Text: Stuart and Susan Levine, “April 1848 Prospectus - Headnote,” The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe — EAP: Critical Theory (2009), p. 34 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 34:]

The April 1848 Version of the Prospectus

for “The Stylus”

Pollin examined next the April 1848 version, relying on a copy in the Lilly Library at Indiana University. We had access to a more perfect copy, which we follow below, in the collection of the University of Virginia. Pollin notes that the “Launcelot Canning” motto is now gone, that the proposed title page design is “in a way” a substitute motto, and he discusses Poe's thoughts on the use of mottoes. He concludes, correctly, that this last prospectus “shows many changes of content, chiefly in a shift away from criticism as the sole purpose of The Stylus” (Discoveries in Poe, 225).