edgar allan poe essays pdf

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The Essays, Sketches and Lectures of Edgar Allan Poe

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Sections:   The Collections and Books    The Essays, etc.    Related Material    Bibliography

The Collections and Books:

Editions Authorized by Poe:

Poe published only one of his lectures during his life. This was “The Universe,” published as Eureka , the “Prose Poem” by which he hoped most ernestly to be remembered. Other items were first collected in the posthumous collection edited by Rufus Wilmot Griswold, incorporating some additional manuscript changes and other material. These collections are listed chronologically.

• Eureka: A Prose Poem   (1848 — EUREKA — there are several copies with annotations by Poe)
• The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe , edited by Rufus Wilmot Griswold   (1850, volume II: Poems and Miscellanies ; and 1856, volume IV: Pym, &c .  — WORKS )

Later Collected Editions:

After Griswold's death in 1857, there were several alternate attempts to collect Poe's works, including a number of the essays and Eureka . The most important of these were collections edited by John H. Ingram, also in four volumes (initially published in 1874-1875), the ten-volume set edited by Edmund C. Stedman and George E. Woodberry (initially published in 1894-1895), and the seventeen-volume set edited by James A. Harrison (published in 1902). (Although at least one of these editions bears the title of The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe , none of them are, in fact, actually complete. In some instances, they also contain works that have since been identified as not being by Poe.)

• The Works of Edgar Allan Poe , edited by John H. Ingram   (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1874-1875 — The essays are collected in volume 3)
• The Works of Edgar Allan Poe , edited by Edmund C. Stedman and George E. Woodberry   (Chicago: Stone and Kimball, 1894-1895 — The essays are collected in volume 7 and Eureka will be found in volume 9)
• The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe , edited by James A. Harrison   (New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1902 — The essays are collected in volume 14 and Eureka will be found in volume 16)

Modern Scholarly Editions:

The most widely recognized scholarly edition of Poe's tales and sketches, also including some of the essays, are the volumes edited by Thomas Ollive Mabbott, (published in 1978, nearly a decade after Mabbott's death), completed by his widow, Maureen Cobb Mabbott (and several assistants), with a few additional essays appearing in the volumes in the edition as continued by Burton R. Pollin. All of these volumes are thoroughly annotated, with introductory material, notes and variants. Two volumes originally prepared for this series, edited by Stuart and Susan Levine, were published separately by the University of Illinois Press.

• The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe , edited by Thomas Ollive Mabbott   (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1978 — Volume 2: Tales and Sketches, 1831-1842 and Volume 3: Tales and Sketches, 1843-1849 )
• The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe , edited by Burton R. Pollin   (New York: Gordian Press, 1986 and 1997 — Volume 3: Writings in the Broadway Journal, Text , Volume 4: Writings in the Broadway Journal, Annotations , and Volume 35 Writings in the Southern Literary Messenger, Text and Annotations
• Eureka and Edgar Allan Poe: Critical Theory , edited by Stuart and Susan F. Levine   (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004 and 2009)

The Essays, Sketches and Lectures:

These items are arranged alphabetically by name. Within each name, entries are listed chronologically. Some of these items were not published under any specific title and most are, therefore, given here under a title deemed appropriately descriptive. The authorship of some items is a topic long researched and debated. Most of the items included here were signed, but for some, the attribution to Poe is necessarily the result of conjecture. A few prominent items that have been rejected are also listed, including a number of poems that were erroneously ascribed to Poe by T. O. Mabbott.

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• “ American Novel-Writing ”
• “ American Poetry ”
• “ American Poetry ”   (a lecture)
• “ Anastatic Printing ”
• “ Byron and Miss Chaworth ”
• “ The Capitol at Washington ”   (rejected)
• “ A Chapter in the History of Vivum-Ovo ”   (rejected)
• “ Cryptography ” (alternate title for “Secret Writing”)
• “ The Elk ”   (later title of “Morning on the Wissahiccon”)
• “ English Notes for Extensive Circulation ”   (rejected)
• “ Eureka ”
• “ Exordium [to Critical Notices] ”
• “ A Few Words on Etiquette ”   (rejected)
• “ Harpers Ferry ”   (rejected)
• “ House Furniture ” (alternate title for “The Philosophy of Furniture”)
• “ Instinct Versus Reason — A Black Cat ”
• “ Letter to B—— ”
• “ Maelzel's Chess-Player ”
• “ Magazine Writing — Peter Snook ” (alternate title of a review of “Peter Snook,” by James Dalton
• “ Morning on the Wissahiccon ”   (original title of “The Elk”)
• “ Notes Upon English Verse ”   (original title for “The Rationale of Verse”)
• “ An Opinion on Dreams ”    (rejected)
• “ Our Magazine Literature ”    (Possibly by Poe, but disputed)
• “ Old English Poetry ”    (Actually a later title assigned to Poe's review of Book of Gems by Samuel Carter Hall)
• “ Palaestine ”
• “ The Pay for American Authors ”
• The Philosophy of Animal Magnetism   (rejected)
• “ The Philosophy of Composition ”
• “ The Philosophy of Furniture ”
• “ The Poetic Principle ”
• “ Poets and Poetry of America ”   (a lecture, also called “American Poetry”)
• “ The Rationale of Verse ”
• “ Secret Writing ”
• “ Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison-House ”
• “ Some Account of Stonehenge ”
• “ Street-Paving ”

Related Material:

• A chronological index   (in preparation)
• “ The Canon of Poe's Essays, Sketches & Lectures

Bibliography:

• Brigham, Clarence S., Edgar Allan Poe's Contributions to Alexander's Weekly Messenger , Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society , April 1943. (Also reprinted separately.)
• Edsall, Thomas, ed., The Poe Catalogue , Baltimore: The 19th Century Shop, 1992. (This catalogue includes a few reprints of material which are not noted elsewhere.)
• Harrison, James A[lbert]., ed, The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe , 17 vols, New York: T. Crowell, 1902.
• Heartman, Charles F. and James R. Canny, A Bilbiography of First Printings of the Writings of Edgar Allan Poe , Hattiesburg, MS: The Book Farm, 1943. (The best overall bibliography of Poe, although it does contain errors and is somewhat outdated.)
• Levine, Stuart and Susan F., eds., Eureka , Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004  (Poe's text, edited and with an introduction, notes and textual variants)
• Levine, Stuart and Susan F., eds., Edgar Allan Poe: Critical Theory , Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009 (Poe's texts, edited and with introductory material, notes and textual variants)
• Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, ed., The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe ; (Vols 2-3 Tales and Sketches ), Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1978. (Second printing 1979)
• Pollin, Burton R., ed., The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe ; Vols. III & IV - The Broadway Journal: Non-Fictional Prose , New York: Gordian Press, 1986; Vol. V - The Southern Literary Messenger: Non-Fictional Prose , New York: Gordian Press, 1997.
• Thompson, G. Richard, ed. , Essays and Reviews , New York: The Library of America, 1984. (A good basic collection.)
• Vines, Lois D., ed., Poe Abroad: Influence, Reputation, Affinities , Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1999. (An extremely useful compendium of articles by various authors, divided by country or region.)
• Woodberry, George E[dward]. and Stedman, Edmund Clarence, The Works of Edgar Allan Poe , 10 vols, Chicago, 1894-1895. (Reprinted in 1903 and 1914.)

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