Edgar Allan Poe — “The Literati of New York City”

Reading copy:

• “The Literati of New York City” — reading copy

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings:

• Text-01 — “The Literati of New York City” (about February 1846 — six “roll” manuscripts, not seen since 1846 and almost certainly lost.) (There seem to be no surviving manuscripts from the original series. Several items which have appeared in exhibition and auction catalogues as manuscript fragments from “The Literati” are generally from “Literary America,” noted below. All we know about the manuscripts is what is contained in the printed texts, and a pleasant recollection by Francis Sargent Osgood: “I recollect, one morning, toward the close of his residence in this city . . . I found him just completing his series of papers entitled ‘The Literati of New York.’ ‘see,’ said he, displaying in laughing triumph several little rolls of narrow paper (he always wrote thus for the press), ‘I am going to show you by the differences of length the different degrees of estimation in which I hold all you literary people. In each of these one of you is rolled up and fully discussed. Come, Virginia, help me!’ And one by one they unfolded them . . .” (F. S. Osgood, quoted in Woodberry, 1885, p. 261 and 1909, II, pp. 181-182).)
• Text-02 — “The Literati of New York City” (1846)
  • “The Literati of New York City” (Part I)  (May 1846 — Godey’s Lady’s Book)  (reprinted in the subsequent issue)
  • “The Literati of New York City” (Part II)  (June 1846 — Godey’s Lady’s Book)
  • “The Literati of New York City” (Part III) (July 1846 — Godey’s Lady’s Book)
  • “The Literati of New York City” (Part IV)  (August 1846 — Godey’s Lady’s Book)
  • “The Literati of New York City” (Part V) (September 1846 — Godey’s Lady’s Book)
  • “The Literati of New York City” (Part VI) (October 1846 — Godey’s Lady’s Book)
• “The Literati of New-York  — S. Anna Lewis”
  • “The Literati of New-York  — S. Anna Lewis” (1848, text “A” — Manuscript fragments)
  • “The Literati of New-York  — S. Anna Lewis” (August 1848, text “B” — United States Magazine and Democratic Review)
• “Literary America” (text “C” — manuscript material, generally used by Griswold in WORKS)
• Text-04 — “The Literati” (misc. manuscript material)
  • “Henry B. Hirst”
    • “ [Henry B. Hirst]” (about 1848, “Stedman” Manuscript)  (intended for “Marginalia” 1848)
    • “Henry B. Hirst” (about 1848, “Griswold” Manuscript)  (Possibly intended for “Marginalia” 1848)
• “The Literati (1850, text “D” — WORKS)
• (Note that “The Literati” material is closely tied to some “Marginalia” items and a few reviews. Some revisions may be from Poe’s projected but never completed books, The Living Writers of America (about 1846-1847) and Literary America (1848)

Reprints:

• “The Literati of New York City” (Part I)  (June 1846, reprint of Part I from May — Godey’s Lady’s Book)
• “Lydia M. Child” (August 29, 1846, reprint of “A” — Baltimore Saturday Visiter)
• “William Ross Wallace” (October 22, 1849, reprint of “D” — New York Tribune)
• “Margaret Fuller, Marchesa D‘Osoli” (Aug. 6, 1850, reprint of “D”, the one item only — International Weekly Miscellany, pp. 162-165)
• “The Literati of New York City” — 1875 — The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. J. H. Ingram, Edinburgh, Adam and Charles Black (4:407-490)  (Ingram reprints the version of these articles from Godey’s Lady’s Book)

Scholarly and Noteworthy Reprints:

• “The Literati” — 1895 — The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 8: Literary Criticism, ed. G. E. Woodberry and E. C. Stedman, Chicago: Stone and Kimball (8:3-324, and 8:349-352)
• “The Literati” — 1902 — The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 15: Literati and Autography, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (15:1-137, and 15:263-293)  (Harrison reprints the version of these articles from Godey’s Lady’s Book, and gives the “Griswold” versions as an appendix)
• “The Literati of New York City” — 1984 — Edgar Allan Poe: Essays and Reviews, ed. G. R. Thompson, New York: Library of America (pp. 1118-1222)

Instream Comparative Texts:

• None

Plain Text Files for Juxta:

• None

Miscellaneous Texts and Related Items:

• [“An Index of Authors in ‘The Literati’”]

• 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 (Vols 2-3 Tales and Sketches), Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1978.
• Mabbott, Thomas Ollive and James B. Reece, eds., Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe: The Literati of New York City (notes in preparation for the planned but never published volume), Mabbott Collection, University of Iowa
• Reece, James B., Poe and the New York Literati: A Study of the “Literati” Sketches and of Poe’s Relations with the New York Writers (unpublished disseration), Duke University, 1954.
• Woodberry, George Edward, Edgar Allan Poe, from the American Men of Letters Series, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1885.
• Woodberry, George Edward, The Life of Edgar Allan Poe, Personal and Literary, 2 vols, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909 (Revised version of Woodberry’s Edgar Allan Poe of 1885.)