Edgar Allan Poe — “The Oblong Box”

Reading copy:

• “The Oblong Box” — reading copy

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings:

• Text-01 — “The Oblong Box” — 1844, no original manuscript or fragments are known to exist (but this version is presumably recorded in Text-02)
• Text-02 — “The Oblong Box” — September 1844 — Lady’s Book — (Mabbott text A)
• Text-03 — “The Oblong Box” — December 13, 1845 — Broadway Journal — (Mabbott text B) (For Griswold’s 1850 reprinting of this text, see the entry below, under reprints.)

Reprints:

• “The Oblong Box: A Capital Story” — August 28, 1844 — Dollar Newspaper
• “The Oblong Box” — September 7, 1844 — Western Literary Messenger
• “The Oblong Box” — 1850 — WORKS — Griswold reprints Text-03  (Mabbott text C)  (This is Mabbott’s copy-text)
• “The Oblong Box” — 1852 — Tales and Sketches: to which is added The Raven: A Poem, London, George Routledge & Co.
• “The Oblong Box” — 1867 — Prose Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, second series (New York: W. J. Widdleton), pp. 55-66 (This collection is extracted from the 1850-1856 edition of Poe’s Works. It was reprinted several times.)
• “The Oblong Box” — 1874 — Works of Edgar A. Poe, edited by J. H. Ingram (vol. II, pp. 265-277) (This collection was subsequently reprinted in various forms)

Scholarly and Noteworthy Reprints:

• “The Oblong Box” — 1894-1895 — The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 3: Tales, ed. G. E. Woodberry and E. C. Stedman, Chicago: Stone and Kimball (3:233-248)
• “The Oblong Box” — 1902 — The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 5: Tales IV, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (5:274-289, and 5:327-328)
• “The Oblong Box” — 1978 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 3: Tales & Sketches II, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (3:919-935)
• “The Oblong Box” — 1984 — Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales, Patrick F. Quinn (New York: Library of America), pp. 643-654

Instream Comparative Texts:

• None.

Plain Text Files for Juxta:

• None.

Miscellaneous Texts and Related Items:

• “[The Oblong Box]” — 1855 — Fortaellinger [Tales]  (Copenhagen)  (Danish translation, noted by Anderson, p. 14)
• “La caisse oblongue” — 1862 — Contes inedts d‘Edgar Poe, Paris: J. Hetzel  (French translation by William L. Hughes)
• “[The Oblong Box]” — 1868 — Phantastiske Fortaellinger [Fantastic Tales]  (Copenhagen)  (Danish translation by Robert Watt, noted by Anderson, p. 14)
• “La caisse oblongue” — 1882 — Contes Grotesques par Edgar Poe, Paris: Paul Ollendorff  (French translation by Émile Hennequin)
• “La caisse oblongue” — 1914 — Edgar Poe: Histories étranges et Merrveilleuses, Paris: Mercure de France (French translation by M. D. Calvocoressi)
• “La Boite oblongue” — 1934 — Les Sphinx et autres contes bizarres par Edgar Poë, Paris: Galliard (French translation by Matila C. Ghyka)
• “The Oblong Box” — Winter 1944 — Crown Comics (number 1)  (a comic-book)
• “The Oblong Box” — February 18, 1945 — a radio show broadcast on the Weird Circle show. (As was often the case with dramatic presentations of Poe’s works, the story has been modified.)
• “La boite rectangulaire” — 1950 — Histories grotesques et sérieuse par Edgar Poe, Paris: Classiques Garnier  (French translation by Léon Lemonnier)
• “Mustatil Sandik” — 1955 — Altin Böcek [Golden Beetle], Varlik edition, Istanbul (Turkish translation) (the small softbound book has 109 pages. It features “The Gold-Bug” but includes seven other tales.)
• “The Oblong Box” — January 1965 — Magazine of Horror (number 6)   (vol. II, no. 1) (an inexpensive pulp magazine, published by Health Knowledge, and originally sold for 50 cents)
• “The Oblong Box” — 2008 — Audio book (unabridged), read by Chris Aruffo

• Anderson, Carl L., Poe in Northlight: The Scandanavian Response to His Life and Work, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1973.
• 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. (Second printing 1979)
• Vierra, Clifford Carley (as pseudonym of Carley, C. V.), “A Source for Poe’s ‘The Oblong Box’,” American Literature, November 1957, 29:310-313
• Vierra, Clifford Carley, “Poe’s ‘Oblong Box’: Factual Origins,” Modern Language Notes, December 1959, 74:693-695
• 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.