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The Works of the Edgar Allan Poe (Harrison Edition)


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James Albert Harrison (1848-1911) was a professor of English at the University of Virginia.

The Complete Works of the Edgar Allan Poe (edited by J. A. Harrison) (1902)

  • Volume I: Biography
  • Volume II: Tales - Volume I   (“MS. Found in a Bottle,” etc.)
  • Volume III: Tales - Volume II   (“Narrative of A. Gordon Pym,” etc.)
  • Volume IV: Tales - Volume III   (“The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion,” etc.)
  • Volume V: Tales - Volume IV   (“The Mystery of Marie Roget,” etc.)
  • Volume VI: Tales - Volume V   (“The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq.,” etc.)
  • Volume VIII: Criticism - Volume I   (Early Criticism, January 1835-July 1836)
  • Volume IX: Criticism - Volume II   (Early Criticism, May 1836-January 1837)
  • Volume X: Criticism - Volume III   (Middle Period, October 1837-December 1841)
  • Volume XI: Criticism - Volume IV   (Middle Period, January 1842-December 1844)
  • Volume XII: Criticism - Volume V   (Later Criticism, January 1845-November 1, 1845)
  • Volume XIII: Criticism - Volume VI   (Later Criticism, November 22, 1845-1849)
  • Volume XIV: Essays and Miscellanies   (“Palaestine,” “Maelzel’s Chess-Player,” etc.)
  • Volume XVI: Marginalia and Eureka (and general index)
  • Volume XVII: Letters   (Poe and His Friends; Letters Relating to Poe)

Harrison suggests that he had gone back to Poe’s original texts, but in many instances it is evident that the text printed by Griswold was adopted. For a few of the letters, manuscripts noted as “Griswold Collection” are actually from other sources. (It cannot be determined whether this error occurred due to poor note-taking or was merely a convenient means of avoiding copyright issues with Ingram, who was still alive in 1902 and as tempermental as ever.)

Harrison includes a number of reviews which are no longer attributed to Poe, most notably the highly controversial review of  Paulding and Drayton’s books on Slavery (SLM, April 1836).


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Bibliographic Data:

16mo and 12mo (7 1/2 in x 4 5/8 in also 7 3/8 in x 4 9/16 in)


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A Chronology of Printings and Reprintings:

  • Thomas Y. Crowell and Co. (New York)
    • 1902 - volumes I-XVII (first printing - The Virginia Edition) (advertised in Publisher’s Weekly on September 13, 1902).
    • 1902 - The Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (separate printing of volume VII)
    • 1902 - The Miscellaneous Essays of Edgar Allan Poe (separate printing of volume XIV)
    • 1903 - The Life and Letters of Edgar Allan Poe (separate printing of volumes I and XVII. Volume I has been supplemented by the bibliography from volume XVI, and volume II has a new appendix with some additional material.)
  • George D. Sproul (New York)
    • 1902 - volumes I-XVII (reprint of volumes I-XVII - The Monticello Edition, limited to 1,000 copies)
  • Society of English and French Literature (New York)
    • 1902 or 1903 - volumes I-XVII (reprint of volumes I-XVII - limited to 1,000 copies, and featuring a hand colored frontispiece in each volume.) (8 vo. - 8 1/2 in x 5 5/8 in)
  • Fred De Fau
    • 1902 - reprint of volumes I-XVII, but bound as 11 volumes.
  • A. M. S. Press
    • 1965 - reprint of the Virginia Edition (although omitting many of the illustrations)
    • 1979 - reprint of the Virginia Edition (with a special introduction by Floyd Stovall)
  • Miscellaneous Publishers  
    • . . . and others. (various publishers were allowed to reprint the volumes.)

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Census of Copies:

There are so many surviving copies of these volumes that a listing is impractical and unnecessary. The most important copy of the set is probably the one which belonged to James Albert Harrison. In the ample margins, Mabbott wrote notes and accumulated scraps of paper, so that the volumes served as a kind of file cabinet of material. These notes later became the basis of many brief articles published by Mabbott and eventually coalescing as the first three volumes of his projected Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe. (This set is now part of the Mabbott Collection at the University of Iowa.) Burton R. Pollin carefully copied these notes in another set of Harrision, for his own reference. (Pollin’s set is now in the Berg Collection, New York Public Library.)


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Bibliography:

  • American Art Association Auction Catalogue, The Stephen H. Wakeman Collection of Books of Nineteenth Century American Writers, April 1924 (items 958 and 959).
  • Bayless, Joy, Rufus Wilmot Griswold: Poe’s Literary Executor, Nashville, Tennesee: Vanderbilt University Press, 1943. (The edition of Poe’s works is chiefly discussed in Chapter VIII: “Liteary Executor of Edgar Allan Poe,” pp. 161-200.)
  • Blanck, Jacob, “Edgar Allan Poe,” Bibliography of American Literature; volume 7: James Kirke Paulding to Frank Richard Stockton, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1983. (Volume 7 is edited and completed by Virginia L. Smyers and Michael Winship. For Griswold’s editions, see items 16158- 16161, pp. 123-125.)
  • Campbell, Killis, “The Poe-Griswold Controversy,” The Mind of Poe and Other Studies, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1933, pp. 63-98. (This article originally appeared in PMLA, XXXIV, Sept. 1919, pp. 436-464.)
  • Creek, Alma Burner, “Herbert S. Stone and Company,” Dictionary of Literary Biography, Detroit, MI: Gale Research Company, 49:436-440.
  • Creek, Alma Burner, “Stone and Kimball,” Dictionary of Literary Biography, Detroit, MI: Gale Research Company, 49:440-443.
  • Derby, James Cephas, Fifty Years Among Authors, Books, and Publishers, New York: G. W. Carleton & Co., 1884 (reprinted in 1885 and 1886).
  • Gimbel, Colonel Richard, “Quoth the Raven: An Exhibition of the Work of Edgar Allan Poe,” The Yale University Library Gazette, vol. 33, No. 4, Paril 1959, pp. 138-189. (The cotnract between Mrs. Clemm and Griswold is item 123, on pages 180-181. It is reproduced in facsimile facing page 185. Other relevant items are 125, 126-127, 128, 131 and 133.)
  • Griswold, Rufus Wilmot, ed., The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe, New York: J. S. Redfield, 4 vols, 1850-1856.
  • Harrison, James A., “Editor’s Preface,” in The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1902. (vol. I, pp. vii-xx. The preface is dated “March 25, 1902.”) (Volume XVII contains letters by and about Poe. It was reprinted as volume II of The Life and Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1903.)
  • Hatvary, George Egon, “The Whereabouts of Poe’s ‘Fifty Suggestions’,” Poe Studies, IV, No. 2, December 1971, p. 47.
  • Heartman, Charles F and James R. Canny, A Bibliography of First Printings of the Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, 1943, pp. 129-133. (Reprinted, Millwood, New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1977.)
  • O’Neill, Edward H., “The Poe-Griswold-Harrison Texts of the ‘Marginalia’,” American Literature, XV, November 1943, pp. 238-250.
  • Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc. Auction Catalogue, The Frank J. Hogan Library: Part One - American Authors, First Editions, Autograph Lettes, Manuscripts, January 23 and 24, 1945 (items 584 and 585). (The only significant information here is the description of item 584, which includes the volume with N. P. Willis’ autographs.)
  • Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, volume I: Poems (1902); volumes II & III: Tales and Sketches (1978), Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
  • Miller, John Carl, Building Poe Biography, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977.
  • Miller, John Carl, Poe’s Helen Remembers,
  • Moldenhauer, Joseph J., “Mabbott’s Poe and the Question of Copy-Texts,” Poe Studies, XI, no. 2, December 1978, pp. 41-46. (Moldenhauer questions T. O. Mabbott’s reliance on Griswold’s versions of Poe’s works as his chief source for a definitive text.)
  • Pollin, Burton R., “Introduction: Marginalia,” The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe; volume 2: The Brevities, New York: Gordian Press, 1985, pp. xv-xxii.
  • Pollin, Burton R., “The Living Writers of America:  A Manuscript by Edgar Allan Poe,” Studies in the American Renaissance 1991, Charlottesville, Virginia: The University Press of Virginia, 1991, pp. 151-211.
  • Pollin, Burton R., “A Comprehensive Bibliography of Editions and Translations of Arthur Gordon Pym,”  ATQ (American Transcendental Quarterly), Winter 1978, pp. 93- 110. (Pollin lists several printings of the Griswold edition on page 106, items 2 and 4.)
  • Quinn, Arthur Hobson, Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography, New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1941.
  • Thompson, John Ruben, The Genius and Character of Edgar Allan Poe, privately printed, 1929. (Edited and arranged by James H. Whitty and James H. Rindfleisch.)
  • Southeby Auction Catalogue, The Library of H. Bradley Martin: Highly Important American and Children’s Literature, New York, January 30 and 31, 1990, item 2213.
  • Woodberry, George E. (assigned as writer of this anonymous review by Killis Campbell), The Nation, December 4, 1902, p. 445-447.
  • Woodberry, George E. and Edmund Clarence Stedman, “General Preface,” The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Chicago: Stone and Kimball, 1894-1895 (reprinted by New York: The Colonial Company, 1903 and Charles Scribners’s Sons, 1914).

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[S:0 - JAS] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Editions - Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Harrison)