Text: Ruth Leigh Hudson, “Preface,” Poe's Craftsmanship in the Short Story, dissertation, 1935, pp. iii-viii (This material is protected by copyright)

[page iii:]

Preface

Some years ago, through the courtesy of Professor Killis Campbell, I examined photostatic copies of the texts of Poe's tales published in 1832 in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier. I thought that I caught there a momentary of a young and natural Poe too little known by most of us. The great disparity between those early versions and the tale as we commonly know them suggested the possibility of realizing more clearly his evolving workmanship and his expanding ideals as an artist. Prompted, then, by a desire to follow the trail of the craftsman Poe, I purposed at first to limit my study to the changes which he made at various times in those five tales. As I worked with them, however, I caught tantalizing glimpses, first, of what might be done by taking into consideration the full scope of Poe's revisions; and, then, of what might result from an examination of the materials with which he wrought so patiently and perseveringly.

I have remained faithful, nevertheless, to the astonishing youth of the early 1830's. Consequently, though the following study purports to be an examination [page iv:] of Poe's craftsmanship through the years, its emphasis in upon the period between 1830 and the publication of his first collection of tales.

Since this particular study was begun, John Grier Varner, Jr., of the University of Virginia has edited in facsimile Poe's tales in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier and has drawn some interesting conclusions as to the importance to Poe scholars of familiarity with these early versions. It is a particular gratification to me that these original texts have been made generally available and my own faith in their significance has been thus justified.

It will be well, perhaps, for me to call attention to another attitude of mind which colors the following study. A little investigation of Poe materials led me to believe that biographers have, for the most part, attached unwarranted significance to an autobiographical interpretation of the subject matter of his poems and stories. Certain of his biographers, also, have shown a tendency to read some of the simple and more or less accidental facts of his life as indicative of temperament and tastes. This grasping at straws in order to fill in the outlines [page v:] of a factually meager biography has not only resulted in misinterpretations, but even in falsification of the real facts. A simple illustration will, I think, make this evident. At least two of Poe's biographers have attached importance to the fact that he read Dufief's Nature Displayed while a student at Charlottesville. To one biographer, this seemed indicative of Poe's early enthusiasm for the beauties of nature. The other biographer believed that Poe's reading of this book would explain his use of the exotic name of a flower — the Sephalica, for he simply culled “the rich vowels of the flower's name from the pages of Nature Displayed flung at random on the table” before him. It is obvious that their eagerness to make something out of the boy's reading at college both biographers neglected to find out that Nature Displayed is not a book which describes the beauties of nature, but merely a text-book, designed to teach language by the natural, or conversational, method.

Because, therefore, of what seemed to me false steps in viewing Poe's life through the medium of his works or in looking at his temperament through isolated facts of his life, it occurred to me that [page vi:] it might be desirable to make an attempt to investigate Poe's stories as much as possible apart from his life and strange personality and in relation to his literary backgrounds. Perhaps this point of view has been over-emphasized in the present study, but it appeared worthwhile to work with the materials of his stories with this attitude in mind.

It is always a pleasant task, when a piece of work comes to a pause, to take inventory of one's indebtedness. In this case, my obligations are great. A generous leave of absence from teaching duties in the University of Wyoming and a Research Fellowship granted by the University of Virginia combined to make it possible for me to devote some months exclusively to research. To both institutions, therefore, I am deeply grateful. To the libraries of The University of Texas, the University of Virginia, the Maryland Historical Society, and especially to the Library of Congress, I owe access to valuable material. I am indebted to Mr. John Cook Wyllie of the library staff of the University of Virginia for invaluable assistance in the preparation of the bibliography and the final form of the manuscript. My [page vii:] thanks are due Dean John Calvin Metcalf of the Department of Graduate studies, University of Virginia, for personal encouragement and consideration during the progress of this study, and to Professor Atcheson L. Hench, of this institution, for his careful reading of the manuscript and for many helpful suggestions as to its organization.

I am, however, most profoundly aware of my debts to Professor Killis Campbell of The University of Texas and to Professor James Southall Wilson of the University of Virginia. The former's great enthusiasm and careful scholarship in all matters pertaining to Poe have been for a number of years a source of genuine inspiration to me. Under his guidance I began as an undergraduate my first tentative studies in Poe, and it was he who later encouraged me to feel that my own contribution to Poe scholarship might be of value. Also without his scholarly studies in the field of Poe, this piece of work would have been well-nigh impossible. To Professor Wilson I wish to acknowledge my gratitude for a better understanding and appreciation of Poe's humor, and, especially, for [page viii:] his penetrating criticism in the direction of this particular study. It has been shaped and filed under the constant he1pfu1nes of his scholarship, and encouragement.

Ruth Leigh Hudson

June 8, 1935