Text: Anonymous,”[Review of Tales of Mystery, Humour and Poems],” Derby Mercury (Derby, England), vol. 121, whole no. 7151, May 12, 1852, p. 4, cols. 1-2

[page 4, column 1, continued:]

Readable Books. Tales of Mystery, Imagination, and Humour, and Poems. By EDGAR AYLAN [[ALLAN]] POE. Illustrated. London. HENRY VIZETELLY, Gough-square.

Under the title of “Readable Books,” Mr. Vizetelly has published a very handsome, and a very tastefully-embellished work, of which series the one above-named stands first. It is acknowledgedly a reprint from the literary laboratory “beyond the western main.” The contents are, indeed, well named as Tales of Mystery and Imagination; their humour we have not been fortunate enough to fall in with, and our impression is, that like Prosperos book, it is buried deeper “than e'er did plummet sound” if it, indeed, be there at all. The tales are prefaced by a memoir of the author, from which we learn with lain that Mr. E. A. Poe was one of the most inveterate reprobates it has been our lot to read about for many a day. Erratic, wild, ungovernable and ungrateful, according to his biographer, he led a life of unmitigated prodigality and reckless dissipation. It is true the hero of the memoir is represented as possessed of much force of character, and no small quantity of genius, but both so over-clouded [column 2:] by habits of intemperance, and so sullied by its concomitant vices, as to render the recital painful in the extreme. As the sample volume of a very handsome series, we cannot but regret that so unamiable a subject as the short-lived American debuchee should have been selected for the opening. From the prospectus attached to the volume, we learn that all the volumes of the series will not be wafted from beyond the Atlantic; from whatever source s they may be derived, we trust they will well up from a purer fountain than that which has outpoured the present.