Edgar Allan Poe's Contributions to Alexander's Weekly Messenger, (1943), title page and table of contents

Notes:

All material in this edition is protected by copyright, exclusively held by the American Antiquarian Society (AAS). Permission has been obtained by the Poe Society of Baltimore from the copyright holder to provide this electronic edition for academic and research purposes only. The Poe Society of Baltimore asks all users of this material to respect these copyrights, and not to exceed what would typically be considered as fair use (generally interpreted as selective quotations and/or paraphrasing of only a small percentage of the total material, and with the appropriate attribution and citation).

The original is written as a single article, with no table of contents.

In a copy of the separate printing of 1943, inscribed from Thomas Ollive Mabbott to his friend Vincent Starrett, on April 27, 1943, TOM adds the following note: “(I got a few separates as I was much involved in the job!)” This copy, currently in a private collection, bears only one other slight note, for which see p. 17.

In the collection of his papers, at the University of Iowa, Mabott wrote a draft of an introduction for this same material, typed and with some handwritten changes, dated June 26, 1961 and intended for his own edition of Poe's complete writings. He did not live to finish the volumes of Poe's criticism, and the volume for Alexander's Weekly Messenger was never published. The introduction exists in the form of a two-page typescript, included here with special permission from the University of Iowa, which holds the Mabbott collection of his research notes and materials. In this introduction, TOM states “It is not hard, usually, to identify Poe in the columns of Alexander's paper, which obviously had a very small staff, none of the rest of whom wrote in anything much like Poe's manner. Cross references, favorite allusions and quotations may be regarded as earmarks of Poe. Two pieces were regarded with doubt; one of these, an anedcote of Thomas Paine, now seems to be almost surely by someone else, and is given in small type in an appendix; the other is here collected (with a caveat) as it now seems to me pretty certainly Poe's.” Following his overall plan, TOM moved the articles on “Instinct vs Reason” and “Cabs” to the volumes of Poe's Tales and Sketches as being “of an imaginative character.” (The second item, which Brigham printed as “doubtful” but ultimately accepted by TOM, was the brief article on “Disinterment,” from the issue of April 1, 1840.) Referring to the present article, TOM further notes that “Brigham gave diplomatic texts, here a few sure misprints are corrected; and a very little has been added to his thorough annotation.” In his own copy of Brigham's article, Mabbott has made a number of very minor changes and corrections, which are noted in the current presentation for the appropriate items. If he intended more extensive changes to the annotations, he either did not write them down or they did not make it into the collection of his papers.

Mabbott numbered the items in his copy of Brigham's copy in two sequences, one in red pencil for the miscellaneous items and one in plain pencil for the items on cryptography. Both sets of numbers are indicated in the current presentation as, respectively “TOM R-01” for item 1 as numbered in red pencil and “TOM P-01” for item 1 as numbered in plain pencil. These marks are given immediately following the block that identifies the date of the original publication, at the top of each item.