Text: John H. Ingram, “Edgar Poe's Poem of ‘The Bells’,” Athenaeum (London, UK), December 3, 1904, p. 766, cols. 1-2

[page 766, column 1, continued:]

In relating the history of Tennyson's ‘Death of the Old Year’ inthe Atheneum of November 26th, Mr. Waddington refers to the evolution of Edgar Poe's poem of ‘The Bells.’ His account of the genesis of this work contains some misstatements, probably derived from an American source, and as accuracy is desirable in a matter of literary history, [column 2:] I may be permitted to correct and supplement his record. The poem consisted of seventeen lines only at first, and as the subject and some sentences of it had been suggested by his friend Mrs. Shew, Poe headed the draft “The Bells, by Mrs. M. L. Shew.” I printed this version of it from the original MS., in my possession, in the only complete collection of Poe's ‘Poetical Works,’ first published by F. Warne & Co. in 1888. Twice Poe revised the poem, sending it each time to the Union Magazine; but being unable to get it published, he revised it a third time, and, greatly enlarged, again forwarded it to the same publication, wherein it appeared in October, 1849, a few days before its author's death. It now consists of 113 lines. The story of its composition is told in chap. xviii. of my ‘Life of Poe.’

JOHN H. INGRAM.