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The Works of the Edgar Allan Poe (Stedman/Woodberry Edition)


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(Under Construction)

Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodberry largely defended R. W. Griswold as an editor and a biographer, without necessarily advocating many of his most extreme attacks on Poe.

 

The Works of the Edgar Allan Poe (The Stedman/Woodberry Edition) (1894-1895)

  • Volume I: Memoir and Tales G&A I - Romances of Death and the Old-World   (“Shadow — a Parable,” etc.) (1894)  (advertised in Publisher’s Weekly on Jan. 12, 1895) (Preface dated Oct. 28, 1984)
  • Volume II: Tales G&A II - Conscience, Natural Beauty, and Pseudo-science   (“William Wilson,” etc.)  (1894)  (advertised in Publisher’s Weekly on Jan. 12, 1895)
  • Volume III: Tales G&A III - Ratiocination and Illusion   (“Murders in the Rue Morgue,” etc.)  (1894)  (advertised in Publisher’s Weekly on Jan. 12, 1895)
  • Volume IV: Tales G&A IV - Extravaganza and Caprice   (“The Duc de L’Omelette,” etc.) (1895)  (advertised in Publisher’s Weekly on June 22, 1895)
  • Volume V: Tales of Adventure and Exploration   (“Narrative of A. G. Pym” and “Journal of J. Rodman”) (1895)  (advertised in Publisher’s Weekly on Feb. 22, 1896)
  • Volume VI: Literary Criticism I - of Poetry and Poets   (1895)  (advertised in Publisher’s Weekly on Feb. 22, 1896) (Preface dated May 5, 1895)
  • Volume VII: Literary Criticism II - of Novels, Essays, and Travel; Marginalia   (1895)  (advertised in Publisher’s Weekly on Feb. 22, 1896)
  • Volume VIII: Literary Criticism III - The Literati; A Chapter of Suggestions   (1895)  (advertised in Publisher’s Weekly on Feb. 22, 1896)
  • Volume IX: Eureka and Miscellanies   (“Maelzel’s Chess-Player,” etc.) (1895)  (advertised in Publisher’s Weekly on Feb. 22, 1896)
  • Volume X: Poems   (1895)  (apparently completed on Dec. 3, 1895) (advertised in Publisher’s Weekly on Feb. 22, 1896) (Preface dated May 5, 1895)

The first four volumes are collectively categorized as “Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque,” taking as a general title the one used for Poe’s 1840 edition of tales.

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Woodberry had written a very popular biography of Poe, first published in 1885 and reprinted several times. Stedman had

Stone and Kimball was founded in 1893 by two recent Harvard graduates, Herbert Stuart Stone (died 1915, on the Lusitania) and Hannibal Ingalls Kimball, Jr. (1874-1933). Their first publication was a paperback reissue of Chicago and the World’s Fair: A Popular Guide. Their most ambitious undertaking, this elaborate edition of Poe’s works, would also prove to bring an end to the enterprise. According to A. B. Creek, “The Poe edition sold very slowly, and the net result of this expensive project was the tying up of a large amount of working capital during one of the worst economic depressions in American History” (49:442). Althought the company managed to print several other books, and literary daily, it was unable to recover financially and disolved in 1897. Stone went on to found Herbert S. Stone and Company. Kimball became an advertising designer at the Cheltham Press.


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Bibliographic Data:

8vo (8 1/4 in x 5 1/2 in), large paper edition is 8vo ( also tall 8vo (9 in x 10 in).

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The set was available in three forms:

Regular edition, laid paper, with the Stone and Kimball watermark, bound in cloth or half-leather.

Large paper edition, limited to 250 sets.

Japan paper edition, with an extra set of of etchings in a vellum portfolio, limited to 10 sets.


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A Chronology of Printings and Reprintings:

  • Stone and Kimball  (Chicago)
    • 1894 - volumes I-III
    • 1895 - volumes IV-X
  • Lawrence and Bullen (London)
    • 1895 - volumes I-X  (London reprint of vols. I-X)
  • The Colonial Company (New York)
    • 1903 - reprint of volumes I-X  (called “The Definitive Edition” and limited to 1,000 sets. The preface is slightly revised by the editors.)
  • Duffield & Co. (New York)
    • 1906 - volumes I-X  (reprint of vols. I-X)  (also reprinted in 1908?)
    • 1907 (September) - The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (a separate printing of the volume of Poe’s poetry, reprinted from volume X, although the date has been removed from the preface. The pagination matches the 1894-1895 volume exactly.) (reprinted again in 1908)
  • Charles Scribner’s Sons (New York)
    • 1914 - reprint of volumes I-X
    • 1914 - The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (a separate printing of the volume of Poe’s poetry. The pagination differs from the 1894-1895 volume)
    • 1927 - reprint of volumes I-X

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Census of Copies:

There are so many surviving copies of these volumes that a listing is impractical and unnecessary.


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Bibliography:

  • American Art Association Auction Catalogue, The Stephen H. Wakeman Collection of Books of Nineteenth Century American Writers, April 1924 (items 958 and 959).
  • Bayless, Joy, Rufus Wilmot Griswold: Poe’s Literary Executor, Nashville, Tennesee: Vanderbilt University Press, 1943. (The edition of Poe’s works is chiefly discussed in Chapter VIII: “Liteary Executor of Edgar Allan Poe,” pp. 161-200.)
  • Blanck, Jacob, “Edgar Allan Poe,” Bibliography of American Literature; volume 7: James Kirke Paulding to Frank Richard Stockton, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1983. (Volume 7 is edited and completed by Virginia L. Smyers and Michael Winship. For Griswold’s editions, see items 16158- 16161, pp. 123-125.)
  • Campbell, Killis, “The Poe-Griswold Controversy,” The Mind of Poe and Other Studies, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1933, pp. 63-98. (This article originally appeared in PMLA, XXXIV, Sept. 1919, pp. 436-464.)
  • Creek, Alma Burner, “Herbert S. Stone and Company,” Dictionary of Literary Biography, Detroit, MI: Gale Research Company, 49:436-440.
  • Creek, Alma Burner, “Stone and Kimball,” Dictionary of Literary Biography, Detroit, MI: Gale Research Company, 49:440-443.
  • Derby, James Cephas, Fifty Years Among Authors, Books, and Publishers, New York: G. W. Carleton & Co., 1884 (reprinted in 1885 and 1886).
  • Gimbel, Colonel Richard, “Quoth the Raven: An Exhibition of the Work of Edgar Allan Poe,” The Yale University Library Gazette, vol. 33, No. 4, Paril 1959, pp. 138-189. (The cotnract between Mrs. Clemm and Griswold is item 123, on pages 180-181. It is reproduced in facsimile facing page 185. Other relevant items are 125, 126-127, 128, 131 and 133.)
  • Griswold, Rufus Wilmot, ed., The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe, New York: J. S. Redfield, 4 vols, 1850-1856.
  • Harrison, James A., “Editor’s Preface,” in The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1902. (vol. I, pp. vii-xx. The preface is dated “March 25, 1902.”) (Volume XVII contains letters by and about Poe. It was reprinted as volume II of The Life and Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1903.)
  • Hatvary, George Egon, “The Whereabouts of Poe’s ‘Fifty Suggestions’,” Poe Studies, IV, No. 2, December 1971, p. 47.
  • Heartman, Charles F and James R. Canny, A Bibliography of First Printings of the Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, 1943, pp. 129-133. (Reprinted, Millwood, New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1977.)
  • O’Neill, Edward H., “The Poe-Griswold-Harrison Texts of the ‘Marginalia’,” American Literature, XV, November 1943, pp. 238-250.
  • Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc. Auction Catalogue, The Frank J. Hogan Library: Part One - American Authors, First Editions, Autograph Lettes, Manuscripts, January 23 and 24, 1945 (items 584 and 585). (The only significant information here is the description of item 584, which includes the volume with N. P. Willis’ autographs.)
  • Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, volume I: Poems (1969); volumes II & III: Tales and Sketches (1978), Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
  • Miller, John Carl, Building Poe Biography, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977.
  • Miller, John Carl, Poe’s Helen Remembers,
  • Moldenhauer, Joseph J., “Mabbott’s Poe and the Question of Copy-Texts,” Poe Studies, XI, no. 2, December 1978, pp. 41-46. (Moldenhauer questions T. O. Mabbott’s reliance on Griswold’s versions of Poe’s works as his chief source for a definitive text.)
  • Pollin, Burton R., “Introduction: Marginalia,” The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe; volume 2: The Brevities, New York: Gordian Press, 1985, pp. xv-xxii.
  • Pollin, Burton R., “The Living Writers of America:  A Manuscript by Edgar Allan Poe,” Studies in the American Renaissance 1991, Charlottesville, Virginia: The University Press of Virginia, 1991, pp. 151-211.
  • Pollin, Burton R., “A Comprehensive Bibliography of Editions and Translations of Arthur Gordon Pym,”  ATQ (American Transcendental Quarterly), Winter 1978, pp. 93- 110. (Pollin lists several printings of the Griswold edition on page 106, items 2 and 4.)
  • Quinn, Arthur Hobson, Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography, New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1941.
  • Thompson, John Ruben, The Genius and Character of Edgar Allan Poe, privately printed, 1929. (Edited and arranged by James H. Whitty and James H. Rindfleisch.)
  • Southeby Auction Catalogue, The Library of H. Bradley Martin: Highly Important American and Children’s Literature, New York, January 30 and 31, 1990, item 2213.
  • Woodberry, George E. (assigned as writer of this anonymous review by Killis Campbell), The Nation, December 4, 1902, p. 445-447.
  • Woodberry, George E. and Edmund Clarence Stedman, “General Preface,” The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Chicago: Stone and Kimball, 1894-1895 (reprinted by New York: The Colonial Company, 1903 and Charles Scribners’s Sons, 1914).

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[S:0 - JAS] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Editions - Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Stedman/Woodberry)