[page v, unnumbered:]

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Poe's first book, the anonymous Tamerlane, printed at Boston in 1827, fell flat, attracting so little attention that the author said (perhaps euphemistically) that it had been suppressed. But during his enlistment in the U. S. Army under the alias of Edgar A. Perry, the poet did not abandon poetry. Revised versions of the two minor poems from Tamerlane appeared over his brother's initials in the Baltimore North American in 1827; and though no other publications of the period have been traced as yet, anonymous or pseudonymous printings may still lie hid in some obscure paper. Evidence of his continual revision of his old work is contained in the Wilmer MSS. in the Pierpont Morgan Library, which include revised versions of Tamerlane and other minor poems that surely antedate 1829. And he was at work on a new narrative poem, too.

The death of his foster-mother and a partial reconciliation with the dour John Allan brought about his release from the army; and in the spring of 1829 he was in Baltimore, intent on gaining admission to West Point, and finding a publisher for his verses. After delays he was destined to succeed in both ambitions. We are here concerned only with the second. [page vi, unnumbered:]

From a letter addressed to Poe by William Wirt on May 11, 1829, we know that Poe had that day consulted the biographer of Patrick Henry, on Al Aaraaf. Wirt was puzzled by the poetry, pleaded that he was too old-fashioned to be a good judge of modern poetry. But he was kind to Poe, expressed the opinion that the work would please modern readers, that the notes contained “useful” information, and advised Poe to see the Philadelphia critics, Robert Walsh and Joseph Hopkinson.

From Poe's letters to John Allan we know he did see Walsh. And two surviving letters, May 27, and July 28, 1829 (the former still unprinted, but in the Drexel Institute, Philadelphia), tell us of negotiations with Carey, Lea and Carey of Philadelphia. This famous publishing firm was willing to bring out the volume, if guaranteed against possible loss. John Allan was unwilling to put up the cash, and Poe very politely declined publication on his own account, because he had made “a better disposition” of his poems than he “had any right to expect.” To John Allan on November 18, Poe wrote from Baltimore “The Poems will be printed by Hatch & Dunning of this city upon terms advantageous to me they printing it & giving me 250 copies of the book.” It may be argued that this does not absolutely preclude a guarantee of some kind, and it seems to have been difficult to account for the comparative rarity [page vii, unnumbered:] of the book, if so many were issued. But my interpretation is that Hatch and Dunning gave Poe 250 copies unbound. Parts of a copy in sheets were sold (Walpole Galleries, sale catalogue, New York, March 25, 1930, lots 74 and 75) presumably from the possession of a Baltimore family. The number of copies bound and sold or circulated in the usual manner was probably very small. At present perhaps a score of copies are known. In addition to copies at Harvard, Yale, Peabody Institute, New York Public Library, Huntington Library, and the Poe Shrine, Messrs. Heartmann and Rede list a half dozen privately owned copies in their recent Census, and others unlocated. The book is an octavo of 36 leaves (72 pages with the wide margins Poe admired), beautifully printed on paper watermarked “Amies, Philad’a,” really a charming volume. The copy in the Wakeman Collection (American Art Association, New York, April 28 and 29, 1924, lot 936) bore on the title page the date 1820, usually described as a misprint. But that copy belonged to Elizabeth Herring, a cousin of Poe's, and was used by Poe in preparing copy for his 1845 volume The Raven and Other Poems (in which he abandoned the elaborate revisions of 1831, and gave his poems of 1829 with a few corrections). I have not examined the title page under a glass, but the suggestion that the date may have been altered, either idly or hoaxingly, [page viii, unnumbered:] by the poet himself, seems to me quite credible.

The exact date of publication is uncertain, but a letter of December 29, 1829, from Poe to John Neal makes it clear that the book was out that month. Even before publication Poe was circulating his poems in manuscript and seeking prepublication of selections from the volume. John Neal had recently changed a weekly newspaper into a monthly literary magazine, The Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette. In the issue of September, 1829, Neal rejected, not unkindly, some verses on Heaven by E. A. P. of Baltimore (the poem we know as Fairyland); in the issue of December under the heading Unpublished Poetry, he gave extracts from the forthcoming book, from a letter of the author about it, and decidedly favorable criticism of the work. N. P. Willis in the American Monthly, for November, also rejected Fairyland (quoting four lines that identify it). And in a forthcoming issue of American Literature we may hope to see an article by Mr. Rede dealing with another attempt to arouse interest in Al Aaraaf. There may be others still undiscovered.

After the book was issued, an unfavorable review by John H. Hewitt was published in the Baltimore Minerva and Emerald — the date is uncertain for the unique Yale file of the paper is incomplete. But [page ix, unnumbered:] my friend Vincent Starrett showed me a transcript of Hewitt's clipping of the review, which led to bad feeling between Poe and Hewitt, and, until he denied its authorship, with his coeditor Rufus Dawes. Its interest is now merely biographical. A more intelligent, though very brief review, by Mrs. Hale appeared in the Boston Ladies’ Magazine for January, 1830 (pointed out by J. H. Whitty in the New York Evening Post Book Review, August 13, 1921). Finding some faults with the work of an obviously young author, she recognized a kinship of his work to Shelley's and called the author a fine genius.

A complete commentary on Al Aaraaf would require a good sized book, and involve a study of all the important prose and verse of Poe. Suffice it here to say that in abandoning the manner of Byron, Poe tried to adopt some of that of Milton and Moore, but actually gave us in the first volume printed with his own name the germs of the mysticism, curious lore, and wholly individual melody that distinguish his later work. In this epyllion, or little epic, is much that reminds one of Callimachus, Catullus, and Landor. And For Annie, The Fall of the House of Usher, and Eureka are here all foreshadowed. Angelo, Poe wrote to Lea, is the spirit of Michelangelo. But the motto, in bad Spanish, on page 3, is [page x, unnumbered:] a warning: “Do you understand this, Fabio?,” “Yes,” “Fabio, you are a liar!”

In preparing this note I have consulted especially the documents given by Mrs. Stanard in Edgar Allan Poe Letters ... in the Valentine Museum, the discussions in the lives of Woodberry and Allen, in Killis Campbell's and J. H. Whitty's editions of the poems, and in Hewitt's Shadows on the Wall. At one time or another I have personally examined all the periodicals and most of the MSS. mentioned. Other sources are specially named.

The facsimile is made from the copy in the Aldis Collection, through the courtesy of the Yale University Library authorities and Professor Stanley T. Williams.

T. O. M.

HUNTER COLLEGE
   November, 1932