Text: Thomas Ollive Mabbott, “[Summer and Winter],” The Collected Works of Edgar Allan PoeVol. II: Tales and Sketches (1978), p. 5 (This material is protected by copyright)


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[page 5:]

[SUMMER AND WINTER]

The following is on a single leaf, which an old-time bookseller said was written by Poe as a child (Yale List,* number 6). The many changes and corrections clearly show it is the composition of its writer. It is now printed by permission of the Richard Gimbel Collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

How chang’d the scene — but now the Summer reign’d, her varied tints prevail’d throughout triumphant. Here where the beauteous rosebud sat a briar frowns — the woodbine too hath lost her suit of brilliant green — the leafless grove is silent, desolate! No songster cheers with merry note the passing hour. The hum of Bees is hush’d and all around proclaims, that Winter is at hand — how clear.

The style is reminiscent of Macpherson's Ossianic poems, praised by Poe in his introductory “Letter to — —” in his Poems of 1831; lines 17, 20, and 22 of Poe's own poem, “The Coliseum,” echo part of the second sentence. The prose fragment, if Poe's, must be dated very early. In the absence of a complete history of the manuscript, judgment on its authenticity as a product of Poe's pen must be suspended, but I see nothing in the handwriting that seems to me impossible for Poe.


[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 5:]

*  “ ‘Quoth the Raven’: an exhibition of the works of Edgar Allan Poe,” etc., Yale University Library Gazette, April 1959.


Notes:

None.


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[S:1 - TOM2T, 1978] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Editions-The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (T. O. Mabbott) (Summer and Winter)