Volume XXIV Number 2 Fa111996 POE Studies Association Newsletter Publishecl at Worcester Polytechnic Institute PSA at MLA Reference Shelf The Poe Studies Association will sponsor two sessionsat the A Companionto PoeStudies ($99.50, 624 pp.), edited by Eric 19% MLA Convention in Washington, OC, 27-30[kcember. Carlson, has been published by Greenwood Press.In addi- A session on "Poe and the Tradition of the Detective Story" tion to the editor, contributors include Ian Walker, Alexander (29 [kc., Sheraton Washington, Lanai 152,1:45 to 3:00 p.m.) Hamrnond, Elizabeth Phillips, Dwayne Thorpe, Richard P. will include J. Hillis Miller (Univ. of California, Irvine), "Poe Benton, Stuart and Susan Levine, William Goldhurst, Grace and Conan Q)yle"; SeanRosenheim (Williams College),"The Farrell, Thomas Joswick, David E. E. sloane, Michael Mode of Identification: Homicide, Dupin, and the FBI"; Petengell, Beverly Voloshin, James Hutchisson, Barbara Natalka Freeland (Yale Univ.), "The Purloined Letter and the Cantalupo, Kenneth Hovey, Randall Clack, Paula Kot, David Stolen Story: Poe, Collins, and the Theft of Authorship." Halliburton, Donald B. stauffer, John E. Reilly, Lois Vines, A session on "Poe and Popular Culture" (30 Dec., and George E. Hatvary. sheraton, Lanai 160,noon to 1:15p.m) will include Jonathan The Poe Encyclopedia($89.50,440 pp.) by Frederick S. Elmer (Indiana Univ.), "The Jingle Man" and Meredith Frank and Anthony Magistrale will be published by Green- McGill (Rutgers Univ.), respondent. wood Pressearly in 1997.This reference volume will con- A business meeting of the PSA has been scheduled for tain 1~ alphabetically arranged entries. 28 Dec., noon to 1:15 p.m., Lanai 152. Poe's writings from the SouthernLiterary Messenger,ed- ited by JosephRidgely aJ1dBurton R. Pollin, is being read- Organiza ti ons ied for publication by Gordian Press. Thomas Bonner, Jr. (Xavier Univ.) delivered the 74th com- Epitomeof Bibliography of American Literature (Golden, memorative Lecture of the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Balti- Colo.: North American Press,1995,360 pp., $55)is a single vol- more on 6 October 1996.His topic was "The Epistolary Poe." ume short-title condensation of 281 authors in the 9-volume On 12 October 1996 Richard Kopley chaired a panel on BAL. Poe and many of his contemporaries are included. Poe in Richmond. Heidi Schultz discussed a new Poe letter; Research N otes Kevin Hayes discussed silent movies based on Poe's life and works; and Lawrence Berkove discussed a 19th-century tale Drawing on a 1993 dissertation done at the University of featuring Poe, resurrected from the dead. Saarbrticken, Roger Forc]az reports that Poe's reception in The state of Virginia, in cooperation with the Richmond Germany took placeat about the same time as in France,not a Poe Museum, has developed a new program, "Get to Know decade later. A German translation of IIA Descent into the Poe," designed to bring knowledge of Poe to high school Maelstrom" appeared during Poe's lifetime, and a selection and middle school students. As part of the program, local of the talesin German appeared in book form in 1853.Further actor Kevin Grantz dons 19th-century garb and presentssev- details will be forthcoming;In PoeAbrood, edited by Lois Vmes. eral of Poe's works. Burton R. Pollin's "Traces of Dickens in the Writings of On 20 April 1996 the Mystery Writers of America, Edgar Allan Poe" appeared in the May 1996 issue of Fordham residents, and Poeaficionados gathered in PoePark Fezzinews,published by the Tri-State Branch of the interna- to commemorate the 15Othanniversary of Poe's settling into tional Dickens Fellowship. the cottage on Kingsbridge Road. The celebration coincided Josephsvorecky (Univ. of Toronto) spoke on "Poe and with the presentation of the "Edgar" Awards, bestowed an- the Beautiful Cigar Girl" at a conference, "Murder in nually by the MW A. Among the fiction writers who read from Bloomsbury," at the Univ. of London School of Advanced Poe's works were Peter straub, Richard Hammer, Lawrence Study (June 1996). Block, Stephen Marlow, and Dorothy Salisbury Davis. Ed Piacentino (High Point Univ.) is preparing an essay A nominating committee has been convened for the on psychological themes in "The Black Cat." selection of a slate of officers for the PSA. The nominating committee includes G. Richard Thompson, chair; Barbara CantaLupo; Susan Beegel; and Joel Myerson. Nominations may be sent to Prof. Thompson at Purdue Univ. A Pro Poe Oates called Poe "our premier American Gothicist." Devel- oping a number of pariillels between Poe's and Lovecraft's In the Maryland Medical Journa145(Sept. 1996):765-69, car- literary careers, Oates noted the former's perfection of the diologist R. Michael Benitez offered a tentative new expla- monologue form in "n\e Tell- Tale Heart." nation for Poe's death in 1849: rabies. Benitez came upon The late Angela Carter's Burning Your Boats: The Collected the case of "E. P." during a seminar on the diagnosis of diffi- Stories (Holt, 1996) includes "The Cabinet of Edgar Ailan cult cases.He documented E. P.'sbouts of confusion and ex- Poe." treme variations of pulse rate, symptoms consistent with In Ruined by Readin;~:A Life in Books(Beacon Press, 1996) rabies. According to Benitez, hydrophobia is another symp- novelist Lynn Sharon ~)chwartz recounts her early experi- tom. Poe reportedly was unable to swallow water when it ences with books and reading, and notes that among the lit- was offered to him. erary works that stimulated and moved her was Poe's The Associated Pressaccount of this "discovery" found " Annabel Lee." its way into The New York Times,a variety of dailies, other Elizabeth Bishop's previously unpublished "Edgar Allan publications (e. g., Science27 Sept. 1996;Chronicle of Higher Poe and the Jukebox" will appear in a forthcoming issue of Education27 Sept. 1996),and a host of media outlets. Burton The New Yorker. R. Pollin (CUNY, Emeritus) and Robert Benedetto (Univ. of The removal of the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore and South Carolina) responded to the Times(23 September1996), the subsequent choice of the name "Ravens" for its NFL team USA Today (27 Sept. 1996), and other publications. Citing stimulated a query from a New Yorker contributor (16 Sep- Poe's chronic drinking binges, Pollin and Benedetto found tember 1996): If an NI:L team moved to New York, what the Benitez theory unfounded. They documented the writer would provide a new name? "With Herman Melville, doctor's failure to cite contemporaneous accounts of Poe's you could call the team the Great White Whales. ...Picking health problems. They further noted the primary weakness Washington Irving would force you to fall back on the Head- of Benitez's theory: the lack of evidence of a bite or scratch. less Horseman." Westminster Burying Ground in Baltimore, where Poe In an interview in the Boston Globe (4 August 1996), poet is buried, has undergone a renovation, according to a 28 Oc- Richard Wilbur recaU.~ his years in graduate school at tober 1996 article in the BaltimoreSun. Harvard University when he "taught a course in the com- In the last issue of the newsletter, an announcement of plete Edgar Allan Poe." the availability of a "rare Poe daguerreotype" brought a chal- lenge from Michael J. Deas,author of Portraitsand Daguerreo- types of Edgar Allan Poe. Deas called the daguerreotype in question "specious," and Butterfield & Butterfield, which had offered the item for sale, withdrew it. In a recent issue of the New York Review of Books,an article on H. P.Lovecraft ("King of the Weird") by JoyceCarol POE STUDIES ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER The newsletter of the Poe Studies Association, Inc. The PoeStudies Association Newsletter provides a forum for the Published at Worcester Polytechnic Institute scholarly and informal exchangeof information on Edgar Allan Poe, his life, works, and influence. Please send information on Editor: Kent Ljungquist publications and completed research.Queries about researchin WorcesterPolytechnic Institute progress are also welcome. We will consider scholarly or news- Associate Editor: Dennis Eddings worthy notes,which bear relevanceto the PSA membership. Se\d WesternOregon State College materials to Kent Ljungquist, Department of Humanities and Editorial Assistance: WPI, Humanities and Arts Arts, WorcesterPolytechnic Institute, Worcester,MA 01609-2280, Founding Editors: Eric W. Carlson, ProfessorEmeritus or e-mail [email protected]. We welcome suggestions designed to University of Connecticut make the newsletter a mc're stimulating and useful publication. John E. Reilly, ProfessorEmeritus Collegeof the Holy Cross PSA CURRENT OFFICERS Design/Production: Peggy Isaacson President: J. Gerald Kennedy Cover Photograph: Courtesy American l:.0uisianaState University Antiquarian Society Vice President: John T. Irwin J'ohnsHopkins University Secretary-Treasurer: Roberta Sharp The FoeStudies Association Newsletter is published twice a year. Sub- California State University, Pomona scriptions, which come with membership in the Poe Studies Asso- Members-At-Large: Joel Myerson ciation, are $8 per year. Send checks,payable to Poe StudiesAssocia- University of South Carolina tion, to Roberta Sharp, English Department, California StateUniv., Richard Kopley Pomona, CA 91768.The FSA Newsletteris published indepatdently jOennsylvaniaState University, DuBois of Foe Studies,published at Washington Sttte University, Pullman, WA 99164,subscription $8 per year (two issues). "' Poe and Detection 1984(1868], pp. 10, 17-19.Collins altered previous thrust of crime story as wrought by Poe or Vidoc'q, in emphasizing Editor's Note: Benjamin F. Fisher's "Poe and Detection" ap- effectsof character upon circumstancerather than vice versa, peared in the last issue of the newsletter. Part II, published albeit Poe was important influence upon the Englishman. in this issue, continues with items of general interest, i.e., Unlike Poe, too, whose main aim in the Dupin tales was to notices of Poe in critical-historical works and in crime fic- present the sleuth's thinking, Collins enlarges scope of de- tion.