Text: Edgar Allan Poe (?), “[When the English play the literary thief . . .]” (reprint), from Weekly Mirror (New York), October 19, 1844, vol. 1, no. 2, p. 31, col. 1


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[page 31, column 1, continued:]

When the English play the literary thief they do it at least with an appreciative discrimination. When Dr. Channing's light broke though the Atlantic cloud, it was discovered that the religious Reviews had been for some time quietly using his lamp without showing its handle, and now two other barefaced robberies have come to light, perpetrated upon one of the best and clearest minds in this country, that of Mr. BRAZER of Salem. In Nos. 107 and 108 of the Christian Examiner, are two elaborate articles by this fine scholar and pure writer, on the “BURIAL OF THE DEAD.” A writer in the London Monthly Review has stolen and transferred these bodily, only having out a few local allusions and details for the sake of concealing the theft. Sidney Smith's famous question wants a tail, which we hereby affix: “Who reads an American book” — until re-ticketed by an appreciative English appropriator?


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Notes:

This article was attributed to Poe by T. O. Mabbott in his notes at the University of Iowa, with the comment, “Assigned by T.O.M., 1942.” Mabbott seems to have been persuaded by a correlation with Poe's “Maginalia” from Graham's Magazine for February 1848. That Marginalia makes a minor reference again to the theft from Dr. Channing, although the language is not especially similar. This article is not mentioned by Heartman & Canny, or W. D. Hull.]

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[S:0 - NYEM, 1844] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Criticism - When the English play the Literary Thief (E. A. Poe ?, 1844)