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BOOK NOTICES.
THE LEAFLETS OF MEMORY. An Illuminated Annual. By Reynell Coates, M.D. 1850. Philadelphia: E. H. Butler & Co. This splendid work still holds its enviable position as the acknowledged prince of American Annuals. For specimens of the art of printing in colours we know nothing — English or American — superior to the illuminated pages in the Leaflets for 1850. The designs for these exquisite pictures are all by Devereau, and the printing by that truly artistic lithographer, Mr. Sinclair. They are four in number, and every one of them is a gem of art. There are, besides these, eight mezzotinto engravings by Sartain, all in his best style. The binding by Altemus presents an entirely new design, remarkable at once for its beauty, and for that finished workmanship which he knows so well how to give. The literary articles are from writers of established reputation, several from the accomplished editor, Dr. Reynell Coates. Among the gems we quote the following beautiful Sonnet by the late Mr. Poe.
“Because the angels in the heavens above,
Devoutly singing unto one another,
Can find, amid their burning terms of love,
None so devotional as that of ‘mother,’
Therefore by that sweet name I long have called you;
You who are more than mother unto me,
Filling my heart of hearts, where God installed you,
In setting my Virginia's spirit free.
My mother — my own mother — who died early,
Was but the mother of myself; but you
Are mother to the dead I loved so dearly,
Are thus more precious than the one I knew,
By that infinity with which my wife
Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.”
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Notes:
This poem is addressed, of course, to Poe's mother-in-law and aunt, Maria Clemm. This same version of the poem was copied, as noted, from Leaflets of Memory (for 1850), issued in December of 1849.
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[S:0 - SUM, 1849] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Poems - To My Mother [reprint]