Text: Edgar Allan Poe, “[Dedication],” Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840), 1:3

Notes:

William Drayton (1776-1846) had been a Colonel in the War of 1812 and had served in the U.S. Congress as a representative of South Carolina (1825-1833). According to A. H. Quinn, Poe may have met Drayton towards the end of 1828, when Poe was stationed with at Fort Moultrie (Quinn, p. 129. Quinn references a letter from October 29, 1940 written by Dr. William Drayton, Jr. relating the family tradition.) T. O. Mabbott states that “Drayton had been Poe's commanding officer at Fort Moultrie, and the poet as sergeant-major had constantly dealt with him directly” (Mabbott, Tales, p. 472). Specifically disagreeing with Mabbott, Thomas and Jackson (The Poe Log, p. xxii) strongly note that “There is no truth in the tradition that he was Poe's commanding officer at Fort Moultrie in 1827 and 1828.” It seems reasonable that Drayton could hardly have simultaneously sever as a Congressman and a military commander. 1833, Drayton had moved, as noted in the dedication, to Philadelphia. At this time, Poe was also living in Philadelphia, working as an editor for Burton's Gentleman's Magazine.

The first line of this dedication is printed in an “Old English” font. The page is unnumbered, but based on a counting backwards from the first numbered page falls as page 3, with the cover and copyright pages being pages 1 and 2, and the table of contents, which follows the preface, being page 7.