Edgar Allan Poe — “Spirits of the Dead”

Reading copy:

• “Spirits of the Dead” — reading copy

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings:

• Text-01 — “[Visit of the Dead]” — 1827 — [There are no known draft manuscripts or scratch notes reflecting the original effort of composition.]
• Text-02 — “Visit of the Dead” — 1827
  • Text-02a — “Visit of the Dead” — 1827 — [Speculated faircopy manuscript Poe prepared in anticipation of publication in TAOP. This manuscript has not survived, but this version is presumably recorded in Text-02b.]
  • Text-02b — “Visit of the Dead” — 1827 — TAOP — (Mabbott text A — This is Mabbott's copy-text for this version)
• Text-03 — “The Spirits of the Dead” — about 1828  — “Wilmer” manuscript — (Mabbott text B) — [Poe to L. A. Wilmer; Bishop John Fletcher Hurst (1834-1903) (library sold at auction in 1904); Frank Maier (sold on Novemnber 22, 1909); Gabriel Wells (before 1933); H. Bradley Martin (library sold in 1990); Stephan Lowentheill (19th Century Bookshop); Susan Jaffe Tane (private collector). This manuscript may have been among the autographs sold at the Washington Sanitary Fair of 1864, an effort to raise funds for Civil War veterans.]
• Text-04 — “Visit of the Dead” — 1829
  • Text-04a — “Spirits of the Dead” — 1829 — [Sspeculated revised manuscript made in preparation of ATMP. The changes present in Text-04b are so significant that they were probably not simply made in the typesetting process or in evaluating proof-sheets. Additional changes may have been made as the publication stages proceeded. Since Poe was living in Baltimore at the time of publication, it is likely that he had the opportunity to see and review proof copy, particularly since he was paying for the publication.]
  • Text-04b — “Spirits of the Dead”— 1829 — ATMP — (Mabbott text C) — [Poe made no changes to this poem in his copy of ATMP-EH, and it was not included in the POEMS of 1831 or the RAOP in 1845, even though Poe was trying to pad out the thin volume. These omissions may indicate that Poe did not feel that the poem met his critical standards, even as an early work, although he did reprint the poem in Burton's, see Text-05b.]
• Text-05 — “Spirits of the Dead” — 1839
  • Text-05s — “Spirits of the Dead” — before July 1839 — [Speculated revised copy of Text-04b, made in preparation of reprinting in Burton's. The changes present in Text-05b are very minor and may have been made in the typesetting process or in evaluating proof-sheets for Text-05b. A number of characteristics of the text, particularly in punctuation, retain that used in ATMP, thus suggesting that Poe had kept printed pages containing the poem, which he had not reprinted during his tenure at SLM. Since Poe was on the staff of Burton's at the time, it is likely that he had the opportunity to see and review proof copy, as editor.)
  • Text-05b — “Spirits of the Dead” — July 1839 — Burton's (unsigned) — (Mabbott text D — This is Mabbott's copy-text for this version) — [In a letter to P. P. Cooke, Poe mentions that he is sending copies of the July, August, and September 1839 issues of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, but in Cooke's reply it is clear that he is responding only to a number of the stories as printed in Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, of which Poe had sent Cooke an inscribed copy. He does not mention either of the poems by Poe that appeared in this issue. There is no reason to suspect that any of these magazine copies contained manuscript revisions by Poe. Because Poe did not include the poem in RAOP, and apparently left behind no manuscript among his personal papers, Griswold was unaware of the poem and did not print any form of it in the 1850 collection.]

Reprints:

• “Spirits of the Dead” — March 12, 1864 — Roll Call (a publication of the Washington Sanitary Fair) — (This item is cited by T. O. Mabbott in the introduction to his facsimile of Tamerlane and Other Poems, p. lx, and in his 1969 edition of Poe's Poems, p. 71.)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — June 4, 1864 — as part of “Literariana” in Roundtable (New York, NY), p. 393 — (apparently reprinted from ATMP)
• “Visit of the Dead” — June 1876 — John H. Ingram, “The Unknown Poetry of Edgar Poe,” Belgravia: A London Illustrated Magazine (London, UK) (29:510) — (reprinted from the recently discovered copy of TAOP from the British Museum, and thus the first reprint of this early version of the poem since 1827. Ingram's text makes what appear to be editorial adjustments, such as rendering Poe's somewhat affected “tho'd” as “though” and modifies Poe's spelling of “secrecy” to “secresy,” but does not sustain R. H. Shepherd's charge that Ingram's printed text is “shown to be valueless on account of its inaccuracies.”)
• “Visit of the Dead” — June 8, 1876 — John H. Ingram, “Poe's Suppressed Poetry,” New York Graphic, p. 805 — (reprinted from Belgravia for June 1876)
• “Visit of the Dead” — June 21, 1876 — John H. Ingram, “Unknown Poetry of Poe,” Home Journal (New York, NY) (reprinted from Belgravia for June 1876)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1876 — Works (Ingram) — (This is the American edition, published by W. J. Widdleton. In this edition, the poem has been added as one of three immediately following the original material collected by Griswold, appearing on pp. 112-113.)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1877 — The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. E. L. Didier, New York: W. J. Widdleton (pp. 246-247) — (This poem had not been collected by Griswold or Stoddard in their editions up to this point. Ingram had not collected the poem in his 1874-1875 edition, but added it to the American printing of 1876.)
• “Spirit of the Dead” — 1884 — Poems and Essays of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. John H. Ingram, Leipzig: Bernard Tauchnitz (pp. 157-158) — (according to BAL, 7:136, issued as early as January 1884) (Somewhat confusingly, Ingram gives the later version of the text and title, but the 1827 date.)
• “Visit of the Dead” — 1884 — Tamerlane and Other Poems, ed. Richard Herne Shepherd, London: George Redway (pp. 45-46) — (Having long been thought lost, a copy of the original Tamerlane and Other Poems of 1827 was discovered in the British Museum and printed in this “second edition.” The new edition was apparently available prior to May 10, 1884, by which time it was apparently “already sold out in England,” according to Critic and Good Literature, 4:222.)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1884 — The Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. John H. Ingram, London: John C. Nimmo (4:319) — (Somewhat confusingly, Ingram gives the later version of the text and title, but the 1827 date.)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1888 — The Complete Poetical Works and Essays on Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. John H. Ingram, London and New York: Frederick Warne & Co. (p. 100) —(Somewhat confusingly, Ingram gives the later version of the text and title, but the 1827 date.)
• “[Spirits of the Dead]” — April 24, 1930 — Nelson Gazette (Ruskin, NE), vol. 47, no. 7, p. 4, cols. 5-6 — [The poem, without title but credited to “Edgar Allen [[Allan]] Poe,” was printed as part of an obituary for Forrest D. Williams (1905-1930.]

Scholarly and Noteworthy Reprints:

• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1894-1895 — The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 10: Poems, eds. E. C. Stedman and G. E. Woodberry, Chicago: Stone and Kimball (10:128-129, and 10:226-227)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1902 — The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 7: Poems, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (7:13-14, and 7:148-149)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1911 — The Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. J. H. Whitty, Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co. (pp. 120-121, and pp. 272-273)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1917 — The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Killis Campbell, Boston: Ginn and Company (pp. 23-25, and pp. 158-160)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1965 — The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Floyd Stovall, Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia (pp. 15-16, and pp. 179-180)
• “Visit of the Dead” — 1969 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 1: Poems, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (1:70-72) (Mabbott gives the early version of the poem along with “Spirits of the Dead.”)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1969 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 1: Poems, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (1:72-73)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1984 — Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales, ed. Patrick F. Quinn (New York: Library of America) (pp. 32-33) (reprints Text-05)

Instream Comparative and Study Texts:

• None

Miscellaneous Texts and Related Items:

• “Les esprits des morts” — dated 2009, but available in late 2008 — Poèmes d‘Edgar Allan Poe, Paris: Publibook (translation by Jean Hautepierre)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1999 — atmospheric audio recoding, read by Larry Moss and with organ accompaniment (CD titled “Tales from the Tomb: Frigtening Fables from the Darkside,” Laserlight Digital. Included on the same recording is “The Raven” and 8 selections of works that are not by Poe.)

• Heartman, Charles F., “A Remarkable Addition to the Poe Census,” American Book Collector (Metuchen, NJ), vol. III, no. 4, April 1933, p. 246
• Heartman, Charles F. and James R. Canny, A Bibliography of First Printings of the Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Hattiesburg, MS: The Book Farm, 1943.
• Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, ed., The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Vol 1 Poems), Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1969.