Edgar Allan Poe. Works. Virginia edition. J. A. Harrison, editor. 1902. 17 vols. Another edition. E. C. Stedman and G. E. Woodberry, editors, 1894–1895. 10 vols. Best single-volume editions are: J. H. Whitty, editor, 1911, and Killis Campbell, editor, 1917. Poe’s chief works appeared originally in book form as follows: Tamerlane and Other Poems, 1827; Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, 1829; Poems, 1831; Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, 1838; The Conchologist’s First Book, 1839; Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, 1839; The Raven, and Other Poems, 1845; Tales, 1845; Eureka: a Prose Poem, 1848; The Literati, 1850.

Bibliography

The best is by Killis Campbell in the Cambridge History of American Literature, Vol. II, pp. 452–468. See also Vol. X, Stedman-Woodberry edition, and Vol. XVI, J. A. Harrison edition.

Biography and Criticism

The standard life of Poe is by George E. Woodberry. 1884.

Baskervill, W. M. Southern Writers.

Beaudelaire, Charles. Edgar Poe, sa vie et ses œvres. 1856.

Brownell, W. C. American Prose Masters. 1909.

Campbell, Killis. Edgar Allan Poe. Cambridge History of American Literature, Vol. II, Bk. II, chap. xiv.

Campbell, Killis. Introduction to Edition of Poems. 1917.

Collins, J. C. The Poetry and Poets of America.

France, Anatole. La vie littéraire, Vol. IV.

Gates, L. E. Studies and Appreciations. 1900.

Griswold, R. W. Memoir of Poe (with Poe’s works). 1850–1856.

Harrison, J. A. Life and Letters of Poe. 1902.

Hutton, R. H. Contemporary Thought and Thinkers. 1900.

Ingram, J. H. Life, Letters, and Opinions of Poe. 1880.

Kent, C. W. Poe the Poet (in Vol. VII, Virginia edition). 1902.

Lang, Andrew. Letters to Dead Authors. 1886.

Lauvrière, E. Edgar Poe: sa vie et son œuvre. 1904.

Macy, John. Poe. (Beacon Biographies.) 1907.

Mallarmé, S. Divagations, and Poèmes de Edgar Allan Poe. 1888.

Minor, B. B. The Southern Literary Messenger, 1834–1864. 1905.

More, P. E. Shelburne Essays. Ser. 1. 1907.

Moses, M. J. Literature of the South. 1910.

Richardson, C. F. American Literature, Vol. III, chap. iv. 1889.

Robertson, J. M. New Essays towards a Critical Method. 1897.

Stedman, E. C. Poets of America. 1885 and 1898.

Stephen, Leslie. Hours in a Library. Ser. 1.

Swinburne, A. C. Under the Microscope. 1872.

Trent, W. P. Edgar Allan Poe (announced in E. M. L. Ser.).

Wendell, Barrett. Stelligeri and Other Essays. 1893.

Whitty, J. H. Memoir in edition of Poe’s Poems. 1911.

Woodberry, G. E. America in Literature, chap. iv. 1908.

TOPICS AND PROBLEMS

Read “The Purloined Letter” and compare it as a detective story with any one of Conan Doyle’s detections of theft.

Read the introductions of ten or twelve stories for Poe’s method of establishing the dominant mood.

Apply the formula presented in “The Philosophy of Composition” to “Annabel Lee” and to any of Poe’s best-known prose tales.

No intelligent estimate of Poe can be reached without reading his two analytical essays, “The Philosophy of Composition” and “The Poetic Principle.”

Compare the “I” in Poe with the “I” in Whitman. Read “William Wilson” and “The Man in the Crowd,” which are felt to have more of autobiography in them than any others.

For the influence of Byron on Poe and on various other impressionable Americans see the index to this volume, and note the variety of ways in which it was recorded.

Light will be thrown on Poe’s relationship to the periodicals through a reading of passages on the magazines with which he was connected in “The Magazine in America,” by Algernon Tassin. See also the volume called “The Southern Literary Messenger,” by B. B. Minor.