Edgar Allan Poe — “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences”

Reading copy:

• “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — reading copy

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings:

• Text-01 — “Raising the Wind; or, Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — 1843 (There are no known draft manuscripts or scratch notes reflecting the original effort of composition. The main issue of controversy in the composition of this story is whether or not it may have been composed as part of the set of stories Poe submitted to the Saturday Courier in 1832. Claude Richard first suggested the earlier date, although it has not won wide acceptance.)
• Text-02 — “Raising the Wind; or, Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — 1843
  • Text-02a — “Raising the Wind; or, Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — 1843 (Speculated faircopy manuscript prepared for Saturday Courier and submitted for publication. This manuscript is not known to have survived, but this version is presumably recorded in Text-02b.)
  • Text-02b — “Raising the Wind; or, Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — October 14, 1843 — Saturday Courier — (Mabbott text A)
• Text-03 — “Raising the Wind; or, Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — 1843-1845
  • Text-03a — “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — 1843-1845 — (a speculated copy of the Saturday Courier with manuscript changes made by Poe. This copy has not survived, but the text is presumably reflected in Text-03b.)
  • Text-03b — “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — September 13, 1845 — Broadway Journal — (Mabbott text B — This is Mabbott's copy-text)  (For Griswold's 1856 reprinting of this text, see the entry below, under reprints.)

Reprints:

• “Raising the Wind; or, Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — October 16-18, 1843 — Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, MD) from Text-02b) (This reprint is acknowledged as being from the Saturday Courier and appears on the front page) (This item was brought to our attention by an e-mail from Alexander Hammond, on January 26, 2016)
  • “Raising the Wind; or, Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” [Part I] — October 16, 1843 — Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, MD), vol. III, no. 120, p. 1, cols. 4-5
  • “Raising the Wind; or, Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” [Part II] — October 18, 1843 — Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, MD), vol. III, no. 122, p. 1, cols. 4-5
• “Raising the Wind; or, Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — January 4, 1845 — British reprint of in Lloyd's Entertaining Journal from Text-02b)
• “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — October 8, 1845, text “BA” — Boston Courier, p. 1, reprinted from Text-04. (This reprint noted by Ljungquist, Victorian Periodicals Review, Fall 1995, p. 215n8, and K. Ljungquist, 1997, p. 195n24.)
• “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — October 9, 1845 — Boston Semi-Weekly Courier (p. 4) (this reprint is noted by K. Ljungquist, p. 195n24.)
• “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — October 11, 1845 — Albany Argus (Albany, NY) (from the Broadway Journal, and with Poe's name, but with the text much abbreviated)
• “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — October 15, 1845 — Utica Daily Gazette (Utica, NY)  (sold by the 19th Century Bookshop, 1992, item 182).
• “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — 1856 — WORKS — (Mabbott text C) (Griswold merely reprints the text from the Broadway Journal, with minor editorial changes presumably made by the typesetter.)
• “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — 1867 — Prose Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, second series (New York: W. J. Widdleton), pp. 444-454 (This collection is extracted from the 1850-1856 edition of Poe's Works. It was reprinted several times.)
• “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — 1874 — Works of Edgar A. Poe, edited by J. H. Ingram, vol. 2, pp. 497-508 (This collection was subsequently reprinted in various forms)
• “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — 1958 — The Comic Tradition in America, An Anthology, edited by Kenneth A. Lynn, London: Victor Gollancz LTD, pp. 153-165 (The collection also includes Poe's “How to Write a Blackwood Article.”)

Scholarly and Noteworthy Reprints:

• “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — 1894-1895 — The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 4: Tales, eds. E. C. Stedman and G. E. Woodberry, Chicago: Stone and Kimball (4:234-248) (This collection was subsequently reprinted in various forms)
• “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — 1902 — The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 5: Tales IV, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (5:210-223, and 5:325)
• “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — 1973 — Edgar Allan Poe: The Other Side, ed. David Galloway (New York: Penguin Books), pp. 150-160 and pp. 251-252 (annotations are minor)
• “Raising the Wind (Diddling)” — 1978 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 3: Tales & Sketches II, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (3:867-882)
• “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — 1984 — Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales, Patrick F. Quinn (New York: Library of America), pp. 607-617

Instream Comparative and Study Texts:

• “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — Comparative Text (Saturday Courier and BJ)
• “Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” — Comparative Text (BJ and WORKS)

Miscellaneous Texts and Related Items:

• “L‘escroquerie considérée comme science exacte” — 1885 — Oeuvres Choisies d‘Edgar Pöe, Paris: A. Hennuyer  (French translation by William L. Hughes)
• “La filouterie considérée comme science exacte” — 1887 — Edgar Poë: Derniers Contes, Paris: Albert Savine  (French translation by Félix Rabbe)
• ”De l‘escroquerie considerérée comme une des sciences exactes (battre monnaie)” — 1950 — Histories grotesques et sérieuse par Edgar Poe, Paris: Classiques Garnier  (French translation by Léon Lemonnier)
• “Diddling” — 2017 — Audio book (unabridged), read by Chris Aruffo

• Edsall, Thomas, ed., The Poe Catalogue, Baltimore: The 19th Century Shop, 1992.
• 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.
• Ljungquist, Kent P. “Raising More Wind: Another Source for Poe's ‘Diddling’ and its Possible Folio Club Context,” in Perspectives on Poe, ed. D. Ramakrishna, New Delhi: APC Publications, 1996, pp. 53-62. Reprinted in Essays in Art and Sciences (October 1997), 26:59-70.
• Lungquist, Kent P., “ ‘Raising the Wind‘: Earlier Precedents,” Poe Studies (1994), 27:42.
• Ljungquist, Kent. P., “ ‘Valdemar’ and the ‘Frogpondians‘: The Aftermath of Poe's Boston Lyceum Appearance,” in Emersonian Circles: Essays in Honor of Joel Myerson, ed. Wesley T. Mott, Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 1997, pp. 181-206.
• 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.
• Pollin, Burton R., “Poe's ‘Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences‘: The Sources of Title and Tale,” Southern Literary Journal (Fall 1969), 2:106-111.
• Reilly, John E., “Poe's ‘Diddling‘: Still Another Possible Source and Date of Composition,” Poe Studies (1992), 25:6-9.
• Richard, Claude, “Poe and the Yankee Hero: An Interpretation of ‘Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences’,” Mississippi Quarterly (Spring 1968), 21:93-109.
• Whalen, Terrence, “Poe's ‘Diddling’ and the Depression: Notes on the Sources of Swindling,” Studies in American Fiction (1995), 23:195-201.
• 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.