Text: Anonymous, “The ‘Virginia’ Poe,” Inter Ocean (Chicago, IL), vol. XXXI, no. 252, December 1, 1902, p. 7, cols. 3-5

[page 7, column 3, continued:]

One of the most important literary works of the year is the “Virginia” edition of Edgar Allan Poe. It is important in a literary sense, and also as a sign that Poe is coming to his own. Among the literary few there have always been faith and admiration, but there are many signs that the reading public is beginning to see in Poe the pioneer American romanticist.

The name Virginia” is given the edition not in memory of the poet's child wife, but in recognition of his identification with the state and its university, and of the fact that the editor, Professor James A. Harrison, and his chief assistant are of the faculty of the University. of Virginia. It is in seventeen volumes, and is published in two forms: “pocket” edition and larger library edition, which contains more illustrations.

The work is thus described:

The first of the seventeen volumes is occupied entirely with a new life of Poe by Professor Harrison; volumes II. to VI. contain the “Tales,” with Professor Mabie's inquiries as to “Poe's Place in American Literature” in the first volume of the division; volume VII. includes the poems, edited and introduced by Professor Charles W. Kent; volumes VIII. and XIII. contain the critical work of Poe, much of it here presented for the first time in book pages; volumes XIV. to XVI. present the essays and miscellanies — the curious “Autography” and “Cryptography,” the “Literati” series, and “‘Eureka,’ and volume XVII. concludes the series with “‘Letters” — Poe's own for the most part, but with many written to him.

There are many new things in the “Virginia” edition — so many that their enumeration in full would take more space than can be given for the purpose. In general, the results ‘of the work of nearly 6,000 pages based upon entirely original research may thus be outlined:

An entirely authentic text. The editor's method was to dismiss Griswold from consideration and go back to Poe himself. The foundation of the edition is (a) Poe's own copy of the Broadway Journal, in which he reprinted all of his work up to December, 1845, that he. considered worth preserving. (b) Poe's own copy of “The Raved, and Other Poems,” published in 1845, and now in possession of the Century association of New York city. (c) Poe's own copy of the Tales (twelve In number), collected by Duyckinck, and published in 1845. Poe corrected these “Tales” in numerous places in his own handwriting, and the “Virginia” edition embodies all his corrections. (d) Poe's own copy of “Eureka,” containing his own very numerous autograph corrections. (e) The original files of the Southern Literary Messenger for, 1836, 1836, and January, 1837, for volumes VIII. and IX. The original files of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, and Graham's Magazine for volumes X., XI., and XIV. The original files of Godey for “The Literati of New York City” (volume XV.). The fifteen sets of “Marginalia” are derived directly from the original sources in the Democratic Review, Graham, Godey, and the Southern Literary Messenger. So likewise with the long articles on autography, cryptography, the Pinakidia, etc. — all come directly from the original sources.

Arrangement in chronological order. This arrangement suggested itself as the only true and logical order in which to study the evolution of Poe's art from its crude, Imitative beginnings to its powerful, original development in the middle and terminal periods. This order had never been adopted before. Poe's writings had been left by Griswold in jumble, without Intelligent editing, an Indiscriminate mass of fiction, poetry, criticism, and miscellany, and in this condition they remained up to the present day. This difficulty is now removed, and the exact source as well as date of every production, it known, is indicated in brackets at the beginning of each article.

Poe was a profound student of his art; he continually varied the text of his works, printing and reprinting them in differing forms in the contemporary journals, yet never resting till they had, reached that perfection of verbal felicity of which he was a past master. This is especially true of his tales and poems. The “Virginia” edition diligently follows up this habit of Poe's and sets down in abundant notes, in the proper places, all the different changes, whether of amplification or condensation, made by Poe in his own text.

The Interesting and surprising discovery made by the editor of Griswold's peculiar [column 4:] manipulation of “The Literati” papers, substituting five of his papers for five of Poe's. Professor Harrison says: “One of the most singular and detestable is the case of Hawthorne, against whom Poe is supposed to have cherished animosity. On examining into the matter I found that Poe had written, at three different times, three widely different reviews of Hawthorne, and that Griswold had taken the last of these reviews, written for Godey's in 1847, split It open, inserted another review from Graham's for May, 1842, mutilated the latter, and then continued with the tail fragment of the 1847 review as colophon and conclusion, without a word to explain the procedure. Now all three reviews appear in their chronological places.

“Griswold proceeded in the same manner with the two reviews of the famous Davidson sisters, blending two widely distant reviews in one. The snarl of the ‘Otis[[Outis]]-Longfellow-Poe’ controversy has been completely disentangled and placed in a clear light, every Item set in its chronological place, and the original paragraphing restored as Poe left it. Griswold's ‘Marginalia’ differed widely from Poe's. The reverend gentleman inserted short reviews of Bayard Taylor, William Wallace, etc., among the ‘Marginalia,’ and omitted a large number of interesting entries made by the poet. The insertions have been withdrawn and transferred to their proper places as reviews, while the omissions have been restored.” Griswold's treatment of the “Marginalia” brings out the discovery that fully forty pages of these interesting jottings as contained in the “Virginia” edition are new, the omitted portions either having been overlooked or ignored by succeeding editors. The same is true of the long papers on autography and secret writing.

Numerous appendices and bibliographical aids are included in the edition, which really aims to be a Poe encyclopedia. Among these are the famous “Ludwig” poem, Poe's reply to his critics (during the Messenger period), “Poe and Chivers,” an elaborate examination by Professor Harrison of the Poe-Chivers controversy, with the result established that Chivers, not Poe, was the plagiarist; a number of new poems attributed to Poe, Poe's own copy of “Annabel Lee,” Poe's autobiography in his own handwriting, furnished by him to Griswold for the notice in “Poets and Poetry of America”; Poe's long lost “Introduction to the Tales of the Folio Club,” the first complete bibliography to all Poe's known writings grouped under chronological heads.

All Poe's correspondence, including authentic texts of letters from and to him, and comprising such rare items as the complete Poe- correspondence, the Duyckinck, Hutchinson, and Snodgrass collections, unpublished letters from Poe and Mrs. Clemm, giving the family genealogy, numerous letters from Mrs. Whitman, “Annie” Nelson, and William Poe, Mrs. Shelton, Mrs. Clemm, Gabriel Harrison, and others. About two-thirds of its contents are new even to Poe specialists. The library form of the new edition contains much valuable illustrative matter, such as the unpublished portraits of John Allan, Mrs. Shelton, Mr. Clemm (father of Virginia Poe), two or three new portraits of Poe, Poe's surroundings at the University of Virginia, and fasimilies [[facsimiles]] of rare title pages and manuscripts.

Thus one sees that here is really what the editor claims — Poe encyclopedia. Poe is fully set forth as man, poet, story teller, and critic. Poe, the man, probably defies the efforts of any biographer, however sympathetic. Professor Harrison gives some new facts and corrects some errors, but in the main Poe's illusive personality remains about as it was. No great change Is made in Poe's standing as a poet and writer of tales. But as a critic Poe is cleared of many sins that Griswold, his literary executor and assassin, laid at his door. This clearing of Poe makes even more malodorous, it Griswold's memory possible.

It is evident that Professor Harrison is Inclined to believe Poe the critic to be the “real Poe.” It is true that in his day he was the leading critic of America, and that the result of this original research lifts him to higher pedestal. But one finds it hard to see the “real Poe” in the critic. When Poe comes to his own again it will be as a teller of the tales. On the “Tales” must his reputation rest with the reading public. With a power of subtle analysis, daring invention, the poet's ear, attuned to melody, an intense appreciation of the beautiful, an individuality sui generis, and a literary skill which the critical faculty in him made well nigh perfect, [column 5:] he wrote the “Tales” which stamp him the foremost American romanticist. The Poe of the “Tales” is the “real Poe.” (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.)