Text: Jeffrey A. Savoye, “Introduction to the Online Edition” The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Vol. IV: The Literati of New York City (2026), pp. vi-xiii (This material is protected by copyright)

[page vi:]

INTRODUCTION TO THE ONLINE EDITION

Thomas Ollive Mabbott (1898-1968) had long planned his own Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, the original working title for the set. It was begun when he was still a graduate student at Columbia University about 1918, and was intended as a refinement and expansion of the 17-volume collection of the same name edited by James A. Harrison in 1902. Indeed, many of his notes were originally written in the margins, or on small slips of paper inserted into his own copy of that set. Only the volume of Poems was sufficiently complete for Mabbott to review about half of the proofs before his untimely death.

One of the volumes left incomplete, but with many substantial folders of notes among his papers, was the material based on Poe's series of “The Literati of New York City.” This material is now to be found in the Mabbott Collection at the University of Iowa, in the form of photocopies and typed pages, but often with penciled notes in Mabbott's own hand. It is not clear when most of the notes were composed or revised; a few, in the appendix section, bear a tag of May 4, 1960. The texts for Poe's articles were photocopied from the original sources, cut and pasted somewhat irregularly on pages of the same size, standard 8 1/2 x 11 inch letter paper.

Sometime prior to 1954, James Brady Reece (1919-1984) was included in the effort for this volume, presumably as Mabbott was coming to see the practical need of involving more people in assisting him to finally realize an enormous project that had already stretched out for decades. About this time, Reece was preparing his own doctoral thesis on Poe and New York Literati (Duke University). The extent of his contribution is unclear, but the guiding hand of Mabbott is quite evident throughout. [page vii:]

There are sometimes present earlier drafts of notes, and in one case a comment that the order of entries was intended to be alphabetical. The format in which it now exists, however, clearly suggests that Mabbott ultimately changed his mind and decided to retain the sequence in which the entries were originally printed. (This latter intention has been followed in this presentation with the assumption that Mabbott came to recognize the importance of reproducing the entries as Poe originally gave them.) There are, among the notes, occasional comments that material needs to be verified, and some places where specific dates and names have been left blank or incomplete, presumably to be returned to later. As much as possible, I have now completed these actions, and occasionally added supplemental notes. In general, the more substantive additions of this kind have been provided within double square brackets, and usually signed with the initials “JAS.”

Some alterations have necessarily been made for the sake of formatting and attempting to impose greater consistency. Mabbott's notes were created over an unspecified period of time, and they are, to some extent, still in draft form. There are signs, for example, that he was changing some conventions such that story titles he initially rendered as underlined (thus italics) were altered to use quotation marks. In general, such formatting has been modified to conform with choices that were ultimately followed in the print editions of volumes I-III. Notes have been modified from the original use of line numbers, a scheme based on the assumption of reproducing Poe's texts as facsimiles of the originals. In making this online edition, I have taken full advantage of the texts being newly available as editable text. Thus, more traditional notation has been implemented. A few very minor typographical errors have been corrected silently. Later sections have required more intervention that earlier ones, presumably because Mabbott was working through the material sequentially and his focus was on the main “Literati” entries. The notes are generally far less complete for the appendix material. [page viii:]

Pagination has been a matter of some complication. While technically not necessary for an online edition, page numbers remain a very useful means of making more specific references. Given the somewhat haphazard nature of the original material, which often bears traces of many different page numbers, it has been necessary to assign new numbers. Although these numbers generally conform to the texts and notes as they currently exist, the material that defines a page is often inconsistent. As a purely practical matter, some slight notes on separate pages have been combined with notes on other pages, such that a correlation of the online and physical forms are only loosely connected.

In referring to “Marginalia,” Mabbott always used his set of Harrison, with the missing installments accounted for, but his assigned number is often one too low. These references have been adjusted to agree with the numbering in the Pollin edition of The Brevities (1985). Similarly, the original indications directing the reader to the Harrison edition have been altered to instead use the Pollin volume, which was not available to Mabbott. Links to other material have been added where such material is present elsewhere on the website.

Much time has passed since Mabbott prepared his original notes, and scholarship has not been standing still. Although Mabbott's own volumes of Poe's Poems and Tales and Sketches were not yet published when he was working on these notes, he sometimes makes references to them in their draft form. From time to time, he also mentions other volumes as they were originally planned, some of which were carried out by other hands, and some of which never got much further than the planning stage. Where it has seemed necessary, some additional notes have been added or references supplemented. Mabbott was aware of several of the surviving manuscripts for Poe's Literary America series, but more of these have come to light over the years. How he would have incorporated this material is unclear, and it has seemed unwise to make too many assertions in this regard. Only references to manuscript material that was already present has been adjusted to account for fuller versions. [page ix:]

In the handwritten title page, Mabbott generously, and perhaps aspirationally, gives the name of his co-editor first. Here, they are reversed, returning to Mabbott the role as primary editor. (Technically, Mabbott planned for “The Literati” to occupy two volumes, as indicated by the table of contents above.) It is hoped that Mabbott would have approved of this attempt at making his work more widely available, and although it would surely have benefitted from his continued direct involvement, may it grant some peace to his shade in knowing that it has not simply been lost to posterity.

Jeffrey A. Savoye