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Edgar Allan Poe — “The Fall of the House of Usher”









Sections: Characters    Reading and Ref. Texts    Hist. Texts    Comp. Texts    Misc. Texts    Bibliography











Characters:
  • Narrator (unnamed) - The narrator in this story is chiefly an observer.
  • Roderick Usher - The main protagonist, the twin brother of Madeline Usher. Although the implication is that Roderick and Madeline are identical twins, having come from a single egg, modern science clearly establishes that such twins are necessarily of the same gender. Thus, they must be fraternal twins, which would tend to diminish Poe's idea of a single shared soul. As Poe gives it, however, the mix of genders allows for the introduction of the idea of a male and female division in the soul.
  • Madeline Usher - The cataleptic twin sister of Roderick Usher. Along with Roderick, she is the last of the long line of Ushers.
  • The family physician (unnamed) - Mentioned. A comment is made later that suggests Madeline Usher has been examined by more than one physician.
  • A servant (unnamed) - Mentioned.
  • A valet (unnamed) - Mentioned.











Reading and Reference Texts

Reading copy:
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — reading copy

Historical Texts

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings:
  • Text-01 — “The Fall of the House of Usher” — 1839, no original manuscript or fragments are known to exist (but this version is presumably recorded in Text 02)
  • Text-03 — “The Fall of the House of Usher” — 1839 — speculated revised copy of Burton's (Text-02), in anticipation of the publication of Text-04.(These revisions are presumably recorded in Text-04. The changes between Text-02 and Text-04 are slight enough that a new manuscript is unlikely, but not so minor that they would reasonably have been made during typesetting or in correcting proofs for Text-04.)
  • Text-06 — “The Fall of the House of Usher” — 1842-1845 — speculated revised copy of TGA (Text-04), perhaps in anticipation of the new edition of Poe's tales. (These revisions are presumably recorded in Text-07. The changes are slight enough that a new manuscript is highly unlikely, but not so minor that they would reasonably have been made during typesetting or in correcting proofs for Text-07. At least some of these changes are significant enough that they suggest the hand of the author rather than of Duyckinck as editor.)
  • Text 07 — “The Fall of the House of Usher” — 1845 — TALES — (Mabbott text D)  (This is Mabbott's copy-text)  (For Griswold's 1847 and 1850 reprintings of this text, see those entries below, under reprints.)

Reprints:
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — August 1840 — Bentley's Miscellany  (reprinted from Text 02, but unacknowledged)
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — September 5, 1840 — Boston Notion
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — 1840 (?) — Boston Daily Times  (This reprint was noted by P. K. Foley, but has not been verified)
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — 1847 — Prose Writers of America — Griswold reprints Text-07, with some minor editorial changes (Mabbott text E) (first issued March 3, 1847, and reprinted in subsequent years. 4th edition issued May-June 1851, reprinted as late as 1856)
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — August 23-30, 1848 — Oquawka Spectator  (acknowledged from Text 02)
    • “The Fall of the House of Usher" — Part I — August 23, 1848
    • “The Fall of the House of Usher" — Part II — August 30, 1848
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — 1852 — Tales and Sketches: to which is added The Raven: A Poem, London, George Routledge & Co.
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — 1875 — Little Classics, vol. II: Intellect, Boston: James R. Osgood & Co.  (This 18 volume series, edited by Rossiter Johnson, contains selections from many authors, including Poe, Dickens, and Hawthorne. Each volume is theoretically comprised around a different theme.)

Scholarly and Noteworthy Reprints:
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — 1894-1895 —  The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 1: Tales, ed. G. E. Woodberry and E. C. Stedman, Chicago: Stone and Kimball (1:131-156)
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — 1902 — The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 3: Tales II, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (3:273-297, and 3:339-342)
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — 1978 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 2: Tales & Sketches I, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2:392-422)

Comparative Texts
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — comparative text (TGAPP)  (This comparative text shows the changes Poe made in manuscript in his own copy of Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1842, the intended new edition being called Phantasy Pieces.)

Miscellaneous Texts and Related Items

Associated Material and Special versions:
  • “La chute de la Maison Usher” — (French translation by Charles Baudelaire)
    • “La chute de la Maison Usher” — February 7-13, 1855 — Le Pays
      • “La chute de la Maison Usher” — Part I  — February 7, 1855
      • “La chute de la Maison Usher” — Part II — February 9, 1855
      • “La chute de la Maison Usher” — Part III — February 13, 1855
    • “La chute de la Maison Usher” — 1857 — Nouvelles histoires par Edgar Poe, Paris: Michel Lévy frères
  • “[The Fall of the House of Usher]” — 1881 — Underliga historier  (Stockholm)  (Swedish translation, noted by Anderson, p. 54)
  • “La chute de la maison d'Usher” — 1885 — Oeuvres Choisies d'Edgar Pöe, Paris: A. Hennuyer  (French translation by William L. Hughes)
  • “La chute de maison Usher” — 1928 — silent movie directed by Jean Epstein (French avante-garde interpretation, approximately 63 minutes)
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — 1928 — silent movie directed by James Sibley Watson (American production using techniques of German impressionism, approximately 13 minutes)
  • “De Val van het Huis Usher” — about 1930 — Fantastische Vertellingen van Edgar Allan Poe, Haarlem: H. D. Tjeenk Willink & Zoon (Dutch translation by Machiel Elias Barentz, with elaborate illustrations by Albert Hahn, somewhat reminiscent of those by Harry Clarke)
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — June 1, 1941 — a radio show broadcast on The Inner Sanctum show, with Boris Karloff (As was often the case with dramatic presentations of Poe's works, the story has been modified.) (The same show was apparently rebroadcast on April 5, 1942.)
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — August 29, 1943 — a radio show broadcast on The Weird Circle show. (As was often the case with dramatic presentations of Poe's works, the story has been modified.)
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — August 1947 — Classics Illustrated (number 40)  (a comic-book)
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — October 22, 1947 — a radio show broadcast on the Escape show, starring Paul Frees as the unnamed narrator. (Frees is perhaps best know today as the featured voice of Disney's Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean attractions. He was also the voice of Boris Badenov in the Rocky & Bulwinkle Show. This radio episode is available on CD as part of a 6-CD set of "Smithsonian Legendary Performers," issued in 2004. As was often the case with dramatic presentations of Poe's works, the story has been modified.)
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — 1949 — movie directed by Ivan Barnett (British production, Black and White, approximately 70 minutes) (As was often the case with dramatic presentations of Poe's works, the story has been modified. In this case, a background story for the family curse is invented, involving an affair, a torture chamber and a disembodied head. Overall, a rather cheap production, with virtually no resemblance to Poe's tale.)
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — 1951 (or 1958) — a radio show broadcast on NBC Short Story show. (As was often the case with dramatic presentations of Poe's works, the story has been modified.)
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — 1956 — a reading by Nelson Olmsted on Edgar Allan Poe: Tales of Terror, issued on the Vanguard label (VRS-9007)
  • Return to the House of Usher — 1996 (issued in October) — a neo-Gothic novel by Robert Poe, borrowing elements from Poe, and dragging in direct references to Poe, but mostly wandering off on its own path.  (284 pp. Originally published by Forge. Reissued in paperback in 1997)
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — November 10, 1998 — a radio show broadcast on NPR Playhouse, as part of the Radio Tales series. (As was often the case with dramatic presentations of Poe's works, the story has been modified.) The show was produced by Winnie Waldron and Winifred Phillips. It debuted on XM Satellite Radio on June 14, 2003.
  • “The House of Usher” — 2006 — a film by Haley Cloake, starring Austin Nichols, Izabella Miko and Beth Grant. [This generally rather low-key film is a modernized and heavily adapted version of Poe's tale. It may be more accurately described as a combination of "The Fall of the House of Usher," "Rebecca" and "Rosemary's Baby." Some changes are modest, for example Roderick and Madeline Usher become Rick and Maddy, but others are much more dramatic. The narrator has been defined as a female, with romantic complications completely foreign to the original story, and her role has been expanded to something much more central than that of a mere observer. It does manage to capture some of the sense of claustraphoic dread of some awful fate embodied in Poe's tale, but in changing fundamental aspects of the plot (especially in adding an overt reference to incest) entirely loses Poe's theme of the bi-part soul.]

Forgeries:
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” — (a forgery by Joseph Cosey, now in the Gimble Collection, Philadelphia Free Public Library)  (This is a fragment, bearing Poe's name in a byline, and ending at "vacant eye-like windows -- upon a few [[. . .]]" A large piece is missing from just above the middle of the left side.)








Bibliography:
  • Anderson, Carl L., Poe in Northlight: The Scandanavian Response to His Life and Work, Durham, NC: Duke Unversity Press, 1973.
  • Abel, Darrel, "A Key to the House of Usher," University of Toronto Quarterly (January 1949), 18:176-185. (Reprinted by Carlson and by Woodson.)
  • Bailey, J. O., "What Happens in 'The Fall of the House of Usher'?," American Literature (January 1964), 35:445-466 (Reprinted by Carlson).
  • Beebe, Maurice, "The Fall of the House of Pyncheon," Nineteen-Century Fiction (June 1956), 11:1-17.
  • Beebe, Maurice, "The Universe of Roderick Usher," Person (Spring 1956), 37:147-160. (Reprinted in Ivory Towers and Sacred Founts, New York: New York University Press, 1964 and again in Poe: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Robert Regan, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967.)
  • Benoit, Raymond, "Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher," Explicator, 1997, 55:79-81
  • Bonazza, Blaze and Emil Roy, " 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," Instructor's Manual to Accompany 'Studies in Short Fiction'," New York: Harper Row, 1965.
  • Booth, Wayne C., The Rhetoric of Fiction, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961, pp. 200-204.
  • Brooks, Cleanth and R. P. Warren, " 'The Fall of the House of Usher': Edgar Allan Poe," Understanding Fiction, New York: Appleton-Century Croft, 1942, pp. 184-205.
  • Brown, Gillian, "The Poetics of Extinction," in The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Shawn Rosenheim and Stephen Rachman, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1995, pp.330-344
  • Burduck, Michael L., Usher's "Forgotten Church"?: Edgar Allan Poe and Nineteeth-Century American Catholicism, Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society, 2000.
  • Butler, David W., "Usher's Hypochondriasis: Mental Alienation and Romantic Idealism in Poe's Gothic Tales," American Literature (1976), 48:1-12.
  • Carlson, Eric W., ed., Casebook on "The Fall of the House of Usher," Columbus OH: Charles E. Merrill Casebook Series, 1971.
  • Cohen, Hennig, "Roderick Usher's Tragic Struggle," Nineteenth-Century Fiction (December 1959), 14:270-272.
  • Cronin, James, "Poe's Vaults," Notes & Queries (September 1953), 198:395-396.
  • Davis, Jeff, "The Lady Madeline as a Symbol," Annotator (Purdue University) (April 1954), pp. 8-11.
  • Davis, Richard Beale, "Haunted Palace and Haunted Place," Notes & Queries (September 1959), 204:336-337.
  • Dumoulié, Camille, "Des signes d'inquiétante étrangeté," Nouvelle revue francaise, 1994, 493:71-79 and 494:102-110
  • Fenlon, Katherine Feeney, "John Gardner's 'The Ravages of Spring' as Re-Creation of 'The Fall of the House of Usher," Studies in Short Fiction, 1994, 3:481-487
  • Frank, Frederick S., "Poe's House of the Seven Gothics: The Fall of the Narrator in 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," Orbis Litterarum (1979), 34:331-351.
  • Frey, Matthew, "Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," Explicator, Summer 1996, 54:215-216
  • Gargano, James W., " 'The Fall of the House of Usher': An Apocalyse of Vision," University of Mississippi Studies in English (1982), 3:52-63.
  • Gold, Joseph, "Reconstructing the 'House of Usher'," ESQ (Quarter IV 1964), 37:74-76.
  • Godwin, K. L., "Roderick Usher's Overrated Knowledge," Nineteenth-Century Fiction (1961), 16:173-175.
  • Gordon, Caroline and Allen Tate, The House of Fiction, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1960. (Reprinted by Woodson.)
  • Guilds, John C., Jr., "Poe's Vaults Again," Notes & Queries (May 1957), 202:220-221.
  • Hartley, Lodwick, "From Crazy Castle to the House of Usher: A Note Toward a Source," Studies in Short Fiction (Spring 1965), 2:256.
  • Heartman, Charles F. and James R. Canny, A Bibliography of First Printings of the Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Hattiesburg, MS: The Book Farm, 1943.
  • Hill, Archibald A., "Principles Governing Semantic Parallels," Texas Studies in Literature and Language (Autumn 1959), 1:356-365.
  • Hill, John, "Dual Hallucination in 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," Southwest Review (Autumn 1963), 48:396-402.
  • Hill John, "Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher' and Frank Norris' Early Short Stories," Huntington Library Quarterly (1962), 26:111-112.
  • Hoffman, Michael J., "The House of Usher and Negative Romanticisim," Studies in Romanticism (1965), 4:158-168.
  • Hoeveler, Dianne, "The Hidden God and the Abjected Woman in 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," Studies in Short Fiction (1992), 29:385-395.
  • Kaplan, Louise J., "The Perverse Strategy in 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," in New Essays on Poe's Major Tales, ed. Kenneth Silverman, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 45-64.
  • Kendall, Lyle, "The Vampire Motif in 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," College English (March 1963), 24:450-453. (Reprinted by Woodson.)
  • Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, "Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," Explicator (November 1956), 15:7.
  • Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, "Poe's Vaults," Notes & Queries (December 1953), 198:542-543.
  • 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.
  • May, Leila S., " 'Sympathies of a Scarcely Intelligible Nature': The Brother-Sister Bond in Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," Studies in Short Fiction (1993), 30:387-396.
  • Moffett, H. Y., "Applied Tactics in Teaching Literature, 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," English Journal (September 1928), 17:556-559.
  • Morley, Christopher, "The Allegery of Roderick Usher," Times Literary Supplement (April 9, 1949), p. 233.
  • Norman, H. L., "Possible Source of E. A. Butti's 'Castello del Sogno," Modern Language Notes (April 1937), 52:256-258.
  • Olson, Bruce, "Poe's Strategy in 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," Modern Language Notes (November 1960), 75:556-559. (Reprinted by Carlson.)
  • Phillips, William, "Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," Explicator (February 1951), vol. 9, item 29.
  • Pittman, Diana,  'The Fall of the House of Usher'," Southern Literary Messenger (November 1941), 3:502-509.
  • Pochmann, Henry A., German Culture in America, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1957.
  • Pollin, Burton R., "Poe's Pen of Iron," American Transcendental Quarterly (Quarter II 1969), 2:16-18.
  • Porte, Joel, The Romance in America: Studies in Cooper, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville and James, Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1969, pp. 53-94.
  • Ramsey, Paul J., "Poe and Modern Art," College Art Journal (Spring 1959), 18:210-215.
  • Robinson, E. Arthur, "Order and Sentience in 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," Publications of the Modern Language Association (March 1961), 76:68-81.
  • Rose, Marilyn Gaddis, "Usher as Myth in Green's Minuit," Romance Notes (1964), 5:110-114.
  • Samuels, Charles T., "Usher's Fall: Poe's Rise," Georgia Review (Summer 1964), 18:208-216.
  • Savoye, Jeffrey A., "Sinking Under Iniquity," Edgar Allan Poe Review (Spring 2007), 8:70-74.
  • Seronsy, Cecil C., "Poe and 'Kubla Kahn'," Notes & Queries (May 1957), 202:219-220.
  • Smith, Herbert F., "Usher's Madness and Poe's Organicism: A Source," American Literature (November 1968), 39:379-389.
  • Spaulding, K. A., " 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," Explicator (June 1952), 10, item 52. (Reprinted by Carlson.)
  • Spitzer, Leo, "A Reinterpretation of 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," Comparative Literature (Autumn 1952), 4:351-363.
  • Stein, William Bysshe, "Twin Motif in 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," Modern Language Notes (February 1960), 75:109-111.
  • Stone, Edward, "Usher Poquelin and Miss Emily: Progress of the Southern Gothic," Georgia Review (Winter 1960), 14:433-443.
  • Thompson, G. Richard, "Poe and the Paradox of Terror: Structures of Heightened Consciousness in 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," in Ruined Eden of the Present: Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1981.
  • Tytell, John, "Anais Nin and 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," Under the Sign of Pisces: Anais Nin and Her Circle (1970), 1:5-11.
  • Walker, I. M., "The 'Legitimate Sources' of Terror in 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," Modern Language Review (October 1966), 61:585-592.
  • Warfel, H. R., "Poe's Dr. Percival: A Note on 'The Fall of the House of Usher'," Modern Language Notes (February 1939), 54:129-131.
  • Weber, Jean-Paul, "Edgar Poe on the Theme of the Clock," La Nouvelle Revue Francais (August-September 1958), 68:301-311 and 69:498-508.
  • Woodson, Thomas, ed., Twentieth Century Interpretations of "The Fall of the House of Usher," New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1969.
  • Wyllie, John Cooke, "A List of the Texts of Poe's Tales," Humanistic Studies in Honor of John Calvin Metcalf, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1941, pp. 322-338.



 
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