Edgar Allan Poe — “Al Aaraaf”

Reading copy:

• “Al Aaraaf” — reading copy

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings (full text):

• Text-01 — “Al Aaraaf” — 1829, no original manuscript or fragments are known to exist (but this version is presumably recorded in Text-02) (The manuscript was apparently shown to William Gwynn prior to May 18, 1829, as Gwynn printed excerpts in his Federal Gazette and Baltimore Daily Advertiser, on that date. Long afterwards, at the dedication of the Poe Monument in 1875, J. H. B. Latrobe recalled that Gwynn had shown him “the neat manuscript of a poem called ‘Al Aaraaf,’ which he spoke of as indicative of a tendency to anything but the business of matter of fact life.” The manuscript was also shown to William Wirt, who found it to be too “modern” for his tastes, as he said in a letter written to Poe on May 11, 1829.)
• Text-02 — “Al Aaraaf” — 1829 — ATMP — (Mabbott text C)  (This is the first full text)
• Text-03 — “Al Aaraaf” — 1831 — POEMS — (Mabbott text E) (with substantial revisions)
• Text-04 — “Al Aaraaf” — 1845 — manuscript changes in ATMP in preparation for RAOP — (Mabbott text J)
• Text-05 — “[The Messenger Star]” — October 1845 — additional manuscript changes in ATMP in preparation for the reading in Boston — (Mabbott text J2)
• Text-06 — “Al Aaraaf” — 1845 — essentially a printed form of text 04, with only minor revisions, RAOP — (Mabbott text K)  (This is Mabbott’s copytext) (Poe made no changes to this poem in the J. Lorimer Graham copy of RAOP.)

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings (extracts):

• “Al Aaraaf” — May 18, 1829 — of excerpts only — Federal Gazette and Baltimore Daily Advertiser (Baltimore, MD) (Mabbott text A)
• “Al Aaraaf” — December 1829 — of excerpts only — Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette (Mabbott text B)
• “Al Aaraaf” — December 29, 1829 — lines 130-131 only, manuscript letter with extract — (Mabbott text D)
• “[Al Aaraaf]” — 1837 — two lines excerpted as the motto, in “Silence,” The Baltimore Book for 1838 — (not noted by Mabbott, no variants except the use of italics for one word, and minor issues of punctuation)
• “Spirit’s Invocation” — February 25 and March 4, 1843 — Saturday Museum  (excerpts only, as part of a biographical article about Poe.) —   (Mabbott text F)
  • “Spirit’s Invocation” — February 25, 1843
  • “Spirit’s Invocation” — March 4, 1843 (reprinted from February 25, 1843)
• “Al Aaraaf” — February 1845 — excerpt only, Graham’s (This excerpt appears in Lowell’s article on Poe) — (Mabbott text G)
• “ Al Aaraaf” — May 24, 1845 — excerpts only, Broadway Journal — (Mabbott text H)
• “ Al Aaraaf” — November- December 1846 — extracts in “The Rationale of Verse,” manuscript fragments — (Mabbott text L)
• “ Al Aaraaf” — October 1848 — extracts in “The Rationale of Verse,” Southern Literary Messenger — (Mabbott text M)
• “ Al Aaraaf” — 1849 — extracts in “A Reviewer Reviewed,” manuscript — (Mabbott text N)

Reprints:

• “Al Aaraaf” — 1830 — Baltimore Minerva and Emerald (excerpts, printed as part of a review of ATMP)
• “Al Aaraaf” — November 4, 1845 — Boston Daily Star, p. 4 (reprint noted by Ljundquist, p. 206-208, item 7.)
• “Al Aaraaf” — November 5, 1845 — Boston Daily Star, p. 4 (reprint noted by Ljundquist, p. 208, item 8.)
• “Al Aaraaf” — November 6, 1845 — Boston Daily Star, p. 4 (reprint noted by Ljundquist, p. 208, item 9.)
• “Al Aaraaf” — 1850 — WORKS — Griswold merely reprints Text-06  (Mabbott text P)
• “Al Aaraaf” — 1875 — The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol 3: Poems and Essays, ed. J. H. Ingram, Edinburgh, Adam and Charles Black (3:62-76)

Reprints (extracts):

• “Al Aaraaf” — 1850 — extracts in “The Rationale of Verse,” WORKS — Griswold reprints the SLM text of this essay  (Mabbott Text Q)
• “Spirit Invocation” — 1850 — Thomas Powell, The Living Writers of America, New York: Stringer and Townsend, 1850, pp. 116-117. These excerpts from “Al Aaraaf” were probably reprinted from the Saturday Museum, which carries the title and essentially the same excerpts used)

Scholarly and Noteworthy Reprints (full text):

• “Al Aaraaf” — 1894-1895 — The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 10: Poems, ed. G. E. Woodberry and E. C. Stedman, Chicago: Stone and Kimball (10:107-120, and 10:217-223)
• “Al Aaraaf” — 1902 — The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 7: Poems, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (7:23-39, and 7:157-163)
• “Al Aaraaf” — 1911 — The Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. J. H. Whitty, Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co. (pp. 99-115, and pp. 266-268)
• “Al Aaraaf” — 1917 — The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Killis Campbell, Boston: Ginn and Company (pp. 34-48, and pp. 171-192)
• “Al Aaraaf” — 1965 — The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Floyd Stovall, Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia (pp. 25-40, and pp. 188-202)
• “Al Aaraaf” — 1969 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 1: Poems, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (1:92-127, and 1:159-160)  (Mabbott prints the 1831 introductory portion as “Mysterious Star”)
• “Al Aaraaf” — 1984 — Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales, ed. Patrick F. Quinn (New York: Library of America) (pp. 38-52) (reprints Text-06)
• “Mysterious Star!” — 1984 — Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales, ed. Patrick F. Quinn (New York: Library of America) (pp. 52-53) (reprints the revised elements of Text-03, with a new title assigned by the editor)

Instream Comparative and Study Texts:

• None

Plain Text Files for Juxta:

• None

Miscellaneous Texts and Related Items:

• “Al Aaraaf” — dated 2009, but available in late 2008 — Poèmes d‘Edgar Allan Poe, Paris: Publibook (translation by Jean Hautepierre)

• Cairns, William B., “Some Notes on Poe’s ‘Al Aaraaf ’,” Modern Philology, May 1915, 13:35-44
• Church, Henry W. and Hervey Allen, “Poe and Nature,” Saturday Review of Literature, April 6, 1935, 11:598
• De Prospo, R. C., “Poe’s Alpha Poem: The Title of ‘Al Aaraaf ’,” Poe Studies, 1989, 22:34-39
• Hayes, Kevin, “A New Source for Poe’s ‘Al Aaraaf’,” Notes & Queries (London), September 2009, vol. 56, no. 3, pp. 391-392
• 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.
• Ljundquist, Kent P., Victorian Periodicals Review, Fall 1995
• Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, “Al Aaraaf,’ Part II, 1-8,” Explicator, November 1957, vol. 16, no. 4
• Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, ed., The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Vol 1 Poems), Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1969.
• Pettigrew, Richard C. and Marie M., “A Reply to Floyd Stovall’s Interpretation of ‘Al Aaraaf ’,” American Literature, January 1937, 8:439-445
• Pollin, Burton R., “Poe’s ‘sonnet — To Zante’: Sources and Associations,” Comparative Literature Studies, September 1968, 5:303-315
• Stovall, Floyd, “An Interpretation of Poe’s ‘Al Aaraaf‘,” University of Texas Studies in English, 1929, 9:106-133