Edgar Allan Poe — “The Domain of Arnheim”


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Commentary:

Characters:

  • Narrator (unnamed) - The narrator in this story is chiefly an observer. He is identified only as a friend of Mr. Ellison.
  • Mr. Ellison - The main protagonist. No first name is given.
  • Mrs. Ellison - Mentioned as Mr. Ellison's wife, noted only as “the loveliest and most devoted of women.” No first name is given.
  • Mr. Seabright Ellison - Mentioned as a somewhat distant relative of Mr. Ellison. He has left the fortune which Mr. Ellison is so fortunate as to inherit. He has been dead for about 100 years by the time Mr. Ellison is born.

Setting:

Location - Under development.

Date - Under development.

Summary:

Under development.


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Reading and Reference Texts:

Reading copy:

  • “The Domain of Arnheim” — reading copy

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Historical Texts:

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings:

  • Text-01 — “The Landscape-Garden” — 1842 (There are no known draft manuscripts or scratch notes reflecting the original effort of composition. In regard to when the story was written, Mabbott (T&S, 2:701) states “Poe's tale was probably written soon after he gave up his editorship of Graham's Magazine in the spring of 1842. It was completed by July 18, 1842 when it was offered to J. and H. G. Langley, publishers of the Democratic Review, for that magazine, ‘in the event of Mr. [John L.] O'Sullivan's liking’ it. The editor named did not buy it.”)
  • Text-02 — “The Landscape-Garden” — 1842
    • Text-02a — “The Landscape-Garden” — 1842 (Speculated faircopy manuscript prepared for the editors of the Democratic Review, but presumably returned when it was not accepted for publication. The same manuscript was likely offered to the editors of the Ladies Companion, who did purchase it. This manuscript is not known to have survived, as it was probably destroyed during the process of typesetting, but this version is presumably recorded in Text-02b.)
    • Text-02b — “The Landscape-Garden” — October 1842 — Ladies Companion — (Mabbott text A1)
  • Text-03 — “The Landscape-Garden” — 1842-1845
    • Text-03a — “The Landscape Garden” — 1842-1845 (speculated revised copy of Ladies Companion's (Text-02), perhaps in anticipation of reprinting elsewhere. (These revisions are presumably recorded in Text-04. The changes are slight enough that a new manuscript is highly unlikely, but not so minor that they would reasonably have been made during typesetting or in correcting proofs for Text-03b.)
    • Text-03b — “The Landscape Garden” — September 20, 1845 — Broadway Journal — (Mabbott text B1) (Instead of making changes to this printed version of the story, Poe chose to write a full, new manuscript, Text-04a. He may have done so in part to avoid emphasizing, in offering the tale to a new publisher, that the tale had been printed so recently. For Griswold's 1856 reprinting of this text, see the entry below, under reprints.)
  • Text-04 — “The Domain of Arnheim” — 1846-1847
    • Text-04a — “The Domain of Arnheim” — 1846 (There are no known draft manuscripts or scratch notes reflecting the original effort of composition, although given the extent of changes Poe probably made some intermediary draft. Occassional paragraphs of the story from the Broadway Journal remain in the revised text, but also with many changes, far more in quantity and in nature than those in “The Spectacles,” which Poe had written out for R. H. Horne just a few years earlier and for which changes were probably made during the act of copying a new manuscript. There are a few additional minor alterations on the surivivng fair copy manuscript, Text-04b, for which the study text, below, should be consulted.)
    • Text-04b — “The Domain of Arnheim” — November or December 1846 — “Goldsmith” manuscript — (Mabbott text A)  (A faircopy “roll” prepared for publication in the Columbian Magazine. The manuscript was formerly in the collection of William H. Koester and is currently in the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin. It is described by J. Moldenhauer, A Descriptive Catalog of Edgar Allan Poe Manuscripts in the Humanities Research Center Library, The University of Texas at Austin, 1977, item 7, pp. 11-12. Prior to Koester, the manuscript was owned by Frank J. Hogan, whose library was sold by Parke-Bernet Galleries, January 24, 1945 (item 564). (ABC lists the sale price as $4,200.) Hogan purchased it from Frank Brewer Bemis (1861-1935, of Boston), who apparently acquired the manuscript from a Stan V. Henkles aution of July 1, 1920 (item 331, from the collect of Henry Goldsmith, of New York. ABC lists the sale price as $1,900.) It is possible that it came down through the family of John Inman, who was the editor of the Columbian Magazine in 1848. Alternatively, like the manuscript of “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” it may have been saved by one of the typesetters. Based on the description in the Henkles catalog, the manuscript was already damaged by 1920, divided into two rolls and lacking one segment. It also states that there are 31 pieces of paper. The beginning of the manuscript is photographically reproduced by Moldenhauer, and in the Hogan catalog.)
    • Text-04c — “The Domain of Arnheim” — March 1847 — Columbian Magazine — (Mabbott text B) (For Griswold's 1850 reprinting of this text, see the entry below, under reprints.) (Poe sent a copy of the magazine to Mrs. Sarah H. Whitman on October 18, 1848. That copy has apparently not survived, although there is no reason to presume that it contained manuscript changes by Poe, although a letter from Mrs. Whitman to S. Mallarmé records that there was a note in the margin reading: “This story contains more of myself and of my inherent tastes and habits of thought than anything I have written.” For the text of the letter, see Caroline Ticknor, Poe's Helen, 1916, p. 273.)

 

Reprints:

  • “The Domain of Arnheim” — February 27, 1847 — New England Weekly Review (reprinted from Text-06)  (noted by Ljungquist)
  • The Landscape Garden” — 1856 — WORKS — (Griswold reprints the text from Text-04. Changes are too minor to presume that Griswold had an improved copy of the text.)  (Mabbott text C1 — This is Mabbott's copy-text for this early form) (Although Griswold printed both “The Domain of Arnheim” and “The Landscape Garden” as separate tales, and Mabbott follows this same practice in Tales and Sketches, they are really just two versions of the same story.)
  • The Domain of Arnheim” — 1850 — WORKS — (Griswold reprints the text from Text-06. Changes are too minor to presume that Griswold had an improved copy of the text.)  (Mabbott text C — This is Mabbott's copy-text)
  • “The Domain of Arnheim” — 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. 166-183. (with 2 woodcut illustrations)
  • “The Domain of Arnheim” — 1867 — Prose Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, first series (New York: W. J. Widdleton), pp. 388-403 (This collection is extracted from the 1850-1856 edition of Poe's Works. It was reprinted several times.)
  • The Domain of Arnheim” — 1874 — Works of Edgar A. Poe, edited by J. H. Ingram, vol. 1, pp. 303-319 (This collection was subsequently reprinted in various forms)
  • “The Domain of Arnheim” — September 5, 1929 — Standard Union (Brooklyn, NY), p. 14.

 

Scholarly and Noteworthy Reprints:

  • The Domain of Arnheim” — 1894-1895 — The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 2: Tales, eds. E. C. Stedman and G. E. Woodberry, Chicago: Stone and Kimball (2:92-112)
  • The Landscape Garden” — 1902 — The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 4: Tales III, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (4:259-271, and 4:320)
  • The Domain of Arnheim” — 1902 — The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 6: Tales V, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (6:176-196, and 6:295)
  • The Landscape Garden” — 1978 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 2: Tales & Sketches I, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2:700-713)
  • The Domain of Arnheim” — 1978 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 3: Tales & Sketches II, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (3:1266-1285)
  • “The Domain of Arnheim” — 1984 — Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales, ed. Patrick F. Quinn (New York: Library of America), pp. 855-870

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Comparative and Study Texts:

Instream Comparative and Study Texts:


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Associated Material and Special Versions:

Miscellaneous Texts and Related Items:

  • “Le domaine d‘Arnheim” — 1865 — Histoires grotesques et sérieuses, Paris: Michel Lévy frères (French translation by Charles Baudelaire)
  • ”Le jardin paysage” — 1950 — Histories grotesques et sérieuse par Edgar Poe, Paris: Classiques Garnier (French translation by Léon Lemonnier of “The Lanscape-Garden”)
  • “The Domain of Arnheim” — 2017 — Audio book (unabridged), read by Chris Aruffo

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Bibliography:

  • Achilles, Jochen, “Edgar Allan Poe's Dreamscapes and the Transcendentalist View of Nature,” Amerikastudien/American Studies, 1995, 40:553-573
  • 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.
  • Hess, Jeffrey A., “Sources and Aesthetics of Poe's Landscape Fiction,” American Quarterly (Summer 1970), 22:177-189.
  • Horn, Andrew, “ ‘A Refined Thebaid‘: Wealth and Social Disengagement in Poe's ‘The Domain of Arnheim’,” ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance (1981), 27:191-197.
  • Jeffrey, David K., “The Johnsonian Influence: Rasselas and Poe's ‘The Domain of Arnheim’,” Poe Newsletter (December 1970), 3:26-29.
  • Kehler, Joel R., “New  Light on the Genesis and Program of Poe's Landscape Fiction,” American Literature (1975), 47:173-183.
  • Ljungquist, Kent P.
  • 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.
  • Mize, George E., “The Matter of Taste in Poe's ‘Domain of Arnheim’ and ‘Landor's Cottage’,” Connecticut Review (1972), 6:93-99.
  • Saltz, Laura, “ ‘Eyes Which Behold’: Poe's ‘Domain of Arnheim’ and the Science of Vision,” Edgar Allan Poe: Beyond Gothicism, ed. James M. Hutchisson, Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2011, pp. 129-149.
  • 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.

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[S:0 - JAS] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Tales - The Domain of Arnheim