Edgar Allan Poe — “The Black Cat”

Reading copy:

• “The Black Cat” — reading copy

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings:

• Text-01 — “The Black Cat” — late 1842 or early 1843 — roll MS, not seen since 1843, and almost surely lost after the printing. F. O. C. Darley wrote to G. E. Woodberry on February 26, 1884: “remember his reading his ‘Gold Bug’ and ‘Black Cat’ to me before they were published. The form of his manuscript was peculiar: he wrote on half sheets of note paper, which he pasted together at the ends, making one continuous piece, which he rolled up tightly. As he read he dropped it upon the floor. It was very neatly written, and without corrections, apparently” (Woodberry, 1885, p. 181, and repeated, 1909, 2:2-3) In a letter to Ezra Holden of August 26, 1843, Poe comments that “Patterson, of the ‘Post,’ gave me, some weeks ago, for ‘The Black Cat,’ 20$.”
• Text-02 — “The Black Cat” — August 19, 1843 — United States Saturday Post  — (Mabbott text A)
• Text-03 — “The Black Cat” — 1845 — TALES — (Mabbott text B)  (This is Mabbott’s copy-text) (For Griswold’s 1850 reprinting of this text, see the entry below, under reprints.)
• Text-04 — “The Black Cat” — November 1848 — Pictorial National Library — (Mabbott text C)  (Mabbott suggests that the changes in this version are “unauthorized,” but “just short of absolute certainty” and thus he records the variants)

Reprints:

• “The Black Cat” — 1850 — WORKS — Griswold reprints Text-03  — (Mabbott text D)

Scholarly and Noteworthy Reprints:

• “The Black Cat” — 1894-1895 — The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 2: Tales, ed. G. E. Woodberry and E. C. Stedman, Chicago: Stone and Kimball (2:42-54)
• “The Black Cat” — 1902 — The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 5: Tales IV, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (5:143-155, and 5:322)
• “The Black Cat” — 1978 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 3: Tales & Sketches II, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (3:847-860)

Instream Comparative Texts:

• None.

Plain Text Files for Juxta:

• None.

Miscellaneous Texts and Related Items:

• “Le Chat Noir” — January 27, 1847 — La Démocratie Pacifique  (French translation signed “Isabelle Meunier”)
• “[The Black Cat]” — 1855 — Fortaellinger [Tales] (Copenhagen)  (Danish translation, noted by Anderson, p. 14)
• “Le chat noir” — November 16, 1853 — Chronique de France  (French translation by Paul Roger)
• “Le chat noir” — (French translation by Charles Baudelaire)
  • “Le chat noir” — November 13-14, 1853 — Paris
    • “Le chat noir” — Part I — November 13, 1853
    • “Le chat noir” — Part II — November 14, 1853
  • “Le chat noir” — July 31 - August 1, 1854 — Le Pays
    • “Le chat noir” — Part I — July 31, 1854
    • “Le chat noir” — Part II — August 1, 1854
• “Le chat noir” — 1857 — Nouvelles histoires par Edgar Poe, Paris: Michel Lévy frères
• “[The Black Cat]” — 1868 — Phantastiske Fortaellinger [Fantastic Tales] (Copenhagen)  (Danish translation by Robert Watt, noted by Anderson, p. 14)
• “[The Black Cat]” — 1881 — Underliga historier  (Stockholm)  (Swedish translation, noted by Anderson, p. 54)
• “[The Black Cat]” — 1882 — Valda noveller  (Stockholm)  (Swedish translation, noted by Anderson, p. 54)
• “The Black Cat” — November 3 and 9, 1888 — Yomiuri Shimbun  (Japanese translation by Aeba Koson)
• “De Zwarte Kat” — about 1930 — Fantastische Vertellingen van Edgar Allan Poe, Haarlem: H. D. Tjeenk Willink & Zoon (Dutch translation by Machiel Elias Barentz, with elaborate illustrations by Albert Hahn, somewhat reminiscent of those by Harry Clarke)
• “The Black Cat” — September 18, 1947 — a radio show broadcast on theMystery in the Air show, starring Peter Lorre. (This episode is available on CD as part of a 6-CD set of “Smithsonian Legendary Performers,” issued in 2004. As was often the case with dramatic presentations of Poe’s works, the story has been modified.)
• “De Swarte Kat” — October 10, 1949 — De Tsjerne (A monthly magazine printed in Leeuwarden, Netherlands) (Frisian translation by Inne de Jong)  (This title provided by René van Slooten)
• “The Black Cat” — February 11, 1950 — a radio show broadcast on The Hall of Fantasy show, introduced as “dedicated to the supernatural, the unusual and the unknown.” (As was often the case with dramatic presentations of Poe’s works, the story has been modified.)
• “The Black Cat” — April 1954 — Nightmare (number 12)  (a comic-book)
• “Kara Kedi” — 1955 — Altin Böcek [Golden Beetle], Varlik edition, Istanbul (Turkish translation) (the small softbound book has 109 pages. It features “The Gold-Bug” but includes seven other tales.)
• “The Black Cat” — 1960 — a reading by Nelson Olmsted on The Raven: Poems and Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, issued on the Vanguard label (VRS-9046, rereleased as VSD-32)
• “The Black Cat” — 1960-1965 — a radio show broadcast on theBlack Mass show. (This was apparently a local broadcast in California. As was often the case with dramatic presentations of Poe’s works, the story has been modified.)
• “The Black Cat” — 2006 — an episode from the “Masters of Horror” series on the Showtime cable network. (The episode first aired on January 19, the anniversary of Poe’s birthday.) It was directed by Stuart Gordon, with Jeffrey Combs as Poe. Although the director makes a great deal about how “authentic” the film is to Poe’s story, his notion of authenticity appears to be limited to the graphic nature of the goriest special effects. By attempting the tired (and erroneous) cliche of mixing Poe’s life with his works, the screenplay ends up serving neither well. The production values are generally quite high, but the biographical material, particularly that offered in the commentary, has a few genuine details mixed with much falsehood, and is best ignored. George Graham, who in real life helped Poe a great deal, is also portrayed very unfairly.
• ”The Black Cat” — 2006 — a moody, disjointed and mostly incomprehensible modern adaptation, directed by Serge Rodnunsky. It is presumably a direct-to-DVD release. The real victim here is Poe’s story.

Forgeries:

• “The Black Cat” — (Fragment, 1 leaf, 4 x 6 5/6 inches, comprising the following text: “[. . .] attempt to expound them . . . as to make me the jest of my [. . .]” The text is written in what appears to be dark brown ink, running from left to right edges, on only one side of the page, apparently in an attempt to imitate Poe’s use of roll manuscripts. The writing is somewhat clumsy, with some words or parts of words being much darker than the general text. A mark of ‘II,’ for a Roman numeral of ‘2’, appears at the top of the page. The fragment was offered as a genuine Poe manuscript by New England Book Auctions, Sale Number 366, October 21, 2008, as item 204, with an estimate of $15,000-$25,000, but was promptly retracted from sale over doubts about its authenticity. It was in the collection of Richard Oinonen, who died in 2001, and is probably the work of Joseph Cosey. It may have been kept by Mr. Oinonen as an example of a forgery by someone who was notably notorious in the field, especially for his Poe forgeries. It bears a strong resemblance to a forgery of “To Helen,” offered in the same sale as item 208.)

• Anderson, Carl L., Poe in Northlight: The Scandanavian Response to His Life and Work, Durham, NC: Duke Unversity Press, 1973.
• Anderson, Gayle Dennington, “Demonology in ‘The Black Cat’,” Poe Studies (1977), 10:43-44
• Badenhausen, Richard, “Fear and Trembling in the Literature of the Fantastic: Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’,” Studies in Short Fiction (1992), 29:487-498
• Benfy, Christopher, “Poe and the Unreadable ‘Black Cat’ and ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’,” in New Essays on Poe’s Major Tales, ed. Kenneth Silverman, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 27-44
• Bonaparte, Marie (translated by John Rodker), “ ‘The Black Cat‘, “ Partisan Review (Nov. 1950), 17:834-860
• Cavell, Stanley, “Being Odd, Getting Even (Descarte, Emerson, Poe),” in The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Shawn Rosenheim and Stephen Rachman, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1995, pp. 3-36
• Clark, Richard, “The ‘Homely,’ the ‘Wild’ and the Horror of ‘Mere Household Events‘: The Aristotelian Poe-etics of ‘The Black Cat’,” Short Story, Spring 1996, 4:57-68
• Cleman, John, “Irresistible Impulses: Edgar Allan Poe and the Insanity Defense,” American Literature (1991), 63:623-640
• Crismal, William, “ ‘Mere Household Events’ in Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’,” Studies in American Fiction (1984), 12:87-90
• Del Vecchio, Rosa Maria, “Into that Material Nihility”: Poe’s Criminal Persona as God-Peer, PhD disseration, Case Western University, 1994
• Frushell, Richard C., “ ‘An Incarnate Night-Mare‘: Moral Grotesquerie in ‘The Black Cat’,” Poe Newsletter (Dec. 1972), 5:43-44
• Gargano, James W., “ ‘The Black Cat‘: Perversness Reconsidered,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language (Summer 1960), 2:172-178
• 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.
• Heller, Terry, “The Pure Fantastic Tale of Terror,” in The Delights of Terror: An Asthetics of the Tale of Terror, Urbana: Illinois University Press, 1987, pp. 100-107
• Krappe, E. S., “A Possible Source for Poe’s ‘Tell-Tale Heart’ and ‘The Black Cat’,” American Literature (March 1940), 12:84-88
• 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.
• Madden, Fred, “Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’ and Freud’s ‘The Uncanny’,” Literature & Psychology (1993), 39:52-62
• Weaver, Aubrey Maurice, “And Then My Hert with Pleasure Fills . . .,” Journal of Evolutionary Psychology (1988), 9:317-320
• 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.