Edgar Allan Poe — “Deep in Earth”

Reading copy:

• “Deep in Earth” — reading copy

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings:

• Text-01 — “[Deep in Earth]” — about February 1847 — manuscript — (Mabbott text A — This is Mabbott's copy-text) (This short poem was written by Poe in pencil on a manuscript pasted to a manuscript of “Eulalie.” It was never printed during his lifetime, nor was it intended to be printed. It was first discovered in October 1914 and published in December 1914. The manuscript came to the collection of the New York Public Libray in 1892, from the collection of R. L. Stuart, by which time it had come to be part of an autograph album (see the description for “Eulalie”). J. H. Whitty states that “it is a conjecture that the lines were written in the year 1845, although they may date after the death of Poe's wife in 1847.” Mabbott accepts the later date of 1847, tying the couplet to the death of Poe's wife Virginia, and thus establishing a likely date as about February 1847. The earlier suggested date of 1845 perhaps comes from the connection to the Eulalie manuscript, that poem having been published in the American Review in 1845.)

Reprints:

• “[[untitled couplet]]” — December 1914 — Victor H. Palsits, “Two Manuscripts in The New York Public Library — Part I: The Manuscript of Poe's ‘Eulalie’,” Bulletin of the New York Public Library (18:1462)
• “[[untitled couplet]]” — May 20, 1917 — “Unpublished Poems of Edgar Allan Poe’,” New York Times Book Reviews (p. 199) (reprinted in a review of the new edition by Whitty)
• “[[untitled couplet]]” — 1926 — Edgar Allan Poe: The Man, by Mary E. Phillips, Chicago: John C. Winston Co., 2 vols. (2:1029) (Miss Phillips curiously adds a “the” in the first line).
• “[Lines Written on a Manuscript of Eulalie]” — 1928 — Selected Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Thomas Ollive Mabbott, New York: Macmillan Company (The Modern Readers’ Series) (p. 29) (The table of contents notes that it is a “Fragment from a MS of 1846, Bulletin of the N. Y. Public Library, December 1914.”)
• “[untitled couplet]]” — 1951 — Selected Poetry and Prose of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Thomas Ollive Mabbott, New York: Random House (The Modern Library) (p. 412) (The lines are included only in the short notes for “Eulalie.”)
• “[[untitled lines]]” — 1987 — The Poe Log, by Dwight R. Thomas and David K. Jackson, Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1987. (p. 686) (the poem is cited as from the Mabbott edition of 1969).
• “[untitled couplet]]” — 1991 — Edgar A. Poe: Mournful Never-ending Remembrance, Kenneth Silverman, New York: HarperCollins (p. 328) (the lines are mentioned in notes)

Scholarly and Noteworthy Reprints:

• “Couplet” — 1917 — The Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. J. H. Whitty, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co (p. 152, and pp. 321-322)  (This poem was added to the second edition, and does not appear in the first edition of 1911. The second edition was published about May 14, 1917)
• “[[untitled]]” — 1917 — The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Killis Campbell, Boston: Ginn and Company (p. 260, the two lines are quoted as part of the notes to “Eulalie.”)
• “[Deep in Earth]” — 1969 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. I: Poems, ed. Thomas Ollive Mabbott, Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (1:396)
• “Deep in Earth” — 1984 — Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales, ed. Patrick F. Quinn (New York: Library of America) (p. 87) (reprints the text from Mabbott, 1969)

Instream Comparative and Study Texts:

• None (There are no variants for this short poem that Poe never published, nor intended to publish.)

Miscellaneous Texts and Related Items:

• None.

• Heartman, Charles F. and James R. Canny, A Bibliography of First Printings of the Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Hattiesburg, MS: The Book Farm, 1943.
• Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, ed., The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Vol 1 Poems), Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1969.