Edgar Allan Poe — “Loss of Breath”

Reading copy:

• “Loss of Breath” — reading copy

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings:

• Text-01 — “A Decided Loss” — 1831, no original manuscript or fragments are known to exist (but this version is presumably recorded in Text-02)
• Text-02 — “A Decided Loss” — November 10, 1832 — Saturday Courier — (Mabbott text A1)  (This is Mabbott’s copy-text for this title)
• Text-03 — “Loss of Breath” — September 1835 — Southern Literary Messenger — (Mabbott text A)
• Text-04 — “Loss of Breath” — about 1839 — manuscript revisions in “Duane” copy of Southern Literary Messenger — (Mabbott text B)
• Text-05 — “Loss of Breath” — 1840 — TGA — (Mabbott text C)
• Text-06 — “Loss of Breath” — 1842 — presumed changes for TGAPP — (This tale appeared in the second volume of TGAPP, which has not survived, but the substantially different text in Text-07, including 6 paragraphs that replace 26 paragraphs, strongly suggests such changes. Thus, these manuscript revisions are lost, but presumably recorded in Text-07)
• Text-07 — “Loss of Breath” — January 3, 1846 — Broadway Journal — (Mabbott text D)  (For Griswold’s 1856 reprinting of this text, see the entry below, under reprints.)

Reprints:

• “Loss of Breath” — 1856 — WORKS — Griswold reprints Text-07  (Mabbott text E)  (This is Mabbott’s copy-text for this title)
• “Loss of Breath” — 1867 — Prose Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, second series (New York: W. J. Widdleton), pp. 465-477 (This collection is extracted from the 1850-1856 edition of Poe’s Works. It was reprinted several times.)
• “Loss of Breath” — 1874 — Works of Edgar A. Poe, edited by J. H. Ingram, vol. 2, pp. 535-548 (This collection was subsequently reprinted in various forms)

Scholarly and Noteworthy Reprints:

• “Loss of Breath” — 1894-1895 — The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 4: Tales, ed. G. E. Woodberry and E. C. Stedman, Chicago: Stone and Kimball (4:75-91) (This collection was subsequently reprinted in various forms)
• “Loss of Breath” — 1902 — The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 2: Tales I, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (2:151-167, and 2:356-367)
• “A Decided Loss” — 1978 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 2: Tales & Sketches I, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2:51-61)
• “Loss of Breath” — 1978 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 2: Tales & Sketches I, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2:61-82)
• “Loss of Breath” — 1984 — Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales, Patrick F. Quinn (New York: Library of America), pp. 151-163

Instream Comparative Texts:

• None.

Plain Text Files for Juxta:

• None.

Miscellaneous Texts and Related Items:

• “L‘homme sans souffle” — 1882 — Contes Grotesques par Edgar Poe, Paris: Paul Ollendorff  (French translation by Émile Hennequin)
• “L‘haleine perdue” — 1885 — Oeuvres Choisies d‘Edgar Pöe, Paris: A. Hennuyer  (French translation by William L. Hughes)
• “Perte d‘Haleine — Conte qui n‘est ni dans ni hors de Blackwood” — 1914 — Edgar Poe: Histories étranges et Merrveilleuses, Paris: Mercure de France (French translation by M. D. Calvocoressi, from the Harrison reprint of the SLM text)
• “A bout de souffle” — 1934 — Les Sphinx et autres contes bizarres par Edgar Poë, Paris: Galliard (French translation by Marie Bonaparte)
• “Perte d‘Haleine” — 1950 — Histories grotesques et sérieuse par Edgar Poe, Paris: Classiques Garnier (French translation by Léon Lemonnier)
• ”Décidément perdu” — 1991 — Edgar Poe: Le Chat Noir et Autres Contes, Paris: Le Livre de Poche  (French translation by Henri Justin of the 1832 version of the tale, based on Mabbott’s printing of the text)

• Abdoo, Sherlyn, “Poe’s ‘Loss of Breath’ and the Problem of Writing,” in The Elemental Passions of the Soul: Poetics of the Elements in the Human Condition, ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Dordrecht, South Africa: Kluwer, 1992, pp. 581-594
• Bachinger, Katrina E., “Towards a New Era in Poe Stdies: The Case for a Byronic Interpretation of Poe’s Tales Illustrated by ‘A Decided Loss’ and ‘Bon-Bon’,” in Salzburg Miscellany: English and American Studies 1964-1984, ed. Wilfried Haslauer, Salzburg, Austra: Institut fur Anglistik & Amerikanstik, University of Salzburg, 1984, 1:37-54.
• 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.
• Varner, Cornelia, “Notes on Poe’s Use of Contemporary Materials in Certain of his Stories,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology, January 1933, 32:77-80.
• Wyllie, John Cooke, “A List of the Texts of Poe’s Tales,” Humanistic Studies in Honor of John Calvin Metcalf, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1941, pp. 322-338.