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Edgar Allan Poe — “The Business Man”






Texts and Variant Texts

Reading copy:
  • “The Business Man” — reading copy — based on Text 00

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings:
  • “Peter Pendulum, The Business Man” — late 1839 or very early 1840, no original manuscript or fragments are known to exist (but this version is presumably recorded in Text 02) — Text 01
  • "The Business Man" — 1842 — TGAPP (manuscript of title only) — Text 03  (The tale is listed in Poe's handwritten table of contents, but the text itself no longer survives. It was probably a modified version of the printed text from Burton's, and is presumably recorded, with perhaps a few additional changes made in proof, in Text 04)
  • "The Business Man" — about May 1843 — [T. O. Mabbott speculated, in his edition of the Tales & Sketches, 1978, p. 481, that there may be a version of the tale from the incomplete files of the Philadelphia Saturday Museum of 1843 or the New York Sunday Times of 1844. The appearance of the two reprints from 1843, which Dr. Mabbott did not see, suggest that he was correct in his suspicion that the substantially revised version of 1845 probably dated from an earlier, and now missing printing.] — Text 04  (In the absence of this version, the reprints will have to suffice, for which see below.)
  • "The Business Man" — August 2, 1845 — Broadway Journal — Text 05  (Mabbott text B)
  • "The Business Man" — 1856 — WORKS — Text 06  (Mabbott text C)  (This is Mabbott's copytext)

Reprints: 
  • “The Business Man” — May 10, 1843 (presumably reprinted from Text 04) — Providence Daily Journal  (This text is reprinted by Reilly)
  • “The Business Man” — May 11, 1843 (presumably reprinted from Text 04) — Manufacturers and Farmers and Providence and Pawtucket Advertiser)   (This text was reproduced, essentially as a photocopy, by Cameron)
  • “The Business Man” — 1894-1895 —  The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 4: Tales, ed. G. E. Woodberry and E. C. Stedman, Chicago: Stone and Kimball (4:158-170) (This collection was subsequently reprinted in various forms)
  • “The Business Man” — 1902 — The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 4: Tales III, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (4:122-133, and 4:285-287)
  • “The Business Man” — 1978 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 2: Tales & Sketches I, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2:480-493)

Associated Material and Special versions:
  • "Un homme d'affaires" — 1885 — Oeuvres Choisies d'Edgar Pöe, Paris: A. Hennuyer  (French translation by William L. Hughes)
  • "L'homme d'affaires" — 1887 — Edgar Poë: Derniers Contes, Paris: Albert Savine  (French translation by Félix Rabbe)











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Bibliography:
  • Cameron, Kenneth, The New England Writers and the Press, Hartford: Transcendental Books, 1980, pp. 9-11.
  • 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.
  • Lemay, J. A. Leo, Poe's 'The Business man': Its Contexts and Satire of Franklin's Autobiography," Poe Studies (1982), 15:29-37.
  • Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, ed., The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Vols 2-3 Tales and Sketches), Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1978.
  • Reilly, John E., "The 'Missing' Version of Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Business Man'," American Periodicals, IX, 1999, pp. 1-14.
  • Wyllie, John Cooke, "A List of the Texts of Poe's Tales," Humanistic Studies in Honor of John Calvin Metcalf, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1941, pp. 322-338.



 
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