Signatures and Impositions: The Griswold Edition and Poe's Tamerlane and Other Poems

Abstract:If one is interested in the text of a story, or a poem, or whatever printed material might be found appealing, it is usually perfectly adequate to serve the immediate purpose by means of a modern reprint or even an electronic presentation. If one is interested, however, in the story of a given text, it is often necessary to seek out and personally examine an original printing. Even photocopies and facsimiles obscure details of construction that can be revelatory in terms of small details about the creation of a particular printing. In the present article, I have made some examination of this kind for the last and first printings of Poe's works in book form: the 1850 collection edited by Rufus Wilmot Griswold and the collection of Poe's poetry prepared in Boston in 1827. This article records my process of discovery, as well as documenting my findings and some of the conclusions that may be drawn from them.