The Literary Criticism of Edgar Allan Poe

This selection of Poe’s literary criticisms is just in the beginning stages. Within these selections, all original punctuation, abbreviations and spellings have been retained. Where these spellings differ greatly from modern spellings, the most current form is noted in brackets immediately following the word. A number of obvious variants, such as “colour” for “color,” reflect conventions to which we no longer adhere, but which were considered acceptable during Poe’s lifetime and are left to stand without additional commentary. For manuscript material, including Poe’s own corrections to printed sources, text contained within angle brackets “<...>” shows annotations made by Poe himself for the main text given. Reversed double-angle brackets “>>...<<” show text that Poe has canceled by striking or scratching out. Text contained within square brackets “[...]” is not part of the original. This text is intended as notes or corrections of typographical errors. In the original printings, some text occasionally appears within square brackets “[...].” In such cases, these have been changed to standard parentheses to avoid confusion. (Note: Over time, we will be changing our previously stated policy concerning square brackets to retain Poe’s usage and distinguish our own editorial notes by enclosing these in double-square brackets “[[...]]”.)

Since most of the literary criticism of Poe’s era is unsigned, attribution is a complex and divisive issue. All items included here have been attributed to Poe at one time or another, but are subject to further analysis as our project proceeds. In general, uncertain attributions are noted by the presence of a question mark (“?”), with more question marks (“???”) being used to denote less certain items. A few doubtful items are included merely because they have not been disproven. Again, these marks are not definitive at this stage.

During his lifetime, Poe planned, but never published a collection of his literary notices. A posthumous collection, edited by Rufus Wilmot Griswold, incorporates a few of his reviews, taken from the material Poe had accumulated for “Literary America.” These collections are listed chronologically.

These items are arranged alphabetically by the name of the tale. Within each name, the items are listed chronologically. A few tales were published by Poe under more than one name, or under a name assigned by later editors. These tales are listed under the name most commonly used.