From Out that Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Edgar Allan Poe 1. Timeline and exhibition intro information About this Exhibition Illustrations 2. Poe’s life and Works

• Poe’s Early Years • The Working Writer • Poe and Science • Poe in Love

3. Poe’s Genres

• Poe the Poet • Poe and Detective Fiction • Poe the Critic • The Raven • Dore’s Raven

4. Death and Legacy

• Death and Infamy • Poe in France • Perspectives on Poe • Popular Poe

5. The Haunted Mind (wall items only) 6. Portraits (wall and vitrine items only) 7. unaffiliated items

From Out That Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Edgar Allan Poe A Bicentennial Exhibition at the Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted—nevermore!

—“The Raven” Poet, literary critic, visionary, inventor of the detective story, master of the macabre: this was Edgar Allan Poe. One of the most important and widely read American authors of the nineteenth century, Poe still fascinates schoolchildren and scholars alike. His poem “The Raven” is among the most memorable in the language, and his highly original tales continue to amaze and terrify. Darkness, anxiety, and obsession are the stuff of Poe’s works—and of his life. This exhibition sheds light on Poe’s education, his career as a journalist, his tumultuous relationships with women, and his tragic early death. Orphaned at an early age, Poe briefly attended the University of Virginia and West Point Academy, publishing his first work in 1827. For the rest of his life, Poe made his living as a writer and editor but was constantly in debt and plagued by personal tragedy and literary scandal. Having endured his young wife’s death, Poe himself died under mysterious circumstances at the age of forty. On his 200th birthday, Poe lives on. His literary reputation survived the premature burial given him by his literary executor, Rufus Griswold; the admiration of French writers kept him before the public eye. Later, he became widely appreciated in his own country and around the world. Poe’s insights into the shadowy places of the human mind have inspired some of the finest illustrators, including Edouard Manet and Arthur Rackham, whose work is featured here. Text Panel: The Poe Collections Most of the items in the exhibition from the Harry Ransom Center collections once belonged to William H. Koester (1888-1964). Koester, a resident of Baltimore, began collecting first editions and manuscripts of Poe in the 1930s. He acquired the collection of the earlier Poe scholar and collector J. H. Whitty. In addition to the manuscripts of “The Domain of Arnheim,” “The Spectacles,” and portions of Poe’s most famous poems, the Koester collection includes many letters written by and to Poe, books belonging to Poe (including the author’s heavily annotated copies of the Tales and Poems and Eureka), and a large group of sheet music for songs based on Poe’s works. The Koester Collection was acquired by the Center in 1966.

John Henry Ingram (1842-1916), biographer, editor, and champion of kEdgar Allan Poe, corresponded with Poe’s friends and family and assembled a significant collection of letters, manuscripts, photographs, and printed materials. The University of Virginia acquired the collection in 1922. Other Poe materials are part of the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature at Virginia.

The Edgar Allan Poe Digital Collection on the Ransom Center web site combines images of Poe manuscripts and letters at the Ransom Center with a selection of related archival materials, copies of book annotated by the author, sheet music based on poems by Poe, and related materials from the University of Texas collections. 197 “The Buried Treasury of Edgar Allan Poe” in The Baltimore Sun, January 18, 1953 Digital reproduction Koester Poe Collection 118 [original item used for exhibition identity] Bernhardt Wall (American, 1872-1956) Portrait of Edgar Allan Poe, 1919 Etching, drypoint Koester Poe Collection Timeline: not included in this document. visible only in exhibition Illustrations of Poe’s Works

The rich history of illustrating Poe’s works, particularly “The Raven” and the short stories, could easily be the subject of a separate exhibition. Throughout this exhibition are to be found original work by Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, Gustave Doré, and the largely unknown Irish-American artist James William Carling, whose melodramatic illustrations for The Raven are his only significant work. At their best, Carling’s forty-three drawings (usually displayed together in the Poe Museum in Richmond) capture the darkness and terror of the poem.

Of particular interest is the set of original watercolors and pen and ink drawings by Arthur Rackham, one of the most celebrated illustrators of the last century, who contributed the artwork for an edition of Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination in 1935. These illustrations, which may be seen throughout the exhibition, show Rackham’s particular affinity for the element of the grotesque in Poe. The Rackham illustrations form part of the Koester Poe Collection at the Ransom Center. 146, 147 Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) The dust jacket illustration for Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935)

Charcoal, ink, and gouache Koester Poe Collection The printed dust jacket of Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Koester Poe Collection 124, 125 Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) The cloth binding design for Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Koester Poe Collection Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) The title page of Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Pen and ink Koester Poe Collection 123 Arthur Rackham (American, 1867-1939) An illustration for the spine of Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Pen and ink Koester Poe Collection Text Panel: Poe’s Life and Career Poe’s personal and professional lives were suffused with struggle. Orphaned at an early age, Poe was taken in by Richmond merchant John Allan, who had little ability to nurture his foster son’s talents. The two often found themselves at loggerheads. Poe’s rebelliousness led to his departures from the University of Virginia, West Point Academy, and the U.S. Army, despite his intelligence and love of learning. Poe found his poetic voice at an early age with the publication of Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827). Despite his considerable talents and capacity for hard work, Poe struggled to find a steady source of income for his family as an editor or government appointee. He earned a precarious living from his occasional writings, reviews, and tales, which brought him a measure of literary recognition and brief periods of relative prosperity. Poe’s tendency to avenge slights—real or imagined—in print and his sense of being an outsider kept him from being fully accepted by the American literary establishment, though he knew and corresponded with most of its important figures.

Poe’s relationships with women were likewise intense and often tumultuous. His ethereal, child-like cousin Virginia, whom he married in 1836 and who died of tuberculosis in 1847, was the great love of his life. Her mother (and Poe’s aunt), his beloved “Muddy,” served as a substitute for the real mother he had lost in infancy. Poe cut a dashing figure in the literary salons of the 1840s. Following Virginia’s death, he formed several romantic attachments, all of which were ultimately undermined by his drinking and emotional problems. Poe’s Early Years

Edgar Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809, the child of David and Eliza Poe. The following year, David Poe abandoned his family. In 1811, Eliza Poe’s health began to fail, possibly due to tuberculosis, and she died that December. Orphaned before his third birthday, Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond; his brother and his sister went to live with other families. Although the Allans never formally adopted him, they gave him the name Edgar Allan Poe.

John Allan emphasized education, funding boarding school for Poe during the years the Allans lived in England (1815-1820); he sent Poe to the University of Virginia upon the family’s return to Richmond. William Wertenbaker, the University’s Librarian, later recalled a sober, quiet, and orderly young man whom he never witnessed “in the slightest degree under the influence of intoxicating liquors.” Allan’s paltry financial support—a circumstance that caused increasing friction between the two men—led Poe deep into debt, until he could no longer remain at the University. Many years later, Rufus Griswold’s vindictive and inaccurate obituary of Poe would state that Poe was expelled for his dissolute ways.

Upon Poe’s return to Richmond, he and Allan continued to quarrel, until Poe left the Allan home for good and moved to Boston. Finding it difficult to support himself as a writer, he enlisted first in the Army and then entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Neither of these ventures succeeded, and Poe’s life-long pattern of financial instability was firmly established. 26 A playbill for a performance of Mysteries of the Castle and He Wou’d Be a Soldier at the Theater Royal, Covent Garden, England, 1795 Playbills and Programs Collection Poe’s mother Eliza Arnold Poe was the daughter of English actors. Her mother Elizabeth, “Mrs. Arnold,” is listed as here as one of the players in this London performance. Eliza and her mother sailed to America in late 1795. 156, 78 Sir William Charles Ross Eliza Poe, 19th century Koester Poe Collection

Portrait of Eliza Poe on ivory, date unknown The Richard Gimbel Collection Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia

Poe’s mother Eliza Arnold Poe made her stage debut at the age of nine. In her brief life, she played nearly three hundred roles and performed in theaters in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Richmond. She acted until a few days before his birth and resumed work three weeks afterward. Theater reviewers praised her talents and often noted her petite figure and large, dark eyes. Onstage, she sang, danced, and played dramatic roles—such as Shakespeare’s Juliet and Ophelia. She died at the age of twenty-four.

Ross based his portrait on the only known likeness of Eliza Poe, displayed here. This miniature was left to Edgar after her death and likely was in his possession when he died in 1849. 1, 27 The libretto for Michael Kelly’s Cinderella, or The little glass slipper: A grand allegorical pantomimic spectacle. (Boston: Printed for John West, 1807) Inscribed “D. Poe” Koester Poe Collection John Tobin’s The curfew: a play, in five acts (London: Printed for Richard Phillips, 1807) Inscribed N. L. Usher, with contents note on the cover in Edgar Allan Poe’s hand, and a change in the dramatis personae in David Poe’s hand Koester Poe Collection Poe’s father and mother both worked as touring actors. Eliza Poe’s talents often outshone her husband’s when they performed together. Reviewing one of her performances, a critic noted that “Mrs. Poe’s name is a brilliant gem in the theatric crown” and claimed that no other actress “has received more than she of the public applause.” David’s performances, however, earned a reputation for dullness: “a footman,” one New York review explained, “is the extent of what he ought to attempt.” 25 H. Clarke’s Fabulæ Æsopi selectæ, or, Select fables of Æsop: with an English translation, more literal than any yet extant, designed for the readier instruction of beginners in the Latin tongue (Baltimore: Joseph Cushing, 1817) Koester Poe Collection The inscription in this copy reads “Edgar A. Poe’s copy,” in what appears to be the writer’s juvenile signature. Poe later excelled in Latin as a student at the University of Virginia. His short stay at the university is documented on the wall nearby.

165 An official copy of the proceedings of the trial of Cadet E. A. Poe of the United States Military Academy, January 1, 1831 John Henry Ingram’s Poe Collection Special Collections, U.Va. Library Deliberately flaunting rules at West Point in order to get court-martialed, Poe was charged with “gross neglect of duty” and “disobedience of orders.” He pled guilty to the charges and was discharged from the Academy. Wall: 75 Edgar Allan Poe’s entry in the University of Virginia matriculation book, 1825-1855, University Archives, Special Collections, U.Va. Library Digital Reproduction

This book documents Poe’s enrollment in February 1826, one year after the first session of classes at Thomas Jefferson’s university commenced. Although no records document any meeting between the two men, Jefferson made visits to the university to supervise progress on buildings—such as the nearly complete Rotunda—until a month before his death in July 1826.

Poe’s entry is at the very bottom of the page; he was one of 177 students that year. 76 A list of library fines, including Edgar Allan Poe’s overdue fine, August 11, 1826 University Archives, Special Collections, U.Va. Library As a student, Poe borrowed library books on ancient and American history and two volumes of Voltaire. This list indicates that Poe’s failure to return Charles Rollin’s Ancient History on time resulted in a sixty-cent fine. 79 A letter from Edgar Allan Poe to John Allan, January 3, 1831 Valentine Richmond History Center, Richmond, Va. Digital Reproduction Writing from West Point, Poe outlines the costs of attending the University of Virginia, demonstrating how it would have been impossible to avoid getting into debt. Railing against Allan’s parsimony, Poe blames Allan for all of the “difficulties in which I was involved in Charlottesville.” He also writes of having “no one on Earth who cared for

me, or loved me.” After several years of increasingly bitter difficulties, the rift between the two men became irreparable. 100 A page from Alexandre Dumas’s autograph manuscript account of Poe’s visit to Paris, date unknown The Richard Gimbel Collection Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia Scholars have been baffled by the lack of any documentary evidence for Poe’s whereabouts in 1832. One theory is that Poe traveled to Paris. Dumas compellingly relates an account of Poe as his house guest in Paris in 1832. The French author’s description of Poe bears an uncanny similarity to Poe’s fictional detective Auguste Dupin:

Poe had one curious idiosyncrasy; he liked the night better than the day. Indeed his love of the darkness amounted to a passion….As soon as day began to break, he hermetically sealed up the windows of his room and lit a couple of candles. In the midst of this pale illumination he worked…But as soon as the clock told him that the real darkness had come, he would come in for me, take me out with him if I was there….In these rambles, I could not help remarking with wonder and admiration...the extraordinary faculty of analysis exhibited by my friend….He made no secret of the enjoyment he derived from it and would remark with a smile of proud satisfaction, that, for him, every man had an open window where his heart was.

The Working Writer

Throughout his career, Poe struggled to make a living from his writing, publishing a steady stream of short fiction, criticism, and poems in magazines, newspapers, and the popular new literary anthologies, or “gift books.” These efforts produced a modest income and made Poe’s name known among the literati. His sharp critical style, fantastical and ingenious short stories, and the enormously popular poem “The Raven,” first published in early 1845, brought him wider fame at a national level. Despite these successes, he often managed to alienate those who could help him most by engaging in a variety of literary disputes.

For most of his life, Poe dreamed of founding a magazine of his own which would insure a steady income and in which he could promote his literary and esthetic theories. But literary magazines were expensive propositions. His efforts to find backers repeatedly failed, and he had to earn his living by writing on all manner of subjects for such magazines as The Southern Literary Messenger, Graham’s, and The Broadway Journal. His financial struggles also led him to search for government posts that never materialized. 6

The first page of a letter from Edgar Allan Poe to John Beauchamp Jones, August 8, 1839 Koester Poe Collection

From May 1839 to May 1840 Poe was assistant editor for Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, owned by the actor William Evans “Billy” Burton. Poe published two of his best-known stories, “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “William Wilson” in Burton’s.

John Beauchamp Jones was a Baltimore journalist and Burton’s contributor who had written to Poe to inform him of some sharp criticism of Burton’s in the Baltimore Sun. The Sun implied that Burton’s suffered because of Billy Burton’s theatrical engagements in New York, claiming that as a result, “although this number contains many excellent articles, there is a palpable want of tact in the manner in which it has been gotten up.” 7 A letter from Edgar Allan Poe to Robert Hamilton, October 3, 1842 Koester Poe Collection In this letter, Poe complains to Hamilton, editor of the Ladies’ Companion, about typographical errors made in the printing of his story “The Landscape-Garden” (this story later became “The Domain of Arnheim”). As a critic, Poe was notorious for seizing on small imperfections, so he was understandably sensitive to typographical errors in his own works. Here, Poe remarks that he is “as straight as judges,” an apparent allusion to his drinking bout in New York the previous June, when, despondent over his wife Virginia’s illness from tuberculosis, he paid a drunken visit to a former love, Mary (Starr) Devereux. 8 A manuscript of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Spectacles,” ca. 1844 Koester Poe Collection In 1844 Poe submitted a manuscript of his story “The Spectacles” to the English poet Richard Henry Horne in hopes that Horne would sell it for Poe to a London magazine. Horne was repulsed by this story of a young man who becomes engaged to his great-great-grandmother because he is too vain to wear spectacles. It was eventually published in several American magazines and later pirated by the London magazine Lloyd’s Entertaining Journal. This fair copy in Poe’s meticulous hand is probably the original manuscript submitted to Horne. 14 The first page of a letter from Edgar Allan Poe to Charles West Thomson, and a prospectus for Poe’s proposed Penn Magazine, June 28, 1840 [?] Digital reproduction of the prospectus

Koester Poe Collection

In this letter, Poe solicits financial backing for his proposed Penn Magazine from Thomson, a Philadelphia poet. Poe also wrote to several key American men of letters—Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, William Cullen Bryant, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, most of whom he had attacked either publicly or privately—describing his plans and asking these writers to contribute to the magazine regularly.

The Penn never materialized. In 1842 Poe began to plan for another magazine, the Stylus. He briefly acquired a backer who pulled out due to his own financial issues and concerns about Poe’s drinking. 15 A letter from Edgar Allan Poe to Lea & Blanchard, August 13, 1841 Koester Poe Collection Lea & Blanchard, publishers of Poe’s Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in December 1839, declined the offer Poe made in this letter, noting that that volume had not yet sold. As Lea & Blanchard had written to Poe in September 1839, they would publish Tales “at our own risque and expense” and noted that “if sold—[the edition] will pay but a small profit which if realized is to be ours,” while granting Poe the copyright. 22 The first page of a letter from Edgar Allan Poe to Frederick W. Thomas, May 25, 1842 Koester Poe Collection

Frederick William Thomas was a novelist and poet who became friendly with Poe in 1840. In May 1842 Thomas wrote to Poe suggesting that Thomas use his influence with Robert Tyler, the President’s son, to secure a position for Poe in the Philadelphia Custom House. After months of uncertainty, Poe traveled to Washington in March 1843 to press his case and to solicit contributors to his proposed Stylus magazine, but Poe did not receive the position. Custom House positions offered an aspiring literary man income and time for writing. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, among others, held such positions (see, for example, Hawthorne’s famous “Custom House” preface to The Scarlet Letter). 28 Nicholas Rowe’s Tamerlane: A Tragedy, 3rd ed. (London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, 1714) Koester Poe Collection This copy of Nicholas Rowe’s Tamerlane belonged to John Allan, Edgar Allan Poe’s foster father. Rowe’s work, describing the exploits of a peace-loving Asian conqueror

compelled to go to war, may have been an inspiration for Poe’s poem of the same name, published in 1827. 33 “Valedictory” in The Southern Literary Messenger, January 1837 Poe worked for the Messenger in Richmond from 1835 until early 1837, when his departure was announced in the pages of the magazine. Although Thomas White, the Messenger’s publisher, was aware of Poe’s talents, he regarded him as erratic and irresponsible; for his part, Poe regretted that his “best energies were wasted in the service of an illiterate and vulgar, although well meaning man.” 35 A prospectus by John Bisco for the Broadway Journal, ca. 1844-1845 Koester Poe Collection John Bisco was the original owner and proprietor of the Broadway Journal, published in New York. This prospectus laid out Bisco’s intentions for the journal and announced that Poe would be one of the editors. By early 1845 Poe was well known for his sharp critical skills as well as his poem “The Raven,” first published in January 1845; his name would have added to the appeal of the journal. In October 1845, Bisco gave up the Broadway Journal and Poe acquired “entire right and title” to the magazine. This arrangement in effect allowed Poe to run his own magazine—if only for a brief while. The Broadway Journal folded in January 1846. 51 The first appearance of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” in The Gift: A Christmas and New Year’s Present for 1843 (Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1843) In need of money, Poe first published his well-known short story “The Pit and the Pendulum” in The Gift for 1843. Published late in the year, gift books or literary annuals were widely popular as holiday gifts. Poe later reprinted “The Pit and the Pendulum” in the Broadway Journal. Poe’s mastery of suspense and the macabre is here seen at its best. 97 Edgar Allan Poe’s Tamerlane and Other Poems (Boston: Calvin F.S. Thomas, 1827) Koester Poe Collection Tamerlane and Other Poems was Poe’s first volume of poetry. Anonymously published (“by a Bostonian”), the book was too obscure to draw any reviews. In the preface, Poe

claimed to have written most of the poems in 1821-1822, “when the author had not completed his fourteenth year.” Poe projected much of his own ambition and sense of genius onto the title poem’s hero, Tamerlane. In the poem “Alone” Poe wrote of his youthful, Romantic alienation from others: “From childhood’s hour I have not been/As others were; I have not seen/As others saw.” Only a dozen or so copies of this pamphlet survive, including the Ransom Center’s superb copy, making it one of the great rarities of American literature. 98 The title page of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven and Other Poems (New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1845) Ellery Queen Collection In November 1845 Wiley and Putnam published Poe’s volume The Raven and Other Poems as part of their well-known Library of American Books series. Poe dedicated this volume to the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Poetry, wrote Poe in his preface, “has not been a purpose, but a passion,” and like all passions, “should be held in reverence.” The Raven and Other Poems contains nearly all of the poems Poe had written as of 1845, and was the last volume of Poe’s poetry to be published during his lifetime. 168 John Sartain (1808-1897) Plate for a portrait of Edgar Allan Poe, 1885 Steel engraving plate Koester Poe Collection

This engraving of a clean-shaven Poe is based on Samuel Stillman Osgood’s portrait of Poe (ca. 1845). Sartain’s 1849 engraving was the frontispiece to the first volume in Rufus W. Griswold’s four-volume edition of The Works of Edgar Allan Poe. By 1852 copies of this volume were circulating in Europe, making this image the first internationally distributed portrait of the now iconic face of Poe. Poe’s one-time fiancée Sarah Helen Whitman described Sartain’s 1849 engraving as “utterly void of character and expression; it has no subsurface.” In 1885 Sartain reworked it, creating this still more stylized and idealized portrait. This is the original 1885 steel plate. 169 Thomas B. Welch and Adam B. Walter A portrait of Edgar Allan Poe in Graham's Magazine, February 1845 Steel engraving The popular Graham’s Magazine regularly featured biographical sketches of “Our Contributors.” Each sketch was accompanied by a portrait of the contributor. This

portrait of Poe accompanied the sketch of Poe’s life and work that appeared in Graham’s in February 1845, almost three years after Poe’s resignation from the magazine. Written by Boston poet James Russell Lowell, this essay was the first substantial consideration of Poe’s career to be published. Lowell, then the dean of American letters, praised Poe’s talents as critic, poet, and fiction writer and gave a generous overview of Poe’s work. Baltimore author Joseph Snodgrass described this portrait as “rather wanting in that nervousness of expression so peculiar to Mr. Poe.” 119, 32 Announcement of Poe’s short story contest prize in the Baltimore Saturday Visiter [sic], October 12, 1833 Digital reproduction Koester Poe Collection Edgar Allan Poe’s “Ms. in a Bottle,” on the front page of the Baltimore Saturday Visiter [sic], October 19, 1833 Digital reproduction Koester Poe Collection In 1833 Poe entered The Tales of the Folio Club, a collection of six short stories, in a literary contest sponsored by the Baltimore Saturday Visiter [sic]. Poe won the fifty-dollar prize for “MS. in a Bottle,” which became his first published short story. The judges publicly praised Poe’s collection, and one of them, well-known Baltimore novelist John Pendleton Kennedy, took a special interest in Poe, assisting him financially, encouraging him to submit materials to the new Southern Literary Messenger, and playing a role in Poe’s eventual employment at the Messenger. 82 Edgar Allan Poe’s desk Koester Poe Collection

Poe wrote and worked at this plantation-style desk while he was employed at the Southern Literary Messenger from July 1835 until January 1837. Poe’s work at the Messenger, particularly his book reviews, gained him a national reputation as an incisive critic and helped establish the magazine’s reputation. The desk remained in the Messenger’s offices when Poe left Richmond for New York in 1837. In 1906 the descendants of Poe’s successor Benjamin Blake Minor sold the desk to Richmond collector J. H. Whitty, who claimed that several manuscripts and letters by Poe or written to him were discovered in the desk. He also noted that the label on one of the pigeonhole covers once read “E. A. Poe’s Personal papers.” 83

A brick from the Southern Literary Messenger building, Richmond, Virginia Gift of the Hon. Roswell Page and Dr. J. Packard Laird Special Collections University of Virginia Library The Southern Literary Messenger building stood at the corner of 15th and Main Streets in Richmond, Virginia. Next door was the building where the House of Ellis and Allan, the export firm of Poe’s foster father John Allan and his partner Charles Ellis had been housed. When the Messenger building was taken down around 1920, a number of its bricks and other materials were saved; many were used in the buildings that now make up the Poe Museum in Richmond. 133, 134, 140 Arthur Rackham (American, 1867-1939) Two black and white illustrations of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Hop-Frog” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Pen and ink Koester Poe Collection Arthur Rackham (American, 1867-1939) A color illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Hop-Frog” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Watercolor and ink Koester Poe Collection

First published in March 1849, “Hop-Frog” was one of Poe’s last short stories. The central character, Hop-Frog, is a dwarf who is court jester to a king who is fond of humiliating him. Hop-Frog avenges the slights in a horrible fashion. Many have read this story as Poe’s own fantasy of literary revenge upon a group of critics and writers spreading rumors about his personal life. Hop-Frog’s enforced drunkenness echoes Poe’s claims that several of his drinking bouts had been forced on him. Toni Morrison and others have suggested that the image of the “burned and blackened bodies” may also have been a reference to slavery, a major political issue in Poe’s lifetime. Though Poe rarely addressed political issues directly, he strongly identified with the South.

Poe and Science

Poe was very much a scientific amateur (in the original sense of “appreciator”) and read the popular scientific literature of the day. His interests extended to geology, cosmology, astronomy, biology, mathematics, the exploration of the Poles, and the new field of psychology. Scientific discoveries provided subjects for some of his “magazinery.” The imprint of his reading can be seen in his fiction and most particularly in his prose poem Eureka, in which he put forth a cosmological theory that in some respects prefigures the “Big Bang” hypothesis of contemporary astronomers.

Despite Poe’s extensive interest in scientific inquiry, he feared that science and the imagination were ultimately at odds, as his early sonnet “To Science” makes clear. 49, 50 Two copies of the first edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Conchologist’s First Book. (Philadephia: Haswell, Barrington, and Haswell, 1839) Koester Poe Collection In order to sell a cheap reprint of his own conchology handbook, Thomas Wyatt paid Poe fifty dollars to paraphrase his text, but the edition was published under Poe’s name. Poe also “borrowed” illustrations of shells from a similar work by Capt. Thomas Brown and supplied an introduction. In addition to demonstrating Poe’s continuing need to raise money from menial writing, the Conchologist’s First Book shows Poe’s interest in science, since he consulted actively with the conchologist Dr. Edmund Ravenal while writing the book. 55 A pirated edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s Mesmerism “In Articulo Mortis” (London: Short & Co. 1846) Koester Poe Collection Poe’s tale was first published under the title, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” (1845). It concerned a man who is mesmerized (that is, hypnotized) at the moment of death and then awakened from his trance. The tale was taken as fact by many readers. Its content demonstrates Poe’s keen interest in the “hot” scientific controversies of his day. This English pamphlet shows that Poe’s works were appreciated outside his own country, though given the lack of international copyright laws, he would have received nothing from a pirated publication. 56 Edgar Allan Poe’s Eureka: A Prose Poem (New York: Putnam, 1848), with annotations by the author Koester Poe Collection Unique in American literature, Poe’s work is an exercise in cosmology (the study of the universe’s origins), a Romantic prose poem, and an early pre-figuration of modern theories of the “Big Bang.” Eureka identifies the beginning of space and time in a single point, although Poe incorrectly posits a universe that expands and contracts, rather than one that expands forever. He foresees a future in which human intelligence merges with matter, forcing the deity out of the cosmos altogether: “That God may be all in all, each must become God.” The author’s pencil corrections to the long poem are mostly minor.

57 A first edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (New York: Harper, 1838) Koester Poe Collection Poe’s only novel-length work of fiction, a portion of which appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger, is a sensationalist whaling narrative that has puzzled readers from Poe’s time (quite a few thought that Pym was a real person and his adventures fraudulent) to today. One school of modern criticism regards Pym as an interior voyage, while others find in it an allegory of slavery. The novel shows that Poe was well aware of the contemporaneous Wilkes sailing expeditions to Antarctica. 109, 126 William Sharp (American, 1900-1961) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Descent into the Maelstrom” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (New York: Heritage Press, 1941) Aquatint Etching Koester Poe Collection Arthur Rackham (American, 1867-1939) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Descent into the Maelstrom” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Pen and ink Koester Poe Collection Two interpretations of the narrator’s descent into the abyss of the whirlpool. The story may have been based on some contemporary accounts of exploration voyages. William Sharp was a German-American artist who illustrated the Heritage Press edition of Poe’s Tales. Sonnet — To Science. (1829, revised 1845) SCIENCE! true daughter of Old Time thou art! Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car? And driven the Hamadryad from the wood To seek a shelter in some happier star? Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

Poe in Love

Poe’s loss of his mother at a tender age may have shaped his relationships with women. He seemed to yearn for idealized, intellectual love and was drawn to married women who offered him both admiration and motherly concern. Known for his almost mesmeric charm, Poe seemed to affect women especially. Poe carried on a number of flirtations during his life, but was married only once, in 1835, to his young cousin Virginia Clemm. Early in 1842 Virginia showed the first symptoms of the tuberculosis that would kill her in 1847. Poe was deeply affected by Virginia’s illness and turned to drink. A letter to George Eveleth describes his state of mind during Virginia’s decline: “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” Poe was emotionally dependent on Virginia and her mother Maria Clemm, with whom he lived for the rest of his life. During his marriage, Poe participated in New York’s literary salon culture, mingling with other poets and thinkers in “conversazione,” often hosted at the home of salonnière Anne Lynch. He carried on a flirtation in verse with Frances Sargent Osgood, a New York poet who wrote playful and mildly erotic poetry. After Virginia’s death Poe’s friend Louise (or Loui) Shew, noting his dependence on the women in his life, urged him to remarry. He was drawn to other women poets, and was briefly engaged in 1848 to Sarah Helen Whitman, a literary critic and poet. At his death, he may have been engaged to Elmira (Royster) Shelton and was also involved in an intense romantic friendship with Nancy “Annie” Richmond. 11 A valentine from Edgar Allan Poe to Louise [Louisa?] Olivia Hunter, February 14, 1846[?] Koester Poe Collection

In 1845 Edgar Allan Poe was chair of the judging committee for the Rutgers Female Institute’s annual award for best composition. Poe read the winning poem, by Miss Hunter, at the Institute’s sixth commencement exercises in 1845. This valentine may have been written either in 1846 or in 1847, shortly after his wife Virginia’s death. During Virginia’s decline, Poe’s friend and confidante Louise Shew may have encouraged him to write poetry as a form of therapy; possibly this valentine was intended to be read at New York literary hostess Anne Lynch’s annual Valentine’s Day party, which Hunter was expected to attend. There is no evidence that Poe had any romantic interest in Hunter. 19 The first page of a letter from Edgar Allan Poe to Annie Richmond, June 16, [1849] Koester Poe Collection

In July 1848, Jane Locke, one of Poe’s admirers, introduced Poe to her young neighbor Nancy Richmond. Poe and “Annie,” as he nicknamed Mrs. Richmond, struck

up an intense romantic friendship, and she is the subject of his poem “For Annie.” In November 1848, having traveled to Providence to finalize his engagement to Sarah Helen Whitman, Poe suddenly left for Boston, near Annie’s home in Lowell. In Boston he tried to commit suicide by drinking laudanum, an opiate. While under its influence, he wrote Annie a desperate letter (now lost) reminding her of her promise to be with him when he died. In August 1849, while in Virginia courting Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton, Poe wrote to his deceased wife’s mother that he thought of moving the family to Lowell, stating “I must be somewhere where I can see Annie. . . . I want to live near Annie.” The letter shown here is the last known letter from Poe to Annie. After her husband’s death in 1873, Nancy Richmond legally changed her name to “Annie.” 20 A fragment of a letter from Edgar Allan Poe, possibly to Sarah Helen Whitman, [November 3, 1848] Koester Poe Collection Poe probably wrote this letter to Whitman from Lowell, Massachusetts where he was visiting admirers Jane Locke and Annie Richmond. Originally this letter was thought to be addressed to Richmond but is now thought to have been sent to Sarah Helen Whitman. 84, 104 A gold brooch with a lock of Edgar Allan Poe’s hair, given by Edgar Allan Poe to Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton, September 1849 Koester Poe Collection A mother-of-pearl purse, given by Edgar Allan Poe to Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton, undated Koester Poe Collection In the summer of 1849 Edgar Allan Poe traveled to Richmond, Virginia in the hope of persuading Shelton, who had briefly been his fiancée in 1826, to marry him. Though a romantic relationship appears to have developed, it is unclear whether they became engaged. Shelton later gave this brooch to her niece, along with this mother of pearl purse, also given to Shelton by Poe. The purse is marked “S. P. R., E. A. P” The “P.” in “S. P. R.” should have been an “E” for Elmira. Shelton is wearing the brooch in the undated photolithograph portrait in this case. 88 Unidentified photographer Cabinet card of Virginia Clemm Poe, undated Collodion photograph from a lithograph

Ransom Center Performing Arts Collection

Virginia Clemm was the daughter of Maria Poe Clemm, the sister of Poe’s father. Poe lived briefly with the widowed Maria “Muddy” Clemm and various family members in Baltimore from 1831 to 1834; Virginia was nine years old when they first met. The actual date of Poe’s marriage to his cousin is unclear. Though they were officially married on May 16, 1836, they may have been secretly married as early as September 22, 1835, when they took out a marriage license. Poe may have wanted to conceal the earlier date because of Virginia’s age.

Virginia first showed signs of tuberculosis in 1842 when she began to hemorrhage from the throat while singing. She died of this illness on January 30, 1847. Poe’s grief over Virginia’s illness led to further declines in his mental and physical health. 105 A poem by Frances Sargent Osgood, “To ——” published in Broadway Journal, November 29, 1845 Koester Poe Collection

Edgar Allan Poe met the poet Frances Sargent Osgood at a March 1845 soirée hosted by Anne Lynch, as he was settling into his editorial position at the Broadway Journal. Osgood was known for her whimsical, flirtatious poetry, and Thomas Dunn English later described Poe and Osgood at a gathering: “At my feet little Mrs. Osgood, doing the infantile act, [was] seated on a footstool, her face upturned to Poe.”

Though Poe and Osgood were both married, they carried on a flirtation through poetry, with Poe publishing valentine-style poems by himself and Osgood in the pages of the Broadway Journal. This poem, placed next to one of Poe’s short stories, opens with a quotation from Poe’s poem “Israfel.” 154 Sarah Elmira (Royster) Shelton, no date Halftone photo lithograph Koester Poe Collection Just before leaving Richmond in February 1826 to attend the University of Virginia, Poe apparently became engaged to Elmira Royster, a girl of fifteen who lived in the Allan family’s neighborhood. Royster’s father opposed the match and intercepted Poe’s letters from the university, ending the courtship.

In the summer of 1849, Poe traveled to Richmond hoping to convince Elmira, by then a wealthy widow, to marry him. At the time of his death, Poe had made some kind of agreement with Shelton, and was on his way to New York to bring his mother-in-law to Richmond. In his deathbed delirium, Poe claimed to have a wife in Richmond; Shelton insisted that they had never actually been engaged.

161 A portrait of Sarah Helen Whitman Mezzotint Koester Poe Collection Sarah Helen Whitman, a poet and literary critic based in Providence, Rhode Island, was briefly engaged to Poe in 1848. In a series of passionate letters to Whitman, Poe declared that he had felt a spiritual connection with Whitman (whom he addressed in one of his most quoted poems, “To Helen”) even before meeting her, writing “I cannot better explain to you what I felt than by saying that your unknown heart seemed to pass into my bosom—there to swell forever—while mine, I thought, was translated into your own.” Many of Whitman’s literary friends opposed the marriage, warning Whitman about Poe’s intemperance and instability. Whitman broke off the engagement after hearing a report that Poe was drinking, despite his promise to her to quit. 174 A letter from Sarah Helen Whitman to John Ingram, October 25, 1875 John Henry Ingram’s Poe Collection Special Collections, University of Virginia Library After Poe’s death in 1849, his one-time fiancée Whitman went to considerable lengths to defend Poe against his detractors, particularly Rufus W. Griswold. Whitman published Edgar Poe and His Critics in 1860, and a second edition was published after her death. She also corresponded with J. H. Ingram, an Englishman eager for biographical information from Poe’s friends. Whitman wrote many letters to Ingram describing her experiences with Poe and her impressions of him. In this letter, Whitman describes her stormy last encounter with Poe, when she broke their engagement. 175 A letter from Edgar Allan Poe to George W. Eveleth, January 4, 1848 The second page is a digital reproduction Koester Poe Collection

This dramatic letter contains Poe’s fullest description of Virginia Poe’s illness and death in 1847, including his insistence that she died of complications resulting from a ruptured blood vessel. George W. Eveleth was a young medical student in Maine who admired Poe. The two men corresponded from late 1845 until Poe’s death in 1849. Eveleth sent Poe extended critiques of Poe’s work and work by others. Poe seemed to appreciate Eveleth’s tough-mindedness and wrote to him about literary and personal matters alike. 178

Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Coliseum,” in Poe’s hand and his poem “To ——” in Virginia Poe’s hand in an album owned by Mary Estelle Herring, ca. 1841 Koester Poe Collection

Around 1833, Poe inscribed several flirtatious poems in Mary Herring’s half-sister Elizabeth Rebecca Herring’s album, including an early version of the poem transcribed here by Virginia Poe. In September 1845 Poe published another version of this poem as “To F——s S. O——d” in the Broadway Journal. Poe considered “The Coliseum” to be one of his best poems.

Mary Estelle Herring was the daughter of Henry Herring and his second wife; Herring’s first wife had been Edgar Allan Poe’s aunt Elizabeth “Eliza” Poe. In 1840 Henry and Mary Herring settled in Philadelphia, where they frequently socialized with Poe and his family. 87 [Vitrine] Sixth-plate “Barrett” daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe, made from the “Ultima Thule” daguerreotype portrait, November 1848 The Gimbel Poe Collection The Free Library of Philadelphia On November 5, 1848, in a misguided attempt to arouse compassion in both Annie Richmond and Sarah Helen Whitman, Poe tried to commit suicide by drinking laudanum. He became delirious but survived. Four days later he sat for a portrait, of which this is one of five copies; the original is lost. Whitman dubbed this, the most famous of all Poe images, “Ultima Thule” (a geographer’s term for a place beyond the known world), reflecting the extremity of his state.

Text Panel: Poe’s Writings Few writers have made an enduring mark in so many genres. In the Tales of the Grotesque & Arabesque, Poe set a lasting standard for the horror tale. In his three great tales of ratiocination from the early 1840s, Poe fundamentally created the modern detective story from whole cloth. As a poet, Poe was notable for the unusual rhythms and hypnotic repetitions that made works such as “Annabel Lee” and “The Bells” treasured pieces for Victorian podium and parlor recitation (and also made them subject to a host of crude imitations and parodies). Few poets have been more successful in exploring the worlds of twilight, dreams, and altered states. Represented here by manuscripts, editions, parodies and illustrations, “The Raven” alone has confirmed Poe’s place in the poetic pantheon. In his writings about literature, Poe helped create the foundations for a distinctively American literary criticism. With most of his criticism embedded in occasional

magazine reviews, Poe never fully developed a consistent literary theory. Nevertheless, his work was much discussed in its day and helped shape the critical canon that followed, especially in the field of poetics. Poe blasted pretense, “puffery,” and plagiarism (though occasionally dabbling in all three himself), made fun of popular literary formulas, and along the way made plenty of enemies among the most famous American writers of the day. Poe the Poet Poe’s earliest published poems were ambitious. Long poems like “Tamerlane” and “Al Aaraaf” are epic in scope, attempts by the young poet to control metaphysical, historical, and philosophical themes beyond his abilities. These and the later poems show the influence of the British Romantic poets, whose works were widely read at the time: Coleridge, Shelley, and most of all, the scandalous Lord Byron. In the last decade of his life, Poe found his voice in the ballad form, producing a haunting body of work that is at once incantatory and almost scientific in its technical precision. The critical response to Poe’s verse has been marked by ambivalence from the start: while most acknowledge the virtuosity and originality of Poe’s poems, and many note his control of atmosphere and timing, others find his Gothic settings and dramatic themes to be overwrought. 13 A letter from Edgar Allan Poe to Isaac Lea concerning “Al Aaraaf,” [May 1829] Digital reproduction of second and third pages Koester Poe Collection

Two years after his first book of poems was published to no reviews, the struggling twenty-year-old poet sent this letter to prominent Philadelphia publishers Carey, Lea, and Carey. Breaking into verse, he explains his dedication to poetry, and then offers a lengthy explanation of his new work, “Al Aaraaf.” Widely regarded to be his most difficult poem, it charts a philosophical cosmography that draws from a wide range of historical and religious traditions.

At the end of the letter, Poe writes, “If the poem is published, succeed or not, I am ‘irrecoverably a poet.’” Carey, Lea, and Carey did not publish the poem, but segments of it appeared a few months later in a magazine, and the entire work in Poe’s next volume. 30 Edgar Allan Poe’s Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (Baltimore: Hatch & Dunning, 1829) Although Poe’s rare first volume, Tamerlane, marks the start of his career, it was his second book that received reviews and began his rise in the literary world. Poe radically revised “Tamerlane” for this volume, cutting almost half of the poem published in 1827.

Reviews were mixed: one reviewer stated “A part are boyish, feeble, and altogether deficient in the common characteristics of poetry; but then we have parts and parts too of considerable length, which remind us of no less a poet than Shelley.” 29 An offprint of John Neal’s “Unpublished Poetry,” published in The Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette, September 1829 Koester Poe Collection In this issue of John Neal’s newspaper, selections from Poe’s soon-to-be published volume Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Other Poems were published above the signature “Marlow.” In this essay, Neal writes favorably of the unknown young author, stating that though much of his work is “nonsense,” he “might make a beautiful and perhaps a magnificent poem.” Poe wrote back to Neal, telling him enthusiastically about his desire to be a poet. Poe later said that Neal’s were ”the very first words of encouragement I ever remember to have heard.” 31 Edgar Allan Poe’s Poems (New York: E. Bliss, 1831)

Poe called this volume a second edition, considering it a revision of his 1829 volume of poems. It contained several new poems, including an early version of the important work, “To Helen,” and an essay entitled “Letter to Mr. —,” his first known prose publication and a formulation of his poetic philosophy, drawn heavily from Coleridge.

This volume is dedicated to “the U. S. Corps of Cadets,” Poe’s fellow students at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point. A number of the students subscribed to the forthcoming volume, expecting it to include Poe’s satiric portraits of academy officers, which played a part in his eventual dismissal from the academy. They were surprised to find those portraits were not included. 4 A page of a manuscript of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Politian, a Tragedy,” ca. 1835 Koester Poe Collection Poe’s blank verse revenge drama is set in sixteenth-century Rome and is written in imitation of Renaissance tragedies. Five scenes from “Politian” were published in 1835, but Poe never completed the play. 3 A manuscript of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Eulalie,” ca. 1843-1844

Koester Poe Collection When Poe composed this short ballad, he was a critic much in demand. In 1842, he had published his first essay on versification, a shorter version of what would become “The Rationale of Verse,” drafted in 1846. This poem’s thick texture reflects that essay’s concern with technicalities of accent and rhythm. “Eulalie” was first published in the American Review, July 1845. 2 A manuscript of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Bells by Mrs. M. L. Shew,” 1848 Koester Poe Collection

The poems published just after Poe’s death are among his most popular: “Annabelle Lee” and “The Bells.” “The Bells” was written with the assistance of Poe’s good friend Loui Shew, whom he visited one evening in 1848, complaining that he lacked inspiration to write a poem. According to one version of the story, she offered the opening line and he completed the first stanza, she offered an opening line for the second stanza, and so on.

“The Bells” is a masterpiece of onomatopoeia: the sounds of the words directly reflect the mood evoked by each bell described. This manuscript shows the poem’s earliest form, which Poe eventually expanded to four stanzas. 5 A letter from Edgar Allan Poe to Rufus W. Griswold, including a stanza of “Lenore,” [May 1849] Koester Poe Collection

The three poems mentioned in this letter were published by Griswold in the tenth edition of his Poets and Poetry of America (1849). Griswold had first included Poe in the 1842 edition of his influential anthology.

After Poe’s death, Griswold reprinted this letter, adding a forged postscript in which “Poe” speaks dismissively about the publishers George Graham and Louis Godey. Presumably, Griswold hoped to discourage both men from defending Poe against Griswold’s repeated assaults on Poe’s reputation. 116 Edmund Dulac (French, 1882-1953) An illustration of “The Haunted Palace” for publication in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Bells and Other Poems (New York: Hodder and Stoughton, [1912]) Watercolor

“The Haunted Palace” was published twice in 1839, first alone, and then as part of the tale “The Fall of the House of Usher,” where it appears as a poem written by the character Roderick Usher. 163 William Heath Robinson (English, 1872-1944) An illustration for Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Ulalume,” for publication in The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (London: George Bell, 1900) Pen and ink Koester Poe Collection 183 Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, accompanied by a biographical sketch, in the Philadelphia Saturday Museum (March 1843) Digital Reproduction Gift of James Southall Wilson Special Collections, University of Virginia Library At a time when Poe’s poetry was still relatively unknown, the Museum reprinted a substantial selection of his poems. The article also bolstered Poe’s literary credentials by quoting the praise of prominent literary figures such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Depicting Poe as a Byronic hero, Romantic genius, adventurer, and model of athletic prowess with a distinguished family pedigree, this profile contributed to his growing reputation. Based on Poe’s own boastful assertions, the sketch takes great liberties with the facts, while consistently turning his disappointments into triumphs.

Poe and the Detective Story

Each [of Poe's detective stories] is a root from which a whole literature has developed.

—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle It is almost impossible to believe that the detective story, at least in its familiar modern form, did not exist before Poe (even the word “detective” does not appear in the language before 1843). There were glimmerings of what was to be, but nothing like “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” published in 1841, the first of Poe’s three great “tales of ratiocination.” These can be related to and grow out of Poe’s well-documented interest in decoding and cryptography, which was to inspire the classic tale “The Gold Bug.”

Poe’s fascination with the powers of the human mind led to his creation of the fictional detective Auguste Dupin. This memorable and eccentric figure is almost godlike not only in his extraordinary mental capacities but also in his knowledge of human psychology; he can be regarded as a surrogate for the Romantic writer or perhaps Poe himself. Nearly every major author of detective fiction has acknowledged

Poe as an inspiration, and the same holds true for fiction writers whose subject is ratiocination—or, reasoning—such as Jorge Luis Borges. 17 A letter from Edgar Allan Poe to Frederick W. Thomas, July 4, 1841 Digital reproduction Koester Poe Collection This letter begins with a mention of Poe’s long-running and unsuccessful attempts to find a government job and publish the Penn Magazine. The rest concerns Poe’s challenge to readers of an 1839 issue of a Philadelphia newspaper. He had asked them to send in unsolvable cryptograms like the one mentioned in this letter—and then managed to solve them all with ease. This led to a series of pieces in Graham’s Magazine on cryptography and secret writing. 18 A letter from Edgar Allan Poe to Frederick W. Thomas, May 14, 1845 Digital reproduction of second page Koester Poe Collection On the back of the letter, Poe’s friend Frederick Thomas has written “A gentleman in the land office in Washington inspecting [?] in some papers in which he found a letter in cipher, and having heard me to get him to decipher it which I did. T.” Poe decoded the letter easily and as usual did not suffer fools, such as the person who constructed the cipher, gladly. 54 The first appearance of Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Study in Scarlet” in Beeton’s Christmas Annual, 1887

There are many connections between Sherlock Holmes, who was introduced to the world in this story, and Poe’s Auguste Dupin: both are cerebral detectives who consider themselves superior to mere policeman. Both use their knowledge of psychology and human nature to identify criminals. Although Sherlock Holmes was known to be critical of Dupin’s methods, his creator frequently expressed admiration for his great predecessor. In 1894, a reporter asked Conan Doyle if he had been influenced by Poe. He replied, "Oh immensely! His detective is the best detective in fiction!" 60

The first appearance of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Purloined Letter” in The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1845 (Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1845) Poe contributed a number of tales to The Gift, one of many lavishly bound Victorian annuals aimed mostly at women. The author proclaimed it “perhaps the best of my tales of ratiocination,” and most would agree. Here Auguste Dupin solves the mystery of a missing letter by finding hiding it in plain sight, one-upping the chief of police in the process. 61 Edgar Allan Poe’s revisions to “The Gold Bug,” in his copy of The Raven and Other Poems bound with Tales (New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1845) The Rufus Griswold-James Lorimer Graham copy Koester Poe Collection

Seizing upon popular interest in codes and cryptograms, Poe wrote “The Gold Bug,” a nearly perfect tale of suspense, which was sent first to Graham’s and later to a Philadelphia newspaper offering a prize of one hundred dollars. He won the award and saw the story become one of his greatest popular successes.

This particular copy belonged to Poe and contains significant autograph revisions to one of his best-known tales. Poe’s additions concern the significance of the bleached human skull used by Captain Kidd to mark the location of the buried treasure. These speak to his craft and concern for precision of detail. 86 The first book appearance of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” in The Prose Romances of Edgar A. Poe (Philadelphia: William H. Graham, 1843) The Gimbel Poe Collection Clifton Walter Barrett Library of American Literature Special Collections, University of Virginia Library The first modern detective story, originally published by Graham’s and then republished here as volume one of Poe’s “prose romances” (later volumes never appeared). It remains one of the most sought-after books by collectors of detective fiction. The story features the analytical detective C. Auguste Dupin, who solves the Parisian murder of a mother and daughter by careful examination of the evidence. Rejecting a series of red herrings and obvious solutions, he arrives at the correct solution: the victims were killed by an escaped. . . (the ending will not be revealed here!). 90

An offprint of Edgar Allan Poe’s “A Few Words on Secret Writing” in Graham's Magazine, July 1841 Koester Poe Collection In 1839, Poe challenged readers to send him an unsolvable cipher. He received nearly a hundred and broke them all except one. This article exaggerated the difficulty of the challenges and the brilliance of his own solutions, yet it is obvious that Poe had a special affinity for code breaking, and used it successfully as a theme in his fiction. 92 A typescript of Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Chat with Conan Doyle,” for Gramaphone [sic] Record, ca. 1931 Arthur Conan Doyle Papers, Harry Ransom Center The transcript of Doyle’s interview indicates that Poe’s detective stories were one of the principal sources for the Sherlock Holmes stories. 179 The manuscript of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” 1841 The Gimbel Poe Collection Free Library of Philadelphia

This is the first of the three classic detective stories by Poe (along with “The Mystery of Marie Roget” and “The Purloined Letter”) that established the genre. There had been earlier tales of mysteries solved by analysis and police work but nothing like this. “Murders” has all the trappings of the modern detective story: an intelligent detective, his sidekick, an obtuse policeman, and a seemingly unsolvable mystery. The original manuscript (published in Graham’s, April 1841) was discarded but retrieved from the trash. It subsequently survived three fires and ended up at the Free Library of Philadelphia. At the last minute, Poe changed the title from “Murders in the Rue Trianon” to heighten the association with death. 110 William Sharp (American, 1900-1961) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (New York: Heritage, 1941) Aquatint Etching Koester Poe Collection 128 Arthur Rackham (American, 1867-1939)

A tailpiece illustration for Edgar Allan Poe’s “Man of the Crowd” in Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Pen and ink Koester Poe Collection 129 Arthur Rackham (American, 1867-1939) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Gold Bug” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Pen and ink Koester Poe Collection 131 Arthur Rackham (American, 1867-1939) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Pen and ink Koester Poe Collection 132 Arthur Rackham (American, 1867-1939) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Pen and ink Koester Poe Collection Poe the Critic

Finding it difficult to make a living writing poetry, Poe turned to criticism and journalism in the 1830s. His literary reviews gained him a reputation for sharp criticism based on a highly rational, almost scientific analysis of works. As critic Brett Zimmerman has noted, “Poe’s reputation as a literary tomahawk man was founded in part on his love of ridicule when he felt it was called for.” When his book The Raven and Other Tales was published in 1845, Margaret Fuller noted in the New York Daily Tribune that “a large band of . . . offended dignitaries and aggrieved parents must be on the watch for a volume of ‘Poems by Edgar Allan Poe’, ready to cut, rend and slash in turn.”

Poe strongly resisted and resented indiscriminate “puffing,” or overpraising, of works simply because they were by American authors. He represented himself as a critic out to rescue American readers from the clutches of biased literary cliques. He was especially critical of the Boston literary community, which he referred to scornfully

as “the Frogpondians.” Some Bostonians were none too fond of Poe themselves; Ralph Waldo Emerson once referred to Poe as “that jingle man.” 23 A manuscript fragment of Edgar Allan Poe’s essay “The Rationale of Verse,” date unknown Koester Poe Collection Poe sold this essay, a highly technical treatment of meter and versification, to two magazines, neither of which printed the piece. Two years after the essay was first written, John R. Thompson finally published it in the October 1848 Southern Literary Messenger. Poe believed that the other magazines had refused to print it because it was too critical of Boston writers. Thompson claimed, however, that he bought the essay “more as an act of charity than anything else” because it was “altogether too bizarre and too technical for the general reader.” It is not regarded as one of Poe’s best works. 16 A letter from Edgar Allan Poe to John R. Thompson, January 31, 1849 Koester Poe Collection In January 1849 Poe proposed to John R. Thompson, the editor of the Richmond-based Southern Literary Messenger, a continuation of Poe’s earlier published “Marginalia” series, a collection of aphorisms and commentary that Poe whimsically claimed to have taken from the marginalia of his books. The “Marginalia” included caustic comments on other writers, and in this letter to Thompson, enclosing an installment of further “Marginalia,” Poe instructs Thompson that the editor might remove anything deemed “too gossipping” [sic]. The essays were eventually collected by Rufus Griswold (perhaps with malicious intentions) after Poe’s death. 36 Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Philosophy of Composition” in Graham’s Magazine, April 1846 In this famous essay, Poe offers readers an explanation of how he created his poem, “The Raven.” The essay includes one of Poe’s most famous statements: “the death. . . of a beautiful woman, is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.” By the end of the essay, the rational analysis breaks down, and the essay ends by quoting the end of “The Raven” itself. It is not clear whether Poe intended “The Philosophy of Composition” as an actual description of his creative process or as a hoax or publicity stunt. 37

A review by [Nathaniel P. Willis] of Edgar Allan Poe’s lecture, “The Poets and Poetry of America” in the New York Weekly Mirror, March 8, 1845 On February 28, 1845, Poe delivered a lecture on “The Poets and Poetry of America” to an audience of three hundred at the Society Library in New York. Capitalizing on the fame of his poem “The Raven,” Poe presented critical interpretations of major American poets and cutting assessments of the state of American literary criticism. The critic E. A. Duyckinck noted, “Mr. Poe’s manner was that of a versed and resolute man, applying to a hideous sore a keen and serviceable knife.” In his lecture, Poe also repeated the charges of plagiarism he had made against Henry Wadsworth Longfellow earlier in the year, making his animosity toward this extremely popular poet even more public. 38 The second page of a letter from Horace Greeley to William H. C. Hosmer, May 7, 1846 Koester Poe Collection Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Daily Tribune from 1841 until his death in 1872, here describes Poe’s “Literati” series, published in the popular Godey’s Lady’s Magazine in the spring of 1841. Greeley also refers to Poe’s disastrous reading in Boston in October 1845. The Boston press claimed that Poe had tried to insult Bostonians by appearing to be drunk onstage and reciting an obviously recycled poem, “Al Aaraaf,” written in his youth. Poe afterward claimed that he had intended to insult the Bostonians in order to publicize his 1845 volume The Raven and Other Poems, noting that the volume included “Al Aaraaf,” the poem “with which we quizzed the Bostonians.” 39 The first page of a letter from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to George R. Graham, February 19, 1845, written in Frances Appleton Longfellow’s hand, signed by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Koester Poe Collection In January 1845 Poe published the first of a series of articles accusing noted poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of plagiarism. Reviewing Longfellow’s anthology The Waif, Poe wrote,

There does appear, in this exquisite little volume, a very careful avoidance of all American poets who may be supposed especially to interfere with the claims of Mr. Longfellow. These men Mr. Longfellow can continuously imitate (is that the word?) and yet never even incidentally commend.

Longfellow asked that Graham publish a response in Graham’s Magazine but did not comment publicly on Poe’s attacks. In a letter to James Russell Lowell he remarked, “I have had nothing to do with the discussion, and shall have nothing to do with it; as I consider, with you, life too precious to be wasted in street brawls.”

40 A portrait of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in Graham’s Magazine, May 1843 Engraving thought to be based on a drawing by Wilhelm Hendrik Franquinet This portrait was published alongside a profile of Longfellow; Graham’s later published a portrait and profile of Poe, in February 1845. Poe’s allegations of plagiarism against Longfellow began as early as 1840, when in his review of Longfellow’s first volume of poetry, Voices of the Night, Poe suggested that Longfellow’s poem “Midnight Mass for the Dying Year” was a “plagiarism. . . too palpable to be mistaken” from Alfred Tennyson’s poem “The Death of the Old Year.” 103 A manuscript fragment of Edgar Allan Poe’s proposed book “Literary America,” ca. 1849 Koester Poe Collection This fragment is based on the “Laughton Osborn” sketch from Poe’s “The Literati of New York City,” published in Godey’s Lady’s Book in June 1846. “The Literati” offered sharp-tongued critiques of New York writers, including assessments of personality and even personal appearance. The sketches were so controversial that Louis Godey printed this caveat with the September 1846 installment: “We positively assert that they are published as written by Mr. Poe, without any alteration or suggestion from us.” When Poe made fun of onetime friend Thomas Dunn English’s grammar and added eight years to his age, English published an insulting response referring to Poe’s drinking. Poe successfully sued English for libel. “The Raven” Upon its publication in January 1845, “The Raven” captivated a national audience, transforming Poe into a literary celebrity overnight. In the work, the melancholy narrator is bemoaning the loss of his beloved Lenore when he receives a visit from an eerie raven. “The Raven” is widely noted for its rhythm, stylized diction, and haunting tone. Poe’s friend Nathaniel Parker Willis prefaced the advance printing with the accurate prediction that the poem would “stick to the memory of everyone who reads it.” Since its initial appearance, “The Raven” has been republished and illustrated countless times in numerous languages. The raven’s famous utterance of “nevermore” has imprinted itself onto the minds of readers as few words in literature have, and the narrator and his tormentor have inspired a wide range of illustrators. Every generation since has appropriated the poem’s trademark rhythm and refrain—using them in adaptations ranging from “The Vulture,” printed in 1853, to various Mad magazine spoofs, to a memorable appearance on “The Simpsons.”

9 A fair copy manuscript of the final stanza of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” ca. 1846 Koester Poe Collection This manuscript was prepared by Poe for presentation to an unknown recipient, about a year after the poem’s original publication. 43, 42 An illustration of “Grip,” in the first American edition of Charles Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1842) VanderPoel Dickens Collection The first edition of James Russell Lowell’s Fable for Critics (New York: Putnam, 1848) The Library of John Stuart Groves

Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge, published in weekly installments in 1841, introduced the character of Grip, a raven. Although Poe wrote an uncharacteristically favorable review of the novel, he found fault with the story’s predictable outcome. Poe also considered Grip’s character to be underdeveloped; he suggested that the raven’s “croakings might have been prophetically heard in the course of the drama.” Grip undoubtedly served as an inspiration for Poe’s raven. As early as 1848, poet and editor James Russell Lowell wrote: “There comes Poe with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge/Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge.”

Poe’s newspaper review of Barnaby Rudge is displayed on the wall nearby.

80 The only known complete manuscript of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” date unknown The Gimbel Poe Collection Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia Poe spent four years writing and revising “The Raven.” Shortly before its publication, he explained to a friend how the work haunted him: “that bird, that imp pursues me, mentally, perpetually: I cannot rid myself of its presence; as I sit here, I hear its croak. . . the flap of its wings in my ear.” In the winter of 1844-1845, Poe sold the manuscript to The American Review for ten dollars. Though the poem was wildly popular and its publication made Poe a household name, it did not bring financial success. 41 The first printing of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” in The American Review (February 1845)

The first printing of “The Raven,” typeset directly from Poe’s manuscript, appeared in The American Review. The attribution of “Quarles” was in keeping with the periodical’s practice of publishing poems anonymously or under a pseudonym. The New York Mirror published the poem—likely typeset from proofs of The American Review—in advance of that magazine. This version named Poe as its author and was prefaced by Willis’s effusive introduction: “In our opinion, it is the most effective single example of ‘fugitive poetry’ ever published in this country; and unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification.”

64 An illuminated manuscript of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” in Selected Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (London, 1911), illuminated and bound by Robert Rivière & Son Koester Poe Collection The widespread appeal and memorable imagery of “The Raven” generated many illustrated editions. Typically the publications were mass-produced, but some elaborate editions boasted traditional craftsmanship. This illuminated manuscript of “The Raven” appears in a handcrafted, vellum volume of Poe’s Selected Poems with an elaborate binding decorated with gold leaf. 199 “The Simpsons” television show “Raven” action figure, ca. 2007 Special Collections, University of Virginia Library The writers of “The Simpsons” reinterpreted “The Raven” for the 1990 special Halloween episode, “Treehouse of Horror.” As James Earl Jones reads the original text of the poem, the Simpsons characters appear in immediately recognizable roles from the work. This action figure captures their memorable performances: Homer as the poem’s main character, Marge as Lenore, Lisa and Maggie as seraphim, and Bart as the raven.

173, 91 An offprint of “The Vulture: A Parody” in Graham’s Magazine, December 1853 “The Hip Raven” in Mad magazine, June 1960 The structure and ready-made rhythms of “The Raven” proved easy to exploit for comedic effect. “The Vulture,” which appeared in Graham’s magazine in 1853, opened with “Once upon a midnight chilling, as I held my feet unwilling. . . .” Further parodies with titles such as “The Gazelle,” “The Whippoorwill,” and “The Turkey” followed. A century later, spoofs like the one displayed here have appeared from time to time in

Mad magazine. “The Reagan,” a 1986 Mad parody, replaced the poem’s familiar words with “Quoth Wes Craven, Let’s make more!” 106 Edgar Allan Poe’s review of Charles Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge in the Saturday Evening Post, May 1, 1841 Koester Poe Collection

Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge, published in weekly installments in 1841, introduced the character of Grip, a raven. Although Poe wrote an uncharacteristically favorable review of the novel, he found fault with the story’s predictable outcome. Poe also considered Grip’s character to be underdeveloped; he suggested that the raven’s “croakings might have been prophetically heard in the course of the drama.” Grip undoubtedly served as an inspiration for Poe’s raven. As early as 1848, poet and editor James Russell Lowell wrote: “There comes Poe with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge/Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge.”

171, 172

Edouard Manet (French, 1832-1883) Two illustrations from Stéphane Mallarmé’s Le Corbeau (Paris: R. Lesclide, 1875) Lithograph Manet’s approach, characterized by suggestive forms and minimal detail, sets this work apart from other illustrations of the “The Raven.” Avoiding the gothic tone of other artists’ interpretations, Manet still achieves a dizzying effect in these images. 190-196 James Carling (English, 1857-1887) Seven illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” ca. 1882 The Edgar Allan Poe Museum, Richmond, Virginia As a youth in Liverpool, England, Carling worked as a street pavement artist. He later traveled to America, hoping to achieve fame. At twenty-four, the artist entered a competition to illustrate an edition of “The Raven”—a competition won by the older and more accomplished Gustave Doré. Although lacking Doré’s mastery, Carling’s drawings offer an insightful and strikingly psychological interpretation. His atmospheric images effectively mimic the narrator’s internal torment and madness. Doré’s Raven

The French illustrator, painter, and sculptor Gustave Doré established his

reputation in 1854 when he produced a series of illustrations for Rabelais; over the course of his career, he illustrated many monuments of world literature, such as Dante’s Divine Comedy, La Fontaine’s Fables, Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” and Milton’s Paradise Lost. His wood engravings are distinctive for their grand romantic tone, monochromatic palette, and heavy contrast between light and shadow.

At the end of his career, Doré accepted his first and only American commission, a series of illustrations of Poe’s “The Raven,” published just after his death. The resulting volume downplays the raven, emphasizing instead “the enigma of death and the hallucination of an inconsolable soul.” The original drawing displayed on the wall here was transformed into a wood engraving to be printed for this edition.

187, 188 Gustave Doré’s illustrated edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven (New York: Harper Brothers, 1884) Hanley Collection Gustave Doré’s illustrated edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven (New York: Harper Brothers, 1884) Erle Stanley Gardner Collection Wall: 122 Gustave Doré (1832-1883) An illustration for Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven (New York: Harper Brothers, 1884), ca. 1883 Ink, wash, and white pigment on paper mounted on board Koester Poe Collection Poe’s Legacies Following his ignominious death in a Baltimore hospital, Poe’s reputation was greatly marred by his literary executor and editor Rufus Griswold, who used the posthumous publication of Poe’s works to disparage both his morals and his literary abilities. Poe, as a result, descended into obscurity. Within a few decades, however, Poe emerged from out that shadow and into the light of general acceptance in the American literary canon. Also explored here is Poe’s enduring influence on the detective story and on modern English, American, and French authors. Like another American poet of the same period, Walt Whitman, Poe holds a privileged place in the regard of European writers. For instance, French writers were the first to appreciate fully Poe’s originality. Poe became a guiding light for Charles Baudelaire and Les Symbolistes and later for such European authors as Algernon Swinburne, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Paul Valéry.

Death and Infamy

Poe’s death in Baltimore on October 7, 1849 is shrouded in mystery. He had recently arrived from Richmond and was found drunk and disarrayed in a tavern, which also served as a polling place, on October 3, and was sent to the hospital. He was cared for by Dr. J. J. Moran, whose differing accounts of Poe’s condition have added to the obscurity surrounding the death. The cause was first described as delirium from alcohol poisoning but has also been identified as murder, a chronic fever, or (most recently) a brain tumor; Poe’s last days have been the subject of several fictional and nonfictional works. The relationship between Poe and his literary executor, Rev. Rufus Griswold, is one of the strangest in literary history. Soon after Poe’s death, Griswold began a campaign to brand Poe as an irresponsible drunkard. It was a campaign of motiveless malignancy, based on distortions, forgeries, and half-truths. It took several decades for Poe’s reputation, at least in the United States, to recover from these assaults. By 1900, in part because of his European admirers, he was at last regarded by most critics as one of the most original and innovative American authors of the century. Griswold, on the other hand, is remembered only as Poe’s antagonist. 12 A letter from Edgar Allan Poe to Rufus W. Griswold, spring 1841 Koester Poe Collection Poe met Griswold, an ordained Baptist minister and man of letters, for the first time shortly before writing this letter. In later years they quarreled frequently in person and in print, so it is unclear why Poe would have appointed Griswold as his literary executor and the editor of his posthumous works, as Griswold claimed. 21 A letter from Edgar Allan Poe to Estelle (Sarah) Anna Lewis Robinson, September 18, 1849 Koester Poe Collection This is one of the last letters that Poe ever wrote and among the most poignant. At this time he was in Richmond, his hometown, giving a series of public lectures, shortly before his departure for Baltimore at the end of the month. Mrs. Lewis had looked after his mother-in-law, Maria Clemm, on many occasions. 24 A portrait of Rufus W. Griswold in Graham's Magazine, June 1845 Digital reproduction

44 Edgar Allan Poe’s copy of Thomas Moore’s Melodies, Songs, Sacred Songs, and National Airs (New York, Goodrich, 1819) Digital reproduction of title page Koester Poe Collection Poe left his copy of Moore’s poems in the office of his physician, Dr. John Carter, in Richmond on September 26, 1849. He probably was suffering from a fever or another serious medical problem (one which may have contributed to his death in Baltimore on October 7th). The “Augusta” noted on the title page could well be the name of the boat he took to that city the next day. 58 Edgar Allan Poe’s The Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe, with an introduction by William F. Gill (New York: Widdleton, 1876). Koester Poe Collection Poe’s literary rehabilitation began with revisionist biographies by William F. Gill and J. H. Ingram. Gill prepared a “Vindication” of Poe for this edition of Poe’s Works to counter Griswold’s aspersions. Ingram became obsessed with Poe as a young man and corresponded with Poe’s friends, such as Sarah Helen Whitman; these letters are now part of the Ingram papers at the University of Virginia. However, Gill and Ingram were intensely partisan and added their own distortions to the biographical record. 62 Edgar Allan Poe’s The Literati (New York and Boston: J. S. Redfield & B. B. Mussey, 1850) Rufus Griswold’s copy, inscribed and presented to James Russell Lowell Koester Poe Collection Griswold edited and posthumously published Poe’s Literati sketches of contemporary literary figures, many of them women. He accompanied the edition with a biographical and critical essay on Poe that stressed his instability, drunkenness, and poor character. Since the Literati pieces were often unflattering, their republication may have been a way of further damaging Poe’s reputation. 63 A letter from Maria Clemm to an unknown recipient, March 9, 1852, in a copy of Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe (New York: Redfield, 1852) Koester Poe Collection

Following Poe’s death, Mrs. Clemm was dependent on charity and the money raised from sales of donated copies of her son-in-law’s posthumous Works. Here she attempts to sell a set for $3.75. 74 A letter from Maria Clemm to Annie Richmond, September 15, 1849 John Henry Ingram’s Poe Collection Special Collections, University of Virginia Library Mrs. Clemm writes about her own poverty and illness, referring to her fervent hope that Poe would keep his temperance pledge, which would mean “the dark dark clouds are begin[n]ing to break.” At this time Poe was in Richmond giving lectures. Less than a month later, Poe would be found drunk and near death in a Baltimore tavern. 95 George R. Graham’s “The Late Edgar Allan Poe,” in Graham's Magazine, March 1850 Koester Poe Collection Graham had hired Poe as the editor of Graham’s Magazine (his successor was Rufus Griswold) and knew both men well. His balanced memoir of Poe is critical of Griswold and was favorably regarded by Maria Clemm and other defenders of Poe. 180 Rufus Griswold’s obituary for Edgar Allan Poe in the New York Daily Tribune, October 9, 1849 Digital Reproduction Gift of Atcheson L. Hench Special Collections, University of Virginia Library Writing as “Ludwig,” Griswold abruptly announces that Poe is dead and crassly observes, “few will be grieved by it.” He proceeds to attack the late author as friendless, mentally unstable, alcoholic, and erratic in all respects. His “Memoir” of Poe, written for the hastily assembled 1850 edition of Poe’s works, continued in the same hostile vein. 150 Hopper Emery Poe’s Tomb in Westminster Church Yard, Baltimore Etching Koester Poe Collection

Poe was buried in the late afternoon of October 8, the day following his death, with about ten people in attendance. The service lasted some three minutes. Since the 1950s, a mysterious figure in black has left cognac and three roses at the gravesite. Recently, some residents of Boston have argued that Poe’s body should be removed to that city, where he was born. Poe in France

Nowhere is Edgar Allan Poe more revered than in France. While Poe’s reputation declined in America during the years immediately following his death, his cause was taken up by the poet Charles Baudelaire, a pioneer of French modernism. Baudelaire’s translations and promotion of Poe lifted his standing as an author of true literary significance and made him a prime influence on Symbolist poetry of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. French fictional detectives such as M. Teste (Paul Valéry) and Maigret (Georges Simenon) are unthinkable without Poe’s Dupin. Like their literary counterparts, French artists found Poe— his works and his visage—to be an inspiring and fascinating subject. Edouard Manet and Henri Matisse are among those who offered their unique interpretations of Poe’s likeness. Manet also illustrated “The Raven,” highlighting the poem’s eerie tone, while Odilon Redon’s work evokes the supernatural and the bizarre. 45 “Une Lettre Volée” in Magasin Pittoresque, August 1845 Perry-Castañeda Library, The University of Texas at Austin An extremely free and unauthorized adaption of “The Purloined Letter” for a French audience, this is one of the earliest appearances of Poe in France. Later, Charles Baudelaire would be the first to make most of Poe’s works available in translation to a French audience. 46 Marie Bonaparte’s Edgar Poe, étude psychoanalytique (Paris: Denoël et Steele, 1933) Koester Poe Collection Bonaparte was a distant relation of Napoleon and a French protégée of Sigmund Freud, who provided a preface to her psychoanalytical study of Poe. She became fascinated with Poe’s stories at an early age and found in them considerable evidence of his Oedipal fixations, which she sees as related to the early loss of his mother, and various other neuroses. 59

J.-K.Huysmans’s A Rebours [Against the Grain] (Paris: G. Charpentier, 1884 [1894 reprint]) Huysmans’ “decadent” novel features a protagonist named Des Esseintes whose “thirst for a wilder Beauty than Earth supplies” leads him away from the healthy realistic novels of Balzac and toward “that character of strangeness demanded by Edgar Allen Poe” and the realm of pure sensation in literature. Poe’s use of synesthesia (the association of different senses) is also characteristic of Huysmans’ novel and Symbolism in general. 70 A letter from Charles Baudelaire to Auguste Poulet-Mallasis, ca. September 1859 Carlton Lake Collection, Harry Ransom Center The French poet Charles Baudelaire discovered Poe in the late 1840s and wrote a passionate posthumous defense of him against the “vampire pedagogue” Rufus Griswold in 1852. Baudelaire went on to translate a number of Poe’s most important works. In this letter, the poet writes to his friend and publisher regarding the translation of Eureka. Baudelaire in turn inspired Mallarmé, Rimbaud, and other Symbolists to study Poe’s poetry and critical writings. 71 A manuscript fragment with revisions of Paul Valéry’s “La Promenade avec Monsieur Teste,” (“A Walk with Mr. Teste”), date unknown Carlton Lake Collection, Harry Ransom Center The twentieth-century poet Valéry was extremely fond of Poe and especially his playful notion of an author manipulating his readers, as set forth in the “Philosophy of Composition.” Valéry’s character M. Teste (“Mr. Head”) may be based on the cerebral detective Dupin. 72 A leaf from Claude Debussy’s libretto for his opera “La Chute de la Maison Usher” (“The Fall of the House of Usher”), ca. 1918 Carlton Lake Collection, Harry Ransom Center Debussy, who was familiar with Poe’s work, worked on this opera between 1908 and 1918 but never completed it. It has been realized by scholars and has been performed at the University of Texas and elsewhere. This leaf (p. 13 of the typescript) was loaned to André David by Debussy’s widow after its separation from the rest of the libretto, acquired by the collector Carlton Lake and later by the Ransom Center. Around 2000, the missing leaf appeared in a manuscript dealer’s catalog and was reunited with the rest of the typescript.

73 A letter from Aurelién Lugné-Poë to an unidentified recipient, October 25, 1923 Carlton Lake Collection, Harry Ransom Center The French Symbolist playwright, director, and impresario explains that he was so inspired by Poe that he legally changed his name to incorporate Poe’s. He sometimes claimed to be a distant relation. Poe’s uncanny ability to evoke extreme or hallucinatory states of mind in his poetry and stories has had an enduring influence on French and Continental Symbolists. 96 Charles Baudelaire’s translation of Poe’s “Philosophy of Composition,” “Philosophie de l'ameublement,” in Histoires Grotesques et Sérieuses (Paris: Michel Lévy, 1865) The “Philosophy of Composition” has had a potent and long-lasting influence on poetics, and especially in France. Following its translation by Baudelaire, the essay took hold in the minds of Mallarmé and other Symbolists. Rejecting the traditional Romantic concept of poetic composition through inspiration, Poe used the example of “The Raven” to show how poetry could be constructed to produce a potent emotional effect on the reader. T. S. Eliot complained, “if Poe plotted out his poem with such calculation, he might have taken a little more pains over it.” 107 A letter from Stéphane Mallarmé to Sarah Helen Whitman, April 4, 1876 Digital reproduction of second page Koester Poe Collection Referring to his translation of “The Raven” (for the deluxe edition illustrated by Manet), the Symbolist poet Mallarmé wrote that his “work was done to honor the memory of the most truly divine genius that has been seen.” Mallarme mentions his life-long fascination with Poe and his desire to translate more of his work into French, following in the footsteps of “our great Baudelaire.” 113 Henri Emile LeFort (French, b. 1852) Edgar Allan Poe, 1894 Etching Koester Poe Collection

Poe and the creatures of his imagination, by the French engraver and friend of John Singer Sargent. 89 Édouard Manet (French, 1832-1883) A proof of a portrait of Edgar Allan Poe inscribed by Stéphane Mallarme, date unknown Lithograph John Henry Ingram’s Poe Collection Special Collections, University of Virginia Library Manet based his original pen-and-ink sketch on a daguerreotype of Poe; it was first published as the frontispiece to Mallarmé’s 1884 poetry translation. Mallarmé inscribed this proof and presented it to Poe’s biographer J. H. Ingram. 99 Édouard Manet (French, 1832-1883) The cover image of Stéphane Mallarmé's Le Courbeau (Paris: R. Lesclide, 1875) Digital Reproduction This deluxe portfolio combining the stark black-and-white illustrations of Manet and the translation of Mallarmé, a poet devoted to Poe and his work, is a milestone of French literature and art. It announces the advent of the livre d’artiste, or artist’s book, representing a true collaboration between text and image, a step beyond the illustrated book. 121 Louis Favre (French, 1891-1956) A portrait of Edgar Allan Poe from Poe's The Raven; The Philosophy of Composition (The Hague: Mouton, 1951) Lithograph Koester Poe Collection Favre was a French lithographer who produced a series of modernist color lithographs for this edition. 155 Nicholas-Francois Chifflart (French, 1825-1901) A portrait of Edgar Allan Poe published in Charles Baudelaire's translation of Poe's tales, Histoires Extraordinaires (Paris: A. Quantin, 1884) Etching

Koester Poe Collection Chifflart’s idealized, Byronic Poe bears little resemblance to the man. 162 Édouard Manet (French, 1832-1883) Edgar Allan Poe, after 1874 Etching Koester Poe Collection Perspectives on Poe

Many great writers of the twentieth century, from Jim Thompson and John D. McDonald to Thomas Harris (who in Hannibal Lecter may have created the greatest sociopath of them all), are the children of Poe.

—Stephen King Poe’s influence extends throughout and beyond the English-speaking world (the French view of him is examined elsewhere in the exhibition); he remains one of the most anthologized American poets, and even people who disdain poetry can quote “The Raven.” His stories of the grotesque have the same powerful fascination for foreign readers as they do for Americans.

Those who Stephen King calls “the children of Poe” are found from the nineteenth century onward, and include writers working in many genres. They have found Poe intriguing for reasons that range from his compellingly tragic life (Tennessee Williams) to his poetic skills (Swinburne, Kipling) to his creation of the modern fictional detective (Conan Doyle). Dissenters (Yeats, Eliot), on the other hand, find his singsong rhythms and purported lack of intellectual substance merely tiresome. 48 Theodore Tilton’s Thou and I (New York: R. Worthington, 1880) Inscribed by Tilton to Oscar Wilde and later by Wilde, ca. November 11, 1882 Koester Poe Collection Tilton, a now forgotten New York journalist and poet, met Wilde on his 1882 trip to America, and took him to the house at Eighty-Fourth St. near Broadway (still a rural neighborhood in 1845) where Poe composed “The Raven.” Wilde made a note on the book Tilton had given him of the “grey dull Corot day” and a clergyman with anecdotes about Poe and chickens. Poe’s influence on Wilde is most clearly seen in “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” with its grotesque and symbolic elements. 65

A letter from Rudyard Kipling to Frank Pleadwell, November 18, 1926 Koester Poe Collection As early as 1896, Kipling acknowledged that “my own personal debt to Poe is a heavy one.” During his school years, Kipling read Poe compulsively, and traces of his influence are easily found not only on his verse but also in some of his macabre and fantastic stories. This letter refers to the influence of the minor Southern poet Edward Pinckney on Poe’s work. 66 A letter from Charles Algernon Swinburne to R. H. Shepherd regarding the gift of a facsimile edition of Tamerlane, March 23, 1884 Koester Poe Collection Swinburne came to appreciate Poe by reading Baudelaire’s translations. Contrasting Poe with Hawthorne in another letter, the poet concluded that the former was “the complete man of genius,” whereas Hawthorne was merely a partial success. The hypnotic rhythms of Swinburne’s own poetry undoubtedly owe much to Poe. 67 Tennessee Williams’s “Comments on the Nature of Artists with a Few Specific References to the Case of Edgar Allan Poe,” fall 1937 Tennessee Williams Collection, Harry Ransom Center Williams’s essay, written for a class on criticism (English 91) at the University of Iowa, concerns the special nature of creative figures like Poe, who are battered by a harsh and unfeeling world. This is a familiar theme in Williams’s plays, and there are affinities between Williams’s use of the Gothic and Poe’s (it is possible to find many affinities between the two as Southern writers), as well as their interest in extreme emotional states. Incidentally, Williams received a “C” for the course. 68 A letter from William Butler Yeats to W. T. Horton, date unknown Digital reproduction of second page W. B. Yeats Collection, Harry Ransom Center Writing to his friend and fellow spiritualist, Yeats judged most of Poe’s poetry as essentially “vulgar & commonplace.” He found Poe’s most famous poem to be especially unworthy of praise: “Analyse the Raven & you find that its subject is a commonplace & its execution a rhythmical trick.” Yeats’s response is not unusual among those detractors, such as T. S. Eliot, who find Poe’s verse superficial and full of gimmicks.

69 A bound manuscript of Walt Whitman’s “Edgar Poe's Significance,” 1882 Digital reproductions of the first four pages Koester Poe Collection Harry Ransom Center Whitman attended Poe’s 1875 reburial ceremony in Baltimore and later published his thoughts in Specimen Days. While Whitman, who celebrates light and fresh air, is in most respects Poe’s polar opposite, he found much to admire. Whitman predictably rejected Poe’s unhealthy “incorrigible propensity toward nocturnal themes” but also respected his lyrical impulse and poetic craft. Critics have discovered traces of Poe’s influence in Whitman’s masterpiece “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking.” Popular Poe Poe’s influence on varied and broad swaths of popular culture—hard-boiled detective fiction, horror and suspense films, song lyrics, crime-scene-analysis dramas, graphic novels—seems to prove Allen Ginsberg’s claim that “everything leads to Poe.” Immortalized in the minds of readers and fans—as well as in television, film, t-shirts and collectibles—Poe continues to live on. 164 Unidentified artist Bas-relief portrait of Poe, undated Carved Abalone shell Koester Poe Collection 202, 209 A first-day-issue Edgar Allan Poe stamp and collectible envelope sent to collector William Koester, 1949 Koester Poe Collection A sheet of Edgar Allan Poe Bicentennial Stamps, 2009 200 The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album (1967)

In their song “I Am the Walrus,” The Beatles declared, “Man you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe.” The band also made him a member of Sgt.

Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club, placing him in a prominent position on the memorable album cover.

Many other popular musicians have paid homage to Poe: Alan Parsons—famous for his engineering of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon—set Poe’s works, such as “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Raven.” In 2003, Lou Reed released a concept album, The Raven, featuring musical and spoken interpretations of Poe’s works by various actors, including Steve Buscemi and Willem Dafoe. 203 The Pit and the Pendulum and other suspense stories of Edgar Allan Poe (The Classics Illustrated, 1977) Peterson Comics Collection The Classics Illustrated series have long attracted a young audience to the classics with its comic-book adaptations of literary works. A total of 169 titles have been printed over the decades, including Moby Dick, The Iliad, and Hamlet. 206 Baltimore Ravens decal, ca. 2008 Professional football seems a curious arena for any literary references—much less references to Poe. The poet’s primary association with Baltimore is that he died and is buried in that city; he was living in New York City when he composed “The Raven.” Nevertheless, Baltimore residents voted to name their NFL team after Poe’s eerie bird. The Ravens have an official team mascot, a six-foot raven named Poe, who leads the team onto the field during home games and cheers them on to victory. 198, 201, 207, 205, 204 Edgar Allan Poe collectible cigarette card and booklet packed in Duke’s Cigarettes, undated A shot glass from the Poe Museum, ca. 1990s “Li’l Edgar Allan Poe” by Accoutrements: Outfitters of Popular Culture, undated “Edgar Allan Poe Action Figure” by Accoutrements: Outfitters of Popular Culture, 2004 Poe’s immediately recognizable face has been the subject of absurdly rendered portraits and has graced t-shirts, shot glasses, tote bags, and toys. Perhaps more so than any other American writer’s, the iconic image of Poe, with his sunken eyes and almost deathly pallor, fascinates the public.

208 “Dropout” t-shirt, ca. 2008 Sold at shops in Charlottesville, Virginia, this tee-shirt alludes to Poe’s student days at the University of Virginia. Wall items: 176, 177 A poster advertising Alta Vista Productions’ film Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Terror, directed by Roger Corman, 1962 Hoblitzelle and Interstate Theater Collection A poster advertising American International Pictures’ The Premature Burial, directed by Roger Corman, 1962 Hoblitzelle and Interstate Theater Collection

In the early 1960s, filmmaker Roger Corman produced several films based on the stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Tales of Terror contained short films of three stories: “Morella,” “The Black Cat,” and “The Case of M. Valdemar.” Vincent Price starred in seven of Corman’s eight Poe films. Corman later said that when he pitched his first Poe project, The Fall of the House of Usher, his producer

didn’t seem too pleased about the choice. “There’s no monster in this movie,” he said. I didn’t want to lose the project so I did a bit of quick thinking. “The house,” I said. “The house is the monster.” I suppose he bought that line because we made the film.

The Ransom Center will screen three of Corman’s Poe films, and three other landmark cinematic adapations, while the exhibition is on view; details are available on the Center’s website and in the printed calendars available in the lobby. Text Panel: The Haunted Mind As a writer of fiction, Poe was a master of psychological insight and manipulation. Writing in the Gothic tradition of psychological terror (the best-known example of which is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein), he explored themes that modern psychology continues to find compelling: repressed guilt and confession in “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat,” incest in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and anxieties related to surveillance and torture in “The Pit and the Pendulum.” Supernatural hallucinations, doppelgangers, and claustrophobic buildings extend Poe’s investigations into the spaces

inhabited by his characters. While we know relatively little about Poe’s inner life, it is reasonable to believe that the tales were products of a mind haunted by its own terrors. Many illustrators, some famous and some obscure, have been inspired by the vividly drawn scenes and unsettling plots of Poe’s tales and poems. Arthur Rackham, a major figure of the Golden Age of illustration in the early twentieth century, was particularly successful in capturing Poe’s grotesque creations and his shadowy landscapes of mental torment. 184 Oscar Edward Cesare (1885-1948) A portrait of Edgar Allan Poe, 1926 Charcoal and wash drawing Special Collections, University of Virginia Library TALES OF A GUILTY CONSCIENCE

Many of Poe’s most famous protagonists perform an exquisitely gratifying murder and are subsequently haunted by their acts until the truth is revealed. Some “unintentionally” reveal their guilt through oversight, as in the famous tale “The Black Cat,” while others are incapable of keeping their evil acts to themselves and actively confess.

Poe called the temptation to confess one’s guilt the “imp of the perverse.” In the story of that name, a murderer has carried out the perfect crime, but walking down the street one day, he finds himself compelled by the imp—who takes physical form in the crowd—to speak his guilt:

At first I made a strong effort to shake off this nightmare of the soul. I whistled—I laughed aloud—I walked vigorously—faster and still faster. At length I ran. I felt a maddening desire to shriek aloud. Every succeeding wave of thought overwhelmed me with new terror—for, alas! I understood to well that to think, in my condition, was to be undone. I still quickened my steps. I bounded like a madman through the crowded thoroughfares. But now the populace took alarm and pursued. Then—then, I felt the consummation of my Fate. Could I have torn out my tongue I would have done it. But a rough voice from some member of the crowd resounded in my ears, and a rougher grasp seized me by the arm. I turned—I gasped for breath. For a moment I experienced all the pangs of suffocation—I became blind, and deaf, and giddy—and at this instant it was no mortal hand, I knew, that struck me violently with a broad and massive palm upon the back. At that blow the long-imprisoned secret burst forth from my soul.

Illustrations of four stories of guilt, revelation, and confession are shown on the wall to your right. 111

William Sharp (1900-1961) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (New York: Heritage, 1941) Aquatint Etching Koester Poe Collection 139 Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Imp of the Perverse” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Pen and ink Koester Poe Collection 112 William Sharp (1900-1961) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (New York: Heritage, 1941) Aquatint Etching Koester Poe Collection 141 Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Pen and ink Koester Poe Collection TALES OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA

Walls close in on the characters in many of Poe’s tales—and on the reader too: Poe’s claustrophobic stories are carefully structured to provoke a sense of increasing confinement. In “The Pit and the Pendulum,” the reader experiences firsthand the narrator’s wild swings between panic, rationality, and submission in his terror chamber, with its encroaching pendulum and shrinking walls. In “The Cask of Amontillado,” the reader follows along uncomfortably as the murderer first gleefully, then anxiously, narrates his successful effort to entomb his living victim behind a brick wall underground.

Premature burial was a subject of great interest in the nineteenth century and Poe’s tales on the subject did not seek to quell the public’s fear of being buried alive when in a cataleptic state. “The Premature Burial,” narrated by a character obsessed by

his fear of being buried alive, opens with “true stories,” including one of a woman in Baltimore who appeared dead to all around her:

The lady was deposited in her family vault, which, for three subsequent years, was undisturbed. At the expiration of this term, it was opened for the reception of a sarcophagus; — but, alas! how fearful a shock awaited the husband, who, personally, threw open the door. As its portals swung outwardly back, some white-apparelled object fell rattling within his arms. It was the skeleton of his wife in her yet unmoulded shroud.

A careful investigation rendered it evident that she had revived within two days after her entombment—that her struggles within the coffin had caused it to fall from a ledge, or shelf, to the floor, where it was so broken as to permit her escape….On the uppermost of the steps which led down into the dread chamber, was a large fragment of the coffin, with which, it seemed, that she had endeavored to arrest attention, by striking the iron door. While thus occupied, she probably swooned, or possibly died, through sheer terror; and, in falling, her shroud became entangled in some iron-work which projected interiorly. Thus she remained, and thus she rotted, erect.

Illustrations of four claustrophobic tales are shown on the wall to your left. 114 William Sharp (1900-1961) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Premature Burial” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (New York: Heritage, 1941) Aquatint Etching Koester Poe Collection 138 Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Premature Burial” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Watercolor and ink Koester Poe Collection 135 Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Pen and ink Koester Poe Collection 182

Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Watercolor and ink Koester Poe Collection 127 Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Pen and ink Koester Poe Collection 137 Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Watercolor and ink Koester Poe Collection TALES OF HALLUCINATION In many of Poe’s tales, the troubles that reside in the mind of a character produce hallucinations in the physical world—ghostly imaginings that torment and sometimes kill the character at the story’s conclusion. The hallucinations represented in the stories shown here are varied in kind—produced by guilt or drugs, experienced by protagonists or bystanders, and told in a range of styles, from the gothic “Ligeia” and the highly psychological “William Wilson” to the historical “Masque of the Red Death” and the allegorical “Metzengerstein.” In all cases, the visual richness of hallucination is an ideal starting point for creative illustration. Illustrations of four stories featuring hallucinations are shown on the wall to your left. 130 Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “William Wilson” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Pen and ink Koester Poe Collection

142 Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Ligeia” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Watercolor and ink Koester Poe Collection 145 Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Metzengerstein” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Watercolor and ink Koester Poe Collection 148 William Sharp (1900-1961) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Metzengerstein” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (New York: Heritage, 1941) Aquatint Etching Koester Poe Collection 136 Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Pen and ink Koester Poe Collection HAUNTED SPACES

The castle at the center of “The Fall of the House of Usher” has understandably captured the attention of many artists, from Arthur Rackham to Robert Lawson (best known for Rabbit Hill and Ferdinand the Bull). The three illustrations shown here attempt to capture Poe’s highly wrought, personified opening image of the castle, which is more than just the setting for this gothic tale. The house itself has human features, and like a sickened mind, holds unspeakable images that are revealed in the course of the tale:

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, had been passing alone,

on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher....I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain—upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon a few rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium—the bitter lapse into everyday life—the hideous dropping off of the reveller upon opium—the bitter lapse into everyday life—the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it—I paused to think—what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher?

Also shown here is Charles Mielatz’s etching of Poe’s cottage in Fordham, New York, a popular subject for commercial printers in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While most artists chose to present the cottage as a pastoral subject, Mielatz presents Poe’s home as if it appeared in one of his tales. As Poe was wont to do, Mielatz manipulates the gaze of the viewer, who appears to be watching the cottage recede from view as he falls into an abyss. 143 Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Watercolor and ink Koester Poe Collection 157 Robert Lawson (1892-1957) The House of Usher, undated Etching Koester Poe Collection 158 W. H. Wallace The House of Usher, undated Etching Koester Poe Collection 117

Charles Frederick William Mielatz (1864-1919) Poe’s Cottage at Fordham, 1906 Etching Koester Poe Collection 115 Unidentified artist “Edgar Allan Poe’s Cottage at Kingsbridge Road, Fordham, NY,” undated Etching Koester Poe Collection In 1846, Poe, his wife Virginia, and Virginia’s mother moved from New York City to rural Fordham, Bronx, thirteen miles away. Virginia died here in January 1847, with Poe by her bedside. Poe and his mother-in-law continued to reside at the cottage until Poe’s death. For many years, images of Poe’s cottage were a popular subject for printmakers. Text Panel: The Many Faces of Poe The face of Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most immediately recognizable in the history of American literature. He is confirmed to have sat for only one painted portrait, done by Samuel Osgood around 1845 and reproduced often in prints from the 1880s onward. Only eight original daguerreotype portraits exist today; this exhibition includes the “Barrett” daguerreotype, made from the so-called “Ultima Thule” portrait of 1848. Poe was dissatisfied with all of the photographs of himself, and his friend, the poet Sarah Helen Whitman, noted that the author’s face had a “peculiarly changeful character” that could never be properly captured by the medium. Artists and illustrators have used these few images as the basis for their own varied imaginative investigations of Poe’s features. Scattered throughout the exhibition, and featured on the back wall, are a wide variety of portraits, from the simple drawing by Edouard Manet to the lesser-known engraving by F.-N. Chifflart, whose Poe—half Lord Byron and half Victor Hugo—bears little if any resemblance to the man. No doubt Poe has inspired so many portraits because he fits the Romantic image of the poet so well, with his tousled black hair and intense, troubled expression. The contradictions that pervade Poe portraiture reflect the elusiveness of the writer himself. 149 Arthur Garfield Learned (American, 1872-1959) A portrait of Edgar Allan Poe, undated Etching, drypoint and mezzotint Koester Poe Collection 152 Thomas B. Welch and Adam B. Walter, from a watercolor by A. C. Smith Portrait of Edgar Allan Poe, 1844

Engraving, later state Koester Poe Collection Poe sat for artist A. C. Smith in 1843 or 1844. As Michael Deas notes, an engraving of the portrait for Graham's Magazine suffered a delay of publication, but the delay ended well for Poe. The image appeared in the February 1845 issue alongside a favorable profile of Poe, days after ”The Raven“ had appeared to great acclaim in the New York Evening Mirror. 153 Unidentified artist, marked “Lamoureux, Paris” Edgar Poe, undated Etching Koester Poe Collection

186 George Julian Zolnay (1863-1949) Bust of Edgar Allan Poe, ca. 1899 Koester Poe Collection This bust by the Hungarian artist Zolnay is a replica of a much larger sculpture in the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia. When the original sculpture was unveiled in 1899, fifty years after Poe’s death, the New York Times reported that “the features shown are those of an intellectual man in a state of dejection, with something of pathos in the impression one receives. It is not the Poe of Griswold, but the man more truly drawn for our instruction by Mr. Woodberry.” Woodberry’s biography of Poe was first published in 1885. Hero Wall Portraits: The facsimile portraits on this wall are enlargements of frontispieces and illustrations in editions, biographies, and other books by or about Edgar Allan Poe. They are of varying quality and authenticity, and are taken from editions both fine and popular. Viewers might notice the inconsistency in the location of Poe’s hair part, which appears on both the left and the right; this occurs because many of the portraits are based on negative and positive photographic images from a daguerreotype. 211-214 Top row, left to right: 1. Thomas C. Corner’s portrait in Arthur H. Quinn and Richard H. Hart eds., Edgar

Allan Poe: Letters and Documents in the Enoch Pratt Free Library (New York: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1941)

2. Edmund Dulac’s title-page portrait in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Bells and Other Poems (London: Hodder and Staughton, [1912])

3. The frontispiece (after the apocryphal Mathew Brady daguerrotype) in Philip

Lindsay’s The Haunted Man: A Portrait of Edgar Allan Poe (London: Hutchinson, [1953])

4. The frontispiece in The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (New York: W. J. Widdleton, 1880) 215-218 Second row, left to right: 1. Edouard Manet’s frontispiece in Stéphane Mallarmé’s Les Poèmes d’Edgar Poe

(Bruxelles: E. Deman, 1888) 2. The frontispiece (after the “Ultima Thule” daguerrotype) in Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

(New York: Hurst, 1882) 3. The “Cornwell” daguerrotype as used for the frontispiece in Edwin Gile Rich’s

translation of Emile Lauvrière’s The Strange Life and Strange Loves of Edgar Allan Poe (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1935)

4. An apocryphal self-portrait in John Ward Ostrom, ed., The Letters of Edgar Allan Poe

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948) 219-222 Third row, left to right 1. Frederick T. Stewart’s frontispiece in Edgar Allan Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher;

Ligiea; The Cask of Amontillado; The Assignation; Ms. Found in a Bottle; The Black Cat; The Gold Bug (New York: Doubleday & McClure, 1898)

2. E. McNight Kauffer’s cover portrait from Arthur Hobson Quinn and Edward H.

O’Neill, eds., The Complete Poems and Stories of Edgar Allan Poe, with Selections from his Critical Writings (New York: Knopf, 1946)

3. The “Stella” daguerrotype as used for the frontispiece in Sherwin Cody, ed., The Best

Tales of Edgar Allan Poe (Chicago: A.C. McClurg, 1903) 4. Hugo Steiner-Prag’s frontispiece by in Louis Untermeyer, ed., Complete Poems of

Edgar Allan Poe (New York: Heritage Press, [1943]) 223-226

Bottom row, left to right 1. A portrait by Roberts (after John Sartain) in Evert A. Duyckinck and George L.

Duyckinck’s Cyclopaedia of American Literature (New York: Scribner, 1855) 2. A portrait (after Samuel S. Osgood) in John Ward Ostrom, ed., The Letters of Edgar

Allan Poe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948) 3. The frontispiece (after Timothy Cole) in J. Montgomery Gambrill, ed., Selections from

Poe (Boston: Ginn, 1907) 4. The cover image (after Robert Anderson) of The Prose Tales of Edgar Allan Poe (New

York: W. J. Widdleton, 1877) Standalone Items 85 [Vitrine] The two-part scroll manuscript of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Domain of Arnheim,” undated Accompanied by an interactive digital facsimile Koester Poe Collection This lesser-known tale concerns a perfect man who finds happiness in his life obsession: to create a magnificent landscape garden that fulfils the principles of great art. The narrator states that the protagonist, Ellison, seems to be free of a “hidden principle” of human nature he calls “the antagonist of bliss.” This characteristic dooms many of Poe’s other fictional characters, such as the narrator of “The Imp of the Perverse.” “The Domain of Arnheim” is an expansion of an earlier tale, “The Landscape Garden.” Poe may have created this scroll manuscript for the convenience of typesetters at The Columbian Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine, where the tale was published in 1847. 144 Arthur Rackham (American, 1867-1939) An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “King Pest” for Tales of Mystery & Imagination (London: G. Harrap, 1935) Watercolor and ink Koester Poe Collection