The “Stella” Daguerreotype

This engraving of Edgar Allan Poe, by Frederick Warne & Co., was done in 1890. It reproduces the daguerreotype owned by Sarah Anna Lewis, whose pen name was Stella. It is one of two images apparently made during the same sitting in Lowell, Massachusetts, probably in early summer of 1849. The other image, known as the “Annie” Daguerreotype has only slight variations in the pose, the end of the cravat over Poe’s hand, for example, points upwards.

The original “Stella” daguerreotype was stolen in 1974 from the Alderman Library of the University of Virginia. No trace of it has been seen since then. Numerous copies exist, some with the image inverted. (It should be remembered that a daguerreotype itself, developed directly on the glass plate, is essentially an inversion of the original image.)