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There are many
copies of the Southern
Literary Messenger,
although
Poe-related issues in the original paper wrappers are quite rare. A few
copies are worthy of particular note: |
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- The "Duane" set of volumes I and II, with seven of
the
tales
in volume I bearing faint pencilled corrections by Poe. This set
belonged
to the collector and writer William Duane, Jr (1808-1882), a desendant
of Benjamin Franklin who lived in Philadelphia and contributed to the Southern
Literary Messenger during Poe's tenure. The relevant tales are:
"Berenice,"
"The Visionary," "Bon-Bon," "Loss of Breath," "King Pest," "Shadow,"
"Metzengerstein"
and "Hans Phaal." The variants from these unique volumes of the first
six
of these tales are recorded by T. O. Mabbott in his landmark edition of
Poe's Tales and Sketches, 1978 (2 vols) and, for "Hans Phall,"
by
Burton R. Pollin in The Imaginary Voyages, 1981. (George E.
Woodberry
notes, "The Leaves of 'Hans Phaal' were torn out and passed through the
hands of at least three printers and have their 'take' marks; they were
then skillfully replaced" (Woodberry, 1909, II, p. 368).) Mabbott
presumes that Poe's changes were "made in 1839 to provide printer's
copy
for Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840), since all the
changes
indicated were adopted in that edition" (Mabbott, T&S, p.
1404).
Two pencilled corrections in volume II, of which one may be by Poe, are
recorded by Bandy (1982), pp. 86-87. (A correction of one word in
"Maelzel's
Chess Player" is probably by Duane, while a printed note about a poem
in
the October 1836 issue, "To My Wife" by Lindley Murray, is perhaps by
Poe.)
About March of 1844, volume I seems to have been borrowed for Poe by
his
friend Henry B. Hirst, so that Poe could see a particular article
(Exactly
which article is not known.) Unfortunately, instead of returning the
volume,
as she had been instructed, Maria Clemm sold it (while Poe was out of
town,
about April 1844) with a lot of Poe's own books to William A. Leary (of
158 North Second Street), a dealer in Philadelphia. (Bandy says "Lewis
A. Leary," apparently in error.) Poe, unaware of Mrs. Clemm's mistake,
defended her in a rather harsh letter to Duane, "To the person [Henry
B.
Hirst] of whom I borrowed the book, or rather who insisted on forcing
it
on me, I have sufficient reason to believe that it was returned. Settle
your difficulties with him, and insult me with no more of your
communications"
(Poe to Duane, January 28, 1845). Duane eventually managed to purchase
his volume back through friends at the Messenger, who acquired
it
from a dealer in Richmond, with his own name still on the title-page.
Poe
was greatly embarrassed by the whole matter, remarking to Hirst, "what
must Mr. Duane think of me" (Woodberry, 1909, II, p. 368). Thirty years
later, Duane, writing under the anagramatic pseudonym of "Uneda," still
considered Poe, "a most unprincipled man." Formerly in the H. Bradley
Martin
Collection, the set was sold at auction on January 30, 1990 as item
2194,
with an estimate of "7,000/10,000." Provenance: William Duane, Jr.;
James
H. Whitty; H. Bradley Martin; current owner is a private collector in
Manhattan,
NY. (The Pierpont Morgan Library in NY supposedly has photocopies of
the
pages with corrections).
- James H. Whitty claimed to have "copies of the Southern
Literary
Messenger from the Hawks library with the address in Poe's
autograph"
(Whitty, 1911, p. xl note 2), with "Hawks" being Dr. Francis Lister
Hawks
(1798-1866), one of the editors of The New York Review. (Poe
contributed
one review to that New York quarterly.) These are presumably the same
copies
which were purchased from Whitty by the J. K. Lilly Library. The
catalogue
of the Lilly Library notes, "Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 of Volume I are
addressed on the front wrappers, in Poe's hand: 'Edward T. Tayloe, King
George Court-House, Va.' " and further stating, "No other
issues, inscribed by Poe, seem to be recorded. From the Whitty
collection"
(Randall, 1960, p. 55)
- A private collector owns a set of volumes I-III,
where vol. I has
a
receipt, in Poe's hand, for contributions to the Messenger.
- In preparing for the publication of The Raven and
Other Poems
in 1845, Poe seems to have borrowed a copy of volume II of the Messenger
from Rufus W. Griswold. Poe wrote a quick note to Griswold on September
28, 1845: "Please do not forget to send the S. L. Messenger -- Vol 2. I
will take especial care of it." Poe had already written to E. A.
Duyckinck
on September 10, 1845, "I can hand you some 'Dramatic Scenes' from the
S. L. Messenger (2nd Vol) . . ." The "Dramatic Scenes" would have been
"Scenes from an Unpublished Drama" from the extracts of Poe's play
"Politian"
printed in the December 1835 and January 1836 issues, both in volume 2.
Mabbott states that Poe made corrections in the volume "for printer's
copy"
(Mabbott, Poems, p. 578). The exact nature of Poe's revisions
in
this volume are unknown, although they are presumably preserved in the
printed form of The Raven and Other Poems. Also unknown is
whether
or not it has survived and, if so, its current location. In 1942,
Mabbott
felt that, "Poe's promise of care suggests that any pencil alterations
would have been erased before the periodical was returned . . . The
original
manuscript of Politian was certainly not used as copy for the volume of
1845, but rather a slightly corrected Messenger. This is clear
from
the variants recorded in my edition of Politian, 1923, pp.
46-50"
(Mabbott, "Introduction," The Raven and Other Poems, facsimile
of
1942, p. vii, n. 6). Since the changes are minor, it is possible that
Poe
used Griswold's copy of the Messenger only as a source of the
initial
setting of text and made corrections directly to proof pages.
- Note: In their 1943 bibliography of Poe's writings,
Heartman and
Canny include a warning about copies of the Southern Literary Messenger in
paper wrappers with Poe's autograph, documenting these as coming from a
large collection of forgeries (p. ix).
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