The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

Editions Authorized by Poe:

During his lifetime, Poe published four collections of his poetry. A posthumous collection, edited by Rufus Wilmot Griswold, incorporates some additional manuscript changes, although Griswold did not have access to a few other important corrections and is therefore less than definitive. These collections are listed chronologically. Poe also sent Griswold revised versions of several poems for his important anthology of American poetry, which ran through many editions. Within each of the following items, there is descriptive information as well as a list of poems which links to the appropriate text.

Later Collected Editions:

After Griswold's death in 1857, there were several alternate attempts to collect Poe's works. 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. Harrsion (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.) Individual volumes of poems were generally selected from the larger collections.

Modern Scholarly Editions:

The most widely recognized scholarly edition of Poe's poems is that edited by Thomas Ollive Mabbott, (published in 1969, just after Mabbott's death). This edition is thoroughly annotated, with introductory material, notes and variants.

The following list contains at least one entry for all ninety-seven of what may properly be designated as Poe's poetry. A few entries exist for items without any surviving text, but are included for the sake of completeness. Also, because Poe often revised his work, sometimes quite heavily, the same poem might have been printed under more than one title. In the case of multiple titles, all of the titles have been listed, with an indication of the later name. (See, for example, “To Elizabeth.”) A few poems share similar titles, such as “To Helen” — for these poems, the first line has been provided to allow for distinguishing one poem from the other. In addition to these items that are assigned to Poe's pen with confidence, one or two doubtful items have been included because they were at one point suggested by a credible authority as possibly having been by Poe. (In the list below, they are noted as “doubtful.”) Also included is Poe's only play, “Politian,” which is written in a verse form. Although Poe himself considered Eureka to be “a prose poem,” for this website it has been placed in what seems to be the more suitable category of an essay. Readers should also be advised to see several of Poe's essays on poetry, including “The Philosophy of Composition” and “The Poetic Principle.” Information on a number of German translations has been graciously provided by Roger Forclaz.

These items are arranged alphabetically by the name of the poem. Within each name, the items are listed chronologically. A few poems were published by Poe under more than one name, or under a name assigned by later editors. These poems are listed under the name most commonly used. Primarly, poems actually by or reasonably attributed to Poe have been listed. 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. For a more detailed list of rejected poems, see Mabbott (Poems, 1969, 1:502-514).