The Miscellanea of Edgar Allan Poe

Within these selections, all original punctuation, abbreviations and spellings have been retained. Where these spellings differ greatly from modern spellings, the most current form is noted in brackets immediately following the word. A number of obvious variants, such as “colour” for “color,” reflect conventions to which we no longer adhere, but which were considered acceptable during Poe’s lifetime and are left to stand without additional commentary. For manuscript material, including Poe’s own corrections to printed sources, text contained within angle brackets “<...>” shows annotations made by Poe himself for the main text given. Reversed double-angle brackets “>>...<<” show text that Poe has canceled by striking or scratching out. Text contained within square brackets “[...]” is not part of the original. This text is intended as notes or corrections of typographical errors. In the original printings, some text occasionally appears within square brackets “[...].” In such cases, these have been changed to standard parentheses to avoid confusion. (Note: Over time, we will be changing our previously stated policy concerning square brackets to retain Poe’s usage and distinguish our own editorial notes by enclosing these in double-square brackets “[[...]]”.)

Poe published only one book which fits this category (although it ran through three editions), and was perhaps involved with another book of a similar vein. He did work on Literary America, and apparently considered publishing a book of Marginalia. A number of items were first collected in the posthumous collection of Works edited by Rufus Wilmot Griswold, incorporating some additional manuscript changes and other material. These books and collections are listed chronologically.

These items are arranged alphabetically by name. Within each name, entries are listed chronologically. Some of these items were not published under any specific title and most are, therefore, given here under a title deemed appropriately descriptive. The authorship of some items is a topic long researched and debated. Most of the items included here were signed, but for some, the attribution to Poe is necessarily the result of conjecture.