Last Update: July 7, 1997         Navigation:   Main Menu     Poe Info. Menu     Poe Canon Menu

Apocryphal, Doubtful and Rejected Tales

(This page is under construction.)

Apocryphal and Doubtful Tales:

• Title: "The Atlantis, a Southern World--or a Wonderful Continent Discovered, by Peter Propspero, L.L.D.; M.A., P.S. (1838)
  Status: Doubtful
  Argument: Proposed by Arthur H. Quinn in Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography (1941), pp. 757-761.

Rejected Tales:

• Title: "A Chapter in the History of Vivum-Ovo (From a M. S. Supposed to be written by Edgar A. Poe)" (Reprinted from the Free Trader, Memphis, Tenn.: The Free Trader Publishing Co., 1882.)
  Status: Rejected
  Argument: Dismissed in Heartman and Canny, Bibiliography, p. 167.

• Title: "The Doom" (SLM, Jan. 1835, signed "Benedict")
  Status: Rejected
  Argument: Attributed to Poe by J. H. Whitty. Campbell thinks it is not by Poe (Campbell, The Mind of Poe, pp. 210-211). Poe makes reference to this story in his letter to T. H. White of April 30, 1835 in a way that does not suggest that he is the author of the tale (Ostrom, Letters, p. 57). Poe's first unquestionable contribution to the SLM the tale "Berenice" in the issue for March 1835. (Slightly less than certain, a review of R. M. Bird's "Calavar" from the issue of February 1835 may be Poe's first contribution to SLM.)

• Title: "Erostratus" (SLM, July 1836)
  Status: Rejected
  Argument: Attributed to Poe by B. B. Minor. Campbell disagrees, suggesting instead Lucian Minor (Campbell, The Mind of Poe, pp. 211-212).

• Title: "Who is the Murderer?" (Blackwood's Magazine, May 1842)
  Status: Rejected
  Argument: Attributed to Poe by M. E. Phillips (Phillips, Poe the Man, p. 712). Campbell disagrees (Campbell, The Mind of Poe, pp. 212-213).