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The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe. Edited by Rufus W. Griswold. 4 vols. (New York: J. S. Redfield, 1850-1856). Volumes I and II were announced in the New-York Daily Tribune as ready Thursday morning, January 10, 1850. I am indebted to the officials of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of the New York Public Library for permission to use their copy of this first issue as the source of my texts from Works.§ [page 1400:]
Volume I. Tales (1850): The Unparalleled Adventure of one Hans Pfaall;* The Gold-Bug [D]; The Balloon Hoax [B]; Von Kempelen and His Discovery [B]; Mesmeric Revelation [D]; The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar [D]; The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade [C]; MS. Found in a Bottle [G]; A Descent into the Maelström [D]; The Murders in the Rue Morgue [F]; The Mystery of Marie Roget [D]; The Purloined Letter [D]; The Black Cat [D]; The Fall of the House of Usher [F]; The Pit and the Pendulum [C]; The Premature Burial [C]; The Masque of the Red Death [C]; The Cask of Amontillado [B]; The Imp of the Perverse [C]; The Island of the Fay [C]; The Oval Portrait [C]; The Assignation [F]; The Tell-Tale Heart [C]; The Domain of Arnheim [C]; Landor's Cottage [B]; William Wilson [F]; Berenice [E]; Eleonora [C]; Ligeia [G]; Morella [H]; Metzengerstein [E].
Volume II. Poems and Tales (1850): The Power of Words [C]; The Colloquy of Monos and Una [C]; The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion [E]; Shadow — A Parable [F]; Silence — A Fable [E]; Philosophy of Furniture [C]; A Tale of Jerusalem [E]; A Tale of the Ragged Mountains [D]; The Spectacles [D]; The Duc de l’Omelette [F]; The Oblong Box [C]; King Pest. A Tale Containing an Allegory [F]; Three Sundays in a Week [C]; The Devil in the Belfry [F]; Lionizing [F]; The Man of the Crowd [D]; Never Bet the Devil Your Head. A Tale with a Moral [C]; Thou Art the Man [C]; The Sphinx [C]; Some Words with a Mummy [C]; Hop-Frog [B]; Four Beasts in One; the Homo-cameleopard [E]; Why the Little Frenchman wears His Hand in a Sling [D]; Bon-Bon [F].
Volume III. The Literati, Marginalia, etc. (1850): A Would-Be Crichton [B].
Volume IV. Arthur Gordon Pym, &. (1856): The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether [C]; The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq. [C]; How to Write a Blackwood Article and A Predicament [How to Write a Blackwood Article, E]; Mystification [D]; X-ing a Paragrab [C]; Diddling Considered as one of the Exact Sciences [C]; The Angel of the Odd [B]; Mellonta Tauta [B]; Loss of Breath [E]; The Man that Was Used Up [F]; The Business Man [C]; The Landscape Garden [C].
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 1399, running to the bottom of page 1400:]
§ These volumes were reprinted, according to Heartman and Canny (p. 132), fifteen times between 1850 and 1864. At some time after 1853, something happened, [page 1400:] some accident to the type, to introduce a number of new errors, especially in Volume I between pages 131 and 213. These errors are recorded as Griswold's in the variants of Harrison's Complete Works of Poe (1902). Apparently one of the “defective” later copies of Works was used for collation, and the errors in it were, no doubt, one of the reasons R. A. Stewart (Harrison II, 299) called the Works “very defective in typography.” The texts therein are not free from errors, but a comparison of the original 1850 Works texts with the original Broadway Journal texts shows by far more typographical errors in the latter.
Harrison distrusted Griswold and all his works, and preferred the periodicals when it was possible to use them, although he accepted the extensive changes of “The Balloon Hoax” and several other pieces. Griswold's tampering with texts of letters discredits him badly. But no evidence of mistreatment of the texts of the tales can be found, and, after all, the man had no motive to alter Poe's fiction.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 1400:]
* To appear in Volume IV.
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Notes:
None.
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[S:1 - TOM3T, 1978] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Editions-The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (T. O. Mabbott) (Sources of Texts Collated-Griswold's Edition of Poe's Works)