Text-01 — “The Literati of New York City” (about February 1846 — six “roll”
manuscripts, not seen since 1846 and almost certainly lost.) (There seem to be no surviving manuscripts from the original series.
Several items which have appeared in exhibition and auction catalogues as manuscript fragments from “The Literati” are
generally from “Literary America,” noted below. All we know about the manuscripts is what is contained in the printed
texts, and a pleasant recollection by Francis Sargent Osgood: “I recollect, one morning, toward the close of his residence in
this city . . . I found him just completing his series of papers entitled ‘The Literati of New York.’
‘See,’ said he, displaying in laughing triumph several little rolls of narrow paper (he always wrote thus for the
press), ‘I am going to show you by the differences of length the different degrees of estimation in which I hold all you
literary people. In each of these one of you is rolled up and fully discussed. Come, Virginia, help me!’ And one by one they
unfolded them . . .” (F. S. Osgood, “Reminiscences of
Edgar A. Poe,” Saroni's Musical Times, December 8, 1849, p. 118, col. 2.)
(Note that “The Literati” material is closely tied to some “Marginalia” items and a few
reviews. Some revisions may be from Poe's projected but never completed books, The Living Writers of America (about 1846-1847) and Literary America (1848)
“Lydia M. Child” (August 29, 1846, reprint of “A” — Baltimore Saturday
Visiter)
“William Ross Wallace” (October 22, 1849, reprint of “D” — New York
Tribune)
“Margaret Fuller, Marchesa D’Osoli” (Aug. 6, 1850, reprint of “D”, the one item
only — International Weekly Miscellany, pp. 162-165)
“The Literati of New York City” — 1875
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. J. H. Ingram, Edinburgh, Adam and Charles Black (4:407-490) (Ingram reprints
the version of these articles from Godey's Lady's Book, but omits several of the entries)
Scholarly and Noteworthy Reprints:
“The Literati” — 1895 — The Works
of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 8: Literary Criticism, eds. E. C. Stedman and G. E. Woodberry, Chicago: Stone and Kimball (8:3-324,
and 8:349-352)
“The Literati” — 1902 —
The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 15: Literati and Autography, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell
(15:1-137, and 15:263-293) (Harrison reprints the version of these articles from Godey's Lady's Book, and
gives the “Griswold” versions as an appendix)
“The Literati of New York City” — 1984 — Edgar Allan Poe: Essays and Reviews, ed.
G. R. Thompson, New York: Library of America (pp. 1118-1222)
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.
Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, ed., The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Vols 2-3 Tales and Sketches),
Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1978.
Mabbott, Thomas Ollive and James B. Reece, eds., Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe: The Literati of New York
City (notes in preparation for the planned but never published volume), Mabbott Collection, University of Iowa
Reece, James B., Poe and the New York Literati: A Study of the “Literati” Sketches and of
Poe's Relations with the New York Writers (unpublished disseration), Duke University, 1954.
Woodberry, George Edward, Edgar Allan Poe, from the American Men of Letters Series, Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1885.
Woodberry, George Edward, The Life of Edgar Allan Poe, Personal and Literary, 2 vols, Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1909 (Revised version of Woodberry's Edgar Allan Poe of 1885.)
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
[S:0 - JAS] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Misc - The Literati of New York City