The Miscellanea of Edgar Allan Poe

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.

Later Collected Editions:

After Griswold’s death in 1857, there were several alternate attempts to collect Poe’s works, including some of Poe’s miscellaneous material, such as the “Autography” and “Marginalia” series. The most important of these were collections edited by John H. Ingram, also in four volumes (initially published in 1874-1875), the ten-volume set edited by Edmund C. Stedman and George E. Woodberry (initially published in 1894-1895), and the seventeen-volume set edited by James A. Harrsion (published in 1902). (Although at least one of these editions bears the title of The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, none of them are, in fact, actually complete. In some instances, they also contain works that have since been identified as not being by Poe.) Individual volumes of poems were generally selected from the larger collections.

Modern Scholarly Editions:

The most widely recognized scholarly edition of Poe’s miscellaneous material is that edited by Burton R. Pollin, continuing the series long planned by Thomas Ollive Mabbott (but interrupted by his death in 1968). This edition is thoroughly annotated, with introductory material, notes and variants. That series remained incomplete at the time of Pollin’s death in 2009.

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 “[[...]]”.)

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.