Text: Anonymous, “The Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe,” Pall Mall Gazette (London, UK), vol. XXXIX, whole no. 6006, June 9, 1884, pp. 4-5

[page 4, column 2, continued:]

”THE TALES AND POEMS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE.” *

Mr. JOHN H. INGRAM is well known to be a specialist on the subject of Edgar Allan Poe, himself the most insoluble of the many problems with which he mystified the world. Poe's personal reputation owes much to Mr. Ingram, who has succeeded in removing some of the blackest blots thrown upon it by Griswold and others, though after all possible lustrations it comes out anything but spotless; and now his literary fame will be no less indebted to the same industrious and enthusiastic student, by reason of this handsome and yet eminently readable collection of his tales and poems. This is, as Mr. Ingram justly remarks, the first edition in which the [page 5:] tales can be said to have been in any sense adequately illustrated. Readily as they lend themselves to pictorial treatment the subjects have hitherto been feebly and conventionally handled in the penny-dreadful style. In this edition the publisher has, with excellent judgment, gone to France for his illustrations, and chosen etching and photogravure as the most appropriate processes. The results are excellent. There is something entirely harmonious with the manner of Poe in the weird Rembrandtesque effects attainable by these processes, and the artists — Férat, Wogel, and others — have entered thoroughly into the spirit of their task. The initial portrait, etched by Damman from a daguerreotype, is admirably characteristic. In the poet's face, as we thus see it, lies the best clue to the mysteries of his life and genius. Whatever may be the value of his theories on handwriting, he himself afforded a living evidence of the significance of physiognomy. The externals of the edition are altogether tasteful, the paper good, the type clear it is only to be regretted that the proofs have not been more carefully revised, as many irritating “literal” errors have crept in.

Mr. Ingram claims the credit of being the first editor who has attempted to classify the tales. His first volume contains Tales of Imagination; his second, Tales of Humour; and his third and fourth, Miscellaneous Tales and Poems. We are not sure that this classification is much happier than such attempts usually are — the classification of Wordsworth's poems being a well-known example. of their arbitrary nature. Why, for instance, should The Gold Bug” stand at the head of the Tales of Imagination, when “Arthur Gordon Pym” is relegated. to the miscellaneous receptacle? “The Gold. Bug.” should surely be classed with “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Purloined: Letter,” as Tales of Ingenuity, exercises of sheer analytic acumen, or, more properly, perhaps, synthetic invention. “Arthur Gordon Pym,” on the other hand, is a masterpiece of that grim intensity of imagination which amounts to vision, and renders Poe, so to speak, a sort of Defoe-Baudelaire, almost unique in literature. It would be hard to name a passage in fiction more instinct with vividly morbid imagination than the whole story of the waterlogged ship, and especially the chapter which describes the meeting with the Dutch brig and its ghastly crew. This is realistic, as distinguished from poetic, imagination at its highest power. “Tales of Humour,” again, does rot seem a happy designation for the efforts of a writer who was notoriously deficient in humour, properly so called. Grotesque and satiric sketches would probably come nearer the mark; while, if classification is necessary at all, a separate heading should surely be provided for tales of sheer horror. The Journal of Julius Rodman” is now for the first time included in a collected edition, which it thus renders complete. As many papers, however, have been included which can scarcely by any stretch of definition be called “Tales,” it seems a pity that space should not have been found for the strange and fascinating “Eureka.”

It is stated in the preface that “some new pieces will be found among the poems, but these additions are few and insignificant. They do not, at any rate, afford any new evidence on the much-disputed question as to whether Poe can claim any rank whatever as a poet. The writer whom Mr. Andrew Lang and Mr. E. C. Stedman agree in describing as a master of fantastic and melancholy sound,” while Mr. Henry James denounces his “valueless verse,” must certainly stand in an anomalous position. The latter judgment is clearly much too sweeping. The one line, “Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of thought,” suffices to refute it, while it perhaps hints at an apology for the subordination of sense to sound throughout the poet's verse. Which of us, in these latter days, shall throw the first stone at the perpetrator of this particular sin?

[[Footnotes]]

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* “The Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe: with a Biographical Essay by John H. Ingram.” Four volumes. (London; John C. Nimmo, 1884.)