Text: Anonymous, “The Works of Edgar Allan Poe,” Standard Union (Brooklyn, NY), vol. XXXI, no. 188, February 9, 1895, p. 5, col. 5

[page 5, column 5, continued:]

THE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE: Newly Collected and Edited, with a Memoir. Critical Introductions, and Notes, by Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodberry. Illustrated by Albert Edward Sterner. In ten volumes. Vol. I. Chicago: Stone Kimball.

The movement of the literay [[literary]] centre, of which we used to hear so much, from Boston to New York, has apparently begun again, and Westward the course of the intellectual empire takes its way. At any rate, in the physical characteristics of bookmaking, it would be exceedingly difficult to find any work from any press, which surpasses in refined taste and excellence of execution that from Stone Kimball, of Chicago. In their Green Tree Library they have attained a standard, which few Atlantic Coast competitors have realized and in the first of the ten volumes of the Poe edition they continue upon the same high level of merit. No admirer of the brilliant poet-romancer could ask for more perfect setting of his works. In its outward body the Chicago edition is an adequate setting of the genius, which infuses its text, and its fair and comely pages a worthy counterpart of the clear, intellectual atmosphere in which its editors have encompassed it.

It is quite superfluous, in this place and at this late day, to undertake an exposition of Mr. Poe's personal or literary character, or his place in the world of American writers. A division of the schools will continue, but of the great, popular judgment of history, the verdict from which there is no appeal, there can be no doubt The Chicago edition is, moreover, fortunate and authoritative in its editors. Mr. Woodberry's memoir of Poe is a model of what such work should be — clear, concise and straightforward; its narrative proceeds steadily from beginning to end, without diversion or casual episodes, presenting, in a clear and transparent medium, the real facts and actual life of the author. Mr. Woodberry has not conceived it to be his function to undertake a special plea, either for or against the literary record, or personal character of Mr. Poe. His narrative is that of one with all the facts at his command, and with the sole and sincere purpose of stating the truth. Mr. Stedman's introductory note is marked by. that fineness of perception, that justness of appreciation, and that wide range of attainment, which characterize all his [column 6:] literary work, and make the paper in itself a classic. The memoir and Line introduction occupy nearly one-half of the first. volume, but not a page or a paragraph’ is superfluous.

The remainder is devoted to the “Romance of Death,” in two groups, the “Terrestrial,” opening with the classic “The Fall of the House of Usher.” and including the romance of and the other of three “Celestial Tales.” “Old World Romance” — seven shorter tales — headed by “The Masque of the Red Death,” conclude the contents of the first volume, which is prefaced by the Sartain portrait from the original picture in the collection of R. W. Griswold, and illustrated by other engravings of artistic and historic interest. The five first volumes of the edition will be devoted to “Tales of the Grotesque a and Arabesque,” retaining the title of the Philadelphia edition of 1840, and separated into natural groups. “The Landscape Garden,” identically the opening portion of “The Domain of Arnheim,” is omitted, and “The Elk” is added for the first time, and “The Journal of Julius Rodman” is given for the first time. The edition, with evident appreciation of the fitness of things, is dedicated to the University of Virginia, at which Poe, at the age of 17, enjoyed a brilliant, erratic and characteristic career of nearly a year. succeeded by enlistment at Boston as a private in Battery of the First Artillery, now on duty at Davids’ Island.