Text: Stuart and Susan Levine, “Acknowledgments,” The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe — EAP: Eureka (2004), pp. vii-ix (This material is protected by copyright)

[page vii:]

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

 

Colleagues in several departments at the University of Kansas have demonstrated again the worth of the old definition of a university, for they have consistently behaved like “a community of scholars.” We are especially grateful to the classicists Michael Shaw, Oliver Phillips, and James Seaver; John A. Weir (deceased, 1997) of the Department of Physiology and Cell Biology; and Warner Morse (deceased, 1991), Richard DeGeorge, and Anthony Genova of the Department of Philosophy, but others helped as well.

Bruce Twarog's love for the history of his field, astronomy, was our good fortune. In five separate sessions, he patiently briefed us on the relationship between Eureka and the best scientific thinking of Poe's day. Our judgment that Eureka is sound in most of its astronomy history and in its introductions to what was known or hypothesized in the 1840s is really Bruce's. We should note that we are not the first to reach that conclusion. As Richard Hodgens said in a letter to us of May 11, 1985, “Poe's physical science was generally sound for the day.”

Word processing for this edition was handled through the Wescoe Hall Word Processing Center at the University of Kansas. Denisa Brown, Sand-ee Kennedy, Pam LeRow, Lynn Porter, and Beth Ridenour each produced large portions of the text, staying cheerful and professional despite an airless office, the great complexity of this volume, SGL's handwriting, and a collapse of the university's mainframe computer. Pam LeRow's work has been especially concentrated. The project has gone on so long that these women have become connected to its texture; we admire them all and are very grateful.

Librarians have helped us early and late. We extend thanks to many staff members of the University of Kansas Libraries, especially to Sandra Brandt, Marilyn Clark, Eleanor Symons, Barbara Jones, and Rob Melton; to John Kirkpatrick and Cathy Henderson of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin; to Libby Chenault [page viii:] of the University of North Carolina Library; to Julius Barclay, Joan St. C. Crane, and George Riser of the Rare Books Department of the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia; to Paul Needham and Barbara Paulson at the Pierpoint Morgan Library in New York; to Dale Bentz and Frank Paluka at the University of Iowa Library; to Nancy J. Halli of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; and to Evelyn Timberlake at the Library of Congress.

James C. Campbell, a doctoral student at the University of Kansas, took a directed readings course in Poe from SGL in 1987 and was good enough to do his reading of Eureka from word processor “batch” copies, proofreading as he went. The extra pair of eyes was most helpful.

The great generosity of Richard M. Hodgens must be acknowledged. He was good enough to share with us material used in his extensive comparison of the pamphlet publication of the Nichol lectures with the text of Eureka. The present edition of Eureka reflects his contribution in a number of places.

Originally conceived as a part of Burton Pollin's The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, this project bears evidence of his attention and suggestions. Moreover, his life's work on Poe has included important scholars’ tools that greatly facilitated preparation of this edition and that will go on enriching subsequent work on Poe. Major scholarly reputations have rested on accomplishments less difficult and less useful than single reference volumes that Pollin has produced, and he has produced a number of them.

Our editorial work has been supported by a sabbatical granted to SGL by the University of Kansas and by a number of small awards: a grant from the General Research Fund, University of Kansas; a travel grant from the Travel to Collections Program, National Endowment for the Humanities, to work in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center Library, University of Texas at Austin (to work especially with the “Nelson-Mabbott” copy of the 1848 Putnam edition of Eureka); and a travel grant from the Hall Center for the Humanities, University of Kansas, to aid with the expenses of a trip to the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York (to work especially with the “Hurst-Wakeman” copy of the same edition). The Graduate School of the University of Kansas has twice allowed SFL to take extended leaves from her duties in that office to dedicate extra time to the project.

In 1985 David M. Katzman of the University of Kansas, and in early [page ix:] 1988 Theodore M. Hovet of the University of Northern Iowa and Nancy Walker of Vanderbilt University, members of the editorial board of American Studies, were good enough to take on portions of what were normally SGL's duties as editor of that journal. Their generosity expedited work on this edition.