Text-01 — “Maelzel's Chess-Player” — late 1835 or early 1836, no original
manuscript or fragments are known to exist (but this version is presumably recorded in Text-02) — (Griswold adds a note to his
printing of the text stating that it was “written in 1835,” although his authority for the statement is not clear.)
Text-02 — “Maelzel's Chess-Player” — April
1836 — Southern Literary Messenger (For Griswold's 1856 reprint of this text, see the entry
under reprints, below.)
“Maelzel's Chess-Player” — 1875
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. J. H. Ingram, Edinburgh, Adam and Charles Black (3:286-311) (The
illustration of the player appears on 3:290)
The Chess Player — about 1895 — Log Cabin Series, No. 35, New York: Log Cabin Press
(soft-bound publication of 199 pages, with a lovely pictorial cover, but with no obvious connection to the contents, and
advertisements. Although “The Chess Player” is the featured title, the book also contains ten other works by Poe.)
the essay is widely anthologized
Scholarly and Noteworthy Reprints:
“Maelzel's Chess-Player” — 1895
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 9: Eureka and Miscellanies, eds. E. C. Stedman and G. E. Woodberry, Chicago: Stone
and Kimball (9:141-173, and 9:315) (The illustration of the player appears on 9:147)
“Maelzel's Chess-Player” —1902
— The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (14:6-37) (The illustration
of the player appears on 14:11)
“Maelzel's Chess-Player” — 1984 — Edgar Allan Poe: Essays and Reviews, ed.
G. R. Thompson, New York: Library of America (pp. 1253-1276)
“Maelzel's Chess-Player” — 1997 —
Edgar Allan Poe: Writings in the Southern Literary Messenger, Nonfictional Prose, ed. Burton R. Pollin and J. V. Ridgely,
New York: Gordian Press, 5:156-164 (volume 5 of The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe) (This version reprints
the full text using a photographic facsimile of pages from the Southern Literary Messenger, although the layout of pages and
columns has been modified for the new format.)
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Comparative and Study Texts:
Instream Comparative and Study Texts:
None
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Associated Material and Special Versions:
Miscellaneous Texts and Related Items:
“Le joueur d‘échecs de Maelzel” — (French translation by Charles Baudelaire)
“Le joueur d‘échecs de Maelzel” — July 12 - August 2, 1862 — Le
Monde illustré
“Le joueur d‘échecs de Maelzel” — Part I — July 12, 1862
“Le joueur d‘échecs de Maelzel” — Part II — July 19, 1862
“Le joueur d‘échecs de Maelzel” — Part III — July 26, 1862
“Le joueur d‘échecs de Maelzel” — Part IV — August 2, 1862
“Le joueur d‘échecs de Maelzel” — 1865 — Histoires grotesques et
sérieuses, Paris: Michel Lévy frères
“Mäelzel's Chess Player” — 2007 — Audio book (unabridged), read by Chris Aruffo (part of a 5-CD set)
Garber, Frederick, “Maelzel and Me,” in Encountering the Other(s): Studies in Literature,
History, and Culture, ed. Gisela Brinkler-Gabler, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995, pp. 103-126.
Heartman, Charles F. and James R. Canny, A Bibliography of First Printings of the Writings of Edgar Allan
Poe, Hattiesburg, MS: The Book Farm, 1943.
Irwin, John T., “Handedness and the Self: Poe's Chess Player,” Arizona Quarterly, 1989,
45:1-28
Panek, Leroy L., “ ‘Maelzel's Chess-Player,’ Poe's First Detective Mistake,”
American Literature, 1976, 48:370-372
Pollin, Burton R. and Joseph V. Ridgely, eds., Edgar Allan Poe: Writings in the Southern Literary
Messenger, New York: Gordian Press, 1997, 5:177-181 (This is volume 5 of the Collected Writings of Edgar Allan
Poe, though all volumes in this series were issued separately)
Wimsatt, William K., Jr., “Poe and the Chess Automaton,” American Literature, May 1939,
11:138-151.
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[S:0 - JAS] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Essays - Maelzel's Chess-Player