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Fugitive Poe References: A Bibliography

Benjamin Franklin Fisher IV

Hahnemann Medical College

The primary purpose of the “fugitive” Poe bibliography is lo bring together recent books, essays, and miscellaneous publications (since about 1960) that do not focus on Poe but which discuss Poe within a larger perspective or with a special angle of vision. Although this bibliography also lists a few works dealing specifically with Poe that have been overlooked in other bibliographies, the entries here are principally brief items buried in longer works under different headings, or in works that were on first publication not readily accessible. The bibliography is compiled on behalf of the Poe Studies Association Bibliography Committee appointed in 1972.

Ableson, Danny, et al. “‘The Purloined Letter’ by ‘Edgar Allan Poe,’” National Lampoon, I, No. 88 (July 1977), 81. [Spoof upon the contents of the letter so important in Poe’s tale, which is sexually exciting to the great lady threatened by the Minister D .]

Bargainnier, Earl F “Roderick Alleyn: Ngaio Marsh’s Oxonian Superintendent,” Armchair Detective, 11 (1978), 63-71. [Among his bookish allusions, Alleyn mentions Poe.]

Bayley, John. “The Dynamics of the Static,” Times Literary Supplement, 3 March 1978, pp. 24G-247. [Reviewing recent books about Tennyson, Bayley quotes Mallarme’s poem on the tomb of Poe in support of the notion that in certain poets the muse destroys the artist in endowing him with creative gifts.]

Bleiler, E. F. “Introduction to the Dover Edition,” Monsieur Lecoq, by Emile Gaborisu (New York: Dover, 1977), pp. v-xxviii. [White young, Gaboriau read Poe’s detective stories and followed the general methods therein when he wrote his own fiction.] ————————. “John B. Williams, M. D., Forgotten Writer of Deteaive Stories,” Armchair Detective, 10 (1977), 353. [Poe’s influence is evident in the ratiocinative methods of Williams’ detective, James Brampton.] Carr John Dickson. Poison in lest (New York: Collier Books, 1974). [First published in 1932, this novel contains a quotation of Poe’s, “Helen, thy beauty is to me,” as part of Dr. Twills’ musings about murders in Judge Quayle’s household.]

Christensen, Peter J. “The First Locked-Room Mystery? Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland,” Armchair Detective, 10 (1977), 368-369. [Brown’s novel, although old-fashioned, belongs in the tradition of the locked-room thriller, and it may have influenced Poe’s “Murders.” Both writers also concentrate on terrors of the soul, and Brown’s fiction more generally interested Poe, who, Christensen argues, was not the first to conceive the locked-room ploy.]

Cole, William. “Trade Winds,” Saturday Review, 19 February 1977, p. 30. [Surveying the MLA Convention in New York, December 1976, Cole comments upon John H. McElroy’s paper “On the Coincidence of Wet Plasters in ‘The Black Cat’” as one example of scholarly thoroughness in coverage during such meetings.]

Edmiston Susan, and Linda D. Cirino. Literary New York: A History and Guide (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1977). [Irving, Bryant, and Poe helped to increase the literary status of the city in their times.]

Feinman, Jeffrey. The Mysterious World of Agatha Christie (New York: Award Books, London: Tandem Publishing Ltd., 1975). [Christie’s detectives may outlast Holmes and Dupin because [column 2:] of their psychological detection. Poe is characterized as the inventor of the modern detective story. Like him and Doyle, Christie knows how to violate conventions in her fiction and get away with it.] [column 2:]

Fiedler, Leslie. “Introduction: Art in the Blood: Some Notes on Sherlock Holmes,” Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, in The Sherlock Holmes Illustrated Omnibus (New York: Schocken Bocks, 1976), pp. viii-xvi. [Doyle’s notes for A Study in Scarlet clarify the links between Holmes and Dupin.]

Filstrup, Jane Merrill. “Cats in Mysteries,” Armchair Detective, 11 (1978), 59-62. [Treats “The Black Cat’’ as a “powerful romantic tale of terror” and mentions Carl Van Vechten’s citations of other cases wherein cats revealed murderers to the police.]

Fisher, Benjamin Franklin IV. “Sensation Fiction in a Minor Key: The Ordeal of Richard Feverel,” Nineteenth-Century Literary Perspectives: Essays in Honor of Lionel Stevenson, ed. Clyde de L. Ryals with the assistance of John Clubbe and Benjamin Franklin Fisher IV (Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 1974), pp. 283-294. [Meredith resembles Poe in desiring to be remembered chiefly as a poet, and also as one who lampooned conventions of Gothicism popular in his era.] ———————. “The Poets of the Nineties,” Victorian Poetry, 15 (1977), 274-277. [Notes affinities of Beardsley with Poe, notably in matters of the grotesque and of satire.] Fussell, Edwin. Lucifer in Harness: American Meter, Metaphor, and Diction (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1973). [Poe did not depart widely enough from the British poetic tradition and was “metrically confused and distraught.”]

Gardner, Martin. “Mathematical Games,” Scientific American, 50 (August 1977), 120-124. [Poe was wrong in thinking that all ciphers can be unriddled, as was his argument that one by G. W. Kulp, in the 26 February 1840 Alexander’s Weekly Messenger, was nonsense. Compare Brian J. Winkel’ in the first issue of Cryptologia (January 1977), pub. by Albion College, Albion, Mich.]

Janeczko, Paul B. “An Interview with Jay Bennett,” Armchair Detective, 10 (1977), 342-346. [The popular mystery writer lauds Poe as “the old master” among mystery writers.]

Kasson, Joy S. “ ‘The Voyage of Life’: Thomas Cole and Romantic Disillusionment,” American Quarterly, 27 (1975), 42-56. [Poe’s A. G. Pym compares with the figures in Cole’s series — moving through “youthful optimism, descent into despair, and redeeming vision.”]

King, Stephen. The Shining (Garden City: Doubleday, 1977). [A page of prologue quotes from “The Masque of the Red Death,” and phrases of the tale echo throughout the novel.]

Morsberger, Eustis E. “The Bills by Edgar Allan Po’,” CEA Forum, 7 (October 1976), 9. [Parody of “The Bells,” which captures Poe’s deftness with sound effects.]

Morsberger, Robert E. “Edgar Allan Poe,” CEA Critics, 38 (March 1976), 22. [A verse lampoon of Poe’s themes and forms, which also parodies his writing style.]

Murray, Don. “‘Tis the Vault of Thy Lost Ulalume,” College English, 38 (1976), 281-286. [Lampoon of Poe’s mannerisms, sound effects, and themes, as well as an account of his differences from other “Major American Writers” of his day.]

Northey, Margor. The Haunted Wilderness: The Gothic and Grotesque in Canadian Fiction (Toronto and Buffalo: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1976). [Interesting points concerning Poe and the grotesque, the figure of the double throughout the nineteenth century, and Poe’s general impact upon Canadian Gothicism.]

Pearsall, Ronald. Night’s Black Angels: The Many Faces of Victorian Cruelty (New York: David McKay, 1975). [Leagues Poe with de Sade as a “cult figure” of the early nineteenth century who could have influenced G. W. M. Reynolds.]

Peppin, Brigid. Fantasy: The Golden Age of Fantastic Illustration (London: Carter Nash Cameron; New York: Watson-Guprill Publications, 1975). [Mentions Lear’s illustrations for “The Raven”; reproduces several illustrations to Poe’s works.]

Prawer, S. S. “The Horror and the Idyll,” Times Literary Supplement, 12 August 1977, pp. 974-975. [Reviewing the graphic [page 14:] work of Alfred Kubin, Prawer draws special attention to an illustration for Pym and calls Kubin the “ideal illustrator of Poe” because of their affinities for nightmare worlds.] Ramsey, G. C. Agatha Christie: Mistress of Mystery (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1967). [Credits Poe’s “Murders” as originating the detective story as we know it: “Every detective author acknowledges his or her debt to Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle.”]

Reece, James B. “Poe: Light on His Life,” Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk), 22 May 1977, p. 7. [Poe the man instead of Poe the artist is John C. Miller’s primary subject in Building Poe Biography. Reece suggests that Maria Clemm is not given her due.] Rosenberg, Samuel. “Introduction: The Case of the Missing Detective,” The Hound of the Baskervilles, in The Sherlock Holmes Illustrated Omnibus ( New York: Schocken Books, 1976), pp. vii-xi. [Lists common characteristics in Poe’s and Doyle’s ratiocinative fiction.]

Rovin, Jeff. The Fabulous Fantasy Films (South Brunswick and New York: A. S. Barnes; London: Thomas Yoseloff, 1977). [References to film versions of Poe’s works center upon Corman and Price as interpreters.]

Rumbelow, Donald. The Complete Jack the Ripper, introd. Colin Wilson (New York: New American Library, 1975). [From a reading of Poe’s “Murders,” one woman from the Isle of Wight proposed that Jack the Ripper might be an ape.]

Scheuer, Steven H. The Movie Book (Chicago: Ridge Press and Playboy Press, 1974). [Intermittent references to films of Poe’s tales, the greatest attention going to Corman’s.]

Spoto, Donald. The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures (New York: Hopkinson and Black, [1976]). [Poe, James, and Hitchcock alike are interested in themes in which the dead have power to affect the living. Poe’s interest in human madness may stem back to the American Puritan concept of man’s weakness.]

Stevens, Mary Anne. “The French Blake,” Times Literary Supplement, 24 June 1977, p. 762. [Comments on Odilon Redon’s drawing upon inspirations provided by Poe as well as Goya, “which reflect[s] the current enthusiasms of the literary avant-garde” of the 1880’s and 90’s.]

Sullivan, Jack. “Two Ways to Write a Gothic,’’ New York Times Book Review, 20 February 1977, p. 8. [Reviews Emma Cave’s Little Angie and Stephen King’s The Shining, noting the latter’s debt — often too obvious — to Poe, Blackwood, Lovecraft, as well as to recent horror films.]

Symons, Julian. “Rescuing a Reputation,” Times Literary Supplement, 24 February 1978, pp. 222-223. [Reviewing John Carl Miller’s Building Poe Biography, Symons comments upon the strained relationship of Poe with Griswold and details the nature of Ingram and his campaign to rescue Poe’s reputation from maligners.]

Weintraub, Stanley. Whistler: A Biography (New York: Weybright and Talley, 1974). [Poe’s impact upon Whistler, Wilde, and Debussy is mentioned.]

Wilkie, M. D. “Thomas Hardy’s Correspondence with Sir George Douglas,” Victorian Newsletter, 31 ( 1977), 25-29. [Hardy prized Poe’s verse, although he thought that “The Philosophy of Composition” was a hoax.]

Wimsatt, Mary Ann. “Simms’s Early Short Stories,” Library Chronicle (Univ. of Pennsylvania), 41 (1977), 163-179. [Notes that Simms’s narrative methods have not received the careful scrutiny accorded to Poe’s. Also discusses Poesque elements in Simms’s tale “The Plank,” notably its resemblance to “MS. Found in a Bottle,” and mentions the relationship of the two as literary personages.]

Wright, Rick. “Youthful Abbeys Dig Graveyard Scene,” The News American (Baltimore), 29 August 1976. [Reports on youth volunteer guides in Westminster Presbyterian Church, site of Poe’s grave, who imply location was more influential on his art than has been substantiated.]

Young, Marguerite. “Defending an Injured Reputation,” New York Times Book Review, 3 July 1977, p. 7. [Review of John Carl Miller’s Building Poe Biography which outlines Ingram’s labors on Poe’s behalf.]