Edgar Allan Poe — “The Man that was Used Up”


∞∞∞∞∞∞∞



∞∞∞∞∞∞∞


Commentary:

Characters:

  • Narrator (unnamed) - The narrator in this story is chiefly an observer. His name is not given.
  • Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith - The hero of Bugaboo and Kickapoo Indian Wars; a downright fire-eater; prodigies of valor; why, he's the man . . .
  • etc. - xx

Setting:

Location - Under development.

Date - Under development.

Summary:

Under development.


∞∞∞∞∞∞∞


Reading and Reference Texts:

Reading copy:

  • “The Man that was Used Up” — reading copy

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞


Historical Texts:

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings:

  • Text-01 — “The Man that was Used Up” — 1839 — (There are no known draft manuscripts or scratch notes reflecting the original effort of composition.)
  • Text-02 — “The Man that was Used Up” — 1839
    • Text-02a — “The Man that was Used Up” — 1839 — (Speculated faircopy manuscript Poe prepared for publication. This manuscript has not survived, but this version is presumably recorded in Text-02b.)
    • Text-02b — “The Man that was Used Up” — August 1839 — Burton's Gentleman's Magazine (BGM) — (Mabbott text A) (In a letter to P. P. Cooke, Poe mentions that he is sending copies of the July, August, and September 1839 issues of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, but in Cooke's reply it is clear that he is responding only to the stories as printed in Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, of which Poe had sent Cooke an inscribed copy. He does not mention “The Man that was Used Up.” There is no reason to suspect that any of these magazine copies contained manuscript revisions by Poe.)
  • Text-03 — “The Man that was Used Up” — 1839
    • Text-03a — “The Man that was Used Up” — about September 1839 — (Speculated copy of Burton's with manuscript changes made by Poe in preparing for the printing in TGA. This copy has not survived, but is presumably recorded in Text-03b.)
    • Text-03b — “The Man that was Used Up” — dated 1840, but available by November 1839 — TGA — (Mabbott text B)
  • Text-04 — “The Man that was Used Up” — 1842-1843
    • Text-04a — “The Man that was Used Up” — 1842 — TGAPP — (Mabbott text C)  (This version is a modified form of Text-04)
    • Text-04b — “The Man that was Used Up” — 1843 — PRRMS — (Mabbott text D) (While this text is based on TGAPP, a few small verbal changes have apparently been applied in proof. In a letter of February 24, 1845 to R. W. Griswold, Poe says that he was sending copies of “ ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ and ‘The Man that was used up’ ” for possible inclusion in a new edition of The Prose Writers of America. The coincidence of the tales makes if likely that Poe sent him a copy of this printing.)
  • Text-05 — “The Man that was Used Up” — 1843-1845
    • Text-05a — “The Man that was Used Up” — 1843-1845 — (speculated copy of PRRMS with manuscript changes made by Poe in preparing for the printing in the Broadway Journal. This copy has not survived, but is presumably recorded in Text-08.) (Poe appears to have sent this copy of PRRMS to E. A. Duyckinck for consideration in what would become the 1845 collection of TALES published by Wiley and Putnam. In this presumed copy, Poe must have marked the text for both items included in this little pamphlet. Of the two tales, Duyckinck selected only “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” In preparing the 1845 collection of TALES, the pages containing “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” were destroyed, which included the initial part of “The Man that was Used Up,” which began further down the page from the last paragraph of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Consequently, in printing the story in the Broadway Journal, Poe had to use TGAPP for the first few paragraphs, including the newly added motto, but without using some of the minor changes marked in TGAPP.)
    • Text-05b — “The Man That Was Used Up” — August 9, 1845 — Broadway Journal — (Mabbott text E) (For Griswold's 1856 reprinting of this text, see the entry below, under reprints.)

 

Reprints:

  • “The Man That Was Used Up” — September 12-13, 1845 — The Spirit of the Times (Philadelphia, PA) (reprinted from the Broadway Journal)
    • “The Man That Was Used Up” — Part I   (September 12, 1845) vol. XII, no. 67
    • “The Man That Was Used Up” — Part II  (September 13, 1845) vol. XII, no. 68
  • The Man that was Used Up” — 1856 — WORKS — (Mabbott text F — This is Mabbott's copy-text) (Griswold reprints Text-04b.)
  • “The Man That Was Used Up” — 1867 — Prose Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, second series (New York: W. J. Widdleton), pp. 478-488 (This collection is extracted from the 1850-1856 edition of Poe's Works. It was reprinted several times.)
  • The Man That Was Used Up” — 1874 — Works of Edgar A. Poe, edited by J. H. Ingram, vol. 2, pp. 549-559 (This collection was subsequently reprinted in various forms)

 

Scholarly and Noteworthy Reprints:

  • The Man that was Used Up” — 1894-1895 — The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 4: Tales, eds. E. C. Stedman and G. E. Woodberry, Chicago: Stone and Kimball (4:44-57) (This collection was subsequently reprinted in various forms)
  • The Man that was Used Up” — 1902 — The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 3: Tales II, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (3:259-272, and 3:335-338)
  • The Man that was Used Up” — 1978 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 2: Tales & Sketches I, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2:378-392)
  • “The Man that was used Up” — 1983 — Edgar Allan Poe: The Other Side, ed. David Galloway (New York: Penguin Books), pp. 90-99 and p. 248 (annotations are minor)
  • “The Man That Was Used Up” — 1984 — Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales, ed. Patrick F. Quinn (New York: Library of America), pp. 307-316
  • “The Man That Was Used Up: A Tale of the Late Bugaboo and Kickapoo Campaign” — 2015 — The Annotated Poe, ed. Kevin J. Hayes (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press), pp. 83-94

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞


Comparative and Study Texts:

Instream Comparative and Study Texts:


∞∞∞∞∞∞∞


Associated Material and Special Versions:

Miscellaneous Texts and Related Items:

  • The Man That Was Used Up” — September 9, 1843 — The New Mirror  (unauthorized abridgement from Text-05)
  • “Un homme usé” — 1862 — Contes inedts d‘Edgar Poe, Paris: J. Hetzel, pp. 119-139 (French translation by William L. Hughes)
  • “L‘homme tout usé” — 1914 — Edgar Poe: Histories étranges et Merrveilleuses, Paris: Mercure de France (French translation by M. D. Calvocoressi)
  • “L‘Homme dont il ne restait rien” — 1934 — Les Sphinx et autres contes bizarres par Edgar Poë, Paris: Galliard (French translation by Maurice Sachs)
  • “L‘Homme dont il ne restait rein” — 1950 — Histories grotesques et sérieuse par Edgar Poe, Paris: Classiques Garnier  (French translation by Léon Lemonnier)

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞


Bibliography:

  • Abel, Darrell, “Le Sage's Limping Devil and Mrs. Bullfrog,” Notes & Queries, April 1953, 198:165-166.
  • Alekna, Richard A., “ ‘The Man That Was Used Up’: Further Notes on Poe's Satirical Targets,” Poe Studies, 1979, 12:36
  • Curran, Robert T., “The Fashionable Thirties: Poe's Satire in ‘The Man That Was Used Up’,” Markham Review, 1978, 8:14-20
  • Hatvary, George E., “Introduction,” Edgar Allan Poe's Prose Romances: The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Man That Was Used Up (a photographic facsimile edition),  eds. George E. Hatvary and Thomas Ollive Mabbott, New York: St. John's University Press,1968, pp. i-vi
  • Goodwin, Peter, “The Man in the Text: Desire, Masculinity, and the Development of Poe's Detective Fiction,” Edgar Allan Poe: Beyond Gothicism, ed. James M. Hutchisson, Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2011, pp. 49-68.
  • 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, “Poe's ‘The Man That Was Used Up’,” Explicator, April 1967, vol. 25, item 70
  • 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.
  • Mead, Joan Tyler, “Poe's ‘The Man That Was Used Up’: Another Bugaboo Campaign,” Studies in Short Fiction, 1986, 23:281-286.
  • Mooney, Stephen L., “The Comic in Poe's Fiction,” American Literature, January 1962, 33:433-441.
  • Pry, Elmer L., “A Folklore Source for ‘The Man That Was Used Up,” Poe Studies, 1975, 8:46
  • Purdy, S. B., “Poe and Dostoyevsky,” Studies in Short Fiction, Winter 1967, 4:169-171.
  • Rouge, Bertrand, “La Pratique des corps limites chez Poe: La Verite sur le cas de ‘The Man That Was Used Up,” Poetique, 1984, 15:473-488
  • Varner, Cornelia, “Notes on Poe's Use of Contemporary Materials in Certain of his Stories,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology, January 1933, 32:77-80.
  • Wetzel, George, “The Source of Poe's ‘The Man That Was Used Up’,” Notes & Queries, January 1953, 198:38.
  • Whipple, William, “Poe's Political Satire,” University of Texas Studies in English, 1956, 35:81-95.
  • Wyllie, John Cooke, “A List of the Texts of Poe's Tales,” Humanistic Studies in Honor of John Calvin Metcalf, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1941, pp. 322-338.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

[S:0 - JAS] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Tales - The Man that was Used Up