Text: Mrs. Edmund Nash Morgan, “The Poe Revival: Mr. Robert Hartley Perdue's ‘The Raven’,” The Book Lover (New York, NY), vol. 4, no. 1, whole no. 17, March-April 1903, pp. 53-56

[page 53:]

Privately printed books in absurdly small editions are not in good odor with any but the elect, yet such issues have a valid excuse for being. They are the hors-d’œuvre of literature.

Of course, one cannot make a regular diet of diminutive sardines and olives and the odoriferous caviar biscuit, still when we have hurried out of our beds at the ridiculously early hour of twelve M., that we might take a boat or tram to St. Cloud or Juvisy for our déjeuner, we loved to nibble a bit as we waited on the lawn before the Café Bleu or in that enchanting balcony in the rear of Zemla's, — and did we pretend we must whet our appetite? If so, we did but dissemble our hunger.

How many of us have reread our school-day Horace because of having just seen a copy of Francis Wilson's “Echoes from the Sabine Farm”? or have been tempted to go through all of Longfellow because of Hilliard's illumining “Excelsior”? Even the affront in plain print “Only sixty- nine copies printed and not for sale at any book-shop” seems friendly enough, when we have the book in hand.

So we come to the reprint of “The Raven” with decorations by Robert Hartley Perdue. The book was printed by a well-known collector, who each year makes unpublished matter from his own library into a little book. Some of his printings are famous — perhaps not always for the matter within the covers but for some collateral circumstance or mechanical excellence. Take his “Les Rubaiyát de Omar Khayyám” for example, which adorned itself with this dedication: [column 2:]

Not orthodox, perhaps, but was suicide ever more poetically characterized?

The publication this year is of the usual sort. Mr. Perdue made this book-lover a [page 54:] copy of “The Raven” with pen-and-ink, using “Quarles's” original lines as the foundation for his labors, afterwards making four replicas for bibliophile friends — all being in folio. The original copy has been reproduced on the finest Japan vellum, with vellum cover, in quarto, and it is a beautiful addition to an almost priceless list of “Poe items.” A set of proofs before letters, printed in sanguine, on rice paper, and inserted, adds distinction to the book.

I have seen the two extremes of Poe prices of a few (Hélas) years. While a girl spending my school holidays in London, a hoodlum child with bare legs and matted hair, cried past me on the Strand: “Poe's Ravings! The Hamerican Poick's Ravings!! Tuppence a-a- a-a-a-a-pny!” But the broadside was not purchased —— I was only a girl then. Years after in a New York auction room I ventured the avails of a modest cottage in a suburban town on a copy of “Tamerlane” only to see it sell at five hundred dollars above my best bid. I lost my second opportunity — but I was only a woman then! [column 2:]

Concerning the genius of Edgar Poe there is still much to say — especially of its weird, erratic quality, for while Poe doubtless “knew himself possessed of that divine spark which we commoners call Genius, yet he walked ever in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. He saw the beautiful ‘Gates of Paradise’ all aglow with chalcedony and pearls and precious stones, but no man beckoned him to enter.” It was his misfortune to have been born at a time, and in a quarter of the world, peculiarly antagonistic to the appreciation of poetical genius. In England, a great triumvirate of heaven-born poets threw out — almost without effort — those grand productions which have since made those names the glory of the English tongue — Byron! Shelley!! Keats!!! — while lesser lights (though at the time taken at far above their actual value) — Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Scott — monopolized the thought and praise of English-speaking peoples. In his own country the two great wars had left a young and virile nation prone to delve — to spin — to fast and to pray. What use had Americans for poets? “Poor Richard's Almanac” and the rough rhetoric of the Methodist circuit-rider still remained the standard intellectual pabulum of the rank and file; the time was not ripe for poetry, still it was somewhat after seed-time.

The Transcendentalists were being born, every one of them a poet at heart — though he might expend that vital essence in silent contemplation of the hills and trees, the wild animals and birds, alone — as did Thoreau. What room for narratives, wild, weird, and haunting, in a day when the great local classic was the “Scarlet Letter,” which is nothing but a “highly moral tale”?

Then Poe's casual methods of life — his loves his weaknesses (did he have weaknesses?) all militated against his reputation. That he would re-write some fugitive story — see it in print over his own name — re-plagiarize [page 55:] that in turn — reprint, and so on, seemed to the Puritan remnant a sorry thing — yet Shakespeare took what came to his hand and made it his own. For a true appreciation of the wonderful versatility of the man and the perfection of his works — compare for a moment the solid construction of his furniture with the showy veneer of other writers: “The Bells” with “Excelsior,” or “The Murders of the Rue Morgue” with “The Study in Scarlet.” What can one add to “The Gold Bug” as a tale, or to “The Raven” as a poem? On my table rests “The Conchologist's First Book” — 1839. Is it not a joy unto the soul? And what a stride from the cryptogram in “The Gold Bug” to shells! Yet each is satisfactorily impressive. Is it the sea? What better than “The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym”?

The variety of Poe's work is a mighty incentive to collectors. The excessively rare items, and their unexpected cropping up in queer places! Why, any old garret may house a copy of “Tamerlane” or “Al Aaraaf,” and what a find that would be! The first a mere pamphlet, has already been sold for more than twenty-five hundred dollars, and neither will be worth less than five thousand dollars, ten years hence.

In the introduction, written by the printer, Mr. Jos. Léon Gobeille, especial stress is laid upon Poe's record as a soldier. Strange though it be, not everybody knows that Poe was appointed a cadet at West Point and cashiered before the close of his first year; fewer are aware that with his wonderful powers of assimilation and appropriation he had become a thorough soldier in that time. His sword-manual was well-nigh perfect, and it was his delight to gather the gamins of Baltimore into companies, when, it is said, that he brought them up in “units of four” long before that method was common in the tactics.

Another interesting fact is, that, “enlisting” as a private soldier in the regular establishment, he was twice promoted — a notable [column 2:] achievement in time of peace — in so small an army — and with his family and friends moving heaven and earth to secure his dismissal or discharge.

What more interesting to a military mind than that he should have actually gone into the patriot movement in Greece in an heroic attempt to parody Col. George Gordon? In fact, he set sail for Greece with promise of a commission, and it is unwritten history that he was as good as decoyed to St. Petersburg where his arrest followed. Why? Is it not fair to presume it was because his presence in Greece would be a menace to the established government?

So we thank Mr. Gobeille for his Poe in uniform. Certainly West Point one year; the regular establishment from private to sergeant, and Greek filibuster and patriot — in intention and purpose — are sufficient pegs on which to hang a military reputation.

While a sincere lover of Poe, Mr. Perdue lays no claim to “extraordinary or esoteric knowledge of POEsy,” yet he is “an ardent admirer of these children of mystery,” and has [page 56:] settled some vexed questions in his own mind, and answered critics in his drawings. The “shadow on the floor,” for example. Every one at all critical asks: How could the shadow be on the floor if the raven were perched on the “bust of Pallas”? In the reproduction this is explained. The light was without the transom — thus the shadow was projected naturally as stated in the text. Even Doré failed in his reading of this line. Mr. Perdue does not attempt to portray “Unseen Censers” as some artists have done, nor does he attempt to explain how “faint footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor” — another line made ridiculous by a great artist. Even the Bible has some mysteries which would best remain unquestioned! Many other delicate suggestions are conveyed to the artistic and cultivated reader throughout these drawings. With Mr. Perdue this work has been a “labor of pleasure and duty, and every [column 2:] bibliophile and lover of Poe will give him cheer and compliment for his consent to publish his embellishments for the best loved and most characteristic work of the poet who was a greater mystery — even to himself — than all his tales of mystery can possibly be to his millions of mystified readers.”

The numbering of these books is predicated on equally weird lines. There are ninety-three copies; for is it not ninety-three years since this poet whose dark and disastrous career has no parallel in all the sad record of genius, was born? Only forty-three were distributed in this country, all going into private libraries, so a copy is not likely to be on sale in any bookshop for some time to come. Such an artistic, satisfying book should not be in a limited edition, for, while “of the making of books there is no end,” nevertheless good books are scarce. This is a good book.

Cleveland, Ohio.