Edgar Allan Poe — “To My Mother”

Reading copy:

• “To My Mother” — reading copy

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings:

• Text-01 — “Sonnet — To My Mother” — about April, 1849, no original manuscript or fragments are known to exist (but this version is presumably recorded in Text-02)
• Text-02 — “Sonnet — To My Mother” — July 7, 1849 — Flag of Our Union — (Mabbott text A)
• Text-03 — “To My Mother” — 1850 — WORKS — (Mabbott text B)  (This is Mabbott’s first copy-text for the poem) (although printed later than Leaflets of Memory for 1850, this version appears to be an earlier revision)
• Text-04 — “Sonnet to My Mother” — 1849 — Leaflets of Memory for 1850 — Philadelphia: E. H. Butler & Co. (edited by Reynell Coates, M.D.) (Mabbott text C)  (This is Mabbott’s second copy-text for the poem) (an “annual” for 1850 would have been printed and sold in 1849, and is reviewed in the Literary World for November 17, 1849, see below. Although issued before WORKS, this appears to be a more fully revised version, probably arranged by Poe before his death but unknown to Griswold.)

Reprints:

• “Sonnet — To My Mother” — August 8, 1849 — reprint, Oquawka Spectator  (noted as copied from the Flag of Our Union)
• “Sonnet to My Mother” — about September 1849 — Richmond Examiner proof sheets  (H&C give a publication date as October 29, 1849, but apparently in error. Stovall searched the files of the Examiner carefully, and found no printing of the sonnet. It is presumed that Whitty saw F. W. Thomas’ transcription of the poem from the Examiner proof sheets. According to Whitty, the text matched that printed in the Southern Literary Messenger, which was itself a reprinting of the poem from Leaflets of Memory for 1850.)
  
• “To My Mother” — November 17, 1849 — reprint, Literary World, vol. V, no. 20, p. 424, col. 1  (reprinted from “C”)
• “To My Mother” — December 7, 1849 — reprint, Herald (New York)
• “To My Mother” — December 8, 1849 — reprint, Brooklyn Daily Eagle (New York), vol. VIII, no. 289, p. 1, col. 1 (Reprinted from Herald)
• “To My Mother” — December 1849 — reprint with minor prefatory material, Sartain’s
• “Sonnet to My Mother” — December 1849 — Southern Literary Messenger (printed with some brief introduction and commentary to encourage financial support for Mrs. Clemm)
  
• “To My Mother” — November 24, 1849 — reprint, Home Journal
• “To My Mother” — April 1850 — reprint, Sartain’s, p. 312
• “[To My Mother]” — October 30, 1858 — Home Journal (included in a “letter” about Poe by N. P. Willis.)
• “To My Mother” — 1875 — The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol 3: Poems  and Essays, ed. J. H. Ingram, Edinburgh, Adam and Charles Black (3:25)

Scholarly and Noteworthy Reprints:

• “To My Mother” — 1894-1895 — The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 10: Poems, ed. G. E. Woodberry and E. C. Stedman, Chicago: Stone and Kimball (10:94, and 10:195)
• “To My Mother” — 1902 — The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 7: Poems, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (10:116, and 10:218)
• “Sonnet — To My Mother” — 1911 — The Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. J. H. Whitty, Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co. (p. 78, and pp. 241-242)
• “To My Mother” — 1917 — The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Killis Campbell, Boston: Ginn and Company (p. 133, and pp. 291-293)
• “To My Mother” — 1965 — The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Floyd Stovall, Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia (p. 123, and pp. 286-287)
• “To My Mother” — 1969 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 1: Poems, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (1:465-468)  (Mabbott prints two versions of the poem)
• “To My Mother” — 1984 — Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales, ed. Patrick F. Quinn (New York: Library of America) (pp. 101-102) (reprints the text from Works, 1850)

Instream Comparative and Study Texts:

• None

Plain Text Files for Juxta:

• None

Miscellaneous Texts and Related Items:

• “To My Mother” — 1930s — In the 1930s, a number of companies manufactured Mother’s Day plaques using the first stanza of Poe’s poem.
• “A ma mère” — dated 2009, but available in late 2008 — Poèmes d‘Edgar Allan Poe, Paris: Publibook (translation by Jean Hautepierre)

• 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.