively commonplace.” Although Poe finds the “Zanoni, A Novel. By the development of the story wanting, he writes, “In the depicting of character, Mr. [James Fenimore] Coo- Author of ‘Pelham,’ ‘Rienzi,’ per has been unusually successful.” In particular, the &c. Two Volumes. Harper & review notes that “The negroes are, without exception, admirably drawn. The Indian, Wyandotté, is Brothers” (1842) the great feature of the book.” Review by Poe that appeared in the June 1842 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe’s review of the novel by EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON begins with reference Year in Spain, A. By a Young to an earlier “incomprehensible” effort, a fragment American called Zicci that was “the jest of the reviewers for years.” Of Zicci, Poe writes that “its only merit was the novelty of having no merit at all.” He identi- See LIEUTENANT ALEXANDER SLIDELL MACKENZIE. fies the current offering as the same novel under “an altered name.” After a lengthy summary of the work, which contains Rosicrucian themes and “Young Wife’s Book; A is set in Naples of the previous century, Poe concludes that “the subject is unfit for prose. It properly Manual of Moral, Religious, belongs to the drama.” Poe provides a lengthy list of

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 283 10/12/07 12:02:39 PM 284 “Zinzendorff, and Other Poems. By Mrs. L. H. Signourney. New York: . . . ”

faults in the novel, then concludes that “There are issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. many fine thoughts in these volumes . . . the book is Poe suggests that she has gained fame for her a valuable addition to our imaginative literature.” poetry because she has been part of the correct literary clique, “she has trod, however, upon the confines of their circle.” More to the point, he “Zinzendorff, and Other states broadly, “no single piece which she has written, and not even her collected works as we Poems. By Mrs. L. H. behold them in the present volume, and in the Signourney. New York: one published some years ago, would fairly enti- tle her to that exalted rank which she actually Published by Leavitt, Lord & enjoys.” After pointing to flaws in her works, Poe Co., 1836” (1836) finds the poem “Zinzendorff” to be “particularly good—always sweet—occasionally energetic.” Review of the poetry collection by Lydia Huntley For the most part, her work is too imitative for Signourney that appeared in the January 1836 his admiration.

013-284_Poe-p2.indd 284 10/12/07 12:02:39 PM PART III

Related Entries

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Abernethy, Dr. John (1764–1831) Well-known, in “PINAKIDIA” calls The Persians one of the “only eccentric British physician to whom C. Auguste historical tragedies by Grecian authors.” Dupin refers in “The PURLOINED LETTER” when suggesting that the prefect of police employ coun- Ainsworth, William Harrison (1805–1882) Pro- sel in the matter. Dupin relates that a miserly rich lific English novelist whose work was strongly criti- patient, hoping to receive free medical advice by cized by Poe for being boring and pandering to the posing a hypothetical question, asked Abernethy lowest of popular tastes. The author of 41 novels, what one should take in a particular situation. The among them “The TOWER OF LONDON,” “GUY physician replied, “Take advice.” FAWKES,” and Jack Sheppard, he became popular among Victorian readers, but Poe asserted in his Adams, John (1773–1825) Mayor of Richmond, review of The Tower of London that such “popularity Virginia. He gave weapons to the young Poe, who of this work in London is no proof of its merit.” In was then a member of the paramilitary Junior Vol- “MARGINALIA,” Poe further denigrated the author’s unteers, and instructed him to use them in forming work by noting, “I cannot imagine why it is that a bodyguard when the French general Lafayette Harrison Ainsworth so be-peppers his books with visited the city in 1824. his own dog Latin and pig Greek—unless he agrees with Encyclopedia Chambers, that nonsense sounds Addison, Joseph (1672–1719) English essayist worse in English than in any other language.” Poe whose work appeared frequently in the Spectator includes the author in “The BALLOON-HOAX” as a and the Tatler. Poe admired Addison for his origi- passenger on the transatlantic voyage. nal and natural style. In his sketch of NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK Albermarle, County of The site of the University CITY,” Poe equates Willis’s command of language of Virginia, which Poe attended from February 1, with Addison’s “easy brilliance.” 1826, through December 15, 1826. The county had a distinguished history, as well as the distinction of hav- Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.) Greek dramatist and ing produced many prominent Americans, including author of 90 plays, including Seven Against Thebes, President THOMAS JEFFERSON and the explorers MER- The Persians, Prometheus Bound, The Suppliant RIWETHER LEWIS and WILLIAM CLARK. Woman, and the Oresteia (a trilogy), who Poe ranks above SOPHOCLES and Euripides in dramatic ability. Aldrich, James (1810–1856) American poet and He claims in “MARGINALIA” that “Euripides and editor whom Poe accused of plagiarism. In a review Sophocles were merely echoes of Aeschylus,” and of another poet’s work in the January 13–14, 1845, 287

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issue of the New York Evening Mirror, Poe charged that Aldrich’s poem “A Death-Bed” was a close imitation of the subject and the meter of Thomas Hood’s poem of the same name. He repeated the charge in “MARGINALIA,” but conceded that such imitation did not mean that Aldrich was incapable of writing poetry. Poe also repeated the charge of plagiarism in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY,” then praised Aldrich’s poem “Molly Gray.”

Alexander, Charles W. (1796–1866) Printer working for several newspapers and magazines in Philadelphia in which Poe’s work appeared, including BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE, ALEXANDER’S WEEKLY MESSENGER (of which he was publisher), and the Daily Chronicle.

Alexander’s Weekly Messenger Philadelphia journal owned and published by CHARLES W. ALEX- ANDER and edited by John Frost. From 1839 to 1842, Poe published several articles on cryptograms and cryptography in this magazine. Frances Keeling Valentine Allan, the first wife of John Allan, Frances Keeling Valentine (1785–1829) Allan and Poe’s foster mother (Courtesy of Edgar Allan Poe’s foster mother and the first wife of JOHN Poe Society) ALLAN, she also became one of the languishing women in Poe’s life. She and her husband were unable to have children, although John Allan during his childhood she protected him against her would later have children with his second wife. husband’s anger. After Poe left the Allan house- Mrs. Allan and other “ladies of the most respect- hold in 1827, he continued his contact with her able families” thought it to be their charitable and wrote her affectionate letters. She was chroni- duty to visit sick, impoverished families and to cally ill and died of tuberculosis at the age of 44. take them food and whatever other comfort they In letters written to SARAH ELMIRA ROYSTER, Poe could. The manager of the last theater in which revealed that he felt guilty about her death, feeling ELIZABETH POE, Edgar Allan Poe’s mother, worked that he somehow might have been able to prevent inserted an advertisement in the November 25, it had he remained on good terms with John Allan 1811, edition of the Richmond Enquirer, a state- and continued to live with the family. His grief was ment in appeal on the Poe family’s behalf “to the increased because he could not be with her in her kindhearted of the city.” Mrs. Allan and Mrs. W. final hours due to a bureaucratic delay in process- MacKenzie answered it. When Elizabeth Poe died ing his military papers. He arrived in Richmond less than two months later, the two women took the day after her funeral. the children. Edgar went with Mrs. Allan, and his sister Rosalie went with Mrs. Mackenzie. Child- Allan, John (1779–1834) Poe’s foster father less for eight years of marriage, Frances Allan wel- and the husband of FRANCES KEELING VALENTINE comed the experience. As Poe’s foster mother, the ALLAN. A Scottish immigrant and Richmond tender and unassertive woman gave young Edgar tobacco mercantiler, Allan at his wife’s urging took the maternal security and love that he craved, and Edgar into their home after the death of ELIZABETH

285-404_Poe-p3.indd 288 10/12/07 12:12:31 PM Allston, Washington 289

ARNOLD POE in 1811. Although Allan reared the several children by different women. Intensely loyal orphaned child as the seeming heir to his fortune, to Frances Allan, Edgar resented John Allan’s he never legally adopted Edgar. Instead, Allan, who treatment of her. Although Allan had been rela- with his partner Charles Ellis eventually became a tively tolerant toward the child Edgar, he became wealthy merchandiser of tobacco commodities and increasingly impatient and abrupt as Edgar entered also inherited a great deal of money from his uncle adolescence, and their relationship continued to WILLIAM GALT, provided Edgar with only mini- deteriorate until Allan’s death. The two were civil mal support. He sent Edgar to the University of to each other after the funeral of Frances Allan in Virginia but failed to provide him sufficient funds February 1829, but no true reconciliation ensued. to buy furniture, clothes, meals, or books. When Upon his death, Allan provided one more insult Edgar dropped out of the college and later won an to his foster son by omitting all mention of Edgar appointment to the United States Military Acad- from his will. He provided inheritances, however, emy at West Point, Allan refused to provide any of for illegitimate twin sons born in 1830, only a year the financial support that would raise Edgar’s mili- after the death of Frances. John Allan continued to tary life from its meager, rigid, and difficult exis- exert a negative influence on Edgar’s life, and this tence of bare survival. Edgar might have tolerated showed in Poe’s tales. Critics have suggested that the frugal coldness that Allan showed him, but he the condemnatory inquisitors of “The PIT AND THE was intensely protective of his foster mother. The PENDULUM” are inspired by the grown Poe’s memo- greatest cause for the deep rift between the two ries of his rigidly authoritarian foster father, and men most likely resulted from Edgar’s discovery that he ridiculed Allan’s rigid materialism in “The that Allan had had extramarital affairs and fathered BUSINESS MAN.”

Allan, Louisa Gabriella Patterson (1800–1881) JOHN ALLAN’s second wife, with whom he had three sons. They married on October 5, 1830, while Poe was a cadet at the United States Military Academy. Unlike FRANCES ALLAN, Louisa had no interest in Poe’s well-being and offered no hope of reconciliation for him. Soon after the marriage, Poe wrote to his foster father for help in obtaining a discharge from the academy. When Allan failed to answer, Poe became derelict in duty to earn a court-martial and dishonorable discharge. Several biographers have suggested that Poe felt hostile toward Louisa because he feared she would increase Allan’s animosity toward him and eliminate all possibility of an inheritance.

Allston, Washington (1779–1843) American painter and the author of a little-read novel Monaldi. In an analysis of Allston’s signature in “AUTOGRA- PHY,” Poe describes his paintings without explanation as “not to our taste.” Poe also describes the faults of Allston’s pencil and pen as identical. He criticizes Allston’s poetry as “not all of a high order of merit” but praises without explanation his “Span- John Allan, Poe’s foster father (Courtesy of Edgar Allan ish Maid” as a poem every reader will remember Poe Society) “with pleasure.”

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Ambler, Richard Carey (1810–1877) A physi- UME” also appeared anonymously in the December cian and Virginia gentleman farmer who was also 1847 issue of the Review. In 1849, the periodical one of Poe’s boyhood friends, Ambler lived across suspended publication, no longer able to pay for the street from the Allan family in Richmond. He contributions. enjoyed swimming with Poe in Shochoe Creek and laughed with him as Poe wrote and recited verses Anacreon of Teos (sixth century B.C.) An that satirized members of a Richmond debating ancient Greek poet whose poems celebrate hedonis- society. With several other schoolmates, Ambler tic virtues. In the poem “ROMANCE,” Poe alludes to and Poe presented dramatic productions under a Anacreon’s emphasis upon wine, women, and song tent in a vacant lot near their homes, for which and ruefully recalls his early reading of Anacreon: they charged admission fees of one cent. “For, being an idle boy lang syne, / Who read Ana- creon, and drank wine, / I early found Anacreon The American Museum of Science, Literature, rhymes / Were almost passionate sometimes.” and the Arts Baltimore journal, originally named North American Quarterly Magazine of Baltimore, Anaxagoras (born c. 500 B.C.) A Greek philoso- which Poe’s Baltimore friend Nathan C. Brooks pher who wrote about the cosmos and expressed purchased in 1838. He changed it to a monthly and thoughts of uniting and integrating the spiritual gave it a new name. The new publication carried and material universes. His writings, especially “On several of Poe’s works from 1838 through 1840, Nature,” appear to have influenced Poe’s concept including “HOW TO WRITE A BLACKWOOD ARTI- of negative creation in “EUREKA.” Anaxagoras CLE” and “LIGEIA.” also receives mention in “LOSS OF BREATH” and in “PINAKIDIA,” in which Poe states that “Anaxagoras American Quarterly Review A Philadelphia of Clazomenae is said to have prophesied that a periodical edited by Robert Walsh, to whom Poe stone would fall from the sun.” once appealed for advice regarding poetry. Mention of the publication appears briefly in the SOUTHERN Andreini, Giovanni Battista (1579–1654) An LITERARY MESSENGER of June 1835. actor, composer of opera, and dramatist mentioned in “PINAKIDIA.” Poe credits Andreini with providing American Whig Review A New York City peri- the source for JOHN MILTON’s Paradise Lost (1637) odical originated and edited by GEORGE H. COLTON, in his religious play L’Adamo (1613), which tells to whom JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL recommended the Creation story and provides in its character of Poe as an editorial assistant in December 1844. Adamo the source of Milton’s Adam. Poe had pronounced Colton’s poem “Tecumseh” as “insufferably tedious” as part of his profile of the Anthon, Charles (1797–1867) A professor of editor in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY” series Greek and Latin classics at Columbia College and that appeared in GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND LADY’S an early supporter of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MES- BOOK in May 1846, and Colton had not forgotten SENGER. Poe noticed Anthon’s “Sallust’s Jurgathine the slight. In the same profile, Poe characterized War” in the May 1836 issue of the Southern Literary the Review as “by far the best of its order in this Messenger and asked him by letter to translate sev- country” and characterized it as “a Whig magazine eral Hebrew phrases while preparing his review of of the higher (that is to say, of the five dollar) JOHN L. STEPHENS’s monograph “Incidents of Travel class.” Despite Colton’s hostility toward Poe, the in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land.” Poe Review published an advance proof copy of “The also profiled Anthon in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK RAVEN” in February 1845, but Colton accepted CITY,” calling him “the best classicist in America” the poem with its anonymous author from JOHN and complimenting him on the “extensive erudi- A. SHEA, who acted as Poe’s intermediary in that tion of his Classical Dictionary.” In an analysis of and other attempts to place work. Poe’s “ULAL- Anthon’s signature in “AUTOGRAPHY,” Poe attrib-

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uted to him “the love of elegance—together with tion of the manner in which a cylinder in a vortex the scorn of all superfluous embellishment, which so offers resistance to suction, and Poe refers to it in greatly distinguish the compilations of the writer.” “The DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM.”

Apuleius, Lucius (born c. A.D. 125) Roman Aristarchus (died 153 B.C.) Greek scholar asso- author who wrote Asino Aureo (The Golden Ass), ciated with the great library at Alexandria. Poe a satirical romance about magic and transforma- mentions in “PINAKIDIA” his efforts to standardize tion. The story is narrated in the first person by the Iliad and observes that Aristarchus used all of an immoral young man named Lucius who steals the copies of the epic then in existence to create a potion from a sorceress, thinking that it will turn the definitive version, “a new edition, the text of him into an owl. Instead, he is turned into an ass which has finally prevailed.” and must wander through Greece in this form, becoming the property of a variety of owners. He Aristophanes (c. 446–385 B.C.) Greek comic is finally restored to human form through the inter- dramatist, social satirist, and the author of many vention of the goddess Isis, after the narrative has plays, including The Birds, The Frogs, Dionysus, and produced a series of lively and risqué stories. Poe The Clouds, to whom Poe refers in several works. appears to have known the story well in its original In “MARGINALIA,” Poe honors him for having Latin form, for he mentions one of its lines, “ven- invented rhyme, despite what he sees as a common tum textilum” (woven wind), in “The SPECTACLES.” belief that rhyme is “of modern invention,” and In his review of “ALCIPHRON,” Poe also accuses the recommends that readers “but see The Clouds of poet Thomas Moore of stealing the line “woven Aristophanes.” In the short story “BON-BON,” the snow” from Apuleius. devil stated that he had had occasion to consume the soul of Aristophanes and found that it tastes Arago, Dominique-François-Jean (1786–1853) “racy.” French astronomer and chemist. He appeared in a book of biographies that Poe reviewed, “SKETCHES Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) Greek philosopher and OF CONSPICUOUS LIVING CHARACTERS OF FRANCE. writer whose ideas on psychology, nature, logic, TRANSLATED BY R. M. WALSH.” Poe selects the physics, metaphysics, and ethics appear to have biography of Arago to illustrate Walsh’s skill in been well known to Poe. In “MARGINALIA,” Poe creating verisimilitude, noting that the “genius of identifies Aristotle’s didactic and moral sense as Arago is finely painted, and the character of his the enemy of art and beauty and observes disparag- quackery put in a true light.” ingly that “Aristotle’s Treatise on Morals is next in succession to his Book on Physics, and this he sup- Archer, Robert (1794–1877) An army sur- poses the rational order of study.” In the short story geon at the military hospital at Fortress Monroe, “BON-BON,” the devil dismisses Aristotle’s phi- Virginia, who also had relatives living near JOHN losophy as mere deductive and didactic nonsense, ALLAN in Richmond. Archer attended to Poe dur- claiming that he provided the “one solid truth” ing a serious bout with fever in January 1829, dur- voiced by the philosopher: “ ‘Why it was I who told ing which the young soldier confided in Dr. Archer Aristotle that, by sneezing, men expelled superflu- that he was the foster son of John Allan and that ous ideas through the proboscis.’ ” the name under which he had enlisted, EDGAR A. PERRY, was an alias. Arnay, Jean-Rodolphe d’ (fl. c. 1757) French historian. In “MARGINALIA,” Poe identifies d’ Arnay’s Archimedes (287–212 B.C.) Greek scientist social study De la Vie privée des Romains [Private life and author of scientific works that interested Poe. of the Romans] (1764) as a major source used by In Incidentibus in Fluido, Archimedes provides an EDWARD GEORGE EARLE BULWER-LYTTON in writ- explanation of hydraulic law through his descrip- ing The Last Days of Pompeii. He criticizes Lytton for

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failing to acknowledge this source “which he had so little scruple about incurring.”

Arnold, Benedict (1741–1801) American Rev- olutionary War general who betrayed the Ameri- cans’ fort at West Point to the British after General George Washington gave him the command in 1780. Until well into adulthood, Poe knew nothing about his parents except their names, but he did know that his mother’s maiden name was Arnold. He may have encouraged or even begun the rumor, rampant during his years at the United States Military Academy at West Point, that he was the grandson of the traitor, which added to the air of mystery that he cultivated.

Arnold, Elizabeth (?–1798?) Poe’s maternal grandmother. Once an actress at the Covent Gar- den Theatre in London, she immigrated to Boston, Massachusetts, in January 1796 with her daughter Elizabeth, who became Poe’s mother.

Arnold, William Henry (died 1790) Poe’s maternal great-grandfather and a professional actor at Covent Garden Theatre in London.

Arthur, Timothy Shea (1809–1885) American novelist and editor of the Baltimore Athenaeum and Young Men’s Paper. He is also the author of the famous temperance tale, which later became a play, “Ten Nights in a Barroom and What I Saw There” Timothy Shea Arthur, author of the temperance tale (1854), about an alcoholic whose drinking ruins his “Ten Nights in a Barroom,” drew Poe’s criticism for his family. Poe condemned Arthur’s efforts at social efforts at social reform. (Courtesy of Library of Congress) reform as melodramatic moralizing. In his analysis of Arthur’s signature in “AUTOGRAPHY,” Poe national and international power. He also encouraged observed that Arthur may have “a rich talent for WASHINGTON IRVING to write the travelogue “ASTO- description of scenes in low life, but is uneducated, RIA; OR, ANECDOTES OF AN ENTERPRISE BEYOND THE and too fond of mere vulgarities to please a refined ROCKY MOUNTAINS,” an account of his fur trade in taste.” Poe asserts in a condescending manner that the Northwest, which Poe reviewed. Poe also used Arthur’s “hand is a commonplace clerk’s hand, material from descriptions of Astor’s trading expe- such as we might expect him to write.” ditions on the Columbia River as the basis for the unfinished novel The JOURNAL OF JULIUS RODMAN. Astor, John Jacob (1763–1848) German-born businessman and fur trader. Soon after Astor arrived Auden, W[ystan] H[ugh] (1907–1973) English- in the United States in 1784, he opened a fur store in born poet and literary critic. Auden created a renais- New York City, bought real estate, organized trading sance in Poe studies in the United States when he posts in the West, and used his wealth to become a edited Edgar Allan Poe: Selected Prose and Poetry

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(1950), which led to Poe’s recognition as a major Ayres, Frederic (1876–1926) Pseudonym of the international influence. The edition includes The American composer Frederic Ayres Johnson, who NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM, which Auden lectured and wrote on musical subjects. His musical called “one of the finest adventure stories ever writ- compositions, animated by his love for the Rocky ten.” In Auden’s estimation, Poe provided inspiration Mountains, include the overture From the Plains, to a range of writers from diverse backgrounds, and the song cycle The Seeonee Wolves, and piano pieces by creating “portraits of abnormal or self-destructive including The Open Road, Moonlight, and The Voice states contributed to Dostoyevsky; his ratiocinating of the City. In 1909, Ayres composed music for hero is the ancestor of Sherlock Holmes and his many Poe’s poem “The Sleeper,” a vocal work in three successors, his tales of the future lead to H. G. Wells, parts that the magazine Musical America called “an his adventure stories to Jules Verne and Stevenson.” ultra modern work of great interest.”

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Bacon, Sir Francis [Lord Verulam] (1561–1626) two stanzas of the poem. In 1938, Balan wrote Elegie English essayist and the proponent of a new approach II, Op. 70, a voice and piano score for soprano or to science. In “LIGEIA,” Poe refers to Bacon’s con- tenor and orchestra, based on Poe’s “The HAUNTED cept of beauty stated in “Of Beauty” but misquotes PALACE.” him slightly by altering Bacon’s statement “There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness Balfe, Michael W. (1808–1870) Irish composer in the proportion” to read “There is no exquisite best known for the lighthearted opera The Bohemian beauty without some strangeness in the propor- Girl, among approximately 30 operas and operettas tions.” Poe makes other references to Bacon’s induc- that include The Rose of Castile, Il Talismano, and tive scientific method in reviews, critical essays, and Satanella. In 1865, Balfe wrote melancholy music the tale “MELLONTA TAUTA.” In these references, to accompany the words of Poe’s poem “ANNABEL Poe characterizes as too restrictive both the induc- LEE” and later that year composed a song, made tive and deductive methods of seeking objective up of a full score for a band, to accompany the first truth. He labels as faulty Bacon’s methodology for stanza of “The BELLS.” attaining scientific truth because it “cultivated the natural sciences to the exclusion of Metaphysics, Baltimore, Maryland Poe’s association with the the Mathematics, and Logic.” city of Baltimore began in late March 1831, after he left the United States Military Academy at West Balan, Joan (1892–?) Romanian composer whose Point. He lived for a time with his older brother symphonic works were published in Berlin and Henry in the attic of a home owned by his pater- Vienna and performed in Germany, France, Eng- nal aunt, Mrs. MARIA CLEMM, later his mother-in- land, Holland, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and the law, who also cared for his paternal grandmother Baltic countries. Among these works are the sym- and who was the mother of nine-year-old Virginia, phonic poem Fatum as well as the orchestral pieces Poe’s future wife. The city also contained other Humoreske, Praludium, Suite Fantastique, and others. Poe relatives, some of whom shared their contacts Balan was fascinated by the emotional rhythms of with the young author in attempts to help him to Poe’s poetry and tales and in 1934 composed piano find work. Poe first received literary recognition scores for “The RAVEN,” (Der Rabe), “ULALUME,” during his years in Baltimore, from 1831 to 1835. and “METZENGERSTEIN” (Das Feurpferd). Further He wrote many of his early tales in the attic of Mrs. inspired by “TO ONE IN PARADISE,” the composer Clemm’s home and began to see his work published also wrote in 1934 Elegie, Op. 17, a vocal and piano in Baltimore publications. Poe left Baltimore for score for soprano and orchestra that uses the first Richmond, Virginia, in 1835, but he returned to 294

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Baltimore and died there at three o’clock in the Barry, Lyttleton A pen name used by Poe and morning on October 7, 1849. created from two pseudonyms: the name “Barry Cornwall,” used by the songwriter Bryan Waller Baltimore Sunday Visiter Periodical edited by Procter, and “Mack Littleton,” the name used by LAMBERT A. WILMER. In July 1833, the Visiter offered J. P. Kennedy in writing the 1835 novel Horse- monetary prizes of $25 for the best poem and $50 for Shoe Robinson. Poe published five stories under this the best short story, which prompted Poe to sub- pseudonym: “DUC L’OMELETTE” (1832), “LOSS OF mit his work. The author’s short story “A DESCENT BREATH” (1832), “KING PEST” (1835), “WHY THE INTO THE MAELSTROM” won, and his poem “The LITTLE FRENCHMAN WEARS HIS HAND IN A SLING” COLISEUM” also was selected to win. The judges felt (1837), and “MYSTIFICATION” (1837). that awarding both prizes to the same person would be unfair, so they gave the poetry prize, instead, to Bartlett, Honorable John R. (fl. 1840) Judge in JOHN H. HEWITT for “The Song of the Winds.” After whose New York City home Poe was a frequent Wilmer was replaced as the Visiter’s editor in 1834, visitor during the winter of 1845–46. In letters, Poe mentions of Poe in the paper were far less favorable. observed that he joined “the best intellectual society of the city” at the judge’s home. Barbour, John Strode (1790–1855) Virginia politician. He endorsed Poe’s appointment to the United Baudelaire, Charles (1821–1867) French poet States Military Academy at West Point. and early critical defender of Poe’s work whose translations of Poe remain the best in any language. Barker, George Arranger of four-part recita- Baudelaire is responsible for establishing Poe’s rep- tive chant that uses stanzas 1, 2, 3, 7, 15, 16, 17, utation in France through his translations, which and 18 of “The RAVEN.” Composed in 1866, this were published over 16 years from 1848 to 1864 now out-of-print work was published by J. L. Peters and that now occupy five books of the 12-volume & Bro. The only known copy exists in the library set of Baudelaire’s standard works. Baudelaire also archives of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, published three well-received critical essays about Maryland. Poe’s work. The French poet identified closely with the tortured artist in Poe, referring to him as le Barnum’s Hotel Famous Baltimore hotel at the pauvre Eddie (the poor Eddie) and mon semblable, intersection of Fayette and Calvert Streets, built in mon frere (my likeness, my brother). Writers have 1827 and known for its “canvas-back ducks done found numerous similarities between the two men. rare,” where Poe frequently joined other former Photographs of Baudelaire show him to have had a West Point cadets for supper. MARIA CLEMM’s law- large head with a prominent forehead like that of yer had his offices in the basement of the building. Poe. Both men revolted against the father figures in their lives—Baudelaire against his stepfather, Barrett, Elizabeth [Browning] (1806–1861) General Aupich, and Poe against his foster father, En glish poet and the wife of ROBERT BROWNING. Poe JOHN ALLAN. As literary critics, both were vicious greatly admired her poem “Lady Geraldine’s Court- in their estimation of the works of their peers, ship,” of which he stated in “FIFTY SUGGESTIONS”: and the result was that Baudelaire made numer- “I have never known a poem combining so much of ous enemies, as did his idol. Baudelaire’s personal the fiercest passion with so much of the most delicate life contained the same self-destructive behavior imagination.” Poe dedicated his edition of The RAVEN as Poe’s, and his opium use and alcohol abuse are AND OTHER POEMS to her. He also contributed a widely documented. Decrying that Poe “isn’t much long, double review of her poetry to the BROADWAY in America,” Baudelaire vowed to make Poe a great JOURNAL of January 4, 1845, and January 12, 1845 man in France. In the preface to his work Nouvelles (see “DRAMA OF EXILE AND OTHER POEMS”). histoires extraordinaires, published in 1857, Baudelaire

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examines the psychological aspects of Poe’s work poem “The Seven Old Men,” as it recounts a simi- and analyzes the distinct personality traits that led larly obsessive relationship between the narrator to such creations, declaring Poe one of America’s and a filthy old man in ragged clothing, with dire major poets. Baudelaire’s writings show that he consequences for the narrator. Poe’s influence can reserved his greatest admiration for Poe’s portrayal be seen both throughout the psychological states of extreme mental states, from nightmares through created by Baudelaire and in his stated poetic prin- subconscious fears and insanity that permeate the ciple that poetry should exist for its sake alone and stories. In “Spleen,” Baudelaire lightly rephrased not to teach. the opening sentence of “The FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER” and paraphrased Poe’s conclusion of Beachcroft, Richard O. English musician and “TO HELEN” in “The Living Flame.” In “Voyage to doctor of music (an academic rank) from Oxford Cythera,” Baudelaire rephrases in verse Poe’s narra- University and member of the Royal College of tive description of seabirds devouring a man’s flesh Organists. His composition, a unison chorus with that appears in The NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GOR- piano accompaniment to Poe’s poem “ELDORADO,” DON PYM. In his 1863 critical essay “The Painter of was published in 1925. Modern Life,” in which he praises Poe as “the most powerful pen of our age,” Baudelaire also labels Beale, Upton (fl. 1826) Close friend of Poe’s “The MAN OF THE CROWD” as the best of Poe’s sto- at the University of Virginia who later became an ries. This story also strongly influenced Baudelaire’s Episcopal minister.

Beardsley, Aubrey (1872–1898) English fin-de- siècle artist and illustrator whose work is characterized by a highly imaginative and hedonistic style that gave him a reputation as one of England’s most innovative illustrators. Beardsley’s black-on-white fantastic images, especially the female and her- maphroditic figures, aroused controversy. Beardsley designed posters and wrote fiction, as well as illustrating The Works of Edgar Allan Poe (1894–95).

Bemans, Samuel (1785–1871) New York composer and editor of the monthly musical magazine The Nightengale or the Jenny Lind Songster, devoted to the publication of the choicest songs sung by Jenny Lind and other celebrated vocalists. Bemans composed an unaccompanied melody to “The RAVEN,” probably intended for group singing, which appeared in the June 1850 issue of the Nightengale.

Benjamin, Park (1809–1864) Editor at different times of American Monthly Magazine, New Yorker, Signal, and New World. He defended Poe’s writing in the June 4, 1842, issue of New World, stating that Poe was “one of the best writers now living. . . . [I]n whatever sphere he moves, he will surely be dis- The French poet and critic Charles Baudelaire made tinguished.” Poe appears to have held mixed feel- Poe famous in France. (Courtesy of Library of Congress) ings toward Benjamin, whom he both praised and

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reprimanded in “AUTOGRAPHY.” He characterized express his desire “to purchase the list and unite it Benjamin as independent and critical of all classes with that of the Stylus.” (See STYLUS.) without reservation, “. . . let the consequences fall where they may. He is no respecter of persons, and Bird, Robert Montgomery (1806–1854) Amer- his vituperance as often assails the powerful as the ican novelist, author of Nick of the Woods; or The powerless—indeed the latter rarely fall under his Jibbenainosay (1837). Poe reviewed several of Bird’s censure.” Poe tempered such praise by stating that books for the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, Benjamin’s independence was less a matter of prin- including Calavar, “by far the best of them, and ciple than of personal feelings, “now of friendship, beyond doubt one of the best of American novels.” and again of vindictiveness.” Poe judged his writing Poe included Bird in “AUTOGRAPHY” and noted to be “lucid, terse, and pungent,” and he found that the “degree of nervousness” in his signature the man to be “witty, often cuttingly sarcastic, but exhibited that “a restless and vivid imagination seldom humorous.” Poe pronounced Benjamin’s might be deduced from this MS.” poetry to be “not very dissimilar to Mr. [Washing- ton] Irving’s” and devotes the article “SATIRICAL Bisco, John (fl. 1840) Cofounder with CHARLES POEMS” to its analysis. BRIGGS of the BROADWAY JOURNAL and Poe’s partner for a brief period in 1845. After Briggs left, Bergen, Alfred Hiles (1884–?) American com- Bisco continued to publish with Poe, allowing Poe poser, conductor, and singer born in Milwaukee, a one-third interest in the publication for several Wisconsin, who made extensive song recital tours months. In October 1845, he sold his interest in in the United States and Canada. In 1911, Bergen the magazine for $50 to Poe, who paid him with a composed musical accompaniment to Poe’s poem personal note endorsed by HORACE GREELEY. “TO F———.” In 1926, he composed his Op. 15, No. 1, to accompany Poe’s poem “ANNABEL LEE.” Blackwood, William (1776–1834) The founder He also composed music for male voices with piano and editor of BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE, which or orchestra accompaniment to Poe’s poem “ELDO- abounded in stories of garish psychological states RADO” in 1938 and to “The BELLS” in 1968. and tales of solitary victims in lethal predicaments. Poe included him as a character in several short sto- Bergh, Arthur (1882–1962) American composer, ries. In “HOW TO WRITE A BLACKWOOD ARTICLE,” conductor, and director of recording at the Emerson the character named Blackwood interviews Signora Phonograph Company from 1915 through 1922 and Psyche Zenobia, who wishes to be published, and at the Columbia Phonograph Company from 1922 tells her the way to do so is to use real experiences through 1930. In addition to composing such melo- and embellish them with foreign phrases. dramas as The Pied Piper of Hamelin and The Intruder, the song cycle to The Congo, and numerous piano Blackwood’s Magazine Scottish literary periodi- and violin pieces, Bergh composed a musical melo- cal founded by WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. The material drama for Poe’s “The RAVEN” to be accompanied published in the magazine was often GOTHIC and by piano or orchestra. The first public performance sensational, and it influenced Poe, who sometimes of the work took place at the Hall of Fame of New imitated the writing style. York University on January 19, 1909, with Bergh at the piano. Blaettermann, George (fl. 1826) Professor of modern languages at the University of Virginia Bernard, P. D. (fl. 1840) Prominent Philadelphia during Poe’s residency. Poe’s proficiency in Ital- publisher, printer, and author connected with the ian earned Blaettermann’s praise for his transla- SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe wrote to him tion from Tasso. Poe and other young men at the on March 24, 1843, “to ascertain if the list of ‘The university were also welcomed in the home of the South: Lit: Messenger’ is to be disposed of” and to young German-born professor and his English wife.

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Bliss, Elam (fl. 1830) A New York publisher, the husband/narrator of “LIGEIA” as Poe himself, Bliss seems to have visited Poe at West Point at the with Ligeia as his dead mother, ELIZABETH ARNOLD end of 1830 and made arrangements to bring out a POE, and the second wife Poe’s bride, Virginia. volume of his poetry entitled POEMS. The second Bonaparte interprets falls into an abyss to be Poe’s edition, published in 1831, is dedicated to the West terror of encountering the female genitals. She Point cadets who supplied money for its printing. determines, based on her case studies of the poetry Mr. Bliss had editorial offices at 111 Broadway, and fiction, that Poe was “psychotically disturbed” where Poe, who left West Point early in 1831, and “maternally ambivalent,” and that he also edited the proof pages of his book. Biographers sug- felt deep guilt because of his sexual inadequacy. gest that Bliss was a kind man who probably took Bonaparte’s work initiated a new approach to Poe pity on the nearly penniless Poe and invited him to criticism that used Freudian psychobiography to dine at the publisher’s home at 28 Dey Street. interpret his works.

Bogart, Elizabeth (1806–?) Minor poet reviewed Bonneville, Captain Benjamin Louis Eulalie briefly by Poe in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK de (1796–1878) American army officer who ex- CITY.” Poe relates that she is a member of “one plored the Rocky Mountain region extensively and of the oldest families in the state” and provides a inspired WASHINGTON IRVING’s Adventures of Cap- detailed physical description, as well as information tain Bonneville, U.S.A. Poe mentions Bonneville’s regarding her ability to converse. He notes further expeditions in The JOURNAL OF JULIUS RODMAN. that she “has a keen appreciation of genius and of natural scenery; is cheerful and fond of society.” As Bornschein, Franz (fl. 1936) American com- to her poetry, “Miss Bogart has not yet collected her poser and conductor born in Baltimore who wrote writings in volume form. Her fugitive pieces have in 1935 a three-part chorus for women’s voices, usually been signed ‘Estelle.’ They are noticeable for with orchestra or piano accompaniment, to Poe’s nerve, dignity, and finish.” “The CONQUEROR WORM.”

Bonaparte, Marie (1882–1962) Poe biographer, Boston, Massachusetts Poe had a long and not student of Freud, and literary psychoanalyst. She always happy association with Boston, where he was was a great-niece of Napoleon I and wife of Prince born on January 19, 1809, and lived for the first six George of Greece. The author of The Life and Works months of his life while his parents were appearing of Edgar Allan Poe: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation there in a production at the Federal Street Theatre. (1933), with a foreword by Sigmund Freud, she This early association did not make Poe a Bosto- initiated a new approach to Poe criticism that used nian, for the Virginia influence prevailed, but he Freudian psychobiography to interpret his works. did hold strong feelings—largely negative—about In particular, she examined the effects on his fic- the city of his birth. Poe traveled to the city in April tion and poetry of his obsession with dying women 1827, because it was a literary center and because and with mother surrogates. Her readings of the he planned to look up friends of his parents in an works produce overwhelming evidence of sexual effort to reconnect with his early years, now that he maladjustment: She finds symbols of impotence, was estranged from his foster father, JOHN ALLAN. sexual inadequacy, incestuous desire, and necro- In Boston, Poe arranged to have TAMERLANE AND philiac longing throughout. In “The BLACK CAT,” OTHER POEMS printed without his name, only “By a Bonaparte interprets the hanged cat as a specific Bostonian,” on the title page. For the most part, Poe symbol of the penis of the impotent Poe. The close- viewed the Boston literary scene with contempt. In ness of Roderick and Madeline Usher in “THE FALL “BOSTON AND THE BOSTONIANS” he satirizes Boston OF THE HOUSE OF USHER” signals the incestuous inhabitants as Frogpondians, who “have no soul” feelings that Bonaparte believed Poe had for his and who “have always evinced toward us individu- child bride VIRGINIA CLEMM. She also identified ally, the basest ingratitude.”

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Braine, Robert (1896–1940) American com- scratched his name into the well-cared-for man- poser who in 1924 wrote a full score for baritone telpiece in his room. In early 1846, when Virginia’s and orchestra for Poe’s poem “The RAVEN” and illness had deepened and her death appeared near, in 1930 wrote the symphonic poem The House of Poe made arrangements for Virginia and her mother Usher, based on Poe’s tale “The FALL OF THE HOUSE to return to the farm to provide Virginia with “the OF USHER.” bracing help of country breezes and the soothing quiet of country air” for a few weeks. Bransby, Reverend John (1784–1857) Princi- pal of the Manor House School at Stoke New- Brennan, Thomas Son of a kindly farm couple ington, England, where Poe was a student from in whose home Poe lived with his family during the 1818 to 1820. The recipient of an M.A. degree summer of 1844. Years after Poe’s death, Thomas from St. John’s College, Cambridge, Bransby was recalled watching Poe draw designs in the dust with a Tory clergyman with a large family and cheerful his cane, and he spoke of how Poe would wander habits. His passion for hunting was well known to off to nearby Mount Tom and sit on the banks of the boys in his school, and when he cleaned his the Hudson River, gazing and daydreaming. gun they knew that he would be gone for the day. Popular with his students, Bransby was something Brewster, Sir David British scientist who dabbled of a classical scholar as well, and he was known for in natural magic, i.e., harnessing the powers of the his literary and scientific writing as well as for his Earth, and deduced that the pole of the equator is political pamphlets. He regarded the young Edgar not the pole of maximum cold, among other discov- Allan as “a quick and clever boy” but decried that eries. Poe refers to Brewster in the unpublished notes his parents had spoiled him by giving him too much to “EUREKA,” “MAELZEL’S CHESS-PLAYER,” and “The pocket money. His view of Poe was that he was UNPARALLELED ADVENTURE OF ONE HANS PFAALL.” “intelligent, wayward, and wilful.” Poe included a character of the same name but of a decidedly dif- Briggs, Charles F. (1804–1877) Author and, with ferent disposition in the tale “WILLIAM WILSON.” Poe, coeditor of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. Briggs, who wrote under the pseudonym of Harry Franco, Brennan, Mr. and Mrs. Patrick A kind married admired Poe’s work strongly but criticized Poe’s couple who welcomed Poe, MARIA CLEMM, and tendency toward drink. When he left the Broadway VIRGINIA CLEMM into their home as boarders during Journal in July 1845, Briggs told friends that he felt the summer of 1844. Their old farmhouse, known Poe had betrayed him professionally, and he charged as “the house where ‘The RAVEN’ was written,” was that Poe was unable to conceive of anyone doing located on a rocky knoll that was a few hundred anything except for personal advantage. Briggs cari- feet from the northeast corner of the present 84th catured Poe in his novel The Trippings of Tom Pepper Street and Broadway in New York City. The couple (1847), and he published an unsigned article that had a 15-year-old daughter named Martha, as well appeared in the May 26, 1846, issue of the EVENING as five younger children, and their farm consisted of MIRROR in which he broadly criticized Poe, pointing 216 acres on which they raised produce and flowers out “One of the strange parts of his strange nature that were sold at the city markets. Their home pro- was to entertain a spirit of revenge towards all who vided Poe, Virginia, and Mrs. Clemm with a beauti- did him service.” Poe also had little good to say ful view, excellent food, and pleasant surroundings. about Briggs, whom he profiled in “The LITERATI After the summer ended, the Poe family moved OF NEW YORK CITY.” He characterizes Briggs’s sim- back to town but kept close contact with the Bren- plicity of writing as “insipidity” and notes that “his nans. Mrs. Brennan seemed to find Mrs. Clemm an picturesque low-life is made to degenerate into sheer amiable companion, and her later recollections of vulgarity.” Moreover, Poe claims that Briggs “has Poe are all pleasant. Only once did she feel the need some humor, but nothing of an original character.” to speak sharply to him, when he absentmindedly Still, Poe concedes, “He has much warmth of feeling,

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The Broad Street Theatre in Richmond, Virginia, where Elizabeth Arnold Poe last performed, burned down shortly after her death in December 1811. (Courtesy Edgar Allan Poe Library)

and is not a person to be disliked, although very apt as part of a company called the Virginia Comedi- to irritate and annoy.” ans in the months before she became ill. On the day after Christmas 1811, two weeks and two days Briscoe, Captain John American whaling cap- after Elizabeth was buried, the theater burned to tain and navigator mentioned in chapter 16 of The the ground. The governor of Virginia and 72 other NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM. In 1831, he socially prominent Virginians died in the fire. The set sail from London for the South Seas, where Monumental Church was built as a memorial on he discovered an island and “took possession of it the theater site. in the name of William IV, calling it Adelaide’s Island, in honour of the English queen.” Broadway Journal Periodical in whose publication Poe acted as a partner with CHARLES BRIGGS Broad-Street Theatre The theater in Richmond, and JOHN BISCO. It republished many revised ver- Virginia, where ELIZABETH ARNOLD POE performed sions of Poe’s tales, including “LIGEIA,” “WILLIAM

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WILSON,” and “The TELL-TALE HEART.” Poe began produce harmony by the regular alternation of syl- his association with the periodical early in 1845 lables differing in quantity.” as a writer and editor, earning $1 a column for his contributions. After a financially struggling Briggs Brown, Thomas Dunn Poe’s name for his enemy left the journal, Poe bought out Bisco and became Dr. THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH in “The LITERATI OF sole owner and editor on October 24, 1845. He NEW YORK CITY.” paid Bisco $50, in the form of a personal note endorsed by HORACE GREELEY. Poe used the col- Browne, Sir Thomas (1605–1682) English author umns of the journal to promote his own writing, whose “Hydriotaphia [Urn Burial]” appealed to and the publication provided both the poet and his Poe’s morbid nature. In his review “The QUACKS work with a larger and more important audience OF HELICON: A SATIRE,” Poe attempts to explain than he might have otherwise attained. Poe also the nature and guidelines of criticism. He quotes used his columns to continue attacks upon other Browne as saying, “What song the Syrens sang . . . writers and to respond to negative reviews of his or what name Achilles assumed when he hid him- works. Poe’s management of the Broadway Journal self among women, though puzzling questions, are was fraught with problems. He was unable to raise not beyond all conjecture.” Poe adds, “but it would the $140 needed to preserve the publication, and puzzle Sir Thomas, backed by Achilles and all the the magazine was defunct by December 1845. In Syrens in Heathendom, to say, in nine cases out of the final issue, which appeared on January 3, 1846, ten, what is the object of a thorough-going Quar- Poe published the following farewell: terly Reviewer?” VALEDICTORY Browne, Doctor William Hand (1828–1912) Unexpected engagements demanding my whole American physician, critic, and early defender of attention, and the objects being unfulfilled so Poe’s personal and artistic reputation. He assisted far as regards myself personally, for which the JOHN H. INGRAM in his work on Poe’s life and Broadway Journal was established, I now, as its reviewed Ingram’s corrective biography of Poe in editor, bid farewell—as cordially to foes as to the June 1875 issue of the Southern Monthly-New friends. Eclectic Magazine. He also became acquainted with the widow of Poe’s friend Dr. JOSEPH EVANS Edgar A. Poe SNODGRASS, to whom Poe had directed that a note be sent when he became ill during his final Brooks, James Gordon (1801–1841) Minor days of life. Browne made an exact copy of the American poet and editor of Minerva; or Literary note “from the original in the possession of Mrs. Entertaining and Scientific Journal. Poe said of him Snodgrass, widow of Poe’s friend” and supplied it in “AUTOGRAPHY” that he enjoyed “a private rather to biographers. than public literary reputation; but his talents are unquestionably great.” Poe also noted that Brooks Browning, Robert (1812–1889) English poet. possessed “nervous common sense, without tinsel The husband of ELIZABETH BARRETT Browning, or artificiality, and a straightforward directness of he became aware of Poe’s work through his wife. composition” and that this is “precisely true of his Critics have found similarities in the theme of loss literary style.” and the atmosphere of melancholy that appear in Poe’s tales and such works of Robert Browning as Brown, Gould (1791–1857) American writer the “Madhouse Cell” poems, “Porphyria’s Lover,” and author of Institutes of English Grammar (1823), and “Johannes Agricola in Meditation” in Dramatic cited by Poe in “The RATIONALE OF VERSE” for his Lyrics. Critics have also noted that Browning’s definition of versification as “the art of arranging word losel, used in referring to the lost selves of his words into lines of correspondent length, so as to dramatic monologues, fits many of the first-person

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narrators in Poe’s tales, who themselves are lost the opinion of the press is not an honest opinion, selves or displaced and disoriented humans. that necessarily it is impossible that it should be an honest opinion, is never denied by the member Brownson, Orestes Augustus (1803–1876) Amer- of the press themselves.” The reviewer admits that ican clergyman and editor of the Boston Quarterly he previously has joined others in underestimating Review who was also associated with TRANSCENDEN- Bryant’s creative abilities. Although “it will never TALISM and liberal causes. He is mentioned in Poe’s do to claim for Bryant a genius of the loftiest order,” “MESMERIC REVELATION,” where the narrator studies Poe says the time has come to reverse what he sees closely Brownson’s moralistic novel Charles Elwood; as “a growing disposition to deny him genius in any or, The Infidel Converted (1840) and states that it respect.” In his analyses of Bryant’s best-known is “logical, but the portions which were not merely poems, Poe asserts that while they do not exhibit logical were unhappily the initial arguments of the signs of genius, their “completeness and pointed disbelieving hero of the book.” In examining the termination” make them successful, for Bryant is novel in “AUTOGRAPHY,” Poe declares that the book “the most generally correct of our poets.” Poe also shows “the writer has not altogether succeeded in quotes a portion of Bryant’s poem “June” in “The convincing himself of those important truths which POETIC PRINCIPLE,” which he praises highly: “The he is so anxious to impress upon his readers.” Still, rhythmical flow, here, is even voluptuous—noth- Poe concedes that Brownson is “in every respect, ing could be more melodious. The intense mel- an extraordinary man, and with the more extensive ancholy which seems to well up, perforce, to the resources which would have been afforded him by surface of all the poet’s cheerful sayings about his early education, could not have failed to bring about grave, we find thrilling us to the soul—while there important results.” is the truest poetic elevation in the thrill. . . . The impression left is one of a pleasurable sadness.” Bruenner, Leopold (1869–?) German-Ameri- Yet, despite such praise, Poe asserts in “AUTOGRA- can composer, conductor, and organist whose op. 1, PHY” that Bryant’s handwriting is that of “the most no. 5, is a song setting of Poe’s poem “ELDORADO.” common-place clerk’s hands which we have ever encountered, and has no character about it beyond Bryan, Daniel (1790–1866) A poet and the post- that of the day-book and ledger.” master at Alexandria with whom Poe exchanged letters in the summer of 1842. Poe stated that Bryan Buchanan, Reverend John The clergyman who had “written some very excellent poetry and is in 1812 baptized Edgar Allan and ROSE MACKENZIE appreciated by all admirers of ‘the good old Gold- POE at the residence of Mr. John Richard in Rich- smith school.’ ” In an entry in “AUTOGRAPHY,” Poe mond, Virginia. claimed that Bryan’s habit of underscoring his sentences is “exactly parallel with the augmentative Buck, Dudley (1839–1909) American com- nature of some of his best poems.” poser, conductor, and organist who composed “Sleigh Bells,” his op. 19, no. 2, for the piano, to Bryant, William Cullen (1794–1878) American accompany Poe’s poem “The BELLS.” poet and editor of the New York Evening Post, whom Poe met once in 1845 and whose work he reviewed Buhrman, Albert J. (1915– ) American musi- in an essay published in the April 1846 issue of cian who wrote a score for the piano to accompany GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND LADY’S BOOK. Poe used Poe’s poem “ELDORADO.” the review to spend considerable space discussing the issue of editorial forthrightness, stating at one Bullet-head, Mr. Touch-and-Go Character in point, “We put on paper with a grave air what we “X-ING A PARAGRAB.” He serves as the tempera- could not for our lives assert personally to a friend mental editor of the Alexander-the-Great-o-nopo- without either blushing or laughing outright. That lis publication, Tea-Pot.

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Bulwer-Lytton, Edward George Earle (first baron only in ‘Ernest Maltravers,’ where his soul is deliber- Lytton) (1803–1873) English novelist, dramatist, ately and nakedly set forth.” and politician, born Edward Lytton. Poe refers to him as both “Bulwer” and “Lytton” in numerous men- Burke, William (fl. 1823) Master of the Rich- tions of the author, who added his mother’s fam- mond boys’ seminary where Poe studied classi- ily name in 1843. In several reviews, Poe denigrates cal subjects and languages in the spring of 1823. Lytton’s intellect but praises the writing produced by Biographers have characterized Burke as a man of that intellect. In a November 1841 review of Lytton’s “sound learning” and “rigid discipline.” He took a critical writings that appeared in GRAHAM’S MAGA- personal interest in the 14-year-old Edgar, and he ZINE, Poe wrote that Lytton “is never lucid and sel- joined other supporters who went along in a row- dom profound. His intellect seems to be rather well boat should they be needed when Poe undertook balanced than lofty; rather comprehensive than pen- a six-mile swim against what he later boasted was etrative.” In the same review, Poe states, “Apart from “one of the strongest tides ever known in the James his intellect, however,—or rather as a portion of that River.” Poe’s purpose was to duplicate a similar feat intellect,—we recognize in his every written word by LORD BYRON, who swam from Abydos to Sestos the keenest appreciation of the right, the beautiful, in Turkey. and the true.” In a review of Lytton’s “ZANONI, A NOVEL,” Poe is similarly ambivalent: He praises the Burling, Ebenezer (1808–1832) Childhood friend idea of the novel as “simply grand,” having “unity whom Poe met during weekly services at the Monu- that overpowers us,” yet he also finds that the “glar- mental Church, where the Allan family had pew ing defects in his former novels, are perceptible.” 80. With Burling, Poe read Robinson Crusoe. The Assessing Lytton’s artistic strengths and weaknesses two often would take a boat onto the James River, in “MARGINALIA,” Poe criticizes his tendency to which seems to provide a possible model for the sentimentalize even death, as in Ernest Maltravers, little pleasure yacht that appears at the beginning which speaks of “that sweet smile and serene—that of The NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM. An smile never seen but upon the face of the dying and inebriated Burling accompanied Poe when he left the dead.” Such quotations lead Poe to assert that Richmond and the Allan house after a quarrel in “Bulwer is not the man to look a stern fact in the March 1826, but he changed his mind as soon as face. He would rather sentimentalize upon a vulgar the two boarded a ship. Burling returned to Rich- although picturesque error.” In a very lengthy review mond with the story that Poe had gone abroad. A of “NIGHT AND MORNING,” Poe accuses Lytton of weak and dissipated man, Burling died in 1832 of “excessive elaborations, all tending to one point” and cholera. states, “His mere English is grossly defective—turgid, involved, and ungrammatical.” Although Poe both Burns, Joe (fl. 1935) American organist who wrote attacked and praised Lytton in reviews of his many musical accompaniment to “SILENCE—A SONNET.” works, he apparently believed his assessment of the man was exceedingly accurate at each point because Burr, Charles Chauncey (1815–1883) A Phila- the author’s extensive writings provide adequate delphia author who provided Poe with financial room for such inconsistent quality. In the entry for assistance during his July 1849 visit to Philadelphia SARAH MARGARET FULLER in “The LITERATI OF NEW and later defended Poe’s character in an article in YORK CITY,” Poe speaks of the author’s work as an the Nineteenth Century for February 1852. extension of the author’s self and uses Lytton as an example: “Of such a person we get, from his books, Burton, William Evans (1802–1860) English- not merely a just, but the most just representation. born owner and editor of BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S Bulwer, the individual, personal man, in a green vel- MAGAZINE, which began publication in July 1837. vet waistcoat and amber gloves, is not by any means In April 1839, Burton reviewed The NARRATIVE OF the veritable Sir Edward Lytton, who is discoverable ARTHUR GORDON PYM in an essay that was heavy

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with sarcasm, yet the following month he hired Poe as an all-purpose assistant editor who was expected to edit articles, to proofread, and to contribute occasional reviews. Burton reserved the right to censor his writers and refused in several instances to publish inflammatory reviews by Poe. Poe’s drinking and difficult behavior eventually led to his dismissal. Burton soon became bored with publishing, and he returned to his former profession of comic actor and manager, spending more time in the theater than in the editorial offices. When he needed to raise money to erect his own theater, Burton placed the magazine up for sale. He offered it first to GEORGE R. GRAHAM, who bought it outright for $3,500. Burton used the money to purchase Cook’s Olympic Circus, between Eighth and Ninth Streets in Philadelphia, where he appeared as both manager and chief clown. Perhaps at the urging of MARIA CLEMM or from a sense of duty, he told Graham that as part of the sale, he wanted the new owner to rehire and “take care of my young editor,” who happened to be Poe.

Poe began work as an editor at Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine in 1839. (Courtesy of Library of Congress)

Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine A literary publication founded in 1837 in Philadelphia by the English-born comedian WILLIAM EVANS BURTON as a magazine that would be “worthy of a place upon every parlour table of every gentleman in the United States.” Poe was hired as the magazine’s all- purpose assistant editor in May 1839, and although the magazine published many of his works, Poe never identified as closely with this publication as he had with the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. The following Poe short stories were published in the magazine: “The MAN THAT WAS USED UP” in August 1839, in September “The FALL OF THE William Burton, founder of Burton’s Gentleman’s HOUSE OF USHER,” in October “WILLIAM WILSON,” Magazine (Courtesy of Library of Congress) in November “MORELLA,” in December “CONVER-

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SATIONS OF EIROS AND CHARMION,” and in Febru- Doctrine of Resurrection of the Body is not sanc- ary 1840 “Peter Pendulum” (later “The BUSINESS tioned by Reason or Revelation” had caused “a MAN”). In 1841, Burton sold the magazine to singular commotion in the realm of theology.” The GEORGE R. GRAHAM, who merged the subscription review compliments Bush for a “lucidly, succinctly, list of 3,500 with the subscription list of 1,500 of his vigorously and logically written” work. own publication, Atkinson’s Casket. The new publication created by merging Burton’s Gentleman’s Byron, George Gordon, Lord (1788–1824) Eng- Magazine with Atkinson’s Casket was named GRA- lish romantic poet and notorious hedonistic social- HAM’S MAGAZINE, which began with a healthy sub- ite whom Poe admired for both his poetry and his scription list of 5,000 and grew to more than 37,000 rebelliousness. JOHN ALLAN made clear his hatred in only a few months under Poe’s editorship. for the cult that had grown up around Byron and blamed Poe’s attention to Byron for his foster son’s Burwell, William Mecreery (1809–1888) A profligate ways. Although Poe reassured Allan in a constant companion of Poe’s during their days as letter dated May 29, 1829, that he had long before students at the University of Virginia, and later given up Byron as a model, this statement appears the renowned editor of De Bow’s Review. Burwell in a letter in which he also asked his guardian to published his reminiscences of Poe in an article write to the publishers of Al Aaraaf to guarantee titled “Edgar A. Poe, and his College Contempo- the book to the extent of $100. For years after- raries” that appeared in the May 18, 1884, issue ward, Poe was fond of reciting Byron’s poetry dur- of the New Orleans Times-Democrat. The account ing his public recitations. In one lecture, presented provides a vivid account of life at the university, in Lowell, Massachusetts, on July 10, 1848, his where many wealthy sons of landowners lived recitation of Byron’s “Bride of Abydos” was ren- extravagantly—gambling, drinking, hunting, and dered so affectingly that one onlooker wrote, “His rarely attending class. Of Poe, however, Burwell manner of rendering some of the selections consti- observed “he was certainly not habitually intemper- tutes my only remembrance of the evening which ate, but he may occasionally have entered into a so fascinated me.” The influence of the Byronic frolic. I often saw him in the lecture-room and in personality and attitudes on Poe’s work is found the library, but never in the slightest degree under in his manner of dress in dramatic black, as well the influence of intoxicating liquors. . . . [U]nder as in letters, poems, and several tales. A few Poe no time during the session did he fall under the characters are thinly veiled examples of the Byro- censure of the faculty.” nic physiognomy and personality. The unnamed suicidal stranger in Poe’s story “The ASSIGNATION” Bush, George (1796–1859) A professor of has “the mouth and chin of a deity—singular, wild, Hebrew at the University of New York who was full liquid eyes—and a profusion of curling black “long distinguished for the extent and variety of hair, from which a forehead of unusual breadth his attainments in oriental literature.” Poe includes gleamed forth at intervals all light and ivory.” The his profile in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY” face of Roderick Usher is also reminiscent of the and describes him as “a Mesmerist and a Sweden- countenance of Byron. To the end, Poe cultivated borgian” whose work “Anastasia, or the Doctrine a dark, shadowy self that projected a sense of mys- of the Resurrection: in which it is shown that the tery to acquaintances.

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Cabell, Robert G. (1802–1890) Boyhood friend was a lieutenant in the volunteers and proudly met of Poe’s who, with their schoolmaster, WILLIAM both Lafayette and Calhoun. BURKE, went together in a rowboat to rescue Poe when he took the daring six-mile swim down the Calvert, George H. (1803–1899) An editor of James River. Cabell and Poe, with ROBERT C. STA- the Baltimore American and a would-be poet. Poe NARD, spent their adolescence continually in each repaid him for unfavorable reviews by crediting him other’s company, and all attended the same school. in “AUTOGRAPHY” with having written “some good Although Poe appears not to have kept contact paragraphs on the commonplace topics of the day” with his old friend after leaving JOHN ALLAN’s but denouncing him for being “a feeble and com- household, Cabell’s father, Robert L. Cabell, served mon-place writer of poetry.” Poe also observes that as witness for John Allan’s will. Calvert had written “one or two original poems . . . which did him no credit.” Cain Allusion in Poe’s short story “BON-BON” to the biblical figure who committed the first murder. Calvin, John (1509–1564) French religious re- In Poe’s story, the devil relates the “innumerable former, to whom Poe makes a satiric reference in purchases” he has made, including Cain and “a “NEVER BET THE DEVIL YOUR HEAD,” which he re- thousand others, who never knew what it was to peats in “PINAKIDIA,” that “Jacobus Hugo [Jacques have a soul during the latter part of their lives.” Hughes, author of True History of Rome (1655)] has satisfied himself that by Euenis, Homer meant to Calhoun, John C. (1782–1850) Vice president insinuate John Calvin.” The statement is a para- of the United States from 1825 to 1832 (first under phrase of a statement that appeared in Introductions President John Quincy Adams and then under to the Study of the Classic Poets (1831), written by Andrew Jackson), and later a U.S. senator repre- H. N. Coleridge, who asserted that Hughes prob- senting South Carolina. He and Daniel Webster ably meant Eumaios, the swineherd whom Odys- engaged in a historic debate in the Senate over seus meets while disguised as a beggar in Homer’s slavery and slaves’ rights. Calhoun accompanied Odyssey. This represents still another of Poe’s jabs General Lafayette, the French-born hero of the at erudition. American Revolutionary War, when he visited Richmond, Virginia, in 1824. The Richmond Junior Campanella, Tommaso (1568–1639) Pseudonym Volunteers, a company containing sons of some of of the Italian philosopher Giovanni Domenico Cam- the best families in Richmond, was armed to serve panella. In 1599, he was arrested on charges of heresy as a bodyguard for Lafayette. The 15-year-old Poe and of conspiring against the Spanish government 306

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in Naples. During his 27 years in prison, he wrote AMERICAN DRAMA.” The Byronic stranger in “The Civitas Solis [City of the Sun], published in 1623. Assignation” prefers Canova’s Venus to the Venus After his release from prison in 1626, he experienced di Medici, stating, “ ‘Give me the Canova!’ ” In com- continued persecution for his ideas, and he sought paring modern sculpture to that of the ancients, refuge in France. In “The FALL OF THE HOUSE OF Poe states in “The American Drama” that “the USHER,” Poe includes “The City of the Sun of Cam- Venus of Canova is worth any time two of that of panella” among the reading materials of Roderick Cleomenes.” The modern Venus is more fully real- Usher, “the books which, for years had formed no ized and physically complete. small portion of the mental existence of the invalid.” In “The PURLOINED LETTER,” detective C. Auguste Cant Mentioned in “MELLONTA TAUTA” and Dupin identifies the method of an eight-year-old boy referring to the philosopher Immanuel Kant as one whose success at guessing in the game of “even and of the two “greatest disciples” of “a Turkish phi- odd” is based on having “effected the thorough identi- losopher (or Hindoo possibly) called Aries Tottle,” fication” with the emotions of his opponents as lying the other great disciple being “Neuclid.” The story “at the bottom of all the spurious profundity which is a satire, thus Poe satirizes erudition by distorting has been attributed to Rochefoucauld, to La Bougive, names. and to Campanella.” In “Usher,” the mention appears to mirror Roderick’s distrust of accepted thought and Caplet, Andre (1879–1925) French composer, his embracing of the unusual and the occult. In “The conductor, and critic who wrote an arrangement Purloined Letter,” the opposite seems true. in four parts for the harp or the piano inspired by Poe’s story “The MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH.” Campbell, Major John (fl. 1829) Influential Vir- ginian who wrote one of the four letters of recom- Caravaggio (1573–1610) Italian baroque painter, mendation to West Point for Poe in April 1829. born Michelangelo Merisi, whose use of models Campbell was not personally acquainted with the from the lower levels of society played a pivotal role young adult Poe and remembered having seen him in the development of a naturalistic style in 17th- only at the resort “The Spring” in 1812. century painting. In Poe’s short story “LIONIZING,” Signor Tintontinotino from Florence pretentiously Canning, Sir Launcelot Mentioned in the short speaks “of the gloom of Caravaggio, of the amenity story “The FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER” as the of Albano, of the colors of Titian, of the frows of author of a book titled The Mad Trist. The nar- Rubens, and of the waggeries of Jan Steen.” rator seeks to calm the agitated Roderick Usher by reading “the antique volume” which he calls Carey, Mathew (1760–1839) Philadelphia econ- “a favourite of Usher’s more in sad jest than in omist, bookseller, and publisher who founded Carey, earnest.” The romance, “The only book immedi- Lea & Carey, the publishing house to which Poe ately at hand,” tells the stirring story of the brave first submitted AL AARAAF, TAMERLANE, AND OTHER Ethelred, and the passage that the narrator chooses MINOR POEMS, and TALES OF THE FOLIO CLUB with- to read to Usher ends with a large brass shield fall- out success. Poe includes an analysis of Carey’s sig- ing noisily on a silver floor. As soon as the narrator nature in “AUTOGRAPHY,” noting only that “Mr. reads this passage, he and Usher hear a sound “as if Carey does not write a legible hand.” a shield of brass had indeed, at that moment, fallen heavily upon a floor of silver,” which unnerves Carlyle, Thomas (1795–1881) English literary them both. critic and social historian whose attacks on sham, hypocrisy, and excessive materialism echoed tran- Canova, Antonio (1757–1822) Italian sculptor scendental thought and led Poe to view his work whose Venus is mentioned in Poe’s short story “The in a negative light. Poe found significant faults in ASSIGNATION” and in his literary criticism “The Carlyle’s work. In “MARGINALIA,” he wrote, “I have

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not the slightest faith in Carlyle. In ten years— nor his friend again, for Poe met other friends at possible only five—he will be remembered only the restaurant who kept him there until the time as a butt for sarcasm.” In contrast to other crit- for departure was near, then accompanied him to ics who praised conciseness in writing, Poe asked, the boat. “What, then, should be said of the concision of Carlyle—that those are mad who admire a brev- Carter, Doctor William Gibbon (fl. 1849–1884) ity which squanders our time for the purpose of Brother of DOCTOR JOHN CARTER and a physician economizing our printing-ink and paper.” Regard- who spent the final day in Richmond, Virginia, ing one of Carlyle’s works, he wrote, “The book with Poe. After Poe’s death, he revealed that in about ‘Hero-Worship’—is it possible that it ever the months before dying in Baltimore, the poet excited a feeling beyond contempt?” After scourg- had experienced several serious attacks of delir- ing the concept, Poe concludes, “Carlyle, however, ium, and that his body had become so weak that has rendered an important service (to posterity, only one drink of hard liquor would trigger such an at least) in pushing rant and cant to that degree attack. After an especially serious bout in August of excess which inevitably induces reaction.” In a 1849, Carter had warned Poe that further indul- review of the work of WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, gence would be fatal, and through his influence titled “OUR AMATEUR POETS, NO. III,” Poe suggests Poe joined the SONS OF TEMPERANCE in early Sep- that negative qualities of Channing’s work suggest tember 1849. the influence of Carlyle, whose work he finds too obscure to understand: “Either a man intends to Carver, Captain Jonathan (1710–1780) A be understood, or he does not. If he write a book member of the British provincial army and explorer which he intends not to be understood, we shall of the Great Lakes, Carver wrote Travels Through be very happy indeed not to understand it; but if the Interior Part of North America (1778). In The he write a book which he means to be understood, JOURNAL OF JULIUS RODMAN, Poe devotes several and, in this book, be at all possible pains to prevent passages to Carver to add verisimilitude to the us from understanding it, we can only say he is an story. Poe also identifies Carver’s contributions to ass—and this, to be brief, is our private opinion of finding a northwest passage in his review of WASH- Mr. Carlyle, which we now take the liberty of mak- INGTON IRVING’s “ASTORIA”: “In 1763, shortly after ing public.” acquisition of the Canadas by Great Britain, this gentleman projected a journey across the continent, Carpaccio, Vittorre (1455?–1526?) Italian painter between the forty-third and forty-sixth degrees of who created four cycles of narrative paintings, one northern latitude, to the shores of the Pacific.” Poe of which is the well-known St. George Slaying the notes that Carver failed in two individual attempts Dragon. In Poe’s short story “LIONIZING,” the pre- to accomplish the journey. tentious Signor Tintontinotino from Florence shows off his knowledge of painting as “he discoursed of Cary, Henry (1804–1870) American poet and Cimabué, Arpino, Carpaccio, and Argostino.” translator of Dante. Cary, Poe stated in “MARGINA- LIA,” is “best entitled to distinction” as an essayist Carter, Doctor John (fl. 1849–1884) A phy- and not as a poet, but, adds Poe in “The LITERATI sician in whose company with friends Poe spent OF NEW YORK CITY,” he is “a fifth or sixth rate one the last evening of his life in Richmond, Virginia, [essayist].” Poe condescendingly says of Cary that before boarding a boat bound for Baltimore, “for a long time he was President of the Phoenix where he would die. Biographers report that Poe Bank of New York, and the principal part of his left Carter’s office to go to supper at a fashionable life has been devoted to business.” Seemingly as a Richmond restaurant named Saddler, taking the result of this background, he notes that “Mr. Cary, doctor’s cane and leaving his own as a sign that he in fact, abounds very especially in superfluities . . . intended to return. Carter never saw his own cane and, to speak the truth, is continually guilty of all

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kinds of grammatical improprieties. I repeat that, in writes, “I heard you greet my cat Catarina but it this respect, he is decent, and no more.” was only as a memory.”

Cass, Lewis (1782–1866) Secretary of war under Caus, Solomon de When the unnamed narrator President Jackson and literary scholar whose signa- of “SOME WORDS WITH A MUMMY” deplores the ture Poe included in “AUTOGRAPHY.” In his analysis, Egyptian ignorance of steam, Count Allamistakeo Poe praises Cass as “one of the finest belles-lettres demands to know if he is “really such a fool as not scholars of America” and mentions that he had to know that the modern steam engine is derived recently contributed “one or two very excellent from the invention of Hero, through Solomon de papers” to the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, Caus,” a Norman engineer. while Poe was editor. Cayley, George (1774–1857) British scientist Castle Island The site of Fort Independence, a and aeronautical pioneer known as the father of United States Army military installation in Boston British aeronautics. Poe refers to his early 19th- Harbor, where Poe entered the army as EDGAR A. century experiments with ellipsoid balloons in “The PERRY in May 1827 and spent the first six months BALLOON-HOAX.” The balloon in the story is simi- of his service with Battery H of the First Artillery. lar in several details to the one invented by Cayley. At this site, he carried out the duties of a company clerk in the peacetime army, preparing the routine Chamberlayne, William (1619–1689) Minor battery papers, writing letters dictated by officers, British playwright active in the time of WILLIAM preparing the payrolls and muster rolls, and serving SHAKESPEARE. Poe uses a garbled version of a quo- as messenger between the company and regimental tation from Chamberlayne’s play Love’s Victory headquarters. (1615) as an epigraph to the short story “WILLIAM WILSON.” Catalini, Angelica (1786–1849) Italian opera singer mentioned by C. Auguste Dupin in “The Chambers, Robert (1802–1871) British cos- PURLOINED LETTER.” mologist and author. Many of Poe’s contemporaries suggested that Chambers’s work The Catarina Referred to in letters written by Poe as Vestiges of Creation was a strong influence on Poe’s both “Catarina” and “Catterina,” a large tortoise- “EUREKA.” EPES SARGENT openly stated in an arti- shell cat loved by VIRGINIA CLEMM and owned by cle published in the July 20, 1848, issue of the Poe, first in Philadelphia and then at their Ford- Boston Evening Transcript that “Eureka” reminded ham cottage in New York. When Poe and his wife him “of that remarkable work ‘The Vestiges of hurriedly left Philadelphia on April 6, 1844, they Creation’ by the character and tendency of the left behind Mrs. CLEMM and Catarina. In a letter to author’s scientific romancing.” Both works deal Mrs. Clemm, Poe writes that their first night away, with the attempt to construct a synthesis based in Virginia “had a hearty cry because you and Catter- mathematics, poetics, and intuition as well as to ina weren’t there.” A week later, due to his success create metaphysic-cosmic theories that identified in publishing “The BALLOON-HOAX,” Poe sent for all life as a part of God. Mrs. Clemm, who arrived “with tears of joy in her eyes, and a basket containing Catarina.” Catarina/ Chandler, Joseph R. (1792–1880) Editor of the Catterina paraded around the Poe home, serving Philadelphia United States Gazette. Poe reviewed as a companion and a source of physical warmth his “ADDRESS, DELIVERED BEFORE THE GOETHIAN to the frail and often-shivering Virginia. After Vir- AND DIAGNOTHIAN SOCIETIES OF MARSHALL COL- ginia’s death, Poe wrote a letter of response to Mrs. LEGE, AT THEIR ANNUAL CELEBRATION, SEPTEM- LOUISE SHEW, who had written that she had to stop BER 24, 1839,” stating that “it assuredly does its visits with Poe because of gossip. In the letter, Poe accomplished author much credit.” He also praises

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Chandler in “AUTOGRAPHY”: “Mr. Chandler’s rial by which Europeans would “form an estimate reputation as the editor of one of the best daily of the poetical ability of Americans,” because the papers in the country, and as one of our finest selections appeared to him to be “exceedingly inju- belles lettres scholars, is deservedly high.” Citing dicious, and have all a marked leaning to the didac- Chandler’s numerous published writings, especially tic.” Poe is no more charitable in his estimations prose tales, Poe observes that “these latter evince of Cheever’s “Defence of Capital Punishment,” a imaginative powers of a superior order.” work in which the author does not offer “one novel argument.” Channing, William Ellery (1818–1901) Minor poet and essayist whose writing Poe lampooned in Child, Lydia Maria (1802–1880) Abolitionist “OUR AMATEUR POETS, NO. III. WILLIAM ELLERY and crusader for the rights of women whose novel CHANNING.” Noting that he is only “the son of the Philothea Poe reviewed and whom he profiled as great essayist deceased,” the eminent clergyman one of “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY.” Poe poet William Ellery Channing, Poe states “the describes her as of “a fervid and fanciful nature” necessity of employing the indefinite rather than and quotes her poem “Marius amid the Ruins of the definite article. He is a, and by no means the, Carthage” to illustrate the excellence of her shorter William Ellery Channing.” Taking the mockery fur- compositions. He asserts that “some of her maga- ther, Poe observes, “It may be said in his favor that zine papers are distinguished for graceful and bril- nobody ever heard of him. Like an honest woman, liant imagination—a quality rarely noticed in our he has always succeeded in keeping himself from countrywomen.” being made the subject of gossip.” Channing was popular in literary circles and numbered among his Childs, George W. (1829–1894) Newspaper friends Emerson, NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, and publisher who owned both the Philadelphia Public Thoreau, but Poe found him to be a fertile source Ledger and the Dollar Newspaper, which awarded of material. Channing’s poetry is mentioned in a Poe a $100 prize for “The GOLD-BUG” as the best satiric context in Poe’s short story “HOW TO WRITE short story submitted in its 1843 contest. A BLACKWOOD ARTICLE.” Chivers, Thomas Holley (1809–1858) Geor- Chapman, George (1559–1634) English trans- gia poet and author of the 1852 biography Life of lator, poet, and dramatist. His 1607 tragedy Bussy Poe. His novel Conrad and Eudora (1834) is based D’Ambois is inaccurately quoted by the narrator in on the same material that Poe used in writing the the short story “The ASSIGNATION” as follows: “He drama POLITIAN. Although he found Poe’s alcohol- is up / There like a Roman statue! He will stand / ism repulsive, he offered Poe a permanent home in Till death hath made him marble.” Although Poe’s Georgia in 1845. Poe refused, but the two remained narrator distinctly identifies Chapman and the strong friends. In his biography, Chivers attributed play, the actual lines are: “I am up, / Here, like a to Poe an independence of spirit, yet pointed out Roman statue I will stand / Till death hath made that “no man living loved the praises of others bet- me marble.” ter than he did.” Poe was generous in praising his friend’s work Cheever, George B. (1807–1890) American reli- and wrote a positive review of Chivers’s poem gious writer whose profile Poe included in “The LIT- “The LOST PLEIAD” in 1845. In “AUTOGRAPHY,” ERATI OF NEW YORK CITY.” Poe identifies Cheever he called Chivers “one of the best and one of as the editor of The Commonplace Book of American the worst poets in America” and wrote that “his Poetry, “a work which has at least the merit of not productions affect one as a wild dream-strange, belying its title, and is exceedingly commonplace.” incongruous, full of images of more than ara- The review expresses regret that the publication besque monstrosity, and snatches of sweet unsus- was for years the only compilation to provide mate- tained song.”

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in that absolutely indispensable element, individuality,” and, “as the editor has no precise character, the magazine, as a matter of course, can have none.” Poe further attacked Clark for having “no determinateness, no distinctiveness, no saliency of point.” In a clever turn of phrase, Poe charges that “he is noticeable for nothing in the world except for the markedness by which he is noticeable for nothing.”

Clark, Captain William (1770–1838) Ameri- can soldier and explorer who shared command of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Poe included references to Clark’s explorations in The JOURNAL OF JULIUS RODMAN and his review of WASHINGTON IRVING’s “ASTORIA: OR, ANECDOTES OF AN ENTER- PRISE BEYOND THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.”

Clarke, Joseph Hanson (1790–1885) A pedantic Dublin-born classical scholar in whose Rich- mond academy Poe began an in-depth study of Greek and Latin classical literature after returning Thomas Holley Chivers, a writer and friend of Poe from England in the fall of 1820. Clarke considered (Courtesy of Edgar Allan Poe Society) the young Poe to be “a born artist,” and many years later he remembered Poe as a man whose “imagi- Claflin, Avery (1898–1979) American composer native powers seemed to take precedence over all who in 1921 wrote The Fall of Usher, an opera in his other faculties.” He feared, however, that the one act with orchestral accompaniment, based on young Poe suffered from inordinate vanity and did Poe’s “The FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER.” Claflin not want to encourage this. Therefore, when JOHN also wrote Hester Prynne, a libretto derived from ALLAN showed Clarke a sheaf of papers contain- NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE’s novel The Scarlet Letter, ing the 11-year-old Poe’s poetry and asked if they and Moby Dick Suite, an arrangement for orchestra were worthy of publication, Clarke suggested that based on Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick. Allan encourage the young poet to give up writing of verses. Clark, Lewis Gaylord (1808–1873) One of the editors of the KNICKERBOCKER MAGAZINE and a Clarke, Thomas Cottrell (1801–1874) Publisher, frequent opponent of Poe. Clark used his column gentleman, and the first editor of the PHILADELPHIA “Editors’ Table” to attack Poe’s writing, printing SATURDAY EVENING POST. Clarke joined other back- one particularly virulent attack on The NARRATIVE ers in early 1843 to provide support for Poe’s pro- OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM. Clark’s attacks combined posed magazine, the STYLUS. He provided Poe with with Poe’s rebuttals to create a highly public feud money to travel to Washington to secure endorse- in print that led in 1845 to physical violence when ments and subscriptions of prominent men and gov- Poe attacked Clark on a New York street. THOMAS ernment clerks. After Poe arrived in Washington, HOLLEY CHIVERS restrained Poe, and neither man Clarke received a letter from another backer, J. E. was injured. As revenge, Poe printed a negative Dow, informing him that “on the first evening [Poe] portrait of Clark in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK seemed somewhat excited, having been over-per- CITY,” claiming that Clark’s magazine “is deficient suaded to take some port wine. . . . I cannot bear that

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he should be the sport of senseless creatures.” By May Henry Clemm made as a mason’s apprentice, Poe’s 1843, Clarke withdrew support probably because of allowance from JOHN ALLAN, and Mrs. Clemm’s Poe’s drinking. In a letter to JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, sewing, yet Mrs. Clemm enthusiastically welcomed Poe reported the destruction of his dream: “My mag- this new member of her household. azine scheme has exploded, or, at least, I have been At this time, she also began a means of survival deprived, through the imbecility, or rather through that she would use repeatedly in the years ahead, the idiocy of my partner, of all means of prosecuting when Poe, Virginia, and she would move repeat- it for the present.” edly as her dear “Eddie” chased his dream of literary fame. She would take her large wicker market bas- Clay, Cassius (1810–1903) American abolition- ket and call upon the Baltimore Poes and anyone ist and statesman who in 1845 founded the anti- else who was slightly connected with the family. slavery weekly True American. He met Poe during Hervey Allen recounts in Israfel that “Mrs. Clemm the winter of 1845–46, when the author resided in in her widow’s cap and large motherly person, her New York City and often joined “the best intellec- broad benign face troubled with an eleemosynary tual society of the city.” woe, was wont to appear at irregular but disconcerting intervals, the basket upon her arm, her fine Cleef, Augustus van Author of an article titled gray eyes yearning with stark anxiety, and a tale “Poe’s Mary” that appeared in Harper’s New of dole upon her lips that would have drawn tears Monthly Magazine for March 1889. The article con- from the mask of Comedy.” She would tell of her tained an account of Poe’s love for a Baltimore girl latest family catastrophe then wait stolidly until she named MARY DEVEREAUX in the year following his received a contribution to the basket—sometimes dismissal from West Point. Van Cleef interviewed Mary, and most of the article is told in her words and from her point of view.

Clemm, Maria Poe (1790–1871) Poe’s paternal aunt, the sister of his father, DAVID POE, and his mother-in-law, as the mother of VIRGINIA CLEMM. At the age of 27, Maria married William Clemm, Jr., a widower with five children and a little property, and whose late wife was Maria’s first cousin. They had three children by this marriage: Henry, Virginia Maria, and Eliza, who died in infancy. Nine years after her marriage, Mrs. Clemm was a penniless widow with two children to raise. Nick- named “Muddy,” she was a strong-willed woman who seems to have provided a dependable home to more than just Edgar, who first went to live with her in Baltimore in 1829 when she had been a widow for two years. When he arrived, he joined her seven-year-old daughter, Virginia, and son, Henry, an intermittent drinker; his paralytic grandmother, old Mrs. David Poe, who had been bedridden for two years; and his alcoholic older brother, WILLIAM HENRY LEONARD POE, who suffered from advanced tuberculosis. The household was poverty- Maria Poe Clemm, Poe’s aunt and mother-in-law stricken and survived only on the money that (Courtesy of Edgar Allan Poe Society)

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a chicken, clothing for Virginia, potatoes, turnips, or bread. From the first, Maria Clemm gave her emotional and financial support to Poe’s literary genius and backed his efforts to publish his early stories, and she offered him physical and mental support as well as emotional assistance throughout his career. When Poe died in 1849, she was devastated by the loss, writing to her friend Mrs. ANNIE RICHMOND, “my Eddie is dead. He died in Baltimore yesterday. Annie! pray for me, your desolate friend. My senses will leave me.” Weeks before his death, Poe had asked RUFUS GRISWOLD to edit his works in the case of his sudden death, a request to which Griswold had agreed. Griswold also acquired the copyright to the works at that time and later refused to turn it over to Mrs. Clemm when Poe died. Instead, in order to publish the material with an appearance of credibility, he asked that she endorse him as executor of Poe’s literary estate and as editor of the works, which she did in a preface to the first volume of Griswold’s 1850 edition. For her efforts, she received several sets of the published works, which she tried to sell to raise money on which to survive. This likeness of Virginia Clemm, the only one in Left without a home at Poe’s death, she lived with existence, was painted a few hours after she died. friends at different times in Richmond and Fordham (Courtesy of Edgar Allan Poe Society) before returning to Baltimore in 1858. On February 16, 1871, she died in the Church Home and Infir- Accounts of the very young Virginia describe her mary, formerly named the Baltimore City Marine as having brown hair and violet eyes and being Hospital, where Poe himself had died in 1849. a lively and somewhat plump child who exuded good health and vitality. In 1832, when Poe fell Clemm, Virginia (1822–1847) Poe’s first cousin in love with MARY DEVEREAUX, a young woman and child bride. Born on August 22, 1822, Vir- who lived near the Clemms, then ten-year-old Vir- ginia was seven years old when Poe moved into the ginia played the role of messenger, carrying love household of her widowed mother MARIA CLEMM in letters between the two. After his grandmother and August 1829, four months after his discharge from brother died and Maria’s son went to sea, Poe felt a the army. For six years, Poe used the Clemm house- responsibility for the security of Maria and Virginia, hold—which also included Maria’s son, Henry, an with whom he had formed the first happy family intermittent drinker; Poe’s paralytic grandmother unit in his life. In 1834, Poe expressed his love (and Maria’s mother) old Mrs. David Poe, who had for the intelligent and beautiful 12-year-old Vir- been bedridden for two years; and his alcoholic ginia, 13 years his junior, and proposed marriage. older brother WILLIAM HENRY LEONARD POE, who He tried to obtain a teaching position at Richmond suffered from advanced tuberculosis—as his home Academy to provide a stable income for his new base while he traveled to Richmond and elsewhere life, and while he was in Richmond, his second to publish his writing and to secure a living. Dur- cousin NEILSON POE, who had married Virginia’s ing most of that time, he treated Virginia simply as half sister, offered to take Virginia into his house- his young cousin whom he called “Sis” or “Sissie.” hold and to care for her until she was of what he

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considered to be a more suitable age for marriage. man ever loved before, ruptured a blood-ves- Virginia and her mother took pity on Edgar, who sel in singing. Her life was despaired of. I took had written desperate letters to them in which he leave of her forever, and underwent all the ago- had expressed his passionate love for Virginia and nies of her death. She recovered partially, and begged her to reject Neilson’s offer. In a threaten- I again hoped. At the end of a year, the vessel ing and agonizing letter sent on August 29, 1835, broke again. I went through precisely the same Poe wrote, “Virginia, My love, my own sweetest scene. . . . Then again—again—and even once Sissy, my darling little wifey, think well before you again, at varying intervals. Each time I felt all break the heart of your cousin.” the agonies of her death—and at each acces- In October, when Poe was rehired by the SOUTH- sion of the disorder I loved her more dearly and ERN LITERARY MESSENGER, Virginia and Maria clung to her life with more desperate pertinac- joined him in Richmond. After seven months, on ity. But I am constitutionally sensitive—nervous May 16, 1836, the 13-and-a-half-year-old Virginia in a very unusual degree. I became insane, with and the 27-year-old Poe were married. A witness long intervals of horrible insanity. During these swore that Virginia was 21. Poe made every effort fits of absolute unconsciousness, I drank—God to develop Virginia’s intellectual and social abilities, only know how often or how much. As a matter tutoring her in the classics, algebra, and other aca- of course, my enemies referred the insanity to demic subjects, and he stretched his meager income the drink, rather than the drink to the insan- to provide her with singing and piano lessons. Her ity. I had, indeed, nearly abandoned all hope sweet disposition and complete adoration of her of a permanent cure, when I found one in the “Eddie” made the first six years of marriage a time of death of my wife. This I can and do endure as emotional peace for the little household. Witnesses becomes a man. It was the horrible, never-end- have stated that for the first two years, Poe contin- ing oscillation between hope and despair which ued to sleep apart from Virginia, but they began I could not longer have endured, without total a normal married life when she turned 16, which loss of reason. In the death of what was my life, continued until she experienced her first hemor- then, I received a new but—Oh God!—how rhage from tuberculosis when she was 20. From all melancholy existence. accounts, the young wife remained childlike, plump, Many critics have seen the influence of Virgin- and sweet-tempered throughout most of these six ia’s five years of dying in Poe’s work during those years. In 1842, after a period of severe financial years, especially in works that focus upon death strain, Virginia lost considerable weight and became in life, such as “ELEONORA,” “BERENICE,” “LIGEIA,” ill. On January 20, 1842, while she was playing the and “The FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER.” The piano and singing to amuse her husband, a blood madness of which Poe speaks in this letter and vessel in her throat broke and blood began to gush in other communications becomes the madness of from her mouth. Little more than five years later, on January 30, 1847, Virginia died. In the intervening the narrators of “The CASK OF AMONTILLADO,” years from the first serious evidence of her illness, “The TELL-TALE HEART,” and “The BLACK CAT.” Virginia had become an invalid, and her increas- Although “ANNABEL LEE” may reflect their rela- ingly fragile health and the destruction of her body tionship, it is “ULALUME,” published in December by tuberculosis sent Poe into deep depression. He 1847, that was inspired by Virginia’s death and lived in daily fear of her death, and the pain of that Poe made clear was a memorial to his late watching her body waste away stayed with him until wife. his own death. In a letter to JOHN INGRAM, dated January 4, 1848, Poe wrote: Clemm, William, Jr. (1779–1826) Husband of MARIA CLEMM. William, a Baltimore widower with This “evil” was the greatest that can befall a five children and a little property when he mar- man. Six years ago, a wife, whom I loved as no ried Maria, had previously been married to her first

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cousin, Harriet Poe. When he died, his property ally restore to active animation a person who died was left to the children of his first marriage. from excessive drinking of ardent spirits.” He promised Poe that upon receiving a reply to his letter, he Clemm, Reverend William T. D. (1816–1892) would give a detailed account of his own experi- Minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church and ences “in order to put at rest the growing impression VIRGINIA CLEMM’s first cousin. Described as “cold- that your account is merely a splendid creation of blooded and unchristianlike” by one observer, he your own brain, not having any truth in fact.” read the three-minute burial service at Poe’s funeral on October 8, 1849. Colton, George Hooker (1818–1847) Editor of the AMERICAN WHIG REVIEW. In February 1845, he Cloud, C. F. Owner and publisher of the BALTI- bought Poe’s poem “The RAVEN” for less than $20. MORE SUNDAY VISITER. His move in 1834 to replace Colton described the poem in an editorial as “one LAMBERT WILMER with JOHN H. HEWITT as editor of the most felicitous specimens of unique rhym- of the publication deprived Poe of a friendly home ing which has for some time met our eye.” In his for his writing. profile of Colton in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY,” Poe described him as “a man of genius in his Cocke, John Hartwell (1780–1866) An acquain- successful establishment of the magazine within so tance of JOHN ALLAN who served as host to the Allans brief a period [one year],” yet stated that he could and two-year-old Poe during the 1811 Christmas not “conscientiously call Mr. Colton a good edi- holidays. The Virginia planter and planner worked tor. . . . His taste is rather unexceptionable than with THOMAS JEFFERSON in creating the University positively good. He has not, perhaps, sufficient fire of Virginia. within himself to appreciate it in others.”

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772–1834) English Colton, Walter A correspondent who wrote to romantic poet and literary critic to whom Poe owed RUFUS GRISWOLD and praised his October 9, 1849, most of his theory of poetry. Poe was highly familiar obituary that appeared in the NEW YORK TRIBUNE with Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” and slandered Poe. Colton wrote, “[I]t is terrific. . . . “Christabel,” “Kubla Khan,” and Biographia Liter- In literary execution it rivals the best passages in aria, which he described in the review “LETTERS, Macauley.” He also claims to have known “some- CONVERSATIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS OF S. T. thing of Poe—something of the unfathomed gulfs COLERIDGE” as “the most deeply interesting of the of darkness out of which the lightning of his genius prose writings of Coleridge.” He expresses surprise sent its scorching flashes,” although Colton’s name that American publishers have not published the does not appear in Poe biographical materials. work in America and states that it “affords a clearer view into his mental constitution than any of his Commodus, Emperor Lucius Aelius Aurelius other works.” Poe extracted substantial material (A.D. 161–192) Emperor of Rome from 180 to from chapter 14 of the work and used it to develop 192. His reign was marked by personal extrava- and elaborate his own canons for both writing and gance, violence, and license. He gloried in his critiquing verse, including some of it verbatim in strength and participated in gladitorial combat. He his famous lecture on “The POETIC PRINCIPLE.” also demanded to be worshiped as a god and became the object of numerous assassination attempts. He Collyer, Robert A druggist from Stonehaven, was murdered in 192. In “The ASSIGNATION,” Poe Scotland, who assured Poe in a letter dated Decem- compares the appearance of the mysterious Byronic ber 16, 1845, and published in the BROADWAY JOUR- stranger to those of the emperor: “his were fea- NAL that the account of reanimation appearing in tures than which I have seen none more classically “The FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR” was regular, except, perhaps, the marble ones of the entirely plausible. Collyer claimed that he “did actu- Emperor Commodus.”

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Converse, Reverend Amasa Clergyman who per- Poe’s stories, many of them starring VINCENT PRICE. formed the wedding ceremony for Poe and VIRGINIA A graduate of Stanford University with an engineer- CLEMM in Richmond, Virginia, on May 16, 1836. ing degree, he began his Hollywood career as a mes- He was a Presbyterian minister who also edited the senger at Twentieth Century-Fox, then rose to story Southern Religious Telegraph. An account given years analyst, after which he moved in 1955 to the newly later by Jane Foster, then a child visiting the owner formed American International Pictures. Corman’s of the boardinghouse where the wedding took place, work includes science fiction, gangster melodramas, indicates that Converse remarked that the bride had and biker movies, but his successful and stylish Poe- a pleasing air, “ ‘but did seem young.’ ” He described based horror films, created for American International Mrs. MARIA CLEMM, as “ ‘polished, dignified, and Pictures, have drawn the greatest attention. In 1960, agreeable in her bearing’ ” and as giving away Vir- Corman had a box-office hit with his first Poe story, ginia “ ‘freely.’ ” a version of “The FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER.” Some 11 Poe-related stories followed, although most Cook, Captain James (1728–1779) English navi- were loosely based on the works, sometimes associ- gator, marine explorer, and author to whose voyages ated only by title or the recitation of the relevant Poe refers in The NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON poem at the beginning or end of the movie. The fol- PYM and The JOURNAL OF JULIUS RODMAN. Cook cir- lowing Corman-directed films starred Vincent Pirce: cumnavigated the South Pole with his ship Resolution The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), Tales of Terror and reached 70° 10’ latitude. The account of Cook’s (1962), The Raven (1963), The Masque of the Red polar voyage appears at the beginning of chapter Death (1964), The Haunted Palace (1964), The Tomb 16 of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. In Julius of Ligeia (1965), The City Under the Sea (1965), The Rodman, Cook is mentioned in chapter one as a for- Conqueror Worm (1968), The Oblong Box (1969), mer associate of JOHN LEDYARD, one of the earliest and Cry of the Banshee (1970). Corman cast Ray explorers of the northern United States. Milland as the star of The Premature Burial (1962).

Cools, Eugene (1877–1936) French composer Cowles, Walter Ruel (1881–1976) American of symphonic and dramatic music. In 1926, he composer whose musical accompaniment for men’s wrote Hop-Frog: Poème symphonique d’après un conte voices to Poe’s poem “ELDORADO” was published d’Edgard Poe [Hop Frog: Symphonic Poem Based in 1929 and part-song accompaniment for men’s on a Tale by Edgar Poe], a symphony for dual piano voices to Poe’s poem “HYMN” was written for the accompaniment. University Glee Club in 1928.

Corinnos Mentioned in “SHADOW—A PARABLE” Cowper, William (1731–1800) English pre- as “the artizan Corinnos” who has fashioned “a romantic poet who suffered from bouts of religious lofty door of brass . . . being of rare workmanship” mania and intermittent attacks of insanity. His best- that was fastened from within and which safeguards known work is “The Task,” and its glorification of seven people “in a dim city called Ptolemais” who life in rural England is considered a precursor to the have locked themselves away during a “Pestilence” works of the English romantic poet William Word- sometime in the distant past. The historical Corin- sworth. Poe used Cowper’s lines from “Tirocinium” nos is actually a poet who flourished during the as an epigraph for TAMERLANE AND OTHER POEMS Trojan War, but the reference might be an allusion and praised Cowper’s style in “MARGINALIA.” to Corinth, where brassmaking was an art and the artisans included gold and silver in their brass. Cranch, Christopher Pearse (1813–1892) Amer- ican poet and minister whom Poe included among his Corman, Roger (1926– ) Hollywood producer- “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY.” Poe identified director who achieved his greatest fame as a director him as “one of the least intolerable of the school of in the 1960s of the movies based on Edgar Allan Boston transcendalists” and commended his move to

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New York as having “reformed his habits of thought cryptography Poe established his reputation as a and speech.” The review begins with an expression of cryptographer by creating and solving cryptographs sympathy for the poet, whose volume Poems by Chris- in ALEXANDER’S WEEKLY MESSENGER. In December topher Pearse Cranch “was most unmercifully treated 1839, Poe issued a challenge to readers to solve cryp- by the critics, and much injustice, in my [Poe’s] opin- tograms that appeared in the publication, motivating ion, was done to the poet.” Poe states that “he seems a strong reader response and increasing circulation. to me to possess unusual vivacity of fancy and dexter- When Poe moved to GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE, he took ity of expression, while his versification is remarkable the interest with him. In July 1841, Poe’s article for its accuracy, vigor, and even for its originality “A Few Words about Secret Writing” presented of effect,” but he is also guilty of a “preference for his cryptographic principles and motivated letters Imagination’s half sister, the Cinderella, Fancy. . . . from readers and attempted solutions to the puzzles There must always be, to afford him perfect satisfac- that he included in the article and in three supple- tion, a certain amount of the odd, of the whimsical, ments that were added to the August, October, and of the affected, of the bizarre.” The reviewer finds December issues. Poe’s interest in cryptographs was such intentionally manufactured constructions to be confined to his nonfiction and appears in his fiction artificial and declares of Cranch that “he has been only in “The GOLD-BUG,” in which he included a at uncommon pains to make a fool of himself.” The simple cryptograph. Modern cryptographic experts review ends with a discussion of “Niagara,” which rank very highly Poe’s skills in decoding. Poe declares to be one of his best poems but which also fails to please, for “it is difficult to conceive any- Cullum, George Washington Fellow cadet with thing more ludicrously out of keeping.” Poe at West Point. He rose to the rank of general and later recalled Poe as “slovenly, heedless, Crebillon, Prosper Jolyot de (1674–1762) French and eccentric, and more inclined to the making of dramatist. At the end of Poe’s story “The PURLOINED verses than the solving of equations.” LETTER,” detective C. Auguste Dupin quotes the following lines from Crebillon’s 1707 tragedy Atrée Cushing, Caleb (1800–1879) American states- et Thyeste: “—Un dessein si funeste, / S’il n’est digne man and Boston orator who served in the U.S. d’Atreé, est digne de Thyeste” [A design so deadly, House of Representatives from 1835 to 1843, then even if not worthy of Atreus, is worthy of Thyestes]. became U.S. commissioner to China under Presi- The revenge tragedy is taken from Greek mythology dent John Tyler. He preceded Poe on the program and concerns the story of king Atreus of Myce- at the Lyceum’s Odeon Theater lecture series on nae who took revenge on his brother Thyestes for October 16, 1845. Cushing delivered a long lec- seducing his wife by murdering his nephews, Thyes- ture on Great Britain before Poe’s reading of “AL tes’s sons, and serving them to Thyestes for dinner. AARAAF.” When Poe wrote of the occasion in “BOS- After the meal, Thyestes pronounced a curse on TON AND THE BOSTONIANS,” he wrote of himself in the house of Atreus. Poe also refers to Crebillon in the third person and stated that “Mr. Poe com- “MARGINALIA” and calls his work The Age of Reason mitted another error in consenting to address an “the half-profound, half-silly, and wholly irrational audience in verse, who, for three mortal hours, had composition of a very clever, very ignorant, and been compelled to sit and hear Mr. Caleb Cushing laughably impudent fellow.” in prose. The attempt to speak after this, in poetry, and fanciful poetry, too, was sheer madness.” Cross, Henry (1895–1978) American composer, organist, and conductor who wrote musical accompa- Cuvier, Baron Georges-Léopold-Chrétien-Frédéric- niment to Poe’s poem “A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM.” Dagobert (1769–1832) French naturalist and a Published in 1936, the piece is written for a full founder of the studies of comparative anatomy and chorus of mixed voices in eight parts a cappella with paleontology. Poe refers to Cuvier in The NARRATIVE pianoforte accompaniment for rehearsal only. OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM, in identifying a mollusk

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that “the celebrated Cuvier calls gastropoda pul- Cyrus (c. 600–529 B.C.) King of Persia from 550 monifera.” He also notes in the review “ANIMAL to 529 B.C. His military leadership made the Persian AND VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY, CONSIDERED WITH Empire the most powerful state in the world. In 546 REFERENCE TO THEOLOGY” that appended to the B.C., forces led by Cyrus conquered the kingdom book “are also a catalogue of engravings and a of Babylon. Poe refers to the elevation of Cyrus to tabular vie of the classification of animals adopted the throne of Babylon in the short story “LOSS OF by Cuvier in his ‘Règne Animal,’ ” with examples BREATH” as an example of what his narrator must included. endure to survive.

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Dagon God of fertility worshipped by the Philis- for his poem “ISRAFEL.” He reviewed her work in tines and throughout the ancient Middle East, whose the “POETICAL REMAINS OF THE LATE LUCRETIA name with others the Pharisee calls out in trying to MARIA DAVIDSON,” published in the December understand the nature of the pagan gods mentioned 1841 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. The cause of by the Roman soldier in “A TALE OF JERUSALEM.” death is distinctly vague in the few accounts that exist of her life. Writing in 1869, Caroline May Daguerre, Louis (1789–1851) French painter asserted that her health was “always, very feeble.” and inventor of the daguerreotype process, the art One month before her 17th birthday, “the strength of photography on metal plates that is the precur- of affection and the skill of physicians, however, sor to modern photography. Poe refers to Daguerre failed to restore it.” in “The THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE OF SCHE- HERAZADE” as having “directed the sun to paint his Davis, Dr. Hugh Wythe Nephew of Dr. CREED portrait, and the sun did.” THOMAS, Poe’s deskmate at Burke’s School in Rich- mond, Virginia. When Thomas died in 1899, Davis Daniel, John Moncure (1825–1865) Editor of wrote his obituary. It included numerous details the RICHMOND EXAMINER whom Poe challenged to about the friends that Poe and his uncle held in a duel in August 1848, after he had questioned the common and about their early adventures. The motive of Poe’s attentions to SARAH HELEN WHIT- obituary helped to dispel other accounts, including MAN. Daniel refused to take the challenge seriously, that by RUFUS W. GRISWOLD that Poe as a boy was and, after a meeting in which he offered Poe use of a loner or that “no one knew him.” his pistols to duel in the newspaper office, the two men reconciled and no duel took place. His article Davy, Sir Humphry (1778–1829) English chem- in the March 1850 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY ist and inventor. His experiments with gases led him MESSENGER praised Poe for being “all times pas- to discover the anesthetic effects of nitrous oxide sionately genuine” and whose “complexity of his (laughing gas). He also conducted experiments with intellect, its incalculable resources” marked Poe’s electrical current. In “VON KEMPELEN AND HIS DIS- literary brilliance. COVERY,” the narrator makes reference to the “Diary” of Sir Humphry Davy and demonstrates von Kem- Davidson, Lucretia Maria (1808–1825) Amer- pelen’s debt to the British scientist for his discovery. ican child poet whose poem “Amir Khan” (1829) contains a reference to “Israfil.” Critics suggest that Dawes, Rufus (1803–1859) Baltimore poet and the reference may have provided inspiration to Poe editor of the Minerva and Emerald, which in 1829 319

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printed an unfavorable review of Poe’s “AL AARAAF” the devil, he sought to create one which would be that unmercifully poked fun at the new poet. Poe’s “cynical and cruel—much more devilish than the anger simmered for seven years, then erupted in a red, brimstone-breathing clown that has, so illogi- scathing denunciation of Dawes’s abilities in “AUTOG- cally, become a tradition with us. I should also like RAPHY” in 1836. Poe asserted that Dawes was in style to put an end to the idea that the devil is the spirit “the most inflated, involved, and falsely-figurative of of evil. He is simply the spirit of contradiction.” any of our more noted poets. . . . His apparent eru- The devil would also remain silent throughout the dition is mere verbiage, and, were it real, would be opera and only whistle, and the one singing part lamentably out of place where we see it.” Some 14 would be that of the crowd. The composer also years after the initial insult, Poe wrote a devastat- told friends that he had become obsessed with the ing critique of Dawes’s poetry titled “The POETRY OF “ ‘heir of the Usher family’ ” and had nearly finished RUFUS DAWES—A RETROSPECTIVE,” which appeared a long monologue of “poor Roderick’s. It is sad in the October 1842 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. enough to draw tears from a stone.” Had Debussy completed the two operas, their Day, Frederic Lansing (1890–1975) American first performances would have been at the Met- dramatist and composer who created music to ac- ropolitan Opera in New York, which had secured company Poe’s “The FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER,” the rights to the works in progress. Giulio Gatti- which he also dramatized. The music consists of a Casazza, the former impresario of the opera house, song for solo voice, a chant for solo voice, and a group insisted that Debussy sign the agreement and dance as the setting for the poem “The HAUNTED pressed upon him a modest advance despite the PALACE,” which Poe included in “The Fall of the composer’s warning that he was a lazy writer who House of Usher.” The play appears in seven short took weeks to write a few bars of music. Propheti- scenes, with brief entr’actes that occur in darkness, cally, Debussy also told Gatti-Casazza, “Remember during which strains of the music are heard. also that you are the one who insisted on making this agreement and that probably you will not Debussy, Claude-Achille (1862–1918) Master receive anything.” French impressionist composer whose best-known works are the symphonic poem Prélude à l’après- Defoe, Daniel (1659–1731) English novelist midi d’un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun; whom Poe admired for his power of verisimilitude in 1892) and his masterwork lyric drama Pelléas et writing. In his 1836 review of Defoe’s The Life and Mélisande, completed in 1903, among numerous Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719), Poe other compositions. At his death in 1918, Debussy praises the author for having “the faculty of identi- left two unfinished operas on Poe themes, Le Dia- fication—that dominion exercised by volition over ble dans le Beffroi [“The DEVIL IN THE BELFRY”] imagination which enables the mind to lose its own, and La Chute de la Maison Usher [“The FALL OF in a fictitious, individuality.” THE HOUSE OF USHER”], on which he had been at work for years and which obsessed him. In a 1902 De Hart, John The maternal grandfather of Miss letter to André Messager, Debussy stated: “Don’t LOUISA GABRIELLA PATTERSON, the second wife of mention this to anyone; I am very much taken. . . . JOHN ALLAN. De Hart was a member of the Con- I have got into the way of thinking of nothing tinental Congress of 1774–76 from New Jersey and else but ‘Roderick Usher’ and ‘The Devil in the later attorney general of that state, as well as a Belfry.’ . . . I fall asleep with them, and I awake wealthy and influential lawyer. In short, De Hart either to the gloomy sadness of the former or to was the father of Poe’s step-foster mother and a the sneers of the latter.” He viewed the poten- source of family prominence. tial opera based on “The Devil in the Belfry” as “a happy blending of the real and the fantastic.” Delos In Greek mythology, the birthplace of the Rather than to use traditional staging to present deities Apollo and Artemis. In “LIGEIA,” Poe com-

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pares the maiden Ligeia’s beauty to that of the radi- witness who looked over the detective’s shoulder. ance of “the phantasies which hovered about the Poe’s Dupin, a French detective hero, appeared in slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos.” “The MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE” (1841), “The MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGÊT” (published over 1842 Del Rio, Antonio Mentioned in “LIONIZING: A and 1843), and “The PURLOINED LETTER” (1845). TALE” as one of several scientists whose works the Dupin’s remarkable powers of deduction and his narrator has read on the subject of noses. idiosyncrasies—such as the desire to sequester himself from society and his procedure of enter- De Quincey, Thomas (1785–1859) English ing the mind of the murderer—as well as the dual writer, author of Confessions of an English Opium national association of a French detective created Eater. Critics have suggested that his influence by an American writer, led to a range of successors is found in Poe’s tales such as “The ISLAND OF both in the United States and abroad, the most THE FAY” and poems such as “DREAM-LAND,” as famous of which was SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE’s well as in “The FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER,” in Sherlock Holmes. Doyle used Poe’s technique of which the narrator makes a blatant reference “to narrating his detective’s exploits through the view- the after-dream of the reveller upon opium” in the point of a companion, and he gave Holmes intel- opening paragraph of the story. Poe’s sole direct ref- lectual capabilities as well as bizarre habits similar erence to De Quincey appears in “HOW TO WRITE to those of Dupin. Critics have also suggested that A BLACKWOOD ARTICLE,” in which his Mr. Black- Agatha Christie had Poe’s Dupin in mind in cre- wood names Confessions of an Opium-eater as one ating her Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, who of the articles to be used as a “model or study.” The insists that his powers of detection reside in his use assessment is decidedly unfavorable, as the speaker of “the little gray cells” and whose idiosyncrasies characterizes the article as “fine, very fine!—glori- are abundant. ous imagination—deep philosophy—acute speculation—plenty of fire and fury, and a good spicing of Devereaux, Mary A neighbor of MARIA CLEMM’s the decidedly unintelligible. . . . It was composed by in Baltimore who gave an extensive interview 40 my pet baboon, Juniper, over a rummer of Hollands years after Poe’s death in which she claimed to and water, ‘hot, without sugar.’ (This I scarcely have been his sweetheart during the first year after would have believed had it been anybody but Mr. he moved to Baltimore. Her story was related in Blackwood, who assured me of it.)” an article by AUGUSTUS VAN CLEEF, titled “Poe’s Mary,” that appeared in the March 1889 issue of detective story Edgar Allan Poe is widely cred- Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. She relates that ited for having invented the modern detective Poe often sent VIRGINIA CLEMM to carry messages story, a form of narrative fiction that focuses on between the two, and that before Devereaux had a crime and its solution, and for establishing in actually met Poe, Virginia had appeared with his C. Auguste Dupin the model for the detective— request for a lock of her bright auburn hair, a favor either amateur or professional, a member of the that she granted. Most of what she states simply official police force or a private investigator—who confirms what is known about Poe’s personality, uses his intellectual powers to solve crime. In Poe’s especially that “he was passionate in his love” and stories, as in those of his successors in the genre, that “his feelings were intense and he had but little the detective is the main protagonist, who must control over them.” interrogate all suspects, elicit and identify clues, Her story of their breakup adds a sexual dimen- and ultimately track down the perpetrator, usu- sion to Poe that is absent from other accounts. ally a murderer. Although the detective reveals all Mary states that Poe failed to appear one evening clues to the reader in a range of ways, the signifi- until late, then appeared smelling of liquor. He cance of the clues is not revealed until the end of excused himself by stating that he had met several the story. Poe’s detective stories made the reader a cadets from West Point, and the group had gone

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to a local hotel for supper and champagne. He Dickens, Charles (1812–1870) English novelist claimed that he had rushed to meet her as soon whom Poe admired greatly to the point of labeling as he could, but their meeting soon erupted into a him “the greatest British novelist.” Poe’s favorable quarrel, and Mary ran into her house. She claims reviews of three of Dickens’s works appeared in vari- that Poe followed her and tried to go upstairs ous publications (the first in 1836, the latter two in with her to her bedroom, but her mother blocked 1841) before the two met. (See entries on reviews his way and told him to leave. A passionate Poe of “The POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK insisted that he would talk with Mary, shouting, CLUB,” “The OLD CURIOSITY SHOP,” and “BARNABY “I have a right. She is my wife now in the sight RUDGE.”) When Poe learned that Dickens was to of Heaven!” Mary broke off all contact with Poe make an American tour in 1842, he wrote the nov- and concluded the following: “He didn’t value elist a highly complimentary letter and asked for a the laws of God or man. He was an atheist. He meeting. Poe conducted two interviews with Dick- would just as lief have lived with a woman with- ens at the United States Hotel in Philadelphia in out being married to her as not. . . . I made a nar- March 1842, during Dickens’s first American visit. row escape in not marrying him.” Unwilling to let When Dickens returned to England in 1842, he tried the relationship end, Poe harassed Mary, and her to obtain a London publisher for Poe’s short stories, uncle wrote a severe letter telling Poe to desist. In without success; this failure led to some bitterness that same article, Mary relates that the indignant on Poe’s part. In an 1846 letter, Poe asked Dickens poet confronted her uncle, “a man of over fifty at to aid him in becoming the American correspondent the time,” at his store and “cowhided him” but for the London Daily News, but Dickens replied that became the worse for wear when Mary’s aunts and he was no longer connected with the journal as he two sons joined the struggle and tore Poe’s frock had been in the early 1840s. The influence of Dick- coat before chasing him off. Some 10 years later, ens on Poe appears to have gone beyond mere corre- in 1842, while Virginia lay on her deathbed, Poe spondence. In Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge, which Poe went on a spree and tracked Mary to her home reviewed in 1842, the raven appears to have sup- in Jersey City, New Jersey, where he demanded to plied the germ of thought and the artistic philosophy know why she had married and if she had married for Poe’s later poem. Poe noted that “the raven, too, for love. intensely amusing as it is, might have been made, more than we now see it, a portion of the conception Dian See DIANA. of the fantastic Barnaby. Its croakings might have been prophetically heard in the course of the drama.” Diana Deity in Roman mythology; called Arte- In 1851, when Dickens again returned to the United mis in Greek mythology. She is the hunter goddess States to tour and to give readings, he visited MARIA and the guardian of springs and streams, as well CLEMM, now bereft of her dear “Sissy” and “Eddie,” as the protector of wild animals. Typically shown and left the financially impoverished woman $150 at as a young hunter, she usually is depicted carrying the close of his visit. bow and arrows. References to the goddess appear in “LIONIZING,” in which the pretentious presi- Didier, Eugene (1838–1913) Early Poe biogra- dent of Fum Fudge University pontificates that pher and editor. With the use of information gained “the moon was called Bendis in Thrace, Bubastis from interviews with MARIA CLEMM, he wrote “The in Egypt, Dian in Rome, and Artemis in Greece”; Life of Edgar Poe,” a preface to The Life and Poems and in “FOUR BEASTS IN ONE” and “MARGINALIA,” of Edgar Allan Poe, published by W. J. Widdleton in which makes references to the Temple of Diana. 1876. In approaching his subject, Didier stated his In reviews of the poetry of HENRY HIRST and RICH- ideal: “The only way to examine an author is with ARD H. HORNE’s “ORION: AN EPIC POEM IN THREE the enthusiasm of a lover and the intelligence of a BOOKS,” Poe refers to the goddess who plays promi- scholar.” He also defended Poe’s character in an nent roles in both works. article titled “Poe: Real and Reputed,” published

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in the April 1894 issue of GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND POE, Edgar’s sister. Contemporaries of Poe reported LADY’S BOOK. that he was always welcome at the home and the family always treated him well. He made more Diodorus Siculus (fl. first century B.C.) Greek frequent visits there after the death of VIRGINIA author of the Bibliotheca Historica, a history of the CLEMM. As Poe neared the end of his life, when world in 40 books from the creation through the drink made him incoherent, he was often taken to Gallic Wars and up to the first years of the Roman Duncan Lodge, where Dr. JOHN CARTER attended Empire. Poe mentions his work as a historical source him. in “LOSS OF BREATH,” and the unnamed narrator in “SOME WORDS WITH A MUMMY” relates that after Dunn, James Philip (1884–1936) American his queries to the mummy, “the silent member again composer who wrote a tone poem for voice and touched me quietly on the elbow, and begged me orchestra as accompaniment to Poe’s poem “ANNA- for God’s sake to take a peep at Diodorus Siculus.” BEL LEE” in January 1909 in honor of the 100th Poe seems to have respected the authenticity of anniversary of the poet’s birth. He also wrote instru- Diodorus, for he ends “SOME ACCOUNT OF STONE- mental music to Poe’s poem “TO HELEN” in 1916. HENGE, THE GIANT’S DANCE, A DRUIDICAL RUIN IN ENGLAND” with a passage from Diodorus and also Dupin, André-Marie-Jean-Jacques (1783–1865) remarks in “PINAKIDIA” that “the fullest account of French orator described by Poe in “MARGINALIA” the Amazons is to be found in Diodorus Siculus.” as one who “ ‘spoke, as nobody else, the language of everybody.’ ” Poe contrasts Dupin’s manner of Doellner, Robert (1899–1977) American com- speech with the belabored approach of the Bosto- poser and violinist. He wrote a musical recitation nian transcendentalists, “the Frogpondian Euphu- to Poe’s poem “ANNABEL LEE” and an orchestral ists.” Poe appears to have taken the name of the score to “A TALE OF THE RAGGED MOUNTAINS.” clear-headed French orator for his lucid detective, Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin. Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan (1859–1930) British physician, novelist, and writer of DETECTIVE STORIES. Duyckinck, Evert Augustus (1816–1878) Edi- He is best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, tor at Wiley & Putnam’s publishing house in New the master sleuth whom many view as an immedi- York, to whom Poe made appeals for money and ate descendant of Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin. Holmes publication several times during the 1840s. In first appeared in the novel A Study in Scarlet (1887). 1845, the editor selected the entries for TALES BY Doyle acknowledged Poe’s influence on his creation EDGAR A. POE, which became a critical success. and on the genre, noting of the stories that “each is a Poe expressed dissatisfaction with Duyckinck’s root from which a whole literature has developed. . . . selections, which he thought emphasized the rati- Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the ocinative works and failed to represent the full breath of life into it?” Both Holmes and Dupin pos- range of his abilities. Nonetheless, in portraying sess eccentric and solitary personalities and rely on the editor in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY,” ratiocination for success in their investigations. Poe described him as “one of the most influential of the New York littérateurs, [and someone who] Drayton, William (1776–1846) Philadelphia has done a great deal for the interests of Ameri- judge and casual acquaintance who occasionally can letters.” Of Duyckinck’s personal character- financially aided and encouraged Poe. Poe’s TALES istics, Poe stated: “In character he is remarkable, OF THE GROTESQUE AND ARABESQUE are dedicated distinguished for the bonhomie of his manner, to Drayton. his simplicity, and single-mindedness, his active beneficence, his hatred of wrong done even to any Duncan Lodge The Richmond home of Mr. and enemy, and especially for an almost Quixotic fidel- Mrs. WILLIAM MACKENZIE, who adopted ROSALIE ity to his friends.”

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E———, Mrs. See ELLET, ELIZABETH FRIES. claimed that her gossiping cast doubts on his fidelity and hastened Virginia’s death by creating stress, Eaton, Major John Henry (1790–1856) Secretary and he labeled Ellet as part of “a heartless, unnatu- of war under President Andrew Jackson. JOHN ALLAN ral, venomous, dishonorable set.” In her entry in wrote to Eaton on May 6, 1829, and asked him to “AUTOGRAPHY,” Poe wrote that she acquired “an expedite an appointment to the United States Mili- enviable reputation” as a translator, but that those tary Academy (West Point) for Poe, noting “I declare “often known as translators, . . . seldom evince high that he is no relation to me whatever.” In July, Poe, originality or very eminent talent of any kind.” to show his guardian that he was serious in his desire for a West Point appointment, walked from Balti- Ellis, Powbatan (1790–1863) Brother of Charles more to Washington, D.C., for a personal interview Ellis, JOHN ALLAN’s business partner. The United with Eaton. Once there, Poe learned that 10 more States senator from Mississippi recommended Poe’s cadets than the quota allowed had been appointed, appointment to the U.S. Military Academy on but Eaton promised that Poe would receive the next March 13, 1830, thus providing evidence of a pow- appointment once 10 resigned, or that he would be erful association to ensure Poe’s success in acquir- the first appointed the following year. ing the appointment.

Eisler, Paul (1878–1972) Austrian conductor Ellis, Colonel Thomas H. (1812–1888) Child- and pianist who wrote Hymn to the Virgin, a musical hood friend of Poe and the son of the senior member composition in four-part chorus for mixed voices of Ellis and Allan, the firm in which JOHN ALLAN with organ accompaniment, inspired by Poe’s poem was a partner. In May 1881, Ellis published an arti- “HYMN.” cle of reminiscences of Poe, later reprinted in Sep- tember 1900 in the New York Independent, in which Ellet, Elizabeth Fries (1818–1877) Poet, trans- he corrected errors regarding Poe’s early years and lator, and New York bluestocking socialite. Poe the activities of the Allan family. Of Poe, he stated: said that she was “the most malignant and pertina- “[H]e was very beautiful, yet brave and manly for cious of all fiends—a woman whose loathsome love one so young. No boy ever had a greater influence I could do nothing but repel with scorn.” She wrote over me than he had.” The account characterizes anonymous passionate love letters to Poe while the young Poe as an adventurous boy whose daring he lived in the cottage at Fordham, New York, led him into trouble as a child, but it also admits to with VIRGINIA and MARIA CLEMM, but he returned the brilliance of the young adult who “was sent to her letters and rejected all of her advances. Poe the best schools, he was taught every accomplish- 324

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ment that a boy could acquire, he was trained to all the habits of the most polished society.”

Embury, Emma C. (1806–1863) Minor New York poet and novelist who wrote under the nom de plume “Ianthe.” In “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY,” Poe praised her for having “a poetic capacity of no common order” and noted that her reputation as a poet had been overshadowed by her renown as a writer of short stories: “In this latter capacity she has, upon the whole, no equal of her sex in America—certainly no superior.” Poe also praised the freshness of her subjects and noted that “she has also much imagination and sensibility, while her style is pure, earnest, and devoid of verbiage and exaggeration.”

Engelsburg, Eduard Schon (1825–1879) Vien- nese composer of voice and instrumental compositions who wrote a musical setting of Poe’s “ANNABEL LEE.”

English, Thomas Dunn (1819–1902) Physician and amateur poet who was first Poe’s close friend and strong defender, then later became as strong an enemy. As editor of the New York monthly the Aristidean, he reviewed Poe’s work. Mutual ani- Thomas Dunn English, whom Poe sued for libel mosity began in 1843 when Poe mocked English’s (Courtesy of Edgar Allan Poe Society) poems in public. English took his revenge by featuring a Poe-like character in his novels Walter Woolfe nemesis until Poe’s death, then tarnished his repu- (1843), The Doom of the Drinker (1844), and The tation further by giving accounts of Poe’s uncon- Power of the S.F. (1846). The attack in the latter trolled drinking and drug use. novel was even more vehement than in the first, for English’s character “Marmaduke Hammerhead” epigraphs Poe began most of his short stories closely resembles Poe and is credited with writing and two of his poems, “IN YOUTH I HAVE KNOWN “The Black Crow” and “The Humbug, and Other ONE” and “ISRAFEL,” with epigraphs drawn from Tales.” This publication caused Poe and English to diverse sources, from nursery rhymes to the Greek quarrel violently and to come to blows, followed by and Roman classics to the obscure or spurious. In a violent literary war. Poe ridiculed English in “The some cases, Poe cited an author but not the spe- LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY,” stating that noth- cific source in an author’s works, while in others ing is “more pitiable than that of a man without he completely fabricated an epigraph and simply the commonest school education busying himself attached a name, as with the fictitious epigraph to in attempts to instruct mankind on topics of polite “LIGEIA” from Joseph Glanvill. literature.” English retaliated with a fiery letter to the editor that appeared in the July 23, 1846, issue Eusebius of Caesarea (260–340) Theologian, of the NEW YORK MIRROR, in response to which Poe church historian, and scholar. Also called Eusebius sued English for libel and defamation of charac- Pamphili, he was probably born in Palestine. He ter. English printed unflattering material about his became bishop of Caesarea in 314 and was said to

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be one of the most learned men of his time. Poe Everett, Edward (1794–1865) Distinguished refers to him in “LIONIZING” as one of the thinkers American orator and editor of the North American of whom Theologus Theology speaks. In Poe’s short Review, a New England publication whose solid story “BON-BON,” “a toasting fork might be discov- position Poe undermined with the success of the ered by the side of Eusebius” in hell, thus making it SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. In “AUTOGRA- convenient for the devil to toast him at will. PHY,” Poe wrote that Everett’s handwriting “has about it an air of deliberate precision emblematic Evening Mirror New York City newspaper of the statesman, and a grace and solidity betoken- edited first by NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS and later ing the scholar.” Contemptuous of all connected by HIRAM FULLER. Poe began work at the paper with the Review, Poe stated further: “The man as a “mechanical paragraphist”—a columnist, in who writes thus will never grossly err in judgment modern parlance—in 1844. In January 1845, the or otherwise. We may venture to say, however, paper was the first to publish Poe’s “The RAVEN,” that he will not attain the loftiest pinnacles of for which it is chiefly remembered. Despite Poe’s renown.” sober efforts to increase subscriber interest in the paper, and Willis’s testimony that Poe complied Ezekiel Old Testament prophet and Hebrew with his editor’s requests to decrease the acrid- leader. Ezekiel was the first of the major Hebrew ness of his criticisms and to modify his irony, the prophets to consider the ultimate consequences paper betrayed Poe after Willis left. In the May 26, of the withdrawal of God’s spirit from his chosen 1846, issue, the Evening Mirror printed CHARLES people. In Poe’s short story “FOUR BEASTS IN ONE,” F. BRIGGS’s excoriation of Poe’s character, which Antiochus Epiphanes is referred to as being “the insinuated that Poe was insane. Gog of the prophet Ezekiel.”

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Fashion See review “THE NEW COMEDY. BY MRS. fault with the volume and contends that Griswold MOWATT;” MOWATT, ANNA CORA. has not done one or two of the poets justice and that he has left out several whom Poe would have Fay, Theodore Sedgwick (1807–1898) Author included. In the final analysis, he praises the cour- of the novel Norman Leslie: A Tale of the Present age shown by Griswold for going against “the four Times, a book that exemplified popular taste and or five different cliques who control our whole liter- that the NEW YORK MIRROR praised heavily and ature in controlling the larger portion of our critical Poe condemned. In “AUTOGRAPHY,” Poe describes journals” and for recognizing “the poetical claims of Fay’s signature as having “an air of swagger about the ladies mentioned above.” it. There are too many dashes—and the tails of the long letters are too long.” Moreover, he finds Fergusson, John W. Printer with the SOUTH- the writing to have a “wavering, finicky, and over- ERN LITERARY MESSENGER in the mid-1830s who delicate air, without pretension to either grace or attended Poe’s wedding to VIRGINIA CLEMM. In force.” See “NORMAN LESLIE: A TALE OF THE PRES- years after Poe’s death, Fergusson was interviewed ENT TIMES.” about the author and provided the following characterization: “There never was a more perfect gen- Female Poets of America A large volume edited tleman than Mr. Poe when he was sober, [but at and compiled by RUFUS W. GRISWOLD containing other times] he would just as soon lie down in the representative poetry of 95 women poets, begin- gutter as anywhere else.” ning with Anne Bradstreet and ending with the now-forgotten Anna H. Phillips, who wrote under “A Few Words on Secret Writing” See the pseudonym Helen Irving, published in 1842 by CRYPTOGRAPHY. Carey & Hart. Poe’s review of the work appeared in the November 1842 issue of the Boston Miscellany. Fichte, Johann Gottlieb (1762–1814) German The review praises Griswold for introducing many philosopher, educator, and proponent of an ideal- of the “lady-poets” to the public for the first time, as ist theory of reality and moral action. His theories well as for having “been at the pains of doing what defined consciousness as an interaction between the Northern critics seem to be at great pains never to ego, the “I,” and otherness, the “not-I.” Poe speaks do—that is to say, he has been at the trouble of in “MORELLA” of “the wild Pantheism of Fichte;” and doing justice, in great measure, to several poetesses in “LOSS OF BREATH,” the imminence of death brings who have not had the good fortune to be born in “like a flood” a remembrance of Fichte. In “HOW TO the North.” Aside from such praise, Poe also finds WRITE A BLACKWOOD ARTICLE,” Poe recommends 327

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that would-be authors “Talk of the academy and the Latin verses from Vospiscus’s “Divius Aurelianus,” lyceum, and say something about Ionic, and Italic part of Scriptores Historiae Augustae, for the crowd schools, or about Bossarian, and Kant, and Schelling, to use in celebrating the valor of their king Antio- and Fichte.” Poe also makes reference to Fichte’s chus Epiphanes. theories in the discussion of “Geraldine” in a review of the work of RUFUS DAWES. Fletcher the Younger, Giles (1588–1623) English poet. Poe used one stanza from Fletcher’s “Christ’s Fitzgerald, Bishop O. P. Virginia clergyman who Victorie and Triumph in Heaven and Earth” as in 1899 spoke at commencement exercises at the an epigraph to his short story “The DOMAIN OF University of Virginia and recounted his experiences ARNHEIM.” Fletcher is mentioned as one of “the in hearing Poe read and lecture in 1848 and 1849. principal poets and artists of Great Britain” in Poe’s Although some of what Fitzgerald said has since review “The BOOK OF GEMS. THE POETS AND ART- been found to be inaccurate, his remarks have been ISTS OF GREAT BRITAIN,” in the August 1836 issue used by numerous pseudobiographers to create a of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. composite of Poe’s last days. Fitzgerald claimed that Poe, in a final lecture on September 24, 1849, raised Flud, Robert (1574–1637) British Rosicrucian, as much as $1,500 speaking about “The POETIC a member of an international fraternity of religious PRINCIPLE.” If true, then MARIA CLEMM’s continued mystics devoted to applying esoteric religions in poverty at the time would be due to a cruel Poe who daily life, who dealt in the occult art of palmistry. would not share his fortune with her. Later accounts Among Roderick Usher’s favorite volumes in his correct this and assert that the amount was much library is The Chiromancy of Robert Flud, one of sev- smaller, so low that Poe was forced to borrow $5 to eral books that the unnamed narrator of “The FALL go north that day. Fitzgerald also professed to have OF THE HOUSE OF USHER” declares to be “in strict inside knowledge of Poe’s final days and speaks of keeping with this character of phantasm.” parties and toasts that remain uncorroborated. Foote, Arthur (1853–1937) American composer. Fitzwilliam, Edward Francis (1824–1857) En glish In 1901 Foote wrote a four-part chorus for the first composer of songs and dramatic music who com- stanza of Poe’s poem “The BELLS.” Foote also composed “Hear the Sledges with the Bells,” a musi- posed orchestral pieces inspired by other literary cal setting of the first stanza of Poe’s poem “The works; among these are The Farewell of Hiawatha, BELLS.” The Wreck of the Hesperus, and works by the Persian Flag of Our Union Boston weekly journal, poet Omar Khayyam, as well as a symphonic pro- owned by Frederick Gleason. Although it did logue to Francesca da Rimini. not have a large subscriber list, the Boston sheet did, for a time, pay Poe promptly and fairly well. Forrest, Hamilton (1901–1984) American com- Among other pieces, it printed Poe’s short story poser who in 1928 created The Masque of the Red “HOP-FROG” on March 17, 1849; the poem “TO Death, A Satire in Rhythmical Dissonance for mixed MY MOTHER” on July 7, 1849; and “FOR ANNIE” on chorus and orchestra. April 28, 1849. The newspaper announced in late April 1849 that it could no longer pay for whatever Forsyth, Cecil (1870–1943) English composer, articles and poetry it published, and Poe stopped conductor, and author of music treatises. Forsyth submitting his work. wrote a part-song for unaccompanied men’s voices to Poe’s poem “TO HELEN,” as well as a setting of Flavius Vospiscus (c. A.D. 172) Second-century Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale,” orchestral studies poet, born in ancient Syracuse. He is mentioned in for Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, and the operas Poe’s short story “FOUR BEASTS IN ONE.” Poe cites Westward Ho! and Cinderella.

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Foulds, John Herbert (1880–1939) English com- restrictions. Form and function were forced to yield poser and conductor who in 1924 created a dramatic to a fluidity in both poetry and prose. The Symbol- monologue with a simplified pianoforte arrangement ist leaders STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ, Arthur Rimbaud, from an orchestral score for Poe’s “The TELL-TALE and Paul Verlaine and their followers valued all of HEART.” The composer also wrote music for theater Poe’s writings. Later French critics, such as Paul productions, concert opera, chamber music, songs, Claudel and Paul Valéry, who particularly admired and piano pieces. “EUREKA,” praised Poe’s genius to a young ANDRÉ GIDE. Most English language readers saw “Eureka” Fox, George (1854–?) British composer and dra- only as pseudoscience, but Claudel called it “mag- matic baritone who sang with the Italian Opera at nificent.” Gide later credited Poe as “one of the Her Majesty’s Theatre and the Royal English Opera inventors of le monologue intérieur [interior mono- Company. He wrote a cantata to Poe’s poem “The logue].” The Symbolists adopted the musicality of BELLS.” Poe’s verse as their own, as well as his synthesizing of the senses in which all objects take on symbolic Francis, John Wakefield (1789–1861) Physi- meaning through a correspondence among visual, cian who attended the Poes from 1844 to 1846. auditory, and sensory perceptions. He warned Poe at various times to abstain from drinking for the sake of his health, and in 1847 he Frogpondians Poe’s derogatory name for the warned that Poe’s heart was weak and he would New England and Boston literati. Boston itself was not live long. Francis also appears in Poe’s “The LIT- “the Frogpond.” In many reviews of such lumi- ERATI OF NEW YORK CITY,” in which he is honored naries as HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, Poe “in his capacity of physician and medical lecturer.” spoke of the pretentious behavior by Boston literati Poe speaks highly of the physician’s philanthropy, who fancied themselves to be equals of the great noting that “[h]is professional services and his British writers living on the other side of the Atlan- purse are always at the command of the needy; few tic Ocean (the great pond). Instead, Poe charac- of our wealthiest men have ever contributed to the terized them as small talents living in the limited relief of distress so bountifully.” boundaries of a frog pond (Boston). His hostility was heightened by their abuse of his work, and he French critics and criticism Poe exercised great openly attacked the Frogpondians in “BOSTON AND influence on the French poet and critic CHARLES THE BOSTONIANS”: “The Frogpondians may as well BAUDELAIRE, who wrote several articles about him spare us their abuse. We despise them and defy and translated Poe’s work. Baudelaire’s work, and them (the transcendental vagabonds!) and they Poe’s work through him, attracted a group of French may all go to the devil together.” poets and prose writers in the last three decades of the 19th century whose works show the influence Fuller, Hiram (1814–1880) Editor of the New of the two earlier writers. Known both as Symbol- York EVENING MIRROR. He sided with Poe’s literary ists and in a narrower group as Decadents for their enemies CHARLES BRIGGS and Dr. THOMAS DUNN interest in the morbid and perverse, as well as for ENGLISH when they published their attacks on Poe their unconventional social behavior and sensa- in the May 26, 1846, issue of the Evening Mirror tional temperaments, they placed emphasis on pure and the June 23, 1846, issue of the New York Morn- art and creative self-expression. These rebellious art- ing Telegraph. ists and writers revolted against realism and chose, instead, to depict and explore the human psyche Fuller, (Sarah) Margaret (Ossoli) (1810–1850) and to recreate—not merely record—human con- American social reformer, author, and editor who sciousness. The symbols pervading their work are espoused transcendentalism and championed the highly personal, often esoteric, and the techniques cause of equal rights for women. She was the liter- used were attempts to free art from conventional ary critic for the NEW YORK TRIBUNE from 1844 to

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1846 and gained a strong reputation in this field. er’s “personal character and her printed book are She reviewed TALES BY EDGAR A. POE, published in merely one and the same thing.” 1845 by Wiley & Putnam, in the Tribune and found them to be “a penetration into the causes of things Furneaux, Lieutenant An actual English sailor which leads to original but credible results. Where and explorer. Readers learn in The NARRATIVE OF the effects are fantastic, they are not unmeaningly ARTHUR GORDON PYM that he accompanied Cap- so.” Unlike Poe, who took every opportunity to tain Cook on the Resolution and joined him “in the attack his critics, and even though Poe attacked her Adventure,” as Poe wrote in referring to the exten- association with the transcendentalists (see TRAN- sive journeys made by Cook. SCENDENTALISM), she abstained from revenge, and her opinion of Poe’s abilities remained fair and just. Fuseli, Henry (1741–1825) Swiss-English painter In her review of The RAVEN AND OTHER POEMS, pub- whose works emphasized melodrama, fantasy, and lished in 1845 by Wiley & Putnam, Fuller wrote that horror and exerted an important influence on the Poe’s lines “breathe a passionate sadness, relieved romantic movement in England. Best known were sometimes by touches very lovely and tender.” his imaginative fantasy paintings, filled with lurid Poe presents a complimentary view of Fuller’s nocturnal effects, apparitions, and the trappings of literary ability in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK nightmares. Poe’s unnamed narrator in “The FALL CITY” and speaks of her style as “one of the very OF THE HOUSE OF USHER” views with fear the paint- best with which I am acquainted.” He views Fuller ings by Roderick Usher, which evoke “an intensity of as “a marked exception” to the “ill-founded” belief intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt I ever yet in that “the book of an author is a thing apart from the contemplation of the certainly glowing yet too the author’s self” and notes with approval that Full- concrete reveries of Fuseli.”

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Gaffy Nickname that Poe acquired as student at and choir music. He wrote Poe’s Fordham Prayer, a the University of Virginia. Poe would often read four-part chorus for men’s voices, with piano music his early short story efforts to friends who gath- for rehearsal only, which he based on Poe’s poem ered with him in the evening. On one particular “HYMN.” Gaul was under the mistaken impression occasion, he read a story to friends who teased that “Hymn” was written while Poe was living in him about its merits and said that the name of the Fordham, New York. In fact, the poem was written hero, Gaffy, had been used too frequently through- before 1834, and Poe did not move to Fordham out the work. Angered by their teasing, Poe threw until 1846. When asked about his title, Gaul said, the story into the fire, even though his friends “I really thought that Poe wrote the piece while protested immediately that it was one of his best living in Fordham and that is the only raison d’être stories to date and that they had simply been hav- for the title.” ing fun with him. For a long time afterward, these same friends called Poe by their new nickname for Gay-Lussac, Joseph-Louis (1778–1850) French him, Gaffy. chemist and physicist known for experiments with the physical properties of gases. In 1804, he made Galt, William (1755–1825) A successful mer- several ascents in hot air balloons to study mag- chant and one of the richest men in Virginia, Galt netic forces and to observe the composition and was the uncle of JOHN ALLAN. Galt was born in temperature of the air at different altitudes. Poe Scotland and migrated to the United States to refers to his experiments in the short story “The make his fortune. After settling in Richmond, UNPARALLELED ADVENTURE OF ONE HANS PFAALL” Virginia, Galt built a prosperous mercantile and and notes that “the greatest height ever reached tobacco trade at home and overseas. Records show by man was that of 25,000 feet, attained in the that he had a strong sense of family responsibil- aeronautic expedition of Messieurs Gay-Lussac ity and provided for orphaned family members on and Biot.” both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. When he died in March 1825, he left his fortune of several hundred George, Dr. Miles Student acquaintance of thousand dollars (the equivalent of a few million Poe at the University of Virginia who often vis- dollars in contemporary terms), slaves, securities, ited Poe’s rooms. In a letter written on May 18, merchandise, and real estate to Allan. 1880, to Edward Valentine, a cousin of Mrs. FRAN- CES ALLAN, George described his memories of Gaul, Harvey (1881–1967) American conduc- Poe’s temperament as “very excitable and restless, tor, organist, music critic, and composer of religious at times wayward, melancholic and morose, but 331

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again—in his better moods, frolicksome, full of fun, ways, Gide conducted a study of Poe through his and a most attractive and agreeable companion.” early critical examination of the works of Russian The memory of 1826 also includes a foreshadow- novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky, whose settings and ing of the problem that would plague Poe: “To characters he viewed from a context of perversity calm and quiet the excessive nervous excitability and self-torment that he likened to those of Poe. under which he labored, he would too often put As Gide found, the characters of Dostoyevsky’s himself under the influence of the ‘Invisible Spirit works, like those in Poe’s works, are often “proof Wine.’ ” foundly warped by humiliation” and “find satisfaction in the resultant degradation, loathsome Gibson, Thomas Ware Poe’s cadet roommate though it be.” at West Point. In an account published in the November 1867 issue of Harper’s Magazine, 30 Gilbert, Henry F. (1868–1928) American com- years after they shared quarters, Gibson recalled poser who in 1904 wrote music for pianoforte inspired the young Poe. At barely 20 years of age, Poe “had by Poe’s tale “The ISLAND OF THE FAY.” He also com- the appearance of being much older. He had a posed orchestral and piano pieces, as well as a ballet worn, weary, discontented look, not easily for- and choral works. gotten by those who were intimate with him.” Gibson recalled that Poe was not amused by any Gill, William F. (1843–1882) Poe’s first Ameri- remarks at his expense, and he became “not a can biographer and author of The Life of Edgar Allan little annoyed by a story that some of the class Poe (Chatto & Windus, 1878). Gill attempted to got up, to the effect that he [Poe] had procured refute RUFUS GRISWOLD’s vicious distortions printed a cadet’s appointment for his son, and the boy in the “LUDWIG” ARTICLE. In the book Edgar Allan having died, the father had substituted himself Poe and His Biographer: Rufus W. Griswold, Gill bit- in his place.” He also mentions Poe’s remarkable terly defended Poe against Griswold’s falsifications, memory for reciting prose and verse, as well as his including the charge that Poe was an alcoholic. failure to study anything at the academy, making In a grotesque gesture of respect that Poe himself it “evident from the first that he had no intention might have appreciated, Gill acquired the bones of going through with the course.” Evidence of of VIRGINIA CLEMM Poe in 1875 when the cem- Poe’s later problem with drink is also present, as etery of the Fordham Dutch Reformed Church, Gibson observes Poe “was seldom without a bottle where she was buried, was destroyed. Gill rescued of Benny Haven’s best brandy. I don’t think he Virginia’s remains and placed them in a box under was ever intoxicated while at the Academy, but his bed, thus exciting considerable curiosity among he had already acquired the more dangerous habit those who had believed Virginia to be the model of of constant drinking.” Annabel Lee in Poe’s poem of the same name. A few years later, the bones were taken to Baltimore Gide, André (1869–1951) French novelist and to be buried next to Poe. Gill’s work was impotent literary critic who became an ardent admirer of in its attempts, and Griswold’s distortions of Poe’s Poe through his correspondence with Paul Valery life continued to be accepted as truth until the and Paul Claudel, who had come to Poe through early 20th century. their admiration of French writer and critic CHARLES BAUDELAIRE. Gide proclaimed Poe the Gillespie, William M. (1816–1868) Amateur master of the “interior monologue,” the presenta- writer and coeditor of the New York World, as well tion of a character’s thoughts in a manner more as a professor of civil engineering at Union Col- controlled than stream-of-consciousness and on lege in Schenectady, New York. Poe included him a level closer to direct verbalization. In many among the profiles in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK

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CITY” and referred to him as “the author of a neat of American women, and he and his staff did so volume entitled ‘Rome as Seen by a New Yorker’— by catering to the pure and pretty sentimentality a good title to a good book.” The profile expresses of the times. His fashionable periodical provided approval of Gillespie’s originality in endeavouring its vast female audience with articles that empha- “to convey Rome only by those impressions which sized fashion, morality, and profuse sentiment. would naturally be made upon an American” and Poe’s editorial relations with Godey were reason- describes the author’s style as “pure and sparkling, ably amicable, although he did refer to Godey’s although occasionally flippant and dillettantesque.” publication as “a milliner’s magazine.” Still, from Of the man, Poe wrote that he was “warm-hearted, May through October 1846, Poe published “The excitable, nervous” and “somewhat awkward,” LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY” in Godey’s Lady’s prone to walking the streets “in a state of profound Book with little interference despite their too- abstraction.” frank content, which often contained scathing denunciations of the subjects. He also expressed Gironne, Nicolas Eymeric di (c. 1320–1399) the opinion that “Godey keeps almost as many Inquisitor-general for Aragon during the Inquisi- ladies in his pay as the Grand Turk.” Poe writes of tion. He also is author of “one favourite volume . . . Godey’s signature in “AUTOGRAPHY” that it “gives a small octavo edition of the Directorium Inquisito- evidence of a fine taste, combined with an indefat- rum” in the library of Roderick Usher. The book is igability which will ensure his permanent success an account of the procedures and tortures of the in the world’s affairs. No man has warmer friends Inquisition. or fewer enemies.”

Glanvill, Joseph (1636–1680) Mystic theologian Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book Usually and author of Saducismus Triumphatus, a work on referred to by its shortened title, Godey’s Lady’s witchcraft, who was also famous for his treatises on Book was an eloquent periodical with a largely the new science and religion. Poe takes the epigraph female readership. Despite his contempt for what for “A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM” from Glan- he termed “a milliner’s magazine,” Poe contrib- vill’s Essays on Several Important Subjects. He purports uted short stories and articles to the publication to also take the epigraph to “LIGEIA,” regarding the and enjoyed prompt and relatively good payment. power of the will to overcome death, from Glanvill. “The VISIONARY” appeared in the January 1834 Despite careful scrutiny, scholars have not located issue; “A TALE OF THE RAGGED MOUNTAINS” in the source of the quotation, which Poe also inte- the April 1844 issue; “The OBLONG BOX” in the grates into the text of the story at two points. Many September 1844 issue; “THOU ART THE MAN” in believe Poe made up the quotation and falsified the November 1844 issue; a review of NATHAN- attribution. IEL HAWTHORNE’s work in the November 1847 issue; and “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY,” Gniessin, Michael (1883–1971) Russian com- a series of articles, appeared from May through poser who was influential in the development of October 1846. The November 1845 issue con- Hebrew music. He wrote Cherv-Pobeditel, an arrange- tained a review of Poe’s TALES OF THE GROTESQUE ment for tenor voice and orchestra, to accompany AND ARABESQUE, originally published in 1839 that Poe’s poem “The CONQUEROR WORM.” called Poe “one of the most accomplished authors in America” for his “skill in the ‘building’ of mar- Godey, Louis Antoine (1804–1878) Editor velous and grotesque stories which make the and publisher of GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND LADY’S Arabian Nights seem tame and prosaic in com- BOOK from 1830 to 1877. He was the first maga- parison.” The review continued, “We like a writer zine publisher to successfully reach the audience of this character and calibre. We are tired of being

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contraption, and he includes in the book an illustration of the event.

Goldsmith, Oliver See review of “The VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.”

Goncourt, Edmond Louis Antoine Hout de (1822–1896) and Jules Alfred Hout de Gon- court (1830–1870) French art critics, novelists, and early leaders in the naturalism movement whose work was largely jointly created. After reading CHARLES BAUDELAIRE’s translations of Poe’s work, the Goncourt brothers were deeply impressed by Poe and proclaimed him a genius. They declared that Poe’s originality and decadence, as well as the rich fantasy life depicted in his fiction, anticipated the fiction of the future, which would “present all the revolutions of the soul in the sufferings of the body.”

gothic A type of literature characterized by gloomy medieval settings, supernatural effects, horror, and violence. The genre was named and introduced by Horace Walpole in The Castle of Otranto (1764), with the goal of leaving behind the familiar realism of Samuel Richardson and other 18th-century English novelists. Novelists in England created the standard in this genre: William Beckford, Although Poe criticized Godey’s Lady’s Book for its in Vathek (1786), Ann Radcliffe in The Mysteries fashion pages like the one shown here, he published of Udolpho (1794), Matthew Lewis in The Monk many short stories and articles in the magazine. (Courtesy (1795), and William Godwin in Caleb Williams of Library of Congress) (1794) popularized such subject matter as haunted castles and abbeys, mysterious monks, dark family secrets, and ancient curses. In the United States, merely satisfied; and we like occasionally to be Charles Brockden Brown used the wilderness as a astonished.” source of gothic elements in Wieland (1798). The gothic influence can be found in many of Poe’s Godwin, Bishop Francis Author, under the works, as well as in works written by NATHANIEL pseudonym of Domingo Gonsales, of The Man in HAWTHORNE. the Moon; or a Discourse of a Voyager thither, by Domingo Gonsales the Speedy Messenger. In a note Gottschalk, Louis F. (1869–1934) American at the end of “The UNPARALLELED ADVENTURE OF composer, conductor, and producer of light operas ONE HANS PFAALL,” Poe claims “I have lately read who wrote “The Cask of Amontillado,” a song with a singular and somewhat ingenious little book” words in the nature of a drinking song that uses and proceeds to summarize its main argument. verse to tell the story of Poe’s tale of the same The author claims to have traveled to the Moon name. Gottschalk conducted The Merry Widow through the assistance of swans (ganzas) that lifted when it was first produced in 1907. He also pro- him aloft while he sat astride a broomsticklike duced the first film version of The Wizard of Oz

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(1914) and arranged scores for such movies as The WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, James K. Paulding, FITZ- Curse of Eve (1917), The Three Musketeers (1921), GREENE HALLECK, and Chanceller Kent. Little Lord Fauntleroy (1921), Rosita (1923), and Romula (1924). Graham, George Rex (1813–1894) Philadel- phia journal entrepreneur and founder of GRAHAM’S Gove, Mary Neal (Mrs. Nichols) (1810–1884) MAGAZINE, with interests in the Saturday Evening A phrenologist, Swedenborgian, and homeopathist, Post and Atkinson’s Casket. He acquired BURTON’S she attended VIRGINIA CLEMM Poe during her ter- GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE in December 1840 from minal illness, often “bringing dainties and comforts WILLIAM E. BURTON and merged its subscription list from town.” Gove also left one of the most living, of 3,500 with the 1,500-member subscription list of contemporary accounts of Virginia’s dying days and his own publication, Atkinson’s Casket. Graham was of the sad life that the melancholy little family lived one of the few editorial authority figures in Poe’s life in the Fordham cottage. Her account appeared with whom Poe did not openly feud. As Poe wrote, in the February 1863 issue of Six Penny Magazine. “With Graham who is really a very gentlemanly, Gove also published numerous articles under the although exceedingly weak man, I had no misun- pseudonym of Mary Orme and gave lectures on derstanding.” After Poe’s death, Graham wrote mesmerism. Grateful for her help, Poe published a and published in his magazine two defenses of Poe complimentary profile of her in “The LITERATI OF and his art: “Defence of Poe” (March 1850) and NEW YORK CITY.”

Gowans, William New York City bookseller, described later by James Harrison, compiler of Poe’s works, as a “wealthy and eccentric bibliopolist,” who was a lodger in the boardinghouse run by MARIA CLEMM, first at Sixth Avenue and Waverley Place and later on Carmine Street in New York City from February through September 1837. He had daily contact with Poe, Virginia, and Maria, and later wrote affectionately of them. In a personal account, Gowans remembered Poe as “one of the most courteous, gentlemanly, and intelligent companions I have ever met, and I must say I never saw him in the least affected with liquor, nor even descend to any known vice.” To Gowans’s view, Virginia was a young beauty whose “eye could match that of any hour, and her face defy the genius of a Canova to imitate.” Through his work, Gowans had widespread literary contacts, and he shared them freely with Poe. He invited Poe to be his guest at the annual booksellers’ dinner at the City Hotel on March 30, 1837, because numerous prominent literary figures and some well-known artists were expected to be present. In the same personal account, Gowans wrote, “The affair was a brilliant one and marked the first appearance of the young Southern critic and poet among the Knick- George Rex Graham, founder and owner of Graham’s erbockers,” which included WASHINGTON IRVING, Magazine (Courtesy of Edgar Allan Poe Society)

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“The Genius and Characteristics of the Late Edgar New Monthly Magazine forced circulation to drop in Allan Poe” (February 1854). Both pieces refuted 1850. Publication ended in 1858. the charges against Poe’s character that appeared in the obituary written by RUFUS GRISWOLD. Poe Graves, Sergeant Samuel “Bully” One of sev- possessed, in Graham’s estimation, a “management eral soldiers with whom Poe was stationed at Fort of the supernatural never attained or approached by Moultrie, and a central figure in Poe’s final estrange- any other writer.” Poe’s brief remark about Graham ment from JOHN ALLAN. To convince Graves to wait in “AUTOGRAPHY” says simply: “For both of these longer for money Poe owed him, Poe wrote to Graves journals he has written much and well.” in 1829 that he could not get the money from his guardian. To make the excuse more convincing, Graham’s Magazine Begun in December 1840 Poe added that “Mr. Allan is not very often sober.” after publisher GEORGE REX GRAHAM combined When Poe had not repaid the debt by the end of BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE and Atkinson’s 1830, Graves went to Allan with the letter and its Casket, Graham’s Magazine hired Poe as book damaging assertion. Allan paid the debt immedi- review editor in February 1841. The new publica- ately, then “banished Poe from his affections.” tion appealed in a popular manner to both men and women. It contained fashion, sketches and Greeley, Horace (1811–1872) Influential Ameri- photographs, music, and short stories in addition can journalist and political leader, as well as the edi- to criticism and reviews. Poe remained the editor tor of the NEW YORK TRIBUNE and the New-Yorker, until April 1842, although he eventually became the first penny newspaper, begun in 1834. A strong resentful of his own $800 annual salary at a “nam- opponent of slavery, he is best remembered for the bypamby” magazine in a year when Graham made advice that he gave to a Congregational minister who a profit of $25,000. Despite his contempt, Poe was had lost his voice and had to leave the ministry: “Go smart enough to exploit his association with the west, young man.” Poe describes Greeley in “AUTOG- publication, which allowed him great freedom to RAPHY” as “one of the most able and honest of Amer- express his literary opinions in frequently exten- ican editors. He has written much and invariably sive articles. Looking back at Poe’s reviews in well.” Greeley’s endorsement of a note in the amount Graham’s Magazine, George Bernard Shaw became of $50 in 1845 enabled Poe to purchase the BROAD- so impressed with the young critic that he labelled WAY JOURNAL, but Poe never repaid the debt. Poe “the greatest journalistic critic of his time” and accused American critics of misunderstanding Poe’s Green, Charles (1785–1870) Scientist men- genius. In addition to literary criticism and reviews, tioned in the short story “The BALLOON-HOAX” Poe also published in the magazine such tales as on whose experiments the adventures in the story “The MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE,” “A DESCENT are based. Green invented the guide rope for use INTO THE MAELSTROM,” “The ISLAND OF THE FAY,” on the hot-air balloon. He was the son of a London “The COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA,” and “NEVER fruit seller, but he made important contacts in Par- BET THE DEVIL YOUR HEAD.” Despite his prolific liament that led to backing for 526 balloon ascents, literary output, Poe found work at Graham’s drain- the first from Green Park, London, in July 1821, for ing, as he said in a letter written in May 1841 to the coronation of George IV. He made history in Frederick William Thomas: “I would be glad to get 1836, when he and THOMAS MONCK MASON trav- almost any appointment, even a $500.00 one, so eled 500 miles in a hot-air balloon in just 18 hours, that I have something independent of letters for a leading Green to speculate about regularly sched- subsistence. To coin one’s brain into silver, at the uled flights and even a propeller-driven balloon to nod of a master, is, to my thinking, the hardest task cross the Atlantic Ocean. in the world. . . .” Poe was succeeded by RUFUS W. GRISWOLD, who remained for a year. Graham’s Mag- Gresset, Jean Baptiste (1709–1777) French azine flourished until the competition from Harper’s author whose works are found in the library of Rod-

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erick Usher. With the narrator, Usher pores over Gresset’s anticlerical satire, Ververt et Chartreuse, in “The FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER.”

Grey, Edward S. T. An alias sometimes used by Poe in his correspondence meant to elicit information from contemporaries in 1848 and 1849. In one instance, he sent a note in a disguised hand and signed as “Grey” to find out if Mrs. SARAH WHIT- MAN, who was avoiding him, was home.

Griffis, Elliot (1893–1976) American composer and educator who wrote orchestral pieces, works for string quartets, a song cycle, and arrangements for more than 40 folk songs. He composed settings of Poe’s poems “ELDORADO” and “TO HELEN” in 1937.

Griswold, Captain Henry One of Poe’s superior officers at Fort Moultrie. On May 6, 1829, JOHN ALLAN wrote to Griswold and asked him “to aid this youth [Poe] in the promotion of his future prospects.”

Griswold, Rufus Wilmot (1815–1857) Baptist Rufus Griswold in later life, when he published the clergyman who replaced Poe as the editor of GRA- defamatory “Ludwig” article (Courtesy of Edgar Allan HAM’S MAGAZINE. Poe and Griswold were literary and Poe Society) personal rivals for the favors of FRANCES OSGOOD, yet both recognized the power that each carried in the literary world, so they maintained a tentative The POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. Poe’s critical friendship. Poe’s fatal error was to appoint Griswold responses and his later characterization of Griswold as his literary executor. The power and authority in “AUTOGRAPHY” exhibit his ambivalence toward that such an appointment brought led the public the man. Although Poe first called Griswold’s to believe every scurrilous word of the infamous anthology “the best collection of the American obituary of Poe that Griswold published on Octo- Poets that has yet been made” in a Graham’s Mag- ber 9, 1849, under the pseudonym “Ludwig,” and azine review in June 1842 (see “The POETS AND which has come to be known as THE “LUDWIG” POETRY OF AMERICA”), he later made an enemy of ARTICLE. This libelous obituary was the beginning Griswold by deriding the anthology in various pub- of a reign of character assassination by Griswold, lic lectures and in an extensive review of the third who later expanded the obituary into the “Mem- edition of the work, which appeared in the July oir of the Author” that he used to introduce the 1843 issue of the PHILADELPHIA SATURDAY MUSEUM. 1850 “authorized” edition of Poe’s works. Given the Poe also mocked Griswold in several tales by mak- confrontational nature of their relationship, which ing characters resemble him or by having charac- Poe exacerbated during his lifetime, the choice of ters read works known to be written by Griswold. literary executor was an egregious error. While on The intoxicated narrator of “The ANGEL OF THE the staff of the Philadelphia Daily Standard, Gris- ODD,” for example, states that he is “made more wold compiled in 1842 an anthology that he titled stupid” by reading Griswold’s “Curiosities.” Yet, in

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analyzing Griswold’s signature in “Autography” in U.S. Army, and that he had been “sexually aggres- 1836, Poe had written generously that “his knowl- sive” toward JOHN ALLAN’s second wife. Griswold edge of American literature, in all its details, is not also made a pronounced effort to prove that Poe exceeded by that of any man among us.” was morally negligent and a drug addict whose con- Although Griswold, six years younger, could not cerns were only for himself. In his introduction to have been certain that he would outlive Poe, he the 1850 edition of Poe’s works, Griswold misled appears to have saved his most potent attacks to be readers by suggesting that Poe had based the por- published after Poe’s death. Letters show that Gris- trayals on personal experience. wold spread lies about Poe to CHARLES BRIGGS and Griswold also proved to be pitiless and unchari- others, but he began his most concentrated cam- table toward ROSALIE POE and MARIA CLEMM, for paign to destroy the man’s reputation after Poe was he never gave either woman any proceeds from the dead and could no longer retaliate. Despite efforts sales of Poe’s works. Instead, once he had secured by JOHN R. THOMPSON, who published “The Late from Poe the commission to edit the works “in Edgar A. Poe” in the November 1849 issue of the case of Poe’s sudden death,” he ignored a letter SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, and GEORGE R. on August 27, 1849, from Maria Clemm, who GRAHAM, who published in his magazine “Defence appealed to him for money to buy bread when of Poe” in March 1850 and “The Genius and Char- she nearly starved to death in Fordham while acteristics of the Late Edgar Allan Poe” in Feb- Poe was in Richmond. After Poe’s death, when ruary 1854, Griswold’s vitriolic characterization of she was reduced to begging for a few dollars from Poe became the unofficial biographical record that various acquaintances and landed eventually in the extended well into the 20th century and kept Poe Church Home in Baltimore, Griswold gave as pay- from achieving his full literary due. Griswold’s lies ment several complete sets of Poe’s works that she included claims that Poe was expelled from the tried desperately to sell. Griswold did not, however, University of Virginia, that he deserted from the share the proceeds from sales.

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Haasz, Richard Composer of a 1913 symphonic and received a signed note of endorsement. A por- poem for grand orchestra, and a piano transcription trait of Halleck is included in “The LITERATI OF NEW thereof, inspired by Poe’s poem “The RAVEN.” YORK CITY,” and Poe reviewed Halleck’s collection Alnwick Castle and other poetry in several essays. In Hale, David Emerson (1814–1839) A cadet particular, Poe found Halleck’s poem “Fanny” “to at the United States Military Academy at West uncultivated ears . . . endurable, but to the practiced Point, to which Poe was appointed in March 1830 versifier it is little less than torture,” and remarked and left in February 1831. His mother was SARAH that “Alnwick Castle” is “sadly disfigured by efforts JOSEPHA HALE, editor of GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND at the farcical,” and “Wyoming” is “also disfigured LADY’S BOOK. In a letter to his mother from West with some of the merest burlesque.” At the end Point, he mentions that Poe “is thought a fellow of of a review of Halleck’s work that appeared in the talent here.” September 1843 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE, Poe expresses regret that the author “has nearly aban- Hale, Sarah Josepha (1788–1879) Editor of doned the Muses, much to the regret of his friends, GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND LADY’S BOOK, as well as and to the neglect of his reputation.” (See review of an important figure in the emancipation of women. “ALNWICK CASTLE, WITH OTHER POEMS.”) She wrote novels and verse and is best known for composing “Mary Had a Little Lamb” (1830). In Hammerhead, Marmaduke Satiric name for 1828, she became the editor of The Ladies’ Maga- Poe that Dr. THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH used in Eigh- zine, then continued with and added to the success teen Forty-Four, published in serial form in the New of the magazine when LOUIS GODEY bought it in York EVENING MIRROR from 1844 through 1846. 1837 and transformed it into Godey’s Lady’s Book. The character Marmaduke Hammerhead closely Her novel North-wood, or, Life North and South, resembled Poe and was credited with writing “The published in 1827, was one of the first fictional Black Crow” and “The Humbug, and Other Tales.” denunciations of slavery. In “AUTOGRAPHY,” Poe English’s portrayal of Poe as a surly and arrogant wrote that her large handwriting “is indicative of writer who “never gets drunk more than five days a masculine understanding. . . . Mrs. Hale is well a week” resulted in a violent literary war between known for her masculine style of thought.” the two.

Halleck, Fitz-Greene (1790–1867) American Hannay, James Author of The Poetical Works poet. Poe appealed to him for money when the of Edgar Allan Poe, published in London in 1863, BROADWAY JOURNAL was in danger of going under and one of the first critics to attempt a critique 339

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of Poe’s entire body of writing, as well as one Hawks, Dr. Francis Lister (1798–1866) Rector of the first to misread him. With singleminded of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in New York determination, he praised Poe as being “perfectly City and editor of the New York Review, a religious poetic in his own province. . . . His poetry was quarterly to which Poe contributed a review, “INCI- sheer poetry, and borrows nothing from without,” DENTS OF TRAVEL IN EGYPT, ARABIA PETRAEA, AND Hannay observed, but he denies that the author THE HOLY LAND,” in October 1837. Poe observes had a sense of humor: “He has, for instance, no in “AUTOGRAPHY” that “his style, both as a writer Humor—had little sympathy with the various and as a preacher, is characterized rather by performs of human life.” fect fluency than by any more lofty quality,” and whose sermons Poe was “at some pains to proclaim Hansson, Ola (1860–1925) Swedish poet and boresome.” novelist, and Poe’s first psychological critic. Express- ing an opinion of Poe that echoes CHARLES BAUDE- Hawthorne, Julian (1846–1934) American au- LAIRE, Hansson wrote in an 1889 essay that Poe is thor and son of the novelist NATHANIEL HAW- “one of the great maladies of mankind. His sick- THORNE. His fictional account—a short story six ness is the sickness of beauty at its most sub- pages in length—of an encounter with Poe, titled lime. Like most princes of culture, he is in one “My Adventures with Edgar Allan Poe,” appeared person the cloven trunk of madness and genius.” in Lippincott’s Magazine in 1891. The imagined Hansson further viewed Poe’s studies of hypno- meeting was based solely on written accounts of sis, loss of consciousness, criminal psychology, and Poe: Julian was only three years old when Poe died, double personalities as similar to the concept of and although Nathaniel Hawthorne had carried on the unconscious, later to be studied by Sigmund a correspondence and traded fiction with Poe, the Freud. two men had never met. The story incorporates the popular physical description of the Byronic figure in Harris, Cuthbert (1870–1932) English com- black engaging in witty and intelligent discussion, poser, organist, and educator who wrote orchestral but it merely repeats long-held beliefs without add- and chamber music, as well as cantatas, anthems, ing any new information about Poe. organ music, and songs. In 1922, he composed “Sil- ver Sleigh Bells,” a trio for women’s voices also Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1804–1864) American arranged for mixed voices that was inspired by the novelist and short story writer. Hawthorne and Poe first stanza of Poe’s “The BELLS.” exchanged letters and read each other’s fiction, but they never met. One of the first critics to acknowl- Hart, Mr. Sculptor who frequented the same edge Hawthorne as a major American writer who social and salon gatherings as Poe in New York demonstrated “more originality” than WASHINGTON City during the winter of 1845–46. He had been IRVING in his handling of American life, Poe was commissioned to sculpt in marble a statue of the most impressed by Hawthorne’s command of the politician Henry Clay. short story form. He also expressed admiration for Hawthorne’s ability “to carry out the fulness of his Havens, Benny Owner of a tavern near the intention” and for placing the reader inside a fic- United States Military Academy at West Point tional world where “there are no external or extrin- that catered to the off-limits drinking of the sic influences.” In a brief review of Hawthorne’s cadets. “Old Benny Havens” would trade brandy Twice-Told Tales that appeared in the April 1842 for whatever the cadets might bring, including issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE, Poe praised the work candles, clothes, blankets, equipment, and vari- for a tone that “is singularly effective—wild, plain- ous petty luxury items. Poe frequently made the tive, thoughtful, and in full accordance with his run to the Havens’s Tavern during his cadet themes.” He also found that Hawthorne’s “origi- days. nality both of incident and of reflection is very

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remarkable.” He did, however, object that “there is Heath praised Poe’s artistic endowments as, “a insufficient diversity in these themes themselves, or taste classical and refined, an imagination afflu- rather in their character.” ent and splendid, . . . a singular capacity for minute Poe published a more detailed review of the tales and mathematical detail.” in the May 1842 issue of Graham’s Magazine (see “TALE-WRITING”). This review praises Hawthorne Hemberger, Theodor (1871–1946) German- for skill that, in Poe’s estimation, belongs “to the American composer, conductor, and violinist. He highest region of Art—an Art subservient to genius composed a symphony, music for a string quartet, of a very lofty order.” He commends Hawthorne for and arrangements for string orchestra. In 1910, he his distinctive traits of “invention, creation, imagi- wrote a musical composition titled Lenore, op. 35, nation, originality” and states that “Mr. Hawthorne no. 1, to accompany the fifth stanza of Poe’s poem is original at all points.” In “Literary Intelligence,” “The RAVEN.” which appeared in the February 6, 1845, issue of the New York EVENING MIRROR, Poe bemoaned the Hennepin, Louis (1640–1706) Flemish Recollect fact that Twice-Told Tales had gone out of print. In friar and explorer in North America, as well as the his “Editorial Miscellany” column in the BROADWAY first European to explore the upper Mississippi River, JOURNAL of August 23, 1845, Poe referred to Haw- mentioned in The JOURNAL OF JULIUS RODMAN. thorne as “a prose poet, full of originality, beauty, After returning to France in 1683, Hennepin pub- and a refinement of style and conception.” In “The lished A Description of Louisiana, an account of his PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION,” published in 1846, travels, which was later exposed to be a plagiarism of Poe declared the traits that he most admired in an account by the French explorer Robert Cavelier, Hawthorne’s tales—his artistry in composition, sieur de LaSalle, who navigated the length of the structure, and atmospheric depth of setting—to be Mississippi River and claimed the region of Louisi- imperatives for all writers. Poe’s judgment of Haw- ana for France. For this plagiarism, Hennepin was thorne’s talents was to prove prophetic for both exiled from France. In his “journal,” Julius Rodman the writer and for American literature. When Poe writes that the travels of Hennepin and his friends praised Hawthorne’s work and predicted its impact were “perhaps the earliest travels of any extent made on the future of American literature, he had not in North America by white people . . . in 1698—but yet published his major works The Scarlet Letter his researches were mostly in the south, we do not (1850), The House of the Seven Gables (1851), and feel called upon to speak of them more fully.” The Marble Faun (1860). Also still ahead was Haw- thorne’s friendship with and influence on Herman Henry, Professor Caleb Sprague (1804–1884) Melville, 15 years his junior. Orator, essayist, political journalist, and educator at Bristol College who was also as Poe described Heath, James Ewell (1792–1862) Editor of the him in “AUTOGRAPHY” one of the “originators of SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER for the first five the New York Review with Dr. Hawks and Profes- or six months of its existence, who worked at first sor Anthon.” In “Autography,” Poe states further in an unpaid advisory capacity while he kept his that Henry’s inconsistent penmanship, “now neat lucrative position as second auditor of the Com- and picturesque . . . and now excessively scratchy, monwealth of Virginia. He had published a novel clerky, and slovenly” reveals “a vacillating disposi- titled Edge Hill that, according to Poe, was “a well- tion with unsettled ideas of the beautiful. None of written novel, which owing to the circumstances his epistles, in regard to their chirography, end as of its publication, did not meet with the reception well as they begin. This trait denotes fatigability.” See it deserved.” In “AUTOGRAPHY,” Poe judged that also CHARLES ANTHON; FRANCIS LISTER HAWKS. Heath’s “writings are rather polished and graceful, than forcible or original.” Reviewing Poe’s fic- Herring, Elizabeth (“Eliza”) Poe (1792–1822) tion in the October 1839 issue of the Messenger, Poe’s aunt. In 1813, when four-year-old Edgar had

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been in the Allan household for two years, she This negative convergence of stellar forces related wrote to Mrs. Allan to inquire after his well-being to the central thesis of “Eureka,” which deals with and to tell her that his older brother, WILLIAM the tendency of the universe to return to primal HENRY LEONARD POE, “often speaks of his little nothingness. brother and expresses a great desire to see him.” She also expressed the wish that “the Almighty Hewitt, John Hill (1801–1890) Baltimore jour- Father of the Universe grant that he may never nalist and editor of the BALTIMORE SUNDAY VISITER. abuse the kindness he [Edgar] has received.” This In 1833, he entered the Baltimore Sunday Visiter’s was the second letter that she had written to Mrs. literary contest for the short story and poetry. Allan, who seems to have been afraid of losing Under a pseudonym, Hewitt submitted a poem, her foster son if he had contact with his biological “The Song of the Winds,” that won first prize for family. Poe donated several poems to the keep- poetry after Poe won first prize for his short story sake album of her daughter, ELIZABETH REBECCA “MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE.” Poe won second prize in HERRING. the poetry category for “The COLISEUM” and angrily suggested that he would have won first prize in the Herring, Elizabeth Rebecca (1815–1889) Poe’s poetry contest as well, had he not already won first cousin. She came to Fordham cottage during VIR- prize in the short story competition. A judge later GINIA CLEMM’s last days in 1846. Poe wrote several left a written record that unofficially agreed with acrostic poems for her, including “An ACROSTIC.” this view. Poe was insulted and angered by the matter of the literary prize. When the two writers Herring, Henry (1791–1868) The husband of met on a Baltimore street, Poe accused Hewitt of Poe’s aunt ELIZABETH (“Eliza”) POE HERRING. He conduct unbecoming a gentleman. In an account was a prosperous lumber dealer, and his house proof the incident written to a friend, Hewitt explains vided a pleasant social background to which Poe that he retaliated by dealing Poe “a blow which gravitated when he first began living with MARIA staggered him, for I was physically his superior.” CLEMM and VIRGINIA CLEMM in Baltimore. Poe was much in demand at the Herring social gath- Hewitt, Mary Elizabeth (1818–1850) Amateur erings, reciting poetry and writing in his cousin’s poet, member of the New York City literary crowd, album, leading their contemporaries to believe and sister-in-law of JOHN HILL HEWITT. Poe favor- as Hervey Allen wrote in Israfel that he became ably reviewed her collection, “The SONGS OF OUR “extremely fond of this Miss Herring [Elizabeth LAND AND OTHER POEMS,” in two different publi- Rebecca], if not in love.” Henry Herring was also cations within the space of six months. In his por- acquainted with several literary men and editors, trait of her in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY,” and he arranged introductions for the young writer. Poe describes her poems as “numerous and often With Judge NEILSON POE, he took charge of Poe’s excellent” and says they “evince the author’s poetic remains and arranged the funeral in Baltimore on fervor, classicism of taste and keen appreciation of October 8, 1849. the beautiful, in the moral as well as in the physical world.” The assessment also points out the flaws in Herschel, Sir John Frederick William (1792– her work: “[N]o one of them, perhaps, can be judi- 1871) English astronomer and chemist and the ciously commended as a whole, but no one of them author of The Outline of Astronomy. He led an is without merit.” He cites several passages from expedition to the Cape of Good Hope in 1834 to her poetry and adds that her verses are “rather par- study the stars of the Southern Hemisphere and ticularly than generally commendable. They lack published the results in 1847. Poe quotes from Her- unity, totality, ultimate effect.” schel’s writings in “EUREKA” in regard to the conception of the solar system, as well as in reference Higginson, Colonel Thomas Wentworth (1823– to star clusters in “a state of progressive collapse.” 1911) American editor and critic. Although Poe

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and Higginson never met, Higginson heard Poe WAY JOURNAL, Poe reviewed Hirst’s “The COMING read at the Boston Lyceum on October 16, 1845, OF THE MAMMOTH,” and decreed “nor has it one and was impressed that “every syllable was accen- individual point of redeeming merit.” In his 1846 tuated with such delicacy, and sustained with such portrait of Hirst in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK sweetness as I never heard equaled by other lips.” CITY,” Poe accused THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH of He was impressed with Poe’s recitations of “AL plagiarizing Hirst’s work. Then, in a posthumously AARAAF” and “The RAVEN,” yet disturbed by the published review, Poe accused Hirst of plagiariz- speaker. As he wrote in a letter to an unidentified ing his own work. To support this latter charge, contemporary, “It was a face to rivet one’s attention Poe offered passages from his work and Hirst’s and in any crowd; yet a face that no one would feel safe stated that “his poems, upon the whole, are little in loving.” Higginson also reported that when Poe more than our conversations done into verse.” read “Al Aaraaf” and reached the words “Ligeia! In summing up the controversy with Hirst, Poe Ligeia!” “his voice seemed attenuated to the finest asserted, “I do not object to him stealing my verses; golden thread; the audience became hushed, and, but I do object to his stealing them in bad grammar. as it were, breathless; there seemed no life in the My quarrel with him is not, in short, that he did hall but his.” Higginson is best remembered today this thing, but that he has went and done did it.” In for his correspondence with American poet Emily other words, as Poe states, had Hirst provided pol- Dickinson. ished, grammatically correct plagiarisms, Poe would not have raised a challenge. Hill, Edward Burlingame (1872–1956) Ameri- can composer of orchestral works, songs, choral Hoffman, Charles Fenno (1806–1884) Ameri- works, piano pieces, and symphonies. In 1920, he can poet, New York City literary figure, and edi- composed a symphonic poem inspired by Poe’s tor of the KNICKERBOCKER MAGAZINE and the New short story “The FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER.” York World during 1847–48. In a review called “The POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA,” Poe questioned Hill, George Handel (1809–1849) American the extent of his inclusion in RUFUS GRISWOLD’s poet and actor who specialized in unsophisticated work, asking “How comes it that C. Fenno Hoff- roles. Poe charged that Hill, in his work “The Ruins man is the greatest poet in America, and that his of Athens and Other Poems,” published in 1842, articles figure more than two to one over Bryant, plagiarized a poem called “A Heath,” written by and ten to one over Lowell, Longfellow, &c?” In Edward C. Pinckney “A long time ago—twenty- “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY,” Poe states that three or four years at least.” The original poem, Poe Hoffman will suffer “irreparable injury” because of wrote, was “profoundly admired by the critical few, Griswold’s attention to his career: “Whatever may but had little circulation.” To prove the accusation, be the merits of Mr. Hoffman as a poet, it may eas- Poe cited eight lines from “A Heath” and compared ily be seen that these merits have been put in the them to eight lines from Hill’s poem. worst possible light by the indiscriminate and lavish approbation bestowed on them by Dr. Griswold Hirst, Henry Beck (1817–1874) Philadelphia in his ‘Poets and Poetry of America.’ ” Although poet and Poe’s best friend during his years in Phila- Poe does not agree with Griswold’s high opinion delphia, 1841–44. Hirst published a biographical of Hoffman, he praises Hoffman for being a man essay on Poe in the February 25, 1843, and March “universally esteemed and admired” and says “it 4, 1843, issues of the PHILADELPHIA SATURDAY is impossible that he should have an enemy in the MUSEUM. A heavy drinker of brandy, Hirst listened world.” to Poe’s discussions of plans for “The RAVEN.” Later in life, mentally weakened and addicted to alcohol, Holberg, Ludvig (1684–1754) Danish writer Hirst would mutter that he had been the author of and founder of Danish literature. His 1741 novel the poem. In the July 12, 1845, issue of the BROAD- The Subterreanean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm is

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among the works pored over by the unnamed nar- day.” In a September 1842 review of The Poems of rator and Roderick Usher in “The FALL OF THE Alfred Tennyson that appeared in GRAHAM’S MAG- HOUSE OF USHER.” The choice of reading mat- AZINE, Poe repeated his praise and added, “as a ter exhibits well Roderick Usher’s state of mind. verisifier Holmes is equal to Tennyson, and with The “subterreanean voyage” is both physical and the same patient effort and care, he would in every psychological, and the title reflects the manner in way surpass him.” which the house of Usher represents the human mind, with Roderick and Madeline as the conscious Hopkins, Charles D. American actor and light and unconscious aspects. comedian whom ELIZABETH ARNOLD POE married in July 1802. The two were married until Hopkins’s Holbrooke, Josef (1878–1938) English composer, death on October 26, 1805, and the marriage pro- conductor, and critic who was a prolific composer duced no children. of accompaniments to Poe’s works, including a symphony for string orchestra to “AL AARAAF”; a Hopkins, Reverend John Henry, Jr. (1820–1891) dramatic overture for orchestra to “The CASK OF Clergyman and author whose summary of Poe’s AMONTILLADO”; a ballad for tenor or baritone and February 3, 1848, lecture on the universe appeared orchestra or piano to accompany “ANNABEL LEE”; in the February 4, 1848, edition of the New York a dramatic poem for chorus and grand orchestra Morning Express. Hopkins also was an acquaintance to “The BELLS”; a dance symphony for piano and who warned MARIE LOUISE SHEW against continu- orchestra to “BON-BON”; accompaniment for harp ing her relationship with Poe, threatening that and flute to “DREAMS”; a piano suite to “ELDO- Poe’s atheistic ideas and the especially dangerous RADO”; a ballad for horn and piano to “EULALIE”; a pantheism that he identified in “EUREKA” would nocturne trio for piano, oboe, and violin to “FAIRY- contaminate her religious faith. LAND”; a dramatic choral symphony titled Homage to E. A. Poe; a nonetta and a symphonietta for flute, Horne, Richard Henry (or Hengist) (1803– oboe, B-flat clarinet, and violins to “The SLEEPER”; 1884) British poet and playwright, Poe corre- a sextet in F minor for pianoforte and wind instru- spondent, and author of the epic poem “ORION,” ments to “ISRAFEL”; a piano suite to “The LAKE”; a which Poe reviewed in the March 1844 issue quintet for two violins, viola, cello, and clarinet to of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. In the lengthy essay “LIGEIA”; an orchestral score to “A DESCENT INTO “The RATIONALE OF VERSE,” Poe praised Horne THE MAELSTROM”; a fantasie sonata for the piano- for his use of “the Heroic measure which every forte to “The MAN OF THE CROWD”; two ballets one knew consisted of feet of two syllables” and to “The MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH”; a fantaisie because he “upholds Chaucer in its frequent use; for orchestra to “The PIT AND THE PENDULUM”; a maintains his superiority, on account of his so fre- poem for grand orchestra to “The RAVEN”; a double quently using it, over all English versifiers.” concerto for clarinet and small orchestra or piano to “TAMERLANE”; a dramatic choral song for mixed Howard, Lieutenant J. Officer who served with voices for “TO ZANTE”; and a poem for orchestra to Poe at Fort Moultrie and assisted Poe in obtaining “ULALUME.” an early discharge from the army. Howard took an interest in helping Poe and promised to discharge Holmes, Oliver Wendell (1809–1894) Profes- him if Poe could reconcile with JOHN ALLAN. In a sor of anatomy and physiology at Dartmouth Col- letter dated April 20, 1829, Howard wrote that Poe lege and amateur poet. In “AUTOGRAPHY,” Poe had served under his command from June 1827 to relates that Holmes “has written many productions January 1829, “during which time his conduct was of merit, and has been pronounced by a very high unexceptionable. He once performed the duties of authority, the best of the humorous poets of the clerk and assistant in the Subsistent Department,

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both of which duties were promptly and faithfully provides several negative comments of Hudson’s done. His habits are good and entirely free from abilities as a literary critic in “MARGINALIA.” drinking.” Hughes, Judge Robert W. Richmond attor- Hoyle, Edmond (1672–1769) British author of ney, who wrote a column on economic topics for A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist, published the RICHMOND EXAMINER. He told of Poe sitting in 1742, which standardized the rules of the card hour upon hour at the office of the Examiner game in a form followed until 1864. In a review of in August 1849, revising his poems and having the Dickens novel Barnaby Rudge, Poe states that it them set up in the composing room for refer- is not his purpose “to ask them why, if the popular- ence. Hughes was among the few people to see ity of a book be the measure of its worth, we should Poe on the night of September 26, 1847, the not be at once in condition to admit the inferiority author’s last night in Richmond less than two of ‘Newton’s Principia’ to ‘Hoyle’s Games.’ ” The weeks before his death. rules of Hoyle are also referred to by the narrator of “The MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE,” for whom Huhn, Bruno Siegfried (1871–1947) Composer, they function as a touchstone with the logical and choral conductor, and voice coach whose com- the comprehensible; in other words, limited and positions include song cycles and songs for vocal suspect. quartets, duets, women’s chorus, men’s choruses, anthems, cantatas, and piano pieces. In 1913, he Hoyt, Reverend Ralph (1806–1878) American composed music inspired by “ISRAFEL,” and in 1914, clergyman poet and author, whose “A CHAUNT OF a song setting of “ELDORADO.” LIFE AND OTHER POEMS” Poe reviewed in the July 26, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. In a Hunt, Freeman (1804–1858) Editor and propri- profile of Hoyt in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK etor of the well-known Merchants’ Magazine, which CITY,” Poe praised Hoyt’s writing and expressed Poe called “one of the most useful of our monthly the hope that further essays and sketches would be journals, and decidedly the best ‘property’ of any forthcoming. work of its class.” He favorably reviewed The RAVEN AND OTHER POEMS and testified as a character wit- Hudson, Henry Norman (1814–1886) Shake- ness in Poe’s libel suit against Dr. THOMAS DUNN spearean scholar and lecturer. Poe met him after ENGLISH. In his profile of Hunt that appeared in Hudson lectured on a portion of King Lear at the “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY,” Poe praises Society Library in October 1845. In an assessment Hunt’s efforts to “without aid put the magazine of Hudson that appeared in the December 13, 1845, [Merchants’ Magazine] upon a satisfactory footing issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL, Poe stated: “He did as regards its circulation” and success in making not favorably impress us. His good points are a happy the publication the “absolute authority in mercan- talent for fanciful, that is to say for unexpected (too tile matters.” Poe is equally complimentary about often farfetched) illustration, and a certain cloudy Hunt’s character, writing that he is a “true friend, acuteness in respect to motives of human action.” and the enemy of no man.” Poe followed this with a methodical delineation of Hudson’s negative aspects: “His bad points are Huxley, Aldous (1894–1963) English nov- legion.” Among other complaints, Poe asserted that elist and critic. In his 1930 work, Vulgarity in Hudson had “an elocution that would disgrace a pig, Literature, he claimed that the French adora- and an odd species of gesticulation of which a baboon tion of Poe was misplaced and, instead, accused would have excellent reason to be ashamed.” Poe Poe of providing a primary example of vulgarity. mentions Hudson in connection with other “FROG- According to Huxley, who seems to have disliked PONDIANS” in “BOSTON AND THE BOSTONIANS,” and Poe almost as much as his expressed dislike of

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Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and Huybrechts, Albert (1899–1938) Belgian com- Valery are wrong and Poe is not one of our major poser who wrote orchestral pieces, sonatas, and poets.” He claimed Poe was “unhappily cursed accompaniments for violin and piano. In 1928, with incorrigibly bad taste” and mocked what he he wrote Trois poémes d’Edgar Poe, a song for the termed the awkwardness of a “walloping dactylic piano, with words from “ELDORADO,” “To———” metre” of “ULALUME.” The attack on Poe actually [“I heed not that my earthly lot”], and “TO THE places him in good company, because Huxley also RIVER.” expressed distaste for the leading English romantic poets. hypnosis See MESMERISM.

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“Imitation—Plagiarism” See “A CONTINUA- nearly 50 articles and edited a four-volume edition TION OF THE VOLUMINOUS HISTORY OF THE LITTLE of Poe’s works. LONGFELLOW WAR.” Irving, Washington (1783–1859) Leading Amer- Inghelbrecht, Désiré-Emile (1880–1937) French ican author of Poe’s era, and the first American composer and conductor who conducted the first author to achieve international renown. He is prob- productions of several works by CLAUDE DEBUSSY ably best known as the creator of the fictional char- and became known as the chief interpreter of acters Ichabod Crane and Rip Van Winkle. Despite Debussy. Inghelbrecht composed two works based Irving’s fame, Poe thought that his work and reputa- on Poe’s short story “The DEVIL IN THE BELFRY”: tion were “much overrated and a nice distinction a ballet with the same title as the story and a fox might be drawn between his just and his surrepti- trot, extracted from the ballet, titled “The Little tious and adventitious reputation.” In a review, “The Black Man.” BIOGRAPHY AND POETICAL REMAINS OF MARGARET MILLER DAVIDSON,” written in 1841, Poe commends Ingram, John Henry (1842–1916) Poe’s first Irving for conveying “a just idea of the exquisite love- English biographer. Ingram’s Edgar Allan Poe: His liness of the picture here presented to view,” but he Life, Letters and Opinions (1874) expanded to two also criticizes Irving for overestimating the artistry volumes in 1880. By day, Ingram was a civil ser- of the works and states that “his words, however, in vant who worked in the post office, and by night their hyperbole, do wrong to his subject, and would he wrote lengthy correspondence to everyone he be hyperbole still, if applied to the most exalted poets could locate who had ever had any contact with of all time.” In contrast, in 1847 he praises Irving’s Poe. He traced many Poe letters and corresponded “Tales of a Traveler” as “graceful and impressive extensively with SARAH HELEN WHITMAN and narratives.” Years earlier, in the first installment of ANNIE RICHMOND, using all the information that “AUTOGRAPHY,” appearing in the February 1836 issue he could to refute the many venomous lies that of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, Poe stated RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD told and wrote about that “Mr. Irving’s hand writing is common-place. Poe’s relationships with women. Ingram’s enthusi- There is nothing indicative of the genius about it. . . . astic defense of Poe aided in reversing the common It is a very usual clerk’s hand . . . an eye deficient in a 19th-century misperceptions regarding Poe’s char- due sense of the picturesque.” In 1841, in “A Chapter acter. Ingram also worked hard to bring Poe’s lesson Autography,” which appeared in the November known writing to light. To this end, he published 1841 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE, Poe extended

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his criticism to state that Irving “has become so thor- humor that appear in such Poe comic pieces as “The oughly satiated with fame as to grow slovenly in the DEVIL IN THE BELFRY.” In letters written to Poe during performance of his literary tasks.” Despite Poe’s unen- the autumn of 1839, Irving made faintly favorable thusiastic view of Irving as a writer, critics consider comments regarding “The FALL OF THE HOUSE OF him to have been an influence on Poe’s life and work, USHER,” which Poe later used to promote TALES OF especially in the nature of the tone, style, and sense of THE GROTESQUE AND ARABESQUE.

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Jefferson, Thomas (1743–1826) American au- in an 1842 discussion with THOMAS HOLLEY CHIV- thor, scientist, statesman, and philosopher; secre- ERS that he admired George Washington and Chief tary of state; third president of the United States. Justice JOHN MARSHALL, but not Jefferson. He conceived the idea of a university that would “develop the reasoning faculties of our youth, en- Johns, Reverend John Minister of Old Christ large their minds, cultivate their morals, and instill Church in Baltimore, and later bishop of Virginia, into them the precepts of virtue and order.” These who was rumored to have conducted the first mar- goals took physical form in the University of Vir- riage ceremony uniting Poe with VIRGINIA CLEMM ginia, conceived as nonsectarian, with no church soon after they obtained a license to marry on on campus and no requirement to attend chapel— September 22, 1835. The Johns family has always factors that may have influenced the young Poe to stated that “no tradition of such a marriage was stray from his religious training when he entered known to the Johns family,” and the records of this “most dissolute college in America” in Febru- Christ Church in Baltimore contain no record of ary 1826, only a year after “Jefferson’s experiment” the first Poe-Clemm marriage. opened. Although Jefferson and the trustees began the college with the democratic theory that the stu- Johnson, Dr. Samuel (1709–1784) English essay- dents should be self-governing and would take care ist, critic, lexicographer, wit, and author, a leading of their own morals and manners “on their honor,” figure of the English Enlightenment. In a review (“A they soon came to the conclusion that outside po- NEW DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE”) of lice were “essential to the comfort and reputation a work by Charles Richardson, Poe expresses his of both students and professors” because “scholastic respect for Johnson as a pioneer lexicographer, and anarchy and student escapades disturbed the peace he suggests that Johnson would have achieved even of the College, Charlottesville, and the plantations greater success had he followed his original inten- about.” Although gambling and drinking were still tion, as stated in a 1747 letter to Lord Chesterfield, rampant when Poe first entered the university, a which “communicated a plan of his undertaking.” movement toward instilling rules was under way. Johnson’s original plan was to give first “the natu- Poe likely met and even dined with Jefferson, who ral and primitive meaning of words; secondly, the often invited students to Monticello and remained consequential—and thirdly the meta-phorical, active in academic life. When Jefferson died on July arranging the quotations chronologically.” Yet, as 4, 1826, Poe was still a student at the university. Poe points out, the book was published in 1755, Poe appears to have remained untouched politi- “without the plan, and strange to say, in utter disre- cally by his association with Jefferson, for he stated gard of the principles avowed in the letter to the Earl 349

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of Chesterfield.” In Poe’s view, the principles “were assessment of Jones that appeared in “ABOUT CRIT- well-conceived, and that if followed out, they would ICS AND CRITICISM: BY THE LATE EDGAR A. POE,” have rendered important service to English lexicog- a posthumously published review that appeared in raphy. . . . [T]he necessity for something of the kind the January 1850 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE, which was felt then, is more strongly felt now.” In Poe declared him to be “our most analytic, if not references in “MARGINALIA,” Poe corrected several altogether our best critic. . . . [H]is summary judg- misstatements by Johnson regarding literature. He ments of authors are, in general, discriminative and also makes unflattering comparisons between John- profound.” In an assessment of Jones’s analyses of son’s neoclassic style and that of CHARLES ANTHON Ralph Waldo Emerson and THOMAS MACAULEY, in “Marginalia,” characterizing Anthon’s notes to Poe states that “they are at once pointed, lucid and the Classical Dictionary as being diffuse, “sometimes just:—as summaries, leaving nothing to be desired.” running into Johnsonism, of style.” Joyce, James (1882–1941) Irish novelist and Johnson, Hunter (1909–1987) American com- short story writer. Joyce mentions Poe more than poser whose works include chamber music, a piano a dozen times in Dubliners, Finnegans Wake, and concerto, and scores for flute and strings. At the Ulysses, especially in his reference to the “life pre- age of 14 he composed a piece titled Nevermore, a serving coffins” in the latter work that provide the piano accompaniment to Poe’s “The RAVEN.” same mix of humor and horror as in Poe’s “The PREMATURE BURIAL.” For both, the coffins are only Jones, William Alfred (1817–1900) American temporary enclosures that contain the living—in critic, whom Poe apparently regarded with mixed Poe, the living dead, and in Joyce, the spiritually feelings. In a review of the contents of the Sep- alive yet physically dead. In an address on the tember 1845 issue of the Democratic Review that 19th-century Irish poet James Clarence Mangan, appeared in the September 20, 1845, issue of the delivered to the Literary and Historical Society of BROADWAY JOURNAL, Poe expressed contempt for University College in Dublin on February 15, 1902, Jones’s essay “American Humor,” which he labeled Joyce called Poe “the high priest of most modern “insufferable” and “a nuisance.” In contrast, in his schools” of literature.

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Karnavicius, Jurgis (1884–1968) Lithuanian motion and vigour, the other—tender and mild, as composer, known also by the Russian name of Jurij only women in Poe’s tales may be.” Karnovich, whose compositions include four string quartets; two chamber-music concerts (musical Keats, John (1795–1821) English romantic accompaniments); a cantata for tenor solo, choir, poet. Although Poe did not review works by Keats, and orchestra; two operas; and a ballet, in addi- he did express his admiration for the poet in a tion to numerous musical compositions inspired by review (“BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS”) of a work works by Poe. In 1916, Karnavicius wrote Remem- by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, writing: “Of brances in the House of Usher (known in Russian as the poets who have appeared most fully instinct Vechera v Dome Usher [“Evenings in the House of with the principles now developed, we may men- Usher”]), a chamber-music concert, op. 6, part I: tion Keats as the most remarkable. He is the sole String Quatuor (D minor, no. 2). That same year, British poet who has never erred in his themes. Karnavicius completed Ulalume, a symphonic poem. Beauty is always his aim.” Throughout his writ- In 1924, Karnavicius completed Love (known in ing career, Poe appears to have had an affinity for Russian as Lubov), a song cycle for soprano, mezzo- the moods and sound qualities of Keats’s poetry. soprano, piano, violin, and cello consisting of seven In 1832, he opened the short story “The DUC DE settings of poems by Poe: To Helen, a poem for L’OMELETTE” with the reference: “Keats felled by a piano, violin, and cello; To Helen, a romance for criticism.” This was Poe’s commentary that Keats’s mezzo-soprano and piano; To F———, a romance death was the result of a hostile, critical review, a for soprano, violin, and piano; To Frances S. Osgood revelation of the extent to which the artist must [To F———s S. O—d], a romance for mezzo- suffer at the hands of critics. In truth, the hos- soprano, cello, and piano; To Mary Louise [To M. tile critical attack that Keats was wounded by and L. S.], a duet for soprano and mezzo-soprano, with suffered in the pages of BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE piano; Intermezzo, for piano, violin, and cello; and occurred in 1818, but the poet did not die until For Annie, for soprano, mezzo-soprano, piano, vio- 1821, of tuberculosis and not a broken heart. lin, and cello. Poe’s short story “The OVAL POR- TRAIT” inspired a symphonic poem of the same Keith, Alexander (1791–1880) Biblical scholar name in 1927. In describing the work, Karnavicius mentioned in Poe’s “REVIEW OF STEPHENS’S ARABIA stated that “in the painter and his wife, as they are PETRAEA,” “SACRED PHILOSOPHY OF THE SEASONS,” characterized by E. Poe, you will find all a composer “INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN CENTRAL AMERICA,” and might dream of for a symphonic construction: two “MARGINALIA” for his work “upon the literal ful- themes and so brightly contrasting; one—full of filment of Biblical prophecies.” In the review of 351

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Arabia Petraea, Poe criticizes Keith for “a palpa- the illusion.’ ” The baron invented the automa- ble mistranslation” in a passage that refers to the ton chess-player in 1769, and it was exhibited prophet Isaiah and notes that is “a passage which throughout the United States by Johann Nepo- Dr. Keith should have examined critically in the muk Maelzel. The chess-player was built to appear original before basing so long an argument upon it.” as if a mechanical man were playing chess games Poe repeats nearly the same criticism in the review with humans and beating them, but the contrap- of Incidents of Travel in Central America in pointing tion actually contained a human being who oper- out that “both he [Stephens] and Dr. Keith might ated it. In 1836, Poe exposed the trick in the essay have spared themselves much trouble by an exami- “Maezel’s Chess-Player,” making the name von nation of the Biblical text in the original before Kempelen synonymous with hoax. founding a question upon it.” Despite his questioning of Keith’s accuracy, Poe consulted his book Kennedy, John Pendleton (1795–1870) Balti- Evidence of the Truth of the Christian Religion Derived more lawyer and amateur writer. A friend and lit- from the Literal Fulfilment of Prophecy while writing erary patron of Poe, he recognized Poe’s genius as The NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM. well as his psychological disparities. In 1833, he served on the committee that judged Poe’s prize Kelley, Edgar Stillman (1857–1924) American story for the BALTIMORE SATURDAY VISITER, “MS. composer, conductor, author, and lecturer. His com- FOUND IN A BOTTLE.” In December 1834, Ken- positions, performed by major symphony orchestras nedy recommended Poe’s short story collection to and choral societies, include the New England Sym- the publishing firm of Carey & Lea and, from his phony; Gulliver—His Voyage to Lilliput, a symphony; own pocket, supplied Poe with a small advance Alladin, an orchestral suite; Alice in Wonderland, a and invited him to dinner. Poe’s response, dated symphonic suite; and music to Prometheus Bound, Macbeth, and Ben Hur. In 1891, Kelley completed the song “Eldorado”, op. 8, no. 1, a setting of Poe’s poem of the same name; in 1901, “Israfel,” op. 8, no. 2, a song setting of Poe’s poem of the same name, as well as an arrangement for women’s chorus and orchestra; in 1904 “The Sleeper,” for mixed chorus with piano accompaniment, inspired by the first stanza of Poe’s poem of the same name; and in 1925, The Pit and the Pendulum, a symphonic poem inspired by Poe’s short story.

Kempelen, Baron Wolfgang von (1734– 1804) Hungarian nobleman, the inventor of the chess-playing robot or intelligent machine discussed in “MAELZEL’S CHESS-PLAYER.” He is also the subject of Poe’s “VON KEMPELEN AND HIS DISCOVERY.” Despite the initial assertions of Poe and others that the chess-player is “the most wonderful of the inventions of mankind,” Baron Kempelen “had no scruple in declaring it to be a ‘very ordinary piece of mechanism—a bagatelle whose effects appeared so marvellous only from the boldness of the conception, and the fortu- John Pendleton Kennedy, Poe’s friend and literary nate choice of the methods adopted for promoting patron (Courtesy of Edgar Allan Poe Society)

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Sunday, March 15, 1835, and often quoted, exhib- King, Oliver (1855–1923) English pianist, organ- its the depth to which Poe’s fortunes had fallen. ist, and composer whose compositions include cho- Humiliated by his impoverished state and appear- ral and orchestral works; a chorus and orchestral ance, Poe refused Kennedy’s invitation with the arrangement of the 137th Psalm; Night, a symphony; following note: and various cantatas, services, and voluntaries. In 1887, King composed “Israfel,” a song inspired by Dr. Sir,—Your kind invitation to dinner today Poe’s poem of the same name. has wounded me to the quick. I cannot come— for reasons of the most humiliating nature in Kircher, Athanasias (1601–1680) German Jesuit my personal appearance. You may conceive my archaeologist, mathematician, biologist, and physi- deep mortification in making this disclosure to cist who studied subterranean forces. He connected you—but it was necessary. If you will be my the concept of the Maelstrom with Charybdis, a friend so far as to loan me $20, I will call on you whirlpool near Sicily that appears in the 12th book tomorrow—otherwise it will be impossible, and of Homer’s Odyssey. Bishop Pontoppidan wrote in I must submit to my fate. his 1755 book, The Natural History of Norway, that Sincerely yours, Kircher believed the Maelstrom to be “a sea-vortex, attracting the flood under the shore of Nor- E. A. Poe way, where, through another abyss, it is discharged Sunday 15th into the gulph [sic] of Bothnia.” Poe commented on Kircher’s theories about whirlpools and sea Touched by Poe’s plight, Kennedy also took the vortexes in the short story “A DESCENT INTO THE forlorn writer under his wing, supplying him with MAELSTROM.” money and clothes and inviting him to dinner while making certain that MARIA CLEMM and VIRGINIA Kirkland, Caroline Matilda (1801–1864) New CLEMM Poe were given generous amounts of food. York author and editor of the Union Magazines He also introduced Poe to THOMAS WILLIS WHITE, who rejected Poe’s “ULALUME” for publication in editor of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, and 1847. Poe’s review of her in “The LITERATI OF NEW recommended that White not only publish Poe’s fic- YORK CITY” is positive, and he praises her “life- tion but help him in “drudging upon whatever may like” representations and her handling of western make money.” In a May 1835 review of Kennedy’s scenes and pioneer character. He finds her re-cre- novel Horse-Shoe Robinson: A Tale of the Tory Ascen- ation of life to be notable and asserts that “she has dency that appeared in the Messenger, Poe placed the represented ‘scenes’ that could have occurred only author “at once in the very first rank of American as and where she has described them.” Declaring novelists.” In “AUTOGRAPHY,” Poe noted Kennedy “unquestionably, she is one of our best writers, has “[to have] the eye of a painter, more especially in a province of her own, and in that province has regard to the picturesque—to have refined tastes few equals,” Poe writes that her work contains “a generally—to be exquisitely alive to the proprieties certain freshness of style, seemingly drawn, as her of life—to possess energy, decision, and great tal- subjects in general, from the west.” ent—to have a penchant also for the bizarre.” Kirkland, William (1800–1846) American essay- Kerrison, Davenport (1833–1929) American ist and journalist. Poe included a profile of Kirkland composer whose compositions include Canada, a in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY,” singling out symphonic overture; a piano concerto in E minor; for praise his articles “The Tyranny of Public Opin- and a grand opera, with a libretto by the composer, ion in the United States” and “The West, Paradise titled The Last of the Aztecs. In 1908, Kerrison com- of the Poor.” He writes that “whatever Mr. Kirkland posed The Bells, a symphonic poem in four move- does is done carefully,” despite having a style that ments, based on Poe’s poem of the same name. is “occasionally very caustic, but seldom without

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cause.” Overall, the review declares Kirkland’s style intelligent or educated readers.” Poe asserts that to be “vigorous, precise, and notwithstanding his for- the blame for this lies in the manner in which the eign acquirements, free from idiomatic peculiarities.” magazine was edited: “the work is deficient in that In his review “AMERICA AND THE AMERICAN PEO- absolutely indispensable element, individuality. As PLE,” Poe chastises the translator William Turner for the editor has no precise character, the magazine, omitting either accidentally or “from some motives of as a matter of course, can have none. . . . [A]n publishing policy” to give Kirkland credit for assist- apple, in fact, or a pumpkin, has more angles.” ing in the monumental task of translating the work into English: “We have been much surprised to find, Kranich, Alvin (1865–1946) American com- in the Translator’s Preface, no acknowledgment of poser and pianist whose compositions include the his indebtedness to those who aided him in this dif- orchestral works Rhapsodies, Americana, and Mary ficult task—to Mr. Kirkland, for example, and to Magdalene; a cantata, The Watchtower; an opera, the accomplished Mrs. Ellet—who, between them, Doktor Eisenhart; Dante Sonata; and overtures and prepared nearly, if not quite, one half the book.” piano concertos. In 1908, Kranich completed The Raven, a melodrama consisting of incidental music Knickerbocker Magazine New York journal for piano, to be used in connection with the nar- edited by LEWIS GAYLORD CLARK, a Poe foe who ration of Poe’s poem of the same name. In 1925, used his column “Editors’ Table” to attack Poe’s Kranich wrote The Raven [Der Rabe], a symphonic writing, printing one particularly virulent attack on poem whose score was completed in Weimar, Ger- The NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM in 1838. many, and first performed in 1927 in Naumburg, Clark’s attacks combined with Poe’s rebuttals to Germany. create a highly public feud in print that led in 1845 to physical violence when Poe attacked Clark on Kreutzenstern, Captain Russian navigator and a New York street. The review of The Narrative of oceanic explorer mentioned along with CAPTAIN Arthur Gordon Pym that appeared in the August LISIAUSKY in chapter 16 of The NARRATIVE OF 1838 issue stated, “There are a great many tough ARTHUR GORDON PYM. In 1803, he is sent by Czar stories in this book, told in a loose and slip-shod Alexander I of Russia to circumnavigate the globe. style. . . . The work is one of much interest with all As he and his crew attempt to go south, they meet its defects, not the least of which is, that it is too with strong currents setting easterly, where they liberally stuffed with ‘horrid circumstance of blood find an abundance of whales but no ice. The nar- and battle.’ ” The November 1846 issue contained a rator states that had the expedition arrived earlier satiric poem mocking Poe in “Epitaph on a Modern in the season—they arrived in March—they would ‘Critic’.” “Here Aristarchus lies, (nay, never smile,) have encountered ice, for the winds carry the floes / Cold as his muse, and stiffer than his style; / But great distances. whether Bacchus or Minerva claims / The crusty critic, all conjecture shames; / Nor shall the world Kroeger, Ernest Richard (1862–1934) Ameri- know which the mortal sin, / Excessive genius or can composer, pianist, organist, and educator whose excessive gin.” In a description of the publication, compositions include the orchestral suite Lalla which appeared in his profile of Clark in “The LIT- Rookh, the symphonic poem The Mississippi, Father ERATI OF NEW YORK CITY,” Poe says the title, “for a of Waters, the song “Bend Low O Dusky Night,” merely local one, is unquestionably good.” He also and chamber music, choral music, and piano and expresses admiration for the choice of contribu- choral works. In 1890, Kroegar completed “I Saw tors, who “have usually been men of eminence,” Thee on Thy Bridal Day,” a song inspired by Poe’s and their contributions, which “have been excel- poem “SONG: TO———,” and in 1906, Kroeger lent.” Despite these admirable aspects, the work completed “Annabel Lee,” op. 65, no. 7, a song “has never succeeded in attaining position among inspired by Poe’s poem of the same name.

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Lacy, Frederick St. John (1862–1935) Irish Landor, William Occasional pseudonym of Hor- composer known for musical compositions and lec- ace Binney Wallace, an American novelist who also ture-recitals. Lacy composed more than 100 works, published occasionally in periodicals. Poe wrote in most of them vocal. In 1887 he wrote a cantata set- “AUTOGRAPHY” that he has “acquired much rep- ting of Poe’s poem “ANNABEL LEE” for tenor solo, utation as the author of ‘Stanley,’ ” a work that chorus, and orchestra. was warmly commended by the press throughout the country. Noting that Landor has also “writ- Lafayette, Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert ten many excellent papers for the Magazines,” Poe du Motier, marquis de (1757–1834) French assesses his style as that of “an elaborately careful, general and hero of the American Revolution stiff, and pedantic writer, with much affectation whom Poe characterizes as “the intimate friend” and great talent.” of Poe’s paternal grandfather General David Poe, a quartermaster general in the Maryland line dur- Latrobe, John Hazelhurst Boneval (1803–1891) ing the Revolutionary War. As Poe reported in an One of three judges, with JOHN PENDLETON KEN- autobiographical memorandum to RUFUS WILMOT NEDY and Dr. JAMES MILLER, who judged Poe’s GRISWOLD, when Lafayette visited Richmond prizewinning story “MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE” for a in October 1824, he “called personally upon competition sponsored in 1833 by the BALTIMORE the Gen.’s widow, and tendered her his warm- SUNDAY VISITER. In later accounts, he described Poe est acknowledgments for the services rendered as having the air of a gentleman: “Gentleman was him by her husband.” Poe was made a lieuten- written all over him.” Latrobe wrote that Poe “was ant among a group of well-born young gentle- dressed in black, and his frock-coat was buttoned men attending Burke’s Academy, run by WILLIAM to the throat, where it met the black stock, then BURKE, who were organized into a military com- almost universally worn. Not a particle of white was pany called the Richmond Junior Volunteers. The visible.” He noted that the clothes were well-worn company members were provided with uniforms and mended and that “on most men his clothes consisting of fringed frontier hunting shirts and would have looked shabby and seedy,” but that equipped with swords and guns. Reports suggest Poe’s sense of dignity made the terms inapplicable that Poe probably met Lafayette while on parade to him. in Capitol Square as a member of the volunteer company of riflemen that served as Lafayette’s Lawson, James (1799–1880) New York author honorary bodyguard during the French general’s whom Poe profiles in “The LITERATI OF NEW Richmond visit. YORK CITY.” He is the author of Giordano (1832), 355

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a tragedy that, Poe informs readers, was “con- common ancestry and stated that Poe was modified demned (to use a gentle word) some years ago at from an old Norman family surname, Le Poer—a the Park Theatre; and never was condemnation name that Walt Whitman called “conspicuous in more religiously deserved.” Poe professes to know Irish annals.” very little about other writings by Lawson, aside from another work titled Tales and Sketches by a Le Rennét, Henri Alias that Poe used in 1827 Cosmopolite, which contains “The Dapper Gentle- when he left JOHN ALLAN’s house after a quarrel man’s Story,” “in manner, as in title, an imitation resulting from Allan’s refusal to cover the debts of one of Irving’s ‘Tales of a Traveller’.” Of the that Poe had accumulated while attending the man, Poe states that he is a fluent conversational- University of Virginia. In order to avoid arrest on ist who “tells a good story” and is socially adept. In a debtor’s warrant and to cover his departure, Poe particular, Poe asserts that Lawson, “with no taste assumed the name of Le Rennét when he left Rich- whatever, is quite enthusiastic on all topics apper- mond for Boston. taining to Taste.” Leslie, Henry (1822–1896) English conductor, Le Brun, Pere Reference in “The DUC DE composer, and cellist whose compositions include L’OMELETTE” to Charles Le Brun (1619–1690), a operas, oratorios, symphonies, part-songs, and virtual dictator of the arts in France under Louis church, chamber, and piano music. In 1891, Leslie XIV. He laid down a strict system of rules for composed “Annabelle Lee: The Beautiful Classic artistic expression for the French Academy and Ballad,” a song for the concert hall and the parlor, even wrote a treatise on the appropriate means of inspired by Poe’s poem “ANNABEL LEE.” expressing the passions. When faced with one final card game with the devil for his soul, the desperate Levey, William Charles (1837–1894) Irish dra- Duc de l’Omelette wracks his brain to remember matic composer and conductor whose works include anything that might help him and recalled “had he many operas produced in London, as well as cannot skimmed over Pere Le Brun?” tatas, songs, and piano pieces. In 1866, he wrote “Many a Year Ago,” a song whose text was taken Ledyard, John Mentioned in The JOURNAL OF from Poe’s “ANNABEL LEE.” JULIUS RODMAN as a former associate of CAPTAIN JAMES COOK. In the story, he is credited as one of Lewis, Captain Meriwether (1774–1809) Amer- the earliest explorers of the northern portion of the ican explorer. In 1803 he was appointed by President United States, and “Mr. Jefferson, in speaking of THOMAS JEFFERSON as commander of an expedition Ledyard’s undertaking, erroneously calls it ‘the first to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Territory attempt to explore the western part of our northern and chose WILLIAM CLARK as joint commander of continent.’ ” what became known as the Lewis and Clark Expedi- tion (1803–06). Poe included references to Lewis’s Leoni, Franco (1865–1947) Italian composer. explorations in The JOURNAL OF JULIUS RODMAN and Leoni’s compositions include 10 operas, three ora- his review of WASHINGTON IRVING’s “ASTORIA; OR, torios, chamber music, and various songs. In 1908, ANECDOTES OF AN ENTERPRISE BEYOND THE ROCKY he composed a vocal scena for baritone or contralto MOUNTAINS.” with orchestra, to Poe’s poem “The BELLS.” Lewis, Sarah Anna “Stella” (1824–1880) Ama- Le Poer The ancestral name that Poe’s friend teur poet who knew Poe at the Fordham cottage Mrs. SARAH HELEN POWER WHITMAN claimed to after VIRGINIA CLEMM’s death. Lewis and her hus- have identified for Poe after observing the similarity band paid Poe $100 to assure that he would write between her family name, Power, and that of Poe. a complimentary review of her collection The Child She claimed that she and Poe shared a magnificent of the Sea and Other Poems. The review appeared in

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the September 1848 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY STERN in chapter 16 of The NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR MESSENGER. Born Sarah Anna Robinson, Lewis spent GORDON PYM. In 1803, he is sent by Czar Alexander much of her early life in Cuba, where her father, a I of Russia to circumnavigate the globe. As he and distinguished Cuban of English and Spanish heri- his crew attempt to go south, they meet with strong tage, owned a thriving business. In an unpublished currents setting easterly, where they find an abun- manuscript that RUFUS GRISWOLD later included in dance of whales but no ice. The narrator states that his first edition of Poe’s works, Poe praised her for had the expedition arrived earlier in the season—it being “a thorough linguist in the ancient and modern arrived in March—it would have encountered ice, languages” and for her translations as well as for her for the winds carry the floes great distances. The poetry. In the essay entitled “Estelle Anna Lewis,” narrator contrasts the success of Lisiausky with the Poe declared that she was “the best educated, if not failures of Captain Cook and other ships’ captains the most accomplished of American authoresses.” to penetrate Antarctica and their mistaken assess- Despite such praise, MARIE LOUISE SHEW revealed ment of the ice floes—due to the time of year of Poe’s true feelings toward Stella, noting that he their arrivals—as being land mass. The success, “hated the fat, gaudily dressed woman” who spent thus, depended on the season of navigation. considerable time in MARIA CLEMM’s kitchen and that he “rushed out to escape her.” He confessed to Little, Arthur Reginald (born c. 1902) American Shew that “She [Lewis] is really commonplace, but composer who wrote a piano accompaniment to Poe’s her husband was kind to me.” poem “ULALUME” and a song setting of the first and second stanzas of Poe’s poem “TO HELEN (1).” Lewis, Sylvanus D. Brooklyn attorney who sent money to Poe after the death of VIRGINIA CLEMM Locke, Jane Ermina (1805–1859) Amateur when he saw the statement of the poet’s property poet, sister-in-law of FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. while engaged in one of the city courts. He was the Her relationship with Poe began in December husband of SARAH ANNA LEWIS. 1846 when she sent him her poem “An Invoca- tion to Suffering Genius,” her sympathetic view Liebling, George (1865–1948) German composer of Poe’s situation. She arranged for Poe to lecture and pianist who later settled in Hollywood, Califor- in Lowell, Massachusetts, on July 10, 1848, on nia. His works included operas, violin and piano con- the topic of “THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMER- certos, sonatas, piano pieces, and over 150 songs. In ICA.” Although Locke was a married woman in her 1934, he published a musical setting of Poe’s poem 40s, with five children, she led Poe to believe that “ANNABEL LEE.” she was a widow. When he learned the truth and began to court her young neighbor ANNIE RICH- Lincoln, Robert Todd (1843–1926) American MOND, Locke retaliated by writing vindictive let- lawyer and son of President Abraham Lincoln. He ters to Richmond that lied about Poe’s activities served as a captain in the Union army in the last and exaggerated his personal failings. Although year of the Civil War and was United States secre- Annie Richmond knew Poe well enough to dis- tary of war from 1881 to 1885. While secretary of count the truth of Locke’s acrimonious correspon- war, he confirmed for Professor George E. Wood- dence, the fear of public embarrassment made her berry, author of the 1885 Life of Edgar Allan Poe, end the relationship. Personal and Literary, with His Chief Correspondence with Men of Letters, the vital fact that 1827 was Locke, Lieutenant Joseph Lorenzo (1808–1864) the year of Poe’s enlistment at Boston in the U. S. Military tactics instructor at the United States Mili- Army under the assumed name of Edgar A. Perry. tary Academy at West Point while Poe was a cadet. Poe regarded him as a ridiculous martinet and Lisiausky, Captain Russian navigator and oceanic mocked his vanity in a comic poem titled “Lines explorer mentioned along with CAPTAIN KREUTZEN- on Joe Lock,” noting that “John Locke is a notable

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name / Joe Locke is a greater.” This was one of a Aurelius. He also wrote numerous books on classi- series of comic poems that Poe shared with his fel- cal languages, Egyptology, geography, history, poli- low cadets about instructors at the U.S. Military tics, and education. Academy. Long, Stephen H. American explorer mentioned Locke, Richard Adams (1800–1871) New York in The JOURNAL OF JULIUS RODMAN. In 1823, he City journalist whom Poe profiled in one his most proceeded to the source of the St. Peter’s River, to lengthy entries in the series “The LITERATI OF NEW Lake Winnipeg, to the Lake of the Woods, and to YORK CITY.” The profile begins with a thorough dis- other sites and left accounts that Julius Rodman cussion of Locke’s relationship with the NEW YORK uses to guide his expedition. SUN, then provides a detailed dossier of Locke’s writings. Of particular interest to Poe is “Moon-Hoax,” Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (1807–1882) which appeared in the August 1835 issue of the American poet whom Poe often accused of plagia- Sun under the title “Great Astronomical Discover- rism. Longfellow refused to respond to Poe’s charges ies, Lately Made by Sir John Herschel,” because Poe of plagiarism and, after Poe’s death, praised him believed that his balloon-hoax story, “The UNPAR- and attributed the charges to “a sensitive nature ALLELED ADVENTURE OF ONE HANS PFAALL,” had chafed by some indefinite sense of wrong.” In the inspired Locke’s charade. Poe writes, “It was three “Author’s Introduction” to “The LITERATI OF NEW weeks after the issue of ‘The Messenger’ contain- YORK CITY” series, Poe writes: “Mr. Longfellow, ing ‘Hans Pfaall,’ that the first of the ‘Moon-hoax’ who although little quacky per se, has, through editorials made its appearance in ‘The Sun,’ and his social and literary position as a man of prop- no sooner had I seen the paper than I under- erty and a professor at Harvard, a whole legion stood the jest, which not for a moment could I of active quacks at his control—of him what is doubt had been suggested by my own jeu d’esprit.” the apparent popular opinion? . . . [H]e is regarded After a detailed comparison of the two works, with one voice as a poet of far more than usual abil- Poe spends only one page addressing Locke’s skills as a writer, calling his prose style “noticeable for its concision, luminousness, completeness—each quality in its proper place.” He further asserts that everything Locke writes is “a model in its peculiar way, serving just the purposes intended and nothing to spare.”

Loeffler, Charles Martin (1861–1935) Alsatian- born American impressionist composer whose compositions include symphonic poems, songs for chorus and orchestra, and solo pieces. In 1906, he composed To Helen, op. 15, no. 3, one segment of a composition titled Four Poems Set to Music for Voice and Piano.

Long, George (1800–?) Professor of ancient languages at the University of Virginia during Poe’s residency who later taught at the University of Lon- don. He was an eminent Greek and Latin scholar who translated and edited works by Herodotus, The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whom Poe Epictetus, Plutarch, Cicero, Caesar, and Marcus accused of plagiarism (Courtesy of Library of Congress)

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ity, a skilful artist and a well-read man, but as less remarkable in either capacity than as a determined imitator and a dexterous adapter of the ideas of other people.” Poe reiterates his charge in “AUTOG- RAPHY,” noting that “[Longfellow’s] good qualities are all of the highest order, while his sins are chiefly those of affectation and imitation—an imitation sometimes verging upon downright theft.”

Longfellow Wars, the See “A CONTINUATION OF THE VOLUMINOUS HISTORY OF THE LITTLE LONG- FELLOW WAR—MR. POE’S FURTHER REPLY TO THE LETTER OF OUTIS.”

The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe Biographical film about Poe’s life. The movie focuses on the life of the adult Poe, his alcoholism, and the women who influenced him, with particular attention to the sufferings of the fragile VIRGINIA CLEMM. At 67 minutes in length, this B-movie effort was produced by Bryan Foy at Twentieth Century-Fox, directed by Harry Lachman, and released in 1942. Samuel The poet James Russell Lowell in 1844 (Courtesy of Hoffenstein and Tom Reed wrote the screenplay, National Archives) and Emil Newman composed the score. The film starred John Sheppard, Linda Darnell, Virginia the BROADWAY JOURNAL, then published a laudatory Gilmore, Jane Darwell, Frank Conroy, and Henry biographical essay of Poe in the February 1845 issue Morgan. of Graham’s Magazine that further enhanced Poe’s stature. Lowell, James Russell (1819–1891) American Soon after their only meeting, Poe’s admira- poet and essayist who also founded and edited the tion turned to scorn as he tried to minimize any Boston monthly the Pioneer. In his June 1842 review assistance rendered by Lowell and accused him of of RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD’s “The POETS AND plagiarizing from Wordsworth. Feeling betrayed, POETRY OF AMERICA,” which appeared in GRAHAM’S Lowell retaliated. He included Poe in his 1848 MAGAZINE, Poe expressed dismay that the editor had satiric poem A Fable for Critics, commenting in given little notice to Lowell: “We would have been general on Poe’s often overly elaborate prose, exag- better pleased to have seen a more liberal notice of gerations in his criticism, and unjust accusations his poems.” That same year, Poe wrote in “AUTOG- against HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. Follow- RAPHY” that Lowell surpassed “any of our writers” ing are the relevant lines from that poem: in “the vigor of his imagination—a faculty to be first considered in all criticism upon poetry,” but he also There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby wrote that Lowell’s “ear for rhythm . . . is imperfect.” Rudge, Two years later, in a March 1844 review, “POEMS BY Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL,” also in Graham’s Magazine, fudge; Poe praised Lowell as having “as high poetical genius Who talks like a book of iambs and pentameters as any man in America.” Although the two only met In a way to make people of common sense once, in May 1845, in January of that year Lowell damn meters; aided Poe in obtaining an editorial appointment to Who has written some things quite the best of

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their kind, included claims that Poe was expelled from the But the heart somehow seems all squeezed out University of Virginia, that he deserted from the by the mind; U.S. Army, and that he had been “sexually aggres- Who—But hey-day! What’s this? Messieurs sive” toward JOHN ALLAN’s second wife. Griswold Matthews and Poe, also made a pronounced effort to prove that Poe You mustn’t fling mud-balls at Longfellow so! was a morally negligent drug addict whose concerns were only for himself. In his introduction to Poe took offense at the satire and responded in the 1850 edition of Poe’s works, Griswold misled a review of A Fable for Critics that appeared in the readers by suggesting that Poe had based the por- March 1849 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MES- trayals in his bizarre stories on personal experience. SENGER. The review methodically attacked Lowell’s views on a range of topics, including slavery, and Lummis, Colonel William Mrs. ELIZABETH declares the work to be “ ‘loose’—ill-conceived and ELLET’s brother. He confronted Poe to obtain feebly executed, as well in detail as in general . . . intensely personal letters that his sister had sent we confess some surprise at his putting forth so to the author and refused to believe that Poe had unpolished a performance.” returned the letters the day before. Poe was insulted by Lummis’s insistence that the letters were still in Damaging obituary of “Ludwig” article, the his possession, and he challenged Lummis to a duel. Poe written by RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD and Poe went to the home of THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH signed with the pseudonym “Ludwig.” Printed in and demanded the loan of a pistol. English refused, the October 9, 1849, issue of the New York Daily and the ensuing argument led to a fistfight between Tribune, the piece destroyed Poe’s reputation and the two men that put Poe into a state of collapse remained the “official” view of the poet’s life for that required him to spend several days in bed. nearly half a century. As soon as Poe was dead, Griswold began the process of exacting posthu- Lynch, Anne Charlotte (1815–1891) Literary mous revenge against him, stating of his death that salon hostess who knew Poe in New York in 1845. “few will be grieved by it” and depicting him as a Although Poe included her among “the most skilful mentally unstable misanthrope who “had few or merely” in his review of RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD’s no friends.” Still bitter from Poe’s attacks on his “THE FEMALE POETS OF AMERICA,” Poe’s profile of work, Griswold condemned Poe as “little better her in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY” praises than a carping grammarian” who also had “little or her poems “Bones in the Desert,” “Farewell to Ole nothing of the true point of honor.” Despite efforts Bull,” “The Ideal,” and “The Ideal Found” for their by JOHN R. THOMPSON, who published “The Late “modulation and vigor of rhythm, in dignity and Edgar A. Poe” in the November 1849 issue of the elevation of sentiment, in metaphorical apposite- SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, and GEORGE R. ness and accuracy, and in energy of expression.” GRAHAM, who published in his magazine “Defence Lynch removed Poe from her guest list after she of Poe” in March 1850 and “The Genius and Char- heard of Poe’s contemptuous treatment of ELIZA- acteristics of the Late Edgar Allan Poe” in Feb- BETH FRIES ELLET and the fight over Ellet’s letters. ruary 1854, Griswold’s vitriolic characterization of See also LUMMIS, COLONEL WILLIAM. Poe became the unofficial biographical record that extended well into the 20th century and kept Poe Lytton, Edward George Frank Bulwer See from achieving his full literary due. Griswold’s lies BULWER-LYTTON, EDWARD GEORGE EARLE.

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Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 1st baron Mackenzie, Lieutenant Alexander Slidell (1803– Macaulay (1800–1859) English historian, essay- 1848) American naval officer and author. He was ist, and statesman whose best-known work is the the commanding officer of the brig-of-war Somers five-volume History of England. Poe’s early reviews during the mutiny of December 1841. Poe’s review do not exhibit his later admiration for the “critical “The AMERICAN IN ENGLAND” in the February 1836 learning” that lay behind Macaulay’s analytic and issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER dis- stylistic powers as a critic. In “CRITICAL AND MIS- cusses a book of this title by Mackenzie. Poe referred CELLANEOUS ESSAYS,” which appeared in the June to this and a second work, A Year in Spain, in his 1841 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE, Poe declares “AUTOGRAPHY” entry for Mackenzie, stating that that Macaulay’s “deservedly great” reputation was “Both these books abound in racy description, but “yet in a remarkable measure undeserved” and that are chiefly remarkable for their gross deficiencies in those who viewed him as “a comprehensive and grammatical construction.” His assessment of the profound thinker, little prone to error, err essen- author is even less complimentary, for he attributes tially themselves.” Poe’s review “ABOUT CRITICS Mackenzie’s success to influence rather than to tal- AND CRITICISM,” written in 1849 and published ent. Poe states that “his reputation at one period posthumously in 1850, shows that his respect for was extravagantly high—a circumstance owing, in Macaulay had grown over a decade. He offers some measure, to the esprit de corps of the navy, of Macaulay as an example of one critic who is able “to which he is a member, and to his private influence, accomplish the extremes of unquestionable excel- through his family, with the Review-cliques.” lences—the extreme of clearness, of vigor (depending upon clearness), of grace, and very especially of Mackenzie, John Hamilton Boyhood friend thoroughness.” of Poe whose parents, WILLIAM AND JANE SCOTT MACKENZIE, adopted Poe’s sister, Rosalie. Macken- MacDowell, Edward (1861–1908) American zie became the guardian of ROSALIE POE after his composer whose works include piano sonatas, con- father’s death and shared his memories with later certos, suites, virtuoso studies, choruses for male biographers such as Susan Archer Weiss Talley, voices, part-songs, and such orchestral pieces as who included them in her 1907 Home Life of Poe. Hamlet and Ophelia, Launcelot and Elaine, and He offers an unflattering view of JOHN ALLAN, a Lamia. The Library of Congress contains an unfin- view consistent with Poe’s. Mackenzie speaks of ished original manuscript of a four-part chorus for Allan as “a good man in his way” and states that male voices inspired by Poe’s “ELDORADO.” “often when angry with Edgar he would threaten to

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turn him adrift, and that he never allowed him to Mallarmé, Stéphane [Etienne] (1842–1898) lose sight of his dependence on his charity.” Mack- French poet and member of the French Symbol- enzie accompanied Poe into Richmond on Septem- ist movement. He was the force that encouraged ber 26, 1849, and, with other friends, they spent the FRENCH CRITICS to embrace Poe’s work. Poe’s the evening together before Poe boarded the boat work influenced Mallarmé to make poetry a con- for Baltimore—Poe’s final trip—the next morning. scious enterprise that was based not on chance but instead upon a careful process of composition in Mackenzie, William and Jane Scott Wealthy which the poet calculates the importance of every Richmond couple who adopted Poe’s sister, ROSALIE word. In 1876, he wrote the memorial sonnet, “Le POE, although they already had two children, John Tombeau d’Edgar Poe,” which portrayed Poe as a and Mary. They would have eight more children transcendent artist whose understanding of beauty of their own. As a child, Poe was a frequent visitor has made him an angelic figure existing far above to their home, Duncan Lodge, which was near the the mediocrity of mortal existence. Mallarmé’s home of his adoptive family, the Allans. Poe spent view of Poe as an artist echoes that of CHARLES the night of September 26, 1849, his final night in BAUDELAIRE, who saw Poe as a tortured genius, the Richmond, at Duncan Lodge before setting sail for product of suffering and sacrifice confronting the Baltimore, where he died. world’s ignorance and vulgarity.

Maginn, William (1793–1842) Author of a Mallinson, Albert (1870–1948) English com- GOTHIC tale, “The Man in the Bell,” that appeared poser who wrote more than 200 songs. In 1901, he in the November 1821 issue of BLACKWOOD’S composed a setting of Poe’s poem “ELDORADO.” MAGAZINE. The story is about a young man who falls asleep under the clapper of a huge church Maroncelli, Piero (1795–1846) Exiled Italian bell and awakens when the bell tolls for a funeral. poet living in America whose profile Poe included The sound drives him mad, and, as he is sinking in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY.” Poe reviews into madness, he records on a writing tablet his the essays and poems Maroncelli published in the sensations of auditory torture. In mentioning this United States, finding the “Essay on the Classic plot device in “HOW TO WRITE A BLACKWOOD and Romantic Schools” to be “strongly tinctured ARTICLE,” Poe, in the guise of WILLIAM BLACK- with transcendentalism,” yet admitting that “there WOOD, advises readers satirically through his main is at least some scholarship and some originality in character, “Should you ever be drowned or hung, this essay.” Although Poe observes that the author be sure and make a note of your sensations—they “speaks hurriedly and gesticulates to excess,” he will be worth to you ten guineas a sheet. If you also commends Maroncelli for “he is quite enthusi- wish to write forcibly, Miss Zenobia, pay minute astic in his endeavours to circulate in America the attention to the sensations.” literature of Italy.”

Magruder, Allan B. Virginia native and fellow Marshall, John (1755–1835) American states- cadet with Poe at the United States Military Acad- man, jurist, and the fourth chief justice of the emy at West Point. In interviews with Professor Supreme Court. He was principally responsible for GEORGE E. WOODBERRY, whose The Life of Edgar developing the power of the U.S. Supreme Court Allan Poe in 1885 reversed some of the damage to and for formulating constitutional law in the Poe’s reputation, Magruder recalled that Poe asso- nation. Poe included his signature in “AUTOGRA- ciated almost exclusively with Virginians at West PHY,” in which he states that Marshall’s writing “in Point and that “he was a great devourer of books, its utter simplicity, is strikingly indicative of the but his great fault was his neglect and apparent man.” Poe also reviews two eulogies that appeared contempt for military duties.” after Marshall’s death, “BINNEY’S EULOGIUM” and

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“JUDGE STORY’S DISCOURSE ON CHIEF-JUSTICE In the account of his early life provided to RUFUS MARSHALL.” WILMOT GRISWOLD, Poe states that Admiral McBride was “noted in British naval history, and Marston, George (1840–1901) American com- claim[ed] kindred with many of the most illustri- poser of church music, including music for church ous house of Great Britain.” Griswold repeated services, sacred cantatas, part-songs for male voices this information in the the “LUDWIG” ARTICLE, and choruses for female voices, as well as piano the October 9, 1849, obituary that he wrote after music, trios, and quartets. In 1876 he published the Poe’s death. song “To One in Paradise,” a setting of Poe’s poem of the same name. McBride, Jane The daughter of ADMIRAL JAMES MCBRIDE, a noted British naval officer, she was the Masetti, Enzo (1893–1968) Italian composer and wife of JOHN POE and the mother of DAVID POE, music critic whose works include music for mixed Poe’s paternal grandfather. chorus, orchestral pieces, and vocal, theatrical, and cinematographic music. In 1925, he published Bub- McHenry, James (1785–1845) American poet boli, music to accompany the first stanza of Poe’s and historical novelist. In a review, “The ANTEDI- poem “The BELLS.” LUVIANS, OR THE WORLD DESTROYED,” Poe skewered McHenry’s pretentious epic and attacked Mathews, Cornelius (1817–1899) New York what he saw as McHenry’s arrogance in presuming author, literary friend of EVERT A. DUYCKINCK, to associate his work with that of JOHN MILTON. and editor of the monthly magazine Arcturus. Poe He compared McHenry to “a tom-tit twittering on lists his best works in “AUTOGRAPHY,” although he an eagle’s back” and advised him to give up poetry. labels Mathews’s Puffer Hopkins “a clever satirical Poe expressed the opinion that McHenry need tale somewhat given to excess in caricature.” In a never fear being accused of being a poet, for “no negative review of Mathews’s epic “WAKONDAH, sane jury would ever convict him; and if, as most THE MASTER OF LIFE. A POEM,” Poe claimed that likely, he would plead guilty at once, it would be as “we had been sincerely anxious to think well of his quickly disallowed, on that rule of law which for- abilities.” In contrast, Poe’s review of Mathews’s bids the judges to decide against the plain evidence “BIG ABEL AND THE LITTLE MANHATTAN” is posi- of their senses.” tive. Mathews reacted to Poe’s mention in “Autog- raphy” of his The Motley Book by stating, “It is Mcintosh, Maria Jane (1803–1878) Casual not fair to review my book without reading it,” to acquaintance of Poe in New York City and writer which Poe replied, “Mr. Mathews will not imagine of children’s stories under her pen name “Aunt that I mean to blame him. The book alone is in Kitty.” She was present at a party in Fordham fault, after all.” at which Poe raved about his attraction to Mrs. SARAH HELEN WHITMAN, whom he had never met Mayo, Colonel John Friend of JOHN ALLAN and but with whom he claimed to be very much in uncle through marriage of Allan’s second wife, love. Visiting Whitman a few months later, Mcin- LOUISA GABRIELLA PATTERSON. After FRANCES tosh spoke of the infatuated poet and was asked ALLAN died, Mayo offered Allan the hospitality of to deliver an unsigned poem to him. She later his Belleville Plantation, situated near Richmond, acted as the conduit through which Poe met Mrs. Virginia, where Allan first met his second wife. Whitman.

McBride, Admiral James Member of the Brit- McMichael, Morton (1807–1879) American poet ish navy whose daughter JANE MCBRIDE was the and journalist. He published in the January 1840 issue mother of DAVID POE, Poe’s paternal grandfather. of GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND LADY’S BOOK a highly

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favorable review of Poe’s TALES OF THE GROTESQUE against Mesmer, and he died in obscurity. Poe AND ARABESQUE. In the review, McMichael made showed an interest in mesmerism, despite its sta- specific mention of Poe’s expert sense of “the comi- tus as a pseudoscience, and mentioned it in sev- cally absurd,” and he stated that the collection con- eral works. tained “some of the most vivid scenes of the wild and wonderful which can be found in English litera- mesmerism Method, now called “hypnotism,” ture.” In his sketch in “AUTOGRAPHY,” Poe praised for putting a subject into a trancelike state, used McMichael highly, noting that his poetry contains by the Austrian physician FRANZ FRIEDRICH ANTON “some remarkably vigorous things. We have seldom MESMER to treat patients in the late 18th century. seen a finer composition than a certain celebrated Although mesmerism was considered a pseudosci- ‘Monody.’ ” ence even in Poe’s time, his interest in mesmeric or hypnotic phenomena can be seen in his mention of Mela, Pomponius (c. 1st century A.D.) Roman Mesmer in several short stories, such as “MESMERIC geographer whose Geography, published in 1471, REVELATION,” “A TALE OF THE RAGGED MOUN- contains stories of satyrs and goatmen in Africa. TAINS,” “SOME WORDS WITH A MUMMY,” and “The In “The FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER,” Roderick FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR.” Poe became Usher “would sit dreaming for hours” over pas- familiar with the concept when he attended a series sages of Mela’s work. Usher’s preoccupation with of lectures given in 1838 by the French magnetist such works emphasizes his estrangement from ordi- Charles Poyen; he also attended a series of similar nary human experience and his obsession with the lectures given by Andrew Jackson Davis in 1845 in supernatural. New York.

Melamet, David (1861–1932) German com- Mill, John Stuart (1806–1873) British political poser and conductor whose musical compositions writer and utilitarian thinker. He was considered a include cantatas and other vocal and instrumental radical because he supported such measures as the works. He wrote a setting of Poe’s poem “ANNABEL public ownership of natural resources, equality for LEE” for chorus and solo voice. women, compulsory education, and birth control. His stand on women’s suffrage, expressed in The Mesmer, Franz Friedrich Anton (1734–1815) Subjection of Women (1869), contributed to the Austrian physician known for using mesmerism, formation of the suffrage movement. Poe’s narra- a method for putting a subject into a trancelike tor Pundita in “MELLONTA TAUTA” dismisses Mill state, today called “hypnotism,” as a treatment as “one Miller” representing the ancients whose for patients. He viewed the “magnetic princi- “logic is, by their own showing, utterly baseless, ple,” his alternative term for mesmerism, as free worthless and fantastic altogether, as because of any spiritual associations and as only physical of their pompous and imbecile proscription of in existence. In 1772, Mesmer claimed to have all other roads to Truth, of all other means for its discovered the existence of a power, similar to attainment.” magnetism, that had an extensive influence over human behavior. Calling this power “animal mag- Millard, Harrison (1830–1895) American com- netism,” he experimented with it and claimed that poser and singer whose compositions include more it resulted in medical benefits to patients. Results than 350 songs, many adaptations from French, of an investigation into the theory by a commit- Italian, and German; church music; and opera. tee of physicians and scientists appointed by the In 1889, he published Annabelle Leigh: A Parody French government, however, did not support his Ballad of the Sea, inspired by Poe’s poem “ANNA- findings. Their unfavorable report turned opinion BEL LEE.”

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Miller, James Henry (1788–1853) One of three Poe comments that “the noble simile of Milton, of judges, with JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY and JOHN Satan with the rising sun in the first book of ‘Para- HAZELHURST BONEVAL LATROBE, who judged Poe’s dise Lost,’ has nearly occasioned the suppression of prizewinning story “MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE” for a that epic: it was supposed to contain a treasonable competition sponsored in 1833 by the BALTIMORE allusion.” Also in “Pinakidia,” Poe cites numerous SUNDAY VISITER. The committee awarded Poe the instances in which later poets use lines suggested $50 prize for his story. by Milton’s works. Critics have suggested that Poe’s name for Ligeia may have been taken from line Miller, Joseph Persona created by Poe as “our 880 in Milton’s masque Comus: “And fair Ligea’s friend and particular acquaintance, Joseph Miller, golden comb.” Esq., (who, by the way, signs his name, we think, Joseph A. Miller, or Joseph B. Miller, or at least Minor, Benjamin Blake (1818–1905) Editor of Joseph C. Miller)” who has “a passion for auto- the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER in the 1840s. graphs.” Poe introduces him in the prefatory pages Poe made a special arrangement with him to print a of “AUTOGRAPHY,” published in the February 1836 revised version of “The RAVEN” in March 1845. issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, as a character who changes his middle initial with each Minor, Lucian Temperance advocate and fre- self-mention, running consecutively through the quent contributor to the SOUTHERN LITERARY alphabet but omitting use of the letters J and U. MESSENGER. THOMAS WILLIS WHITE, editor of the At the end of the introduction, the autographer Messenger, wrote to Minor in 1841 that he had and collector of signatures gives Poe 24 letters retained Poe as a copy-reader, not editor, at the from various contemporary prominent individu- Messenger, because “he is unfortunately rather dis- als—each sent to Joseph Miller using a different sipated,—and therefore I can place very little reli- middle initial, minus J and U—and offers them ance upon him.” In the December 1835 issue of the for publication. “The package handed us by Mr. Messenger, Poe reviewed Minor’s “An ADDRESS ON M. we inspected with a great deal of pleasure . . . . EDUCATION, AS CONNECTED WITH THE PERMANENCE We print them verbatim, and with facsimiles of OF OUR REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS,” a speech deliv- the signatures, in compliance with our friend’s ered to the Institute of Education of Hampden suggestion.” Sidney College at its anniversary meeting on Sep- tember 24, 1835. Milton, John (1608–1674) Poet often cited as the greatest English poet after Shakespeare. His Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley (1689–1762) work influenced the course of English poetry for English intellectual known for her lively cor- three centuries after his death, and both his poetry respondence and gatherings of intellectuals. In a and prose are marked by cosmic themes and lofty discussion of gossip in “MARGINALIA,” Poe speaks religious idealism. Poe read Milton early in life, of “Mary Wortley Montague [sic], who made it a and his work often shows Milton’s influence. The profession and a purpose.” “Nicean barks” of “TO HELEN (1)” and the epigraph to the volume TAMERLANE AND OTHER POEMS sug- Montani, Nicola (1880–1949) American com- gest the grandeur of Milton’s theme, diction, and poser and conductor who wrote hymns, anthems, style. In “The POETIC PRINCIPLE,” Poe mentions motets, sonatas, and songs. In 1917 he published Milton’s Paradise Lost, and he comments favorably The Bells, a cantata for women’s voices with on RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD’s edition of The Prose soprano and alto solos and pianoforte or orchestral Works of John Milton in the September 27, 1845, accompaniment. The piece was inspired by Poe’s issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. In “PINAKIDIA,” poem of the same name.

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Moog, Wilson Townsend (1881–1954) Ameri- ness. She visited Poe’s bedside and read to him can composer, organist, and teacher whose compo- from the Bible in an effort to comfort him as sitions include organ and piano music and songs. In he was dying. She hoped that “the words of the 1909, for the Poe Centenary Exercises at the Edgar Great Physician” (Jesus) would ease his suffering, Allan Poe School near Westminster Churchyard in so she read from the 14th chapter of the gospel Baltimore, Poe’s burial place, he composed a choral of St. John. Moran also attended to his physical setting for children’s voices of the first stanza of needs by giving him water, wiping the perspira- Poe’s poem “The BELLS.” tion from his forehead, smoothing the sheets, and making his shroud. Moran, Dr. John J. The 27-year-old resident physician at Baltimore’s Washington College Hos- More, Sir Thomas (1478–1535) English states- pital who provided Poe with medical attention in man, writer, and martyr whose stand against King the author’s final two days of life. In a letter to Henry VIII led to his death. He was the author MARIA CLEMM on November 15, 1849, five weeks of Utopia. Legend has that he stood laughing after Poe’s death, Moran wrote the following: before kneeling at the block to be beheaded. Poe refers to More in his short story “The ASSIGNA- When brought to the hospital he [Poe] was TION” through the speech of the mysterious, Byro- unconscious of his condition—who brought nic stranger to the unnamed narrator: “To die him or with whom he had been associating. He laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious remained in this condition from 5 in the after- deaths! Sir Thomas More—a very fine man was noon—the hour of his admission—until 3 next Sir Thomas More—Sir Thomas More died laugh- morning. This was on 3rd Oct. ing, you remember.” To this state succeeded tremor of the limbs, and at first a busy, but not violent or active Morgan, Appleton President of the New York delirium—constant talking—and vacant con- Shakespeare Society, he led an effort in 1897 verse with spectral and imaginary objects on the to get passed a bill in the New York legislature walls. His face was pale and his whole person that would establish Poe Park and remove to it drenched in perspiration. We were unable to the Fordham cottage where VIRGINIA CLEMM Poe induce tranquility before the second day after died. Writing in Munsey’s Magazine in July 1897, his admission. Morgan reported that his interviews with people, The doctor also reported that Poe shouted for “or whose fathers or mothers have so testified the explorer JEREMIAH REYNOLDS, “which he to them, have assured me that Poe never drank did through the night up to three on Sunday liquor simply because his stomach was so deli- morning. . . . At this time a very decided change cate that a single glass of wine was poison to began to affect him. Having become enfeebled him, and that he could not, even by a physi- from exertion he became quiet and seemed to cal effort, swallow, much less retain, a drop of rest for a short time, then gently moving his head ardent spirits.” Opposition to the bill was based he said, ‘Lord help my poor soul’ and expired.” on Poe’s unfavorable reputation, which persisted Although Moran judged the cause of Poe’s death from the publication of The “LUDWIG” ARTICLE. to be drunkenness and a severe case of delirium Through persistence, the bill eventually passed, tremens, the exact medical cause of Poe’s death and the park is now under the aegis of the federal remains uncertain. government.

Moran, Mrs. Mary Wife of Dr. JOHN J. MORAN, Morris, George Pope (1802–1864) Editor and the physician who attended Poe in his final ill- co-owner, with NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS, of the

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New York EVENING MIRROR. The two men sold the as he assesses it, is that “she evinces more feeling Evening Mirror and founded the Home Journal, one than ideality.” Her writing of drama has different of the outstanding and most successful ventures of results, and Poe notes that “her first decided suc- the time, which left a lasting mark on American cess was with her comedy [Fashion], although the magazines. Poe wrote in “AUTOGRAPHY” with admi- play is in imitation of Congreve.” Poe praises the ration of Morris’s songs, “which have taken fast manner in which Mowatt manages such imitation hold upon the popular taste, and which are deserv- and observes that it “owes what it had of success edly celebrated.” Poe further remarked that “he has to its being the work of a lovely woman who had caught the true tone for these things, and hence his already excited interest, and to the very com- popularity—a popularity which his enemies would monplaceness or spirit of conventionality which fain make us believe is altogether attributable to his rendered it readily comprehensible and appre- editorial influence.” ciable by the public proper.” In contrast to his lukewarm appreciation of her writing, Poe enthu- Mott, Valentine (1785–1865) Physician at the siastically praises Mowatt’s appearance on stage, New York University School of Medicine who attributing her success to her “rich and volumi- examined Poe in 1847, in the months after VIR- nous” voice, “the perfection of grace” of her step, GINIA CLEMM’s death. He was told of Poe’s symp- the “well-controlled impulsiveness” of her move- toms by MARIE LOUISE SHEW, a medically trained ments—“the great charm of her manner is its doctor’s daughter who had served as Virginia’s naturalness.” In other reviews of Mowatt’s work, nurse. Shew noticed and reported to Mott that Poe’s “pulse beat only ten regular beats, after which it suspended or intermitted.” He agreed with her conjecture that Poe might have a lesion on one side of the brain and recommended that Poe refrain from all stimulants and tonics—even sedatives— the use of which would intensify hallucinations and lead to greater mental instability. Despite his con- firmation of Shew’s suspicions, Mott did not medically confirm the brain lesions, nor did he provide treatment.

Mowatt, Anna Cora (1819–1870) Playwright, socialite, and author of the comedy Fashion, which Poe reviewed in his portrait of her in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY,” appearing in the June 1846 issue of GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND LADY’S BOOK. Poe opens the review by declaring Mowatt to be “in some respects a remarkable woman, and [a person who] has undoubtedly wrought a deeper impression upon the public than any one of her sex in America.” Despite his opening praise, Poe finds her tales to be “conventional” and the subjects often “hackneyed.” He likes her poetry Anna Cora Mowatt, stage actress, novelist, and dramatist, no better, and he says “in very few of them do I whom Poe called “in some respects a remarkable observe even noticeable passages.” Her problem, woman” (Courtesy of Edgar Allan Poe Society)

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including “The NEW COMEDY,” “The DRAMA,” “PROSPECTS OF THE DRAMA,” and “The FORTUNE HUNTER,” Poe is inconsistent in his praise.

Moyamensing Prison Philadelphia jail where Poe was detained for public drunkenness in July 1849 after he became hallucinatory and attempted suicide. While in the prison, he claimed to have seen the vision of a white female form that warned him against suicide. When he appeared before Philadelphia Mayor Gilpin the following morning, the mayor recognized him as “Poe, the poet” and dismissed him without charging a fine. Poe’s biographers note the first onset of the author’s delirium Moyamensing Prison, where Poe spent one night in tremens during this incarceration. September 1849 (Courtesy of Library of Congress)

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Neal, John Clay (1793–1896) American poet, coming work. The printed praise of a distinguished critic, and novelist who wrote under the pen name critic also opened doors to publishers for Poe, whose of Jehu O’Cataract. He first became familiar with work was accepted in November 1829 by the Bal- Poe through the intervention of Poe’s cousin timore publisher Hatch & Dunning. Poe appeared George Poe, who had known Neal when he lived to believe that having once come to his aid, Neal and worked in Baltimore as an editor. By 1829, should continue to do so, as he suggests in a letter when Poe was showing AL AARAAF, TAMERLANE, dated June 4, 1840, written to ask for assistance in AND MINOR POEMS to editors in the hope that it launching a new magazine in Philadelphia: might be published, Neal had already left Baltimore and settled in Portland, Maine, where he started MY DEAR SIR: AS YOU GAVE ME THE a paper that evolved into the Yankee and Boston FIRST JOG IN MY LITERARY CAREER, Literary Gazette. George Poe wrote to his old friend YOU ARE IN MEASURE BOUND TO and told him that he had directed Poe to send some PROTECT ME AND KEEP ME ROLLING. I poetry to Neal for his expert commentary, and he THEREFORE NOW ASK YOU TO AID ME expressed complete confidence that Neal would WITH YOUR INFLUENCE IN WHATEVER honor their old friendship. The editor did more, MANNER YOUR EXPERIENCE SHALL and the young Poe was pleasantly surprised by the SUGGEST. following notice in Neal’s literary column in the It strikes me that I never write you except to September 1829 issue of the Yankee and Boston Lit- ask a favor. But my friend Thomas will assure erary Gazette: “If E. A. P. of Baltimore—whose lines you that I bear you always in mind, holding you about ‘Heaven’, though he professes to regard them in the highest respect and esteem. as altogether superior to anything in the whole Most truly yours, range of American poetry, save two or three trifles EDGAR A. POE referred to, are, though nonsense, rather exquisite nonsense—would but do himself justice might [sic] In an “AUTOGRAPHY” entry, Poe described make a beautiful and perhaps a magnificent poem. Neal’s signature as “exceedingly illegible, and very There is a good deal here to justify such a hope.” careless. . . . One might support Mr. Neal’s mind Poe recalled this review as “[t]he very first words (from his penmanship) to be bold, excessively of Encouragement I ever remember to have heard.” active, energetic, and irregular.” Neal also allowed Poe to print a letter covering four pages in the December 1829 issue of Yankee, Newman, Cardinal John Henry (1801–1890) which contained lengthy excerpts from the forth- Church of England clergyman and leader of the 369

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Oxford Movement, a revival of certain sacraments, ness on the interests of the country at large, are rituals, and doctrines in the Anglican Church that probably beyond all calculation.” The Sun played had been abandoned after the Reformation. New- a part in Poe’s life early in its founding. Three man converted to Roman Catholicism in 1845. weeks after Poe’s short story “The UNPARALLELED During a tour of the Mediterranean region in 1833, ADVENTURE OF ONE HANS PFAALL” was published he wrote the famous hymn “Lead, Kindly Light,” in the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, the Sun which contains the following couplet that imitates, ran a story entitled “Discoveries in the Moon,” either consciously or unconsciously, lines in Poe’s supposedly reprinted from the Edinburgh Courant “TAMERLANE,” published in 1829: “Pride ruled my and Journal of Science. Poe wrote to JOHN PEND- will / remember not past days.” Poe’s original lines LETON KENNEDY asking if he saw the similarity to in stanza nine are: “The soul, which knows such Poe’s tale and noting that “the general features power, will still / Find Pride the ruler of its will—.” of the two compositions are nearly identical.” Poe Critics have observed that “Lead, Kindly Light” selected the Sun to publish “The BALLOON-HOAX,” also “gives the fundamental note of ‘Tamerlane’.” where it appeared on April 13, 1844, as a factual article. Proclaiming that it was the “sole paper New York Mail and Express Newspaper that which had the news,” the paper created a rush for revealed the pathetic circumstances of Poe and his update editions that purported to follow the prog- wife, VIRGINIA CLEMM, after Mrs. MARY ELIZABETH ress of the hot-air balloon Victoria. HEWITT took up a “subscription” for the couple among editors. Poe was embarrassed when the New York Tribune New York City newspaper. paper printed the following paragraph: Poe was informally connected to the paper through his association with HORACE GREELEY, the editor We regret to learn that Edgar A. Poe and his and a columnist at the paper, who signed finan- wife are both dangerously ill with the consump- cial notes for Poe with expectation of repayment, tion, and that the hand of misfortune lies heavy and MARGARET FULLER, the literary critic and an upon their temporal affairs. We are sorry to assistant editor of the paper from 1842 to 1845. mention the fact that they are so far reduced The Tribune also published the damaging obituary as to be barely able to obtain the necessaries of Poe written by RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD and of life. This is indeed a hard lot, and we hope signed with his pseudonym “Ludwig.” Printed in the the friends and admirers of Mr. Poe will come October 9, 1849, issue, the piece destroyed Poe’s promptly to his assistance in his bitterest hour reputation and remained the “official” view of the of need. poet’s life for nearly half a century. (see the “LUD- WIG” ARTICLE.) New York Mirror See EVENING MIRROR.

New York Sun Daily newspaper published in Nicholls, Frederick (1871–1843) British com- New York City and the first “penny paper” in that poser of songs and piano pieces. In 1938, he pub- city. The paper inaugurated a peculiarly American lished “Eldorado,” a song inspired by Poe’s poem and sensational method of treating news, which “ELDORADO.” was a feature of the new, native journalism. The paper was founded in 1833 with the aim of “sup- Niobe In Greek mythology, a descendant of the plying the public with the news of the day at so house of Thebes, wife to King Amphion, and the cheap a rate as to lie within the means of all.” mother of six sons and six daughters. She com- As Poe wrote in his profile of the Sun’s first edi- manded the people of Thebes to worship her instead tor, RICHARD LOCKE, “The consequences of the of the goddess Leto. When the gods heard her com- scheme, in their influence on the whole newspaper mands, they punished her by directing Leto’s chil- business of the country, and through this busi- dren Apollo and Artemis to fire their arrows with

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deadly aim and to kill Niobe’s children. The grief- as she watches the search for her child, who has stricken Niobe was turned to stone that remains fallen into the canal. So still is she that “no motion ever wet with her tears. In Poe’s short story “The in the statue-like form itself, stirred even the folds ASSIGNATION,” the Marchesa Aphrodite di Mentoni of that raiment of very vapor which hung around it wears only “a snowy-white and gauze-like drapery” as the heavy marble hangs around the Niobe.”

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Oquawka Spectator Weekly newspaper pub- by the world; but he should not fail to remember that lished in Oquawka, Illinois. James B. Patterson, the source of the wrong lay in his own idiosyncrasy.” the founder of the paper, was originally from Win- chester, Virginia. When he died, he passed the paper Osgood, Frances “Fanny” Sargent (1811–1850) on to his son EDWARD PATTERSON, who admired Poet and friend whose relationship with Poe VIR- Poe and offered to back the STYLUS if a western edi- GINIA CLEMM encouraged. Fanny Osgood met tion could emanate from St. Louis, Missouri.

O’Rourke, Thomas Character mentioned in Poe’s note following “The UNPARALLELED ADVENTURE OF ONE HANS PFAALL.” He is the gamekeeper of an Irish peer in The Flight of Thomas O’Rourke, a novel with an unnamed author that has been translated from German. His “flight” takes place on the back of an eagle.

Osborn, Laughton (1809–1878) Amateur Amer- ican novelist with whom Poe became acquainted in New York City and whom he profiles in “The LITE- RATI OF NEW YORK CITY.” Poe identifies a large number of works written by Osborn, who “has made a great many ‘sensations’ anonymously or with a nom de plume,” but Poe admits that he is not sure if Osborn has published anything with his own name. Poe methodically points out the weaknesses of Osborn’s works. The Battle of Niagara, he finds, contains “an excessive force but little of refined art”; The Confes- sions of a Poet is “not precisely the work to be placed in the hands of a lady”; The Visions of Rubeta is “very censurably indecent—filthy is, perhaps, the more appropriate word.” He asserts that Osborn “has no Frances Sargent Osgood, a poet and a confidante of doubt been misapprehended, and therefore wronged Poe (Courtesy of Edgar Allan Poe Society) 372

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Poe in March 1845 after she and her husband, a married mother of four and a would-be poet who Samuel Osgood, had separated, but Samuel would had been writing Poe passionate letters, which he later paint Poe’s portrait. Fanny Osgood appears to ignored, visited MARIA CLEMM and found one of have been the woman to whom Poe was most seri- Osgood’s letters lying open on the table. Ellet later ously attracted while married to Virginia Clemm, visited Osgood and told her about the letter, sug- although all reports point to a passionate platonic gesting that she would become the object of gos- friendship. Osgood wrote that she had to flee at sip. A fearful Osgood requested that Poe return various times to Albany, Boston, and Providence to all of her letters, which he did, and the friendship avoid Poe’s attentions. Osgood recorded in journal between them cooled. Seven months after Poe’s entries that Poe followed her each time and begged death, and only shortly before her own, Osgood her to love him, requests that she refused to answer defended Poe’s character in a letter to RUFUS until Virginia Clemm added her pleas, stating that WILMOT GRISWOLD. Osgood would save Poe from “infamy” if she were Only she would know to what extent Griswold’s to show an interest in him. The two exchanged feelings for her influenced his vindictiveness, for poetry, and Poe praised her work in a review of his rivalry with Poe for Osgood’s attention was “A WREATH OF WILD FLOWERS FROM NEW ENG- known in their literary circle. Even as Osgood LAND” and in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY.” carried on her friendship with Poe, she sent Gris- In his profile of Osgood, which appeared in the wold a valentine in which her name was interwo- September 1846 issue of GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND ven with that of Griswold. She often visited the LADY’S BOOK, Poe wrote that she had “been rapidly ailing Virginia Clemm at the Fordham cottage, attaining distinction—and this, evidently, with no where she would also enjoy time with Poe, to effort at attaining it.” He chastised mildly Osgood’s whom she referred as the “Raven” when writing to disregard for fame and wrote that “Mrs. Osgood friends. During that same winter of 1846, she also has taken no care whatever of her literary fame.” regularly attended the literary salon run by ELIZA- Their relationship came to an end in June 1846. BETH OAKES SMITH, where she was often joined by While Poe was away, Mrs. ELIZABETH FRIES ELLET, Griswold.

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Pabodie, William J., Esq. (1815–1870) Author ing his false teeth, Brevet Brigadier General John A. and intimate friend of SARAH HELEN WHITMAN. B. C. Smith advises the narrator “for a good set of He published two articles in the June 2 and June these you had better go to Parmly’s at once; high 11, 1852, issues of the NEW YORK TRIBUNE that prices, but excellent work.” “Parmly” was the name defended Poe’s reputation against the scurrilous of a family of dentists in Philadelphia of Poe’s time. allegations made by RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD in the “LUDWIG” ARTICLE. When in Providence, Parry, Sir William Edward (1790–1855) Brit- Rhode Island, in December 1848 to draw up a ish explorer in the Arctic who made unsuccess- marriage contract with Whitman, Poe stayed at ful attempts to find the Northwest Passage and Pabodie’s house, although Pabodie had once been to reach the North Pole. Poe refers to him in The Whitman’s suitor and was said to still be very much JOURNAL OF JULIUS RODMAN, in writing of foods to in love with her. Pabodie also served as a witness take on the journey, “with which our readers have when Poe signed a consent to the release of the no doubt been familiarised in the journals of Parry, property of Whitman on December 22, 1848. Ross, Back, and other northern voyagers.”

Paixhan, General Henri J. (1783–1854) Designer Patten, Captain Person referred to in The NAR- of a gun for throwing explosive shells. His invention RATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM. Pym records that is mentioned by the narrator in Poe’s short story Patten, captain of the ship Industry out of Phila- “NEVER BET THE DEVIL YOUR HEAD,” who says, delphia, reached the island of Tristan d’Acunha in “if I had shot Mr. D. through and through with a August 1790 and stayed until April 1791. Accord- Paixhan bomb . . . he could hardly have been more ing to his journal, Patten gathered 5,600 sealskins discomfited than when I addressed him with these and said “he would have had no difficulty in load- simple words.” ing a large ship with oil in three weeks.” At the time of his arrival, Patten “found no quadrupeds, Parish, F. Wilson (1869–1933) English choral with the exception of a few wild goats,” leaving conductor, composer, and organist. In 1918, he pub- Pym to surmise that the abundance of valuable lished “Eldorado,” a part-song for choir of female domestic animals currently on the island must have voices with piano accompaniment, inspired by Poe’s been brought by later navigators. poem of the same name. Patterson, Edward Howard Norton (1828–?) Parmly Reference made in “The MAN THAT WAS The son of a newspaper man born originally in Win- USED UP.” While putting himself together and insert- chester, Virginia, Patterson inherited “a tidy sum 374

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of money” and a weekly newspaper, the Oquawka he had been seen wandering aimlessly around the Spectator, from his father. He had read and admired area, apparently drunk. Poe’s work in GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE, GODEY’S MAG- AZINE AND LADY’S BOOK, and other publications. The Penn Magazine In 1840, Poe presented After reading announcements of Poe’s plans for a prospectus for a monthly literary journal that the STYLUS, Patterson contacted Poe and offered to would be edited and published in Philadelphia. Poe back the venture. In a letter to Poe dated May 7, informed potential subscribers that the new maga- 1849, Patterson wrote, “Of this magazine you are to zine would “endeavor to support the general inter- have the entire editorial control.” Poe replied with ests of the republic of letters, without reference to a request of an advance for $50, money that went particular regions—regarding the world at large as toward a trip to Richmond, not toward any effort to the true audience of the author.” Poe also promised bring out the Stylus. to produce a magazine of the highest quality, one that would exclude “any tincture of the buffoonery, Patterson, Captain John Officer in the British scurrility, or profanity, which are the blemish of army who married Catherine Livingston of Livings- some of the most vigorous of the European prints.” ton Manor, New York. He became the first United The magazine never appeared, the result of Poe’s States collector of the port of Philadelphia after the involvement as editor of BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S American Revolutionary War. He was the grand- MAGAZINE and various personal crises. father of Miss LOUISA GABRIELLA PATTERSON, the second wife of JOHN ALLAN. Percival, Dr. James G. Physician and author whose views are mentioned in Poe’s short story Patterson, John William Son of CAPTAIN JOHN “The FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER.” In his men- PATTERSON and a lawyer in the state of New York. tion that Roderick Usher’s “opinion, in its general He was the father of Miss LOUISA GABRIELLA PAT- form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable TERSON, the second wife of JOHN ALLAN. things,” Poe draws upon the research of Percival, who published an article on the perceptive powers Patterson, Mrs. Louisa Mother of LOUISA GABRI- of vegetables in Memoir of the Literary and Philo- ELLA PATTERSON ALLAN. She was the daughter of sophical Society of Manchester (1785), volume two, JOHN DE HART, a member from New Jersey of the number 14. Continental Congress of 1774–76. Her father was also a man of considerable financial means and Perier, Casimir (1777–1832) French statesman influence, as well as the attorney general of his referred to in Poe’s short story “THREE SUNDAYS IN state and a well-known attorney. A WEEK.” His “pert little query ‘A quoi un poète est-il bon?’ ” [what is a poet good for?] provides the inspi- Patterson, Miss Louisa Gabriella See ALLAN, ration for the “profound contempt” that Rumgud- LOUISA GABRIELLA PATTERSON. geon, a character in the story, holds for the fine arts, and especially for belles-lettres—and it is a Payne, Daniel The fiancé of MARY CECILIA ROG- phrase he was fond of using. ERS, he committed suicide six weeks after her body was discovered floating in the Hudson River. He Perry, Edgar A. Alias that Poe used when he was found unconscious on a bench near the point enlisted in the United States Army on May 26, that Rogers’s body was found. An empty laudanum 1827. Although only 18 years old, he gave his age bottle, marked “Laudanum, Souillard & Delluc,” as 22. He also stated that he was born in Bos- was found near his body, together with a note stat- ton and had worked as a clerk. The new recruit ing, “To the World, Here I am on the spot. God was assigned to Battery H of the First Artillery, forgive me for my misfortune, or for my misspent then stationed in Boston Harbor at Fort Indepen- time.” Witnesses reported that earlier in the day dence, where he lived in the barracks from May

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through October 1827. As “Perry,” Poe’s perfor- fortunate as to secure his services as associate editor mance was exemplary, and on January 1, 1829, he of the Saturday Museum, where we intend [his fame] was appointed regimental sergeant major, through shall be placed beyond the reach of conjecture.” The whose hands the entire correspondence of a com- editors also informed readers, “so great was the inter- mand passed. After appealing to JOHN ALLAN for est excited by the biography and poems of Mr. Poe help in leaving the service, “Edgar A. Perry” was published in the Museum of last week, that to supply discharged from the army on April 15, 1829. those who were disappointed in obtaining copies we shall be at the expense of an extra edition, which Petersilea, Franz (?–1878) German musician. In shall be printed with corrections and additions.” In 1849, he wrote The Bells, a musical score that may a letter written to JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL in March well be the first musical setting of any Poe text, a 1843, Poe remarked that the announcement of his piece inspired by Poe’s poem of the same name. accepting the position of assistant editor had been made “prematurely,” which exhibits that he was only Peterson, Charles Jacobs (1819–1887) Assis- using the obscure paper to advertise himself and to tant editor with Poe at GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE in develop a following for his potential publication of mid-1841 and one of a family of magazine print- the STYLUS. ers. His relationship with Poe began to deteriorate in the spring of 1842, when Poe’s conduct Pike, Major Zebulon Montgomery (1779–1813) suffered as his wife’s health worsened and his American explorer, army officer, and the man for personal difficulties increased. After months of whom Pikes Peak in Colorado is named. In his growing tension, Poe and Peterson quarreled unfinished novel The JOURNAL OF JULIUS RODMAN, openly, and Graham discharged Poe, having told Poe describes Pike’s 1805 expedition to discover the the engraver JOHN SARTAIN, “Either Peterson or source of the Mississippi River. Pike later explored Poe would have to go—the two could not get the Louisiana Territory, where he was captured along together.” by the Spanish and charged with spying. After his release, he served as a brigadier general in the War Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper Newspaper with of 1812, in which he was killed by an explosion. offices in the same building as GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE, located at Third and Chestnut Streets in Philadel- Placide, Mr. C. Actor-manager of the Charles- phia. Poe published “The GOLD-BUG” in the newspa- ton Players (also called the Richmond Players, per in the June 21 and 28, 1843, issues after winning depending upon their city of performance), of a prize of $100. “The SPECTACLES” appeared in the which ELIZABETH POE was a member. On Novem- March 27, 1844, issue; “The PREMATURE BURIAL,” ber 25, 1811, he placed an advertisement in the one of Poe’s most genuinely morbid stories, appeared Richmond Enquirer, an appeal for Mrs. Poe “to the in the July 31, 1844, issue of the paper. kind-hearted of the city” for financial assistance. Four days later, he placed an advertisement of a Philadelphia Saturday Museum Periodical, pub- second benefit “in consequence of the serious and lished in Philadelphia, with which Poe had a strong long continued indisposition of Mrs. Poe, and in connection in 1843. Poe used the columns of the compliance with the advice and solicitation of publication to advertise himself as a literary figure many of the most respectable families.” His com- and to announce the pending publication of his new pany was based in Charleston, South Carolina, and magazine. Poe’s friend and fellow writer and edi- Placide later retired to that city after turning over tor HENRY BECK HIRST wrote a brief biography of the business to his son. Poe that appeared in the February 1843 issue of the publication, which other papers noticed and quoted Poe, David, Jr. (1784–1811?) Father of Edgar from. In response to the interest shown by other Allan Poe. A Baltimore native, he was approxi- papers, the Museum announced, “we have been so mately 22 years old and studying law when he first

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saw ELIZABETH ARNOLD, who would later become also became a close friend of French war hero the his wife and the mother of Edgar. Despite his MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE, who honored the Poe fam- father’s wishes that he become a lawyer, the young ily by visiting the general’s widow and the grandfa- David Poe joined the Thespian Club in Baltimore. ther’s grave during his visit to Richmond in 1824. He was later sent to his uncle’s house in Augusta, The general served as the deputy quartermaster Georgia, which he left for Charleston, South Caro- general of Baltimore during the American Revolu- lina, then a theatrical center, and the opportunity tionary War, but his grandson would later inflate to go on stage. The December 1, 1803, issue of that role and refer to him as having served as the the Charleston City Gazette reports his first stage quartermaster general of the United States Army. appearance there as “An Officer” in a pantomime The general was highly upset when his favorite son titled La Pérouse. Three years later, he joined the and namesake, DAVID POE, abandoned a law career troupe in which the newly widowed Elizabeth to join an acting troupe and later marry an actress. Arnold Hopkins acted, and the two married six The two reconciled after the birth of WILLIAM months later. Their marriage further widened the HENRY LEONARD POE. breech between Poe and his father, DAVID POE, SR., but the birth of their first child, WILLIAM Poe, Elizabeth (Eliza) Arnold Hopkins (1787– HENRY LEONARD POE, in 1807, brought a reconcili- 1811) Actress and the mother of Edgar Allan ation. Sensitive about his limited stage talents, hot- Poe. She was the daughter of two actors, Henry tempered, and hard-drinking, David Poe was prone Arnold and Elizabeth Smith, both of whom to outbursts and possessed of only meager earning appeared at the Covent Garden Theatre in Lon- capability. The births of Edgar in January 1809 and don. They were married in June 1784, and Eliza ROSALIE POE in December 1810 strained both the was born in London in the spring of 1787. Six Poes’ finances and David Poe’s patience as a father and a husband. He left his family in July 1811 and is believed to have died in Norfolk, Virginia, on or about December 11, 1811. Speculation about his disappearance ranges from the suggestion that he was ill and wanted to spare his family the agony to the more realistic possibility that he, a man in his mid-20s, had simply become tired of living with so many responsibilities and so few prospects. The circumstances and facts surrounding the death of David Poe, Jr., remain obscure, and they are further muddied by Edgar Allan Poe’s letter to William Poe in Richmond on August 20, 1835, in which he notes that “my father David died when I was in the second year of my age. . . . [M]y mother died a few weeks before him.” Whether Poe’s statement is true, or a falsehood meant to protect the reputation of his mother and sister, remains in doubt.

Poe, David, Sr. (1742–1816) Poe’s paternal grandfather and a distinguished veteran of the American Revolution. He had held the rank of major during the war, although he used the courtesy title of “General” because of the large sum of Poe’s mother, Elizabeth Arnold Poe (Courtesy of Edgar money that he had invested in the war effort. He Allan Poe Society)

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years after her father died, Eliza and her wid- was planning to take her from him. Three years owed mother left London for the United States after the marriage, when Neilson failed to respond in November 1795, and they arrived in Boston on to a request that he publish a glowing account January 3, 1796, as a shipping notice dated January of Poe’s achievements as editor and author, Poe 5, 1796, shows. Nine-year-old Eliza made her stage wrote an angry letter to Dr. JOSEPH SNODGRASS, debut a month later, as a character named Biddy stating, “I believe him [Neilson Poe] to be the bit- Bellair in David Garrick’s farce Miss in Her Teens. terest enemy I have in the world. He is the more A review in the Portland Herald praised her perfor- despicable in this, since he makes loud professions mance, saying “her powers as an Actress will do of friendship.” credit to any of her sex of maturer age.” In 1802, at only 15, she married a fellow actor, CHARLES Poe, Rosalie (1810–1874) Poe’s younger sis- HOPKINS. She was widowed three years later. Six ter, who was adopted by WILLIAM and JANE SCOTT months after Hopkins’s death she married DAVID MACKENZIE. She has been described by observers POE, JR., in Richmond in April 1806. Their first as having been “backward,” a dull, pathetic figure child, WILLIAM HENRY LEONARD POE, was born whose mental development never surpassed the age in January 1807, followed by their second child, of 12. Whenever Poe visited her at the Mackenzies’ Edgar, on January 19, 1809, both born in Boston. home, Duncan Lodge, she would dote over him to Their daughter, ROSALIE POE, was born in Rich- an extent that embarrassed him. Possessed of a tire- mond in December 1810. Throughout her child- some and monotonous personality, Rosalie man- bearing years, Eliza continued to act because she aged to earn a living as a young woman by teaching was desperate for money. Her husband’s mediocre writing for nine years in a school run by Miss Jane performances and harsh reviews had not made him Mackenzie, one of the Mackenzies’ biological chil- popular onstage. After David Poe, Jr., deserted dren. When the Mackenzies died, their son John his wife and children in July 1811, Eliza took one became her guardian. In 1870, Rosalie entered a more role before becoming too ill to continue. She home for indigents, where she died four years later. appeared onstage for the last time on October 11, 1811, and lay ill with tuberculosis for two months Poe, Virginia See VIRGINIA CLEMM. before dying at the age of 24 on December 8, 1811. Only one portrait of Eliza Poe exists, an oval min- Poe, William Henry Leonard (1807–1831) Edgar iature that shows the 15-year-old young woman Allan Poe’s elder brother, known as Henry. He was with her large doelike eyes, cupid’s-bow mouth, sent to Baltimore to live with his paternal grandpar- dangling curls, and childlike face. She is portrayed ents from the time he was two years old to adult- seated, wearing dangling earrings, a low-cut dress hood. Henry journeyed to the Near East, the West with a high sash under the bodice, and a bonnet Indies, Montevideo, the Mediterranean, and Rus- covered with ribbons. sia during the late 1820s as a crewman aboard the American frigate Macedonian. His brother would Poe, John Poe’s great-grandfather. The son of a later claim some of Henry’s adventures for his own, Protestant tenant farmer in Dring, County Cavan, hinting darkly of adventures in Russia and other Ireland, he married the sister of an admiral and distant places. When Henry returned to Balti- migrated to the United States in 1750, settling in more in 1827, he and his widowed grandmother Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. ELIZABETH POE moved in with MARIA CLEMM, his grandmother’s daughter and his aunt. He also wrote Poe, Neilson (1809–1884) Poe’s second cousin and published in the October 27, 1827, issue of the and a lawyer, as well as a journalist, publisher, and Baltimore North American a short story titled “The editor. Poe never forgave him for trying to persuade Pirate,” the subject of which is his brother’s tragic MARIA CLEMM to make VIRGINIA CLEMM wait a love affair with ELMIRA ROYSTER and his even- few years before marrying, believing that Neilson tual adventures as he sought to escape the pain.

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Duncan Lodge, Rosalie Poe’s home after the Mackenzies adopted her (Courtesy of Edgar Allan Poe Library, Richmond)

The story of the star-crossed lovers was the type Power, Mrs. Nicholas Mother of SARAH HELEN of material that would appeal to the sentimental WHITMAN, with whom Poe drew up a marriage tastes of the period and especially to the romantic contract in 1848. A woman of strong opinions, she notions of youth. Henry also published under his opposed her widowed daughter’s marriage to Poe and own name in the Baltimore North American several insisted that Whitman’s property be transferred to poems that had appeared in Edgar’s privately pub- her before the execution of the marriage contract. lished TAMERLANE AND OTHER POEMS. In a letter dated August 10, 1829, Edgar wrote to JOHN ALLAN Preston, James P. The father of Poe’s Richmond that he had succeeded in finding his grandmother classmate James T. Preston. A colonel in the U.S. and relatives in Baltimore, and his description of Army, he wrote one of the four letters of recommen- the pathetic household indicates Henry’s condition dation that Poe submitted to the Honorable John at the time: “My Grandmother is extremely poor Henry Eaton, secretary of war, to solicit an appoint- and ill. My Aunt Maria if possible is still worse and ment to the United States Military Academy at West Henry entirely given over to drink and unable to Point. In the letter, dated May 13, 1829, Preston help himself, much less me.” Henry suffered from wrote that Poe had “been born under circumstances tuberculosis, and he continued to drink heavily. On of great adversity.” He also asserted that he had August 1, 1831, he died at the age of 24. “undoubted proofs that he is a young gentleman of genius and talents . . . destined to be distinguished.” Pontet, Henry (1840–1902) Irish composer who also wrote under the pseudonym M. Piccolomini. Price, Addision (1871–1943) English composer, He composed “A Dream Within a Dream,” a song organist, and voice teacher whose published com- setting of Poe’s poem of the same name. positions include operas, masses, benediction

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services, motets, songs, chamber music, and piano He is mentioned in “The DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM” pieces. In 1921, he composed the song “Annabel as one of the “perfectionists” whose doctrines are Lee,” inspired by Poe’s poem of the same name; the foreshadowed by the narrator’s friend Ellison. In song “Bridal Ballad,” inspired by Poe’s poem of the “LIONIZING,” the narrator meets “a human-perfect- same name; and “Eldorado,” also inspired by Poe’s ibility man” who quotes Priestley. poem of the same name. Protheroe, Daniel (1866–1934) Welsh composer Price, Richard (1723–1791) English noncon- whose compositions include songs for men’s voices, formist minister and political philosopher. He is choral works, music for string quartets, and the Welsh mentioned in “The DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM” as one of Symphonic Poem. In 1929, he wrote “Eldorado,” a the “perfectionists” whose doctrines are foreshad- four-part chorus with piano accompaniment, inspired owed by the narrator’s friend Ellison. In “LION- by Poe’s poem of the same name. IZING,” the narrator meets “a human-perfectibility man” who quotes Price. Psyche A name meaning “soul” that Poe evokes in several works. In mythology, she is a beautiful Price, Vincent (1911–1993) American actor princess loved by Cupid, the god of love, who hid who appeared in more than 100 films. Because of his identity and carried her away to a secluded cas- his well-bred manner and formal way of speaking, tle, where he ordered her never to look at his face. Price was cast as the gentleman or aristocrat, often She disobeyed and looked at him while he slept, sinister and decadent, in such movies as The Private thus forcing him to abandon her. After she spent Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), The House of considerable time wandering the world to find him, the Seven Gables (1940), Shock (1946), Dragonwyck the two were reunited, and Jupiter, the king of the (1946), and House of Wax (1953). Despite criti- gods, made her immortal. In “The SPECTACLES,” cal acclaim for his early roles, Price did not attain Poe refers to Madame Stephanie Lalande as having major audience recognition as an actor and screen a head that “rivalled in outline that of the Greek presence until he starred in such movies as The Fly Psyche.” In “HOW TO WRITE A BLACKWOOD ARTI- (1958), Return of the Fly (1959), and the Poe cycle CLE” and “A PREDICAMENT,” the main character is of director ROGER CORMAN. Price appeared in 10 named Signora Psyche Zenobia. of the 11 Corman-directed films: The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), Tales of Terror (1962), The Raven Puckler-Muskau, Hermann Ludwig Heinrich, (1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964), The Furst von (1785–1871) German travel writer Haunted Palace (1964), The Tomb of Ligeia (1965), and author of the 1833 Tour in England, Ireland The City Under the Sea (1965), The Conqueror and France, which served as a source for Poe’s Worm (1968), The Oblong Box (1969), and Cry of “The DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM.” Poe provided a note the Banshee (1970). to explain that the imagined incident in his story had actually occurred in England and “the name Priestley, Joseph (1733–1804) British moral of the fortunate heir was Thelluson.” He states philosopher and chemist who is considered one of that he saw an account of the incident in Puck- the founders of modern chemistry because of his ler-Muskau’s book, “who makes the sum inherited experimental methods. He isolated and described ninety millions of pounds.” The Thelluson case was the properties of several gases, and he discovered famous in English law, and the litigation lasted oxygen and its role in combustion and respiration. 50 years.

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Quarles Pseudonym used by Poe when he pub- the symphonic poem The Isle of the Dead (1909), lished “The RAVEN” in the January 29, 1845, The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (1910) for choir, issue of the New York EVENING MIRROR. This first and 24 piano preludes. After leaving Russia in appearance in print of the poem was accompanied 1917 and settling in exile in the United States, by an introductory paragraph that shows the influ- Rachmaninoff turned primarily to a career as a ence of NATHANIEL P. WILLIS on Poe at the time. concert pianist but continued to write, producing The name was also attached to an anonymous pam- such major compositions as the Variations on a phlet that provided a defensive response to Charles Theme of Corelli (1934) for piano, the Rhapsody on Dickens’s criticism of American life in American a Theme of Paganini (1936) for piano and orches- Notes, but Poe’s authorship has never been ascer- tra, the Symphony no. 3 in A Minor (1936), and tained. Poe may have taken the name from that of the Piano Concerto no. 4 in G Minor (1937). In François Quarles (1592–1644), an English poet of 1913, Rachmaninoff wrote Kolokola (The Bells), a the metaphysical school who included in his poems choral symphony for soprano, tenor, and baritone striking imagery taken from everyday pursuits and soloists, choir, and orchestra. The text is a Russian interests of his time. translation by Konstantin Balmont of Poe’s poem “The BELLS.” Quevedo y Villaegas, François Gomez de (1580– 1645) Spanish satirist, moralist, and poet. Poe Raphael [Raaffaello Sanzio] (1483–1520) Ital- quoted from Quevedo’s sonnet “Rome in Ruin” in ian Renaissance painter, considered by critics to his review “POEMS: TRANSLATED AND ORIGINAL. BY be one of the greatest artists of all time. Poe refers MRS. E. F. ELLET.” favorably to him in various works. In “PINAKIDIA,” he states that Gray’s “image of his bard” in his Rachmaninoff, Sergey Vasilyevich (1873–1943) “Ode to Adversity” “was taken from a picture by Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Critics Raphael.” In “FIFTY SUGGESTIONS,” in an entry in and music aficionados consider him one of the which Poe mocks the critics for “painting their most brilliant pianists of the 20th century, while faces to look like Macauley,” he observes that his own music still enjoys the affection of audi- “some of our critics manage to resemble him, at ences and listeners. Among his major compositions length, as a Massaccian does a Raffaellian Virgin; are the Prelude in C-sharp Minor (1892) for piano, and, except that the former is feebler and thinner the opera Aleko (1893), the Piano Concertos no. than the other—suggesting the idea of its being 2 in C Minor (1900–01) and No. 3 in D Minor the ghost of the other.” Poe also makes reference (1909), the Symphony no. 2 in E minor (1906), to the painter in “The DUC DE L’OMELETTE.” As 381

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“his Satanic Majesty” shows l’Omelette around his Taylor’s work published in a journal whose name chambers, the duke admires the exquisite paint- Poe does not identify. Poe vehemently attacks the ings and thinks with excitement: “And Rafaelle critic, who “undeservedly, holds himself some posi- has beheld them! Yes, Rafaelle has been here; for tion as a poet” and asserts that the reviewer “has did he not paint the ———? and was he not con- never published a poem . . . which could compare sequently damned?” . . . with the worst of Mr. Taylor’s compositions.” Poe includes as an example one of Taylor’s poems Reed, Owen Composer of The Masque of the Red that the critic had copied and derided; Poe praises Death (1936), a tone poem for orchestra, with bal- its evidence of imagination throughout. His con- let-pantomime, based on Poe’s short story of the cluding comments suggest that Poe feels a kinship same name. with Taylor: “My very soul revolts at such efforts . . . to depreciate such poems as Mr. Taylor’s. Is Reni, Guido (1575–1643) Italian painter of there no honor—no chivalry left in the land? Are popular religious works and scenes of mythology. our most deserving writers to be forever sneered In “The ASSIGNATION,” the Byronic stranger asks down, or hooted down, or damned down with faint the unnamed narrator his opinion of the painting praise, by a set of men who possess little other abil- Madonna della Pièta. The excited narrator cries out, ity than that which assures temporary success to “It is Guido’s own! . . . It is Guido’s own!—how them . . . ?” could you have obtained it?—she is undoubtedly in painting what the Venus is in sculpture.” Richmond, Nancy [Annie] Locke Heywood (1820–1898) A married woman with whom Reynolds, Jeremiah N. (1799–1858) American Poe developed a passionate if platonic relation- explorer and navigator who lobbied for explora- ship. Poe met Annie in October 1847 on a section of the South Pole. Poe lauded his accomplish- ond visit to Lowell, Massachusetts, where he had ments in a review of “REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE presented the lecture “The POETS AND POETRY ON NAVAL AFFAIRS, TO WHOM WERE REFERRED OF AMERICA” three months earlier. Annie was 11 MEMORIALS FROM SUNDRY CITIZENS OF CONNECTI- years younger than Poe and married, but her hus- CUT INTERESTED IN THE WHALE FISHING, PRAYING band was tolerant of their friendship and allowed THAT AN EXPLORING EXPEDITION BE FITTED OUT Poe to stay in their house on several occasions. TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN AND SOUTH SEAS.” He also By all accounts a sweet and simple person, Annie reviewed Reynolds’s “ADDRESS ON THE SUBJECT OF shared none of Poe’s literary ambitions or acu- A SURVEYING AND EXPLORING EXPEDITION TO THE men, yet he seems to have loved her deeply. Poe’s PACIFIC OCEAN AND SOUTH SEAS” in the January poem “FOR ANNIE” first appeared in the April 28, 1837 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. 1849, issue of the FLAG OF OUR UNION and in the Poe used Reynolds’s address as his main source in Home Journal on the same day. Written after their writing The NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM, close friendship ruptured, the tender and melo- drawing upon the explorer’s vast knowledge of the dious poem describes Poe’s gratitude in recover- Pacific Ocean. In Pym, Poe quotes from the address ing from the severe illness that ensued when he to provide information about the topography and attempted suicide by overdosing on laudanum in weather of the southern polar region. November 1848. Poe also wrote “LANDOR’S COT- TAGE” in 1849 with Annie in mind. He included in the story an unmistakable description of his love “Rhymes of Travel” Collection of poems written that conveys his reasons for loving Annie, despite by BAYARD TAYLOR. In “MARGINALIA,” published her lack of literary knowledge: in the April 1849 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, Poe wrote a strong response against . . . a young woman about twenty-eight years “an invidious notice”—an anonymous review—of of age—slender, or rather slight, and somewhat

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above medium height. As she approached, Richmond Theatre The site of many stage roles with a certain modest decision of step altogether of Poe’s mother, ELIZABETH ARNOLD HOPKINS POE. indescribable, I said to myself, “Surely here I Built on the site of an academy that burned to the have found the perfection of natural, in con- ground in 1802, the brick and frame structure of tradistinction from artificial grace.” The second the theater was also destroyed by fire on December impression which she made on me, but by far the 26, 1811, two and a half weeks after the death of more vivid of the two, was that of enthusiasm. Elizabeth Poe. The theater caught fire from a stage So intense an expression of romance, perhaps I chandelier during the presentation by PLACIDE and should call it, or of unworldliness, as that which company of a play titled The Bleeding Nun; 73 peo- gleamed from her deep-set eyes, had never so ple perished in the fire. sunk into my heart of hearts before. I know not how it is, but this peculiar expression of the eye, Riker, Richard (1773–1842) Mentioned in a sa - wreathing itself occasionally into the lips, is the tiric manner in Poe’s short story “MELLONTA most powerful, if not absolutely the sole spell, TAUTA.” Poe speaks of the “aboriginal inhabit- which rivets my interest in women. “Romance,” ants” of New York City, a “tribe of savages infest- provided my readers fully comprehend what I ing the continent at its first discovery by Recorder would here imply by the word—“romance” and Riker, a knight of the Golden Fleece.” In reality, “womanliness” seem to me convertible terms: Riker was a New York politician to whom one and, after all, what man truly loves in woman, of Poe’s contemporaries, FITZ-GREENE HALLECK, is, simply, her womanhood. The eyes of Annie had dedicated a poem, “To the Recorder.” Poe (I heard some one from the interior call her designates him “a knight of the Golden Fleece” “Annie, darling!”) were “spiritual gray;” her because of his “fleecing” of the public. hair, a light chestnut: this is all I had time to observe of her. Roberton, Hugh S. (1874–1947) Scottish composer and choral conductor, knighted in 1931 for Until his death, Poe loved the unattainable his musical work. His compositions include nearly Annie. Even as he became engaged to marry 200 part-songs, solo songs, and other works. In ELMIRA ROYSTER Shelton, he wrote to MARIA 1909 he published “Hear the Tolling of the Bells,” CLEMM on September 5, 1849, “Could we be hap- for mixed voices, based on the last stanza of Poe’s pier in Richmond or Lowell? For, I suppose we poem “The BELLS,” and “The Sledge Bells,” a part- could never be happy at Fordham, and Muddy, song based on the first stanza of “The Bells.” In I must be somewhere where I can see Annie.” 1919, Roberton published “Hear the Sledges with In the same letter, he writes, “Do not tell me the Bells,” an unaccompanied part-song based on anything about Annie—I cannot bear to hear the first stanza of “The Bells.” In 1914, he com- it now—unless you can tell me that Mr. [Rich- posed “Annabel Lee,” based on Poe’s poem of the mond] is dead.” After Poe’s death, she urged same name; it is written for a chorus of men’s voices Maria Clemm to live with her. When her hus- and for mixed voices. band died in 1873, she legally changed her name from Nancy to Annie. Roberts, Lee S. (1885–1964) American composer whose works include popular ballads, sacred Richmond Examiner Poe served as literary edi- songs, and instrumental pieces. In 1920, Roberts tor in the summer of 1849. He took the post only published “To One in Paradise,” a song based on a year after he had quarreled with JOHN MONCURE Poe’s poem of the same name. DANIEL, the editor of the Examiner, after Daniel had expressed doubts to a relative of SARAH HELEN Robinson, Miss See LEWIS, SARAH ANNA WHITMAN about Poe’s suitability as a spouse. “STELLA.”

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Rogers, Mary Cecilia (1820–1841) Young his work is of landscapes near his native Naples. woman whose murder and the possible efforts to His bold romantic imagination produced wild set- cover it up inspired Poe’s short story “The MYSTERY tings with towering rocky crags and bare, splin- OF MARIE ROGÊT.” After her father died in a steam- tered tree trunks. Poe describes in “LANDOR’S boat explosion, 17-year-old Mary took a job as the COTTAGE” a craggy precipice covered with “wild clerk in John Anderson’s tobacco shop, where her shrubbery” and trees that are “Salvatorish in char- physical attractiveness helped to make repeat cus- acter.” In “MORNING ON THE WISSAHICCON,” Poe tomers of the all-male clientele. On October 5, writes of “a steep rocky cliff, abutting far into the 1838, two and a half years before her murder, the stream, and presenting much more of the Salvator NEW YORK SUN reported that “a Miss Mary Cecilia character than any portion of the shore hitherto Rogers” had disappeared from her home and left a passed.” suicide note. The following day, another newspaper, the Times and Commercial Intelligence, reported that Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–1778) French the earlier accounts had been a hoax and that “Miss social and political theorist, philosopher, musician, R. only went on a visit to a friend in Brooklyn. She botanist, and writer. In his 1762 political treatise, is now at home with her mother.” She continued to The Social Contract, Rousseau’s defense of the pop- work at the tobacco shop until mid-1839, when her ular will against divine right helped to prepare the brother gave money to her mother to start a board- ideological background of the French Revolution. inghouse. Mary left the shop and assisted her Poe quotes from Rousseau’s 1761 Julie, ou la nou- mother. On July 25, 1841, she told her fiancé, a velle Héloise in his short story “LOSS OF BREATH,” boarder named DANIEL PAYNE, that she was going as the narrator states “The road of the passions to visit her aunt and to take her nieces and nephews has led me to true philosophy.” At the end of “The to church. Three days later, police found her body MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE,” he quotes from floating in the Hudson River near Hoboken, New the same book, “It is a crochet common to philoso- Jersey. Because she had been bound, police con- phers of all ages to deny what is, and explain what cluded that one of the several gangs that roamed is not,” a quotation he repeats in “FIFTY SUGGES- the waterfront was responsible for her death. The TIONS.” In his review “OUR AMATEUR POETS, NO. case took a different turn in November 1842, when 1—FLACCUS,” Poe states that “the utter abandon Mrs. Frederica Loss, who ran a roadhouse near of the details, reminds us even of Jean Jacques,” where Mary’s body was found, swore on her death- and in his profile of CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN, he bed that Mary died during an abortion and that compares the expression of an Indian chief in “The Loss’s son had bound the body and thrown it into Vigil of Faith” as “made to discourse after the man- the river. This version was sensationalized in the pa- ner of Rousseau.” pers, but the police refused to accept this solution as well. The case remained unsolved. Royce, Edward (1886–1964) American composer whose compositions include orchestral music, Rollinat, Joseph-Auguste-Maurice (1846–1903) songs, and piano pieces. In 1922, Royce pub- French poet and composer whose poetry has been lished “Evening Star” and “Israfel,” songs respec- characterized as bizarre and macabre. In 1906, he tively inspired by Poe’s poems of the same name, composed “Le Reve” [A Dream], a song setting and “Solace,” a song inspired by Poe’s poem “TO of a French translation of Poe’s poem of the same F———.” name. Royster, Sarah Elmira (1810–1888) The love Rosa, Salvatore (1615–1673) Italian painter, of Poe’s early life. In 1825, he became secretly etcher, poet, actor, and musician and the epit- engaged to the 15-year-old girl. Elmira’s father ome of the 19th-century romantic artist. Most of found Poe an unsuitable choice of son-in-law

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Sarah Elmira Royster, Poe’s first love, whom he met again in later life (Courtesy of National Archives)

and intercepted letters from Poe to his daughter. Elmira claimed in later life that she had received none of Poe’s letters and did not realize how much she meant to him. In 1827, at the age of 17, she married a successful businessman, Alexander Shel- ton, but she claimed in later life always to have loved Poe. Soon after Elmira’s marriage, Poe wrote the poem “SONG,” which is addressed to her. The two met again in Richmond, Virginia, in July 1848, by which time Elmira had been a wealthy widow for four years. A few weeks later, Poe asked Elmira to marry him, but she hesitated because her two children opposed the marriage and she would lose three-quarters of the $100,000 estate left by her husband. Most biographers suggest that the two had reached an “understanding” before Poe left Richmond on September 27, 1849, headed for Bal- timore and his death.

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Sargent, Epes (1813–1880) Boston dramatist, ing exponents of idealism and of the romantic poet, and editor of Sargent’s Magazine whose profile tendency in German philosophy. He is mentioned appears in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY.” Poe in “MORELLA” as one of the philosophers whom the compares Sargent’s Velasco, A Tragedy, a drama narrator discusses with Morella. Poe mentions in a about the Spanish epic hero El Cid, to the drama disparaging manner in his review “The POETRY OF Fashion, by ANNA CORA MOWATT, and finds the RUFUS DAWES” that “there is now much about . . . two similar in construction, scenic effects, and Schelling” in Dawes’s poem “Geraldine.” several other points. This leads to his suggestion that “Mrs. Mowatt received some assistance from Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich von (1759– Mr. Sargent in the composition of her comedy.” 1805) German dramatist and poet from whom In considering the author’s prose satire, the review Poe draws for the epigraphs to several of his sto- is less kind, and the reviewer asserts, “To those ries, some mistakenly attributed. Poe also men- who meddle little with books, some of his satirical tions Schiller in the review “MEMORIALS OF MRS. papers must appear brilliant.” HEMANS.” Sartain, John (1808–1897) Philadelphia engraver Schmitt, Florent (1871–1934) French com- who worked with Poe at BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S poser whose works include symphonies, ballets, MAGAZINE and GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. In June 1849, piano pieces, chamber music, choruses, and songs. after binge drinking and an overnight stay in MOYA- In 1909–10, he published Etude pour le Palais hanté MENSING PRISON, Poe sought refuge in Sartain’s stu- for orchestra and for a piano duet, based on Poe’s dio. The engraver provided Poe, who spoke of wild hallucinations, with rest and meals and cared for poem “The HAUNTED PALACE.” him through 10 days of delirium tremens. Schreker, Franz (1878–1934) Austrian com- Sartain’s Union Magazine Publication based in poser whose radical style of composition brought Philadelphia, started by JOHN SARTAIN in January controversy to his opera librettos. In 1912, he pub- 1849. Poe offered Sartain the final version of “The lished an opera libretto, called Der rote Tod (The RAVEN.” The magazine published posthumously Masque of the Red Death), inspired by Poe’s short Poe’s poems “ANNABEL LEE” and “The BELLS,” as story of the same name; however, he never com- well as the essay “The POETIC PRINCIPLE.” posed music for it.

Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von (1775– Scott, Cyril (1879–1938) English impressionist 1854) German philosopher and one of the lead- composer, poet, and philosopher whose composi- 386

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tions include orchestral and chamber works, piano often inept critics who praise the writing that they pieces, songs, and a symphony, as well as poems understand (the “good plain song of the cuckoo”) and works of the occult and mystical subjects. In and ignore the “excellent” song of the more refined 1931, he published The Masque of the Red Death, a nightingale because they cannot understand it. ballet with orchestral accompaniment inspired by Poe’s short story of the same name. Scott, General Winfield (1786–1866) Ameri- can army officer, born near Petersburg, Virginia. Scott, Sir Walter (1771–1832) Scottish his- Because of his military successes in the War of 1812 torical novelist whom Poe admired greatly. Poe and later on the Canadian frontier, he was brevet- admired especially Scott’s The Bride of Lammer- ted a major general from brigadier general in 1814, moor, which he used as a standard against which as was the fictional General A. B. C. Smith in Poe’s to measure other similar efforts. These efforts short story “The MAN THAT WAS USED UP.” He often fell far short of the “most pure, perfect, and was a distant relative of JOHN ALLAN’s second wife radiant gem of fictitious literature.” In a review, and was rumored to have helped Poe gain entrance “ELKSWATAWA; OR THE PROPHET OF THE WEST,” to the United States Military Academy at West Poe refers to Scott’s writing “mannerisms, [which] Point. In 1848, he assisted MARIE LOUISE SHEW in until the frequency of their repetition entitled them raising funds to help Poe pay for medical bills. to such appellation, being well managed and not over-done, were commendable.” He suggests that Séverac, Joseph Marie Déodat de (1873–1921) the overuse of such writing mannerisms as occa- French impressionist composer whose works include sionally florid language, exotic locale, and heroic operas, incidental music, piano arrangements, characterization has become “a little too much of a songs, chamber music, and symphonic poems. In good thing” and cautions writers to avoid them. In 1924, he composed the symphonic poem Un Reve his review “LIVES OF THE CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU, (A Dream), from the poem of the same name by COUNT OXENSTIERN, COUNT OLIVAREZ, AND CAR- Poe, translated by the French Symbolist poet and DINAL MAZARIN,” Poe condemns the author G. P. critic STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ. R. James as “an indifferent imitator of the Scotch novelist.” Poe provides an anecdote of Scott in his Shakespeare, William (1564–1616) English poet review “MEMORIALS OF MRS. HEMANS, WITH ILLUS- and dramatist. Poe makes extensive use of Shake- TRATIONS OF HER LITERARY CHARACTER FROM HER speare’s words, phrases, and character names through- PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.” He proclaims EDWARD out his short stories. In “FOUR BEASTS IN ONE,” Poe’s BULWER-LYTTON to be “altogether inferior” to Scott narrator addresses onlookers with words taken from in his review “NIGHT AND MORNING: A NOVEL.” In Twelfth Night: “I see you profit by my advice, and his critical essay “The DRAMA,” Poe is “delighted” are making the most of your time in inspecting your to find ANNA CORA MOWATT “announced as Lucy premises—‘in satisfying your eyes / With the memori- in ‘The Bride of Lammermor,’ for our remem- als and the things of fame / That most renown this brances of this opera were connected only with the city—.’ ” He then apologizes to readers for having music of Bellini and the glowing romance of Scott.” quoted from Shakespeare, who “will not flourish for To make a point regarding the ineptitude of other seventeen hundred and fifty years to come,” because critics, he mentions in “MARGINALIA” an anec- the tale is set in the past. In “The MASQUE OF THE dote from Scott’s “Presbyterian Eloquence,” “that RED DEATH,” the hooded figure who appears in the ancient fable, not much known,” about a singing end acts on the advice that the young prince Hamlet contest between a nightingale and a cuckoo, and gives to the players in Hamlet, as “the figure in ques- “the ass was chosen umpire.” Although the umpire tion out-Heroded Herod.” In the same story, Poe’s agrees that the song of the nightingale is excellent, Prince Prospero gathers a large body of people into he states that “for a good plain song give him the an abbey to create a safe haven from the reality of the cuckoo.” The umpire (ass) represents for Poe the plague-ridden outer world, ruling over his artificial

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environment much as Shakespeare’s duke, Prospero, the literary world. In 1845, he represented Poe in seeks to do, using his magic on the island paradise in offering “The RAVEN” to GEORGE COLTON for pub- The Tempest to keep them from the evil influences of lication in the AMERICAN WHIG REVIEW. He also the outside world. A line spoken by Caliban—“the received Poe’s changes to the poem before its pub- red plague rid you”—in the same play reflects a simi- lication in the February 4, 1845, issue of the NEW lar influence on “The Masque of the Red Death.” In YORK TRIBUNE. The NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM, Augus- tus Barnard and Arthur Gordon Pym take their Shelton, Sarah Elmira Royster See ROYSTER, wild nighttime ride in Pym’s sailboat named Ariel, SARAH ELMIRA. a name taken from Shakespeare’s Tempest. In “The PREMATURE BURIAL,” Poe’s narrator takes his line “of Shew, Marie Louise (d. 1877) A medically worms, of tombs, of epitaphs” from Richard II. In “X- trained doctor’s daughter who served as VIRGINIA ING A PARAGRAB,” Mr. Touch-and-Go Bullet-Head CLEMM’s nurse in her final days. She was married utters the murderous comment made by Richard III to a physician when Poe met her but later divorced in Shakespeare’s play of the same name: “So much her husband and became the object of Poe’s atten- for Buckingham.” tions. Biographers suggest that Poe might have met Shew in New York City as early as the winter of Shapleigh, Bertram (1871–1948) American com- 1837, a particularly bitter winter during which Poe poser who lived a number of years in Germany and went to the Northern Dispensary to obtain medi- England. His works include orchestral suites, sym- cine for a severe cold. Records show that both Shew phonies, choral works, operas, chamber music, pieces and Dr. VALENTINE MOTT worked at the dispensary for piano and violin, and more than 100 songs. In that winter. After the death of Poe’s wife a decade 1901, he published a collection of five songs based later, Shew noticed unusual symptoms in Poe and on works by Poe: “Helene, deiner Schonheit Macht” reported to Dr. Valentine Mott, then a physician (Helen, Thy Beauty Is to Me), based on Poe’s poem at New York University School of Medicine, that “TO HELEN”; “Mein Lebenspfad ist rauh und wust” Poe’s “pulse beat only ten regular beats, after which (Beloved! Amid the Earnest Woes), based on it suspended or intermitted.” Mott agreed with her Poe’s “TO F———”; “Im Dammerlicht, wenn Tag conjecture that Poe might have a lesion on one ergluht” (At Morn, at Noon, at Twilight Dim), based side of the brain and recommended that Poe refrain on Poe’s “HYMN”; “Eldorado,” based on Poe’s poem from all stimulants and tonics—even sedatives— of the same name; and “An den Fluss” (Fair River), the use of which would intensify hallucinations and based on Poe’s poem “TO THE RIVER———.” In lead to greater mental instability. 1906, Shapleigh published The Raven, a cantata for By all accounts, and from an engraving that chorus and orchestra, inspired by Poe’s poem of the remains, Shew was plain in appearance, but her kind same name. heart and desire to help the poor made her appealing to others, including Poe. In 1847, he began his Shaw, Martin (1875–1937) English composer, suit, first writing her Valentine poems, then pas- conductor, organist, and editor whose composi- sionate letters declaring his undying love. As he tions include songs and part-songs; ballad operas; had with others, Poe flattered Shew by dedicating church, orchestral, and chamber music; and Eng- poems to her and even referring to her in a story. In lish carols. In 1921, he published “Annabel Lee,” a “TO M. L. S———,” written in March 1847, Poe song inspired by Poe’s poem of the same name. praises Shew, telling her that his “gratitude Near- est resembles worship” and that he “thrills to think Shea, John Augustus Commissary clerk at the / His spirit is communing with an angel’s.” In “TO United States Military Academy at West Point. MARIE LOUISE,” written in March 1848, he confesses Poe and he became close friends, and Shea later that he had once “In the mad pride of intellectual- published poetry of his own and had contacts in ity, / Maintained the ‘power of words,’ ” but that he

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signature and his poetic style to that of JOHN PEND- LETON KENNEDY, “although he equals him in no particular, except in his appreciation of the graceful.” Of his work, Poe asserts “As a poet, indeed, we like him far better than as a novelist.” In an entry in “MARGI- NALIA,” appearing in the December 1844 issue of the Democratic Review, Poe wrote, “Mr. Simms has abundant faults—or had;—among which inaccurate Eng- lish, a proneness to revolting images, and pet phrases, are the most noticeable.” Despite these faults, Poe states in the same entry that “he is immeasurably the best writer of fiction in America. He has more vigor, more imagination, more movement and more general capacity than all novelists (save Cooper), combined.” Despite such inconsistent review of his work, Simms praised Poe in his review of “The RAVEN” as “a fantastic and a mystic—a man of dreamy mood and wandering fancies.”

Simpson, Napoleon Bonaparte See FROISSART, NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

Sing, Cheyte Mentioned in Poe’s short story “A Marie Louise Shew, who nursed the dying Virginia TALE OF THE RAGGED MOUNTAINS.” The historical Clemm Poe (Courtesy of Edgar Allan Poe Society) reference is to the Rajah of Benares (also known as Chait Singh) who led revolt in 1781 against the realizes now the importance of feeling and “where ever-increasing demands for money to support the the prospect terminates—thee only.” Further, crit- British rule in India. Dr. Templeton was among the ics have determined that Poe speaks of Shew in British troops fighting the insurrection, and he tells his description of “the sympathy of a woman, not Augustus Bedloe that his best friend Mr. Oldeb was unwomanly, whose loveliness and love enveloped killed. his existence in the purple atmosphere of Paradise,” which appears in the 1847 short story “The DOMAIN Skilton, Charles Sanford (1868–1918) Ameri- OF ARNHEIM.” Biographers have credited Shew for can composer, conductor, organist, and critic whose inspiring Poe to write “The BELLS.” In the months compositions include incidental music; works for the after Virginia’s death, Poe became emotionally organ, piano, and violin; choral music; and songs. In attached to Mrs. Shew and often spent time at her 1892, he published three songs: “Evening Star” and home, which was close to Grace Church in New “To the River ———,” inspired by Poe’s poems York. On one evening, Poe claimed that he had to of the same names, and “Ave Maria,” inspired by write a poem but was devoid of inspiration. Church Poe’s poem “HYMN.” He published the song “Eldo- bells in the background encouraged his companion rado,” inspired by Poe’s poem of the same name, in to playfully write “The bells, the little silver bells,” 1894. In 1895, Skilton wrote Lenore, a cantata for and Poe finished the stanza. baritone solo, vocal quartet, chorus, and orchestra, inspired by Poe’s poem of the same name. Simms, William Gilmore (1806–1870) Ameri- can editor and novelist. Poe profiles his signature in Smith, Elizabeth Oakes (1806–1893) Poet and two entries in “AUTOGRAPHY,” likening both Simms’s member of the New York City literary set whose

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salon Poe attended. Poe reviewed “The POETICAL A staunch proponent of temperance, Snodgrass WRITINGS OF MRS. ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH” in the attended to Poe, and he later used the example August 23, 1845, issue of the BROADWAY JOURNAL. of Poe’s final alcoholic stupefaction to provide a She held fortnightly gatherings on Sunday nights lesson in the evils of alcohol use. Once Snodgrass at her home and was somewhat feared by many realized that Poe’s condition was critical, he placed of the literati for her radical support of women’s him at Washington College Hospital, under the rights. She was married to the political satirist SEBA care of Dr. JOHN MORAN. SMITH. Somervell, Sir Arthur (1863–1937) British com- Smith, Leo (1881–1968) British composer, cel- poser and educator whose compositions include list, and writer about music whose compositions choruses, song cycles, operettas, symphonic works, include numerous songs, part-songs, and cello a mass, a cantata, and a violin concerto. In 1901, he pieces. In 1914, he published songs titled “The composed “A Kingdom by the Sea,” a song inspired Sleeper,” “To Helen,” and “To One in Paradise,” by Poe’s “ANNABEL LEE.” inspired by Poe’s poems of the same name, and “I Saw Thee on Thy Bridal Day,” inspired by Poe’s Sonneck, Oscar George Theodore (1873–1928) poem “SONG.” American musician, musicologist, and foremost researcher in early American music. Sonneck’s Smith, Mrs. Seba See SMITH, ELIZABETH OAKES. compositions include songs, string quartets, violin and piano pieces, and other instrumental works. In Smith, Seba (1792–1868) American novelist, 1917, he published Four Poems by Edgar Allan Poe, poet, and political satirist. He wrote Letters of Major for baritone and piano, which included the songs Jack Downing and Powhatan: A Metrical Romance “To Helen,” “Eldorado,” and “A Dream within in Seven Cantos, which Poe reviewed in the July a Dream,” inspired by Poe’s poems of the same 1841 issue of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Although Poe names, and “Thou Wouldst Be Loved?” inspired by admired Letters as “very clever productions; coarse, Poe’s poem “TO F———.” but full of fun, wit, sarcasm, and sense,” he did “not very particularly admire” Powhatan, and said so in Sons of Temperance One of several organiza- “AUTOGRAPHY.” tions established in the United States in the early 19th century that worked with evangelical fervor Smith, Warren Storey (1885–1958) American to encourage abstinence from alcoholic beverages. critic, composer, and teacher whose compositions After having several seizures, Poe sought in the include songs, piano pieces, and orchestral and summer of 1849 to free himself from the clutches chamber music. In 1903, he composed the songs of alcohol. He joined the Shockoe Hill division of “To Helen,” inspired by Poe’s poem of the same the Sons of Temperance in Richmond, where on name, and “Thou Was That All To Me, Love,” August 27, 1849, the presiding officer of the chap- inspired by Poe’s poem “TO ONE IN PARADISE.” ter, W. J. Glenn, administered the oath of abstinence to Poe. A notice that Poe had joined the Snodgrass, Joseph Evans (1813–1880) Virginia Sons of Temperance appeared early in September physician and editor. He had reprinted the rumor 1849 in the Richmond Whig. of Poe’s mental derangement and confinement to the Insane Retreat in Utica, New York, in April Sophocles (497–405 B.C.) Dramatist during the 1846, in an article titled “The Facts of Poe’s Death Greek Golden Age. Poe did not rank Sophocles and Burial” written for Beadle’s Monthly in 1867. very high among the ancient dramatists. In “The He was called to provide medical assistance by the ANTIGONE AT PALMO’S,” Poe ranked Sophocles’ owner of the tavern in Baltimore outside which Poe tragedy Antigone as “vastly inferior to any one of was found unconscious only days before his death. the dramas of Aeschylus—and, perhaps, any play

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of Euripides would have been more acceptable paid the paper $10 to print a reply to English in the to a modern audience.” In “MARGINALIA,” which July 10, 1846, issue. appeared in the August 1845 issue of GODEY’S MAGAZINE AND LADY’S BOOK, Poe declared that Stanard, Jane Stith (1793–1824) The mother of “Euripides and Sophocles were merely echoes of one of Poe’s Richmond classmates. She died when Aeschylus.” Poe was 15, but her memory stayed with him until his own death. In 1848, he wrote SARAH HELEN Sousa, John Philip (1854–1932) American WHITMAN that Jane Stanard was “the first purely composer and band leader, known internationally ideal love of my soul,” and he told Whitman that as the “March King.” His compositions include Stanard was his first “Helen” and the inspiration approximately 150 marches, 10 comic operas, for his first poem entitled “TO HELEN.” To MARIE more than 50 songs, overtures, suites, oratorios, LOUISE SHEW he declared that the long-dead and waltzes, as well as three novels. In 1931, he woman was “the truest, tenderest of this world’s published “Annabel Lee,” a song inspired by Poe’s most womanly souls, and an angel to my forlorn poem of the same name. and darkened nature.” Biographers assert that Poe read his early verses to her and that she gave him Southern Literary Messenger Literary periodi- both helpful criticism and encouragement. She was cal published by THOMAS WILLIS WHITE for which a beautiful and kind woman whose own hypersensi- Poe worked as a staff writer, critic, and editor from tive nature appealed to the equally hypersensitive August 1835 to January 1837. In late September Poe. Stanard suffered long periods of melancholia, 1835, the Messenger fired Poe, whose emotional and, in the years that Poe knew her, she gradually distress and drinking after NEILSON POE attempted became insane. Her death left Poe grief-stricken to prevent his marriage to VIRGINIA CLEMM had led and provided him with another instance of the him to the verge of suicide. After Poe’s emotional death of a beautiful woman, which would become crisis was resolved in October 1835, White rehired a theme in his fiction. him and in December elevated him to editor. While an editor at the Messenger, Poe’s time and energy were consumed by journalism and correspondence, leaving him little time for creative work. Before his promotion to editor, Poe published 37 reviews of American and foreign books and periodicals, nine tales (six of them reprints), four poems, and his drama POLITIAN. He also supervised the general contents of the magazine and maintained an active correspondence. While publishing criticism in the Messenger, Poe helped to build the magazine’s readership. His efforts increased the circulation of the Messenger from 500 to 3,500 subscribers, and he received a raise from $10 to $15 a week. More important, his association with the magazine gave Poe the opportunity to make a name as a critic.

Spirit of the Times Philadelphia periodical that published Poe’s prospectus for his proposed PENN MAGAZINE in the January 1841 issue. Later, when Poe visited Jane Stanard at her house (background) on no other publication would print Poe’s response Capitol Square in Richmond, Virginia. (Edgar Allan Poe to THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH’s character attack, Poe Library, Richmond)

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Stanard, Robert (1814–1857) Poe’s classmate in Richmond at WILLIAM BURKE’s school. His mother was JANE STANARD.

Steen, Jan Havickszoon (1626–1679) Dutch painter who is noted for his genre scenes. He painted lively tavern scenes, landscapes, portraits, and religious works. Poe refers to him in a review, “BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS,” to support the view that beauty, not truth, is the highest aim of art: “If truth is the highest aim of either Paint- ing or Poesy, then Jan Steen was a greater artist than Angelo.” In his review “CHARLES O’MALLEY, THE IRISH DRAGOON,” Poe states: “For one Angelo there are five hundred Jan Steens.” Poe also mentions Steen in the short story “LIONIZING” as one of the artists discussed by the pretentious Sighor Tintontintino.

Stephens, Ann Sophia (1813–1836) Editor of Snowden’s Lady’s Companion and a historical novelist. In “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY,” Poe declared her writing to be “bold, striking, trenchant,” and she “seizes adroitly on salient incidents and presents them with vividness to the eye.” He is not fond Poe’s own cover design for the magazine he hoped to of her style—“generally turgid”—and he finds her found (Robert Gregor) sentences “for the most part too long; we forget their commencements ere we get at their terminations.” Stylus Literary journal that Poe had intended to In “AUTOGRAPHY,” Poe states that she has contrib- launch in 1843. The journal was to provide a forum uted many articles “of merit and popularity” to the for any and all opinions on “all subjects within its journal that she edited and “she has also written legitimate reach.” THOMAS CLARKE, the first edi- much and well, for various other periodicals.” tor of the Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post, joined other backers in early 1843 to provide support Stevenson, Andrew (1793–1824) Virginia con- for the proposed magazine. He provided Poe with gressman. He provided Poe with a letter of rec- expense money to travel to Washington to secure ommendation in May 1829 to aid him in gaining endorsements and subscriptions of prominent admission to the United States Military Academy men and government clerks. After Poe arrived in at West Point. Washington, Clarke received a letter from another backer, J. E. Dow, informing him that Poe had been Story, Judge Joseph (1779–1845) Poe’s review drinking too much. Six years later, EDWARD HOW- of his eulogy, “JUDGE STORY’S DISCOURSE ON CHIEF- ARD NORTON PATTERSON, after reading announce- JUSTICE MARSHALL,” appeared in the December ments of Poe’s plans for the Stylus, contacted Poe 1835 issue of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. and offered to back the venture. In a letter to Poe In “AUTOGRAPHY,” Poe wrote that “Judge Story, dated May 7, 1849, Patterson wrote, “Of this maga- and his various literary and political labors, are too zine you are to have the entire editorial control.” well known to require comment.” Poe replied with a request of an advance for $50,

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money that he put toward a trip to Richmond. He of Penzance, and The Mikado. In 1904, “To One made no effort to bring out the Stylus. in Paradise,” a song for tenor voice with piano inspired by Poe’s poem of the same name, was pub- Sullivan, Sir Arthur (1842–1900) English com- lished posthumously. poser who won worldwide fame for the series of light operas written with his lyricist partner, Wil- Sydenham, E. A. (1847–1891) English com- liam Schwenck Gilbert. Sullivan’s compositions poser and organist whose works include songs, include numerous vocal and orchestral works, ora- part-songs, and instrumental pieces. In 1869, he torios and cantatas, incidental music, grand opera, published “Eldorado,” a song inspired by Poe’s and such light operas as H.M.S. Pinafore, Pirates poem of the same name.

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Taglioni, Maria (1804–1884) Italian ballet dancer Thayer, Colonel (1785–1872) American sol- whom Poe mentions in “MEMOIRS AND LETTERS OF dier, educator, and engineer. He served as super- MADAME MALIBRAN”: “Human triumph, so far as intendent of the United States Military Academy regards all that is exciting and delicious, never went at West Point from 1817 to 1833. After Poe’s dis- beyond that which she [Madame Malibran] experi- missal from the academy, Poe wrote a letter dated enced—or never but in the case of Taglioni.” March 10, 1831, to request that Thayer assist him in obtaining “an appointment (if possible) in the Taylor, Bayard (1825–1878) American poet Polish army.” Colonel Thayer did not reply. and author of “RHYMES OF TRAVEL” reviewed by Poe. In “MARGINALIA” in the April 1849 issue of Thomas, Calvin Frederick (1808–1876) Pro- the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, Poe wrote a prietor of a small printing shop in Boston. Poe’s strong response against “an invidious notice”—an first collection of poems, TAMERLANE AND OTHER anonymous review—of the work published in POEMS, was printed by Thomas, who had recently a journal whose name Poe does not identify. He set up his printing business at the age of 19. Because vehemently attacks the critic, who “undeservedly, Poe was trying to avoid detection by JOHN ALLAN, holds, himself, some position as a poet” and asserts it is possible that Thomas never knew Poe’s real that the reviewer “has never published a poem . . . name nor the value of that early collection. which could compare . . . with the worst of Mr. Tay- lor’s compositions.” Thomas, Dr. Creed (1812–1889) Classmate of Poe’s at WILLIAM BURKE’s academy in Richmond, Taylor, Cyril (1907–1984) English clergyman Virginia. He later went to the University of Vir- and composer whose compositions include pub- ginia, as did Poe, and the two probably shared lished songs and hymns. In 1930, he published “To coach rides home for holidays. After Poe’s death, Helen,” a song inspired by Poe’s poem of the same Creed recalled the days at Burke’s school in an name. interview: “It was a noticeable fact that he never asked any of his schoolmates to go home with him Tchérépnine, Nikolai Nikilaivitch (1873–1937) after school. . . . Poe was never known to enter into Russian composer whose works include songs, this social intercourse. After he left school we saw chamber music, choral works, orchestral and piano no more of him until the next day.” music, and an opera. He wrote Le Masque de la Mort Rouge, a ballet inspired by Poe’s tale “The Thomas, Frederick William (1806–1866) Poe’s MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH.” longtime correspondent, as well as a poet, novelist, 394

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and newspaper editor. Poe reviewed his novel Clin- Novalis and Tieck.” In his review “TALE-WRIT- ton Bradshaw in December 1835 and included an ING—NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.—TWICE-TOLD entry on Thomas in “AUTOGRAPHY.” Thomas also TALES,” Poe claims that Hawthorne “is not origi- wrote East and West (1836) and Howard Pinckney nal in any sense.” Instead, he suggests that those (1840), and he served as editor of the Cincinnati who think him original are only those who have Commercial Advertiser. In his “Autography” entry, not “their acquaintance extending to the German Poe wrote that Thomas was “well known as a pub- Tieck, whose manner, in some of his works, is abso- lic lecturer on a variety of topics. His conversa- lutely identical with that habitual to Hawthorne.” tional powers are great.” Thomas tried to alleviate Poe’s financial destitution by using his influence transcendentalism A movement of philosophi- with government officials to obtain for him a post cal idealism that rejected the emphasis on empiri- in the Philadelphia Customs House, but Poe was cal inquiry of the 18th-century Enlightenment and unenthusiastic about the possibility. focused, instead, on the value of the senses and intuition in revealing truth. Most popular in the Thompson, David (1770–1857) Canadian sur- United States in the 1840s, the movement in New veyor and explorer mentioned in Poe’s unfinished England was influenced by the thought of the Ger- novel The JOURNAL OF JULIUS RODMAN. He became man philosopher Immanuel Kant. Transcendental an apprentice of Hudson’s Bay Company at 14 elements appear in the work of MARGARET FULLER, and later worked with the North West Company, Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry exploring northwest Canada. As background to the David Thoreau, all of whom were well read in the Rodman expedition, the narrator relates the expe- works of JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE, Johann Wolf- dition undertaken by Thompson in 1810 to cross gang von Goethe, and FRIEDRICH WILHELM JOSEPH the continent to the Pacific Ocean. Although most VON SCHELLING. The New England transcenden- of his people deserted him on the eastern side of talist movement also looked for inspiration to the the mountains, he crossed the mountain chain and romanticism of the English poet SAMUEL TAYLOR descended the Columbia River “from a point much COLERIDGE, whose work and language emphasized nearer its source than any white man had done observation and induction, and to the moral fervor before.” of the social historian and literary critic THOMAS CARLYLE. Thompson, John Reuben (1823–1873) Editor The philosophy of New England Transcenden- of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. He lent talists was best expressed in Emerson’s essay “The Poe money in Richmond on September 26, 1849, Transcendentalist” (1842), which divided human when Poe called upon him at the Messenger. As Poe beings into two groups: the materialists and the ide- left the office, he gave Thompson a small roll of alists, or Transcendentalists. Emerson wrote, “The paper containing the poem “ANNABEL LEE,” stating materialist insists on facts, on history, on the force as he did so “Here is a little trifle that may be worth of circumstances and the animal wants of man.” something to you.” In contrast, “the idealist [insists] on the power of Thought and of Will, on inspiration, on miracle, on Thornton, Philip Doctor and personal friend individual culture.” of JOHN ALLAN. His name frequently appears in In 1841, members of the movement, including Allan’s correspondence, and his bills for medical NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, created the Brook Farm care appear in Allan family archives. Institute of Agriculture and Education, a social experiment known simply as Brook Farm, as an Tieck, Johann Ludwig (1773–1853) German experiment in transcendentalism and communal writer of fantasy whom Poe mentions in various sto- living. The community existed until 1847, but the ries and reviews. In “MEMORIALS OF MRS. HEMANS,” experiment failed to truly achieve communal ideals he notes that Mrs. Hemans “liked the writings of as individual natures prevailed. Hawthorne detailed

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his experiences on Brook Farm in his novel The of GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE, Poe wrote that, as a critic, Blithedale Romance (1852). Tucker “is apt, however, to be led away by personal Poe rejected the idealism of the movement feelings, and is more given to vituperation for the which, rather than turn to scientific measurement mere sake of point or pungency than is altogether and inquiry to make sense of the world, believed consonant with his character as a judge.” Poe cites that pure reason in the absence of external evi- as an example Tucker’s denunciation in a review dence would elicit an immediate perception of of “everything composed by the author of ‘The truth. Unlike the transcendentalists, most of the Curiosity Shop,’ [CHARLES DICKENS] and which narrators and characters in Poe’s stories and poems prophesied his [Dickens’s] immediate downfall.” cannot trust that their senses are eliciting truths or Because Tucker had taken a dislike to Dickens, correctly representing their situations, nor can we he allowed this dislike to influence a review of the as readers. Further, in his preoccupation with sci- author’s work and foolishly predicted his downfall. entific advances, Poe appeared to have rejected the The obvious truth is that the opposite occurred in idealism that pervaded the thinking of the Tran- Dickens’s career. scendentalists. (See also “BOSTON AND THE BOSTO- NIANS. EDITORIAL M ISCELLANY,” ORESTES A UGUSTUS Twice-Told Tales See “TALE-WRITING—NATHAN- BROWNSON, ANDRE MARIE JEAN-JACQUES DUPIN, IEL HAWTHORNE.—TWICE-TOLD TALES.” PIERO MARONCELLI, “TALE-WRITING.”) Tyler, Robert (1816–1877) Son of United States Tucker, Nathaniel Beverley (1784–1851) Court President John Tyler. He was an acquaintance of judge, writer, and well-known contributor to the Poe’s friend FREDERICK WILLIAM THOMAS, who in SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. Poe reviewed his 1841 hoped to use this government connection to novel “GEORGE BALCOMBE” in the January 1837 obtain for Poe a position in the Philadelphia Cus- issue of the Messenger. In the “AUTOGRAPHY” toms House. The effort was unsuccessful because entry that appeared in the November 1841 issue Poe was unenthusiastic.

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Ugolino (d. 1289) Italian politician mentioned pieces. Five songs inspired by Poe’s poems were in “The LITERARY LIFE OF THINGUM BOB, ESQ.” His published in 1922: “Grains of the Golden Sand,” full name is Ugolino della Gherardesca, count of based on the second stanza of “A DREAM WITHIN Pisa, whom the poet Dante mentions in canto 33 of A DREAM”; “Thy Naiad Airs,” based on the first the Inferno. Ugolino deserted his political party in and second stanzas of “TO HELEN”; “Dream-land,” 1270 and aligned himself with the head of the oppo- based on the first stanza and part of the third of the sition party, Giovanni Viscounti, then later joined poem of the same name; “Eldorado,” based on the the Florentines to force Pisa to restore his property. first and last stanzas of the poem of the same name; A conspiracy arose, and he and his two sons were and “In Vision,” based on the first and second stan- starved to death in the tower of Gualandi. When zas of the poem “A DREAM.” Thingum Bob decides to plagiarize the works of ancient authors, he buys a book “which purported Van Vactor, David (1906–1979) American com- to be a translation of one Dante’s ‘Inferno’ ” from poser and flutist whose compositions include sym- which he copies “with remarkable neatness a long phonies, concertos for flute and harp, choral works, passage about a man named Ugolino, who had a and songs for flute and woodwind quartet. In 1932, parcel of brats.” he published The Masque of the Red Death, a symphonic prelude for orchestra, inspired by Poe’s short Valentine, Anne Moore (1787–1850) The sis- story of the same name. ter of FRANCES ALLAN, she lived with the Allan family for 25 years. When Frances Allen died, Val- Verplanck, Gulian Crommelin (1786–1870) entine continued to run the Allan household. JOHN Orator, politician, and author of addresses and ALLAN proposed to her less than a year after her reviews whose profile Poe included in “The LIT- sister’s death, but Poe interfered, and his strong ERATI OF NEW YORK CITY.” Poe praised him as objections led Valentine to refuse the proposal. She having scholarship that is “more than respect- continued to live in the house after Allan mar- able” and legal acquirements that “are very con- ried Louise Patterson. Upon Allan’s death, Valen- siderable.” As a legislator, “he was noted as the tine inherited an annual payment of $300 and “her most industrious man in that assembly,” and his board and washing.” extensive knowledge made him a “walking register or volume of reference.” In “AUTOGRAPHY,” Poe Vanhoveln-Carpé Pseudonym of Myra Kinney- wrote that Verplanck’s writings “all evince the Carpé, an American musician whose compositions cultivated belles-lettres scholar, and man of intel- consist chiefly of songs and a number of piano lect and taste.” 397

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Vidocq, François Eugène (1775–1857) French describe the actions of magicians who “by means detective and author of crime books, as well as the of a fluid that nobody ever yet saw, could make the founder of the Police de Sureté, the French police corpses of his friends brandish their arms, kick out force. He served in the military, then committed their legs, fight, or even get up and dance at his several crimes and was imprisoned. After his release will.” In “SOME WORDS WITH A MUMMY,” the group in 1809, he became an informer for Napoleon, and of men examining Count Allamistakeo decide to he was later the first chief of the French police. make “an experiment or two with the Voltaic pile” When he ran into trouble because of his agents, also and to apply electricity to the mummy. In “MARGI- former prisoners, Vidocq left the police and opened NALIA,” published in the December 1844 issue of a detective agency. His ghostwritten memoirs were the Democratic Review, Poe asserts that CHARLES excerpted from September 1838 through May 1839 DICKENS is a man of “higher genius” than EDWARD in BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE. Critics BULWER-LYTTON and states that “nothing short of have identified two passages among the excerpts moral Voltaism could have spirited Bulwer into the as strongly resembling Poe’s “The MURDERS IN THE conception of the concluding passages of the ‘Curi- RUE MORGUE.” Poe mentions Vidocq in that story osity Shop.’ ” as having been “a good guesser, and a persever- ing man. But, without educated thought, he erred Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) (1694–1778) continually by the very intensity of his investiga- French philosopher and author. Poe includes him tions. He impaired his vision by holding the object in several stories and in entries in “MARGINALIA.” too close.” In contrast, Poe’s detective, C. Auguste The devil reads a note to “BON-BON” from some- Dupin, intends “to view it in a sidelong way.” one who “being aged one year and one month” signed his soul away “in consideration of certain Vogrich, Max Wilhelm (1852–1916) Austrian mental endowments,” and the signature is Arouet, composer and pianist, as well as the librettist of Voltaire’s real name. “HOW TO WRITE A BLACK- his own operas. His compositions include orato- WOOD ARTICLE” refers to Voltaire’s 1732 drama rios, symphonies, concertos, choral works, church Zaire when it suggests that alluding to the phrase music, songs, and instrumental pieces. In 1890, he from the drama, la tendre Zaire, will “not only show wrote Annabel Lee, inspired by Poe’s poem of the your knowledge of the language, but your general same name, comprising six duets for soprano and reading and wit.” In “HOP-FROG,” the narrator mezzo-soprano. mentions Voltaire’s drama Zadig as too refined a play for the coarse king to appreciate. In his essay Volta, Count Alessandro (1745–1827) Italian “LITERARY SMALL TALK,” Poe criticizes Voltaire’s physicist known for his pioneering work with elec- sense of geography, and states, “Voltaire betrays, on tricity; the term volt, denoting a unit of electrical many occasions, an almost incredible ignorance of measurement, is named for him. In 1800, he devel- antiquity and its affairs. One of his saddest blunders oped the “voltaic pile,” similar to a battery, that is that of assigning the Canary Island to the Roman produced a steady stream of electricity. Poe refers Empire.” Poe also refers to Voltaire three times in to his work in “The THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE “PINAKIDIA” and four times in “Marginalia,” citing OF SCHEHERAZADE” when he has Scheherazade references that support his views on rationalism.

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Walker, Joseph W. Man who found Poe lying Weddell, Captain James (1787–1834) English in the street on Wednesday, October 3, 1849. explorer and navigator. He is the author of A Voy- He was a printer with the Baltimore Sun. Walker age Toward the South Pole Performed in the Years sent a messenger with a note to Dr. JOSEPH EVANS 1822–1824, published in 1825. Poe mentions his SNODGRASS, whom Poe said he knew, to treat the 1823 exploration of Antarctica several times in the extremely ill man. His note follows: novel The NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM. Baltimore City, 3d, 1849. Weiss, Susan Archer (1822–1917) Richmond poet who became acquainted with Poe in his later DEAR SIR,—THERE IS A GENTLEMAN, days. She published the essay “The Last Days of RATHER THE WORSE FOR WEAR, AT Edgar A. Poe” in the March 1878 issue of Scribner’s RYAN’S 4TH WARD POLLS, WHO GOES magazine, which presents a humane and charitable UNDER THE COGNOMEN OF EDGAR A. view of Poe. Her 1907 Home Life of Poe provides a POE, AND WHO APPEARS IN GREAT DIS- detailed view of Poe’s final days, but critics question TRESS, AND HE SAYS HE IS ACQUAINTED the veracity of what she reports, for she offers little WITH YOU, AND I ASSURE HE IS IN NEED documentation of the events and conversations. OF IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE. Yours in haste, Wertenbaker, William (1797–1882) Secretary Jos. W. Walker to the faculty, librarian, and general factotum at the To Dr. J. E. Snodgrass University of Virginia while Poe attended. One of Wertenbaker’s duties was to make sure that students Walthew, Richard (1872–1944) English com- woke up and were dressed on time. In recollections poser whose compositions include overtures, piano written in 1868, Wertenbaker wrote, “I was myself a concertos, cantatas, songs, part-songs, and cham- member of the last three [of Poe’s] classes, and can ber music. He published two songs inspired by Poe’s testify that he was tolerably regular in his attendance, poems of the same titles: “Annabel Lee” (1887) and a successful student.” In the same recollections, and “Eldorado” (1896). he also recalled Poe’s obsessive gambling.

Ward, Thomas (1807–1873) Poet whose talents Wetmore, Prosper Montgomery (1798–1876) were derided by Poe in the review “OUR AMATEUR Both a general and a naval officer of the Port of POETS NO. 1—FLACCUS.” New York, as well as an author whom Poe profiled

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in “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY.” In the pro- Poe had seen Whitman at a party after a lecture file, Poe praises Wetmore’s 1830 collection The he gave in Providence, Rhode Island, but the two Battle of Lexington and other Poems as “of consider- had not spoken. Whitman had heard of his admira- able merit, and one which met a very cordial reception for her and had developed a strong liking for tion from the press.” Poe describes him as having his poetry, which led her to compose the playful “energy, activity and indefatigability” as well as poem “To Edgar A. Poe” for a Valentine’s Day party “unusual influence among his fellow-citizens.” in 1848, in which she addresses “thou grim and ancient Raven.” The two met soon after on Sep- Whipple, Edwin Percy (1819–1886) American tember 15, 1848, and wrote a flurry of passionate literary critic. Throughout “ABOUT CRITICS AND letters to each other. By December 15, 1848, the CRITICISM,” Poe supports the negative comments two drew up a marriage contract, at the insistence he makes with examples from Whipple’s writings. of Whitman’s mother, Mrs. NICHOLAS POWER. By He notes that Whipple is lacking in candor and Saturday, December 23, 1848, the relationship was analytical ability and has little discrimination. broken off, because Whitman had learned that Poe was still exhibiting an interest in ANNIE RICHMOND White, Thomas Willis (1788–1843) Publisher and because reports had circulated that Poe was and founder of the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSEN- seen in the bar of a hotel called the Earl House. Poe GER. White hired Poe as assistant editor in August was devastated by the breach but pretended that 1835, then fired him in late September 1835 when the engagement was only postponed. Poe’s emotional distress and drinking after his cousin Neilson attempted to prevent his marriage to VIRGINIA CLEMM had led him to the verge of suicide. When the emotional crisis was resolved by October 1835, White rehired Poe and in December elevated him to editor. White fired Poe a second and final time on January 3, 1837, for drinking.

Whitman, John Winslow (d. 1833) Boston lawyer and the husband of SARAH POWER WHITMAN. The Whitmans married in 1828, and he died in 1833.

Whitman, Sarah Helen Power (1803–1878) One of Poe’s great loves and the inspiration for the second “TO HELEN.” Like Poe, she was born on January 19, although six years later, and her belief in mysticism convinced her that they shared a psychic connection. She was widowed at the age of 30 and moved in with her mother and younger sister—a mistake, as her mother was a woman of powerful personality. Whitman conveyed a theatrical presence, dressing in lightly draping silky clothes and dainty slippers, with scarves streaming lightly as she walked. Her otherworldly appearance was enhanced by the ever-present handkerchief soaked Sarah Helen Power Whitman, who was engaged to in ether: She had a heart condition, and inhaling Poe near the end of his life (Courtesy of Center for the ether soothed her. Three years before they met, Humanities Research—University of Texas)

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Whitman, Walt (1819–1892) American poet and one of the few major writers whom Poe actually met. In November 1845, Whitman visited the office of the BROADWAY JOURNAL, which had recently published one of his poems. Poe had just taken control after buying the publication from the publisher JOHN BISCO with a note for $50 endorsed by HORACE GREELEY, money which Poe never paid back. Whitman later recalled the meeting in his 1882 book Specimen Days and noted of Poe, “I have a distinct and pleasing remembrance of his looks, voice, manner and matter; very kindly and human, but subdued, perhaps a little jaded.” His assessment of Poe changed over the years, but in evaluating Poe’s significance in Specimen Days, he acknowledged the “indescribable magnetism about the poet’s life and reminiscences, as well as the poems,” yet judged him to have been “among the electric lights of imaginative literature, brilliant and daz- zling, but with no heat.”

Whitworth, Richard Member of the British Par- Nathaniel P. Willis, editor of the New York Evening liament. In 1774, he planned to undertake an expe- Mirror (Courtesy of Edgar Allan Poe Society) dition with CAPTAIN JONATHAN CARVER to find the source of the Missouri River in Oregon and convinced the British government to sanction the plan. Poe provides a lengthier-than-usual evaluation of The expedition never happened, however, because Willis’s talents and writes, “both as an author and the American Revolutionary War broke out. Whit- a man, he has made a good deal of noise in the worth is mentioned in WASHINGTON IRVING’s ASTO- world—at least for an American.” Poe attributes RIA, (see review of “ASTORIA”) as well as in Poe’s Willis’s renown to his having “pushed himself” into unfinished novel The JOURNAL OF JULIUS RODMAN. the world and attributes his success “one-third to his mental ability and two-thirds to his physical Wilckens, Friedrich (1899–1987) Austrian dra- temperament.” Although Poe holds a low opinion matic composer whose works include a criminal- of Willis’s critical abilities and finds him “remark- ballet sketch, a symphony, an overture, and a suite ably out of his element” in writing the argumenta- for orchestra. In 1928, he wrote the ballet Don tion demanded by newspapers, he finds Willis “as a Morte, inspired by Poe’s short story “The MASQUE writer of ‘sketches’ . . . unequalled.” OF THE RED DEATH.” Wilmer, Lambert A. (1805–1863) Baltimore Willis, Nathaniel Parker (1806–1867) Editor author and journalist. His dramatic poem Merlin of the New York EVENING MIRROR and American was based on Poe’s relationship with SARAH ELMIRA Monthly Magazine who defended Poe’s character ROYSTER. Poe reviewed his “The CONFESSIONS OF against the defamation printed by RUFUS WILMOT EMILIA HARRINGTON” in February 1836. GRISWOLD. Poe reviewed the following works by Willis: “AMERICAN PROSE WRITERS,” “DASHES AT Woodberry, George Edward (1855–1930) Early LIFE WITH A FREE PENCIL,” and “TORTESA, THE Poe biographer who tried to correct the misappre- USURER.” In “The LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY,” hensions about Poe’s character created by RUFUS

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WILMOT GRISWOLD. Unlike the biography by JOHN and Poe paraphrased Wyatt’s Manual of Conchology HENRY INGRAM, which went too far in ameliorat- by arrangement with the author, who had earlier ing the past, Woodberry presented a more balanced unsuccessfully published the work with Harper’s. approach in his 1885 work The Life of Edgar Allan Wyatt paid Poe $50 to popularize the work and to Poe, Personal and Literary, with His Chief Correspon- lend his name to it by issuing an edition with Poe’s dence with Men of Letters. name on the title page. The arrangement, which helped Wyatt to avoid trouble over copyright, cre- Wyatt, Thomas Author who paid Poe to co- ated tensions between Harper’s and Poe that made author “The CONCHOLOGIST’S FIRST BOOK.” The the publisher refuse Poe’s request that they issue body of The Conchologist’s First Book is not original, his collected works six years later.

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Yarrington, Martha The landlady of the boardinghouse where MARIA CLEMM, VIRGINIA CLEMM, and Poe lived in Richmond. Poe and Virginia Clemm were married in a public ceremony in her boardinghouse parlor on May 16, 1836. Yarrington helped Maria Clemm to make the wedding cake and to prepare the wedding meal for guests.

Zech, Frederick (1858–1926) American composer, conductor, and pianist whose compositions include piano concertos, violin and cello concertos, sonatas, chamber music, songs, and two operas. In 1902, he published The Raven, a symphonic poem inspired by Poe’s poem of the same name.

Zoubaloff, Jacques-Michel (1886–1954) French composer and painter whose compositions include This illustration, “Sunday Evening at Yarrington’s,” piano suites and cycles, song settings of poems, depicts a common room in the boardinghouse where and orchestral suites. In 1925, he published “Tu Poe lived in Richmond, Virginia. voudrais etre aimée?” [Thou Wouldst Be loved?], a song inspired by Poe’s poem “TO F———.” That same year, he wrote Trois Petits Poèmes Musicaux and “HYMN.” In 1927, Zoubaloff published Politian, (D’après Edgar Poe), piano pieces inspired by three Comte de Leicester (Scenes from Politian), a piano poems written by Poe: “ULALUME,” “A DREAM,” score and text inspired by Poe’s drama POLITIAN.

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Appendices

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1809 1821 Edgar Poe is born in Boston on January 19. Poe attends the Clarke School run by Joseph Han- son Clarke in Richmond, Virginia. 1810 Rosalie Poe, sister of Edgar, is born in Norfolk, Vir- 1822 ginia, on December 20. Poe’s cousin and future wife, Virginia Clemm, is born in Baltimore on August 22. 1811 Elizabeth Arnold Poe, Edgar’s mother, dies in Rich- 1823 mond, Virginia, on December 8. Poe attends the school of William Burke in Richmond. 1812 Poe is baptized on January 7 by the Reverend John 1824 Buchanan and christened Edgar Allan Poe, with Poe serves as a lieutenant in the Richmond Junior the Allans as godparents. Volunteers during General Lafayette’s visit to Poe’s sister, Rosalie, is baptized on September 3 Richmond, October 26 through 28. as Rosalie Mackenzie Poe after her adoption by William and Jane Scott Mackenzie. 1825 John Allan inherits a substantial fortune upon the 1815 death of his uncle William Galt. Allan pur- John and Frances Allan, with Poe and with Fran- chases Moldavia, an enormous brick mansion in ces’s younger sister, Ann Moore Valentine Richmond, Virginia, to which Poe and the Allan (called Nancy), leave for England aboard the family relocate. Lothair on June 22.

1816 1826 Poe attends the boarding school of the Misses Poe enters the University of Virginia in Febru- Dubourg in London, where he is known as Mas- ary. He returns to Richmond in December and ter Allan. learns that Sarah Elmira Royster, his first love, is engaged to Alexander B. Shelton. 1818 Poe attends the Manor House School, run by the 1827 Reverend John Bransby in London, where he is Poe and John Allan argue over Poe’s gambling known as Edgar Allan. debts of $2,000, and Poe leaves the university in March. Poe enlists in the U.S. Army on May 1820 26 under the name Edgar A. Perry. In Novem- Poe and the Allan family return to America from ber, Poe’s troop battery arrives at Fort Moultrie, England aboard the Martha on July 22. Sullivan’s Island, Charleston, South Carolina. 407

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Poe’s first book, Tamerlane and Minor Poems, is pub- On September 22, Poe takes out a marriage license lished in Boston by Calvin F. S. Thomas. The for himself and Virginia Clemm. They marry on author is noted only as “A Bostonian.” May 16, 1836.

1828 1836 Poe’s battery arrives at Fort Monroe, Old Point Poe moves from Baltimore to Richmond and Comfort, Virginia, on December 15. becomes editor of Thomas W. White’s Southern Literary Messenger. 1829 Poe is promoted to sergeant major of the regiment 1837 of artillery on January 1. Poe leaves his position as editor of the Southern Francis Keeling Allan, Poe’s doting foster mother, Literary Messenger in January. In February, Poe dies in Richmond on February 28. moves with his wife, Virginia, and her mother, Poe is released from the army on April 15, after Maria Clemm, to New York. which he applies for an appointment to West 1838 Point. Poe and his family move to Philadelphia. In December, Poe’s second book, Al Aaraaf, Tamer- In July, Poe’s novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon lane, and Minor Poems, is published in Baltimore Pym, is published in New York by Harper & by Hatch & Dunning. Brothers. 1830 1839 John Allan marries Louisa Gabriella Patterson on The Conchologist’s First Book, which Poe coau- October 5. thored, is published in Philadelphia by Haswell, Poe enters West Point in June. Barrington & Haswell. In May, Poe becomes an editor for Burton’s Gentle- 1831 man’s Magazine. Poe is court-martialed on February 8 after willfully refusing to attend classes or chapel as part of 1840 his plan to leave West Point. On March 6, he is Poe’s two-volume collection Tales of the Grotesque dismissed from military service. and Arabesque is published in Philadelphia by Poe’s collection Poems by Edgar A. Poe is published Lea & Blanchard. in New York by Elam Bliss. In January, the first of four installments of Poe’s William Henry Leonard Poe, Edgar’s older brother, Journal of Julius Rodman appears in Burton’s Gen- dies of tuberculosis in Baltimore on August 1. tleman’s Magazine. On June 6, Poe’s prospectus for his proposed maga- 1833 zine Penn appears in the Saturday Evening Post. Poe receives his $50 prize from the Baltimore Sat- urday Visiter for “MS. Found in a Bottle” on 1841 October 7. On February 20, the Saturday Evening Post announces that Poe will begin as an editor for Graham’s Mag- 1834 azine in April. John Allan dies in Richmond, Virginia, on March Graham’s Magazine publishes Poe’s “Murders in the 27. Poe receives no inheritance. Rue Morgue,” the first modern detective story, in April. 1835 In March, Poe applies for a position as a teacher in 1842 the Baltimore public schools. Poe and the English author Charles Dickens meet Poe’s grandmother Elizabeth Cairnes Poe, wife of in Philadelphia on March 6 while Dickens is on “General” Poe, dies on July 7. a tour of America.

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In May, Poe leaves Graham’s Magazine, and Rufus In April, Poe’s “The Literati of New York City” W. Griswold replaces him as editor. appears for the first time in Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book. 1843 Poe signs an agreement with Thomas Cottrell 1847 Clarke on January 31 to proceed with Poe’s plans Virginia Clemm Poe dies of tuberculosis in January for a magazine, now renamed the Stylus. in Fordham, New York. In March, Poe encourages a friend, F. W. Thomas, 1848 to help him to gain a government job as a Poe’s prose poem “Eureka” is published by George clerk, a position that would leave him ample Putnam. time to write; however, Poe fails to obtain a In November, Poe becomes engaged to Sarah Helen position. Power Whitman, a New England widow and poet. In June, Poe’s tale “The Gold-Bug” wins the $100 On December 23, Whitman calls off the engage- prize from the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper, ment when Poe breaks his promise to abstain which provides him with substantial national from drinking. attention. On August 8, a theatrical production based on the story and dramatized by Silas S. 1849 Steele is performed at the American Theatre in Poe arrives in Richmond on July 14 on his lec- Philadelphia. ture tour of the South to raise money and Poe’s collection Prose Romances is published by Wil- support for his proposed magazine, the Stylus. liam H. Graham in Philadelphia. While in Richmond, he becomes reacquainted In July, Poe registers to study law in the office of with the now-widowed Sarah Elmira Royster Henry Beck Hirst, a longtime friend. Shelton. In November, Poe delivers his lectures on Ameri- On August 27, Poe signs a pledge with the Sons can poetry in Philadelphia. of Temperance, Shockoe Hill Division, No. 54, promising to abstain completely from drinking 1844 alcoholic beverages. Poe and his family move to New York on April 7. On September 27, Poe leaves Richmond aboard Poe joins the staff of the New York Evening Mirror the steamship Pocahontas. He arrives in Balti- on October 7. more on September 28. 1845 On October 3, Poe is found nearly unconscious Poe’s poem “The Raven” is published in the New outside Gunner’s Hall, a Baltimore tavern. York Evening Mirror, gaining immediate popular- On October 8, Poe dies at the Washington College ity and bringing Poe praise and fame but earning Hospital in Baltimore. He is buried in his grand- him only $15. father’s lot in the Westminster Burying Ground. Poe becomes an editor of the Broadway Journal on The “Ludwig article,” Rufus Wilmot Griswold’s February 22. slanderous obituary of Poe, is published in the On October 24, Poe becomes the sole owner of the New York Tribune on October 9, thus distorting Broadway Journal, after signing a note (i.e., an Poe’s image for more than five decades. IOU) for $50 with Horace Greeley; Poe never 1875 repays the loan. On November 17, the Memorial Grave of Edgar On November 19, Poe’s collection The Raven and Allan Poe, containing the exhumed remains of Poe Other Poems is published in New York by Wiley and Maria Clemm, is dedicated in Baltimore. Ten & Putnam. years later, the remains of Poe’s wife, Virginia, are 1846 brought to Baltimore from Fordham, New York, Poe’s Broadway Journal ceases publication on Janu- and placed in the Memorial Grave with those of ary 3 because of a lack of funds. Poe and Virginia’s mother, Maria Clemm.

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“The Happiest Day, the Happiest Hour” (September “To ———” [“The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see”] 15, 1827; poem; first published in the North Amer- (1829; poem; first published in Al Aaraaf, Tamer- ican; reprinted in Tamerlane and Other Poems in lane, and Minor Poems; reprinted in the Broadway 1827; reprinted in Collected Works) Journal for September 20, 1845; reprinted in Col- “Al Aaraaf” (1827; poem; first published in Tamerlane lected Works) and Other Poems; reprinted in 1829 in Al Aaraaf, “To ———” [“Should my early life seem”] (1829; Tamerlane, and Minor Poems; reprinted in Collected poem; first published in Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Works) Minor Poems; reprinted in shortened form in the “A Dream” (1827; poem; first published in Tamerlane Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette for December and Other Poems; republished in Al Aaraaf, Tamer- 1829; reprinted in Collected Works) lane, and Minor Poems in 1829; reprinted in Col- “To the River———” (1829; poem; first published in lected Works) Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems; reprinted “Evening Star” (1827; poem; first published in Tamer- in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine for August 1839; lane and Other Poems; reprinted in Collected Works) reprinted in the Philadelphia Saturday Museum for “Imitation” (1827; poem; first published in Tamerlane March 4, 1843; and reprinted in the Broadway and Other Poems; reprinted in Collected Works) Journal for September 1845; reprinted in Collected “In Youth I Have Known One with Whom the Earth” Works) (1827; poem; first published in Tamerlane and Other Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827; poetry collection Poems; reprinted in Collected Works) published “By a Bostonian.”) “The Lake” (1827; poem; first published in Ta m e r - Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (December lane and Other Poems; reprinted as “The Lake—To 1829; Poe’s second collection of poetry and the ———” in Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems first to be published commercially) in 1829; reprinted in Collected Works) “Alone” (1829; poem; first published posthumously in “Song” (1827; poem; first published in Tamerlane and Scribner’s Monthly in September 1875; reprinted in Other Poems; reprinted in Collected Works) Collected Works) “Spirits of the Dead” (1827; poem; first published “An Acrostic” (1829; poem written for Elizabeth Her- under the title “Visit of the Dead” in Tamerlane and ring; published posthumously in Collected Works) Other Poems; retitled and reprinted in Al Aaraaf, “Fairy Land” (December 1829; poem first titled Tamerlane, and Minor Poems 1829; reprinted in Col- “Heaven;” first published in Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, lected Works) and Minor Poems; reprinted in Collected Works) “Tamerlane” (1827; poem; first published in Tamerlane “Romance” (1829; poem; first appeared under the and Other Poems; reprinted in Al Aaraaf, Tamer- title “Preface” in Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor lane, and Minor Poems in 1829; reprinted in Col- Poems; retitled “Introduction” and reprinted in lected Works) Poems by Edgar A. Poe; retitled “Romance” and 410

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reprinted in the Philadelphia Saturday Museum for “A Tale of Jerusalem” (June 9, 1832; short story; first February 25, 1843; reprinted in Collected Works) published in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier; “Sonnet—To Science” (1829; poem; first published in reprinted in the Broadway Journal for September Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems; reprinted 20, 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) in Collected Works) “Loss of Breath: A Tale à la Blackwood” (November “The City in the Sea” (1831; poem; first published 1832; short story; first published in the Philadel- under the title “The Domed City” in Poems by phia Saturday Courier with Poe using the pseud- Edgar A. Poe; revised, retitled, and reprinted in the onym Lyttleton Barry; retitled and reprinted in the April 1845 issue of the American Review; reprinted Southern Literary Messenger for September 1835; in The Raven and Other Poems in 1845; reprinted in reprinted in Collected Works) Collected Works) “Bon-Bon” (December 1, 1832; short story; first “Israfel” (1831; poem; first appeared in Poems By Edgar published as “The Bargain Lost” in the Philadel- A. Poe; reprinted in the Southern Literary Messenger phia Saturday Courier; revised and republished in for August 1836; reprinted in Collected Works) the Southern Literary Messenger for August 1835; “Lenore” (1831; poem; first published as “A Paean” in reprinted in Collected Works) Poems By Edgar A. Poe; reprinted in the Pioneer for “To———” [“Sleep on, sleep on, another hour—”] February 1843; reprinted in the Broadway Journal (May 11, 1833; poem; first published in the Balti- of August 16, 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) more Saturday Visiter; reprinted in Collected Works) “Letter to B———” (1831; poem; first published in “The Coliseum” (October 26, 1833; poem; first pub- Poems By Edgar A. Poe as “Letter to Mr. ———;” lished in the Baltimore Sunday Visiter; reprinted in reprinted as “Letter to B———” in the Southern Collected Works) Literary Messenger for July 1836; reprinted in Col- “MS. Found In a Bottle” (October 19, 1833; short lected Works) story; first published in the Baltimore Saturday Vis- “The Sleeper” (1831; poem; first published under the iter; reprinted in Collected Works) title “Irene” in Poems By Edgar A. Poe; retitled and “Assignation, The” (January 1834; short story; first reprinted in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier for published under the title “The Visionary” in May 22, 1841; reprinted in The Raven and Other Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book; reprinted in Poems in 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) Collected Works) “To Helen” (1) (1831; poem; first published in Poems “To One in Paradise” (January 1834; poem; first pub- By Edgar A. Poe; reprinted in the Southern Literary lished as part of the short story “The Assignation” Messenger for March 1836; reprinted in Collected in Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book; reprinted Works) alone in The Raven and Other Poems in 1845; “The Valley of Unrest” (1831; poem; first published reprinted in Collected Works) under the title “The Valley of Nis” in Poems By “Poems, by William Cullen Bryant. Boston: Russell, Edgar A. Poe; retitled and reprinted in the American Odiorne & Metcalfe. 1834” (January 1835; review; Review of April 1845; reprinted in The Raven and first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; Other Poems in 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) reprinted in Collected Works) Poems By Edgar A. Poe (1831; the third collection of “Berenice” (March 1835; short story; first published in Poe’s poems to be published and his second com- the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Col- mercial publication) lected Works) “Metzengerstein: A Tale In Imitation of the German” “Four Beasts In One: The Homo-Cameleopard” (March (January 14, 1832; short story; first published in 1835; short story; first published in the Southern Lit- the Philadelphia Saturday Courier; reprinted in Col- erary Messenger; reprinted in Tales of the Grotesque lected Works) and Arabesque in 1839; reprinted in Collected Works) “The Duc de l’Omelette” (March 3, 1832; short story; “Confessions of a Poet, 2 vols. Carey, Lea & Blanchard” first published in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier; (April 1835; review; first published in the Southern reprinted in Collected Works) Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works)

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“Morella” (April 1835; short story; first published in York. [The Classical Family Library. Numbers the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Bur- XV, XVI, and XVII.]” (September 1835; review; ton’s Gentleman’s Magazine for November 1839; first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) reprinted in Collected Works) “Horse-Shoe Robinson: A Tale of the Tory Ascen- “Early Naval History of England by Robert Southey, dency. By the Author of ‘Swallow Barn.’ Philadel- LL.D., Poet Laureate. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & phia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard” (May 1835; review; Blanchard” (September 1835; review; first pub- first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; lished in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted reprinted in Collected Works) in Collected Works) “Journal—By Frances Anne Butler. Philadelphia: “To Elizabeth” (September 1835; poem; first published Carey, Lea & Blanchard. Presented to the Editor of in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in the Messenger, by Mr. C. Hall” (May 1835; review; Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine for August 1839; first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) reprinted in Collected Works) “King Pest the First. A Tale Containing an Allegory” “Lionizing” (May 1835; short story; first published as (September 1835; short story published under the “Lion-Izing: A Tale” in the Southern Literary Mes- pseudonym Lyttleton Barry; first published in the senger; revised and reprinted in Tales By Edgar A. Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Tales of Poe in 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1839; revised for “I Promessi Sposi, or the Betrothed Lovers; a Milanese republication in the Broadway Journal for October Story of the Seventeenth Century: as Translated 18, 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) for the Metropolitan, from the Italian of Alessan- “Mephistopheles In England, or the Confessions of dro Manzoni, by G. W. Featherstonhaugh. Wash- a Prime Minister, 2 vols. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea ington: Stereotyped and Published by Duff Green. & Blanchard” (September 1835; review; first pub- 1834. 8vo. pp. 259” (May 1835; review; first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted lished in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) in Collected Works) “Inaugural Address of the Reverend D. L. Carroll, D. “The Infidel; or The Fall of Mexico, a Romance, by D., President of Hampden Sidney College. Deliv- the Author of Calavar. Philadelphia: Carey, Lee & ered on His Induction into That Office. Published Blanchard” (June 1835; review; first published in by Request of the Board of Trustees. Richmond: the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Col- T. W. White, 1835” (December 1835; review; lected Works) first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall” reprinted in Collected Works) (June 1835; short story; first published in the “Judge Story’s Discourse on Chief-Justice Marshall” Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected (December 1835; review; first published in the South- Works) ern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) “The Conquest of Florida by Hernando De Soto. “The Hawks of Hawk-Hollow; a Tradition of Pennsyl- By Theodore Irving. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & vania. By the Author of Calavar and the Infidel. Blanchard” (July 1835; review; first published in Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard” (December the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Col- 1835; review; first published in the Southern Liter- lected Works) ary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) “The Crayon Miscellany, No.II. Containing Abbots- “The Heroine: or Adventures of Cherubina. By Eaton ford and Newstead Abbey. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea Stannard Barrett, Esq. New Edition. Richmond: & Blanchard. 1835” (July 1835; review; first pub- Published by P. D. Barnard” (December 1835; lished in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted review; first published in the Southern Literary Mes- in Collected Works) senger; reprinted in Collected Works) “Euripides Translated by the Reverend R. Potter, Pre- “The Crayon Miscellany. By the Author of the Sketch bendiary of Norwich. Harper & Brothers, New Book No. 3—Containing Legends of the Conquest

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of Spain. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard” Philadelphia: Published by J. Whetham” (Decem- (December 1835; review; first published in the ber 1835; review; first published in the Southern Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) Works) “Norman Leslie: A Tale of the Present Times. New “Binney’s Eulogium” (December 1835; review; first York: Published by Harper & Brothers” (December published in the Southern Literary Messenger; 1835; review; first published in the Southern Liter- reprinted in Collected Works) ary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) “Clinton Bradshaw; or the Adventures of a Lawyer. “Nuts to Crack: or Quips, Quirks, Anecdote and Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard” (December Facete of Oxford and Cambridge Scholars. By the 1835; review; first published in the Southern Liter- Author of Facetiae Cantabrigienses, Etc., Etc., Etc. ary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) Philadelphia: E. L. Carey & A. Hart” (December “Legends of a Log Cabin. By a Western Man. New 1835; review; first published in the Southern Liter- York: George Dearborn, Publisher” (December ary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) 1835; review; first published in the Southern Liter- “Oration on the Life and Character of the Rev. Joseph ary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) Caldwell, D.D. Late President of the University “The Linwoods; or, ‘Sixty Years Since’ in America. By of North Carolina, by Walter Andersen, A.M.” the Author of ‘Hope Leslie,’ ‘Redwood,’ &c. New (December 1835; review; first published in the York: Published by Harper & Brothers” (December Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected 1835; review; first published in the Southern Liter- Works) ary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) Politian (December 1835 and January 1836; unfinished “An Address on Education, as Connected with the drama; excerpts first published in the Southern Lit- Permanence of Our Republican Institutions. Deliv- erary Messenger; printed whole in The Raven and ered before the Institute of Education of Hampden Other Poems; reprinted in Collected Works) Sidney College, at Its Anniversary Meeting, Sep- “The Rambler in North America, 1832–33. By Charles tember the 24th, 1835, on the Invitation of the Joseph Latrobe, Author of ‘The Alpenstock,’ &c. Body. By Lucian Minor, Esq., of Louisa. Published New York: Harper & Brothers” (December 1835; by Request of the Institute” (December 1835; review; first published in the Southern Literary Mes- review; first published in the Southern Literary Mes- senger; reprinted in Collected Works) senger; reprinted in Collected Works) “Shadow—A Parable” (September 1835; short story; “A Life of George Washington, in Latin Prose: By first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; Francis Glass, A.M. of Ohio. Edited by J. N. Reyn- reprinted in Collected Works) olds. New York: Published by Harper & Broth- “Sketches of History, Life, and Manners in the West. ers” (December 1835; review; first published in the By James Hall. Philadelphia: Harrison Hall” Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected (December 1835; review; first published in the Works) Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected “Lives of the Necromancers: Or An Account of the Works) Most Eminent Persons in Successive Ages, Who “Sketches of Switzerland. By an American, Part Have Claimed for Themselves, or to Whom Have Second. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard” Been Imputed by Others, the Exercise of Magi- (December 1835; review; first published in the cal Power. By William Godwin, Author of ‘Caleb Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Williams,’ &c. New York: Published by Harper & Works) Brothers” (December 1835; review; first published “Tales of the Peerage and the Peasantry, Edited by Lady in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Dacre. New York: Harper & Brothers” (December Collected Works) 1835; review; first published in the Southern Liter- “Memoir of the Reverend John H. Rice, D.D. First ary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) Professor of Christian Theology in Union Theo- “Traits of American Life. By Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, Editor logical Seminary, Virginia, A. By William Maxwell. of ‘The American Ladies’ Magazine,’ and Author

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of ‘Northwood,’ ‘Flora’s Interpreter,’ &c &c. Phil- first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; adelphia: E. L. Carey, and A. Hart” (December reprinted in Collected Works) 1835; review; first published in the Southern Liter- “Reminiscences of an Intercourse with Mr. Niebuhr, the ary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) Historian, During a Residence with Him in Rome, in “Legends of a Log Cabin. By a Western Man. New the Years 1822 and 1823. By Francis Lieber, Professor York: George Dearborn, Publisher” (December of History and Political Economy in South Caro- 1835; review; first published in the Southern Liter- lina College. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard” ary Messenger) (January 1836; review; first published in the Southern “The Christian Florist; Containing the English Botan- Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) ical Names of Different Plants, with Their Proper- “Tales and Sketches. By Miss Sedgwick, Author of ties Delineated and Explained. Illustrated by Texts ‘The Linwoods,’ ‘Hope Leslie,’ &c &c. Philadel- From Various Authors. First American From the phia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard” (January 1836; Second London Edition. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea review; first published in the Southern Literary Mes- & Blanchard” (January 1836; review; first pub- senger; reprinted in Collected Works) lished in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted “The Young Wife’s Book; A Manual of Moral, Reli- in Collected Works) gious, and Domestic Duties. Philadelphia: Carey, “Animal and Vegetable Physiology Considered with Lea & Blanchard” (January 1836; review; first pub- Reference to Natural Theology. By Peter Mark lished in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted Roger, M.D. Secretary to the Royal Society, &C., in Collected Works) &C. Two vols. Large octavo. Philadelphia: Pub- “Zinzendorff, and Other Poems. By Mrs. L. H. Sig- lished by Carey, Lea, and Blanchard” (January nourney. New York: Published by Leavitt, Lord & 1836; review; first published in the Southern Liter- Co., 1836” (January 1836; review; first published ary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in “The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Collected Works) Crusoe, of York, Mariner: With a Biographical “The American in England. By the Author of ‘A Year Account of Defoe. Illustrated with Fifty Character- in Spain.’ 2 vols. New York. Harper & Brothers” istic Cuts, from Drawings by William Harvey, Esq. (February 1836; review; first published in the and Engraved by Adams. New York: Published Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected by Harper & Brothers” (January 1836; review; Works) first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; “Paul Ulric: Or the Adventures of an Enthusiast. New reprinted in Collected Works) York: Published by Harper & Brothers” (February “The Partisan: A Tale of the Revolution. By the 1836; review; first published in the Southern Liter- Author of ‘The Yemassee,’ ‘Guy Rivers,’ &c. New ary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) York: Published by Harper & Brothers” (January “Autography” (February and August 1836; brief arti- 1836; review; first published in the Southern Liter- cles; first published in the Southern Literary Mes- ary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) senger; reprinted in Collected Works) “Poems—By Miss H. F. Gould. Third Edition. Boston: “The Confessions of Emilia Harrington. By Lambert Hilliard, Gray & Co. 1835” (January 1836; review; A. Wilmer. Baltimore” (February 1836; review; first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) reprinted in Collected Works) “Poems; Translated and Original. By Mrs. E. F. Ellet, “Conti the Discarded: with Other Tales and Fancies, Philadelphia: Key & Biddle. 1835” (January 1836; by Henry F. Chorley. 2 vols. New York: Published review; first published in the Southern Literary Mes- by Harper & Brothers” (February 1836; review; senger; reprinted in Collected Works) first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; “The Poetry of Life. By Sarah Stickney, Author of ‘Pic- reprinted in Collected Works) tures of Private Life.’ Philadelphia: Republished by “A New and Comprehensive Gazeteer of Virginia, and Carey, Lea & Blanchard” (January 1836; review; the District of Columbia: Containing a Copious

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Collection of Geographical, Statistical, Political, “Phrenology, and the Moral Influence of Phrenology: Commercial, Religious, Moral and Miscellaneous Arranged for General Study, and the Purposes of Information, Collected and Compiled From the Education, from the First Published Works of Gall Most Respectable, and Chiefly From Original and Spurzheim, to the Latest Discoveries of the Sources; by Joseph Martin. To Which Is Added Present Period. By Mrs. L. Miles. Philadelphia: a History of Virginia, From Its First Settlement Carey, Lea & Blanchard” (March 1836; review; to the Year 1754: With an Abstract of the Prin- first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; cipal Events From That Period to the Indepen- reprinted in Collected Works) dence of Virginia, Written Expressly for the Work, “Report of the Committee on Naval Affairs, to Whom by a Citizen of Virginia. Charlottesville: Published Were Referred Memorials From Sundry Citizens by Joseph Martin. 1835” (February 1836; review; of Connecticut Interested in the Whale Fishing, first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; Praying That An Exploring Expedition Be Fitted reprinted in Collected Works) Out to the Pacific Ocean and South Seas” (March “Noble Deeds of Woman. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Carey, 21, 1836; review; first published in the Southern Lea & Blanchard” (February 1836; review; first Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) published in the Southern Literary Messenger; “Alnwick Castle with Other Poems. By Fitz-Greene reprinted in Collected Works) Halleck. New York: George Dearborn” (April “Palestine” (February 1836; essay; first published in 1836; review; first published in the Southern Liter- the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Col- ary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) lected Works) “Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau. By An Old “Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes. By the Author of Man. New York: Harper & Brothers” (April 1836; ‘Eugene Aram,’ ‘Last Days of Pompeii,’ &c. &c. review; first published in the Southern Literary Mes- Two Volumes in One. Philadelphia: Republished by senger; reprinted in Collected Works) E. L. Carey and A. Hart” (February 1836; review; “The Culprit Fay, and Other Poems, By Joseph Rod- first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; man Drake. New York: George Dearborn” (April reprinted in Collected Works) 1836; review also known as the Drake-Halleck “Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of the review; first published in the Southern Literary Mes- United States of America—Virginia. A Narrative senger; reprinted in Collected Works) of Events Connected with the Rise and Progress “Maelzel’s Chess-Player” (April 1836; essay; first pub- of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia. lished in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted To Which Is Added an Appendix, Containing in Collected Works) the Journals of the Conventions in Virginia, from “Slavery in the United States. By J. K. Paulding. New the Commencement to the Present Time. By the York: Harper & Brothers / The South Vindicated Reverend Francis L. Hawks, D.D., Rector of St. from the Treason and Fanaticism of the Northern Thomas’s Church, New York. New York: Published Abolitionists. Philadelphia: Published by H. Manly” by Harper & Brothers” (March 1836; review; (April 1836; review; first published in the Southern first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) reprinted in Collected Works) “Didactics—Social, Literary, and Political. By Rob- “Georgia Scenes, Characters, Incidents, &c. In the ert Walsh. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard” First Half Century of the Republic. By a Native (May 1836; review; first published in the Southern Georgian. Augusta, Georgia” (March 1836; review; Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; “A Life of Washington. By James K. Paulding. New reprinted in Collected Works) York: Harper & Brothers” (May 1836; review; “ ‘Mahmoud.’ New York. Published by Harper & first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; Brothers” (March 1836; review; first published in reprinted in Collected Works) the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Col- “Paris and the Parisians in 1835. By Frances Trollope, lected Works) Author of ‘Domestic Manners of the Americans,’

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‘The Refugee in America,’ &c. New York: Pub- “Camperdown; or, News from Our Neighborhood— lished by Harper & Brothers” (May 1836; review; Being a Series of Sketches, by the Author of ‘Our first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; Neighborhood,’ &c. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & reprinted in Collected Works) Blanchard” (July 1836; review; first published in “Flora and Thalia; Or Gems of Flowers and Poetry: the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Col- Being an Alphabetical Arrangement of Flowers, lected Works) with Appropriate Poetical Illustrations, Embel- “The Doctor, &c. New York: Republished by Harper lished with Colored Plates. By a Lady. To Which & Brothers” (July 1836; review; first published in Is Added a Botanical Description of the Various the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Col- Parts of a Flower and the Dial of Flowers. Philadel- lected Works) phia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard” (June 1836; review; “England in 1835. Being a Series of Letters Written to first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; Friends in Germany. During a Residence in London reprinted in Collected Works) and Excursions Into the Provinces. By Frederick Von “Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of S. T. Raumer, Professor of History at the University of Coleridge. New York: Harper & Brothers” (June Berlin, Author of the ‘History of the Hohenstaufen,’ 1836; review; first published in the Southern Liter- of the ‘History of Europe from the End of the Fif- ary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) teenth Century,’ of ‘Illustrations of the History of “Maury’s Navigation” (June 1836; review; first pub- the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,’ &c. &c. lished in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted Translated from the German by Sarah Austin and in Collected Works) H. E. Lloyd. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard” “Notices of the War of 1812. By John Armstrong. (July 1836; review; first published in the Southern New York: George Dearborn” (June 1836; review; Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; “Erato. By William D. Gallagher. No. 1, Cincinnati, reprinted in Collected Works) Josiah Drake—No. 11, Cincinnati, Alexander “The Pleasant Peregrination Through the Pretti- Flash” (July 1836; review; first published in the est Parts of Pennsylvania. Performed by Peregrine Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Prolix. Philadelphia: Grigg & Elliot” (June 1836; Works) review; first published in the Southern Literary Mes- “Letters to Young Ladies. By Mrs. L. H. Sigourney. senger; reprinted in Collected Works) Second Edition. Hartford: Published by Wm. “Thoughts on the Religious State of the Country; with Watson” (July 1836; review; first published in the Reasons for Preferring Episcopacy. By Rev. Calvin Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Colton. New York: Harper & Harper” (June 1836; Works) review; first published in the Southern Literary Mes- “Life on the Lakes: Being Tales and Sketches Col- senger; reprinted in Collected Works) lected During a Trip to the Pictured Rocks of “Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentle- Lake Superior. By the Author of ‘Legends of a Log man. By the Author of ‘Tales and Sketches, Such Cabin.’ New York: Published by George Dearborn” as They Are. New York: Leavitt, Lord & Co.” (July 1836; review; first published in the Southern (June 1836; review; first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) “Memoirs of an American Lady. With Sketches of “Watkins Tottle, and Other Sketches, Illustrative of Manners and Scenery in America, as They Existed Every-Day Life, and Every-Day People. By Boz, Previous to the Revolution. By the Author of ‘Let- Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard” (June 1836; ters from the Mountains.’ New York: Published by review; first published in the Southern Literary Mes- George Dearborn” (July 1836; review; first pub- senger; reprinted in Collected Works) lished in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted “Poe’s Reply to His Critics” (July 1836; essay; first pub- in Collected Works) lished in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted “Russia and the Russians; or, a Journey to St. Peters- in Collected Works) burg and Moscow, Through Courland and Livo-

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nia; with Characteristic Sketches of the People. “The Old World and the New; Or, a Journal of Reflec- By Leigh Ritchie, Esq. Author of ‘Turner’s Annual tions and Observations Made on a Tour in Europe. Tour,’ ‘Schinderhannes,’ &c. Philadelphia: E. L. By the Reverend Orville Dewey. New York: Harper Carey and A. Hart” (July 1836; review; first pub- & Brothers” (August 1836; review; first published lished in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in in Collected Works) Collected Works) “Elkswata; or the Prophet of the West. A Tale of the “Literary Remains of the Late William Hazlitt, with a Frontier. New York: Harper & Brothers” (August Notice of his Life by his Son, and Thoughts on his 1836; review; first published in the Southern Liter- Genius and Writings, By E. L. Bulwer, M. P. and ary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, M. P. New York: Saunders “The History of Texas: Or the Emigrants’, Farmers’, & Otley” (September 1836; review; first published and Politicians’ Guide to the Character, Climate, in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Soil, and Productions of That Country; Geographi- Collected Works) cally Arranged from Personal Observation and “Philothea: a Romance. By Mrs. Child, Author of the Experience. By David B. Edward, Formerly Prin- Mother’s Book, &c. Boston: Otis, Broaders & Co. cipal of the Academy, Alexandria, Louisiana; Late New York: George Dearborn” (September 1836; Preceptor of Gonzales Seminary, Texas. Cincinnati: review; first published in the Southern Literary Mes- J. A. James & Co.” (August 1836; review; first pub- senger; reprinted in Collected Works) lished in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted “Sheppard Lee: Written By Himself. New York: Harper in Collected Works) & Brothers” (September 1836; review; first pub- “Lafitte: The Pirate of the Gulf. By the Author of lished in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted the South-West. New York: Harper & Broth- in Collected Works) ers” (August 1836; review; first published in the “Address Delivered at the Annual Commencement of Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Dickinson College, July 21, 1836, by S. A. Roszel” Works) (October 1836; review; first published in the South- “Letters Descriptive of the Virginia Springs—The ern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) Roads Leading Thereto and the Doings Thereat. “An Address Delivered before the Students of Wil- Collected, Corrected, Annotated, and Edited by liam and Mary at the Opening of the College on Peregrine Prolix. With a Map of Virginia. Phila- Monday. October 10, 1835. By Thomas R. Dew, delphia: Published by H. S. Tanner” (August 1836; President, and Professor of Moral and Political review; first published in the Southern Literary Mes- Philosophy. Published by Request of the Students. senger; reprinted in Collected Works) Richmond: T. W. White” (October 1836; review; “A New Dictionary of the English Language: By first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; Charles Richardson. London: William Pickering— reprinted in Collected Works) New York: William Jackson” (August 1836; review; “The American Almanac, and Repository of Useful first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; Knowledge for the Year 1837. Boston: Published by reprinted in Collected Works) Charles Bowen” (October 1836; review; first pub- “The Adventures of a Gentleman in Search of a Horse. lished in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted By Caveat Emptor, Gent. One, Etc. Philadelphia: in Collected Works) Republished by Carey, Lea & Blanchard” (August “A Dissertation on the Importance of Physical Signs in 1836; review; first published in the Southern Liter- the Various Diseases of the Abdomen and Thorax. ary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) By Robert W. Haxall, M.D. of Richmond, Va. Bos- “The Book of Gems. The Poets and Artists of Great ton: Perkins and Marvin” (October 1836; review; Britain. Edited by S. C. Hall. London and New first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; York: Saunders & Otley” (August 1836; review; reprinted in Collected Works) first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; “Lives of the Cardinal de Richelieu, Count Oxen- reprinted in Collected Works) stiern, Count Olivarez, and Cardinal Mazarin.

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By G. P. R. James. Republished by Carey, Lea & “The Swiss Heiress; or The Bride of Destiny. Balti- Blanchard” (October 1836; review; published in more: Joseph Robinson” (October 1836; review; the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Col- first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; lected Works) reprinted in Collected Works) “Madrid in 1835. Sketches of the Metropolis of Spain “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club: Con- and Its Inhabitants, and of Society and Manners in taining a Faithful Record of the Perambulations, the Peninsula. By a Resident Officer. Two Volumes Perils, Travels, Adventures, and Sporting Trans- in One. New York: Saunders & Otley” (October actions of the Corresponding Members. Edited 1836; review; first published in the Southern Liter- by ‘Boz.’ Philadelphia: Published by Carey, Lea & ary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) Blanchard” (November 1836; review; first pub- “Memoirs of Lucian Bonaparte, Prince of Canino. lished in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted Written by Himself. Translated from the Origi- in Collected Works) nal Manuscript, Under the Immediate Superin- The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1836–37; Poe’s tendence of the Author. Part the First, From the only novel; first published in serial form in the Year 1792, to the Year 8 of the Republic” (October Southern Literary Messenger; republished as a novel 1836; review; first published in the Southern Liter- in 1838; reprinted in Collected Works) ary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) “Address on the Subject of a Surveying and Exploring “Memorials of Mrs. Hemans, with Illustrations of Her Expedition to the Pacific Ocean and South Seas. Literary Character from Her Private Correspon- Delivered In the Hall of Representatives on the dence. By Henry F. Chorley. New York: Saunders Evening of April 3, 1836. By J. N. Reynolds. With & Otley” (October 1836; review; first published in Correspondence and Documents. New York: Pub- the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Col- lished by Harper & Row” (January 1837; review; lected Works) first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; “A New and Compendious Latin Grammar; With reprinted in Collected Works) Appropriate Exercises, Analytical and Synthetical. “Astoria; or, Anecdotes of an Enterprise beyond the For the Use of Primary Schools, Academies, and Rocky Mountains. By Washington Irving. Phila- Colleges. By Baynard R. Hall, A.M., Principal of delphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard” (January 1837; the Bedford Classical and Mathematical Academy, review; first published in the Southern Literary Mes- and Formerly Professor of the Ancient Languages of senger; reprinted in Collected Works) the College of Indiana. Philadelphia: Harrison Hall” “George Balcombe. A Novel. New York. Harper & (October 1836; review; first published in the South- Brothers” (January 1837; review; first published in ern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Col- “Peter Snook” (October 1836; essay; first published in lected Works) the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Col- “Select Orations of Cicero: with an English Com- lected Works) mentary, and Historical, Geographical and Legal “Posthumous Memoirs of His Own Time. By Sir N. W. Indexes. By Charles Anthon, LL.D., Jay—Profes- Wraxall, Baronet. Author of ‘Memoirs of My Own sor of Ancient Literature in Columbia College, and Time.’ Philadelphia: Republished by Carey, Lea & Rector of the Grammar School. New York: Harper Blanchard” (October 1836; review; first published & Brothers” (January 1837; review; first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works) Collected Works) “Skimmings; or A Winter At Schloss Hainfeld in “Sonnet: To Zante” (January 1837; poem; first pub- Lower Styria. By Captain Basil Hall, Royal Navy, lished in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted F.R.S. Philadelphia: Replenished By Carey, Lea & in The Raven and Other Poems in 1845; reprinted in Blanchard” (October 1836; review; first published Collected Works) in the Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in “Mystification” (June 1837; short story; first published Collected Works) in the New York American Monthly Magazine under

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the title of “Von Jung, the Mystific”; reprinted icle and Mirror of the Times; reprinted in Collected under the same name in Tales of the Grotesque and Works) Arabesque; retitled and reprinted in the Broadway “A Synopsis of Natural History; Embracing the Natural Journal for December 27, 1845; reprinted in Col- History of Animals, with Human and General Ani- lected Works) mal Physiology, Botany, Vegetable Physiology, and “Review of Stephens’ Arabia Petraea” (October 1837; Geology. Translated From the Latest French Edition review; first published in the New York Review; of C. Lemmonnier, Professor of Natural History in reprinted in Collected Works) the Royal College of Charlemagne; With Addi- “Ligeia” (September 1838; short story; first published tions From the Works of Cuvier, Dumaril, Lace- in the Baltimore American Museum; reprinted with pede, Etc., Arranged as a Text Book for Schools. the addition of the poem “The Conqueror Worm” By Thomas Wyatt, A.M., Author of Elements of in the New York World for February 15, 1845; Botany, a Manual of Conchology, Etc. Thomas reprinted in the Broadway Journal for September Wardle, Philadelphia” (July 1839; review; first pub- 27, 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) lished in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine; reprinted “How to Write a Blackwood Article” (November in Collected Works) 1838; short story; first published under the title “The Man That Was Used Up. A Tale of the Late “The Psyche Zenobia” in the Baltimore American Bugaboo and Kickapoo Campaign” (August 1839; Museum; reprinted under the present title in the short story; first published in Burton’s Gentleman’s Broadway Journal for July 12, 1845; reprinted in Magazine; revised and reprinted in Tales of the Gro- Collected Works) tesque and Arabesque; reprinted in Collected Works) “A Predicament” (November 1838; short story; first “The Fall of the House of Usher” (September 1839; published under the title “The Scythe of Time” short story; first published in Burton’s Gentleman’s in the Baltimore American Museum; retitled and Magazine; reprinted in Tales By Edgar A. Poe in reprinted in Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) 1840; reprinted in Collected Works) “Undine: A Miniature Romance; From the German “Silence—A Fable” (1838; short story; first pub- of Baron De La Motte Fouqué. Colman’s Library lished as “Siope—A Fable” in the Baltimore Book; of Romance, Edited by Grenville Mellen. Samuel reprinted as “Siope—A Fable” in Tales of the Gro- Colman, New York” (September 1839; review; tesque and Arabesque in 1840; reprinted under the first published in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine; title “Silence—A Fable” in the Broadway Journal for reprinted in Collected Works) September 6, 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) “William Wilson” (October 1839; short story; first pub- “Literary Small Talk” (January–February 1839; essay; lished in The Gift: A Christmas and New Year’s Pres- first published in the American Museum of Sci- ent for 1840, which appeared mid-1839; reprinted ence, Literature and the Arts; reprinted in Collected in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine for October 1839; Works) reprinted in Collected Works) “The Haunted Palace” (April 1839; poem; first pub- “Hyperion: A Romance. By the Author of ‘Outremer.’ lished in Baltimore American Museum and later Two Volumes. Samuel Colman, New York” (Octo- incorporated into Poe’s short story “The Fall of the ber 1839; review; first published in Burton’s Gentle- House of Usher;” reprinted in Collected Works) man’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) “Preface and Introduction to ‘The Conchologist’s First “The Canons of Good Breeding or the Handbook of Book,’ 1839” (April 1839; essay; first published as the Man of Fashion. By the Author of the ‘Laws part of the scientific manual on conchology, whose of Etiquette.’ Lea & Blanchard, Philadelphia” complete title is The Conchologists’s First Book: or, (November 1839; review; first published in Bur- A System of Testaceous Malacology; reprinted in Col- ton’s Gentleman’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected lected Works) Works) “The Devil in the Belfry” (May 18, 1839; short story; “Address Delivered before the Goethean and Diag- first published in the Philadelphia Saturday Chron- nothian Societies of Marshall College, at Their

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Annual Celebration, September 24, 1839. By By the Rev. Henry Duncan, D.D., Ruthwell, Scot- Joseph O. Chandler” (December 1839; review; land. With Important Additions, and Some Modi- first published in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine; fications to Adapt It To American Readers. By F. reprinted in Collected Works) W. P. Greenwood. In Four Volumes. Marsh, Capen, “The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion.” (December Lyon, & Webb, Boston” (March 1840; review; 1839; short story; first published in Burton’s Gentle- first published in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine; man’s Magazine; reprinted in Tales of the Grotesque reprinted in Collected Works) and Arabesque in 1839; reprinted in Collected Works) “Memoirs and Letters of Madame Malibran. By the “National Melodies of America. By George P. Mor- Countess de Merlin. With Notices of the Progress ris, Esq.” (December 1839; review; first published of the Musical Drama in England. In Two Volumes. in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine under the title Carey & Hart, Philadelphia.” (May 1840; review; “George P. Morris”; revised and retitled for publica- first published in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine; tion in the Southern Literary Messenger for April reprinted in Collected Works) 1840; reprinted in Collected Works) “The Philosophy of Furniture” (May 1840; essay; Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1839; collection first published in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine; of 25 stories in two volumes) reprinted in Collected Works) “Tortesa, the Usurer: A Play. By N. P. Willis. Sam- “Some Account of Stonehenge, the Giant’s Dance, uel Colman, New York” (August 1845; review; A Druidical Ruin in England” (June 1840; essay; first published in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine; first published in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) reprinted in Collected Works) “Alciphron: A Poem. By Thomas Moore, Esq., Author “The Man of the Crowd” (December 1840; short of ‘Lalla Rookh,’ Etc., Etc. Carey & Hart, Phila- story; first published in Atkinson’s Casket; reprinted delphia.” (January 1840; review; first published in simultaneously in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine; Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine; reprinted in Col- reprinted in Collected Works) lected Works) “Why the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a The Journal of Julius Rodman, Being an Account of the Sling” (1840; short story collection; first published First Passage across the Rocky Mountains of North in Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque; reprinted America Ever Achieved by Civilized Man (January– in the Broadway Journal for September 6, 1845; June 1840; unfinished serialized novel; first pub- reprinted in Collected Works) lished in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine; reprinted “Mercedes of Castile, A Romance, By James Fenimore in Collected Works) Cooper. Two Volumes. Lea & Blanchard, 1840” “Silence—A Sonnet” (January 4, 1840; poem; first (January 1841; review; first published in Graham’s published in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier; Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) reprinted in the Broadway Journal for July 26, 1845; “The Antediluvians, or the World Destroyed: A Nar- reprinted in The Raven and Other Poems in 1845; rative Poem, In Ten Books. By James McHenry, reprinted in Collected Works) M.D., Author of the ‘Pleasures of Friendship,’ ETC. “The Business Man” (February 1840; short story; One Volume. J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia” first published under the title of “Peter Pendu- (February 1841; review; first published in Graham’s lum” in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine; retitled and Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) reprinted in the Broadway Journal for August 2, “The Tower of London: A Historical Romance. By 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) W. H. Ainsworth. Author of ‘Jack Shepherd.’ One “Voices of the Night. By Henry Wadsworth Long- Volume. Lea & Blanchard, Philadelphia, 1841” fellow. John Owen, Cambridge” (February 1840; (March 1841; review; first published in Graham’s review; first published in Burton’s Gentleman’s Mag- Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) azine; reprinted in Collected Works) “A Descent Into the Maelstrom” (April 1841; short “Sacred Philosophy of the Seasons, Illustrating the story; first published in Graham’s Magazine; Perfections of God in the Phenomena of the Year. reprinted in Collected Works)

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“The Murders In the Rue Morgue” (April 1841; “Life and Literary Remains of L. E. L. By Laman short story; first published in Graham’s Magazine; Blanchard. Two Volumes. Lea & Blanchard” reprinted in Collected Works) (August 1841; review; first published in Graham’s “Sketches of Conspicuous Living Characters of France. Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) Translated by R. M. Walsh. Lea & Blanchard” “The Biography and Poetical Remains of the Late Mar- (April 1841; review; first published in Graham’s garet Miller Davidson. By Washington Irving. Phil- Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) adelphia, Lea & Blanchard” (August 1841; review; “Night and Morning: A Novel. By the Author of ‘Pel- first published in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in ham,’ ‘Rienzi,’ ‘Eugene Aram,’ etc. Two Volumes. Collected Works) Republished by Harper & Brothers, New York” “Addendum to ‘A Few Words on Secret Writing’ ” (April 1841; review; first published in Graham’s (August 1841; article; first published in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) “Master Humphrey’s Clock. By Charles Dickens. “The Colloquy of Monos and Una” (August 1841; (Boz.) With Ninety-One Illustrations by George short story; first published in Graham’s Maga- Cattermole and Hablot Browne. Philadelphia, Lea zine; reprinted in Tales By Edgar A. Poe in 1845; and Blanchard; The Old Curiosity Shop, and Other reprinted in Collected Works) Tales. By Charles Dickens. With Numerous Illustra- “Incidents of Travel in Central America, Etc. By John tions by Cattermole and Browne. Philadelphia, Lea L. Stephens. Two Volumes. New York, Harper & & Blanchard” (May 1841; review; first published in Brothers” (August 1841; review; first published in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) “Writings of Charles Sprague. Now First Collected. “The Quacks of Helicon: A Satire. By L. A. Wilmer” Charles S. Francis, New York” (May 1841; review; (August 1841; review; first published in Graham’s first published in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) Collected Works) “Joseph Rushbrook: or, The Poacher. By Captain “Corse de Leon: Or the Brigand. A Romance, by G. P. Marryat, Author of ‘Peter Simple,’ ‘Jacob Faith- R. James. Two Volumes. Harper & Brothers” (June ful,’ Etc., Etc. Two Volumes. Philadelphia, Carey & 1841; review; first published in Graham’s Magazine; Hart” (September 1841; review; first published in reprinted in Collected Works) Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) “Critical and Miscellaneous Essays. By T. Babington “Life of Petrarch. By Thomas Campbell, Esq., Author Macaulay. Carey & Hart, Philadelphia” (June 1841; of ‘The Pleasures of Hope,’ Etc., Complete in One first published in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Volume. Philadelphia, Carey & Hart” (September Collected Works) 1841; review; first published in Graham’s Magazine; “The Island of the Fay” (June 1841; short story; first reprinted in Collected Works) published in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Col- “Never Bet the Devil Your Head: A Tale With a lected Works) Moral” (September 1841; short story; first pub- “A Few Words on Secret Writing” (July 1841; essay; lished under the title “Never Bet Your Head: A first published in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Moral Tale” in Graham’s Magazine; retitled and Collected Works) reprinted in the Broadway Journal for August 16, “Grammar of the English Language, in a Series of 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) Letters, Addressed to Every American Youth. “The Pic Nic Papers. By Various Hands. Edited by By Hugh A. Pue. Philadelphia, Published by the Charles Dickens, Esq., Author of ‘The Pickwick Author” (July 1841; review; first published in Gra- Papers,’ etc. Two Volumes. Lea & Blanchard, ham’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) Phila-delphia” (November 1841; review; first pub- “Powhatan: a Metrical Romance in Seven Cantos. By lished in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected Seba Smith. New York, Harper & Brothers” (July Works) 1841; review; first published in Graham’s Magazine; “Guy Fawkes; or, The Gunpowder Treason. An His- reprinted in Collected Works) torical Romance. By William Harrison Ainsworth.

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Author of ‘The Tower of London,’ ‘Jack Sheppard,’ lished in the Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post; Etc. Philadelphia, Lea & Blanchard” (November reprinted in Collected Works) 1841; review; first published in Graham’s Magazine; “A Few Words about Brainard” (February 1842; reprinted in Collected Works) review; first published in Graham’s Magazine; “Ten Thousand a Year. By the Author of ‘The Diary reprinted in Collected Works) of a London Physician.’ Carey & Hart, Philadel- “Wakondah; The Master of Life. A Poem. George L. phia” (November 1841; review; first published in Curry & Co.: New York” (February 1842; review; Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) first published in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in “Three Sundays in a Week” (November 27, 1841; Collected Works) short story; first published under the title “A Suc- “The Critical and Miscellaneous Writings of Henry cession of Sundays” in the Philadelphia Saturday Lord Brougham, to Which Is Prefixed a Sketch Evening Post; republished under the present title in of His Character. Two Vols. Lea & Blanchard” the Broadway Journal for May 10, 1845; reprinted (March 1842; review; first published in Graham’s in Collected Works) Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) “A Chapter on Autography” (November and Decem- “Charles O’Malley, the Irish Dragoon. By Harry Lorre- ber 1841, January 1842; article series; first pub- quer. With Forty Illustrations by Phiz. Complete in lished in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected One Volume. Carey & Hart: Philadelphia” (March Works) 1842; review; first published in Graham’s Magazine; “Poetical Remains of the Late Lucretia Maria David- reprinted in Collected Works) son. Collected and Arranged By Her Mother, With “Ballads and Other Poems. By Henry Wadsworth a Biography By Miss Sedgwick. Lea & Blanchard, Longfellow, Author of ‘Voices of the Night,’ ‘Hyper- Philadelphia” (December 1841; review; first pub- ion,’ & c. Second Edition. John Owen, Cambridge” lished in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected (March and April 1842; review; first published in Works) Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) “Eleonora” (1842; short story; first published in The “Ideals and Other Poems. By Algernon Henry Per- Gift: A Christmas and New Year’s Present for 1842; kins. Philadelphia” (April 1842; review; first pub- reprinted in the Broadway Journal for May 24, lished in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) Works) “Stanley Thorn. By Henry Cockton, Esq., Author “The Oval Portrait” (April 1842; short story; first of ‘Valentine Vox, the Ventriloquist,’ &c., with published under the title “Life in Death” in Gra- Numerous Illustrations, Designed by Cruikshank, ham’s Magazine; retitled “The Oval Portrait” and Leech, &c., and Engraved By Yeager. Lea & reprinted in the Broadway Journal for April 26, Blanchard: Philadelphia” (January 1842; review; 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) first published in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in “Tale-Writing—Nathaniel Hawthorne.—Twice-Told Collected Works) Tales. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. James Munroe & “The Vicar of Wakefield. A Tale. By Oliver Gold- Co., Boston. 1842.—Mosses From an Old Manse. smith, M.B. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. Wiley & Putnam, New With an Account of the Author’s Life and Writ- York. 1856” (April and May 1842; review; first pub- ings. By J. Aikin, M.D., Author of Select Works of lished in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected the British Poets. D. Appleton & Co.: New York” Works) (January 1842; review; first published in Graham’s “The Masque of the Red Death” (May 1842; short Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) story; first published under the title “The Mask of “Barnaby Rudge. By Charles Dickens, (Boz) Author the Red Death” in Graham’s Magazine; retitled and of ‘The Old Curiosity Shop,’ ‘Pickwick,’ ‘Oliver reprinted in the Broadway Journal for July 19, 1845; Twist,’ &c, &c. With Numerous Illustrations. By reprinted in Collected Works) Cattermole, Browne & Sibson. Lea & Blanchard: “The Poets and Poetry of America, with an Historical Philadelphia” (February 1842; review; first pub- Introduction. By Rufus Wilmot Griswold. One Vol.

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Carey & Hart: Philadelphia” (June 1842; review; “The Gold-Bug” (June 21 and 28, 1843; short story; first published in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in first published in Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper; Collected Works) reprinted in Collected Works) “Zanoni, A Novel. By the Author of ‘Pelham,’ ‘Rienzi,’ “The Black Cat” (August 19, 1843; short story; &c. Two Volumes. Harper & Brothers” (June first published in the United States Saturday Post; 1842; review; first published in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) reprinted in Collected Works) “Our Amateur Poets, No. III. William Ellery Chan- “The Domain of Arnheim, or the Landscape Garden” ning” (August 1843; review; first published in Gra- (October 1842; short story; first published under ham’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) the title “The Landscape Garden” in Snowden’s “Our Contributors, No. VIII.—Fitz-Greene Halleck” Ladies’ Companion; retitled and reprinted in Colum- (September 1843; review; first published in Gra- bian Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine for March ham’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) 1847; reprinted in Collected Works) “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” “The Poetry of Rufus Dawes—A Retrospective Criti- (October 14, 1843; short story; first published cism” (October 1842; review; first published in under the title “Raising the Wind; or, Diddling Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) Considered as One of the Exact Sciences”; “Mr. Griswold and the Poets” (November 1842; retitled and reprinted in the Broadway Journal review; first published in the Boston Miscellany; for September 13, 1845; reprinted in Collected reprinted in Collected Works) Works) “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt. A Sequel to ‘The Mur- “Wyandotté, or The Hutted Knoll. A Tale, By the ders In the Rue Morgue’ ” (November and Decem- Author of ‘The Pathfinder,’ ‘Deerslayer,’ ‘Last of ber 1842, February 1843, short story; first published the Mohicans,’ ‘Pioneers,’ ‘Prairie,’ &c., &c. Lea & in serialized form in Snowden’s Ladies’ Companion; Blanchard: Philadelphia” (November 1843; review; reprinted in Collected Works) first published in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in “The Pit and the Pendulum” (1843; short story; first Collected Works) published in The Gift: A Christmas and New Year’s “The Purloined Letter” (1844; short story; first pub- Present for 1843; reprinted with slight revision in lished in The Gift: A Christmas and New Year’s Pres- the Broadway Journal for May 17, 1845; reprinted ent for 1844; reprinted in Tales By Edgar A. Poe in in Collected Works) 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) “The Conqueror Worm” (January 1843; poem; first “Orion: An Epic Poem in Three Books. By R. H. published in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in The Horne. Fourth Edition. Published by J. Miller: Lon- Raven and Other Poems in 1845; incorporated into don” (March 1844; review; first published in Gra- the text of the short story “Ligeia” when the story ham’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) was reprinted in the Broadway Journal for Septem- “Poems by James Russell Lowell. Published by John ber 27, 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) Owen: Cambridge” (March 1844; review; first pub- “The Tell-Tale Heart” (January 1843; short story; first lished in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected published in the Pioneer; reprinted in Collected Works) Works) “The Spectacles” (March 27, 1844; short story; “Our Amateur Poets, No. I.—Flaccus” (March 1843; first published in Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper; review; first published in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in the Broadway Journal for March 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) reprinted in Collected Works) “The Rationale of Verse” (March 1843; essay; first “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains” (April 1844; short published under the title “Notes on English Verse” story; first published in Godey’s Magazine and in the Pioneer; revised and reprinted under the title Lady’s Book; reprinted in the Broadway Journal for “The Rationale of Verse” in the Southern Literary November 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) Messenger for October–November 1848; reprinted “The Balloon-Hoax” (April 13, 1844; short story; first in Collected Works) published as a newspaper article in the Extra Sun;

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reprinted in the New York Sunday Times for April “The Raven” (January 29, 1845; poem; first pub- 14, 1844; reprinted in Collected Works) lished in the New York Evening Mirror; reprinted in “Dream-Land” (June 1844; poem; first published in American Whig Review for February 1845; reprinted Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in the Broadway in The Raven and Other Poems in 1845; reprinted in Journal for June 28, 1845; reprinted in Collected Collected Works) Works) “Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison-House” (Febru- “The Premature Burial” (July 31, 1844; short story; ary 15, 1845; first published in the Broadway Jour- first published in the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper; nal; reprinted in Collected Works) reprinted in Collected Works) “The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade” “Mesmeric Revelation” (August 1844; short story; first (February 1845; short story; first published in published in Columbian Magazine; reprinted in the Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book; reprinted in the Philadelphia Saturday Museum for August 31, 1844; Broadway Journal for October 25, 1845; reprinted reprinted in Collected Works) in Collected Works) “The Oblong Box” (September 1844; short story; first “A Continuation of the Voluminous History of the published in Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book for Little Longfellow War—Mr. Poe’s Further Reply September 1844; reprinted in Collected Works) to the Letter of Outis” (March 5, 15, 22, 25, and “The Angel of the Odd” (October 1844; short story; April 1845; series of articles; first published in the first published in Columbian Magazine; reprinted in Broadway Journal; reprinted in Collected Works) Collected Works) “Satirical Poems” (March 15, 1845; essay; first pub- “Thou Art the Man” (November 1844; short story; lished in the Broadway Journal; reprinted in Col- first published in Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book; lected Works) reprinted in Collected Works) “Address of the Carriers of the Cincinnati Daily Amer- “Amelia Welby” (December 1844; review; first pub- ican Republican to Its Patrons, for January, 1845” lished in the Democratic Review; reprinted in Col- (March 22, 1845; review; first published in the lected Works) Broadway Journal; reprinted in Collected Works) “Byron and Miss Chaworth” (December 1844; essay; “Some Words with a Mummy” (April 1845; short first published in Columbian Magazine; reprinted in story; first published in the American Review; Collected Works) reprinted in the Broadway Journal for November 1, “The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq. Late Editor 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) of the ‘Goosetherumfoodle.’ by Himself” (Decem- “Human Magnetism; Its Claim to Dispassionate Inquiry. ber 1844; short story; first published in the South- Being an Attempt to Show the Utility of Its Appli- ern Literary Messenger; revised and reprinted in the cation for the Relief of Human Suffering. By W. Broadway Journal for July 26, 1845; reprinted in Newnham, Esq., M.R.S.L., Author of the ‘Reciprocal Collected Works) Influence of Body and Mind,’ Etc. New York: Wiley “The Elk” (1844; travel essay; first published in the & Putnam” (April 5, 1845; review; first published in annual The Opal for 1844; reprinted in Collected the Broadway Journal; reprinted in Collected Works) Works) “Anastatic Printing” (April 12, 1845; essay; first pub- “The Drama of Exile and Other Poems: By Elizabeth lished in the Broadway Journal; reprinted in Col- Barrett Barrett, Author of ‘The Seraphim,’ and lected Works) Other Poems” (January 4 and 11, 1845; review; “The Antigone at Palmo’s” (April 12, 1845; review; first published in the Broadway Journal; reprinted first published in Broadway Journal; reprinted in in Collected Works) Collected Works) “American Prose Writers. No. 2. N. P. Willis. New “A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Views—Imagination—Fancy—Fantasy—Humor— Edited by William Smith, Ph.D., and Illustrated Wit—Sarcasm—The Prose Style of Mr. Willis” by Numerous Engravings on Wood. Third Ameri- (January 18, 1845; review; first published in the can Edition, Carefully Revised, and Containing Broadway Journal; reprinted in Collected Works) Numerous Additional Articles Relative to the Bot-

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any, Mineralogy, and Zoology of the Ancients. By “The Drama” (2) (July 26, 1845; review; first pub- Charles Anthon, LLD. New York: Harper & Broth- lished in the Broadway Journal; reprinted in Col- ers” (April 12, 1845; review; first published in the lected Works) Broadway Journal; reprinted in Collected Works) “A Chaunt of Life and Other Poems, With Sketches “Achilles’ Wrath” (April 18, 1845; essay; first pub- and Essays. By Rev. Ralph Hoyt. In Six Parts. Part lished in the Broadway Journal; reprinted in Col- II. New York: Le Roy & Hoyt” (July 26, 1845; lected Works) review; first published in the Broadway Journal; “Street Paving” (April 19, 1845; essay; first published reprinted in Collected Works) in the Broadway Journal; reprinted in Collected “The American Drama” (August 1845; essay; first Works) published in American Whig Review; reprinted in “To F———” (April 26, 1845; poem; first published in Collected Works) the Broadway Journal; retitled “To Frances,” short- “The Fortune Hunter; or The Adventures of a Man ened, and reprinted in the Broadway Journal for About Town. A Novel of New York Society. By September 6, 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) Mrs. Anna Cora Mowatt, Author of Fashion, “Fifty Suggestions” (May and June 1845; collection of Etc. New York. William Taylor” (August 2, 1845; brief articles; first published in Graham’s Magazine; review; first published in the Broadway Journal; reprinted in Collected Works) reprinted in Collected Works) “The Power of Words” (June 1845; short story; first “The Lost Pleiad; And Other Poems. By T. H. Chiv- published in the Democratic Review; reprinted ers, M.D. New York: Edward O. Jenkins” (August in the Broadway Journal for October 25, 1845; 2, 1845; review; first published in the Broadway reprinted in Collected Works) Journal; reprinted in Collected Works) “Plato Contra Atheos.—Plato against the Athe- “Editorial Miscellany” (August 9, 1845; brief article; ists; or the Tenth Book of the Dialogue on Laws, first published in the Broadway Journal; reprinted Accompanied with Critical Notes, and Followed in Collected Works) by Extended Dissertations on Some of the Main “Ettore Fleramosca, or the Challenge of Barletta, An Points of the Platonic Philosophy and Theology Historical Romance of the Times of the Medici, by Especially as Compared with the Holy Scriptures, Massimo D’Azeglio. Translated from the Italian by by Tayler Lewis, LL.D., Professor of the Greek C. Edwards Lester, U.S. Consul at Genoa, Author Language and Literature, in the University in the of ‘The Glory and Shame of England,’ Member of City of New York.—New York, Harper & Broth- the Ateneo Italiano at Florence, Etc. New York: ers” (June 21, 1845; review; first published in the Paine & Burgess” (August 9, 1845; review; first Broadway Journal; reprinted in Collected Works) published in the Broadway Journal; reprinted in “Eulalie—A Song” (July 1845; poem; first published in Collected Works) the American Review; reprinted in the Broadway Jour- “A Catholic Hymn” (August 16, 1845; poem; first nal for August 9, 1845; reprinted in The Raven and published in the Broadway Journal; reprinted in Other Poems in 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) Collected Works) “The Imp of the Perverse” (July 1845; short story; first “The Characters of Shakespeare. By William Hazlitt. published in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Col- Wiley & Putnam’s Library of Choice Reading. No. lected Works) XVII” (August 16, 1845; review; first published “The Coming of the Mammoth—The Funeral of in the Broadway Journal; reprinted in Collected Time and Other Poems. By Henry B. Hirst, Bos- Works) ton: Philips & Sampson” (July 12, 1845; review; “Dashes At Life with a Free Pencil. By N. P. Willis. Part first published in the Broadway Journal; reprinted III. Loiterings of Travel. New York. J. S. Redfield” in Collected Works) (August 23, 1845; first published in the Broadway “The Drama” (1) (July 19, 1845; review; first pub- Journal; reprinted in Collected Works) lished in the Broadway Journal; reprinted in Col- “The Poetical Writings of Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith. lected Works) First Complete Edition. New York; J. S. Redfield”

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(August 23, 1845; review; published in the Broad- “A Chapter of Suggestions” (1845; essay; first pub- way Journal) lished in the annual The Opal for 1845; reprinted “The Indicator and Companion. By Leigh Hunt. in Collected Works) Wiley & Putnam’s Library of Choice Reading. No. The Raven and Other Poems (November 1845; poetry XX. Part II” (August 30, 1845; review; first pub- collection) lished in the Broadway Journal; reprinted in Col- “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether” lected Works) (November 1845; short story; first published in “Coxe’s Saul.” (September 6, 1845; review; first pub- Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in Collected Works) lished in the Broadway Journal; reprinted in Col- “Alice Ray: A Romance In Rhyme. By Mrs. Sarah lected Works) Josepha Hale. Author of ‘Northwood’ Etc., Etc. “Festus: A Poem by Philip James Bailey, Barrister at Philadelphia” (November 1, 1845; review; first Law. First American Edition. Boston: Benjamin P. published in the Broadway Journal; reprinted in Mussey. For Sale in New York by Redfield & Com- Collected Works) pany” (September 6, 1845; review; first published in “Boston and the Bostonians. Editorial Miscellany” the Broadway Journal; reprinted in Collected Works) (November 1 and 22, 1845; two essays; first pub- “Genius and the Character of Burns. By Professor lished in the Broadway Journal; reprinted in Col- Wilson. Wiley & Putnam’s Library of Choice Read- lected Works) ing. No. XXI” (September 6, 1845; review; first “America and the American People. By Frederick von published in the Broadway Journal; reprinted in Raumer, Professor of History in the University of Collected Works) Berlin, Etc. Etc. Translated from the German by “Big Abel and the Little Manhattan” (September 27, William W. Turner. New York; J. & G. H. Langley” 1845; review; first published in the Broadway Jour- (November 29, 1845; review; first published in the nal; reprinted in Collected Works) Broadway Journal; reprinted in Collected Works) “The Prose Works of John Milton, With a Biographi- “Brook Farm” (December 13, 1845; review; first pub- cal Introduction by Rufus Wilmot Griswold. In Two lished in the Broadway Journal; reprinted in Col- Volumes. Philadelphia: Herman Hooker” (Septem- lected Works) ber 27, 1845; review; first published in the Broad- “Poems. By Frances S. Osgood. New York: Clark & way Journal; reprinted in Collected Works) Austin” (December 13, 1845; review; first pub- “Wiley & Putnam’s Library of American Books. lished in the Broadway Journal; reprinted in Col- No. IV. The Wigwam and the Cabin. By William lected Works) Gilmore Simms” (October 4, 1845; review; first “The Facts In the Case of M. Valdemar” (Decem- published in the Broadway Journal; reprinted in ber 1845; short story; first published in the Ameri- Collected Works) can Review; reprinted in the Broadway Journal for “The Broken Vow and Other Poems. By Amanda December 20, 1845; reprinted in Collected Works) M. Edmond. Boston: Gould, Kendall & Lincoln” Tales By Edgar A. Poe (1845; short story collection) (October 11, 1845; review; first published in the “The Wigwam and the Cabin. By William Gilmore Broadway Journal; reprinted in Collected Works) Simms. First Series. Wiley & Putnam’s Library of “Historical Sketch; of the Second War between the American Books. No. IV” (January 1846; review; United States of America and Great Britain, first published in Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book; Declared by Act of Congress, the 18th of June, reprinted in Collected Works) 1812, and Concluded by Peace, the 15th of Febru- “A Valentine” (February 13, 1846; poem written as ary, 1815. By Charles J. Ingersoll. In Three Vol- a Valentine’s Day gift for Frances Osgood; first umes. Vol. I. Embracing the Events of 1812–13. published under the title “To Her Whose Name Philadelphia. Lea & Blanchard” (October 11, is Written Below” in the New York Evening Mir- 1845; review; first published in the Broadway Jour- ror for February 21, 1846; reprinted in Collected nal; reprinted in Collected Works) Works)

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“The Philosophy of Composition” (April 1846; essay; “Mellonta Tauta” (February 1849; short story; first first published in Graham’s Magazine; reprinted in published in Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book; Collected Works) reprinted in Collected Works) “The Songs of Our Land, and Other Poems, by Mary “Hop-Frog” (March 17, 1849; short story; first pub- E. Hewitt. Boston. William D. Ticknor & Co.” lished in the Flag of Our Union; reprinted in Col- (October 25, 1846; review; first published in the lected Works) Broadway Journal; reprinted in Godey’s Magazine “A Dream within a Dream” (March 31, 1849; poem; and Lady’s Book for February 1846; reprinted in first published in the Flag of Our Union; reprinted Collected Works) in Collected Works) “The Literati of New York City” (May–October 1846; “Von Kempelen and His Discovery” (April 14, 1849; series of literary and biographical profiles; first short story; first published in the Flag of Our Union; published in Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book; reprinted in Collected Works) reprinted in Collected Works) “Eldorado” (April 21, 1849; poem; first published in the “The Cask of Amontillado” (November 1846; short Flag of Our Union; reprinted in Collected Works) story; first published in Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s “For Annie” (April 28, 1849; poem; first published in Book; reprinted in Collected Works) the Flag of Our Union and in the Home Journal on “To M. L. S.———” (March 13, 1847; poem; first the same day; reprinted in Collected Works) published in the Home Journal; reprinted in Col- “Annabel Lee” (May 1849; poem; first appeared as lected Works) part of Poe’s obituary in the New York Tribune on “Ulalume” (December 1847; poem; first published October 9, 1849; reprinted in the Southern Literary anonymously in the American Whig Review; Messenger for November 1849; reprinted in Sar- reprinted in Collected Works) tain’s Union Magazine for January 1850; reprinted “An Enigma” (March 1848; riddle poem; first pub- in Collected Works) lished in the Union Magazine of Literature and Art; “X-ing a Paragrab” (May 12, 1849; short story; first reprinted in Collected Works) published in the Flag of Our Union; reprinted in “Eureka: An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Uni- Collected Works) verse” (1848; scientific essay; reprinted in Collected “Landor’s Cottage. A Pendant to ‘The Domain of Works) Arnheim’ ” (June 9, 1849; short story; first pub- “The Bells” (May 1848; poem; published posthu- lished in the Flag of Our Union; reprinted in Col- mously in Sartain’s Union Magazine for November lected Works) 1849; reprinted in Collected Works) “To My Mother” (July 7, 1849; poem; first published “The Child of the Sea, and Other Poems. By S. Anna in the Flag of Our Union; reprinted in the annual Lewis, Author of ‘Records of the Heart,’ Etc., Etc.” Leaflets of Memory for 1850; reprinted in Collected (September 1848; review; first published in the Works) Southern Literary Messenger; reprinted in Collected “About Critics and Criticism: By the Late Edgar A. Works) Poe” (1840; essay; published posthumously in Gra- “To Helen” (2) (November 1848; second poem of this ham’s Magazine for January 1850; reprinted in Col- title and addressed to Sarah Helen Whitman; first lected Works) published in Sartain’s Union Magazine; reprinted in “Sacred Mountains, The: By J. T. Headley,—Author Collected Works) of ‘Napoleon and His Marshalls,’ ‘Washington and “The Poetic Principle” (December 1848; essay; first His Generals, Etc.’ ” (October 1850; review; first published in the Southern Literary Messenger; published posthumously in the Southern Literary reprinted in Collected Works) Messenger; reprinted in Collected Works)

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University of California Johns Hopkins University San Diego Central University Library Milton S. Eisenhower Library Mandeville Department of Special Collections Special Collections La Jolla, CA 92093 John Work Garrett Library Telephone: (858) 534-2533 4545 N. Charles Street Holdings include first and important editions of his Baltimore, MD 21210 works. Telephone: (410) 516-0341 Holdings include music related to the works of Poe, University of Chicago Library as cataloged in Music and Edgar Allan Poe: A Bib- Department of Special Collections liographical Study, by Mary Garrettson Evans (Balti- 110 E. 57th Street more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1939). Chicago, IL 60637 Telephone: (312) 702-8705 Holdings include a collection of first and early edi- Bronx County Historical Society tions, including rare works by Edgar Allan Poe and Bronx County Research Library Nathaniel Hawthorne. 3309 Bainbridge Avenue Bronx, New York 10467 Indiana University Telephone: (212) 881-8900 Lilly Library Holdings include cataloged manuscripts, pictures, Seventh Street slides, audiotapes, films, filmstrips. The society Bloomington, IN 47405 also maintains the Poe Cottage at Fordham, in Poe Telephone: (812) 855-2452 Park. Holdings include first and early editions, as well as manuscripts including correspondence and papers Free Library of Philadelphia relating to Poe. The library also contains corre- Rare Book Department spondence of Sarah Helen Whitman related to her 1901 Vine Street friendship with Poe. Philadelphia, PA 19103-1189 Telephone: (215) 686-5416 University of Iowa Libraries Holdings include the Colonel Richard Gimble Col- Department of Special Collections lection of Edgar Allan Poe, including first editions, Iowa City, IA 52242 manuscripts, autograph letters, reprints, illustrated Telephone: (319) 335–5921 editions, foreign editions, periodicals, and newspa- Holdings include Poe-related books and articles col- pers. The library also contains biographical materi- lected by the late critic Thomas Ollive Mabbott. als and literary criticism of the time. 428

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Brown University University of Virginia John Hay Library Charlottesville, VA 22904 20 Prospect Street, Box A Fax: (804) 924-1431 Providence, RI 02912 Holdings include approximately 10,000 pieces of Telephone: (401) 863-3723 Poe-related material in the Poe-Ingram Collection. Holdings contain a collection of approximately Included are letters, manuscripts, photographs, 500 pieces of correspondence, articles, and notes printed matter, and biographical source materi- by Sarah Helen Whitman on a range of subjects, als collected by Poe and biographer John Henry including Poe, spiritualism, American and English Ingram, including many rarely seen copies and literature, and personal matters. The holdings also many formerly unknown copies of Poe letters. include correspondence and copies of letters, manuscripts, and reminiscences gathered by Whitman’s Clifton Waller Barrett Library literary heirs, as well as letters from Maria Clemm Special Collections Department to Whitman about Poe. Alderman Library P.O. Box 400110 University of Virginia University of Texas Charlottesville, VA 22904-4110 University of Texas Libraries Fax (804) 924-4968 Humanities Research Center Holdings include rare editions of Poe’s works, Austin, TX 78713-7219 many in excellent condition, as well as manuscripts Telephone: (512) 471-9119 and letters. Holdings include a comprehensive collection of printed works, 25 manuscripts of poems, stories, The Edgar Allan Poe Library and essays, nearly 100 letters, as well as an extensive 1914-16 E. Main Street body of manuscripts and letters from Poe’s friends, Richmond, VA 23223 relatives, editors, translators, and biographers. Telephone: (804) 648-5523 Holdings include approximately 10,000 volumes of Alderman Library Poe-related items and manuscripts related to 19th- Manuscripts Department century American literature.

405-442_Poe_p4-bm.indd 429 10/12/07 12:13:32 PM SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Biographical Works ———, “Poe: Real and Reputed,” Godey’s Magazine Allen, Hervey. The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe. 128 (April 1894): 452–455. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1934. Dorset, Gerald. An Aristocrat of the Intellect. London: Bayless, Joy. Rufus Wilmot Griswold: Poe’s Literary Hornsey Printers, 1959. Executor. Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt University Dow, Dorothy. Dark Glory. New York: Farrar & Rine- Press, 1943. hart, 1931. Bittner, William. Poe: A Biography. Boston: Atlantic Gerber, Gerald. “Poe’s Lyttleton Barry and Isaac Monthly Press, 1962. D’Israeli’s Littleton.” Poe Studies 14, no. 2 (1981): Burr, Charles Chauncey. “Character of Edgar A. Poe.” 32. Nineteenth Century (February 1852): 19–33. Gill, William Fearing. “Edgar A. Poe and His Biogra- Campbell, Killis. “The Poe-Griswold Controversy.” pher; A Vindication of Poe from the Aspersions of Publications of the Modern Language Association Rufus W. Griswold.” The Poetical Works of Edgar (PMLA) 34 (September 1919): 436–464. Allan Poe. New York: W. J. Widdleton, 1876, pp. Carter, Dr. John F. “Edgar Poe’s Last Night in Rich- 11–36. mond.” Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine 70 (Novem- Graham, George Rex. “Editor’s Table: The Late Edgar ber 1902): 562–566. Allan Poe.” Graham’s Magazine 36 (March 1850): Chase, Lewis. “John Bransby, Poe’s Schoolmaster.” 224–226. Reprinted in Edgar Allan Poe: The Criti- Athenaeum (May 1916): 221–222. cal Heritage, edited by Ian Walker. London: Rout- Cohen, B. Bernard and Lucien A. “Poe and Griswold ledge & Kegan Paul, 1986, pp. 376–384. Once More.” American Literature 34 (March 1962): ———. “The Genius and Characteristics of Edgar 97–101. Allan Poe.” Graham’s Magazine 44 (February Davidson, James Wood. “Edgar A. Poe.” Russell’s Mag- 1854): 216–225. azine 2 (November 1857): 161–173. Griswold, Rufus Wilmot. “The Chief Tale Writers of Davis, Richard Beale, ed. Chivers’ Life of Poe. New America.” Washington National Intelligencer, August York: E. P. Dutton, 1952. 30, 1845, p. 2. Reprinted in Edgar Allan Poe: The Dean, John. “Poe and the Popular Culture of His Day.” Critical Heritage, edited by Ian Walker. London: Journal of Popular Culture 10 (1987): 35–40. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986, pp. 182–183. Deas, Michael J. The Portraits and Daguerreotypes of ———. (as “Ludwig”). “Death of Edgar Allan Poe.” Edgar Allan Poe. Charlottesville: University Press New York Tribune, October 9, 1849, p. 2. of Virginia, 1989. ———. “The Late Edgar Allan Poe.” Literary Ameri- Didier, Eugene, L. “Life of Poe.” The Life and Poems of can 3 (November 10, 1849): 372–373. Edgar Allan Poe. New York: W. J. Widdleton, 1877, ———. “Edgar Allan Poe.” International Monthly pp. 19–129. Magazine 1 (October 1850): 325–344.

430

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———. “Memoir of the Author.” The Works of the Late ———. Poe’s Helen Remembers. Charlottesville: Uni- Edgar Allan Poe, 3 vols. New York: J. S. Redfield, versity Press of Virginia, 1979. 1850–53, III, pp. vii–xxxix. (After the appearance Moran, Dr. John J. A Defense of Edgar Allan Poe. Wash- of volume 3 in 1856, this memoir was moved to ington, D.C.: W. F. Boogher, 1885. volume I.) Neal, John. “Edgar A. Poe.” Daily Advertiser (Portland, Griswold, W. M., ed. Passages from the Correspondence Me.), April 26, 1850, p. 2. and Other Papers of Rufus W. Griswold. Cambridge, Neu, Jacob L., “Rufus Wilmot Griswold.” University of Mass.: W. M. Griswold, 1898. Texas Studies in English no. 5 (1925): 101–165. Griswold, W. M. “Poe’s Moral Nature.” Nation LX Norman, Emma K. “Poe’s Knowledge of Latin.” Amer- (May 16, 1895): 381–382. ican Literature 6 (1934): 72–77. Haining, Peter, ed. The Edgar Allan Poe Scrapbook: Ostrom, John. “Revised Checklist of the Correspon- Articles, Essays, Letters, Anecdotes, Photographs, and dence of Edgar Allan Poe.” Studies in the American Memorabilia About the Legendary American Genius. Renaissance (1981): 169–255. New York: Schocken Books, 1978. Pannapacker, William A. “A Question of ‘Character’: Ingram, John H. “Memoir of Poe.” The Works of Edgar Visual Images and the Nineteenth-Century Con- Allan Poe. 4 vols, Edinburgh: Black, 1874–75. Vol. struction of Edgar Allan Poe.” Harvard Library Bul- 1, pp. xvii–ci. letin 7 (Fall 1996): 9–24. ———. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters and Opinions. Peck, George W. “[Review of] The Works of Edgar 2 vols. London: John Hogg, 1880. Allan Poe.” American Whig Review 11 (March Ingram, John H. “Memoir of Edgar Allan Poe.” The 1850): 301–315. Complete Poetical Works and Essay on Poetry of Edgar Phillips, Mary Elizabeth. Edgar Allan Poe, the Man. 2 Allan Poe Together with His Narrative of Arthur Gor- vols. Chicago: John C. Winston, 1926. don Pym. London: Frederick Warne, 1888, pp. Pollin, Burton R. “Frances Sargent Osgood and xi-xxxii. Saroni’s Musical Times: Documents Linking Poe, Krutch, Joseph Wood. Edgar Allan Poe: A Study in Osgood and Griswold.” Poe Studies: Dark Romanti- Genius. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926. cism 23 (December 1990): 27–36. Lindsay, Philip. The Haunted Man: A Portrait of Edgar Pope-Hennessy, Una. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biog- Allan Poe. London: Hutchinson, 1953. raphy. London: Macmillan, 1934. Reprint. New Ljungquist, Kent P. and Buford Jones. “William S. Rob- York: Haskell House, 1969. inson on Griswold, Poe’s ‘Literary Executioner.’ ” Porges, Irwin. Edgar Allan Poe. New York and Phila- Poe Studies: Dark Romanticism 28 (June/December delphia: Chilton Books, 1963. 1995): 7–8. Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Mabbott, Thomas Ollive. “Afterword.” The Collected Biography. New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1941. Works of Edgar Allan Poe: Volume I—Poems. Cam- Reid, Thomas Mayne, “A Dead Man Defended.” bridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Onward 1 (April 1869): 305–308. Press, 1969, pp. 571–572. Schulte, Amanda Pogue. Facts About Poe: Portraits and Mankowitz, Wolf. The Extraordinary Mr. Poe: A Biog- Daguerreotypes of Edgar Allan Poe. Charlottesville: raphy of Edgar Allan Poe. London: Weidenfeld & University Press of Virginia, 1926. Nicolson, 1978. Shanks, Edward. Edgar Allan Poe. London: Macmil- Miller, John Carl. Building Poe Biography. Baton Rouge: lan, 1937. Louisiana State University Press, 1977. Sinclair, David. Edgar Allan Poe. Totowa, N.J.: Row- ———. John Henry Ingram’s Poe Collection at the Uni- man & Littlefield, 1978. versity of Virginia: A Calendar. Charlottesville: Uni- Smith, Charles Alphonso. Edgar Allan Poe: How to versity Press of Virginia, 1960. Know Him. Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1921. ———. “Poe’s Biographers Brawl.” American History Stoddard, Richard Henry, “Edgar Allan Poe.” National Illustrated 11, no. 7 (November 1976): 20–29. Magazine 2 (March 1853): 193–200.

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———. “Life of Poe.” In The Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Bloom, Clive. Reading Poe, Reading Freud: The Roman- 6 vols. New York: A. C. Armstrong, 1884, Vol. I. tic Imagination in Crisis. New York: St. Martin’s ———. “Memoir of Edgar Allan Poe.” Poems by Edgar Press, 1988. Allan Poe. New York: W. J. Widdleton, 1875, pp. Bonaparte, Marie. The Life and Works of Edgar Allan 15–99. Poe: A Psycho-Analytical Interpretation. London: Symons, Julian. The Tell-Tale Heart: The Life and Works Imago, 1949. of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Harper & Row, Braddy, Haldeen. Glorious Incense: The Fulfillment of 1978. Edgar Allan Poe. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, Thomas, Dwight and David K. Jackson. The Poe Log: 1952. A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe 1809–1849. Cambriare, Celestin Pierre. The Influence of Edgar Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987. Allan Poe in France. New York: G. E. Stechert, Thomas, W. Moy. “Edgar Allan Poe.” The Train: A 1927. First-Class Magazine 3 (April 1857): 193–198. Campbell, Killis. The Mind of Poe and Other Stud- Van Cleef, Augustus. “Poe’s Mary.” Harper’s Monthly ies. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 78 (March 1889): 634–640. 1933. Wagenknecht, Edward. Edward Allan Poe: The Man ———. “Miscellaneous Notes on Poe.” Modern Lan- Behind the Legend. New York: Oxford University guage Notes 28 (1913): 65–69. Press, 1963. Canny, James R. and Charles F. Heartman. A Bibli- Walsh, John E. Plumes in the Dust: The Love Affair of ography of the First Printings of the Writings of Edgar Edgar Allan Poe and Frances Sargent Osgood. Chi- Allan Poe. Hattiesburg, Miss.: The Book Farm, cago: Nelson-Hall, 1980. 1943. Weiss, Miriam. “Poe’s Catterina.” Mississippi Quarterly Carlson, Eric W., ed. The Recognition of Edgar Allan 19 (Winter 1965–66): 29–33. Poe. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1966. Whitman, Sarah H. Edgar Poe and His Critics. New Carlson, Thomas C. “The Reception of Edgar Allan York: Rudd and Carlton, 1860. Reprinted by Rut- Poe in Romania.” Mississippi Quarterly 38 (1985): gers University Press in 1949, with an introduction 441–446. by Oral S. Coad. Clarke, Graham, ed. Edgar Allan Poe Critical Assess- Winwar, Frances. The Haunted Palace: The Life of ments, I: Life and Works; II: Poe in the Nineteenth Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Harper & Row, 1959. Century; III: Poe the Writer: Poems, Criticism and Short Stories; IV: Poe in the Twentieth Century. East II. General Criticism Sussex, U.K.: Helm Information, 1991. Abel, Darrel. “Edgar Poe: A Centennial Estimate.” Dameron, J. Lasley and Irby B. Cauthen, Jr. Edgar University of Kansas City Review 16 (1949): 77–96. Allan Poe: A Bibliography of Criticism, 1827–1967. Alexander, Jean, ed. Affidavits of Genius: Edgar Allan Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1974. Poe and the French Critics, 1847–1924. Port Wash- Davidson, Edward H. Poe, a Critical Study. Cambridge, ington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1971. Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1957. Allen, Michael. Poe and the British Magazine Tradition. Dayan, Joan. “Amorous Bondage: Poe, Ladies, and New York: Oxford University Press, 1969. Slaves.” American Literature 66 (1994): 239–273. Anderson, Carl L. Poe in Northlight: The Scandina- Douglas, Ann. The Feminization of American Culture. vian Response to His Life and Works. Durham, N.C.: New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977. Duke University Press, 1973. Englelkirk, John Eugene. Edgar Allan Poe in Hispanic Bandy, William T. The Influence and Reputation of Poe Literature. New York: Instituto de las Espanas en in Europe. Baltimore, Md.: F. T. Cimino, 1962. los Estados Unidos, 1934. Reprinted by Russell & Benson, Adolph B. “Scandinavian References in the Russell, 1972. Works of Poe.” Journal of English and Germanic Phi- Fagin, N. Bryllian. The Histrionic Mr. Poe. Baltimore: lology 40 (1941): 73–90. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1949.

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Forrest, William M. Biblical Allusions in Poe. New York: Levy, Maurice. “Poe and the Gothic Tradition.” ESQ: Macmillan, 1926. A Journal of the American Renaissance 18 (1972): Garrison, Joseph M., Jr. “The Function of Terror in the 19–28. Work of Edgar Allan Poe.” American Quarterly 18 Ljungquist, Kent P. “Uses of the Daemon in Selected (1966): 136–150. Works of Edgar Allan Poe.” Interpretations 12 Gimble, Colonel Richard. “Quoth the Raven: An (1980): 31–39. Exhibition of the Work of Edgar Allan Poe.” Mainville, Stephen. “Language and the Void: Gothic Yale University Library Gazette 33 (April 1959): Landscapes in the Frontiers of Edgar Allan Poe.” 138–139. Genre 14 (1981): 347–362. Grossman, John Delaney. Edgar Allan Poe in Russia: Matthiessen, F. O. “Poe.” Sewanee Review 54 (1946): A Study in Legend and Literary Influence. Wirzburg, 175–205. Germany: Jal Velag, 1973. Moldenhauer, Joseph. A Descriptive Catalogue of Edgar Gunn, James. Alternate Worlds. Englewood, N.J.: Pren- Allan Poe Manuscripts in the Humanities Research tice-Hall, 1975. Center Library. Austin: Texas University Press, Halliburton, David. Edgar Allan Poe: A Phenomeno- 1973. logical View. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Mooney, Stephen L. “Poe’s Gothic Wasteland.” Press, 1973. Sewanee Review 70 (1972): 261–283. Hoffman, Daniel. Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe. Garden Moss, Sidney P. Poe’s Major Crisis: His Libel Suit and City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972. New York’s Literary World. Durham, N.C.: Duke Hoffmann, Gerhard. “Edgar Allan Poe and German University Press, 1970. Literature.” In American-German Literary Interrela- Ostrom, John Ward, ed., The Letters of Edgar Allan tions in the Nineteenth Century. Edited by Christoph Poe. New York: Gordian Press, 1966. Wecker. Munich, Germany: Fink, 1983. 52–104. Pennzoldt, Peter. The Supernatural in Fiction. London: Howarth, William L., ed. Twentieth-Century Interpreta- Peter Nevill, 1952. tions of Poe’s Tales. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice- Phillips, Elizabeth. Edgar Allan Poe: An American Hall, 1971. Imagination. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Hyneman, Esther F. Edgar Allan Poe: An Annotated Press, 1979. Bibliography of Books and Articles in English, 1827– Pollin, Burton R. “The Living Writers of America: 1973. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1974. A Manuscript by Edgar Allan Poe.” Studies in the Kayser Wolfgang. The Grotesque in Art and Literature. American Renaissance 1991. Charlottesville: Uni- New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966. versity Press of Virginia, 1991, pp. 151–211. Kennedy, Gerald. Poe, Death and the Life of Writing. ———. “Music and Edgar Allan Poe: A Second New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987. Annotated Checklist.” Poe Studies 15, no. 1 (1982): Kesterton, David B., ed. Critics on Poe. Coral Gables, 7–13. Fla.: Miami University Press, 1973. Quinn, Patrick, ed. Poetry and Tales. New York: Library Ketterer, David. The Rationale of Deception in Poe. of America, 1978. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, Quinn, Arthur H. and Richard H. Hart. Edgar Allan 1979. Poe: Letters and Documents in the Enoch Pratt Knapp, Bettina. Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Frederick Free Library. New York: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Ungar, 1984. Reprints, 1941. Lawson, Lewis A. “Poe’s Conception of the Gro- Regan, Robert, ed. Poe: A Collection of Critical Essays. tesque.” Mississippi Quarterly 19 (1966): 200–205. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967. Lee, A. Robert. Edgar Allan Poe: The Design of Order. Smith, Ronald. Poe in the Media: Screen, Songs, and Totowa, N.J.: Barnes & Noble, 1987. Spoken Word Recordings. New York: Garland, 1990. Levine, Stuart. Edgar Poe: Seer and Craftsman. Deland, Stoehr, Taylor. “Unspeakable Horror in Poe.” South Fla.: Everett/Edwards, 1972. Atlantic Quarterly 78 (1979): 317–332.

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Walker, G. A. Gatherings from Grave Yards. London: Bernstein, Susan. “Q, or, Heine’s Romanticism.” Stud- Longman, 1839. Reprinted by Arno Press in 1977. ies in Romanticism 42, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 369. Wilbur, Richard. “Poe and the Art of Suggestion.” Bieganowski, Ronald. “The Self-Consuming Narrator University of Mississippi Studies in English 3 (1982): in Poe’s ‘Ligeia’ and ‘Usher.’ ” American Literature 1–13. 60 (1988): 175–188. Williams, Michael J. A World of Words: Language and Blake, David Haven. ‘ “The Man That Was Used Displacement in the Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe. Dur- Up’: Edgar Allan Poe and the Ends of Captivity.” ham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1988. Nineteenth-Century Literature 57, no. 3 (December 2002): 323. III. Tales Bleiler, E. F. “Edgar Allan Poe, 1809–1849.” Super- Alekna, Richard A. “ ‘The Man That Was Used Up’: natural Fiction Writers. 2 vols. New York: Charles Further Notes on Poe’s Satirical Targets.” Poe Stud- Scribner’s, 1985, 697–705. ies 12 (1979): 36. Blythe, Hal, and Charlie Sweet. “The Reader as Poe’s Arnold, John. “Poe’s ‘Lionizing’: The Wound the Ultimate Dupe in ‘The Purloined Letter.’ ” Studies Bawdry.” Literature and Psychology 17 (1967): in Short Fiction 26 (1989): 311–315. 52–54. Boyd, Molly. ‘ “The Fall of the House of Usher,’ Simm’s Badenhausen, Richard. “Fear and Trembling in the Castle Dismal, and The Scarlet Letter: Literary Inter- Literature of the Fantastic: Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The connections.” Studies in the Novel 335, no. 2 (Sum- Black Cat.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction 29 (1992): mer 2003): 231. 486–498. Bronzwaer, W. “Deixis as a Structuring Device in Baskett, Sam S. “A Damsel with a Dulcimer: An Narrative Discourse: An Analysis of Poe’s ‘The Interpretation of Poe’s ‘Eleonora.’ ” Modern Lan- Murders in the Rue Morgue.’ ” English Studies 56 guage Notes 78 (1958): 332–338. (1975): 345–359. Basler, Roy P. “The Interpretations of ‘Ligeia’.” In Poe: Brophy, Brigid. “Detective Fiction: A Modern Myth of A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Robert Violence?” Hudson Review 18 (1965): 11–30. Regan. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc., Brown, Arthur A. “Death and Telling in Poe’s ‘The 1967, 51–63. Imp of the Perverse.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction 31 Baym, Nina. “Emerson’s Transcendental Etudes / The (1994): 197–205. After Life of Edgar Allan Poe.” American Literature Canada, Mark. “Flight into Fancy: Poe’s Discovery of 77, no. 2 (June 2005): 414. the Right Brain.” Southern Literary Journal 33, no. 2 Beebe, Maurice. “The Universe of Roderick Usher.” In (Spring 2001): 62–89. Poe: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Robert Carson, David L. “Ortolans and Geese: Origin of Poe’s Regan. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., ‘Duc de L’Omelette.’ ” College Language Association 1967, 121–133. Journal 8 (1965): 277–283. Bennett, Maurice T. “Edgar Allan Poe and the Liter- Carter, Steve. “A Possible Source for ‘The Facts in the ary Tradition of Lunar Speculation.” Science-Fiction Case of M. Valdemar.’ ” Poe Studies 12 (1979): 36. Studies 10 (1983): 137–147. Cassuto, Leonard. “The Coy Reaper: Unmasque-ing Benoit, Raymond. “Poe’s ‘The Fall of the House of the Red Death.” Studies in Short Fiction 25 (1988): Usher’.” The Explicator 58, no. 2 (Winter 2000): 317–320. 79–81. Christie, James W. “Poe’s ‘Diabolical’ Humor: Revisions Benton, Richard. “Is Poe’s ‘The Assignation’ a Hoax?” in ‘Bon-Bon’.” Library Chronicle 41 (1976): 44–45. Nineteenth-Century Fiction 28 (1963): 193–197. Clark, David L. “The Source of Poe’s ‘The Pit and The Berkeley, James. “Post-human Mimesis and the Pendulum.’ ” Modern Language Notes 44 (1929): Debunked Machine: Reading Environmental 349–356. Appropriation in Poe’s ‘Maelzel’s Chess-Player’ Claudel, Alice M. “What Has Poe’s ‘Silence—A Fable’ and ‘The Man That Was Used Up’.” Comparative to Say?” Ball State University Forum 10 (1969): Literature Studies 42, no. 3 (2004): 356. 66–70.

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Cleman, John. “Irresistible Impulses: Edgar Allan Poe Engel, Leonard W. “Victim and Victimizer: Poe’s ‘The and the Insanity Defense.” American Literature 63 Cask of Amontillado.’ ” Interpretations 15 (1983): (1991): 623–640. 26–30. Cody, Daniel. “ ‘What a Tricke Wee’le Serve Him’: A Falk, Doris V. “Poe and the Power of Animal Magne- Possible Source for Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontil- tism.” Publications of the Modern Language Associa- lado’.” ANQ 17, no. 1 (Winter 2004): 36. tion (PMLA) 84 (1969): 536–546. Cotte, Pierre. “Le Titre et L’Incipit D’Un Conte Finholt, Richard D. “The Vision at the Brink of the d’Edgar Allan Poe.” Etudes Anglaises 57, no. 2 Abyss: ‘A Descent into the Maelstrom’ in the Light (April–June 2004): 173–186. of Poe’s Cosmology.” Georgia Review 27 (1973): Coviello, Peter. “Poe in Love: Pedophilia, Morbidity, 356–366. Forbes, J. Christopher. “Satire of Irving’s A History of and the Logic of Slavery.” ELH 70, no. 3 (Fall New York in Poe’s ‘The Devil in the Belfry.’ ” Studies 2003): 875. in American Fiction 10 (1982): 93–100. Curran, Robert T. “The Fashionable Thirties: Poe’s Frank, Adam. “Valdemar’s Tongue, Poe’s Telegraphy.” Satire in ‘The Man That Was Used Up.’ ” Markham ELH 72, no. 3 (Fall 2005): 635–663. Review 8 (1978): 14–20. Frank, Frederick S. “Polarized Gothic: An Annotated Dayan, Joan. Fables of the Mind: An Inquiry into Poe’s Bibliography of Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Fiction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Pym.” Bulletin of Bibliography 38 (1981): 117–127. ———. “The Road to Landor’s Cottage: Poe’s Land- Freeman, Elizabeth. “Honeymoon with a Stranger: Pedo- scape of Effect.” University of Mississippi Studies in philiac Picaresques From Poe to Nabokov.” American English 3 (1982): 136–154. Literature 70, no. 4 (December 1998): 863–897. De Falco, Joseph. “The Sources of Terror in Poe’s Fukuchi, Curtis. “Repression and Guilt in Poe’s ‘Shadow—A Parable’.” Studies in Short Fiction 6 ‘Morella.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction 24 (1987): 149– (1969): 643–649. 154. Delaney, Bill. “Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado.’ ” The Gargano, James W. “ ‘The Black Cat’: Perverseness Explicator 64, no. 1 (Fall 2005): 33–35. Reconsidered.” Texas Studies in Literature and Lan- Deniccio, Jerone D. “Fact, Fiction, Fantality: Poe’s guage 2 (1960): 172–178. ‘The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Schehe- ———. “The Question of Poe’s Narrators.” In Poe: razade.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction 27 (1990): A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Robert 365–370. Regan. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967, Dougherty, Stephen. “Foucault in the House of Usher: 164–171. Some Historical Permutation in Poe’s Gothic.” Garren, Samuel B. “The ‘too long unjoin’d chain’: Gil- Papers on Language and Literature 37, no. 1 (Winter bert Adair’s Use of Edgar Allan Poe in His Transla- 2001): 3–24. tion of George Perec’s La Disparition.” CLA Journal 44, no. 2 (March 2001): 373. Drabeck, Bernard A. “ ‘Tarr and Fether’: Poe and Gerber, Gerald. “Poe’s Odd Angel.” Nineteenth Cen- Abolitionism.” American Transcendental Quarterly tury Fiction 23 (1968): 88–93. 17 (1972): 177–184. Glassheim, Eliot. “A Dogged Interpretation of ‘Never Drain, Kim. “Poe’s Death-Watches and the Archi- Bet the Devil Your Head.’ ” Poe Newsletter 2 (Octo- tecture of Doubt.” New England Review 27, no. 2 ber 1969): 44–45. (2006): 169–178. Goldhurst, William. “The New Revenge Tragedy: Elbert, Monika M. “ ‘The Man of the Crowd’ and the Treatments of the Beauchamp Case.” Southern Lit- Man Outside the Drowd: Poe’s Narrator and the erary Journal 22 (1989): 117–127. Democratic Reader.” Modern Language Studies 21, ———. “Poe’s Multiple King Pest: A Source Study.” no. 4 (1991): 16–30. Tulane Studies in English 20 (1972): 107–121. Elmar, Schenkel. “Disease and Vision: Perspectives on Griffith, Clark. “Poe’s ‘Ligeia’ and the English Roman- Poe’s ‘The Sphinx.’ ” Studies in American Fiction 13 tics.” University of Toronto Quarterly 24 (1954): (1985): 97–102. 8–25.

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Grimstad, Paul C. “Algorithm–Genre–Linguistic: ‘Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether.’ ” Poe Studies 22 ‘Creative Distortion’ in Count Zero and Nova (1989): 1–9. Express.” Journal of Modern Literature 27, no. 4 Jillson, Willard Rouse. “The Beauchamp-Sharp Trag- (Summer 2004): 82–92. edy in American Literature.” Kentucky State His- Gross, Seymour. “Poe’s Revision of ‘The Oval Por- torical Society Register 36 (January 1938): 54–60. trait.’ ” Modern Language Notes 74 (1959): 16–20. Jones, Paul Christian. “The Danger of Sympathy: Hall, Thomas. “Poe’s Use of a Source: Davy’s Chemi- Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Hop-Frog’ and the Abolitionist cal Researches and ‘Von Kempelen and His Dis- Rhetoric of Pathos.” Journal of American Studies 35 covery.’ ” Poe Newsletter 1 (October 1968): 28. (August 2001): 239. Harrison, James Albert, ed. The Complete Works of Kehler, Joel R. “New Light on the Genesis and Prog- Edgar Allan Poe. 17 vols. New York: T. Crowell, ress of Poe’s Landscape Fiction.” American Litera- 1902. ture 47 (1975): 173–183. Hayes, Kevin J. “Visual Culture and the World in Kennedy, J. Gerald. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Man of the Crowd.’ ” Nine- Pym and the Abyss of Interpretation. New York: teenth-Century Literature 56, no. 4 (March 2002): Twayne, 1995. 445. ———. “Phantasms of Death in Poe’s Fiction.” In Hennelly, Mark M. Jr. “Le Grand Captain Kidder and The Tales of Poe, edited by Harold Bloom. New His Bogus Bug.” Studies in Short Fiction 17 (1980): York: Chelsea House, 1987, 111–133. 77–79. ———. “Poe and Magazine Writing on Premature Hess, Jeffry A. “Sources and Aesthetics of Poe’s Land- Burial.” Studies in the American Renaissance (1977): scape Fiction.” American Quarterly 22 (1970): 165–178. 177–189. Kimball, William J. “Poe’s Politian and the Beau- Hirsch, David H. “ ‘The Duc de L’Omelette’ as Anti- champ-Sharp Tragedy.” Poe Studies 4, no. 2, (1971): Visionary Tale.” Poe Studies 10 (1978): 36–39. 25–27. ———. “The Pit and the Apocalypse.” Sewanee Kock, Christian. “The Irony of Oxygen in Poe’s ‘Eiros Review 76 (1968): 632–652. and Charmion.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction 22 (1985): ———. “Poe’s ‘Metzengerstein’ as a Tale of the Sub- 317–321. conscious.” University of Mississippi Studies in Eng- Kopley, Richard. “Readers Write: Nineteenth-Century lish 3 (1982): 40–52. Annotations in Copies of the First American Edi- Hoffman, Michael J. “The House of Usher and Nega- tion of Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.” tive Romanticism.” Studies in Romanticism 4 (1965): Nineteenth-Century Literature 55, no. 3 (December 158–168. 2000): 399. Hoffman, Stephen K. “Sailing in the Self: Jung, Poe, Lee, Maurice S. “Absolute Poe: His System of Tran- and ‘MS. Found in a Bottle.’ ” Tennessee Studies in scendental Racism.” American Literature 75, no. 4 Literature 26 (1981): 66–74. (December 2003): 751. Holsapple, Cortell King. “ ‘The Masque of the Red Lemay, J. A. Leo “Poe’s ‘The Business Man’: Its Con- Death’ and I Promessi Sposi.” University of Texas texts and Satire of Franklin’s Autobiography.” Poe Studies in English 18 (1938): 137–139. Studies 15, no. 2 (1982): 29–37. Hubbs, Valentine C. “The Struggle of the Wills in Lewis, Paul. “Laughing at Fear: Two Versions of the Poe’s ‘William Wilson.’ ” Studies in American Fiction Mock Gothic.” Studies in Short Fiction 15 (1978): 1 (1983): 73–79. 411–414. Jay, Gregory S. “Poe: Writing and the Unconscious.” Ljungquist, Kent. “Poe’s ‘Island of the Fay’: The Pass- In The Tales of Poe, edited by Harold Bloom. New ing of Fairyland.” Studies in Short Fiction 14 (1977): York: Chelsea House, 1987, 83–109. 265–271. Johansen, Ib. “The Madness of the Text: Decon- Long, David A. “Poe’s Political Identity: A Mummy struction of Narrative Logic in ‘Usher,’ ‘Berenice,’ Unswathed.” Poe Studies 23, no. 1 (1990): 1–22.

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Lucas, Mary. “Poe’s Theatre: ‘King Pest’ and ‘Hop- Michael, John. “Narration and Reflection: The Search Frog.’ ” Journal of the Short Story in English 14 for Grounds in Poe’s ‘The Power of Words’ and (1990): 25–40. ‘The Domain of Arnheim.’ ” Arizona Quarterly 45 Mabbott, Thomas Olive, ed. The Collected Works of (1989): 1–22. Edgar Allan Poe. Vols. 2 and 3 Tales and Sketches. Miller, F. DeWolfe. “The Basis for Poe’s ‘The Island of Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard Uni- the Fay.’ ” American Literature 14 (1942): 135–140. versity Press, 1978. Mooney, Stephen Leroy. “The Comic in Poe’s Fic- Madden, Fred. “Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’ and Freud’s tion.” American Literature 33 (1962): 433–441. ‘The Uncanny.’ ” Literature & Psychology 39, nos. ———. “Poe’s Gothic Wasteland.” Sewanee Review 70 1–2 (1993): 52–62. (1962): 261–283. Mainville, Stephen. “Language and the Void: Gothic Morisi, Eve Celia. “Poe’s ‘To One in Paradise.’ ” Expli- Landscapes in the Frontiers of Edgar Allan Poe.” cator 63, no. 3 (Spring 2005): 141–144. Genre 14 (1981): 347–362. Morrison, Robert “Poe’s De Quincey, Poe’s Dupin.” Marrs, Robert L. “ ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’: A Essays in Criticism 51, no. 4 (October 2001): 424. Checklist of Criticism Since 1960.” Poe Studies 5 Muckley, Peter A. “The Radicalness of These Dif- (1972): 23–24. ferences: Reading ‘The Purloined Letter.’ ” Uni- Martin, Bruce K. “Poe’s ‘Hop-Frog’ and the Retreat versity of Mississippi Studies in English 8 (1990): from Comedy.” Studies in Short Fiction 10 (1973): 227–242. 288–290. Nadal, Marita. “Beyond the Gothic Sublime: Poe’s Martin, Terry J. “Detection, Imagination, and the Pymn or the Journey of Equivocal (E)motions.” Introduction to ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue.’ ” The Mississippi Quarterly 53, no. 3 (Summer 2000): Modern Language Studies 19 (1989): 31–45. 373–388. Maxson, Helen F. “Richard Poirier and Edgar Allan Nadal, Marita. “Variations on the Grotesque: From Poe: Reassessing the ‘World Elsewhere’.” The Mid- Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’ to Oate’s ‘The White Cat.’ ” west Quarterly 41, no. 4 (Summer 2000): 416–431. The Mississippi Quarterly 57, no. 3 (Summer 2005); May, Charles E. Edgar Allan Poe: A Study of the Short 455–471. Fiction. Boston: Twayne, 1991. Pahl, Dennis. “Rediscovering Byron: Poe’s ‘The Assig- May, Leila S. “ ‘Sympathies of a Scarcely Intelligible nation.’ ” Criticism 26 (1984): 211–299. Nature’: The Brother-Sister Bond in Poe’s ‘The Perkins, Leroy, and Joseph A. Dupras. “Mystery and Fall of the House of Usher.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction Meaning in Poe’s ‘X-ing a Paragrab.’ ” Studies in 30 (1993): 387–396. Short Fiction 27 (1990): 489–494. Mazurek, Ray. “Art, Ambiguity, and the Artist in Poe’s Person, Leland S., Jr. “Poe’s Fiction: Women and the ‘The Man in the Crowd.’ ” Poe Studies 12 (1979): Subversion of Masculine Form.” In Aesthetic Head- 25–28. aches: Women and a Masculine Poetics in Poe, Haw- McClary, Ben Harris. “Poe’s ‘Turkish Fig Peddler.’ ” Poe thorne, Melville. Athens: Georgia University Press, Newsletter 2 (October 1969): 56. 1988. 19–47, 180–182. McEntee, Grace. “Remembering Ligeia.” Studies in Pitcher, Edward W. “Poe’s ‘The Assignation’: A American Fiction 20 (1992): 75–83. Reconsideration.” Poe Studies 13 (1980): 1–4. McLaughlin, Kevin. “Just Fooling: Paper, Money, Poe.” Platizky, Roger. “Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado.’ ” Differences 11, no. 1 (Summer 1999): 38–67. The Explicator 57, no. 4 (Summer 1999): 206–209. McMullen, Bonnie Shannon. “Lifting the Lid on Pollin, Burton R., ed. The Collected Writings of Edgar Poe’s ‘Oblong Box.’ ” Studies in American Fiction 23 Allan Poe: (Vol. 1—The Imaginary Voyages, includ- (1995): 203–214. ing The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, The McNeal, Thomas. “Poe’s Zenobia: An Early Satire on Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall and Margaret Fuller.” Modern Language Quarterly 9 The Journal of Julius Rodman). Boston: Twayne, (1950): 215–226. 1981.

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———. “Hans Pfaall: A False Variant of the Phallic Rose, Marilyn Gaddis. “ ‘Emmanuele’—‘Morella’: Fallacy.” Mississippi Quarterly 31 (1978): 519–527. Gide’s Poe Affinities.” Texas Studies in Language and ———. “Poe’s ‘Diddling’: The Source of Title and Tale.” Literature 5 (1963): 127–137. Southern Literary Journal 2, no. 1 (1969): 106–111. Rosenfeld, Alvin. “Description in Poe’s ‘Landor’s Cot- ———. “Poe’s Dr. Ollapod.” American Literature 42 tage.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction 4 (1967): 264–265. (1970): 80–82. Rosenszweig, Paul. “ ‘Dust within the Rock’: The Phan- ———. “Poe’s ‘Mystification’: Its Source in Fay’s tasm of Meaning in The Narrative of Arthur Gor- Norman Leslie.” Mississippi Quarterly 25 (1972): don Pym.” Studies in the Novel 14 (1982): 137–151. 111–130. Roth, Martin. “The Mysteries of ‘The Mystery of ———. “Poe’s ‘Shadow’ as a Source for His ‘The Marie Rogêt.’ ” Poe Studies 22, no. 2 (1989): 27–34. Masque of the Red Death.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction ———. “Poe’s ‘Three Sundays in a Week.’ ” Sphinx 4, 6 (1968): 104–107. no. 4 (1985): 258–267. ———. “Poe’s ‘Some Words with a Mummy’ Recon- Roth, Marty. “Gilman’s Arabesque Wallpaper.” Mosaic: sidered.” Emerson Society Quarterly 60 (Fall 1970): A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature 60–67. 34, no. 4 (December 2001): 145–162. ———. “Politics and History in Poe’s ‘Mellonta Rudoff, Shaindy. “Written in Stone: Slavery and Tauta’: Two Allusions Explained.” Studies in Short Authority in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.” Fiction 8 (1971): 627–631. American Transcendental Quarterly 14, no. 1 (Mar- ———. “ ‘The Spectacles’ of Poe—Sources and Signif- cyh 2000): 61–83. icance.” American Literature 37 (1965): 187–190. Salzberg, Joel. “Preposition and Meaning in Poe’s ‘The Pritchard, Hollie. “Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’.” The Spectacles.’ ” Poe Newsletter 3, no. 1 (1970): 21. Explicator 61, no. 3 (Spring 2003): 144. Scudder, H. H. “Poe’s ‘Balloon-Hoax.’ ” American Lit- Pritchett, Patrick. “Abandoning Ship: Face to Face at erature 21 (1949): 179–190. Zero Degree Interpellation in Poe’s The Narrative Seltzer, Mark. “The Crime System.” Critical Inquiry of Arthur Gordon Pym.” English Language Notes 42, 30, no. 3 (Spring 2004): 557–593. no. 2 (December 2004): 41. Shear, Walter. “Poe’s Fiction: The Hypnotic Magic Richards, Eliza. “Outsourcing ‘The Raven’: Retroac- of the Senses.” The Midwest Quarterly 47, no. 3 tive Origins.” Victorian Poetry 43, no. 2 (Summer (2006): 276–290. 2005): 2–5. Sloan, David E. E. “Gothic Romanticism and Ratio- Richmond, Lee J. “Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Moella’: Vam- nal Empiricism in Poe’s ‘Berenice.’ ” American Tran- pire of Volitoin.” Studies in Short Fiction 9 (1972): scendental Quarterly 19 (Summer 1973): 19–26. 93–95. Soule, George H., Jr. “Byronism in Poe’s ‘Metzenger- Robinson, E. Arthur. “Cosmic Vision in Poe’s ‘Ele- stein’ and ‘William Wilson.’ ” Emerson Society Quar- onora.’ ” Poe Studies 9 (1976): 44–46. terly 24 (1978): 152–162. ———. “Poe’s ‘Tell-Tale Heart’.” Nineteenth Century Stockholder, Kay. “Is Anybody at Home in the Text? Fiction 19 (1965): 369–378. Psychoanalysis and the Question of Poe.” American Robinson, Douglas. “Poe’s Mini-Apocalypse: ‘The Imago 57, no. 3 (Fall 2000): 299. Conversation of Eiros and Charmion.’ ” Studies in Stovall, Floyd. “The Conscious Art of Edgar Allan Short Fiction 19 (1982): 329–337. Poe.” In Poe: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited ———. “Trapped in the Text: ‘The Pit and the Pen- by Robert Regan. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice- dulum.’ ” Journal of the Short Story in English 7 Hall, 1967, 172–178. (1986): 63–75. Stark, Joseph. “Motive and Meaning: The Mystery of Rolt, L. T. C. The Aeronauts: A History of Ballooning the Will in Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’.” The Mississippi 1783–1903. New York: Walter, 1966. Quarterly 57, no. 2 (Spring 2004): 255–263. Roppolo, Joseph. “Meaning and ‘The Masque of the Stern, Madeleine B. “Poe: ‘The Mental Temperament’ Red Death.’ ” Tulane Studies in English 13 (1963): for Phrenologists.” American Literature 40 (1968): 59–69. 155–163.

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Strepp, Walter. “The Ironic Double in Poe’s ‘The Cask ———. “Poe’s ‘Tale of Jerusalem’ and The Talmud.” of Amontillado.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction 13 (1976): American Book Collector 6 (February 1935), 56–57. 447–453. von Mucke, Dorothea. “The Imaginary Materiality Tate, Allan. “Our Cousin, Mr. Poe.” In Poe: A Collection of Writing in Poe’s ‘Ligeia’.” Differences 11, no. 2 of Critical Essays, edited by Robert Regan. Engle- (Summer 1999): 53–75. wood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967, 38–50. Walsh, John. Poe, The Detective: The Curious Cir- Taylor, Peter. “Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon cumstances Behind “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.” Pym of Nantucket.” The Explicator 59, no. 1 (Fall New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2000): 17–19. 1968. Taylor, Walter F. “Israfel in Motley.” Sewanee Review Ware, Tracy. “ ‘A Descent into the Maelstrom’: The 42 (1934): 330–340. Status of Scientific Rhetoric in a Perverse Rheto- Teunissen, John J., and Evelyn J. Hinz. “Poe’s ‘Journal ric.” Studies in Short Fiction 29 (1992): 77–84. of Julius Rodman’ as Parody.” Nineteenth Century Weber, Jean-Paul. “Edgar Poe on the Theme of Fiction 27 (1972): 317–338. the Clock.” La Nouvelle Revue Française 68–69 Thompson, Gary R. “Dramatic Irony in ‘The Oval Por- (August–September 1958): 301–311. trait.’ ” English Language Notes 6 (1968): 107–114. Werner, James V. “The Detective Gaze: Edgar A. ———. “Is Poe’s ‘A Tale of the Ragged Mountains’ a Poe, the Flaneur, and the Physiognomy of Crime.” Hoax?” Studies in Short Fiction 6 (1969): 454–460. American Transcendental Quarterly 15, no. 1 (March ———. “On the Nose—Further Speculations on the 2001): 5–21. Sources and Meaning of Poe’s ‘Lionizing.’ ” Studies Whalen, Terrence. “Poe’s ‘Diddling’ and the Depres- in Short Fiction 6 (1968): 94–97. sion: Notes on the Sources of Swindling.” Studies in ———. Poe’s Fiction: Romantic Irony in the Gothic American Fiction 23 (1995): 195–201. Tales. Madison: Wisconsin University Press, 1973. White, Ed. “The Ourang-Outang Situation.” College ———. “Poe’s ‘Flawed’ Gothic: Absurdist Techniques Literature 30, no. 3 (Summer 2003): 88. in ‘Metzengerstein’ and the Courier Satires.” Emer- Wilkerson, Ronald S. “Poe’s ‘Balloon-Hoax’ Once son Society Quarterly 60 (supplement) (1970): More.” American Literature 32 (1960): 313–317. 35–58. Williams, Michael. “ ‘The Language of the Cipher’: Thompson, Kenneth. “Victorian Detective Fiction Interpretation in The Gold-Bug.” American Litera- and the Nature of Evidence: The Scientific Inves- ture 53 (1982): 646–660. tigation of Poe, Dickens, and Doyle.” Victorian Wimsatt, William K., Jr. “A Further Note on Poe’s Studies 47, no. 4 (Summer 2005): 613. ‘Balloon-Hoax.’ ” American Literature 22 (1951): Timmerman, John H. “House of Mirror: Edgar Allan 491–492. Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher’.” Papers on Zimmerman, Brett. “Frantic Forensic Oratory: Poe’s Language and Literature 39, no. 3 (Summer 2003): ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ ” Poe Studies 35, no. 1 (Spring 227. 2001): 34–50. Tromly, Lucas. “Impurifying Poe: Robert Penn War- Ziolkowski, Theodore. “The Telltale Teeth: Pschodon- ren’s ‘Brother to Dragons.” The Mississippi Quar- tia to Sociodontia.” Publications of the Modern Lan- terly 53, no. 2 (Spring 2000): 225–236. guage Association (PMLA) 91 (1976): 9–22. Tucker, D. “ ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ and the ‘Evil Eye.’ ” Zlotnick-Woldenberg, Carrie. “Edgar Allan Poe’s Southern Literary Journal 13, no. 2 (1981): 92–98. ‘Ligeia’: An Object-Relational Interpretation.” Vanderbilt, Kermit. “Art and Nature in ‘The Masque American Journal of Psychotherapy 53, no. 3 (Sum- of the Red Death.’ ” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 22 mer 1999): 403–412. (1968): 379–389. Varner, Cornelia. “Notes on Poe’s Use of Contem- IV. Poems porary Materials in Certain of His Stories.” Jour- Bailey, James O. “The Geography of Poe’s ‘Dreamland’ nal of English and Germanic Philology 32 (1933): and “Ulalume.’ ” Studies in Philology 45 (1948): 77–80. 512–523.

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Bandy, W. T. “Poe’s ‘Alone’: The First Printing.” Papers ———. “Poe’s ‘The Sleeper’ Again.” American Litera- of the Bibliographical Society of America 70 (1976): ture 21 (1949): 339–340. 405–406. Merivale, Patricia. “The Raven and the Bust of Pallas: Bledsoe, Thomas F. “On Poe’s ‘Valley of Unrest.’ ” Classical Artifacts and the Gothic Tale.” PMLA 89 Modern Language Notes 61 (1946): 91–92. (1974): 960–966. Booth, Bradford A. “The Identity of ‘Annabel Lee.’ ” Miller, Perry. The Raven and the Whale. New York: College English 7 (October 1945): 17–19. Harcourt, Brace, 1956. Broderick, John C. “Poe’s Revisions of ‘Lenore.’ ” Morisi, Eve Celia. “Poe’s ‘To One in Paradise’.” The American Literature 35 (1964): 504–510. Explicator 63, no. 3 (Spring 2005): 141–144. Cairns, William B. “Some Notes on Poe’s ‘Al Aaraaf.’ ” O’Neill, James. “A Closer Source for the Goths in Poe’s Modern Philology 13 (1915): 35–44. ‘Letter to B———.’ ” Poe Studies 12 (1979): 19–20. Campbell, Killis, ed. The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Person, Leland S., Jr. “Poe’s Composition of Philoso- Boston: Ginn, 1917. phy: Reading and Writing ‘The Raven.’ ” Arizona Dedmond, Francis B. “The Word ‘Tintinnabulation’ Quarterly 46 (1990): 1–15. and a Source for Poe’s ‘The Bells.’ ” Notes & Que- Pollin, Burton R. “Poe’s ‘Eldorado’ Viewed as a Song ries 196 (November 24, 1951): 520–521. of the West.” Prairie Schooner 46 (1972): 228–235. De Prospo, R. C. “Poe’s Alpha Poem: The Title of ‘Al ———. “Poe and Frances Osgood, as Linked Aaraaf.’ ” Poe Studies 22, no. 2 (1989): 34–39. Through ‘Lenore.’ ” Mississippi Quarterly 46 (1993): Franklin, Rosemary F. “Poe and The Awakening.” Mis- 185–197. sissippi Quarterly 47 (1993–1994): 47–57. Postema, James. “Edgar Allan Poe’s Control of Read- Freeman, Elizabeth. “Honeymoon with a Stranger: Pedo- ers: Formal Pressures in Poe’s Dream Poems.” philiac Picaresques From Poe to Nabokov.” American Essays in Literature 18 (1991): 68–75. Literature 70, no. 4 (December 1998): 863–897. Reilly, John E. The Image of Poe in American Poetry. Gargano, James W. “Poe’s ‘To Helen.’ ” Modern Lan- Baltimore, Md.: Enoch Pratt Free Library, Edgar guage Notes 75 (1960): 652–653. Allan Poe Society, and the Library of the Univer- Garrison, Joseph M., Jr. “Poe’s ‘City in the Sea.’ ” Poe sity of Baltimore, 1976. Studies 22, no. 2 (1989): 43–44. Richard, Claude. “The Heart of Poe and the Rhyth- Graham, Kevin, “Poe’s ‘The Bells’.” The Explicator 62, mics of the Poems.” In Critical Essays on Edgar no. 1 (Fall 2003): 9. Allan Poe, edited by Eric W. Carlson. Boston: G. K. Harrison, James Albert, ed. The Complete Works of Hall, 1989, 195–206. Edgar Allan Poe: Vol. VII—Poems. New York: T. Robbins, J. Albert. “A New Manuscript of Poe’s ‘For Crowell, 1902. Reprinted by AMS Press in 1965. Annie.’ ” Studies in Bibliography: Papers of the Bib- Hogue, L. Lynn. “Eroticism in Poe’s ‘For Annie.’ ” Poe liographical Society of the University of Virginia 39 Symposium, Emerson Society Quarterly 60 (1970): (1986): 261–265. 85–87. Robinson, David. “ ‘Ulalume’: The Ghouls and the Kilburn, Patrick. “Poe’s ‘Evening Star.’ ” Explicator 28 Critics.” Poe Studies 8 (1975): 8–10. (May 1970): item 76. St. Armand, Barton Levi. “Poe’s Unnecessary Angel: Lavin, Audrey. “A Birder’s Re-Reading of Poe’s ‘Israfel’ Reconsidered.” In Ruined Eden of the ‘Romance.’ ” University of Mississippi Studies in Eng- Present: Hawthorne, Melville, Poe, edited by G. R. lish 9 (1991): 199–204. Thompson, Virgil L. Lokke, and Chester E. Eis- Ljungquist, Kent. “ ‘The Coliseum’: A Dialogue on inger. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Ruins.” Poe Studies no. 16 (1983): 32–33. Press, 1981. 283–302. Lubbers, Klaus. “Poe’s ‘The Conqueror Worm.’ ” Stovall, Floyd, ed. The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Char- American Literature 39 (1967): 375–379. lottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1965. Mabbott, Thomas Olive, ed. The Collected Works of Thomas, J. David. “The Composition of Wilde’s The Edgar Allan Poe. Vol. 1—Poems. Cambridge, Mass.: Harlot House.” Modern Language Notes 65 (1950): Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1978. 485–488.

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Thompson, G. R. Circumscribed Eden of Dreams: Irwin, John T. “Handedness and the Self: Poe’s Chess Dream Vision and Nightmare in Poe’s Early Poetry. Player.” Arizona Quarterly 45 (1989): 1–28. Baltimore: Edgar Allan Poe Society, 1984. Jackson, David Kelly. “Poe Notes: ‘Pinakidia’ and Thorpe, Dwayne. “Poe’s ‘City in the Sea’: Sources and ‘Some Ancient Greek Authors.’ ” American Litera- Interpretation.” American Literature 51 (1979): ture 5 (1933): 258–267. 394–399. Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, ed. The Collected Works of Tritt, Michael. “ ‘Ligeia’ and ‘The Conqueror Worm.’ ” Edgar Allan Poe. Vols. 2 & 3. Cambridge, Mass.: Poe Studies 9 (1976): 21–22. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1978. Tromly, Lucas. “Impurifying Poe: Robert Penn War- McAndrews, Carleen. “Edgar Allan Poe’s Hawthorne ren’s ‘Brother to Dragons.’ ” The Mississippi Quar- Criticism: An Addition.” Nathaniel Hawthorne terly 53, no. 2 (Spring 2000): 225–236. Review 18 (1992): 21. Wegelin, Oscar. “The Printer of Poe’s Tamerlane.” Miller, John Carl, ed. Marginallia. Charlottesville: Uni- New York Historical Society Quarterly Bulletin 24 versity of Virginia Press, 1981. (January 1940): 23–25. O’Neill, Edward H. “The Poe-Griswold Texts of ‘Mar- Weston, Arthur Harold. “The ‘Nicean Barks’ of Edgar ginalia.’ ” American Literature 15 (November 1943): Allan Poe.” Classical Journal 29 (1933): 213–215. 238–250. Whitty, James, ed. The Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Panek, Leroy L. “ ‘Maezel’s Chess-Player,’ Poe’s First Poe. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911. Detective Mistake.” American Literature 48 (1976): 370–372. V. Reviews and Essays Parks, Edd Winfield. Edgar Allan Poe as Literary Critic. Bailey, J. O. “Poe’s Palestine.” American Literature 13 Athens: Georgia University Press, 1964. (1941): 44–58. Piacentino, Edward J. “The Poe-Longfellow Plagiarism Brigham, Clarence Saunders. “Edgar Allan Poe’s Con- Controversy: A New Critical Notice in the South- tributions to Alexander’s Weekly Messenger.” Pro- ern Chronicle.” Mississippi Quarterly 42 (1989): ceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, new 173–182. series LII April 1942, 45–124. Pollin, Burton R., ed. The Collected Writings of Edgar Brooks, Curtis M. “The Cosmic God: Science and the Allan Poe. Vol. 2, The Brevities: Pinakidia, Margina- Creative Imagination in Eureka.” American Tran- lia and Other Works; Vol. 3, The Broadway Journal, scendental Quarterly 26 (1975): 60–68. Nonfictional Prose, Part I: Text; Vol. 4, The Broad- Burke, Kenneth. “The Principle of Composition.” way Journal, Nonfictional Prose, Part II: Annota- Poetry 99 (October 1961): 46–53. tions. New York: Gordian Press, 1985–1986. Cappello, Mary. “ ‘Berenice’ and Poe’s Marginalia: Ad- Seitz, Don C., ed. A Chapter on Autography. New York: versaria of Memory.” New Orleans Review 17, no. 4 Dial Press, 1925. (1990): 54–65. Sherman, G. W. “Poe and the Panopticon.” Poe Studies Colby, Robert A. “Poe’s Philosophy of Composi- 14, no. 2 (1981): 31. tion.” University of Kansas City Review 20 (1954): Thompson, G. Richard, ed. Essays and Reviews. New 211–214. York: Library of America, 1984. Foust, R. E. “Aesthetician of Simultaneity: E. A. Varner, John Grier. “Poe and Miss Barrett of Wimpole Poe and Modern Literary Theory.” South Atlantic Street.” Four Arts 2 (January–February 1935): 4–5, Review 46, no. 2 (1981): 17–25. 14–15, 17. Harrison, James Albert, ed. The Complete Works of Edgar Walker, I. M. Edgar Allan Poe: The Critical Heritage. Lon- Allan Poe. 17 vols. New York: T. Crowell, 1902. don and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986. Hatvary, George Egon. “The Whereabouts of Poe’s Welch, Susan. “The Value of Analogical Evidence: ‘Fifty Suggestions.’ ” Poe Studies 4, no. 2 (December Poe’s Eureka in the Context of a Scientific Debate.” 1971): 47–48. Modern Language Studies 21, no. 4 (1991): 3–15.

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Note: Page numbers in “Address Delivered before “Al Aaraaf,” 17, 17–19, 18, “America and the American boldface indicate main the Goethean and 210, 317, 319–320, 343, People” (review), 202– entries. Page numbers in Diagnothian Societies 344 203, 354 italic indicate photographs. of Marshall College” Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and “American Almanac, and (review), 198–199, 309 Minor Poems, 6, 19–20, Repository of Useful A “Address Delivered before 20, 369 Knowledge for the 1937, Abel-Phittim (character), the Students of William Albermarle, County of, 287 The” (review), 203 168 and Mary” (article), 199 “Alciphron: A Poem” “American Drama, The” Abernathy, Dr. John, 287 “Address of the Carriers (review), 201 (criticism), 203, 307 abolition, 166, 273 of the Cincinnati Daily Aldrich, James, 287–288 “American in England, The” “About Critics and Criticism American Republican” Alessandra (character), 146 (review), 204, 361 By the Late Edgar A. Poe” (review), 200 Alexander, Charles W., 288 American Museum of Science, (essay), 197, 350, 361, “Address on Education Alexander’s Weekly Messenger Literature, and the Arts, 400 as Connected with the (journal), 288, 317 The (journal), 290 academia, in “The Devil in Permanence of Our “Alice Ray: A Romance In “American Parnassus, The” the Belfry,” 55 Republican Institutions, Rhyme” (review), 202 (project), 204 “Achilles’ Wrath” (editorial An” (review), 200, 365 Allamistakeo, Count “American Prose Writers” response), 197 “Address on the Subject of a (character), 162 (criticism), 204 Surveying and Exploring “Acrostic, An,” 17, 342 Allan, Frances Keeling American Quarterly Review Expedition to the Pacific Adams, John, 287 Valentine, 4–5, 288, 288, (periodical), 290 Ocean and South Seas” adaptations, 11, 35, 45, 289, 397 American Whig Review (review), 200–201, 268, 66, 70–71, 77–78, 80, Allan, John, 4, 5–6, 19, (periodical), 290 382 81, 98, 112, 116, 117, 288–289, 289, 397 Anacreon of Teos, 290 “Adventures of a Gentleman 123, 127, 142–143, 151, Allan, Louisa Gabriella Ana-Pest, Her Serene in Search of a Horse, The” 174–175, 191, 316, 320, Patterson, 289, 320, 363 Highness the Arch (review), 201 380. See also musical allegory, 49, 107, 110, 119, Advice to a Young Gentleman, Duchess (character), 92 adaptations 212 279–280 “Anastatic Printing” (essay), “Addendum to ‘A Few Aeschylus, 287 Allen, William (character), 205 Words on Secret Writing’” aesthetics, in “Al Aaraaf,” 132 Anaxagoras, 290 (article), 197–198 18–19 Allston, Washington, 289 Andersen, Walter, 252 Addison, Joseph, 287 afterlife, in “The “Alnwick Castle” (Halleck), Andreini, Giovanni Battista, “Address Delivered at the Conversation of Eiros and 220, 339 290 Annual Commencement Charmion,” 50–51 “Alnwick Castle, with Other Angelo (character), 17–18 of Dickinson College” Agathos (character), 148 Poems” (review), 202, 339 Angel of the Odd (review), 198 Aino Aureo (The Golden Ass) “Alone,” 20–21, 21 (character), 22 “Address Delivered before (Apuleius), 291 “Alone” (Hewitt), 274 “Angel of the Odd: An the Baltimore Lyceum” Ainsworth, William Harrison, Ambler, Richard Carey, 290 Extravaganza, The,” (review), 198 28, 229, 278, 287 “Amelia Welby” (review), 202 21–23, 337

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“Animal and Vegetable “Astoria; or, Anecdotes of Barrett, Eaton Stannard, “Biography and Poetical Physiology Considered an Enterprise beyond 230 Remains of the Late with Reference to Natural the Rocky Mountains” Barrett, Elizabeth, 65, 156, Margaret Miller Davidson, Theology” (review), 205, (review), 207, 292, 308, 157–158, 222–223, 295, The” (review), 209, 347 318 311, 356, 401 301 bi-part soul, 153–154 “Annabel Lee,” 23–26, 24, astronomy, 18, 64 Barry, Lyttleton, 295 Bird, Robert Montgomery, 71, 386, 395 Auden, W. H., 292–293 Bas-Bleu, Big Miss 229–230, 233, 271, 297 musical adaptations of, Austin, Sarah, 225 (character), 100 Bird, William (character), 294, 297, 320, 323, “Autography” (articles), Bas-Bleu, Miss (character), 123 325, 344, 354, 355, 206–207, 212, 265, 289, 108 Bisco, John, 297, 300–301 356, 357, 364, 380, 290–291, 292, 296–297, Bas-Bleu, Mrs. (character), “Black Cat, The,” 33–36, 383, 388, 390, 391, 301, 302, 306, 307, 309– 100 298 398, 399 310, 320, 324, 326, 327, Baudelaire, Charles, 10, black magic, in “Morella,” Annie (character), 94 336, 337–338, 339, 340, 295–296, 296, 329, 332, 117, 118 “Antediluvians, The” 341, 344, 347, 353, 355, 334 Blackwood, William, 297 (review), 206, 363 359, 361, 362, 363, 364, Beachcroft, Richard O., Blackwood, William Anthon, Charles, 271, 365, 367, 369, 389, 390, 296 (character), 83, 362 290–291 392, 395, 396, 397 Beale, Upton, 296 Blackwood’s Magazine, 82, Antigone (Sophocles), 206 automata, 242 Beardsley, Aubrey, 296 297, 351 “Antigone at Palmo’s, Ayres, Frederic, 293 Beauchamp-Sharp murder, Blaettermann, George, 297 The” (review), 197, 206, 146 Bless-My-Soul, Duchess of, 390–391 B beauty, 138, 183, 197, 294 100–101 Antiochus Epiphanes Baal-Zebub (character), 60 Beauvais, Monsieur Bliss, Elam, 144, 298 (character), 75 Bacon, Sir Francis, 266, 294 (character), 127 Block, Captain E. T. V. apocalypse, in “The Bailey, Philip James, 226 Bedloe, Augustus (character), 133 Conversation of Eiros and Balan, Joan, 294 (character), 169 Bluddennuff, Elector of Charmion,” 50–51 Baldazzar, Duke of Surry “Beleaguered City, The” (character), 101 “Appendix of Autographs, (character), 146 (Longfellow), 216 Blunderbuzzard (character), An” (article), 206–207 Balderston, Lucy Holmes, Belial (character), 60 55 Apuleius, Lucius, 291 20–21 “Bells, The,” 30, 30–31, 31, Bob, the devil (character), arabesques, 170 Balfe, Michael W., 294 71, 386, 389 192 Arago, Dominique-François- “Ballads and Other Poems” musical adaptations of, Bob, Thingum (character), Jean, 291 (review), 207–208, 351, 294, 297, 302, 328, 102–103 Archer, Robert, 291 392 329, 340, 344, 353, Bob, Thomas, Esq., 103 Archimedes, 291 “Balloon-Hoax, The,” 28– 356, 363, 365, 366, Bobby (character), 178–179 Aristarchus, 291 29, 287, 309, 336, 370 376, 381, 383 Boccaccio, 109 Aristophanes, 291 Baltimore, Maryland, 6, 9, Bemans, Samuel, 296 Bogart, Elizabeth, 298 Aristotle, 291 294–295 Benjamin, Park, 296–297 Bonaparte, Lucian [Lucien], Armstrong, John, 251 Baltimore Sunday Visiter Bennet (character), 133 245 Arnay, Jean-Rodolphe d’, (periodical), 295, 315, Bentham, Jeremy, 56 Bonaparte, Marie, 104, 298 291–292 342 “Berenice,” 31–33, 97–98 “Bon-Bon,” 37–38, 291, Arnold, Benedict, 292 Bancroft, George, 218 Berenice (character), 32 306, 344, 398 Arnold, Elizabeth, 292 Barbour, John Strode, 295 Bergen, Alfred Hiles, 297 Bon-Bon, Pierre (character), Arnold, William Henry, Barker, George, 295 Bergh, Arthur, 297 38 292 Barnaby Rudge (Dickens), Berlifitzing, Count Wilhelm Bonfanti’s, 108 art, 138–140, 207–208 157, 208, 322 (character), 116 Bonneville, Captain Arthur, Timothy Shea, 292, “Barnaby Rudge” (review), Bernard, P. D., 297 Benjamin Louis Eulalie 292 208, 345 “Big Abel and the Little de, 298 artist, stature of, 217 Barnard, Augustus Manhattan” (review), “Book of Gems, The” “Assignation, The,” 26–28, (character), 133 208–209, 363 (review), 209–210, 328 183, 305, 307, 310, 315, Barnard, Captain Binney, Horace, 209 book printing, 205 366, 371, 382 (character), 133 “Binney’s Eulogium” Bornschein, Franz, 298 Astor, John Jacob, 207, 292 Barnum’s Hotel, 295 (review), 209, 362–363 Boston, Massachusetts, 298

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“Boston and the Bostonians” Bryan, Daniel, 302 Caldwell, Reverend Joseph, Chandler, Joseph R., 198– (essays), 210, 298, 317, Bryant, William Cullen, 252 199, 309–310 329, 345 260, 302 Calhoun, John C., 306 Channing, William Ellery, Bouffon, Le Grand Bubastis (name), 101 Calvert, George H., 306 252–253, 308, 310 (character), 166 “Bubbles from the Brunnens Calvin, John, 306 Chantilly (character), 123 Boullard, Monsieur of Nassau” (review), 211 Campanella, Tommaso, Chapman, George, 310 (character), 166 Buchanan, Reverend John, 306–307 “Chapter of Suggestions, A” Brainard, John G. C., 226 302 Campbell, Major John, 307 (essay), 212 Braine, Robert, 299 Buck, Dudley, 302 Campbell, Thomas, 237–238 “Chapter on Autography, A” Bransby, Reverend Dr. John Buckingham, Mr. Silk “Camperdown; or, News (article), 212 (character), 191 (character), 163 from our Neighborhood” “Characters of Shakespeare, Bransby, Reverend John, Bugaboo Indians, 108 (review), 211–212 The” (review), 212–213 191, 299 Buhrman, Albert J., 302 Canning, Sir Launcelot, 307 “Charles O’Malley, the Irish Brennan, Mr. and Mrs. Bullet-Head, Mr. Touch- “Canons of Good Breeding, Dragoon” (review), 213, Patrick, 299 and-Go (character), 193, The” (review), 212 392 Brennan, Thomas, 299 302 Canova, Antonio, 307 Charles VI (king of France), Brewster, Sir David, 299 Bulwer-Lytton, Edward Cant, 307 81 “Bridal Ballad,” 39, 380 George Earle, 113, 214, Caplet, Andre, 307 Charmion (character), 51 “Bride of Abydos” (Byron), 222, 234, 239, 250, 269, Capricornutti, Count “Chaunt of Life and Other 6, 305 283–284, 291–292, 303, (character), 101 Poems, A” (review), 213, Bride of Lammermoor, The 398 captain of the ghostly ship 345 (Scott), 222, 387 burial alive, 32, 41, 43, 68, (character), 119–120 Chaworth, Mary, 211 Bridgewater Treatises, 205 71, 150–151 Caravaggio, 307 Cheever, George B., 310 Briggs, Charles F., 299–300, Burke, William, 303, 306, Carey, Mathew, 307 chess, 242 300–301, 326, 329, 338 394 Carlyle, Thomas, 307–308, Child, Lydia Maria, 257, Briscoe, Captain John, 300 Burling, Ebenezer, 303 395 310 Broad-Street Theatre, 300, Burns, Joe, 303 Carpaccio, Vittorre, 308 “Child of the Sea, and Other 300 Burns, Robert, 228 Carroll, Reverend D. L., Poems, The” (review), Broadway Journal Burr, Charles Chauncey, 303 232 214, 356–357 (periodical), 223, 297, Burton, William Evans, 132, Carson, John (character), Childs, George W., 310 299, 300–301 303–304, 304 133 Chiponchipino (character), Broglio, Duc di (character), Burton’s Gentleman’s Carter, Doctor John, 308 108 146 Magazine, 303–304, 304, Carter, Doctor William Chivers, Thomas Holley, “Broken Vow and Other 304–305, 335 Gibbon, 308 146, 241–242, 310, 311 Poems, The” (review), 210 Burwell, William Mecreery, Carver, Captain Jonathan, Chorley, Henry F., 217, 246 Bronner, Jim (character), 305 308, 401 “Christian Doctrine, The” 133 Bush, George, 305 Cary, Henry, 308–309 (Milton), 266 “Brook Farm” (review), “Business Man, The,” “Cask of Amontillado, The,” “Christian Florist” (review), 210–211 39–40, 289 40–46, 334, 344 214 Brooks, James Gordon, 301 Butler, Frances Anne, 234 Cass, Lewis, 309 Christie, Agatha, 8, 122, 321 Brougham, Henry, Lord, 220 Buzi-Ben-Levi (character), Castiglione (character), 146 “City in the Sea, The,” Brown, Gould, 301 168 Castle Island (Boston 46–48, 47 Brown, Thomas Dunn, 301 Byron, George Gordon, Harbor), 309 Claflin, Avery, 311 Browne, Sir Thomas, 301 Lord, 6, 27, 85, 171, 211, Catalini, Angelica, 309 Clark, Captain William, Browne, Doctor William 219, 305 Catarina, 309 311, 356 Hand, 301 “Byron and Miss Chaworth” Catesby, Robert, 229 Clark, Lewis Gaylord, 132, Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. (article), 211 Caus, Solomon de, 309 311, 354 See Barrett, Elizabeth Byronic stranger (character), Cayley, George, 309 Clarke, Joseph Hanson, 311 Browning, Robert, 295, 28, 305 celebrity, 99–100, 102–103 Clarke, Thomas Cottrell, 301–302 Celtic mythology, in “Fairy- 311–312, 392 Brownson, Orestes C Land,” 67 Clay, Cassius, 312 Augustus, 302 Cabell, Robert G., 306 Chamberlayne, William, 309 Cleef, Augustus van, 312, Bruenner, Leopold, 302 Cain, 306 Chambers, Robert, 309 321

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Clemm, Maria Poe, 3, 6–7, in “Why the Little “Corse de Leon: Or the Daniel, John Moncure, 319, 10, 182, 312, 312–313, Frenchman Wears His Brigand” (review), 218 383 314–315 Hand in a Sling,” 189 cosmology, in “Eureka,” “Dashes At Life with a Free Clemm, Virginia, 6–7, 7, in “X-ing a Paragrab,” 63–64 Pencil” (review), 220 182, 299, 309, 312, 313, 192 Cowles, Walter Ruel, 316 Davidson, Lucretia Maria, 313–314, 316, 321, 332, “Coming of the Mammoth— Cowper, William, 316 261, 319 335, 349, 388 The Funeral of Time Coxe, Arthur, 218–219 Davidson, Margaret Miller, Clemm, William, Jr., 314–315 and Other Poems, The” “Coxe’s Saul” (review), 209 Clemm, Reverend William (review), 214–215, 343 218–219 Davis, Dr. Hugh Wythe, 319 T. D., 315 Commodus, Emperor Lucius Crab, Mr. (character), 103 Davy, Sir Humphrey, 319 “Clinton Bradshaw; or the Aelius Aurelius, 315 Cranch, Christopher Pearse, Dawes, Rufus, 262–263, Adventures of a Lawyer” composition, process of, 256 316–317 319–320 (review), 214 Conchologist’s First Book, “Crayon Miscellany, The” Day, Frederic Lansing, 320 clock, in “The Devil in the The. See Preface and (review), 219 death Belfry,” 54–55 Introduction to The “Crayon Miscellany, No. II, in “Annabel Lee,” 23–25 Cloud, C. F., 315 Conchologist’s First Book The” (review), 219 in “The Assignation,” Cocke, John Hartwell, 315 “Confession of Emilia creation, 147–148 27 Cock-neighs (characters), Harrington, The” Crebillon, Prosper Jolyot in “Berenice,” 32 177 (review), 215 de, 317 in “The City in the Cognoscenti, Arabella, 108 “Confessions of a Poet, 2 “Critical and Miscellaneous Sea,” 46–48 Cognoscenti, Miranda, 108 vols.” (review), 215 Essays” (review), 219, in “The Colloquy of Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, confinement, 43–44, 142 361 Monos and Una,” 49 51, 235, 315, 395 “Conqueror Worm, The,” “Critical and Miscellaneous in “The Conqueror “Coliseum, The,” 48, 295, 49–50, 96, 298, 333 Writings of Henry Lord Worm,” 49–50 342 “Conquest of Florida by Brougham” (review), 220 in “Eleonora,” 62 collections, 258 Hernando De Soto, The” criticism, 197, 220, 240, 262, in “The Facts in the “Colloquy of Monos and (review), 215–216 267, 301 Case of M. Valdemar,” Una, The,” 48–49 Conrad, Joseph, 119 Croissart, Mademoiselle 65–66 Collyer, Robert, 65, 315 “Continuation of the (character), 165 in “Landor’s Cottage,” Colquhon, Captain Voluminous History of the Cross, Henry, 317 93 (character), 133 Little Longfellow War, A” cryptography, 76–77, 78, in “Lenore,” 94–95 Colton, Calvin, 278 (articles), 216–217 186, 197–198, 317 in “Ligeia,” 95–97 Colton, George Hooker, “Conti the Discarded” Cullum, George in “The Masque of the 290, 315 (review), 217 Washington, 317 Red Death,” 111 Colton, Walter, 315 “Contributions to the “Culprit Fay and Other in “Mesmeric comedy Ecclesiastical History Poems” (review), 220 Revelation,” 115 in “Bon-Bon,” 38 of the United States Curtis, Mrs. Adelaide in “Morella,” 117 in “The Devil in the of America—Virginia” (character), 138 in “Silence—A Sonnet,” Belfry,” 55 (review), 218 Cushing, Caleb, 317 160–161 in “The Duc de “Conversation of Eiros and Cuvier, Baron Georges- in “The Sleeper, 161 l’Omelette,” 60 Charmion, The,” 50–51 Léopold-Chrétien- in “Spirits of the Dead,” in “Four Beasts in One,” Converse, Reverend Amasa, Frédéric-Dagobert, 165 75 316 317–318 in “To One in Paradise,” in “How to Write a Cook, Ann, 146 Cyrus, 318 183 Blackwood Article,” Cook, Captain James, 316, in “Ulalume,” 183–184 82 356 D in “The Valley of in “King Pest the First,” Cools, Eugene, 316 D——, Minister (character), Unrest,” 187 91 Cooper, James Fenimore, 154 “Death-Bed, A” (Aldrich), in “Lionizing,” 100 246, 283 Dacre, Lady, 276 288 in “The System of copyright, 274 Dagon, 319 Debussy, Claude-Achille, 11, Doctor Tarr and Corinnos, 316 Daguerre, Louis, 319 55, 71, 320, 347 Professor Fether,” Corman, Roger, 70, 80, 98, Dammit, Toby (character), Decameron (Boccaccio), 109 165–166 112, 142–143, 316, 380 137 decapitation, 148–149

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Decline and Fall of the Roman Didier, Eugene, 20, 322–323 dueling, in “Mystification,” “Elk, The” (essay), 224, 384 Empire (Gibbon), 239 Dinneford, W., 197 129 “Elkswatawa” (review), 224, Dee, Doctor Dubble L., 179 Diodorus Siculus, 323 Dumas, Paul (character), 387 Defoe, Daniel, 237, 320 “Dissertation on the 123 Ellet, Elizabeth Fries, 260– De Hart, John, 320, 375 Importance of Physical Duncan Lodge, 323, 379 261, 324, 360, 373 De Kock, Monsieur Signs in the Various Dundergutz (character), 55 Elline (character), 75 (character), 166 Diseases of the Abdomen Dunderheads (characters), Ellis, Powbatan, 324 Delos, 320–321 and Thorax, A” (review), 73 Ellis, Colonel Thomas H., Del Rio, Antonio, 321 221 Dunn, James Philip, 323 324–325 Deluc, Madame (character), “Doctor, &c., The” (review), Dupin, André-Marie-Jean- Ellison (character), 57 127 221–222 Jacques, 323 Ellison, Mr. Seabright democracy, in “Mellonta Doellner, Robert, 323 Dupin, C. Auguste (character), 57 Tauta,” 114 “Doge and Dogaressa” (character), 7–8, 123–124, Embury, Emma C., 325 Democritus, 51 (Hoffman), 27 127–128, 154, 321, 323 enclosure, 43–44, 142 demon, the (character), 160 “Domain of Arnheim, The,” Duval, Henry (character), Enderby, Messieurs De Quincey, Thomas, 321 57, 328, 380, 389 124 (characters), 133 “Descent into the doubles, 42–43, 169, Duyckinck, Evert Augustus, Endymion (mythological Maelstrom, A,” 51–53, 190–191 63, 255, 323 figure), 17 295, 333, 344, 353 Downing, Jack (character), Dwight, John S., 211 Engelsburg, Eduard Schon, Desoulières, Jules 265 325 (character), 166 Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 8, E “England in 1835” (review), detective story, 7–8, 76, 122, 321, 323 E——, Mrs. See Ellet, 224–225 120–123, 126–127, 152– Dr. D—— (character), 66 Elizabeth Fries English, Thomas Dunn, 33, 153, 176, 321 Dr. F—— (character), 66 “Early Naval History of 41, 301, 325, 325, 329, Devereaux, Mary, 312, 313, Drake, Joseph Rodman, England” (review), 223 339, 343, 360, 391 321–322 202, 220 Eaton, Major John Henry, “Enigma, An,” 62–63 devil, the (character), “Drake-Halleck Review, 324 epic poetry, 252 37–38, 55, 60 The.” See “Alnwick Castle, “Edgar A. Poe and his epigraphs, 325 “Devil in the Belfry, The,” with Other Poems”; College Contemporaries” in “The Assignation,” 11, 54, 54–56, 320, 347, “Culprit Fay and Other (Burwell), 305 26 348 Poems” “Editorial Miscellany” in “Berenice,” 31 Dew, Thomas R., 199 drama, decline of, 203 (note), 223 in “Bon-Bon,” 37 Dewey, Reverend Orville, “Drama, The” (1) (review), Edmond, Amanda M., 210 in “The Colloquy of 251–252 222 Edmunds (character), 133 Monos and Una,” Diana (character), 83, 149 “Drama, The” (2) (review), education, 198, 200 48–49 Diana (mythological figure), 222 Edward, David B., 231 in “The Conversation of 322 “Drama of Exile and Other Egaeus (character), 32–33 Eiros and Charmion,” Dick, Thomas, 142 Poems, The” (review), Egypt, ancient, 162 50 Dickens, Charles, 157, 208, 222–223 Eiros (character), 51 in “A Descent into the 243–244, 258, 264, 281, Drayton, William, 170, 272, Eisler, Paul, 324 Maelstrom,” 51 322, 398 323 Elah Gabalah (character), 75 in “Diddling Considered Dickinson College, 198 “Dream, A,” 58, 344, 384, “Eldorado,” 60, 60–61, 61 as One of the Exact “Dictionary of Greek and 397, 403 musical adaptations of, Sciences,” 56 Roman Antiquities, A” “Dream-Land,” 58, 58–59, 296, 297, 302, 316, in “The Domain of (review), 221 321, 397 337, 344, 345, 346, Arnheim,” 57 Dictu, Mr. Horribile “Dream within a Dream, A,” 352, 361, 362, 370, in “The Duc de (character), 73 59, 317, 390, 397 374, 380, 388, 389, l’Omelette,” 59 “Didactics—Social, Literary, Drummummupp, Rev. 390, 393, 397, 399 in “Eleonora,” 61 and Political” (review), Doctor (character), 108 “Eleonora,” 61–62, 97 in “The Fall of the 221 Dubourg, Pauline Eleonora (character), 62 House of Usher,” 67 “Diddling Considered (character), 123 Elfirda, A Dramatic Poem in “Four Beasts in One,” as One of the Exact “Duc de l’Omelette, The,” in Five Acts (review), 74 Sciences,” 56 59–60, 351, 356, 381–382 223–224 in “The Gold-Bug,” 75

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epigraphs (continued) “Eureka: An Essay on the “Addendum to ‘A Few Fuller, Hiram, 326, 329 in “How to Write a Material and Spiritual Words on Secret Writing’”; Fuller, Margaret, 329–330, Blackwood Article,” Universe,” 63–64, 290, cryptography 370 82 309, 329, 342, 344 Fibalittle, Mrs. (character), Furneaux, Lieutenant, 330 in “King Pest the First,” Euripides, 226 103 Fuseli, Henry, 330 91 “Euripides Translated by Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, future, in “Mellonta Tauta,” in “Ligeia,” 96–97 the Reverend R. Potter” 327–328 114 in “Lionizing,” 99 (review), 226 fidelity, in “Bridal Ballad,” in “Loss of Breath,” 104 Eusebius of Caesarea, 39 G in “The Man of the 325–326 “Fifty Suggestions” G——, Monsieur Crowd,” 105 Evening Mirror (newspaper), (observations), 227, 295, (character), 124, 128, in “The Man That Was 326, 329, 366–367, 401 381, 384 154–155 Used Up,” 107 “Evening Star,” 64, 384, 389 Fitzgerald, Bishop O. P., 328 Gaffy, 331 in “Metzengerstein,” Everett, Edward, 326 Fitzwilliam, Edward Francis, Gaillard, Petit (character), 115 evil, in “The Fall of the 328 166–167 in “MS. Found in a House of Usher,” 70 Flaccus, 252–253 Gallagher, William D., 225 Bottle,” 118 Ezekiel, 326 Flag of Our Union (journal), Galt, William, 331 in “The Murders in 328 Garcio, Alfonzo (character), the Rue Morgue,” F Flavius Vospiscus, 328 124 120–121 “Facts in the Case of M. Fletcher the Younger, Giles, Gaul, Harvey, 331 in “Mystification,” 129 Valdemar, The,” 64–67, 328 Gay-Lussac, Joseph-Louis, in “Never Bet the Devil 315, 364 “Flora and Thalia” (review), 331 Your Head,” 136 “Fairy-Land,” 67, 344 227 “Genius and Character of in “The Pit and the “Fall of Niagara, The” Flud, Robert, 328 Burns” (review), 227–228 Pendulum,” 143 (Brainard), 226–227 Folio Club, The, 73 “George Balcombe” in “A Predicament,” 148 “Fall of the House of Usher, food, in “The Duc de (review), 228, 396 in “The Purloined The,” 11, 67–73, 166, l’Omelette,” 59 George, Dr. Miles, 331–332 Letter,” 152 298, 299, 307, 311, 316, Foote, Arthur, 328 “Georgia Scenes, in “Shadow,” 159 320, 321, 328, 330, 333, “For Annie,” 73–74, 328, Characters, Incidents, &c” in “Silence. A Fable,” 343, 344, 348, 351, 364, 382 (review), 228 159–160 375 Forrest, Hamilton, 328 “Geraldine, Athenia in “A Tale of Jerusalem,” fancy, v. imagination, 201 Forsyth, Cecil, 328 of Damascus, and 167 fantasy, 17, 49 Fortunato (character), 45 Miscellaneous Poems.” See in “The Tell-Tale Fashion. See Mowatt, Anna “Fortune Hunter, The” “Poetry of Rufus Dawes” Heart,” 172–173 Cora; “New Comedy, (review), 227 German literature, 277 in “The Thousand- The” (review) Foulds, John Herbert, 329 Gibbon, Edward, 239 and-Second Tale of Fatquack, Mr. (character), “Four Beasts in One: The Gibson, Thomas Ware, 332 Scheherazade,” 177 103 Homo-Cameleopard,” Gide, André, 10, 332 in “The Unparalleled Fawkes, Guy, 229 74–75, 322, 326, 328, 387 “Gift: A Christmas and New Adventure of Fay, Theodore Sedgwick, Fox, George, 329 Years Present for 1836, One Hans Pfaall,” 251, 327 France, Poe’s reputation in, The” (review), 228–229 184–185 Feltspar, Ferdinand Fitz 10, 295 Gilbert, Henry F., 86, 332 in “William Wilson,” Fossillus (character), 101 Francis, John Wakefield, 329 Gill, William F., 332 190 Female Poets of America, 247, French critics and criticism, Gillespie, William M., “Erato” (review), 225 327, 360 10, 295, 329, 332, 334, 332–333 Ermengarde (character), 62 Fergusson, John W., 327 362 Gilman, Caroline, 236 Ethix, Aestheticus “Festus” (review), 226 Fricassee (character), 101 Gironne, Nicolas Eymeric (character), 101 Fether, Professor (character), Frogpondians, 210, 329, 345 di, 333 Etienne, Alexandre 166 Froissart, Monsieur Glanvill, Joseph, 97, 333 (character), 124 “Few Words About Brainard, (character), 165 Glass, Corporal (character), “Ettore Fleramosca” A” (review), 226–227 Froissart, Napoleon 133 (review), 225–226 “Few Words on Secret Bonaparte (character), Glass, Francis, 237 “Eulalie—A Song,” 63 Writing, A,” 77. See also 165 Glendinning (character), 191

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Gliddon, Mr., 163 Griffith, Mary, 211–212 Hawks, Dr. Francis Lister, “Historical Sketch” (review), Gluck (character), 185 Grimm, M. (character), 185 218, 340 230 Gniessin, Michael, 333 Griswold, Captain Henry, “Hawks of Hawk-Hallow” “History of Texas” (review), Godey, Louis Antoine, 240, 337 (review), 229–230 230–231 333 Griswold, Rufus Wilmot, Hawthorne (James), 240 hoax, 28–29, 151, 185, 188, Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s vii–viii, 9–10, 203, 247, Hawthorne, Julian, 340 222, 242, 352, 358 Book, 333–334, 334, 339 262, 263, 263, 266, 313, Hawthorne, Nathaniel, Hoffman, Charles Fenno, Godwin, Bishop Francis, 334 315, 319, 327, 332, 337, 247, 256, 276–277, 279, 343, 384 Godwin, William, 241 337–338, 360, 373. See 340–341, 395 Hoffman, E. T. A., 27 “Gold-Bug, The,” 75–79, also “Ludwig” article, the Haxall, Robert W., 221 Holberg, Ludvig, 343–344 76, 310, 317, 376 Grogswigg T (character), 55 Hazlitt, William, 212–213, Holbrooke, Josef, 344 gold rush, 61, 187–188 grotesques, 170 239 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Goldsmith, Oliver. See guests, in “The Masque of Headley, J. T., 270 344 “Vicar of Wakefield, The” the Red Death,” 113 Hearne, Samuel (character), Holmes, Sherlock Goncourt, Edmond Louis Guiccioli, Teresa, 27 89 (character), 8, 122, 321, Antoine Hout de, 334 guilt, 42, 173–174 Heath, James Ewell, 341 323 Goncourt, Jules Alfred Hout Gunpowder Plot, 229 Hemans, Felicia Dorothea, “Hop-Frog,” 80–82, 316, de, 334 Guy, Captain (character), 246 328, 398 Goodfellow, Charles 133 Hemberger, Theodor, 341 Hop-Frog (character), 81 (character), 176 “Guy Fawkes” (review), 229 Henderson (character), 133 Hopkins, Charles D., 344, gothic, 41–42, 67–69, 110, Hennepin, Louis, 341 378 115, 173, 297, 334 H Henry, Francis, earl of Hopkins, Reverend John Gottschalk, Louis F., Haasz, Richard, 339 Bridgewater, 205 Henry, Jr., 344 334–335 Hale, David Emerson, 339 Henry, Professor Caleb Horne, Richard Henry, 252, Gould, Hannah F., 260 Hale, Sarah Josepha, 202, Sprague, 341 344 Gove, Mary Neal, 93, 335 278–279, 339 Henry Pelham (Bulwer- horror, in “King Pest the Gowans, William, 335 Hall, S. C., 209–210 Lytton), 214 First,” 91 Graham, George Rex, 9, Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 202, Henson, William horse-buying, 201 304, 335, 335–336, 338, 220, 253, 339, 383 (character), 29 “Horse-Shoe Robinson” 360 Hamlet (character), 213 Hermann, Johann (review), 231 Graham’s Magazine, 335, Hammerhead, Marmaduke, (character), 130 house, 69, 72–73, 93 336, 337 339 “Heroine: of Adventures of House of Usher (film), 70 “Grammar of the English handwriting analysis, 207 Cherubina, The” (review), Howard, Lieutenant J., Language” (review), 229 Hannay, James, 339–340 230 344–345 Grand, Anne, 245 Hansson, Ola, 340 Herring, Elizabeth Poe, “How to Write a Blackwood Grandjean, Auguste “Happiest Day, the Happiest 341–342 Article,” 82–83, 149, 297, (character), 23 Hour, The,” 79 Herring, Elizabeth Rebecca, 310, 321, 327–328, 362, grave robbing, 32 Harbinger (magazine), 17, 180, 342 380, 398 Graves, Sergeant Samuel 210–211 Herring, Henry, 342 Hoyle, Edmond, 345 “Bully,” 336 Hardy, Captain (character), Herschel, Sir John Frederick Hoyt, Reverend Ralph, 213, Greek drama, 206, 226, 287, 138 William, 342 345 390–391 Harris, Alfred (character), Hewitt, John Hill, 295, 342 Hudson, Henry Norman, Greeley, Horace, 336, 370 133 Hewitt, Mary Elizabeth, 274, 345 Greely (character), 133 Harris, Cuthbert, 340 342, 370 Hughes, Judge Robert W., Greely brothers (characters), Hart, Mr., 340 Hicks, Absalom (character), 345 89 “Haunted Palace, The,” 67, 133–134 Huhn, Bruno Siegfried, 345 Green, Charles, 336 71, 79–80, 80, 216, 320, Higginson, Colonel Thomas Hull, William Doyle, Grenouille, Prince de 386 Wentworth, 342–343 272–273 (character), 101 Haunted Palace, The (film), Hill, Edward Burlingame, humanity, 49–50, 51 Gresset, Jean Baptiste, 80 343 “Human Magnetism” 336–337 Havens, Benny, 340 Hill, George Handel, 343 (review), 231 Grey, Edward S. T., 337 Hawk, Thomas (character), Hirst, Henry Beck, 214–215, Hunt, Freeman, 345 Griffis, Elliot, 337 103 343, 376 Hunt, Leigh, 233

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Huxley, Aldous, 345–346 “I Promessi Sposi” (review), Juniper (character), 83 Lady of Lyons, The (Bulwer- Huybrechts, Albert, 346 233–234 Junot, M. (character), 89 Lytton), 222 “Hymn,” 83, 324, 331, 388, “Irene.” See “Sleeper, The” Junot, Pierre (character), 89 Lafayette, Marie-Joseph- 389, 403 irony, in “The Black Cat,” 34 Jupiter (character), 78 Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert “Hyperion” (review), Irving, Theodore, 215–216 du Motier, marquis de, 231–232 Irving, Washington, 202, K 287, 355, 377 hypnosis. See mesmerism 207, 209, 219, 267, 298, Karnavicius, Jurgis, 351 “Lafitte: The Pirate of the 347–348 Kate (character), 179 Gulf” (review), 235 I “Island of the Fay, The,” 86, Katholim (character), 168 Lafourcade, Mademoiselle Ianthe (character), 17–18 321, 332 Keats, John, 351 Victorine (character), 151 “Ideals and Other Poems” isolation, 92–93, 105–106 Keith, Alexander, 351–352 “Lake, The,” 92–93, 344 (review), 232 “Israfel,” 87, 87, 319, 325, Kelley, Edgar Stillman, 352 Lalage (character), 147 imagination, 201, 220 344, 345, 353, 384 Kemble, Fanny, 234 Lalande, Madame Eugenie “Imitation,” 83–84 Kempelen, Baron von (character), 165 “Imitation—Plagiarism.” J (character). See Von Lalande, Madame Stephanie See “Continuation of the Jacinta (character), 146–147 Kempelen, Baron (character), 165 Voluminous History of the James, G. P. R., 218, 241 Kempelen, Baron Wolfgang Landon, Letitia Elizabeth, 236 Little Longfellow War, A” James, Henry, 240 von, 242, 352 Landor, Mr. (character), 94 “Imp of the Perverse, The,” Jefferson, Thomas, 349, 356 Kennedy, John Pendleton, Landor, William, 355 84–85 Jennings (character), 163 231, 352–353, 365, 370 “Landor’s Cottage,” 93–94, “Inaugural Address of the Jochaides, Simeon Kentucky Tragedy, 146 382–383, 384 Reverend D. L. Carroll, (character), 177–178 Kepler, Johannes, 212 language, 78, 100 D.D.” (review), 232 John (character), 114 Kerrison, Davenport, 353 Laplace, Mam’selle “Incidents of Travel in Johns, Reverend John, 349 Kickapoo Indians, 108 (character), 167 Central America, Etc.” Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 249, King, Oliver, 353 LaSalle, General (review), 232, 340 349–350 king, the (character), 81 (character), 143 “Incidents of Travel in Johnson, Frederic Ayres, 293 “King Pest the First, A Tale Last Days of Pompeii, The Egypt, Arabia Petraea, Johnson, Hunter, 350 Containing an Allegory,” (Bulwer-Lytton), 239 and the Holy Land.” See jokes, in “Hop-Frog,” 80–81 90–92 Latrobe, Charles Joseph, 267 “Review of Stephens’ Jones, Davy (legendary Kircher, Athanasias, 353 Latrobe, John Hazelhurst Arabia Petraea” figure), 92 Kirkland, Caroline Matilda, Boneval, 355, 365 “Indicator and Companion, Jones, Robert (character), 353 Lauzanne, Jacques The” (review), 233 101 Kirkland, William, 353–354 (character), 89 “Infatuation.” See “Satirical Jones, William Alfred, 350 Kissam, Mr. (character), Lawson, James, 355–356 Poems” “Joseph Rushbrook” 188 Le Blanc, Monsieur “Infidel, The” (review), 233 (review), 234 Knickerbocker Magazine, 311, (character), 128 Ingersoll, Charles J., 230 “Journal—By Frances Anne 343, 354 Le Bon, Adolphe Inghelbrecht, Désiré-Emile, Butler” (review), 234 knowledge, in “Al Aaraaf,” (character), 124–125 347 Journal of Julius Rodman, 17–18 Le Brun, Pere, 356 Ingraham, Joseph H., 235 The, 87–90, 292, 298, Kranich, Alvin, 354 Ledyard, John, 356 Ingram, John Henry, 10, 21, 308, 311, 341, 356, 374, Kreutzenstern, Captain, Lee, Zaccheus Collins, 198 301, 347 376, 395, 401 354, 357 “Legends of a Log Cabin” innocence, in “A Dream,” Joyce, James, 350 Kroeger, Ernest Richard, 354 (review), 235 58 Joyeuse, Madame Kroutaplenttey (character), Legrand, William insanity, 31–33, 68, 69–70, (character), 167 55 (character), 78 111, 139, 173–174 Judaism, in “A Tale of Legs (character), 92 interior decoration, 256–257 Jerusalem,” 167–168 L “Lenore,” 94, 94–95, 389 introspection, in “The Fall of “Judge Story’s Discourse on Lackobreath, Mr. Leoni, Franco, 356 the House of Usher,” 69 Chief-Justice Marshall” (character), 104 Le Poer, 356 intuition, 212 (review), 234–235, Lacy, Frederick St. John, Le Rennét, Henri, 356 “In Youth I Have Known 362–363, 392 355 Leslie, Henry, 356 One with Whom the Jules, the Canadian “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship” L’Espanaye, Madame Earth,” 85–86, 325 (character), 89 (Barrett), 156, 295 (character), 125

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L’Espanaye, Mademoiselle “Lionizing. A Tale,” 99–102, Longfellow Wars, the. See Magruder, Allan B., 362 Camille (character), 125 307, 308, 321, 322, 326, “Continuation of the “Mahmoud” (review), “Letters, Conversations, 380 Voluminous History of the 242–243 and Recollections of S. Lisiausky, Captain, 354, 357 Little Longfellow War, A” “Maiden Lamenting for Her T. Coleridge” (review), literary criticism, 197 Longstreet, Augustus Fawn” (Marvell), 210 235, 315 “Literary Life of Thingum Baldwin, 228 Maillard, Monsieur “Letters Descriptive of the Bob, Esq.”, 397 Lorrequer, Harry, 213 (character), 167 Virginia Springs” (review), “Literary Life of Thingum loss, 58–59, 79, 84, 156, Maiter-di-dauns, Mounseer 235–236 Bob, Esq. Late Editor of 171–172, 179, 180, (the Count A. Goose; “Letters of Eliza Wilkinson” the ‘Goosetherumfoodle.’ 183–184 Look-aisy) (character), (review), 236 by Himself, The,” 102–103 “Loss of Breath,” 104–105, 189 Letters on Demonology “Literary Remains of the 290, 318, 323, 327, 384 Malibran, Madam, 245 (Scott), 33 Late William Hazlitt,” 239 “Lost Pleiad” (review), Mallarmé, Stéphane, 10, “Letter to B——”, 144–145 “Literary Small Talk” 241–242, 310 362 “Letter to Young Ladies” (article), 239, 398 love, 23–25, 74, 97–98, 158, Mallinson, Albert, 362 (review), 236 “Literati of New York City, 171, 180, 183–184 man in a toga, in “Silence. A Levey, William Charles, 356 The” (profiles), 223, Loves of Edgar Allan Poe, The Fable,” 160 Lewis, Captain Meriwether, 239–240, 287, 290, 298, (film), 359 Mann, Captain (character), 356 299–300, 303, 305, 308, Lowell, James Russell, 152– 108 Lewis, Sarah Anna “Stella,” 310, 311, 315, 316–317, 153, 260, 359, 359–360 “Man of the Crowd, The,” 62, 214, 356–357 323, 325, 329, 330, 332– Luchesi (character), 45 105–107, 344 Lewis, Sylvanus D., 357 333, 335, 339, 342, 343, “Ludwig” article, the, 332, Manor House School, 299 Lewis, Tayler, 259 345, 353–354, 355–356, 337, 360, 363, 366, 370, “Man That Was Used Up, Lieber, Francis, 267–268 358–359, 360, 362, 367, 374 The,” 107–109, 152, 374, Liebling, George, 357 372, 373, 386, 392, 397, lullaby, 180 387 Lieutenant G—— 399–400 Lummis, Colonel William, Manzoni, Alessandro, 234 (character), 78 Little, Arthur Reginald, 357 360 “Marginalia” (passages), life, stages of, in “The Bells,” Little Snake (character), 89 Lynch, Anne Charlotte, 360 243, 247, 277, 287, 288, 30–31 “Lives of the Cardinal Lytton, Edard George Frank 291, 303, 307–308, 316, “Life and Literary Remains de Richelieu, Count Bulwer. See Bulwer-Lytton, 317, 322, 323, 345, 350, of L. E. L.” (review), 236 Oxenstiern, Count Edward George Earle 365, 382, 387, 389, 391, “Life and Surprising Olivarez, and Cardinal 394, 398 Adventures of Robinson Mazarin” (review), 241, M maritime commerce, 268 Crusoe, The” (review), 237 387 Macaulay, Thomas Maroncelli, Piero, 362 “Life of George Washington, Locke, Jane Ermina, 357, Babington, 1st baron marriage, 39, 63, 95–96, in Latin Prose” (review), 370 Macaulay, 197, 219, 361 104, 163 237 Locke, Lieutenant Joseph MacDowell, Edward, 361 Marryat, Captain, 234 “Life of Petrarch” (review), Lorenzo, 357–358 Mackenzie, Lieutenant Marshall, John, 209, 234– 237–238 Locke, Richard Adams, 358 Alexander Slidell, 204, 235, 362–363 “Life of the Necromancers” Loeffler, Charles Martin, 361 Marston, George, 363 (review), 241 358 Mackenzie, John Hamilton, Martin, Joseph, 249 “Life of Washington, A” logic, in “The Purloined 361–362 Marvell, Andrew, 210 (review), 238 Letter,” 153 Mackenzie, William and Marx, Isaacher (character), “Life on the Lakes” (review), “Loiterings of Travel.” See Jane Scott, 3–4, 288, 323, 66 238 “Dashes At Life with a 362, 378 Masetti, Enzo, 363 “Ligeia,” 50, 95–99, 294, Free Pencil” “Madrid in 1835” (review), Mason, Monck (character), 298, 320–321, 325, 333, Long, George, 358 242 29 344 Long, Stephen H., 358 Maelzel, Johann Nepomuk, Mason, Thomas Monck, Ligeia (character), 17, 98 Longfellow, Henry 188, 242 29, 336 Lincoln, Robert Todd, 357 Wadsworth, 203, 207–208, “Maelzel’s Chess-Player” “Masque of the Red Death, Lind, Jenny, 296 210, 216–217, 231–232, (essay), 242, 352 The,” 109–113, 307, 328, “Linwoods, The” (review), 280–281, 329, 358, 358– magazine writing, 255–256 344, 382, 386, 387–388, 238–239 359, 359–360 Maginn, William, 362 394, 397, 401

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Master Humphrey’s Clock metaphysics, 63–64, 148 Morphine, Dr. (character), “Eldorado,” 296, 297, (Dickens), 243–244 metempsychosis, 117, 271 149 302, 316, 337, 344, “Master Humphrey’s Clock” “Metzengerstein: A Tale In Morrell, Captain Benjamin 345, 346, 352, 361, (review), 243–244 Imitation of the German,” (character), 134 362, 370, 374, 380, Mathews, Cornelius, 208– 115–117 Morris, George Pope, 248, 388, 389, 390, 393, 209, 281, 363 Metzengerstein, Baron 366–367 397, 399 Mattson, Morris, 255 Frederick (character), 116 “Mosses from an Old “The Masque of the Maury, Matthew, 244 Metzengerstein, Lady Mary Manse” (review), 247 Red Death,” 307, 328, “Maury’s Navigation” (character), 116 Mott, Valentine, 8, 367, 344, 382, 386, 387, (review), 244 Mignaud, Jules (character), 388 394, 397, 401 Mayo, Colonel John, 363 125 Mowatt, Anna Cora, 222, “The Raven,” 294, 296, McBride, Admiral James, Mill, John Stuart, 364 227, 249, 367, 367–368, 297, 298, 339, 341, 363 Millard, Harrison, 364 386 344, 350, 354, 388, McBride, Jane, 363 Miller, James Henry, 365 Moyamensing Prison, 368, 403 McHenry, James, 206, 363 Miller, Joseph, 365 368, 386 “To Helen,” 337, 351, Mcintosh, Maria Jane, 363 Milton, John, 206, 266, 290, “Mr. Griswold and the 357, 358, 388, 390, McMichael, Morton, 363, 365 Poets” (review), 247 394, 397 363–364 Minor, Benjamin Blake, 365 Mr. P—— (character), 67 “Musings” (Welby), 202 Mela, Pomponius, 364 Minor, Lucian, 200, 365 Mr. Theodore L—— Mysteries of Paris, The Melamet, David, 364 Misquash (character), 89–90 (character), 67 (review), 247–248 “Mellonta Tauta,” 113–114, Moissart, Mademoiselle “MS. Found in a Bottle,” “Mystery of Marie Rogêt, 294, 307, 364, 383 (character), 165 118–120, 342, 352, 355, The,” 122, 126–129, 321, “Memoir of the Reverend Moneypenny, Dr. 365 384 John H. Rice, D.D.” (character), 83 Mumblethumb, Mr. “Mystification,” 129–130 (review), 244 Monk (character), 147 (character), 103 mythology, in “Sonnet—To “Memoirs and Letters of Monos (character), 49 mummy, 162 Science,” 163 Madame Malibran,” Montagu, Lady Mary murder, 33, 35, 85, 97, 244–245, 394 Wortley, 365 98–99, 173, 176 N “Memoirs of an American Montani, Alberto “Murders in the Rue Narrative of Arthur Gordon Lady” (review), 245 (character), 125 Morgue, The,” 120–126, Pym, The, 130–136, 131, “Memoirs of Lucian Montani, Nicola, 365 121, 152, 247–248, 321, 200, 293, 303–304, 311, Bonaparte” (review), 245 Montresor (character), 345, 384, 398 316, 317–318, 330, 354, “Memorials of Mrs. 45–46 “Murder Will Out” (Simms), 357, 374, 382, 388, 399 Hemans” (review), 246, Moog, Wilson Townsend, 282 narrators 386, 387, 395 366 Muset, Isidor (character), of “The Assignation,” memory, in “Annabel Lee,” 25 Moon, travel to, 185 125 28 Mentoni, Marchesa Moore, Thomas, 27, 201 musical adaptations, 11, 55, of “The Black Cat,” 36 Aphrodite di (character), moral, in “Never Bet 71, 294, 297, 298, 303, of “A Descent into the 27 the Devil Your Head,” 311, 316, 320, 323, 324, Maelstrom,” 53 Mentoni, Marchese di 136–137 329, 331, 333, 334, 343, of “Diddling Considered (character), 27–28 Moran, Dr. John J., 366 344, 345, 346, 351, 353, as One of the Exact “Mephistopheles in Moran, Mrs. Mary, 366 354, 357, 363, 380, 383, Sciences,” 56 England” (review), 246 More, Sir Thomas, 366 384, 386, 388, 389, 390, of “The Fall of the House “Mercedes of Castile” Moreau, Pierre (character), 393, 397, 403 of Usher,” 72, 330 (review), 246 125 “Annabel Lee,” 294, female, 149 Mesmer, Franz Friedrich “Morella,” 98, 117–118, 297, 320, 325, 344, of “The Gold-Bug,” Anton, 65, 364 327, 386 354, 355, 356, 357, 78–79 “Mesmeric Revelation,” Morella (1) (character), 118 364, 380, 383, 388, in “How to Write a 114–115, 302, 364 Morella (2) (character), 118 390, 391, 398, 399 Blackwood Article,” mesmerism, 64–65, 114– Morgan, Appleton, 366 “The Bells,” 294, 297, 149 115, 168–169, 364 “Morning on the 302, 328, 329, 340, of “How to Write a “Messenger Star, The.” See Wissahiccon.” See “Elk, 353, 356, 363, 365, Blackwood Article,” “Al Aaraaf” The” 366, 376, 381, 383 82

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of “The Imp of the Newnham, W., 231 Oldeb, Mr. (character), Paixhan, General Henri J., Perverse,” 85 “New Theoretical and 169–170 374 of “Ligeia,” 99 Practical Treatise on old man, 175–176 “Palestine” (essay), 253–254 of “The Man of the Navigation, A.” See old man (character), 106 Paradise Lost (Milton), 290 Crowd,” 106 “Maury’s Navigation” old Swede (character), 120 Paradox, Sir Positive of “The Masque of the New York City, 7, 8 “Old World and the New, (character), 101 Red Death,” 110, New York Mail and Express The” (review), 251–252 “Paris and Parisians in 1835” 111–112 (newspaper), 370 Omelette, Duc de l’ (review), 254 of “MS. Found in a New York Mirror. See Evening (character), 60 Parish, F. Wilson, 374 Bottle,” 120 Mirror opium, 95–96, 99, 119, 139 Parker, Richard (character), of “The Oval Portrait,” New York Sun (newspaper), opposites, in “The Cask of 134 140 28–29, 370 Amontillado,” 44 Parmly, 374 of “The Pit and the New York Tribune opposition, in “Annabel parody, in “Diddling Pendulum,” 143–144 (newspaper), 336, 370 Lee,” 25 Considered as One of the in “A Predicament,” 149 Nichelin, Philip H., 236, 259 Oquawka Spectator Exact Sciences,” 56 of “A Predicament,” 151 Nicholls, Frederick, 370 (newspaper), 372 Parry, Sir William Edward, reliability of, in “The Nichols, Mrs. See Gove, “Oration on the Life and 374 Cask of Amontillado,” Mary Neal Character of the Rev. “Partisan, The” (review), 40 Nichols,, Rebecca Shepard Joseph Caldwell, D.D.” 254–255 of “Silence. A Fable,” Reed, 200 (review), 252 “Passaic.” See “Our Amateur 160 Nicolino (character), 138 oratory, ancient v. modern, Poets, No. I.—Flaccus” of “The Tell-Tale Niebuhr, Barthold Georg, 198–199 (review) Heart,” 175 267–268 “Orion” (review), 252, 322 Patten, Captain, 374 of “Von Kempelen and “Night and Morning” O’Rourke, Thomas, 372 Patterson, Edward Howard His Discovery,” 189 (review), 250, 303, 387 Osborn, Laughton, 215, 372 Norton, 372, 374–375, “National Melodies of Nimrod (character), 38 Osgood, Frances Sargent, 392 America” (review), 248 Niobe, 370–371 180, 186, 223–224, 259– Patterson, Captain John, Native Son (Wright), 33 “Noble Deeds of Woman” 260, 282, 337, 357, 372, 375 nature, 57, 86, 93, 118–119, (review), 250 372–373 Patterson, John William, 183 “Norman Leslie” (review), O’Trump, Mrs. Kathleen, 375 Neal, John Clay, 18, 19–20, 250–251, 327 108–109 Patterson, Mrs. Louisa, 375 215, 369 “Notices of the War of 1812” “Our Amateur Poets, No. Patterson, Miss Louisa Neptune (character), 90 (review), 251 I.—Flaccus” (review), Gabriella. See Allan, Nesace (character), 17 “Nuts to Crack” (review), 252–253, 384, 399 Louisa Gabriella Patterson “Never Bet the Devil Your 251 “Our Amateur Poets, Patterson, Mr. (character), Head: A Tale With a No. III. William Ellery 134 Moral,” 136–137, 306, O Channing” (review), 253, Paulding, James K., 238 374 “Oblong Box, The,” 97, 270, 308, 310 Paulding-Drayton Review. “New and Compendious 137–138 “Our Contributors, No. See “Slavery in the United Latin Grammar” (review), obsession, in “Ligeia,” 97 VIII—Fitz-Greene States” 248 O’Bumper, Bibulus Halleck” (review), 253 “Paul Ulric” (review), 255 “New and Comprehensive (character), 101 “Outis Paper.” See Payne, Daniel, 375, 384 Gazetteer of Virginia and Odenheimer (character), “Continuation of the Pedro (character), 140 the District of Columbia, 125 Voluminous History of the Pennifeather, Mr. A” (review), 248–249 O’Grandison, Sir Pathrick Little Longfellow War, A” (character), 177 “New Comedy, The” (character), 189–190 “Oval Portrait, The,” 138– Penn Magazine, The, 375 (review), 249 Oinos (character), 148, 159 140, 351 Percival, Dr. James G., 375 “New Dictionary of the “Old” (Hoyt), 213 Oyarvido, Captain Manuel Perier, Casimir, 375 English Language, A” “Old Curiosity Shop.” See de (character), 134 Perkins, Algernon Henry, (review), 249–250, “Master Humphrey’s 232 349–350 Clock” P Perrine (character), 90 Newman, Cardinal John Old Curiosity Shop, The P. (character), 115 Perry, Edgar A., 4, 172, 309, Henry, 369–370 (Dickens), 243–244, 396 Pabodie, William J., Esq., 374 375–376

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Pest, Queen (character), 92 “Pit and the Pendulum, “Poems, by William Cullen “Postscript to ‘A Reply to Pest-Iferous, Arch Duke The,” 140–144, 289, 344 Bryant” (review), 260 Outis.” See “Continuation (character), 92 Placide, Mr. C., 376 Poems by Edgar A. Poe, 6, of the Voluminous History Pest-Ilential, The Duke plagiarism, by Longfellow, 144–145, 145, 298 of the Little Longfellow (character), 92 216–217 “Poems by James Russell War, A” Pest the First, King plague, 91, 109–110, 159 Lowell” (review), 260, Power, Mrs. Nicholas, 379 (character), 92 Plato, 259 359 “Power of Words, The,” Peters, Dirk (character), 134 “Plato Contra Atheos” “Poems—By Miss H. F. 147–148 Petersilea, Franz, 376 (review), 258–259 Gould” (review), 260 “Powhatan” (review), “Peter Snook” (essay), “Pleasant Peregrination “Poems; Translated and 264–265 255–256 Through the Prettiest Part Original” (review), 260– Pratt, Captain (character), Peterson, Charles Jacobs, 376 of Pennsylvania, The” 261, 381 179 Peterson, Mr. (character), (review), 259 “Poe’s Reply to His Critics” “Predicament, A,” 148– 134 Pluto (character), 36 (criticism), 261 150, 380 Petrarch, 237 Poe, David, Jr., 3, 376–377 poet, in “Israfel,” 87 Preface and Introduction Pfaal, Grettel (character), Poe, David, Sr., 363, 377 “Poetical Remains of the to The Conchologist’s First 186 Poe, Edgar Allan, 3 Late Lucretia Maria Book, 1839, 265, 265, 402 Pfaall, Hans (character), 186 Baudelaire compared to, Davidson” (review), 261, “Premature Burial, The,” Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 295–296 319 150–152, 350, 376, 388 7, 8 biography of, 3–11 “Poetical Writings of Mrs. Preston, James P., 379 Philadelphia Dollar childhood of, 3–4, Elizabeth Oakes Smith” Preston, Mr. (character), Newspaper, 376 288–289 (review), 261, 390 191–192 Philadelphia Saturday critical opinion on, 10 “Poetic Principle, The” Price, Addison, 379–380 Museum (periodical), 376 death of, 366, 390 (essay), 145, 261–262, Price, Richard, 380 philosophy, in “The Angel of defamation of, vii–viii, 302, 315, 328, 365, 386 Price, Vincent, 98, 112, 316, the Odd,” 22 9–10 poetry, critical theory on, 380 “Philosophy of Composition, education of, 4, 4 207–208, 252, 256, 262, pride, in “The Masque of the The” (essay), 156, 256, legacy of, 10–11 267, 270–271 Red Death,” 110 341 military service of, “Poetry of Life, The” Priestley, Joseph, 380 “Philosophy of Furniture, 4–5, 5 (review), 262 printing, anastatic, 205 The” (essay), 256–257 popularity of works, vii “Poetry of Rufus Dawes” Prolix, Peregrine, 236, 259 Philosophy of Religion (Dick), reconsideration of, 10 (review), 262–263, 386 Prose Romances of Edgar A. 142 success of, vii Poets and Poetry of America, Poe, The, 152 “Philothea” (review), 257 wife of, 6–7 The (Griswold), 247, 337 “Prose Works of John Milton, phrenology, 221, 257–258 in “William Wilson,” “Poets and Poetry of The” (review), 266 “Phrenology, and the Moral 191 America, The” (review), Prospero, Prince (character), Influence of Phrenology” Poe, Elizabeth Arnold 263, 343, 357, 359, 382 113 (review), 257–258 Hopkins, 3, 182, 298, 300, Poirot, Hercule (character), Protheroe, Daniel, 380 Pickwick Papers, The. See 344, 376, 377, 377–378, 8, 122, 321 Psalemoun (character), 134 “Posthumous Papers of the 383 Politian, 48, 145–147, 216, pseudointellectualism, 100, Pickwick Club” Poe, John, 378 310, 391, 403 129 “Pic Nic Papers, The” Poe, Neilson, 6–7, 313–314, Politian (character), 147 Psyche, 380 (review), 258 378, 391 politics, 114, 162 Puckler-Muskau, Hermann Picture of Dorian Gray, The Poe, Rosalie, 3–4, 323, 361, Pompey (character), 109, 149 Ludwig Heinrich, Furst (Wilde), 139 362, 377, 378 Ponnonner, Doctor, 163 von, 380 Pike, Major Zebulon Poe, Virginia. See Clemm, Pontet, Henry, 379 Pue, Hugh A., 229 Montgomery, 376 Virginia popularity, 208, 213 Pundit (character), 114 “Pinakidia” (article), 258, Poe, William Henry “Posthumous Memoirs of Pundita (character), 114 287, 290, 291, 306, 323, Leonard, 3, 312, 313, 377, His Own Time” (review), “Purloined Letter, The,” 365, 381, 398 378–379 263–264 122, 152–155, 287, 307, Pinxit (character), 104 “Poems. By Frances S. “Posthumous Papers of the 309, 317, 321 Pirouette, Mrs. (character), Osgood” (review), Pickwick Club” (review), Pym, Arthur Gordon 109 259–260 264 (character), 134

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Q responsibility, 34, 84 Ronald, Mr. E. (character), Scott, General Winfield, “Quacks of Helicon, The” resurrection, in “Ligeia,” 96 135 108, 387 (review), 266, 301 revenge, 40–41, 80–81, 152 Rosa, Salvatore, 384 sea stories, 51–53, 118–119, Quarles, 381 “Review of Stephens’ Arabia Ross, Mr. (character), 135 129–132, 137–138 quest, in “Eldorado,” 60–61 Petraea” (review), 268– Roszel, S. A., 198 “Secret Writing.” See Quevedo y Villaegas, 269, 351–352 Rouge-et-Noir, Mr. cryptography FrançoisçGomez de, 381 Reynolds, Jeremiah N., (character), 73 Sedgwick, Catherine, 238– Quinn, A. H., 10 200–201, 268, 382 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 239, 276 Quinn, Arthur Hobson, 273 “Rhymes of Travel” (Taylor, 384 “Select Orations of Cicero” ed.), 382, 394 Royce, Edward, 384 (review), 271 R Rice, Reverend John H., Royster, Sarah Elmira, self-destruction, in “The Rachmaninoff, Sergey 244 156, 163, 171, 378–379, Imp of the Perverse,” 84 Vasilyevich, 381 Richardson, Charles, 384–385, 385, 401 Séverac, Joseph Marie “Rambler in North America, 249–250 Rubadub, Professor Déodat de, 387 The” (review), 266–267 Richmond, Nancy Lock (character), 186 Seymour (character), 135 Raphael, 381–382 Heywood (Annie), 74, 93, Rumgudgeon (character), Shadow (character), 159 “Rationale of Verse, The” 347, 357, 382–383, 400 179 “Shadow—A Parable,” 159, (essay), 262, 267, 301, Richmond Examiner “Russia and the Russians” 316 344 (newspaper), 319, 383 (review), 269 Shakespeare, William, Raumer, Frederick von, Richmond Theatre, 383 212–213, 387–388 202–203, 225 Ricketts, Mr. (character), S Shapleigh, Bertram, 388 “Raven, The,” 97, 155, 134 “Sacred Mountains, The” Shaw, Martin, 388 155–157, 156, 158, 158, “Rienzi, the Last of the (review), 270 Shea, John Augustus, 388 216–217, 256, 290, 315, Tribunes” (review), 269 “Sacred Philosophy of the Shelton, Sarah Elmira 326, 343, 365, 381, 388, Riker, Richard, 383 Seasons” (review), 270 Royster. See Royster, Sarah 389 Rime of the Ancient Mariner Sargent, Epes, 386 Elmira musical adaptations of, (Coleridge), 51 Sartain, John, 386 “Sheppard Lee” (review), 294, 295, 296, 297, Ritchie, Leigh, 269 Sartain’s Union Magazine, 271 299, 339, 341, 344, roads, 275 386 Shew, Marie Louise, 8, 31, 350, 354, 388, 403 Roberton, Hugh S., 383 Satan. See devil, the 182, 309, 344, 367, 387, Raven and Other Poems, The, Roberts, Lee S., 383 satire, 34, 39, 55, 99–100, 388–389, 389, 391 157–158, 295, 330, 345 Robinson, Miss. See Lewis, 102, 108, 114, 137, 187– shipwreck, 53, 118 realism, 89, 132 Sarah Anna “Stella” 188, 270–271 shipwreck survivor reality, 58, 59 “Robinson Crusoe.” See “Life “Satirical Poems” (essay), (character), 53 Red Death (character), 113 and Surprising Adventures 270–271, 297 Shuttleworthy, Barnabas Reed, Owen, 382 of Robinson Crusoe, The” “Saul, A Mystery.” See (character), 177 reincarnation, 117, 168– Rodman, James E., 90 “Coxe’s Saul” Sigourney, Lydia Huntley, 169, 271 Rodman, Julius (character), scarab, 76 236, 284 religion, 112, 167–168 90 Scheherazade (character), “Silence. A Fable,” 159–160 “Reminiscences of an Rogers, Hartman 178 “Silence—A Sonnet,” Intercourse with Mr. (character), 135 Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm 160–161, 303 Niebuhr” (review), Rogers, Mary Cecilia, 126– Joseph von, 386 Simeon the Pharisee 267–268 127, 375, 384 Schiller, Johann Christoph (character), 168 Renelle, Monsieur Rogêt, Estelle (character), Friedrich von, 386 Simms, William Gilmore, (character), 151 128 Schmitt, Florent, 386 146, 254–255, 282, 389 Reni, Guido, 382 Rogêt, Marie (character), Schreker, Franz, 386 Simpson, Adolphus “Reply to Outis, A.” See 128 science, 17, 63–64, 162, (character), 165 “Continuation of the Roget, Peter Mark, 205 163, 187 Simpson, Napoleon Voluminous History of the Rollinat, Joseph-Auguste- science fiction, 184 Bonaparte. See Froissart, Little Longfellow War, A” Maurice, 384 Scissors (character), 104 Napoleon Bonaparte “Report of the Committee romance, 47–48, 62, 68–69 Scott, Cyril, 386–387 Sing, Cheyte, 389 on Naval Affairs” “Romance,” 158–159, 290 Scott, Sir Walter, 33, 219, Sinivate, Mr. Theodore (review), 268, 382 Rome, 48, 275 222, 387 (character), 109

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“Sinless Child, The” “Songs of Our Land, and Sue, Eugène, 247–248 teeth, in “Berenice,” 32 (Smith), 261 Other Poems, The” suicide, 27, 73–74 “Tell-Tale Heart, The,” “Sketches of Conspicuous (review), 274, 342 Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 393 172–176, 329 Living Characters of songwriting, 248 Sullivan’s Island, 77 Tem-Pest, Duke (character), France” (review), 271, Sonneck, Oscar George supernatural, 42, 68, 70 92 291 Theodore, 390 surveying, 200–201, 268 Templeton, Doctor “Sketches of History, Life, “Sonnet—To Science,” 163 “Swiss Heiress” (review), (character), 170 and Manners in the West” “Sonnet: To Zante,” 163– 275 “Ten Thousand a Year” (review), 272 164, 344 Sydenham, E. A., 393 (review), 277 “Sketches of Switzerland” Sons of Temperance, 390 “Synopsis of Natural Teufel (character), 56 (review), 272 Sophocles, 206, 390–391 History” (review), 275 Thayer, Colonel, 144, 394 Skilton, Charles Sanford, soul, 50–51, 115, 116. See “System of Doctor Tarr and The Golden Ass (Aino Aureo) 389 also reincarnation Professor Fether, The,” (Apuleius), 291 “Skimmings” (review), 272 Sousa, John Philip, 391 165–167 Theology, Theologus slavery, 166, 273 Southern Literary Messenger (character), 101 “Slavery in the United (periodical), 6, 261, 290, T Thiodolf, The Icelander and States” (review), 272– 341, 365, 391, 395, 400 T., Miss Tabitha (character), Aslauga’s Knight (review), 273 Southey, Robert, 223 109 277 “Sleeper, The,” 161, 161, Spanish Inquisition, 140– Taglioni, Maria, 394 This-and-That, Earl of 293, 344, 390 142, 333 Talbot, Mr. (character), 165 (character), 101 Slyass, Mr. (character), 103 Spanish Student, The “Tale of Jerusalem, A,” Thomas, Calvin Frederick, Smith, Brevet Brigadier (Longfellow), 203, 216 167–168, 319 394 General A. B. C. “Spectacles, The,” 164, “Tale of the Ragged Thomas, Dr. Creed, 319, (character), 109 164–165, 376, 380 Mountains, A,” 168–170, 394 Smith, Elizabeth Oakes, 261, Spirit of the Times 323, 364, 389 Thomas, Frederick William, 389–390 (periodical), 391 tales, 279 214, 394–395 Smith, John (character), 193 “Spirits of the Dead,” 165 “Tales and Sketches” Thompson, David, 395 Smith, Leo, 390 Squibalittle, Mrs. (review), 276 Thompson, John Reuben, 9, Smith, Mrs. Seba. See Smith, (character), 103 Tales by Edgar A. Poe, 170, 338, 360, 395 Elizabeth Oakes St. Eustache, Jacques 323, 330 Thompson, Mr. (character), Smith, Seba, 264–265, 390 (character), 128 Tales of the Grotesque and 109 Smith, Warren Storey, 390 Stanard, Jane Stith, 181, Arabesque, 170–171, 323, Thornton, Andrew, 90 Smith, William, 221 187, 391, 391 333–334, 364 Thornton, Philip, 395 Smitherton, Captain Stanard, Robert, 306, 392 “Tales of the Peerage and “Thou Art the Man,” (character), 179 “Stanley Thorn” (review), the Peasantry” (review), 176–177 Snobbs, Suky (character), 274–275 276 “Thoughts on His 83 Stapleton, Edward “Tale-Writing—Nathaniel Intellectual Character.” Snodgrass, Joseph Evans, (character), 151 Hawthorne” (review), See “Literary Remains of 301, 390, 399 Steen, Jan Havickszoon, 392 276–277, 341, 395 the Late William Hazlitt” So-and-So, Marquis of Stephens, Ann Sophia, 392 Talfourd, Sergeant, 239 “Thoughts on the Religious (character), 101 Stephens, John L., 232, “Tamerlane,” 171, 171–172, State of the Country” solitude, 92–93, 105–106 268–269 344, 370 (review), 278 “Some Account of Stevenson, Andrew, 392 Tamerlane and Other Poems. “Thousand-and-Second Tale Stonehenge” (essay), Stickney, Sarah, 262 By a Bostonian, 6, 172, of Scheherazade, The,” 273–274, 323 Stiletto, Don (character), 172, 316, 365, 394 177–178, 319, 398 Somervell, Sir Arthur, 390 101 tarantella (dance), 75 “Three Sundays in a Week,” “Some Secrets of the Stonehenge, 273–274 Tarpaulin, Hugh (character), 178–179, 375 Magazine Prison-House” Story, Judge Joseph, 234– 92 Tieck, Johann Ludwig, 395 (article), 274 235, 392 Tattle, Mr. (character), 109 Tiger (character), 135 “Some Words with a “Street Paving” (essay), 275 Taylor, Bayard, 382, 394 time, 54–55, 110–111, 174, Mummy,” 162–163, 309, Stubbs (character), 165 Taylor, Cyril, 394 178 364, 398 Stylus (journal), 375, 392, Tchérépnine, Nikolai Tintontintino, Signor “Song,” 163, 354, 385, 390 392–393 Nikilaivitch, 394 (character), 102

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“To ———” [“Should my Twice-Told Tales. See “Tale- of “The Tell-Tale Vogrich, Max Wilhelm, early life seem”], 179 Writing—Nathaniel Heart,” 175 398 “To ———” [“Sleep on, Hawthorne” of “Von Kempelen and “Voices of the Night” sleep on, another hour— “Twice-Told Tales” (review), His Discovery,” 189 (review), 280–281 ”], 180 279, 340–341 unnamed old man Voissart, Victor (character), “To ———” [“The bowers twinning. See doubles (character), 106, 175–176 165 whereat, in dreams, I Tyler, Robert, 396 unnamed wife of narrator, in Volta, Count Alessandro, see”], 180 “The Black Cat,” 36 398 Toby (character), 90 U unnamed young Byronic Voltaire (François-Marie “To Elizabeth,” 180 Ugo (character), 147 stranger (character), 28, Arouet), 122–123, 398 “To F———”, 180–181, Ugolino, 397 305 Vondervotteimittiss, 54 297, 384, 388, 390, 403 “Ulalume,” 183–184, 290, “Unparalleled Adventure of Von Jung, Baron Ritzner “To Helen” (1), 181, 181, 344, 346, 351, 357, 403 One Hans Pfaall, The,” (character), 130 323, 328, 337, 351, 357, Una (character), 49 184–186, 331, 334, 358, Von Kempelen, Baron 358, 365, 388, 390, 391, “Undine: A Miniature 370, 372 (character), 188 394, 397, 400 Romance” (review), unreliable narrator, in “The Von Kempelen, Baron “To Helen” (2), 181–182 279–280 Cask of Amontillado,” 40 Wolfgang. See Kempelen, “To M. L. S.———”, 182, University of Virginia, 4 Unterduk, Mynheer Baron Wolfgang von 351, 388 unnamed guests, in “The Superbus von (character), “Von Kempelen and His “Tom O’Bedlam’s Song,” Masque of the Red 186 Discovery,” 187–189, 184–185 Death,” 113 “Ups and Downs in the 319, 352 “To My Mother,” 182–183, unnamed listener, 53 Life of a Distressed Vredenburgh, Peter 328 unnamed man in a toga, in Gentleman” (review), (character), 135 “To One in Paradise,” 71, “Silence. A Fable,” 160 280 183, 363, 383, 390, 393 unnamed narrator Usher, Madeline (character), W Too-Wit (character), 135 of “The Assignation,” 71 “Wakondah” (review), 281, “Tortesa, the Usurer” 28 Usher, Roderick (character), 363 (review), 278 of “The Black Cat,” 71–72, 305, 307, 328, Walker, Joseph W., 399 Tortesa, the Usurer (Willis), 33–35, 36 333, 364 Walsh, Robert, 221, 290 203 of “A Descent into the Walter, Cornelia, 210 “To the River———”, 183, Maelstrom,” 53 V Walthew, Richard, 399 346, 388, 389 of “Diddling Considered Valdemar, M. Ernest Ward, Thomas, 252–253, Touch-Me-Not, Royal as One of the Exact (character), 66 399 Highness of (character), Sciences,” 56 Valence (character), 129 Warren, Samuel, 277 102 of “The Fall of the “Valentine, A,” 186 Washington, George, 237, “Tower of London” (review), House of Usher,” 72, Valentine, Anne Moore, 238 278, 287 330 397 “Watkins Tottle” (review), Tracle, Misthress of “The Gold-Bug,” “Valley of Unrest, The,” 281 (character), 190 78–79 186–187 Waukerassah, Chief “Traits of American Life” of “The Imp of the vampirism, 140 (character), 90 (review), 278–279 Perverse,” 85 Vanhoveln-Carpé, 397 Weddell, Captain James, transcendentalism, 136, of “Ligeia,” 99 vanity, in “The Spectacles,” 399 210–211, 302, 395–396 of “The Man of the 164 Weiss, Susan Archer, 399 treasure, in “The Gold-Bug,” Crowd,” 106 Van Vactor, David, 397 Welby, Amelia Ball, 202 76 of “MS. Found in a Verplanck, Gulian Wertenbaker, William, 399 Trevanion, Lady Rowena Bottle,” 120 Crommelin, 397 West Point, 4–5, 5, 6, 144, (character), 98–99 of “The Oval Portrait,” Vicar of Wakefield, The 324, 332, 340, 379, 394 Trippetta (character), 82 140 (Goldsmith), 27 Wetmore, Prosper Trollope, Frances, 254 of “The Pit and the “Vicar of Wakefield, The” Montgomery, 399–400 Tucker, Nathaniel Beverley, Pendulum,” 143–144 (review), 280 Whipple, Edwin Percy, 400 228, 272, 396 of “A Predicament,” 151 Vidocq, François Eugène, whirlpool, 51–53, 118–119 Turnip, Miss Tabitha of “Silence. A Fable,” 123, 398 White, Thomas Willis, 353, (character), 83 160 Virginia, 218, 287 365, 391, 400

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Whitman, John Winslow, Williams, R. F., 246 Wormley, Alexander Y 400 “William Wilson,” 190, (character), 90 Yampoos (characters), 135 Whitman, Sarah Helen 190–192, 299, 309 Wraxall, N. W., 264 Yarrington, Martha, 403 Power, 181–182, 319, 347, Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 60, Wreath of Flowers From New Year in Spain, A. See 356, 363, 374, 379, 391, 100, 203, 204–205, 220, England, A (review), 282, Mackenzie, Lieutenant 400, 400 278, 287, 326, 381, 401, 373 Alexander Slidell Whitman, Walt, 401 401 Wright, Richard, 33 “Young Wife’s Book, The” Whitworth, Richard, 401 Wilmer, Lambert A., 215, “Writings of Charles (review), 283 “Why the Little Frenchman 266, 295, 401 Sprague” (review), Wears His Hand in a Wilson (character), 135 282–283 Z Sling,” 188, 189–190 Wilson, Professor, “Wyandotté, or The Hutted Zacchary (character), 114 wife of narrator, in “The 227–228 Knoll” (review), 283 Zadig (character), Black Cat,” 36 Wilson, William (1) Wyatt, Cornelius (character), 122–123 “Wigwam and the Cabin, (character), 192 138 “Zanoni, A Novel” (review), The” (review), 281–282 Wilson, William (2) Wyatt, Marian (character), 283–284, 303 Wilckens, Friedrich, 401 (character), 192 138 Zech, Frederick, 403 Wilde, Oscar, 139 Windenough, Mr. Wyatt, Mrs. (character), Zenobia, Signora Psyche “Wiley & Putnam’s Library (character), 104–105 138 (character), 83, 149 of American Books” Wissahiccon (brook), 224 Wyatt, Thomas, 265, 275, Zicci (Bulwer-Lytton), 283 (review), 282 women writers, 238 402 “Zinzendorff, and Other Wilkinson, Eliza, 236 Woodberry, George Edward, Poems” (review), 284 will, in “Ligeia,” 95–97 401–402 X Zoilus (character), 159 William and Mary College, Woofl (character), 78 “X-ing a Paragrab,” 192– Zoubaloff, Jacques-Michel, 199 Worcester, J. E., 203 193, 302, 388 403

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