The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe: With Three Essays on Poetry (1919 Oxford Edition)

POE, Edgar Allan (ed. R. Brimley Johnson). The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe: With Three Essays on Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1919.

Small Octavo. Finely bound subsequent to publication in full tree calf. Covers elaborately gilt-decorated. Spine with five raised bands; gilt title on red Morocco spine label; compartments decorated in gilt. All edges gilt. Gilt dentelles to turn-ins. Marbled endpapers. lx, 316 pp. Frontispiece portrait. Oxford Edition. Subsequent printing of the edition first published 1909. This copy in a private binding of quality; original publisher's cloth binding replaced.

A fine edition of Poe's poetical works, with three essays, bound in gorgeous polished tree calf.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) died in Baltimore at forty, impoverished, in circumstances that remain disputed, having published during his lifetime two slim volumes of poetry and a handful of tale collections that attracted critical attention without ever generating the income he needed. His reputation in France, where Baudelaire spent seventeen years translating his prose and Mallarmé the poetry, was established before it was secure in America; the European Symbolists adopted him as a precursor and a prophet, and it was partly through the reflected light of their admiration that the English-speaking world eventually came to see what it had. He is now understood as the inventor of the detective story, the principal theorist of the American short story, and one of the most original poetic voices of the nineteenth century.

The Complete Poetical Works include the full range of verse by which Poe is known: "The Raven," "Annabel Lee," "Ulalume," "The Bells," "Eldorado," "To Helen," "Al Aaraaf," "Tamerlane," and the other poems whose rhythm and imagery established him as the defining figure of American Romantic poetry. The three essays added to this Oxford Edition are central documents of Poe's aesthetic:

"The Philosophy of Composition" (1846) is Poe's famously provocative account of how he composed "The Raven". "The Poetic Principle" (1850) argues that poetry exists solely for the elevation of the soul through beauty, that utility and morality are foreign to its purpose, and that no long poem can properly be called a poem at all. "The Rationale of Verse" (1848) is a technical analysis of prosody that applies the same analytical rigour to metre and rhythm that "The Philosophy of Composition" applies to structure and effect.

R. Brimley Johnson (1867–1932), the editor, was a British literary critic known particularly for his editions of English and American classics for the Oxford University Press series.

Near fine. Binding in stunning condition: all gilt bright and bold throughout. Very gentle bowing to rear board. Contents near fine, generally clear and bright. Some mild foxing at edges of front and rear flyleaves only. A beautiful copy in a very handsome binding.

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Catalogue Number: HH000629