Text: Killis Campbell, “A New Text of Poe's Poems,” The Dial (Chicago, IL), July 1, 1911, pp. 13-14

A NEW TEXT OF POE'S POEMS.*

The claim has been made for more than one edition of Poe that it contains every scrap of Poe's writings; and it was predicted a good many years ago by one of Poe's editors that no “new and well-authenticated poem” from his pen would ever again be found. Yet Mr. J. H. [page 14:] Whitty has brought together in his recent edition of Poe's verses a full half-dozen new poems. None of these possesses much intrinsic worth, and one is a fragment of only three lines; but Mr. Whitty's feat is, nevertheless, a notable one. Two of the new poems were discovered in manuscript copies in the desk used by Poe while editor of the “Southern Literary Messenger”; three were published in magazines with which Poe was connected; and one is from an obscure periodical published at Providence, Rhode Island, in 1848. Included in the edition, also, are the two skits addressed by Poe to his Baltimore cousin, Elizabeth Herring, and the two songs from Poe's tale, “ Four Beasts in One,” hitherto ignored by editors of the poems.

Scarcely less remarkable than the discovery of these poems is the disclosure of a number of new variant readings. These are drawn in part from manuscripts until now either unknown or inaccessible to the editors, in part from sundry printed versions of the poems heretofore quite overlooked by both editors and bibliographers. The most interesting of these are versions of “The Raven” and “Dream-Land” published in the Richmond “Examiner” in the autumn of 1849, and texts of twelve other poems which were intended for publication in the “Examiner” and are preserved in revised proofs made for that purpose. Here also are recorded for the first time the variant readings found in the “Flag of our Union,” a file of which was discovered several summers ago in Washington (see “The Nation” of December 30, 1910). Other new readings are furnished by the Baltimore “Saturday Morning Visiter” for 1833, the London “Critic” for 1845, the Richmond “Whig” for 1849, and “Leaflets of Memory” for 1850.

Mr. Whitty has also collected a good deal of fresh information about Poe's life. The chief source of this information is the manuscript “ Recollections of E. A. Poe “ by F. W. Thomas, now at last become available. These reminiscences tend to corroborate Poe's story of a trip to Europe in 1827, which most of Poe's editors have believed to be apocryphal; and they also furnish valuable information about Poe's activities in Baltimore during the obscure years following his expulsion from West Point in 1831. From other sources — mainly newspapers of the time — new particulars are brought out about Poe's relations with Mrs. Osgood and Mrs. Shelton. A number of unpublished letters are drawn on for new details about his early life in Richmond. An interesting theory advanced is [column 2:] that the “ Lines Written in an Album,” published in the “Messenger” in September, 1835, were really inspired by Virginia Clemm, and not by Eliza White, as has been generally assumed. It is also suggested that Poe's father either had died or had deserted his family before the summer of 1811.

Where so much was attempted, it was inevitable that some errors should creep in. The chief of these appear in the appendix. In the textual notes there are a number of misprints and some slight inaccuracies. Among errors inherited from other editions are the spelling Petrarchmanities for “Petrarchanities,” in the variorum of “An Enigma” (p. 237); the substitution of “To” for “For” in the sixth line of the 1829 revision of “A Dream within a Dream “ (p. 274), and of “ Now “ for “Nor” in the last stanza of the 1829 version of the lines beginning “I heed not that my earthly lot” (p. 279); and the omission of the line “Silent waterfalls” in the last stanza of the 1831 version of “Fairy-land” (p. 282). In the variorum for “The Raven” the readings for the “Southern Literary Messenger” (March, 1845) are overlooked. And it is open to question whether the editor has not erred sometimes in the selection of his text. In the case of “An Enigma,” for example, the Griswold text must surely represent Poe's latest revision; the same holds true of the later lines “To Helen,” unless we are to adopt the very improbable theory that Griswold deliberately interpolated a couple of lines of his own making. In two instances — in the last line of “Annabel Lee” and in the twenty-second line of “Spirits of the Dead” — the editor has rejected the reading of the text that he has adopted; in both instances, one must think, on insufficient grounds. In the bibliography, mention should be made of the text of “A Valentine” which appeared in the “Evening Mirror” for February 21, 1846; and of the excerpts from “Politian” in the “Southern Magazine” of November, 1875, and in the New York issue of J. H. Ingram's edition of the poems.

Aside from these defects, the edition is an admirable one, and should supersede all former editions of the poems. That it will come to be recognized as final, it would be rash to predict: where Mr. Whitty was able to garner so bountiful a harvest, it may fall to yet other laborers in the field to collect some small gleanings. But at least we may predict that no such feat as Mr. Whitty's will soon again be accomplished.

KILLIS CAMPBELL

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 13, column 2:]

* THE COMPLETE POEMS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE. Collected, edited, and arranged, with memoir, textual notes, and bibliography, by J. H. Whitty. Illustrated. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.