Edgar Allan Poe Miscellaneous Works Volume III 1855 Redfield First Edition RARE

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Edgar Allan Poe Miscellaneous Works Volume III 1855 Redfield First Edition RARE:
$199.99

The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe with a Memoir by Rufus Wilmot Griswold And Notices of His Life and Genius by N. P. Willis and J. R. LowellPoe, Edgar AllanPublished by Redfield, New York, 1855.
Stamp on inside front cover. Slight chipping to the top and bottom of spine. split starting in gutter of front inside cover loose but still attached Vol. III, The Literati, Original purple boards. Covers blindstamped with five-rule frame. Spine lettered in gilt and stamped in gilt with the bust of Athene and raven. Binding is tight although pages lightly stained throughout see pictures. \"Edited by Rufus Wilmot Griswold (1815-1857) and printed by J. S. Redfield (Justus Starr Redfield, 1810-1888) is an important crossroads in the publication of Poe’s writings. It was the first attempt at collecting both poetry and prose, and the first collection of Poe’s critical, editorial and miscellaneous writings. Relying on a wealth of manuscript notes and corrections, it is also the last collection to be at least partially authorized by Poe. It became the standard edition of Poe’s works for 25 years, and served as the model for nearly another quarter of a century.\" [Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore]; Small 8vo 7½\" - 8\" tall; 607 pages.Edgar Allan Poe (/poʊ/; born Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and American literature as a whole, and he was one of the country\'s earliest practitioners of the short story. Poe is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction.[1] He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.[2]Poe was born in Boston, the second child of two actors. His father abandoned the family in 1810, and his mother died the following year. Thus orphaned, the child was taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, Virginia. They never formally adopted him, but Poe was with them well into young adulthood. Tension developed later as John Allan and Edgar repeatedly clashed over debts, including those incurred by gambling, and the cost of secondary education for the young man. Poe attended the University of Virginia for one semester but left due to lack of money. Poe quarreled with Allan over the funds for his education and enlisted in the Army in 1827 under an assumed name. It was at this time that his publishing career began, albeit humbly, with the anonymous collection of poems Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to \"a Bostonian\". With the death of Frances Allan in 1829, Poe and Allan reached a temporary rapprochement. However, Poe later failed as an officer cadet at West Point, declaring a firm wish to be a poet and writer, and he ultimately parted ways with John Allan.Poe switched his focus to prose and spent the next several years working for literary journals and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary criticism. His work forced him to move among several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In Richmond in 1836, he married Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin. In January 1845, Poe published his poem \"The Raven\" to instant success. His wife died of tuberculosis two years after its publication. For years, he had been planning to produce his own journal The Penn (later renamed The Stylus), though he died before it could be produced. Poe died in Baltimore on October 7, 1849, at age 40; the cause of his death is unknown and has been variously attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, tuberculosis, and other agents.[3]Poe and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world, as well as in specialized fields such as cosmology and cryptography. Poe and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today. The Mystery Writers of America present an annual award known as the Edgar Award for distinguished work in the mystery genre.He was born Edgar Poe in Boston on January 19, 1809, the second child of English-born actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and actor David Poe, Jr.. He had an elder brother William Henry Leonard Poe, and a younger sister Rosalie Poe.[5] Their grandfather David Poe Sr. had emigrated from Cavan, Ireland to America around the year 1750.[6] Edgar may have been named after a character in William Shakespeare\'s King Lear, a play that the couple were performing in 1809.[7] His father abandoned their family in 1810,[8] and his mother died a year later from consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis). Poe was then taken into the home of John Allan, a successful Scottish merchant in Richmond, Virginia who dealt in a variety of goods, including Tobacco, cloth, wheat, tombstones, and slaves.[9] The Allans served as a foster family and gave him the name \"Edgar Allan Poe\",[10] though they never formally adopted him.[11]The Allan family had Poe baptized in the Episcopal Church in 1812. John Allan alternately spoiled and aggressively disciplined his foster son.[10] The family sailed to Britain in 1815, and Poe attended the grammar school for a short period in Irvine, Scotland (where John Allan was born) before rejoining the family in London in 1816. There he studied at a boarding school in Chelsea until summer 1817. He was subsequently entered at the Reverend John Bransby\'s Manor House School at Stoke Newington, then a suburb 4 miles (6.4 km) north of London.Poe moved with the Allans back to Richmond, Virginia in 1820. In 1824, Poe served as the lieutenant of the Richmond youth honor guard as Richmond celebrated the visit of the Marquis de Lafayette.[13] In March 1825, John Allan\'s uncle and business benefactor William Galt, said to be one of the wealthiest men in Richmond, died,[14] leaving Allan several acres of real estate. The inheritance was estimated at $750,000. By summer 1825, Allan celebrated his expansive wealth by purchasing a two-story brick home named Moldavia.[15]Poe may have become engaged to Sarah Elmira Royster before he registered at the one-year-old University of Virginia in February 1826 to study ancient and modern languages.[16][17] The university, in its infancy, was established on the ideals of its founder Thomas Jefferson. It had strict rules against gambling, horses, guns, Tobacco, and alcohol, but these rules were generally ignored. Jefferson had enacted a system of student self-government, allowing students to choose their own studies, make their own arrangements for boarding, and report all wrongdoing to the faculty. The unique system was still in chaos, and there was a high dropout rate.[18] During his time there, Poe lost touch with Royster and also became estranged from his foster father over gambling debts. Poe claimed that Allan had not given him sufficient money to register for classes, purchase texts, and procure and furnish a dormitory. Allan did send additional money and clothes, but Poe\'s debts increased.[19] Poe gave up on the university after a year, not feeling welcome in Richmond, especially when he learned that his sweetheart Royster had married Alexander Shelton. He traveled to Boston in April 1827, sustaining himself with odd jobs as a clerk and newspaper writer.[20] At some point, he started using the pseudonym Henri Le Rennet.[21]Military career
Poe was first stationed at Boston\'s Fort Independence while in the army.Poe was unable to support himself, so he enlisted in the United States Army as a private on May 27, 1827, using the name \"Edgar A. Perry\". He claimed that he was 22 years old even though he was 18.[22] He first served at Fort Independence in Boston Harbor for five dollars a month.[20] That same year, he released his first book, a 40-page collection of poetry titled Tamerlane and Other Poems, attributed with the byline \"by a Bostonian\". Only 50 copies were printed, and the book received virtually no attention.[23] Poe\'s regiment was posted to Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina and traveled by ship on the brig Waltham on November 8, 1827. Poe was promoted to \"artificer\", an enlisted tradesman who prepared shells for artillery, and had his monthly pay doubled.[24] He served for two years and attained the rank of Sergeant Major for Artillery (the highest rank that a noncommissioned officer could achieve); he then sought to end his five-year enlistment early. He revealed his real name and his circumstances to his commanding officer, Lieutenant Howard. Howard would only allow Poe to be discharged if he reconciled with John Allan and wrote a letter to Allan, who was unsympathetic. Several months passed and pleas to Allan were ignored; Allan may not have written to Poe even to make him aware of his foster mother\'s illness. Frances Allan died on February 28, 1829, and Poe visited the day after her burial. Perhaps softened by his wife\'s death, John Allan agreed to support Poe\'s attempt to be discharged in order to receive an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point.[25]Poe finally was discharged on April 15, 1829, after securing a replacement to finish his enlisted term for him.[26] Before entering West Point, Poe moved back to Baltimore for a time to stay with his widowed aunt Maria Clemm, her daughter Virginia Eliza Clemm (Poe\'s first cousin), his brother Henry, and his invalid grandmother Elizabeth Cairnes Poe.[27] Meanwhile, Poe published his second book Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems in Baltimore in 1829.[28]Poe traveled to West Point and matriculated as a cadet on July 1, 1830.[29] In October 1830, John Allan married his second wife Louisa Patterson.[30] The marriage and bitter quarrels with Poe over the children born to Allan out of affairs led to the foster father finally disowning Poe.[31] Poe decided to leave West Point by purposely getting court-martialed. On February 8, 1831, he was tried for gross neglect of duty and disobedience of orders for refusing to attend formations, classes, or church. Poe tactically pleaded not guilty to induce dismissal, knowing that he would be found guilty.He left for New York in February 1831 and released a third volume of poems, simply titled Poems. The book was financed with help from his fellow cadets at West Point, many of whom donated 75 cents to the cause, raising a total of $170. They may have been expecting verses similar to the satirical ones that Poe had been writing about commanding officers.[33] It was printed by Elam Bliss of New York, labeled as \"Second Edition,\" and including a page saying, \"To the U.S. Corps of Cadets this volume is respectfully dedicated\". The book once again reprinted the long poems \"Tamerlane\" and \"Al Aaraaf\" but also six previously unpublished poems, including early versions of \"To Helen\", \"Israfel\", and \"The City in the Sea\".[34] He returned to Baltimore to his aunt, brother, and cousin in March 1831. His elder brother Henry had been in ill health, in part due to problems with alcoholism, and he died on August 1, 1831.
After his brother\'s death, Poe began more earnest attempts to start his career as a writer. He chose a difficult time in American publishing to do so.[36] He was the first well-known American to try to live by writing alone and was hampered by the lack of an international copyright law.[38] Publishers often produced unauthorized copies of British works rather than paying for new work by Americans.[37] The industry was also particularly hurt by the Panic of 1837.[39] There was a booming growth in American periodicals around this time period, fueled in part by new technology, but many did not last beyond a few issues[40] and publishers often refused to pay their writers, or paid them much later than they promised.[41] Throughout his attempts to live as a writer, Poe repeatedly had to resort to humiliating pleas for money and other assistance.[42]
In 1835, Poe, then 26, obtained a license to marry his 13-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm. They were married for eleven years until her early death, which may have inspired some of his writing.After his early attempts at poetry, Poe had turned his attention to prose. He placed a few stories with a Philadelphia publication and began work on his only drama Politian. The Baltimore Saturday Visiter awarded Poe a prize in October 1833 for his short story \"MS. Found in a Bottle\".[43] The story brought him to the attention of John P. Kennedy, a Baltimorean of considerable means. He helped Poe place some of his stories, and introduced him to Thomas W. White, editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. Poe became assistant editor of the periodical in August 1835,[44] but was discharged within a few weeks for having been caught drunk by his boss.[45] Returning to Baltimore, Poe obtained a license to marry his cousin Virginia on September 22, 1835, though it is unknown if they were married at that time.[46] He was 26 and she was 13.He was reinstated by White after promising good behavior, and went back to Richmond with Virginia and her mother. He remained at the Messenger until January 1837. During this period, Poe claimed that its circulation increased from 700 to 3,500.[5] He published several poems, book reviews, critiques, and stories in the paper. On May 16, 1836, he and Virginia Clemm held a Presbyterian wedding ceremony at their Richmond boarding house, with a witness falsely attesting Clemm\'s age as 21.[46][47]The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket was published and widely reviewed in 1838.[48] In the summer of 1839, Poe became assistant editor of Burton\'s Gentleman\'s Magazine. He published numerous articles, stories, and reviews, enhancing his reputation as a trenchant critic which he had established at the Southern Literary Messenger. Also in 1839, the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque was published in two volumes, though he made little money from it and it received mixed reviews.[49] Poe left Burton\'s after about a year and found a position as assistant at Graham\'s Magazine.[50]In June 1840, Poe published a prospectus announcing his intentions to start his own journal called The Stylus.[51] Originally, Poe intended to call the journal The Penn, as it would have been based in Philadelphia. In the June 6, 1840 issue of Philadelphia\'s Saturday Evening Post, Poe bought advertising space for his prospectus: \"Prospectus of the Penn Magazine, a Monthly Literary journal to be edited and published in the city of Philadelphia by Edgar A. Poe.\"[52] The journal was never produced before Poe\'s death.Around this time, he attempted to secure a position with the Tyler administration, claiming that he was a member of the Whig Party.[53] He hoped to be appointed to the Custom House in Philadelphia with help from President Tyler\'s son Robert,[54] an acquaintance of Poe\'s friend Frederick Thomas.[55] Poe failed to show up for a meeting with Thomas to discuss the appointment in mid-September 1842, claiming to have been sick, though Thomas believed that he had been drunk.[56] Though he was promised an appointment, all positions were filled by others.
Poe spent the last few years of his life in this small cottage in Fordham, in what is now the Bronx.One evening in January 1842, Virginia showed the first signs of consumption, now known as tuberculosis, while singing and playing the piano. Poe described it as breaking a blood vessel in her throat.[58] She only partially recovered. Poe began to drink more heavily under the stress of Virginia\'s illness. He left Graham\'s and attempted to find a new position, for a time angling for a government post. He returned to New York where he worked briefly at the Evening Mirror before becoming editor of the Broadway Journal and, later, sole owner.[59] There he alienated himself from other writers by publicly accusing Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of plagiarism, though Longfellow never responded.[60] On January 29, 1845, his poem \"The Raven\" appeared in the Evening Mirror and became a popular sensation. It made Poe a household name almost instantly,[61] though he was paid only $9 for its publication.[62] It was concurrently published in The American Review: A Whig Journal under the pseudonym \"Quarles\".[63]The Broadway Journal failed in 1846.[59] Poe moved to a cottage in Fordham, New York, in what is now the Bronx. That home is known today as the \"Poe Cottage\" on the southeast corner of the Grand Concourse and Kingsbridge Road, where he befriended the Jesuits at St. John\'s College nearby (now Fordham University).[64] Virginia died there on January 30, 1847.[65] Biographers and critics often suggest that Poe\'s frequent theme of the \"death of a beautiful woman\" stems from the repeated loss of women throughout his life, including his wife.Poe was increasingly unstable after his wife\'s death. He attempted to court poet Sarah Helen Whitman who lived in Providence, Rhode Island. Their engagement failed, purportedly because of Poe\'s drinking and erratic behavior. There is also strong evidence that Whitman\'s mother intervened and did much to derail their relationship.[67] Poe then returned to Richmond and resumed a relationship with his childhood sweetheart Sarah Elmira Royster.[68]DeathOn October 3, 1849, Poe was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore, \"in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance\", according to Joseph W. Walker who found him.[69] He was taken to the Washington Medical College where he died on Sunday, October 7, 1849 at 5:00 in the morning.[70] Poe was never coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition and, oddly, was wearing clothes that were not his own. He is said to have repeatedly called out the name \"Reynolds\" on the night before his death, though it is unclear to whom he was referring. Some sources say that Poe\'s final words were \"Lord help my poor soul\".[70] All medical records have been lost, including his death certificate.[71]Newspapers at the time reported Poe\'s death as \"congestion of the brain\" or \"cerebral inflammation\", common euphemisms for deaths from disreputable causes such as alcoholism.[72] The actual cause of death remains a mystery.[73] Speculation has included delirium tremens, heart disease, epilepsy, syphilis, meningeal inflammation,[3] cholera,[74] and rabies.[75] One theory dating from 1872 suggests that cooping was the cause of Poe\'s death, a form of electoral fraud in which citizens were forced to vote for a particular candidate, sometimes leading to violence and even murder.[
The day that Edgar Allan Poe was buried, a long obituary appeared in the New York Tribune signed \"Ludwig\". It was soon published throughout the country. The piece began, \"Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it.\"[77] \"Ludwig\" was soon identified as Rufus Wilmot Griswold, an editor, critic, and anthologist who had borne a grudge against Poe since 1842. Griswold somehow became Poe\'s literary executor and attempted to destroy his enemy\'s reputation after his death.Rufus Griswold wrote a biographical article of Poe called \"Memoir of the Author\", which he included in an 1850 volume of the collected works. Griswold depicted Poe as a depraved, drunken, drug-addled madman and included Poe\'s letters as evidence.[78] Many of his claims were either lies or distorted half-truths. For example, it is now known that Poe was not a drug addict.[ Griswold\'s book was denounced by those who knew Poe well,[80] but it became a popularly accepted one. This occurred in part because it was the only full biography available and was widely reprinted, and in part because readers thrilled at the thought of reading works by an \"evil\" man.[81] Letters that Griswold presented as proof of this depiction of Poe were later revealed as forgeries.