But Mallarmé alone transfigured that tomb:

Calme bloc ici-bas chu d’un désastre obscur

Que ce granit du moins montre à jamais sa borne

Aux noirs vols du Blasphème épars dans le futur.45

That meteorite, plunged down from some cosmic disaster, still survives. Far off it seems to loom – as dim, eternal witness of this interloper among ‘the tribe of Stars’, apocalyptic prophet and pioneer victim of science fiction.

A Note on the Text

POE published and republished his stories in a wide assortment of newspapers, books, magazines. Again and again they appeared in Richmond or Baltimore, Philadelphia or New York. Editorial salaries apart, they were his sole source of income. Naturally he squeezed them for all they were worth. Each new appearance, however, offered a new chance for revision; and he tinkered compulsively. So that even their final form – in the edition of 1845 or the Broadway Journal, for example – was often belaboured with further scribbled marginalia, emending the text. It is essential, therefore, to determine not only the first printing of each story, but also the last printing supervised by him.

What provoked him, above all, was the professional slackness of his provincial editors and hack printers. For Edgar Allan Poe meant to rise above all such hacks. Self-consciously he was a dandy – the first American literary dandy – and demanded perfection. But again and again as he launched his work, it returned to him flawed by his own hurried lapses or butchered by others’ carelessness. The Broadway Journal, at least, was under his own eagle eye and printed under his own direction.

This edition does not aim at collating these many textual variations and corrections. The only such collation, to date, is in the ‘Virginia’ edition, edited by James A. Harrison (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1902). Bibliographical notes at the rear merely list the first publication, all reprints during Poe’s lifetime, and the occasional autograph manuscripts available.

From which the following have been selected as standard texts :

MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE: Broadway Journal vol. 2 (11 October 1845), pp. 203–6

THE UNPARALLELED ADVENTURE OF ONE HANS PFAALL : Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840) vol. 2, with revisions, mainly of the final ‘Note’, first incorporated by Rufus Griswold (1849–56)

THE CONVERSATION OF EIROS AND CHARMION: Tales of Edgar A. Poe (New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1845) – twelve stories selected by Evert A. Duyckinck

A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTRÖM: Tales (1845), incorporating Poe’s manuscript corrections

THE COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA: Tales (1845)

A TALE OF THE RAGGED MOUNTAINS: Broadway Journal (29 November 1845)

THE BALLOON-HOAX : New York Sun (13 April 1844)

MESMERIC REVELATION: Tales (1845)

THE THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE OF SCHEHERAZADE : Broadway Journal (25 October 1845), with revisions of the scientific data and expansion of the notes, first incorporated by Rufus Griswold

SOME WORDS WITH A MUMMY : Broadway Journal (1 November 1845)

THE POWER OF WORDS: Broadway Journal (25 October 1845)

THE SYSTEM OF DR TARR AND PROF. FETHER: Graham’s Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine (November 1845)

THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR : Broadway Journal (20 December 1845), incorporating Poe’s MS. notes from his own copy

EUREKA : George P. Putnam (New York, 1848), with emendations incorporated from a copy of the first edition: ‘They are in Poe’s handwriting, in the faint tracing of a pencil, and are the changes the poet had in mind to make in a second edition.’ (James A. Harrison, Works vol. 16, pp. 319–36)

MELLONTA TAUTA: Godey’s Lady’s Book (February 1849)

VON KEMPELEN AND HIS DISCOVERY: The Flag of Our Union (14 April 1849)

The texts themselves have been left unaltered. Bar the odd hyphen, nothing is deleted; nothing added except superior numerals to mark a reference in the commentary.