Text: Henry C. Lea, “Poe's Tales of the Grotesque,” The Nation (New York, NY), vol. XXXI, December 9, 1880, p. 408, col. 1

[page 408, column 1, continued:]

POE'S TALES OF THE GROTESQUE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION:

SIR: In your very judicial and judicious notice of recent works on Edgar A. Poe (Nation, No. 803) you assume that Mr. Ingram has committed an error in stating that the two-volume collection of Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque’ made no impression on the public, and in refutation you endorse Mr. Stedman's account of the eager admiration with which it was greeted by himself and his friends. Now, these statements are not irreconcilable, and are doubtless both true. It is perhaps forty years since I have seen the book or read the tales contained in it, and yet I can well remember the impression made on my youthful imagination by the weird and sombre effects so artistically produced in many of them. At the same time they were virtually neglected by the public at large. The book was issued by my predecessors (Lea & Blanchard) in 1839, and a reference to memoranda of that date shows that the edition consisted of but 750 copies, and that it required more than three years to exhaust it. This is certainly not the record of a literary success at a time when the first edition of a novel by Cooper used to consist of 5,000 copies, and it shows that, however much Poe may have been admired by the few who understood and appreciated him, his peculiar genius was as yet caviare to the vulgar. — Very respectfully,

HENRY C. LEA.

PHILADELPHIA, December, 1880.