Edgar Allan Poe — “King Pest”

Reading copy:

• “King Pest” — reading copy

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings:

• Text-01 — “King Pest the First. A Tale containing an Allegory” — 1835, no original manuscript or fragments are known to exist (but this version is presumably recorded in Text-02)
• Text-02 — “King Pest the First. A Tale containing an Allegory” — September 1835 — Southern Literary Messenger — (Mabbott text A)
• Text-03 — “King Pest the First. A Tale containing an Allegory” — about 1839 — manuscript revisions in “Duane” copy of Southern Literary Messenger — (Mabbott text B)
• Text-04 — “King Pest. A Tale containing an Allegory” — 1840 — TGA — (Mabbott text C)
• Text-05 — “King Pest” — 1842 — TGAPP — (Mabbott text D)  (This version is a modified form of Text-04)
• Text-06 — “King Pest. A Tale containing an Allegory” — October 18, 1845 — Broadway Journal — (Mabbott text E) (For Griswold’s 1850 reprinting of this text, see the entry below, under reprints.)

Reprints:

• “King Pest. A Tale containing an Allegory” — 1850 — WORKS — Griswold reprints Text-06 (Mabbott text F)  (This is Mabbott’s copy-text)  (Griswold corrects several typographical errors, and there is one minor verbal difference. Mabbott presumes that this is auctorial, but it might just as easily be a misreading by the typesetter as it repeats a word used earlier in the same sentence.)
• “King Pest” — 1867 — Prose Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, second series (New York: W. J. Widdleton), pp. 67-79 (This collection is extracted from the 1850-1856 edition of Poe’s Works. It was reprinted several times.)
• “King Pest” — 1874 — Works of Edgar A. Poe, edited by J. H. Ingram (vol. II, pp. 278-291) (This collection was subsequently reprinted in various forms)

Scholarly and Noteworthy Reprints:

• “King Pest” — 1894-1895 — The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 4: Tales, ed. G. E. Woodberry and E. C. Stedman, Chicago: Stone and Kimball (4:58-74) (This collection was subsequently reprinted in various forms)
• “King Pest” — 1902 — The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 2: Tales I, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (2:168-184, and 2:367-370)
• “King Pest” — 1978 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 2: Tales & Sketches I, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2:238-255)
• “King Pest” — 1984 — Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales, ed. Patrick F. Quinn (New York: Library of America), pp. 240-252

Instream Comparative and Study Texts:

• “King Pest the First” — Study Text (SLM-WMD)
• “King Pest” — Comparative Text (SLM, SLM-WMD and TGA)
• “King Pest” — Study Text (TGAPP)

Miscellaneous Texts and Related Items:

• “Le roi peste” — (French translation by Charles Baudelaire)
  • “Le roi peste” — January 23-27, 1855 — Le Pays
    • “Le roi peste” — Part I  (January 23, 1855)
    • “Le roi peste” — Part II  (January 26, 1855)
    • “Le roi peste” — Part III  (January 27, 1855)
  • “Le roi peste” — 1857 — Nouvelles histoires par Edgar Poe, Paris: Michel Lévy frères

• Goldhurst, William, “Poe’s Multiple King Pest: A Source Study,” Tulane Studies in English (1972), 20:107-121.
• 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.
• Hudson, Ruth Leigh, “Poe and Disraeli,” American Literature (January 1937), 8:402-416.
• Lucas, Mary, “Poe’s Theatre: ‘King Pest’ and ‘Hop-Frog’,” Journal of the Short Story in English (1990), 14:25-40.
• 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.
• Whipple, William, “Poe’s Political Satire,” University of Texas Studies in English (1956), 35:81-95.
• 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.