Edgar Allan Poe — “Spirits of the Dead”

Reading copy:

• “Spirits of the Dead” — reading copy

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings:

• Text-01 — “Visit of the Dead” — 1827, no original manuscript or fragments are known to exist (but this version is presumably recorded in Text-02)
• Text-02 — “Visit of the Dead” — 1827 — TAOP — (Mabbott text A)  (This is Mabbott’s copy-text for this version)
• Text-03 — “The Spirits of the Dead” — about 1828  — “Wilmer” manuscript — (Mabbott text B)
• Text-04 — “Spirits of the Dead”— 1829 — ATMP — (Mabbott text C) (Poe to L. A. Wilmer; Bishop John Fletcher Hurst (1834-1903) (library sold at auction in 1904); Frank Maier (sold on Novemnber 22, 1909); Gabriel Wells (before 1933); H. Bradley Martin (library sold in 1990); Stephan Lowentheill (19th Century Bookshop); Susan Jaffe Tane)
• Text-05 — “Spirits of the Dead” — July 1839 — Burton’s — (unsigned)  (Mabbott text D)  (This is Mabbott’s copy-text for this version) (In a letter to P. P. Cooke, Poe mentions that he is sending copies of the July, August, and September 1839 issues of Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, but in Cooke’s reply it is clear that he is responding only to a number of the stories as printed in Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, of which Poe had sent Cooke an inscribed copy. He does not mention either of the poems by Poe that appeared in this issue. There is no reason to suspect that any of these magazine copies contained manuscript revisions by Poe.)

Reprints:

• “Spirits of the Dead” — March 12, 1864 — Roll Call (a publication of the Washington Sanitary Fair) (This item is cited by T. O. Mabbott in the introduction to his facsimile of Tamerlane and Other Poems, p. lx, and in his 1969 edition of Poe’s Poems, p. 71.)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1877 — The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. E. L. Didier, New York: W. J. Widdleton (pp. 246-247) (This poem had not been collected by Griswold, Ingram or Stoddard)

Scholarly and Noteworthy Reprints:

• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1894-1895 — The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 10: Poems, eds. E. C. Stedman and G. E. Woodberry, Chicago: Stone and Kimball (10:128-129, and 10:226-227)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1902 — The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 7: Poems, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (7:13-14, and 7:148-149)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1911 — The Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. J. H. Whitty, Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co. (pp. 120-121, and pp. 272-273)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1917 — The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Killis Campbell, Boston: Ginn and Company (pp. 23-25, and pp. 158-160)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1965 — The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Floyd Stovall, Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia (pp. 15-16, and pp. 179-180)
• “Visit of the Dead” — 1969 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 1: Poems, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (1:70-72) (Mabbott gives the early version of the poem along with “Spirits of the Dead.”)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1969 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 1: Poems, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (1:72-73)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1984 — Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales, ed. Patrick F. Quinn (New York: Library of America) (pp. 32-33) (reprints Text-05)

Instream Comparative and Study Texts:

• None

Plain Text Files for Juxta:

• None

Miscellaneous Texts and Related Items:

• “Les esprits des morts” — dated 2009, but available in late 2008 — Poèmes d‘Edgar Allan Poe, Paris: Publibook (translation by Jean Hautepierre)
• “Spirits of the Dead” — 1999 - atmospheric audio recoding, read by Larry Moss and with organ accompaniment (CD titled “Tales from the Tomb: Frigtening Fables from the Darkside,” Laserlight Digital) (included on the same recording is “The Raven” and 8 selections of works that are not by Poe)

• Heartman, Charles F., “A Remarkable Addition to the Poe Census,” American Book Collector (Metuchen, NJ), vol. III, no. 4, April 1933, p. 246
• 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 (Vol 1 Poems), Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1969.