The Literati: Some Honest Opinions About Autorial Merits and Demerits, With Occasional Words of Personality. Together With Marginalia, Suggestions, and Essays by Edgar A. Poe. With a Sketch of the Author, by Rufus Wilmot Griswold
New York: J.S. Redfield, 1850. Very Good. Item #47580
New York: J.S. Redfield, 1850. First Edition, first printing, binding variant "E" per BAL 16159; third volume only of a four volume set. Octavo; publisher's blind-stamped purple cloth with gilt lettering to spine; xxxix, 607pp. Spine sunned; edges lightly worn and bumped; brief exposure to extremities and loss along bottom edge of front fore-edge. Slight lean to boards but binding sound; tidemarks along top portion edge of text block with text only briefly affected; pages else unmarked; a Very Good copy.
Third of four volumes of Poe's works published after his death; this volume is notable as it includes the "Memoir of the Author" by his rival Rufus Griswold. The memoir is notorious for its inaccuracies, portraying Poe as a madman, habitual drug user, and an alcoholic. Griswold's falsehoods were perpetuated in subsequent editions of Poe's work. This edition also includes Poe's essays on Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and concludes with his pithy "Fifty Suggestions."
BAL 16159.
Price: $350.00