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Essays and Reviews
This is the most complete one-volume edition of Poe’s essays and reviews ever published. Here are all his major writings on the theory of poetry, the art of fiction, and the duties of a critic: “The Rationale of Verse,” “The Philosophy of Composition,” “The Poetic Principle,” and “About Critics and Criticism.” Articulating Poe’s passion for technical proficiency and his theory of poetic method, these essays show why he so strongly influenced the French symbolists toward the end of nineteenth century and, through them, the poetry of T. S. Eliot and Hart Crane.
Included in this collection are Poe’s reviews and candid opinions of the leading literary figures of his day: Charles Dickens, Washington Irving, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Percy Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Margaret Fuller, among others. Here also are reviews of long-forgotten writers, reviews that are interesting not so much for their subjects as for Poe’s unflinching and witty candor. Many of his then controversial judgments have been vindicated by time.
Poe particularly relished his prolonged critical war with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Professor of Modern Languages at Harvard and America’s most respected poet of the nineteenth century, whom he accused of conventionality and plagiarism. The skirmishes in this campaign are represented here in full.
Poe wrote many articles describing the literary world in which he circulated: “The Literati of New York,” the “Editorial Miscellanies” from the Broadway Journal, “Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison-House,” and his long running series “Marginalia.”
Also included are a wealth of articles on a wide variety of topics: South Sea exploration, cryptography, drama, geography, music, transcendentalism, phrenology, ancient languages, and modern cities.
As a reviewer Poe was direct, discriminating, and feared; as an essayist he was alert to any possibility that in literature there might be found a sense of unity missing from life. This volume restores an essential and often neglected part of our literary heritage.
Included in this collection are Poe’s reviews and candid opinions of the leading literary figures of his day: Charles Dickens, Washington Irving, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Percy Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Margaret Fuller, among others. Here also are reviews of long-forgotten writers, reviews that are interesting not so much for their subjects as for Poe’s unflinching and witty candor. Many of his then controversial judgments have been vindicated by time.
Poe particularly relished his prolonged critical war with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Professor of Modern Languages at Harvard and America’s most respected poet of the nineteenth century, whom he accused of conventionality and plagiarism. The skirmishes in this campaign are represented here in full.
Poe wrote many articles describing the literary world in which he circulated: “The Literati of New York,” the “Editorial Miscellanies” from the Broadway Journal, “Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison-House,” and his long running series “Marginalia.”
Also included are a wealth of articles on a wide variety of topics: South Sea exploration, cryptography, drama, geography, music, transcendentalism, phrenology, ancient languages, and modern cities.
As a reviewer Poe was direct, discriminating, and feared; as an essayist he was alert to any possibility that in literature there might be found a sense of unity missing from life. This volume restores an essential and often neglected part of our literary heritage.
1544 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1848
3 people are currently reading
275 people want to read
About the author
Edgar Allan Poe
10.2k books29k followersThe name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and The Fall of the House of Usher. This versatile writer’s oeuvre includes short stories, poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe’s reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry.
Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.
The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...
Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.
The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 29, 2019
Poe was a catty bitch, and I mean that in the best of ways. If he were alive today, he would be a famous Twitter troll. He would be a sub-tweet king, accusing people of plagiarism and writing scathing reviews just to start beef, he would write threads about the horrific state of publishing, and if Longfellow was also alive today, they would have an all out multi-platform social media war.
Here are a few examples of reviews written by Poe, starting with the most Twitter worthy:
"Wakondah, then, from beginning to end, is trash."
"They are full of all kinds of mistakes, of which the most important is that of their having been printed at all."
"Pure Diabolism is but Absolute Insanity. Lucifer was merely unfortunate in having been created without brains."
"We know nothing of Mr. Ainsworth's scholarship. There are some very equivocal blunders in 'Crichton,' to be sure; but Ainsworth is a classical name, and we must make VERY great allowances for the usual errors of press. We say, however, that, from all that appears in the novel in question, he may be as really ignorant as a bear." ['Very' was italicized in the print copy]
"Either a man intends to be understood or he does not. If he write a book which he intends NOT to be understood, we shall be very happy indeed not to understand it; bit if he write a book which he means to be understood, and, in this book, be at all possible pains to prevent us from understanding it, we can only say that he is an ass--and this, to be brief, is our private opinion of Mr. Carlyle, which we now take the liberty of making public." [Again, 'not' was italicized in the print copy]
If you just want to read a bunch of reviews of Poe starting shit, this is the book for you.
Here are a few examples of reviews written by Poe, starting with the most Twitter worthy:
"Wakondah, then, from beginning to end, is trash."
"They are full of all kinds of mistakes, of which the most important is that of their having been printed at all."
"Pure Diabolism is but Absolute Insanity. Lucifer was merely unfortunate in having been created without brains."
"We know nothing of Mr. Ainsworth's scholarship. There are some very equivocal blunders in 'Crichton,' to be sure; but Ainsworth is a classical name, and we must make VERY great allowances for the usual errors of press. We say, however, that, from all that appears in the novel in question, he may be as really ignorant as a bear." ['Very' was italicized in the print copy]
"Either a man intends to be understood or he does not. If he write a book which he intends NOT to be understood, we shall be very happy indeed not to understand it; bit if he write a book which he means to be understood, and, in this book, be at all possible pains to prevent us from understanding it, we can only say that he is an ass--and this, to be brief, is our private opinion of Mr. Carlyle, which we now take the liberty of making public." [Again, 'not' was italicized in the print copy]
If you just want to read a bunch of reviews of Poe starting shit, this is the book for you.
March 7, 2021
"As the editor of a magazine [The Southern Literary Messenger] with a growing circulation Poe was able to publish the short stories he had been writing since 1831, but more immediate interest was aroused by his criticisms of books. These were usually severe and in some cases bad mannered. Today many of Poe's reviews of forgotten writers seem wholly justified, and his occasional enthusiastic reception of good work-such as the immediate recognition of Dickens, even before Pickwick-makes us respect his critical judgement. But his talk about throwing a book to the pigs when it is really inoffensive seems warrant the remark that Poe sometimes used 'vitriol for ink.' " Poe, Edgar Allan. (1951) "Introduction" by T. O. Mabbott, The Selected Poetry and Prose of Edgar Allan Poe. Edited by T. O. Mabbott. New York: Random House. (vii)
“[Poe’s] most thoughtful notices set a level of popular book reviewing that has remained unequalled in America, and that led George Bernard Shaw to call him ‘the greatest journalistic critic of his time.’ ”— Kenneth Silverman*
*Silverman, Kenneth. (1991). Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York : HarperCollins Publishers.
THEORY OF POETRY
Letter to B (July 1836) - 3.5 Stars "The preface to Poe's third collection POEMS published by Elam Bliss in 1831, as 'Letter to Mr. — —,' and addressed 'Dear B —.' The preface later appeared under the title 'Letter to B —' in the July 1836 issue of the Southern Literary Messenger. This rambling epistolary essay marks Poe's early effort to establish himself as critic and theorist of American literature. Sova, Dawn B. (2001). Edgar Allan Poe, A to Z : the essential reference to his life and work. New York: Checkmark Books. (131)
The Philosophy of Composition (April 1846) - 5 Stars
The Rationale of Verse (November 1848) - 5 Stars
The Poetic Principle (October 1850) - 5 Stars
REVIEWS OF BRITISH AND CONTINENTAL AUTHORS
William Harrison Ainsworth:
Guy Fawkes or The Gunpowder Treason - 3 Stars
Eaton Stannard Barrett:
The Heroine: or Adventures of Cherubina - 4 Stars
Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
The Drama of Exile and other Poems - 3.5 Stars
Edward Lytton-Bulwer:
Renzi - 5 Stars
The Last of the Tribunes - 5 Stars
Night and Morning - 5 Stars
The Critical and Miscellaneous Writings - 5 Stars
Henry F. Chorley:
Conti the Discarded - 2.5 Stars
Memorials of Mrs. Hemans - 3.5 Stars
Henry Cockton:
Stanley Thorn - 3.5 Stars
Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
Letters, Conversations and Recollections - 3 Stars
J. F. Dalton:
Peter Snook -4.5 Stars
Daniel Defoe:
Robinson Crusoe - 4 Stars
Charles Dickens:
Watkins Tottle, and other Sketches ("Sketches by Boz") - 5 Stars
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club - 3.5 Stars
The Old Curiosity Shop, and other Tales - 5 Stars
Barnaby Rudge - 5 Stars
Barnaby Rudge - 4 Stars
Henry Duncan:
Sacred Philosophy of the Seasons - 3 Stars
Euripides:
The Classical Family Library. Euripides - 2.5 Stars
Baron de la Motte Fouque:
Undine: A Miniature Romance - 3.5 Stars
William Goodwin:
Lives of the Necromancers - 2.5 Stars
S. C. Hall, ed.:
The Book of Gems - 3 Stars
William Hazlitt:
The Characters of Shakespeare - 4 Stars
Thomas Hood:
Prose and Verse - 3 Stars
R. H. Horne:
Orion - 3 Stars
Charles James Lever ("Harry Lorrequer"):
Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon - 4 Stars
Thomas Babington Macaulay:
Critical and Miscellaneous Essays - 2 Stars
Frederick Marryatt:
Joseph Rushbrook, or the Poacher - 4 Stars
Mrs. L. Miles:
Phrenology, and the Moral Influence of Phrenology - 3 Stars
Thomas Moore:
Alciphron, a Poem - 3 Stars
Robert Southey:
The Doctor - 4 Stars
Sarah Stickney (Mrs. Sarah Stickney Ellis):
The Poetry of Life - 4 Stars
Samuel Warren:
Ten Thousand a Year - 3.5 Stars
REVIEWS OF AMERICAN AUTHORS AND AMERICAN LITERATURE
The American Drama - 4.5 Stars Critiques of two plays. Tortesa, the Usurer by Nathaniel Parker Willis, and The Spanish Student by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Robert M. Bird:
Shepphard Lee - 4 Stars
John G. C. Brainard:
A Few Words about Brainard - 3 Stars
William Cullen Bryant:
Poems - 3.5 Stars
Complete Poetical Works - 3.5 Stars
The Canons of Good Breeding - 3.5 Stars
William Ellery Channing:
Our Amateur Poets - 4.5 Stars
James Fenimore Cooper:
The History of the Navy of the United States of America - 3 Stars
Wyandotte, or the Hutted Knoll - 4 Stars
Rufus Dawes:
A Retrospective Criticism - 3.5 Stars
Joseph Rodman Drake—Fitz-Greene Halleck:
The Culprit Fay and other Poems - 4.5 Stars
Alnwick Castle, with other Poems - 4.5 Stars
Theodore S. Fay:
Norman Leslie - 5 Stars In December, 1835, Poe created some stir by a fierce attack on Theodore S. Fay's mawkish but fashionable novel, Norman Leslie. Such severity was an innovation in those days and roused the ire of the literary North, and in especial, of those around the northern review the Knickerbocker, among whom was Fay. By the same stroke, however, Poe achieved fame. Thenceforth, he was to be feared, hated, abused and—admired. Bonaparte, Marie, Princess. (1949). The life and works of Edgar Allan Poe : a psycho-analytic interpretation. London: Imago Publishing Co. (75-6)
Rufus W. Griswold:
The Poets and Poetry of America - 5 Stars
Francis L. Hawks:
Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of the United States—Virginia - 3 Stars
Nathaniel Hawthorne:
Twice-Told Tales - 4 Stars
Twice Told Tales - 4 Stars
Twice-Told Tales and Moses from an Old Manse - 4 Stars
Joel T. Headley:
The Sacred Mountains - 4 Stars
Henry B. Hirst:
The Coming of the Mammoth - 3.5 Stars
Joseph Holt Ingraham:
Lafitte: the Pirate of the Gulf - 5 Stars
Washington Irving:
The Crayon Miscellany - 3 Stars
Astoria - 5 Stars
George Jones' Ancient America - 4 Stars
John Pendleton Kennedy:
Horse-Shoe Robinson - 5 Stars
S. Anna Lewis:
The Child of the Sea and other Poems - 4 Stars
Francis Lieber:
Reminiscences of an Intercourse with Mr. Niebuhr - 5 Stars
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
Hyperion a Romance - 3.5 Stars
Voices of the Night - 4 Stars
Ballads and other Poems - 4 Stars
Ballards and other Poems - 4 Stars
Longfellow's Waif, with an Exchange - 5 Stars
Imitation-Plagiarism-Mr. Poe's reply to the Letter of Outis - 3.5 Stars
A Continuation of the voluminous History of the Little Longfellow War - 3 Stars
More of the Voluminous History of the Little Longfellow War - 3.5 Stars
Imitation-Plagiarism-The conclusion of Mr. Poe's reply to the Letter of Outis - 4 Stars
Plagiarism-Imitation-Postscript to Mr. Poe's reply to the Letter of Outis - 3.5 Stars
Longfellow's Poems - 5 Stars
Agustus Baldwin Longstreet:
Georgia Scenes - 4.5 Stars
William W. Lord:
Poems - 4 Stars
James Russell Lowell:
Poems - 3.5 Stars
A Fable for the Critics - 3.5 Stars
Cornelius Mathews:
Wakondah; The Master of Life - 4 Stars
Big Abel and the Little Manhattan - 3.5 Stars
Morris Mattson:
Paul Ulric - 5 Stars
Susan Rigby Morgan:
The Swiss Heiress - 3.5 Stars
Laughton Osborn:
Confessions of a Poet - 3 Stars
Edgar Allan Poe:
Tales 5 Stars
L. H. Sigourney, H. F. Gould, and E. F. Ellet:
Zinzendorf, and other Poems. Poems. Poems; Translated and Original - 3 Stars
William Gilmore Simms:
The Partisan - 4.5 Stars
The Wigwam and the Cabin - 4 Stars
Elizabeth Oakes Smith:
Poetical Writings - 3.5 Stars
Seba Smith:
Powhatan - 3.5 Stars
John L. Stephens:
Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petræa, and the Holy Land - 3.5 Stars
William Leete Stone:
Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman - 5 Stars
Beverly Tucker:
George Balcombe - 5 Stars
Robert Walsh:
Diadactics-Social, Literary, and Political - 4 Stars
Robert M. Walsh:
Sketches of Conspicuous Living Characters of France - 3.5 Stars
Thomas Ward:
Our Amateur Poets-Flaccus - 3.5 Stars
Lambert A. Wilmer:
The Quacks of Helicon - 3 Stars
MAGAZINES AND CRITICISM
Supplement (A Reply to Critics) - 3 Stars
Prospectus of The Penn Magazine - 5 Stars
Exordium to Critical Notices - 5 Stars
Prospectus of The Stylus - 5 Stars
Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison-House - 4 Stars
About Critics and Criticism - 4 Stars
A Reviewer Reviewed by Walter G. Bowen (Edgar A. Poe) - 5 Stars
Poe wielded the kind of literary power that “can only be possessed by a man of high genius,” according to the anonymous reviewer Bowen a pseudonym —who in this case was almost certainly Edgar Allan Poe himself.
THE LITERARY AND SOCIAL SCENE
Literary Small Talk - 3 Stars
Letter to the Editor of the Broadway Journal 1845 - 4 Stars
EDITORIAL MISCELLANEOUS FROM THE Broadway Journal - 2.5 Stars Miscellaneous tidbits of interest to the readers at the time and of possible interest to scholars, academics and historians of today. Most deal with Poe's animosity towards and obsessive interest in exposing those who plagiarized. (checkmarks are my own way to keep track of those I read)
September 20, 1845 🗸
October 4, 1845 🗸
October 11, 1845 🗸
October 25, 1845 🗸
November 1, 1845 🗸
November 22, 1845 🗸
December 13, 1845 🗸
December 27 1845 🗸
January 3, 1846 🗸
THE LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY:
Some Honest Opinions at Random - 5 Stars
George Bush - 3.5 Stars
George H. Colton - 4 Stars
N. P. Willis - 4.5 Stars
William M. Gillespie - 3.5 Stars
Charles F. Briggs - 4 Stars
William Kirkland - 3 Stars
John W. Francis - 3 Stars
Anna Cora Mowatt - 4.5 Stars
George B. Cheever - 3 Stars
Charles Anthon - 4.5 Stars
Ralph Hoyt - 3.5 Stars
Gulian C. Verplanck - 3 Stars
Freeman Hunt - 3.5 Stars
Piero Maroncelli - 3 Stars
Laughton Osborn - 3.5 Stars
Fitz-Greene Halleck - 4 Stars
Ann S. Stephens - 3.5 Stars
Evert A. Duyckinck - 3.5 Stars
Mary Gove - 3 Stars
James Aldrich - 3.5 Stars
Thomas Dunn English - 3.5 Stars
Henry Cary - 3.5 Stars
Christopher Pearce Cranch - 4 Stars
Sarah Margaret Fuller - 5 Stars
James Lawson - 3 Stars
Carolyn M. Kirkland - 4 Stars
Prosper M. Wetmore - 3 Stars
Emma C. Embury - 3 Stars
Epes Sargent - 3.5 Stars
Frances S. Osgood - 4 Stars
Lydia M. Child - 3 Stars
Elizabeth Bogart - 3 Stars
Catherine M. Sedgwick - 4 Stars
Lewis Gaylord Clark - 4 Stars
Anne C. Lynch - 3.5 Stars
Charles Fenno Hoffman - 4.5 Stars
Mary E. Hewitt - 4 Stars
Richard Adams Locke - 5 Stars
ARTICLES AND MARGINALIA
SOUTH SEA EXPEDITION:
Report of the Committee of Naval Affairs - 5 Stars
Address on the subject of a Surveying and Exploring Expedition to the Pacific Ocean and the South Seas. by J. N. Reynolds - 5 Stars
A Brief Account of the Discoveries and Results of the United States' Exploring Expedition - 5 Stars
Maelzel's Chess Player - 5 Stars
A Few Words on Secret Writing (also titled Cryptography) - 5 Stars
Chapter of Suggestions - 3 Stars
Fifty Suggestions- 3 Stars
Marginalia - 3 Stars Marginalia, a word that he invented for this collection of observations and brief essays. (checkmarks are my own way to keep track of those I read)
Democratic Review, November 1844 (43 items plus Introduction) 🗸
Democratic Review, December 1844 (73 items) 🗸
Godeys Lady's Book, August 1845 (18 items) 🗸
Godey's Lady's Book, September 1845 (12 items) 🗸
Graham's Magazine, March 1846 (8 items) 🗸
Democratic Review, April !846 (15 items) 🗸
Democratic Review, July 1846 (6 items) 🗸
Graham's Magazine, November 1846 (5 items) 🗸
Graham's Magazine, December 1846 (8 items) 🗸
Graham's Magazine, January 1848 (8 items) 🗸
Graham's Magazine, February 1848 (3 items) 🗸
Graham's Magazine, March 1848 (1 item) 🗸
Southern Literary Messenger, April 1849 (12 items) 🗸
Southern Literary Messenger, May 1849 (10 items) 🗸
Southern Literary Messenger, June 1849 (34 items) 🗸
Southern Literary Messenger, July 1849 (33 items) 🗸
Southern Literary Messenger, September 1849 (2 items) 🗸
“[Poe’s] most thoughtful notices set a level of popular book reviewing that has remained unequalled in America, and that led George Bernard Shaw to call him ‘the greatest journalistic critic of his time.’ ”— Kenneth Silverman*
*Silverman, Kenneth. (1991). Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York : HarperCollins Publishers.
THEORY OF POETRY
Letter to B (July 1836) - 3.5 Stars "The preface to Poe's third collection POEMS published by Elam Bliss in 1831, as 'Letter to Mr. — —,' and addressed 'Dear B —.' The preface later appeared under the title 'Letter to B —' in the July 1836 issue of the Southern Literary Messenger. This rambling epistolary essay marks Poe's early effort to establish himself as critic and theorist of American literature. Sova, Dawn B. (2001). Edgar Allan Poe, A to Z : the essential reference to his life and work. New York: Checkmark Books. (131)
The Philosophy of Composition (April 1846) - 5 Stars
The Rationale of Verse (November 1848) - 5 Stars
The Poetic Principle (October 1850) - 5 Stars
REVIEWS OF BRITISH AND CONTINENTAL AUTHORS
William Harrison Ainsworth:
Guy Fawkes or The Gunpowder Treason - 3 Stars
Eaton Stannard Barrett:
The Heroine: or Adventures of Cherubina - 4 Stars
Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
The Drama of Exile and other Poems - 3.5 Stars
Edward Lytton-Bulwer:
Renzi - 5 Stars
The Last of the Tribunes - 5 Stars
Night and Morning - 5 Stars
The Critical and Miscellaneous Writings - 5 Stars
Henry F. Chorley:
Conti the Discarded - 2.5 Stars
Memorials of Mrs. Hemans - 3.5 Stars
Henry Cockton:
Stanley Thorn - 3.5 Stars
Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
Letters, Conversations and Recollections - 3 Stars
J. F. Dalton:
Peter Snook -4.5 Stars
Daniel Defoe:
Robinson Crusoe - 4 Stars
Charles Dickens:
Watkins Tottle, and other Sketches ("Sketches by Boz") - 5 Stars
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club - 3.5 Stars
The Old Curiosity Shop, and other Tales - 5 Stars
Barnaby Rudge - 5 Stars
Barnaby Rudge - 4 Stars
Henry Duncan:
Sacred Philosophy of the Seasons - 3 Stars
Euripides:
The Classical Family Library. Euripides - 2.5 Stars
Baron de la Motte Fouque:
Undine: A Miniature Romance - 3.5 Stars
William Goodwin:
Lives of the Necromancers - 2.5 Stars
S. C. Hall, ed.:
The Book of Gems - 3 Stars
William Hazlitt:
The Characters of Shakespeare - 4 Stars
Thomas Hood:
Prose and Verse - 3 Stars
R. H. Horne:
Orion - 3 Stars
Charles James Lever ("Harry Lorrequer"):
Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon - 4 Stars
Thomas Babington Macaulay:
Critical and Miscellaneous Essays - 2 Stars
Frederick Marryatt:
Joseph Rushbrook, or the Poacher - 4 Stars
Mrs. L. Miles:
Phrenology, and the Moral Influence of Phrenology - 3 Stars
Thomas Moore:
Alciphron, a Poem - 3 Stars
Robert Southey:
The Doctor - 4 Stars
Sarah Stickney (Mrs. Sarah Stickney Ellis):
The Poetry of Life - 4 Stars
Samuel Warren:
Ten Thousand a Year - 3.5 Stars
REVIEWS OF AMERICAN AUTHORS AND AMERICAN LITERATURE
The American Drama - 4.5 Stars Critiques of two plays. Tortesa, the Usurer by Nathaniel Parker Willis, and The Spanish Student by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Robert M. Bird:
Shepphard Lee - 4 Stars
John G. C. Brainard:
A Few Words about Brainard - 3 Stars
William Cullen Bryant:
Poems - 3.5 Stars
Complete Poetical Works - 3.5 Stars
The Canons of Good Breeding - 3.5 Stars
William Ellery Channing:
Our Amateur Poets - 4.5 Stars
James Fenimore Cooper:
The History of the Navy of the United States of America - 3 Stars
Wyandotte, or the Hutted Knoll - 4 Stars
Rufus Dawes:
A Retrospective Criticism - 3.5 Stars
Joseph Rodman Drake—Fitz-Greene Halleck:
The Culprit Fay and other Poems - 4.5 Stars
Alnwick Castle, with other Poems - 4.5 Stars
Theodore S. Fay:
Norman Leslie - 5 Stars In December, 1835, Poe created some stir by a fierce attack on Theodore S. Fay's mawkish but fashionable novel, Norman Leslie. Such severity was an innovation in those days and roused the ire of the literary North, and in especial, of those around the northern review the Knickerbocker, among whom was Fay. By the same stroke, however, Poe achieved fame. Thenceforth, he was to be feared, hated, abused and—admired. Bonaparte, Marie, Princess. (1949). The life and works of Edgar Allan Poe : a psycho-analytic interpretation. London: Imago Publishing Co. (75-6)
Rufus W. Griswold:
The Poets and Poetry of America - 5 Stars
Francis L. Hawks:
Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of the United States—Virginia - 3 Stars
Nathaniel Hawthorne:
Twice-Told Tales - 4 Stars
Twice Told Tales - 4 Stars
Twice-Told Tales and Moses from an Old Manse - 4 Stars
Joel T. Headley:
The Sacred Mountains - 4 Stars
Henry B. Hirst:
The Coming of the Mammoth - 3.5 Stars
Joseph Holt Ingraham:
Lafitte: the Pirate of the Gulf - 5 Stars
Washington Irving:
The Crayon Miscellany - 3 Stars
Astoria - 5 Stars
George Jones' Ancient America - 4 Stars
John Pendleton Kennedy:
Horse-Shoe Robinson - 5 Stars
S. Anna Lewis:
The Child of the Sea and other Poems - 4 Stars
Francis Lieber:
Reminiscences of an Intercourse with Mr. Niebuhr - 5 Stars
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
Hyperion a Romance - 3.5 Stars
Voices of the Night - 4 Stars
Ballads and other Poems - 4 Stars
Ballards and other Poems - 4 Stars
Longfellow's Waif, with an Exchange - 5 Stars
Imitation-Plagiarism-Mr. Poe's reply to the Letter of Outis - 3.5 Stars
A Continuation of the voluminous History of the Little Longfellow War - 3 Stars
More of the Voluminous History of the Little Longfellow War - 3.5 Stars
Imitation-Plagiarism-The conclusion of Mr. Poe's reply to the Letter of Outis - 4 Stars
Plagiarism-Imitation-Postscript to Mr. Poe's reply to the Letter of Outis - 3.5 Stars
Longfellow's Poems - 5 Stars
Agustus Baldwin Longstreet:
Georgia Scenes - 4.5 Stars
William W. Lord:
Poems - 4 Stars
James Russell Lowell:
Poems - 3.5 Stars
A Fable for the Critics - 3.5 Stars
Cornelius Mathews:
Wakondah; The Master of Life - 4 Stars
Big Abel and the Little Manhattan - 3.5 Stars
Morris Mattson:
Paul Ulric - 5 Stars
Susan Rigby Morgan:
The Swiss Heiress - 3.5 Stars
Laughton Osborn:
Confessions of a Poet - 3 Stars
Edgar Allan Poe:
Tales 5 Stars
L. H. Sigourney, H. F. Gould, and E. F. Ellet:
Zinzendorf, and other Poems. Poems. Poems; Translated and Original - 3 Stars
William Gilmore Simms:
The Partisan - 4.5 Stars
The Wigwam and the Cabin - 4 Stars
Elizabeth Oakes Smith:
Poetical Writings - 3.5 Stars
Seba Smith:
Powhatan - 3.5 Stars
John L. Stephens:
Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petræa, and the Holy Land - 3.5 Stars
William Leete Stone:
Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman - 5 Stars
Beverly Tucker:
George Balcombe - 5 Stars
Robert Walsh:
Diadactics-Social, Literary, and Political - 4 Stars
Robert M. Walsh:
Sketches of Conspicuous Living Characters of France - 3.5 Stars
Thomas Ward:
Our Amateur Poets-Flaccus - 3.5 Stars
Lambert A. Wilmer:
The Quacks of Helicon - 3 Stars
MAGAZINES AND CRITICISM
Supplement (A Reply to Critics) - 3 Stars
Prospectus of The Penn Magazine - 5 Stars
Exordium to Critical Notices - 5 Stars
Prospectus of The Stylus - 5 Stars
Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison-House - 4 Stars
About Critics and Criticism - 4 Stars
A Reviewer Reviewed by Walter G. Bowen (Edgar A. Poe) - 5 Stars
Poe wielded the kind of literary power that “can only be possessed by a man of high genius,” according to the anonymous reviewer Bowen a pseudonym —who in this case was almost certainly Edgar Allan Poe himself.
THE LITERARY AND SOCIAL SCENE
Literary Small Talk - 3 Stars
Letter to the Editor of the Broadway Journal 1845 - 4 Stars
EDITORIAL MISCELLANEOUS FROM THE Broadway Journal - 2.5 Stars Miscellaneous tidbits of interest to the readers at the time and of possible interest to scholars, academics and historians of today. Most deal with Poe's animosity towards and obsessive interest in exposing those who plagiarized. (checkmarks are my own way to keep track of those I read)
September 20, 1845 🗸
October 4, 1845 🗸
October 11, 1845 🗸
October 25, 1845 🗸
November 1, 1845 🗸
November 22, 1845 🗸
December 13, 1845 🗸
December 27 1845 🗸
January 3, 1846 🗸
THE LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY:
Some Honest Opinions at Random - 5 Stars
George Bush - 3.5 Stars
George H. Colton - 4 Stars
N. P. Willis - 4.5 Stars
William M. Gillespie - 3.5 Stars
Charles F. Briggs - 4 Stars
William Kirkland - 3 Stars
John W. Francis - 3 Stars
Anna Cora Mowatt - 4.5 Stars
George B. Cheever - 3 Stars
Charles Anthon - 4.5 Stars
Ralph Hoyt - 3.5 Stars
Gulian C. Verplanck - 3 Stars
Freeman Hunt - 3.5 Stars
Piero Maroncelli - 3 Stars
Laughton Osborn - 3.5 Stars
Fitz-Greene Halleck - 4 Stars
Ann S. Stephens - 3.5 Stars
Evert A. Duyckinck - 3.5 Stars
Mary Gove - 3 Stars
James Aldrich - 3.5 Stars
Thomas Dunn English - 3.5 Stars
Henry Cary - 3.5 Stars
Christopher Pearce Cranch - 4 Stars
Sarah Margaret Fuller - 5 Stars
James Lawson - 3 Stars
Carolyn M. Kirkland - 4 Stars
Prosper M. Wetmore - 3 Stars
Emma C. Embury - 3 Stars
Epes Sargent - 3.5 Stars
Frances S. Osgood - 4 Stars
Lydia M. Child - 3 Stars
Elizabeth Bogart - 3 Stars
Catherine M. Sedgwick - 4 Stars
Lewis Gaylord Clark - 4 Stars
Anne C. Lynch - 3.5 Stars
Charles Fenno Hoffman - 4.5 Stars
Mary E. Hewitt - 4 Stars
Richard Adams Locke - 5 Stars
ARTICLES AND MARGINALIA
SOUTH SEA EXPEDITION:
Report of the Committee of Naval Affairs - 5 Stars
Address on the subject of a Surveying and Exploring Expedition to the Pacific Ocean and the South Seas. by J. N. Reynolds - 5 Stars
A Brief Account of the Discoveries and Results of the United States' Exploring Expedition - 5 Stars
Maelzel's Chess Player - 5 Stars
A Few Words on Secret Writing (also titled Cryptography) - 5 Stars
Chapter of Suggestions - 3 Stars
Fifty Suggestions- 3 Stars
Marginalia - 3 Stars Marginalia, a word that he invented for this collection of observations and brief essays. (checkmarks are my own way to keep track of those I read)
Democratic Review, November 1844 (43 items plus Introduction) 🗸
Democratic Review, December 1844 (73 items) 🗸
Godeys Lady's Book, August 1845 (18 items) 🗸
Godey's Lady's Book, September 1845 (12 items) 🗸
Graham's Magazine, March 1846 (8 items) 🗸
Democratic Review, April !846 (15 items) 🗸
Democratic Review, July 1846 (6 items) 🗸
Graham's Magazine, November 1846 (5 items) 🗸
Graham's Magazine, December 1846 (8 items) 🗸
Graham's Magazine, January 1848 (8 items) 🗸
Graham's Magazine, February 1848 (3 items) 🗸
Graham's Magazine, March 1848 (1 item) 🗸
Southern Literary Messenger, April 1849 (12 items) 🗸
Southern Literary Messenger, May 1849 (10 items) 🗸
Southern Literary Messenger, June 1849 (34 items) 🗸
Southern Literary Messenger, July 1849 (33 items) 🗸
Southern Literary Messenger, September 1849 (2 items) 🗸
February 28, 2016
I'm reading out of the periodicals themselves, so marking this as a "book" is somewhat of lie, but a justifiable one given the amount of content. Poe's criticism is Janus-faced yet always revealing -- both of its subjects and its author. Also, he was a tremendous ass. Great fun.
to-keep-reference
October 28, 2016Walter en las Tesis de Filosofía de la Historia que aparecen en Angelus Novus toma la situación y los personajes del texto "El jugador de ajedrez de Maelzel", de este libro.
January 14, 2008
Poe's literary battles with Longfellow are included here, and are hilarious. He's a very observant critic, and can be very cutting, as in 'cutting away the bull.'
September 8, 2022
Definitivamente, un ensayo que muestra la personalidad de Poe en su expresión máxima.
Currently Reading
June 3, 2009Definitely the sort of anthology made for dipping in to, rather than steamrolling through from cover to cover. For one thing, it's thematically rather than chronologically organized, so it doesn't provide a sequential sense of Poe's development. And his development is the best thing to map with this collection. It shows how very carefully and exactly considered his poetry and prose really was. It's a marvel to contrast the sobriety of his critiques with the alleged squalor of his life. What's more, he writes about literature so clearly and with so little affectation that it still feels fresh. Grad lit dweebs take note!
November 5, 2012
I have only read selections from this volume, but I will look forward to returning to it in the future. Poe is popular known for his short stories and poems, not as much for his substantial career as one of America's foremost literary critics and theorists. This volume gives us that Edgar Allan Poe. The particular selections I read gave me a new insight into his fictional pieces and his method as a literary artist.
April 20, 2024
Theory of Poetry, Reviews of British & Continental Authors, Magazines & Criticism - finished 03.21.21
The Literary & Social Scene and Articles & Marginalia - finished 12.18.22
Reviews of American Authors and American Literature (p.351-p.683) - finished 03.20.23
Reviews of American Authors and American Literature (p.684-1013) & Magazines and Criticism - finished 04.19.24
The Literary & Social Scene and Articles & Marginalia - finished 12.18.22
Reviews of American Authors and American Literature (p.351-p.683) - finished 03.20.23
Reviews of American Authors and American Literature (p.684-1013) & Magazines and Criticism - finished 04.19.24
Read
September 23, 2010Edgar Allan Poe : Essays and Reviews : Theory of Poetry / Reviews of British and Continental Authors / Reviews of American Authors and American Literature / Magazines and Criticism / The Literary & Social Scene / Articles and Marginalia (Library of America) by Edgar Allan Poe (1984)
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews