Text: Killis Campbell, “The Poe Canon,” Publications of the Modern Language Association (PMLA), (Baltimore, MD), vol. XXVII, September 1912, pp. 325-353

[page 325:]

XV. — THE POE CANON

The first collective edition of Poe's works was that of Rufus W. Griswold, published in four volumes, the first three volumes in 1850 and the fourth in 1856.(1) The [page 326:] latest collective edition is that of Professor James A. Harrison, comprising sixteen volumes and published in 1902. The Griswold edition contains 42 poems, 68 tales, and 74 essays and miscellaneous prose articles.(1) The Harrison edition — otherwise known as the “Virginia Poe” — contains 55 poems,(2) 70 tales, and no less than 285 essays and miscellaneous articles.(3) There are listed, also, in the same edition, in an appendix to the sixteenth volume (pp. 355-379), some forty other items, which for various reasons are not reprinted in this edition. And there, have been pointed out since the Harrison edition appeared a number of additional items, including eleven poems, two tales, and about fifty brief essays; making in all a total of 66 poems, 72 tales, and nearly four hundred essays of one sort or another that are now attributed to Poe.

The growth of the Poe canon since Griswold's time is thus seen to have been enormous. The increase is to be traced to several circumstances. In the first place, Griswold, although he professed to publish everything [page 327:] that Poe would have wished to preserve,(1) omitted a number of things that must surely have been known to him.(2) There must have been, also, a good many things that were inaccessible to him, and there were some things, doubtless, of which he was entirely ignorant. Clearly enough Poe had not preserved any very full collection of his writings; neither had he, so far as we know, taken the trouble to make up any very exhaustive list of his publications. Most of his essays, moreover, — especially his editorial and critical essays, — had been published anonymously, and some of them in extremely obscure places. Small wonder, then, if Griswold missed a good many items.

The main discoveries of new items have been made by Mr. J. H. Ingram, Professor George E. Woodberry, Professor James A. Harrison, and Mr. J. H. Whitty. To Mr. Ingram it fell a good many years ago to establish Poe's authorship of “The Journal of Julius Rodman,”(3) a tale of more than 25,000 words published anonymously in Burton's Magazine in 1840, when Poe was one of its editors. Professor Woodberry succeeded not long afterwards in turning up, in a Philadelphia annual, Poe's tale, “The Elk” (or “Morning on the Wissahiccon”);(4) and he has since brought to light a fragment of another [page 328:] tale, “The Light-house.”(1) Professor Harrison was the first to present at all adequately Poe's contributions to the Southern Literary Messenger and the Broadway Journal, bringing out in his edition more than a hundred items that had been either overlooked or ignored by former editors. And within the last year Mr. J. H. Whitty has managed to collect together a half-dozen new poems that apparently came from Poe's pen, and has in addition called attention to some neglected prose items in Burtons Magazine.(2) Other new items have been pointed out by B. B. Minor (several short papers in the Southern Literary Messenger),(3) and by myself (some forty miscellaneous articles, mainly reviews and editorials, in the Messenger, Burton's Magazine, Graham's Magazine, the Broadway Journal, and the New York Evening Mirror).(4)

In the course of these many accretions, it is but natural that some things should have crept into the canon which on more careful examination must be rejected from it, and that some other things should have been admitted that are of doubtful authenticity. It stands to reason, too, that some things belonging to Poe should have eluded the search of his editors and bibliographers. It is the purpose of this essay to inquire into the genuineness of certain items which appear to be either spurious or of doubtful authority, and to indicate where further additions to the canon are most likely to be found. [page 329:]

1. POEMS. — Of poems that have been erroneously assigned to Poe there are a goodly number. First of all, there are eight or ten pieces which have been assigned to him at one time or another but which have been before now restored to their rightful owners. These are “My Soul,” a brief poem written by a student of the University of Virginia and published as a “Poe find” in one of the University annuals (see the Richmond Dispatch, January 17, 1909); Hood's sonnet on “Silence,” which Poe published in Burton's above his own initial, and which I, misled by this, once attempted to saddle upon him (see the Nation, December 30, 1909, and January 20, 1910); “Kelah,” a piece of doggerel that went the rounds of the press some ten or a dozen years ago; four short poems from the pen of A. M. Ide, published in the Broadway Journal in 1845;(1) a parody of “The Raven” by Harriet Winslow, published originally in Graham's Magazine in April, 1848 (see the New York Times Saturday Review for November 27 and December 18, 1909); a part of S. Anna Lewis's poem, “The Forsaken” (see the New York Times Saturday Review for December 4 and December 11, 1909); “Lilitha,” an imitation of “Ulalume,” now known to be the work of F. G. Fairfield (see the [page 330:] Southern Bivouac, V, p. 298, October, 1886); and “Leonainie,” assigned to Poe by a contributor to the Fortnightly Review in 1904 (LXXXI, pp. 329 f.), but later shown to be an early production of James Whitcomb Riley's (see the Fortnightly Review, LXXXI, pp. 706 f.).

There are also several poems still attributed to Poe by one or more of his editors which we can be sure are not his work. These are: 1) a translation of the Greek “Hymn in Honor of Harmodius and Aristogiton,” first published in the Southern Literary Messenger for December, 1835 (n, p. 38); 2) “The Mammoth Squash,” which appeared in Thomas Dunn English's The Aristidean, October, 1845; 3) “The Poets and Poetry of America,” a satire in verse published under the pseudonym, “Lavante,” at Philadelphia in 1847; and 4) “The Fire-Fiend,” which first appeared in the New York Saturday Press, November 19, 1859.

1) The reasons urged in favor of Poe's authorship of the “Hymn in Honor of Harmodius and Aristogiton” — first attributed to Poe by Mr. J. H. Ingram (Life, pp. 52-3), and also included by Professor Harrison and Mr. Whitty in their editions of the poems (under “Poems Attributed to Poe” in each instance: see the “Virginia Poe,” VII, p. 250, and Whitty, l. c., p. 158) — are that the article containing the translation is subscribed with Poe's initial and that Poe, who was the editor of the Messenger when the poem appeared, had signed certain articles known to be his in the same way.(1) But those who have given the poem to Poe have overlooked an article [page 331:] in the Messenger for March, 1848 (XIV, p. 185), in which the writer, who signs himself “M,” expressly claims the authorship of the lines for himself. An examination of the files of the Messenger makes it clear that “M” was one of the signatures used by Lucian Minor, a distinguished lawyer of Louisa County, Virginia, and at one time Professor of Law at William and Mary College. Minor had contributed to the Messenger from its very beginning. Poe, in subscribing his initial to the article containing the poem, did not mean, I take it, to set up any claim for the poem itself.

2) “The Mammoth Squash” is included among the “Poems Attributed to Poe” by both Professor Harrison (VII, p. 236) and Mr. Whitty (pp. 159-60). A close examination of the context in which the lines appear makes it plain that they were not by Poe, but were intended merely as a hoax, as was the case, also, with the verses accompanying them and attributed to Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, and others. A similar hoax at Poe's expense appeared in Godey's Lady's Book for December, 1849 (XXXIX, p. 419), together with a fac-simile of Poe's autograph.

3) The “Lavante” booklet, which adopts the title of Griswold's famous anthology, The Poets and Poetry of America, was first attributed to Poe by Mr. Oliver Leigh, writing under the pen-name “Geoffrey Quarles,” in a pamphlet on the subject (The Poets and Poetry of America, New York, 1887), in which a reprint of the satire is included.(1) Mr. Leigh holds that the poem is nothing other than Poe's American Parnassus (or The [page 332:] Authors of America in Prose and Verse, as Poe sometimes styled it), a critical treatise on the celebrities of Poe's time, on which we know, from various allusions to it in his letters, he was engaged during several years after his return to New York in 1844. That this view is erroneous is evident, I think, from the style of the poem. But there is conclusive demonstration that the article is not Poe's, in a letter of his, of date December 15, 1846 (“Virginia Poe,” XVII, pp. 269 f.), in which the projected volume is described in some detail. Alluding to his “Literati” articles in Godey's (1846), Poe says: “The unexpected circulation of the series, also, suggested to me that I might make a hit and some profit . . . by extending the plan into that of a book on American Letters generally, and keeping the publication in my own hands.” Continuing, he says: “I am now at this — body and soul. I intend to be thorough, . . . to examine analytically . . . all the salient points of Literature in general — e. g., Poetry, The Drama, Criticism, Historical Writing, Versification, &c., &c. You may get an idea of the manner in which I propose to write the whole book, by reading the notice of Hawthorne which will appear in the January ‘Godey,’(1) as well as the article on ‘The Rationale of Verse.’” This makes it clear that the “Parnassus” was in prose and that it dealt with prose writers as well as with writers of verse; the “Lavante” pamphlet is in verse, and deals only with “poets and poetry.” Mr. Whitty is, I think, right in his conjecture (see his edition of Poe's poems, p. lxii) that Poe's “Parnassus” was the same as his Living Writers of America, certain notes for the prospectus of which are still in existence. [page 333:]

4) For the authenticity of “The Fire-Fiend,” there is this to be said: that both Stedman and Gill believed the poem to be Poe's, and that Professor Harrison also inclined to adopt the same view.(1) But C. D. Gardette, who was the first to credit the item to Poe (in the New York Saturday Press of November 19, 1859), has written a pamphlet — “The Whole Truth in the Question of the Fire-Fiend,” Philadelphia, 1864 — in which he admits that he composed the piece himself.(2) This pamphlet had apparently escaped the attention of all who have inclined to give the item to Poe.(3)

Besides these there are three other poems now attributed to Poe to which I do not believe Poe is entitled, — though I am as yet unable to establish this conclusively. These are “The Skeleton Hand” and “The Magician,” — published in John Neal's magazine, The Yankee, in August and December, 1829, respectively, — and the lines entitled “An Enigma,” reprinted by Mr. Whitty (l. c, p. 146) from Burton's Magazine for May, 1840 (VI, p. 236).

“The Skeleton Hand” and “The Magician” were first attributed to Poe by Professor Harrison in 1902(4) [page 334:] on the grounds that they were subscribed with the initial “P.,” — a signature which, as we have already seen, Poe used on several occasions — and were published in John deal's paper at about the same time that Poe was publishing there excerpts from his 1829 volume of poems. Neither of the poems, however, is in Poe's early manner; and one of them — “The Magician” — is an obvious imitation of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” whereas Poe in his acknowledged productions displayed nothing of Coleridge's influence before 1831. The evidence of the signatures, furthermore, is by no means definitive; since there were other contributions to the periodicals and annuals of the time which bore the signature “P.” There are two poems in The Token published at Boston in 1829 that are signed “P.”, but are obviously not Poe's; there are three poems bearing this signature in the Boston Memorial for 1826, that we can also be sure are not his; and there were poems published in the Philadelphia Casket (May, 1827, p. 198) and in the Baltimore Emerald (June 21 and 28, 1828) that are subscribed with his initial, but manifestly are not from his pen.(1) [page 335:] Altogether the circumstantial evidence — there is no direct evidence — in support of Poe's authorship is extremely slight.

“An Enigma” is one of several poems first attributed to Poe by Mr. J. H. Whitty in his recent edition of Poe's poems. 1 It was cited in a brief note — apparently by Poe — entitled “Palindromes” in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine for May, 1840 (VI, p. 236), by way of exemplifying “an enigma where all the words required are palindromes.” The writer of this note, however, does not himself lay claim to the authorship of the poem. And if the poem actually be Poe's, it was written by him a good many years before its publication in Burton's; for a version of it, differing only in phrasing here and there, appeared in the Philadelphia Casket in May, 1827 (I, p. 199). This earlier version — which is entitled “Enigma” and was unsigned — runs as follows:

Such is the poem as it appeared in the Casket. Poe evidently touched it up for Burton's; and it may be that [page 336:] he wrote it originally and sent it to the Casket, but this seems to me extremely improbable.(1)

Still other poems there are whose genuineness cannot be absolutely established, though the balance of evidence points to their authenticity. These are: 1) “Oh, Tempora! oh, Mores!”, some very crude verses published in the No Name Magazine, October, 1889, as a juvenile product of Poe's; 2) “Spiritual Song,” a skit of three lines found in manuscript, in Poe's autograph, in the desk used by him as editor of the Southern Literary Messenger; 3) “The Great Man,” also from a manuscript found in Poe's desk; 4) “Ballad,” a poem published anonymously in the Southern Literary Messenger, in August, 1835 (I, pp. 7051); 5) “Impromptu: To Kate Carol,” some punning lines that appeared in the Broadway Journal of April 26, 1845; and 6) “Gratitude,” a poem published in The Symposia at Providence, Rhode Island, on January 27, 1848.(2)

1) The first of these, “Oh, Tempora! oh, Mores!”, is said to have been written by Poe when but seventeen years old, as a lampoon upon a Richmond dry-goods clerk, and to have been preserved in manuscript by the Mac Kenzie family, of Richmond, with whom Poe's sister Rosalie made her home — this on the authority of Mr. Eugene L. Didier, who gives as his. authority John R. Thompson.(3) The lines are unlike anything in Poe's first volume of verses (published at Boston in 1827); and it [page 337:] is possible that either Thompson or Mac Kenzie was duped by them. But this is unlikely.

2) The lines entitled “Spiritual Song” have a much stronger claim to authenticity: they are preserved in Poe's autograph, and are very much in the manner of some of his early verses — in particular, the songs in “Al Aaraaf.” It is barely possible, however, that they were copied by Poe from some manuscript sent him (as happened, presumably, with Miss Winslow's parody of “The Raven,” discussed above), or from some volume that he had reviewed or intended to review.

3) “The Great Man,” also, is in Poe's autograph, and hence was in all probability written by him. It is, to bo sure, inferior in style and metre to any of Poe's fully authenticated pieces; but this very circumstance might be urged as explaining Poe's decision not to publish it; besides, as has been pointed out by Mr. Whitty (l. c., pp 285 f.), the idea upon which the poem was built had already been touched upon by Poe in a line in “Tamerlane” and in his note thereon.

4) “Ballad,” as published in the Southern Literary Messenger of August, 1835, is accompanied by a letter, signed “Sidney,” in which it is asserted that the lines were written by a woman and had never before been published. In both matter and rhythm they strikingly resemble Poe's “Bridal Ballad,” and Professor Woodberry has suggested (Life, II, p. 415) that they were probably the first draft of that poem. In this conjecture I believe him to be right. 1 In the same number of the [page 338:] Messenger, Poe had concealed his identity under the pen-name “Sylvio” with his verses “To Sarah” (Whitty, l. c., p. 142); and later in some of his publications in the Broadway Journal, he adopted the pseudonym “Littleton Barry.” “The Raven,” too, as originally published, was signed, it will be recalled, by the pseudonym “Quarles.”

5) “Impromptu: To Kate Carol” was published as a part of the “Editorial Miscellany” in the Broadway Journal of April 26, 1845. The bulk of the matter appearing under this head after March 8, 1845, was written by Poe. “Kate Carol,” moreover, was in all likelihood, as Mr. Whitty suggests, none other than Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood, with whom Poe, as is well known, was openly coquetting in 1845. These circumstances make it highly probable that the lines were written by Poe.

6) The grounds for attributing the poem “Gratitude” to Poe are twofold: it is signed with the initials “E. A. P.,” and it contains internal evidence tending to show that it was inspired by Mrs. Whitman.(1) But it is possible that it was written by some other versifier who happened to have Poe's initials,(2) Or it may be that both the lines [page 339:] and the signature were forged — as in the case of “The Fire-Fiend,” “Leonainie,” and other items mentioned above.

The verses “To Sarah” (from the Southern Literary Messenger for August, 1835, I, p. 692) attributed to Poe by Mr. Whitty (I. c, pp. 142, 286) I have no hesitation in assigning to Poe: the circumstantial evidence is to me conclusive. So, too, with the poem “Alone,” found a good many years ago by Mr. E. L. Didier in a Baltimore autograph album and published in Scribner's Magazine for September, 1875. The poem “El Dorado,” concerning whose authenticity doubts have been expressed by various students of Poe (see Woodberry, Life, II, p. 417), I succeeded in establishing as Poe's by the discovery three years ago of a file of the Flag of Our Union for 1849, in which it appears under Poe's signature (see the Nation for December 30, 1909).

2. TALES. — Of the tales attributed to Poe there are only two that appear to me to be open to suspicion, all the rest being fully authenticated either by the presence of Poe's signature or by equally conclusive evidence of some other sort. These are a crude story entitled “The Doom,” published in the Southern Literary Messenger for January, 1835 (i, pp. 235 f.), and signed “Benedict”; and an equally crude performance entitled “The Ghost of a Grey Tadpole,” published in the Baltimore Republican and Argus for February 1, 1844.(1)

1) “The Doom” was first attributed to Poe by Mr. Whitty in the “Memoir” prefixed to his edition of the poems (p. xxviii), on the basis of a memorandum made by Poe in a copy of the Messenger for 1835.(1) The style and matter of the story both tell strongly against Poe's authorship, the style being loose and bare, and the narrative possessing neither interest nor skill in construction, — indeed, so poor was the tale that the editor of the Messenger felt called upon to apologize for it in some remarks at the end of the number in which it appeared.(2) There is also a complimentary allusion in the story to Poe's famous swimming feat in the James,(3) an allusion such as it would have been unnatural for Poe to make. And the external evidence is even stronger. In a letter published in the Messenger for May, 1835 (I, p. 468), Poe commented on the allusion to himself in “The Doom”; and in a second letter, of date June 22, 1835, 4 he inquired of Mr. White as to the authorship of the tale. It is incredible that this correspondence should have gone on between Poe and White without the latter's discovering the deception which, according to Mr. Whitty's theory, was being practised upon him. But what seems to me to clinch the matter is a letter from one who signs himself “The Writer of [page 341:] the Doom,” published in the Richmond Compiler, of April 8, 1835, replying hotly to a criticism of “The Doom” that had been made in the same paper two days before by a correspondent signing himself “Fra Diavolo.”(1) In order to identify “The Writer of the Doom” with Poe, it is necessary to assume that Poe was in Richmond early in April, 1835 — an assumption for which there appears to be no warrant;(2) for it would have been impossible under the conditions that obtained in the thirties for a paper published in Richmond to have reached Baltimore in time to enable one living in this city to pen and transmit to Richmond a reply to an article contained in it in time for publication there on the second morning thereafter. The letter in question, furthermore, purports to have been written in Richmond on April 6, shortly after the article of “Fra Diavolo” first fell under the writer's eye. The style of this letter, I may add, is anything but Poesque. What Mr. Whitty has taken to be an acknowledgment by Poe of the authorship of “The Doom” is, I should guess, a notation relating to the reference made to him in the story.

2) “The Ghost of a Grey Tadpole,” as printed in the Baltimore Republican and Argus of February 1, 1844, is formally ascribed to Poe, and purports to have been copied from a periodical entitled “The Irish Citizen.” But inquiry at the larger American libraries and a diligent search through the catalogue of periodicals belonging to the British Museum fail to reveal the existence of any [page 342:] newspaper or magazine of that name.(1) The story is without Poe's firmness of style, and possesses less of point than does even the poorest of his extravaganzas. There is, too, a boastful allusion in the opening paragraphs to some of Poe's critical work, which also argues against Poe's authorship. It was, I think, conceived and published as a hoax by some enemy of Poe's in Baltimore, who was willing to make capital out of the poet's unhappy fondness for drink. Poe had delivered a lecture in Baltimore on the night preceding the publication of the story.

3) Book Reviews, Editorials, and Other Essays. Among book reviews given to Poe either erroneously or on evidence that is inconclusive are the following:(2) [page 343:]

1) A notice of Bryant's poems in the Southern Literary Messenger of January, 1835 (i, p. 250). This is given to Poe by implication in a bibliographical note in the Stedman-Woodberry edition of Poe's works (VI, p. 324), and it appears in the “Virginia Poe” (VIII, pp. 1 f.), though the editor of this edition expresses doubt (l. c., p. vii, note) as to its authenticity. It is possible that Poe contributed to the Messenger as early as January, 1835,(1) but I know of nothing to establish this as a certainty.

2) The review of Ainsworth's Tower of London in Graham's for March, 1841 (XVIII, p. 142). This is included in the “Virginia Poe” (X, pp. 110 f.). The grounds for doubting Poe's authorship are these: that Poe in reviewing Ainsworth's Guy Fawkes in Graham's for November, 1841, asserts (see the “Virginia Poe,” X, p. 219) that he had hitherto read nothing of The Tower of London save “some detached passages”; that he expresses in his notice of Guy Fawkes a view of Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard at variance with that expressed by the reviewer of The Tower of London; and that the reviewer of The Tower of London mentions a notice by himself of Jack Sheppard, whereas there is no evidence that Poe ever published such a review.

3) The review of G. P. R. James's “The Ancient Régime” in Graham's Magazine for October, 1841 (XIX, p. 190). This was attributed to Poe by myself (see the Nation of December 23, 1909, p. 623) on the basis of a reference back to Poe's review of James's “Corse de Leon” in Graham's for June, 1841; but a footnote (which I had overlooked) in this issue of Graham's (p. [page 344:] 189) gives the information that Poe wrote none of the reviews contained in this number.

4) The article entitled “Imagination” (a review of Louisa Prances Poulter's Imagination: A Poem in Two Parts) published in Graham's for March, 1842 (XX, pp. 174 f.). Professor Harrison lists this — perhaps by an oversight — in his bibliography of Poe (“Virginia Poe,” XVI, p. 367), but he does not include it in his edition. In the table of contents for the volume of Graham's in which the article appeared, it is ascribed to Park Benjamin.

5) A review of Bulwer's Zanoni in Graham's for June, 1842 (XX. pp. 354 f.). This is included in the “Virginia Poe,” XI, pp. 115 f. That it is not Poe's is established by a letter written by him to J. E. Snodgrass of date June 4, 1842 (sold at the Maier Sale in 1909, and published in “Catalogue 784” of the Anderson Auction Co., pp. 210 f.), in which Poe makes a vigorous denial of its authorship. Poe asserts in the same connection that it was not from the pen of Griswold, but was the “handiwork of some underling.”

6) A review of Griswold's Poets and Poetry of America, also in Graham's for June, 1842 (XX, p. 356). This item appears in the “Virginia Poe,” XI, pp. 124 f. It is not included in the Griswold edition, however, nor is it attributed to Poe by W. M. Griswold in his edition of his father's letters.(1) And it is not included by Poe in a list of his publications about Griswold sent the latter at some time in 1849 (“Virginia Poe,” XVII, pp. 326 f.) in the hope, apparently, of placating him in advance of the publication of a forthcoming edition of [page 345:] his anthology — in which Poe was eager to receive favorable notice. Had Poe written the review, he would in all likelihood have included it in this list; for it contained nothing that is especially disparaging to Griswold. Finally, there is Poe's declaration in his letter to Snodgrass of June 4, 1842 (of which I have already made mention) that he had withdrawn from Graham's with the May issue. All this makes Poe's title extremely questionable.(1)

Besides these there are a good many other reviews and book-notices whose authenticity has not been established completely. On the basis of a rather comprehensive general statement made by Poe, in reply to a newspaper attack upon him, concerning the book-reviews that had appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger between December, 1835, and September, 1836, Professor Harrison assigns to Poe the entire list of these reviews.(2) In this he was perhaps correct, but Poe's statement — “Since the commencement of my editorship in December last ninety-four books have been reviewed” — does not fully warrant the inference made; it is likely that some of the ninety-four reviews published by Poe were written by others.(3) There is the same sort of uncertainty about [page 346:] some of the reviews reprinted from other numbers of the Messenger (that is, before December, 1835, and after September, 1836);(1) and also about some of the papers reprinted from Graham's Magazine for 1841-2.(2)

It has been suggested that certain of the prose articles contained in Griswold's edition were spurious,(3) — in particular, the five articles printed by Griswold in the “Literati” in place of the articles that had originally appeared in Godey's.(4) But, although Griswold was not a very conscientious editor, I can conceive of no motive for the garbling of his text or for the introduction of spurious items in the present instance. What he did, I think, was to substitute for the original Godey articles papers written by Poe or dressed up by him after 1846.(5) One of the [page 347:] suspected “Literati” articles — the paper on Mrs. Osgood(1) — appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger for August, 1849 (XV, 509 f.), and is there duly accredited to Poe; and the remaining four items are all in Poe's manner.

II

The additions that will hereafter be made to the Poe canon will come mainly from the magazines of Poe's time; though we may expect to see still other manuscripts brought to light. It is not unreasonable, for instance, to hope that the manuscript of Poe's book, The Authors of America in Prose and Verse, of which mention has been made above in the discussion of the “Lavante” pamphlet, may yet be found. This manuscript was, perhaps, in the hands of Griswold when he was making up his edition; in which case I suspect that it was found to track the “Literati” pretty closely, and for that reason was ignored by him. It is not unlikely, too, that still other manuscripts of the “Marginalia” will come to light in the course of time. In a letter to Mrs. Richmond early in 1849 (“Virginia Poe,” XVII, pp. 328 f.), Poe wrote that he had sent fifty pages of the “Marginalia” to the Southern Literary Messenger, five pages of it to appear in each of the next ten numbers; in reality, only five of the projected ten installments ever appeared: the manuscript for the rest may still be in existence.(2) And there are, perhaps, other tales preserved [page 348:] in manuscript. The assertion is made in a review of the 1845 edition of Poe's Tales — inspired, so Professor Woodberry thinks (Life, II, p. 406), by the poet — that Poe had already published “seventy-five or eighty tales,” whereas but sixty-nine (exclusive of the “Pym” and the “Rodman”) are known to the editors of Poe, and some of these, it is certain, were written after 1845.(1) It is, of course, very likely — to adopt another of Professor Woodberry's suggestions — that there were included in this estimate some of Poe's miscellanies.(2) But Mr. Woodberry's discovery a few years ago of a fragment of a tale of which nothing had hitherto been known, “The Light-house,” should of itself make us hesitate to predict that there are no other tales yet to be found. Poe sent the manuscript of at least one of his tales, as we know, to friends in England, and something may perhaps be looked for from that source.(3) Mr. Ingram asserts [page 349:] (l. c., p. 139) that there is some reason for believing that Poe completed the “Journal of Julius Rodman,” which had been abruptly brought to an end in Burton's for June, 1840, with his secession from the editorship of that magazine. The story may have been concluded in the Saturday Museum, which contained in its issue of July 22, 1843, “further extracts from the ‘Narrative of a Journey to the Rocky Mountains’” (see the Philadelphia United States Gazette for July 21, 1843).

And there are reminiscences, more or less authentic, of a number of poems which have been lost but which may yet turn up in manuscript. These are: (1) a volume of juvenilia submitted to Poe's Richmond school-teacher, Joseph H. Clarke, in 1823, and consisting “chiefly of pieces addressed to different little girls in Richmond who had from time to time engaged his youthful affections” (see Didier, Life of Poe, New York, 1879, p. 31); 2) a poem addressed to Master Clarke on his retirement as principal of his school in Richmond (Didier, p. 33); 3) a lampoon written by Poe while at West Point on one of the officers of the Academy (see the reminiscences of T. W. Gibson in Harper's Monthly, November, 1867, pp. 754 f.); 4) “Lines to Mary,”(1) addressed to a Baltimore [page 350:] sweetheart (see the article of Augustus Van Cleef in Harper's Monthly, March, 1889, pp. 634 f.) and said to have been published in a Baltimore newspaper; 5) a campaign song, of which four lines have survived, written, it is believed (see Woodberry, II, p. 422), in New York in 1843 or thereabouts; and 6) a poem in honor of Mrs. Shew and entitled “The Beautiful Physician,”(1) composed in part, so Mrs. Shew declared, while the poet was in a delirium following the death of his wife in 1847, and later recast by him from jottings which Mrs. Shew had made (see J. H. Ingram, in the Bookman for January, 1909, pp. 452 f.). There is also a tradition that Poe wrote in collaboration with his friend R. M. Bird, of Philadelphia, a scenario for a play (see Woodberry, Life, II, p. 421).(2)

But, as I have said, the main additions to the canon are to be sought in the magazines of Poe's time. Of at least three of the periodicals to which Poe contributed more or less freely, no complete files are known. These are the Baltimore Saturday Visiter, in which his “Manuscript Found in a Bottle” and “The Coliseum” were first printed;(3) Alexander's Weekly Messenger, in which [page 351:] he exploited sundry cryptographic feats in 1839;(1) and the Philadelphia Saturday Museum, to which he contributed divers critical articles in the early forties.(2) It is highly probable that he published in these papers other things besides those of which we have record. And there are doubtless other things in the periodicals and annuals of Poe's time. No exhaustive search through the columns of the magazines which Poe edited — The Southern Literary Messenger, Burton's Magazine, Graham's, the Evening Mirror, and the Broadway Journal — has ever been made.(3) It remains, among other things, to determine just which of certain “short notices” in Burton's Magazine attributed to Poe without specification of title (“Virginia Poe,” XVI, pp. 363-4) are actually Poe's and which are the work of others.(4) Mr. Whitty asserts (l. c., [page 352:] p. xxxvi) that Poe wrote for Poulson's American Daily Advertiser and for the Philadelphia Mercury in the early thirties; Professor Woodberry has suggested (Life, II, p. 424) that Poe probably contributed to the Brother Jonathan in the autumn of 1843: and in two of his letters during his final year (see the “Virginia Poe,” XVII, pp. 361, 367) the poet refers to the Literary World (of which his friend, E. A. Duyckinck, was then editor) as though he were perhaps a contributor to it.(1) Mr. Whitty has told us recently (l. c., pp. viii f., lxxvii f.) of Poe's connection with the Richmond Examiner in the summer of 1849 — in particular, of his republishing in its columns several of his poems; Bishop Fitzgerald is authority for the statement that Poe also contributed critical articles to the Examiner at this time (see the “Virginia Poe,” I, p. 318). And mention is made in several places of contributions by Poe to British and Continental magazines. In a letter to Snodgrass in 1839 (“Virginia Poe,” XVII, p. 70) Poe asserts that he had entered into a profitable engagement with Blackwood's Magazine.(2) In a memorandum sent to Griswold off March 29, 1841 (see the “Virginia Poe,” I, p. 346), he said that he had “lately written articles continuously for two British [page 353:] journals” whose names he was not at liberty to give. Hirst asserts in his sketch of Poe in the Saturday Museum that he had also written for a “Parisian critical journal” (Woodberry, l. c., II, p. 410). Similarly it is asserted in Lowell's sketch of Poe in Graham's that he had “contributed several reviews” to English and French periodicals (“Virginia Poe,” I, p. 382). And I have already mentioned the fact of his sending manuscripts to Home and Dickens in the hope that they might dispose of them to British publishers.

Before we can feel satisfied that we have got a complete list of Poe's writings, it will be necessary to bring from out their hiding-places files of the three periodicals that now appear to have been lost — the Saturday Visiter, the Saturday Museum, and the Weekly Messenger; we must also examine anew the files of the periodicals with which Poe was connected editorially; and we must institute a search through the remainder of the early magazines and newspapers and annuals to which Poe may have contributed. In particular, the Baltimore papers of the early thirties and the Philadelphia papers of the forties must be sifted. When this is done, we may confidently hope to see the canon of Poe's writings materially enlarged.

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

University of Texas.

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 325:]

1. The main sources on which Griswold drew for his edition were the ten volumes of Poe's writings published during the poet's lifetime and under his immediate oversight. These are: Tamerlane and Other Poems, Boston, 1827; Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, Baltimore, 1829; Poems, New York, 1831; The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, of Nantucket, New York, 1838; Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (in two volumes), Philadelphia, 1840; The Prose Romances of Edgar A. Poe, Philadelphia, 1843; The Raven and Other Poems, New York, 1845; Tales, New York, 1845; Eureka: A Prose Poem, New York, 1848.

Griswold also appears to have had access to most of the magazines and newspapers to which Poe contributed. These include the following: The Baltimore Saturday Visiter, The Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette, The Philadelphia Casket, Godey's Lady's Book, The Southern Literary Messenger, The Baltimore Republican and Argus, The Richmond Compiler, The New York Review, The American Museum, The American Monthly Magazine, Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, The Pittsburg Literary Examiner, The Philadelphia Saturday Chronicle and Mirror of Our Times, Alexander's Weekly Messenger, The Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post, Graham's Magazine, The Boston Miscellany, The Pioneer, The Philadelphia Saturday Museum, The Philadelphia Saturday Courier, The Dollar Newspaper, The New World, Snowden's Lady's Companion, The Columbia (Pa.) Spy, The New York Sun, The New York Evening Mirror, The New York Weekly Mirror, The Broadway Journal, Arthur's Ladies’ Magazine, The Columbian Magazine, The American Whig Review, The Democratic Review, The Philadelphia Spirit of Our Times, The Home Journal, Post's Union Magazine, Sartain's Union Magazine, The Literary World, The Flag of Our Union, the [[The]] Richmond Whig, and The Richmond Examiner. He also drew on certain of the annuals in which Poe had published, which include: The Souvenir, The Gift, The Baltimore Book, The Opal, The Mayflower, The Missionary Memorial, and Leaflets of Memory.

It is clear, too, that Griswold had access to sundry manuscripts (mainly fragments) and to revised clippings of some of Poe's briefer essays.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 326:]

1. In this estimate the articles on Bayard Taylor and William Wallace, which Griswold printed as separate essays (III, pp. 207, 240 f.), are left out of account, since they appeared originally in the “Marginalia” (see the “Virginia Poe,” XVI, pp. 145 f., 175 f.); each of the several installments of the “Marginalia” is counted as a separate article; “The Literati” is counted as but one item; “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym” is counted among the tales.

2. In this number are included seven “poems attributed to Poe,” but, because of doubt as to their authenticity, relegated to an appendix (VII, pp. 225 f).

3. This edition not only contains the fullest text of Poe's writings that we have, but it is also supplied with a variorum for both poems and tales and with much other editorial matter that is of inestimable value to every student of Poe.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 327:]

1. See the Preface of his fourth volume.

2. He omitted among other things the exquisite lines, “To Helen” (beginning, “Helen, thy beauty is to me”), and five of the juvenilia contained in the 1827 volume of the poems.

3. Through the discovery of a letter in which Poe acknowledges the authorship of the story (see Ingram's Life and Letters of E. A. Poe, London, 1891, p. 145).

4. Of which mention had been made in the list of Poe's tales enumerated by Lowell, in his sketch of Poe in Graham's for February 1845.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 328:]

1. This he found in manuscript among the Griswold Papers. It is published in Woodberry's revised life of Poe, Boston, 1909, II, pp. 397 f.

2. See his The Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, Boston, 1911, pp. 139 f. and passim.

3. See his volume, The Southern Literary Messenger, 1834-1864, New York, 1905, pp. 37, 42, 45.

4. See the Nation for December 23, 1909, and for October 19, 1911.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 329:]

1. Tentatively attributed to Poe on the theory that “A. M. Ide” was a nom-de-plume adopted by Poe with a view to hiding some of his “hasty work” (see J. H. Ingram, The Complete Poetical Works of E. A. Poe, New York, no date, pp. 178-9). But Professor Harrison publishes several letters of Ide's to Poe (see the “Virginia Poe,” XVII, pp. 153 f,, 156 f., 162 f.). Ide also contributed to the Knickerbocker Magazine in 1845 and 1846 (XXV, pp. 227-8, XXVI pp. 116-8).

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 330:]

1. He used this signature with his article on “Palestine” in the Messenger of February, 1836 (credited to him in the table of contents for the volume); and also in later years with several of his contributions to Burton's Magazine and the Broadway Journal.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 331:]

1. The satire was originally published in 1847 at Philadelphia, by W. S. Young. A part of it is reprinted in the “Virginia Poe,” VII, pp. 246 f.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 332:]

1. It did not appear till November. It. is reprinted in the “Virginia Poe,” XIII, pp. 141 f.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 333:]

1. See the “Virginia Poe,” VII, pp. 238 f.

2. See also Notes and Queries, 3d Series, VII, pp. 61 f., 1865.

3. Here also may be mentioned several poems published in 1821 in a Baltimore volume entitled Miscellaneous Selections and Original Pieces in Prose and Verse, edited by Elizabeth Chase. These are signed “Edgar,” and it has been suggested that they are among the poems which Poe claimed to have written in 1821-2 (see Catalogue 344 of the Merwin-Clayton Sales Company, p. 32, New York, 1910). They are described, however, in the volume in which they appear, as having been written by a youth of eighteen, whereas Poe in 1821 was only twelve. Moreover, one of the pieces (pp. 216 f.) is addressed to a sister, “Ellen,” whereas Poe had but one sister, — Rosalie.

4. See the “Virginia Poe,” I, p. 73, VII, p. 252.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 334:]

1. I have also stumbled upon sundry other pieces of verse published in Poe's time above the initial “P.”, but evidently not of his composition. Among these are a dreary poem on “Ambition” in the Providence Literary Journal for February 22, 1834; a sonnet (without title) in the New England Magazine for December, 1834; “Lines” in the Philadelphia Casket for November, 1837; “The Fairy Queen” and “Impromptu” in Alexander's Weekly Messenger for December 13 and 20, 1837; “Autumn Morning” in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier for October 15, 1842; “Woman's Tactics” in the New Mirror for July 8, 1843; and “To —— (On Giving Her an Album)” in the Dollar Newspaper for May 17, 1848. See, too, my note below (p. 349) on the lines “To Mary” in the New England Magazine for January, 1832. Among prose pieces subscribed in the same way, but hardly Poe's, is a short article on “Provincialisms” in the Southern Literary Messenger for August, 1849, XV, pp. 482 f.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 335:]

1. This is not to be confounded with Poe's sonnet, “An Enigma,” addressed to Mrs. Lewis (see the “Virginia Poe,” VII, p. 110).

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 336:]

1. An answer to this enigma was published in the Casket for June, 1827 (I, p. 239), in some clumsy verses signed “A. G. B.”

2. Of these the second, third, fifth, and sixth were first given to Poe by Mr. Whitty in his recent edition of the poems, pp. 139, 143, 147, 144-5. I have not seen The Symposia; I rely here upon Mr. Whitty.

3. See Whitty, l. c., p. 165, note.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 337:]

1. One line of the poem, “And tho’ my poor heart be broken,” is reproduced almost verbatim in the twenty-third line of “Bridal Ballad,” “And, though my heart be broken.”

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 338:]

1. Cf. the third and the twentieth lines:

“So I to thee, through mental power, would each remembrance trace”;

“So thou by thy pure rays of thought art power to mental sight.”

Mrs. Whitman was a spiritualist.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 338, running to the bottom of page 339:]

2. There was an E. A. Park, instructor at Andover, who lectured at Dartmouth in 1839 (see the Philadelphia United States Gazette, June 12, 1839). And there was a writer of verses signing himself “E. A. S.,” who contributed freely to the newspapers and magazines of Poe's time. In at least one instance, the work of “E. A. S.” [page 339:] appears to have been given (perhaps by a typographical error) to Poe: see the lines beginning, “O, where shall our waking be,” in the New York Tribune of August 27, 1845, and Poe's note thereon in the Broadway Journal of August 30, 1845.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 339, running to the bottom of page 340:]

1 Professor Woodberry informs us (Life, I, p. 134, note) that the late W. M. Griswold inclined to attribute to Poe, “on internal evidence solely,” four stories published in Godey's Lady's Book in [page 340:] 1833-4, as follows: “The Maniac's Story” (signed “M”), in Godey's for September, 1833; “The History of a Hat” (signed “H”) in Godey's for August, 1834; “The Duel” (unsigned) in Godey's for October, 1834; and “The Prima Donna” (signed “Marc Smeton”) in Godey's for December, 1834. But, as Professor Woodberry points out, there is no good ground for assigning these to Poe.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 340:]

1. The so-called “Duane” Messenger, now in the possession of Mr. Whitty.

2. Southern Literary Messenger, I, pp. 254 f.

3. See Woodberry's Life, I, p. 26.

4. See the “Virginia Poe,” XVII, p. 10.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 341:]

1. This letter of “Fra Diavolo's” deals with the “poverty of invention” displayed in “The Doom,” its commonplaceness of style, and “the unnatural false tone of feeling that pervades it.”

2. Poe was living in poverty in Baltimore at the time; see Kennedy's letter of April 13, 1835 (Woodberry, l. c., I, pp. 109 f.).

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 342:]

1. The story has to do with some experiences of a wine-bibber with a mysterious tadpole found in a water-cask; the tadpole is killed, but the ghost of it returns to plague its destroyer.

2. There are also certain items once assigned to Poe that have already been rejected as his. These are:

1) A notice of Glenn's Reply to the Critics in Burton's Magazine for September, 1839 (V, pp. 164 f.). This is given to Poe in the list of his writings printed in the “Virginia Poe,” XVI, p. 363, but, as was pointed out in the Nation of December 23, 1909 (p. 623), it was written by Burton.

2) A review of The Poems of Alfred Tennyson, in Graham's for September, 1842 (XXI, pp. 152 f.). This appears in the “Virginia Poe,” XI, pp. 127 f. It has been denied to Poe, on the basis of internal evidence, by Mr. J. H. Whitty (see the New York Times Saturday Review of Books, December 11, 1909). In one of his reviews of Griswold's anthology (“Virginia Poe,” XI, pp. 237 f.), Poe attributes the review to Griswold.

3) A number of translations from the French published in the New Mirror in 1843-4 above the signature “E. P.” and attributed to Poe by Mr. Ingram (Life, p. 201). These, as Professor Woodberry has shown (Life, II, p. 103), came from the pen of a woman, — probably, as he suggests, Emily Percival. A poem — “The Idiot Boy” — bearing the same signature and published in Graham's Magazine for June, 1847 (XXX, pp. 330 f.), probably came from the same source.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 343:]

1. We know that he contributed to the February issue, however; see the Nation for October 19, 1911, p. 362.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 344:]

1. Passages from the Correspondence of Rufns W. Griswold, Cambridge, 1898.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 345:]

1 The denying of this item to Poe apparently necessitates also the denying to him of the brief notice in the May issue of Graham's which I gave to him in the Nation of December 23, 1909 (p. 623).

2. See the “Virginia Poe,” VIII, p. x. He modifies this statement somewhat on p. xvi of the same volume, including three editorials in the estimate there made. But an examination of the pages of the Messenger for the period specified by Poe reveals that there were precisely ninety-four reviews (exclusive of the review of “Mellen's Poems” in the May issue, which is credited to another) published during that time, the Sigourney-Gould-Ellet review in the issue for January, 1836, being counted by Poe as three items, and the Drake-Halleck review in the issue for April being counted as two (see Poe's own statement, l. c., p. xiv).

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 346, running to the bottom of page 347:]

3. Indeed, Professor Harrison appears to have had doubts about [page 347:] the correctness of his position, since he excludes from both his edition and his bibliography several of these reviews, among them the lengthy one on Chief Justice Marshall in the Messenger for February, 1836 (II, pp. 181. f.).

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 346:]

1. One such item — the notice of Haxall's Dissertation on the Diseases of the Abdomen and Thorax, in the Messenger for October, 1836 (II, p. 725) — is singled out by Professor Harrison in a footnote (“Virginia Poe,” IX, p. 164).

2. On the other hand, we can identify without much difficulty most of Poe's unsigned contributions to Burton's Magazine — with the aid of a letter of his to Burton, of June 1, 1840 (in which he specifies the number of pages written by him for each issue from July, 1839, to June, 1840) and of letters written by him to Cooke and Snodgrass (see Ingram, l. c., pp. 142-5; Woodberry, l. c., I, pp. 212 f., 221, 242 f.; the “Virginia Poe,” XVII, pp. 51 f.); and we can also identify most of his contributions to the Broadway Journal, through the poet's own signature appended to them in a copy of the Journal presented to Mrs. Whitman and now in the possession of F. R. Halsey of New York City (see the “Virginia Poe,” I, p. xiii; XII, pp. viii f.).

3 See the “Virginia Poe,” I, p. xv; XV, pp. ix, 263 f.; XVI, p. vii.

4. See Griswold, l. c., in, pp. 35 f., 79 f., 87 f., 101 f., 116 f., and the “Virginia Poe,” XV, pp. 263 f.

5. Whether or not he had authority for this, it is impossible now to tell.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 347:]

1. See Griswold, III, pp. 87 f., and the “Virginia Poe,” XV, pp. 271 f.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 347, running to the bottom of page 348:]

2. A small manuscript roll of “Marginalia” was among the rarities disposed of at the sale of the Stedman library in January, 1911; [page 348:] and Mr. Whitty mentions (l. c., p. 233) a manuscript volume of “Marginalia” once in the possession of a Richmond printer, but now lost.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 348:]

1. In June, 1844, Poe wrote Anthon that his tales were “in number sixty-six” (Woodberry, l. c., II, p. 78); and in a notice of the 1845 edition of the tales, published in the Broadway Journal of July 12, 1845, while he was editor, it is asserted that the tales in this edition were selected from “about seventy tales of similar length, written by Mr. Poe.”

“Mellonta Tauta,” “Hop Frog,” “X-ing a Paragrab,” and “Von Kempelen and His Discovery” all appear to have been written during the last two years of the poet's life.

2. Griswold, it may be noted, included “The Philosophy of Furniture” among the tales. In the same way, Poe may have counted his essay, “An Opinion on Dreams” (printed in Burton's for August, 1839, and first assigned to Poe by Mr. Whitty, l. c., p. lxiii), as a tale. Perhaps, too, he counted his introduction to the “Tales of the Folio Club” as a separate story (see the “Virginia Poe,” II, pp. xxxvi f.).

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 348, running to the bottom of page 349:]

3. “[[The]] Spectacles” was sent to Home in 1843 or 1844 (see the “Virginia Poe,” XVII, p. 168, and Ingram, l. c., p. 204); and before [page 349:] this Poe had sent to Dickens a volume of tales which he hoped to have published in England (see the Nation for November 24, 1910, p. 492).

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 349, running to the bottom of page 350:]

1. These Mr. Woodberry suggests (l. c., II, p. 414) were probably the same as Poe's lines “To Mary” in the Southern Literary Messenger for July, 1835 (I, p. 636), later addressed to Mrs. Osgood under the title “To F ——.”

But the lines to the “Baltimore Mary” are said to have been “very severe” and to have dealt with “fickleness and inconsistency” — a description to which Poe's lines in the Messenger do not answer very well. Another poem “To Mary” — and subscribed, as it happens, with the initial “P.” — appeared in the New England [page 350:] Magazine for January, 1832 (II, p. 72). But this, too, contains nothing of the satirical; besides, it comprises sixteen lines, while the poem said to have been published in Baltimore was only “six or eight” lines in length.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 349:]

1. Mr. Whitty suggests (l. c., p. 286) that this was perhaps a revised version of the poem “The Great Man,” found by him in manuscript in the desk used by Poe when editor of the Southern Literary Messenger.

2. Poe's statement on various occasions that he had also written a poem entitled “Holy Eyes” and a novel entitled “An Artist at Home and Abroad” must, of course, be dismissed as apocryphal (see Woodberry, I, p. 170; II, p. 30).

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 350, running to the bottom of page 351:]

3. A partial file of the Saturday Visiter for the years 1841 to 1846, [page 351:] is preserved in the library of the Maryland Historical Society, at Baltimore. It contains nothing of Poe's that was not first published elsewhere.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 351:]

1 A file of this weekly — for the years 1837 and 1838 — is to be found in the library of the Pennsylvania Historical Society.

2. See his letter to Lowell of March 27, 1843 (Woodberry, l. c., II, p. 21).

3. See the Nation of December 23, 1909, p. 623 f., for a list of some twenty-five brief articles published in these magazines which are probably Poe's, but which have not yet been fully authenticated. It is possible, I think, that some of the shorter poems published anonymously in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1834 and 1835 are Poe's; and we can be all but certain that there are other critical articles in the Messenger for 1845 and 1849.

4. It is perhaps not a matter of large importance that all these scraps should be published, but it is at least desirable that such as can be shown to be Poe's shall be definitely set down to his credit, in order that the biographer and the literary historian may avail themselves of such information as they afford. See, in this connection, an editorial in the Atlantic Monthly, LXXVII, p. 552 (April, 1896), in which it was declared that owing to the incompleteness of the editions of Poe published up to that time there remained “for the student of Poe's life and times a field of research practically unexplored.”

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 352:]

l. In another letter (of March 8, 1849, — see the “Virginia Poe,” XVII, p. 341) he mentions having offered his tale, “Von Kempelen and His Discovery,” to Duyckinck for publication in the Literary World. And it has recently been shown that Poe in 1844 contributed miscellaneous articles to an obscure Pennsylvania newspaper, The Columbia Spy (see the Philadelphia Public Ledger, January 14, 1912).

2. I have been unable, however, to identify anything in Blackwood's as his, and the antagonism to Christopher North which he displayed on several occasions in subsequent years leads me to believe that he was disappointed in his expectations from that quarter.