The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-1849

by Dwight Thomas, David K. Jackson

For a century and a half Edgar Allan Poe has remained one of the most controversial and enigmatic figures in American literature. No other author has been subject to so much misconception; the "real Poe" has been all too dimly perceived, obscured by rumors and innuendoes about his alcoholism, ill-fated love affairs, and poverty. The Poe Log is the first complete and reliable chronicle of his tragic life and brilliant literary career. Extracting facts and clues from a fascinating array of documents, reminiscences, newspaper reports, legal records, and letters to, from, or about Poe, Messrs. Thomas and Jackson have created a vibrant reconstruction of Poe's personal and professional life. The resulting text is remarkable for both its detail and its clarity. The broad outlines of Poe biography were sketched over a century ago; The Poe Log provides the fine strokes and details that complete the unfinished picture, endowing it with depth, verisimilitude, and meaning.

Genres: Biography

919 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1987

Reviews

[Undine · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Poe Log"--an effort to chronicle the classic writer's day-by-day existence--is a remarkable work of research. For the first time, virtually everything we know about Poe is collected in one volume--a mixture of letters, diary entries, memoirs, newspaper articles, and other relevant items (much of which was previously unpublished) which gives us unprecedented insights as to how his controversial life unfolded. It is, quite simply, indispensable reading for anyone seriously interested in Poe's personal and professional dealings.

I do have a couple of complaints with this otherwise exceptional work: For one thing, Thomas and Jackson have, on a couple of occasions, listed certain events under the wrong time period. For example, they repeat an account published by Mary Gove Nichols in 1863 of a visit to Poe at Fordham, where she describes a poem which she does not name, but which Poe scholars believe is "Ulalume." In order to make her anecdote correspond with "Ulalume's" first publication in December 1847, they list her story as taking place "ca. November '47." Nichols' entire account, however, clearly indicated that this visit took place sometime before Virginia Poe died in January of that year. Also, they quote from Sarah Elmira Shelton's account of Poe calling upon her in Richmond as taking place in the summer of 1848, even though her entire description indisputably has her describing this encounter as taking place in 1849. Evidently, Thomas and Jackson did this juggling with dates to accommodate Sarah Helen Whitman's completely uncorroborated (and rather ridiculous) claim that Poe told her of briefly wooing Shelton during his 1848 visit to Richmond. All the evidence other than Whitman's (demonstrably unreliable) word shows that he never even saw Mrs. Shelton in 1848.

My other complaint is that Thomas and Jackson include a great deal of material that is either provably false or grossly untrustworthy, such as the Poe reminiscences of Susan Talley Weiss, without sufficiently warning their readers that some Poe sources are much more reliable than others. Poe has attracted an unusually high amount of mythology, and these two editors should have emphasized this fact more than they did, for the benefit of the unwary.

Even with these flaws, this is the one truly necessary book for students of Poe.

[Levi Lionel Leland · Rating 5 out of 5]

I call this the "Poe Bible." It has everything you want or need to know about Poe's life. From his birth to his death, it accounts for pretty much every day of his life. A great reference for anyone researching or writing anything on Edgar Allan Poe!