Edgar Allan Poe — “The Assignation”

Reading copy:

• “The Assignation” — reading copy

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings:

• Text-01 — “The Visionary” — 1832 or early 1833 (There are no known draft manuscripts or scratch notes reflecting the original effort of composition. This story was not one of those submitted to the Saturday Courier and published in 1832. Consequently, it may be assumed that it was written later in 1832 or early in 1833.)
• Text-02 — “The Visionary” — October-December 1833
  • Text-02a — “The Visionary” — before October 1833 (As Mabbott notes (T&S, 2:149), the story was apparently submitted to the Baltimore Saturday Visiter contest in 1833. Both Mabbott and Hammond accept the story as part of the Tales of the Folio Club, and assign it to Mr. Convolvulus Gondola as the fictional author. John H. B. Latrobe, one of the judges for the 1833 contest, specifically recalled the distinct neatness and print-like handwriting of the manuscripts submitted by Poe, although he does not mention this tale in particular. Clearly, Poe did not present rough draft copies. After the contest, the manuscripts were returned to Poe, and he presumably submitted the one for this story in that state to the editors of the Lady's Book for publication.)
  • Text-02b — “The Visionary” — January 1834 — Lady's Book [Godey's Lady's Book] — (Mabbott text A) (Copies of this very early issue of The Lady's Book were far more scarce than the later issues, better known to have had contributions by Poe. The first version of the tale, and thus the poem known as “To One in Paradise,” was generally known only by the printing in the SLM more than a year later. Stedman and Woodbery list the 1834 printing in their variants of the poem. They give the year and month of publication, so clearly a copy had been discovered by that time. In 1902, however, J. A. Harrison was still only aware of the printing through the reference in the Stedman and Woodberry edition, as he lists the poem and variants, clearly from the Stedman and Woodberry edition, but does not list the printing under the variants for the tale.)
• Text-03 — “The Visionary” — October-December 1833
  • Text-03a — “The Visionary” — early 1835 — (speculated new manuscript written out specifically for reprinting in the SLM, although it is possible that he began the process by marking changes in a copy of the story as printed in the Lady's Book. The changes are so extensive, however, that a revised copy of Lady's Book, with manuscript revisions noted, would have been virtually unreadable. In particular, the radical alterations in setting and breaking paragraphs further suggests a new manuscript. In additon, Poe almost certainly did not want to draw attention to the fact that the story had already been printed. This copy has not survived, but is presumably recorded in Text-03b.)
  • Text-03b — “The Visionary” — July 1835 — Southern Literary Messenger — (Mabbott text B) (misleadingly stated as written for the Southern Literary Messenger. The SLM for August 1835 includes a notice documenting Poe's triumph of the Baltimore Saturday Visiter contest in 1833. That notice mentions “The Visionary” as being one of the tales submitted to the contest, but makes no mention of the earlier printing in the Lady's Book.)
• Text-04 — “The Visionary” — 1839
  • Text-04a — “The Visionary” — about 1839 — manuscript revisions in “Duane” copy of Southern Literary Messenger — (Mabbott text C)
  • Text-04b — “The Visionary” — 1840 — TGA — (Mabbott text D)
• Text-05 — “The Visionary” — 1839
  • Text-05a — “The Assignation” — 1842 — manuscript title revision in TGAPP (volume II, which seems to have had revisions by Poe, is lost, but this version is presumably recorded in Text-05b)
  • Text-05b — “The Assignation” — June 7, 1845 — Broadway Journal — (Mabbott text E)  (For Griswold's 1850 reprinting of this text, see the entry below, under reprints.)

Reprints:

• “The Visionary” — December 1840 — Bentley's Miscellany (American Edition) 6:578-586 (British Edition) 8:578-586 (from Text-05, unacknowledged)
• “The Assignation”— 1850 — WORKS — Griswold merely reprints Text-05b (Mabbott text F — This is Mabbott's copy-text) (Although the Griswold text contains numerous changes in punctuation, these appear to be editorial and typographical rather than authorial changes, and a number of them are not improvements)
• “The Assignation” — February 1850 — Richards’ Weekly Gazette (Athens, GA), second year, no. 40, whole no. 90, p. 1, cols. 1-7 (acknowledged as by Edgar A. Poe)
• “The Assignation” — 1852 — Tales of Mystery and Imagination and Humour; and Poems, London: Henry Vizetelly (An undated edition appears about the same time, published by Charles H. Clark and Samuel Orchart Beeton, and their name appears as publisher for the second series), second series pp. 1-11. (with 1 woodcut illustration)
• “The Assignation” — 1867 — Prose Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, first series (New York: W. J. Widdleton), pp. 370-381 (This collection is extracted from the 1850-1856 edition of Poe's Works. It was reprinted several times.)
• “The Assignation” — 1874 — Works of Edgar A. Poe, edited by J. H. Ingram, vol. 1, pp. 284-296 (This collection was subsequently reprinted in various forms)

Scholarly and Noteworthy Reprints:

• “The Assignation” — 1894-1895 — The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 1: Tales, ed. E. C. Stedman and G. E. Woodberry, Chicago: Stone and Kimball (1:258-273) (This collection was subsequently reprinted in various forms)
• “The Assignation (The Visionary)” — 1902 — The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 2: Tales I, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (2:1-109-124, and 2:345-348)
• “The Visionary (The Assignation)” — 1978 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 2: Tales & Sketches I, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2:148-169)
• “The Assignation” — 1984 — Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales, ed. Patrick F. Quinn (New York: Library of America), pp. 200-211

Instream Comparative and Study Texts:

• “The Visionary” — Comparative Text (GLB and SLM)
• “The Visionary” — Study Text (SLM-WMD)
• “The Visionary” — Comparative Text (SLM, SLM-WMD and TGA)
• “The Visionary” — Comparative Text (TGA and BJ)
• “The Assignation” — Comparative Text (BJ and WORKS)

Miscellaneous Texts and Related Items:

• “Le rendez-vous” — 1862 — Contes inedts d‘Edgar Poe, Paris: J. Hetzel, pp. 1-22 (French translation by William L. Hughes)
• “[The Assignation]” — 1881 — Underliga historier (Stockholm)  (Swedish translation, noted by Anderson, p. 54)
• “Le Rendez-vous” — 1934 — Les Sphinx et autres contes bizarres par Edgar Poë, Paris: Galliard (French translation by Maurice Sachs)
• “Le Visionnaire (Le Rendez-vous)” — 1950 — Histories grotesques et sérieuse par Edgar Poe, Paris: Classiques Garnier  (French translation by Léon Lemonnier)
• ”The Assignation” — 1952 — a possible film adaptation directed by Joseph Losey, but unseen and perhaps merely a coincidental title (see Smith, p. 83).

• Anderson, Carl L., Poe in Northlight: The Scandanavian Response to His Life and Work, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1973.
• Benton, Richard P., “Is Poe's ‘The Assignation’ a Hoax?,” Nineteenth-Century Fiction (Sept. 1963), 18:193-197.
• Cobb, Palmer, “The Influence of E. A. T. Hoffman on the Tales of Edgar Allan Poe,” Studies in Philology, 1908, 3:1-104
• Dixon, Jeanne, “Poe: A Borrowing from Goldsmith,” Notes & Queries (Nov. 12, 1932), 163:350
• Engstrom, Alfred G., “Chateaubriand's Itineraire de Paris a Jerusalem and Poe's ‘The Assignation’,” Modern Language Notes (Nov. 1954), 69:506-507
• Heartman, Charles F. and James R. Canny, A Bibliography of First Printings of the Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Hattiesburg, MS: The Book Farm, 1943.
• Ketterer, David, “The Sexual Abyss: Consumation in ‘The Assignation’,” Poe Studies (1986), 19:7-10
• Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, ed., The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Vols 2-3 Tales and Sketches), Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1978.
• Pahl, Dennis, “Recovering Byron: Poe's ‘The Assignation’,” Criticism (1984), 26:211-229
• Pitcher, Edward W., “Poe's ‘The Assignation‘: A Reconsideration,” Poe Studies (1980), 13:1-4
• Smith, Don. G., The Poe Cinema, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1999.
• Whitt, Celia, “Poe and The Mysteries of Udolpho,” University of Texas Studies in English (1937), 18:124-131
• Wyllie, John Cooke, “A List of the Texts of Poe's Tales,” Humanistic Studies in Honor of John Calvin Metcalf, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1941, pp. 322-338.
• Zorzi, Rosella Mamoli, “The Text Is the City: The Representation of Venice in Two Tales by Irving and Poe and a Novel by Cooper,” Revista d'studi Anglo-Americani (1990), 6:285-300.