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An Unknown Early Appearance of
"The Raven"
by
G. Thomas Tanselle
There has been a great deal of discussion of the publishing history of "The Raven" and much controversy about its first appearance. But it has apparently not been noticed before that one of the early republications of "The Raven" was in the New York Weekly News for February 8, 1845.
No two Poe bibliographers give the same list of appearances of "The Raven," but none lists this Weekly News reprint. In order to see its relative position, therefore, it may be of some value to construct a composite list based on the information supplied by previous bibliographies, principally four: Killis Campbell's notes to The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (1917); John W. Robertson's Poe bibliography (1934); Charles F. Heartman and James R. Canny's Poe bibliography (1943); and Edward H. O'Neill's bibliographical notes to The Complete Poems and Stories of Edgar Allan Poe (1946).
- 1. New York Evening Mirror, January 29, 1845.
- 2. American Review, I, 143-145 (February 1845).[1]
- 3. New York Tribune, February 4, 1845.
- 4. Broadway Journal, I, 90 (February 8, 1845).
- 5. New York Weekly Mirror, February 8, 1845.
- 6. New York Weekly News, February 8, 1845.
- 7. New York Weekly Tribune, February 8, 1845.
- 8. Howard District Press (Ellicotts, Md.), February 15, 1845.[2]
- 9. Southern Literary Messenger, XI, 186-188 (March 1845).
- 10. London Critic, June 14, 1845.
- 11. Littell's Living Age, July 1845.[3]
- 12. G. Vandenhoff, A Plain System of Elocution, 2nd ed., 1845.[4]
- 13. The Raven and Other Poems, 1845.
- 14. Literary Emporium, II, 376 (December 1845).[5]
- 15. Graham's Magazine, April 1846 (extracts).[6]
- 16. Philadelphia Saturday Courier, July 25, 1846.
- 17. Griswold's Poets and Poetry of America, 8th ed., 1847.
- 18. Southern Literary Messenger, January 1848 (extracts).
- 19. Richmond Examiner, September 25, 1849.
- 20. Philadelphia Saturday Courier, November 3, 1849.
The Weekly News text is thus tied with three others for the position of fourth printing. It occupies the first column and part of the second column of the first page, and it is labeled as a reprint from the Evening Mirror. A collation of this text with Campbell's text and his variorum notes shows that it does follow the Evening Mirror text, except for three misprints (exclusive of alterations in punctuation): line 8 reads "it ghost" for "its ghost"; line 16 reads "'This" for "'Tis"; and line 45 reads "are" for "art." This faithful copying includes the erroneous repetition of "he" in line 59 (which occurs in both the Mirror printings). It also means, of course, that the eleventh stanza begins with "Startled at" rather than the "Wondering at" of the American Review and that the last three lines of the
The New York Weekly News: A Journal of Miscellaneous Intelligence, Literature, Agriculture, and Politics was edited by John L. O'Sullivan (1813-1895), who also edited the New York Morning News and the United States Magazine and Democratic Review (which published some of Poe's Marginalia and work by Hawthorne, Whitman, Whittier, Longfellow, and Lowell).[9] The Weekly News' republication of "The Raven" was not the only way in which Poe entered its columns during 1845. Two of Poe's stories were reprinted and the 1845 Tales reviewed there.[10] In addition, on March 22, 1845, Philip P. Cooke's "Florence Vane" (reprinted from the Broadway Journal) is introduced with this comment: "We have had frequent requests within the last ten days, for a copy of 'Florence Vane'—a little poem merited [sic] by Mr. Poe, in his late Lecture on the Poetry of America." Two months later, on May 24, three long paragraphs entitled "Old English Poetry" are labeled "From a critique by Edgar A. Poe, in the Broadway Journal"; and on November 8 a review of Sarah Josepha Hale's Alice Ray is taken from "Mr. Poe's Broadway Journal."
The week after "The Raven" appeared the Weekly News points out (p. 2), in a review of the American Review for February 1845, that the "Poem of the Raven we have already laid before our readers." And the week just before its appearance (February 1, 1845) the Weekly News reviewer comments (p. 2) on Poe in a discussion of the current Graham's:
The New York Weekly News must now be added to the list of newspapers that play a part in the story of Poe's career.
Notes
It has often been argued that the American Review printing was the first on the grounds that the February issue probably came out before the January 29 newspaper. Robertson, for example, believes that the American Review contained the first printing (II, 224) and lists eight republications through the Griswold publication of 1847 (I, 23). J. H. Whitty, in "First and Last Publication of Poe's Raven," Publishers' Weekly, CXXX (October 17, 1936), 1635, discusses the question and suggests that the American Review was first. Heartman and Canny say that the American Review text was undoubtedly the earlier and that the Evening Mirror version is revised, but they feel one cannot be sure which was available for sale first (p. 233); they list both as the original publication (p. 100). O'Neill follows this practice (II, 1070), while Campbell gives priority to the Evening Mirror (p. 246), as does David Randall in his review of Robertson's bibliography in Publishers' Weekly, CXXV (April 21, 1934), 1542. The matter is also discussed by Hervey Allen in Israfel (rev. ed., 1934), pp. 505-507, and by A. H. Quinn in his Edgar Allan Poe (1941), pp. 438-439.
The confusion in the listings is shown by the fact that items 7 and 8 are not listed by Campbell (1917), they are listed by Heartman and Canny (1943), and they are not listed by O'Neill (1946).
T. O. Mabbott announced in two articles that this volume, which was published by September 1845, contained the first book publication of "The Raven": "The First Publication of Poe's 'Raven,'" BNYPL, XLVII (August 1943), 581-584; Poe's 'Raven': First Inclusion in a Book," N & Q, CLXXXV (October 9, 1943), 225.
Heartman and Canny, on p. 100, date the Emporium appearance February 1845, but this is an error (not listed on the errata sheet), for on p. 218 they give Poe's only appearance in the Emporium as December 1845, as do Campbell and O'Neill.
In Poe's essay "The Philosophy of Composition"; listed in the Riverside edition (ed. J. H. Whitty, 1911), p. 338, and in Campbell.
As well as in Campbell's notes, these variants are discussed in John D. Gordan, "Edgar Allan Poe: An Exhibition on the Centenary of His Death . . .," BNYPL, LIII (October 1949), 471-491.
This note originated in the Mirror, but the January 29 printing of the poem labels it "by Quarles." The February 8 paragraph in the Mirror, identical with the one in the Weekly News, is reproduced in Allen, p. 503. On p. 507, however, Allen is somewhat misleading in his comment on the Howard District Press, for a reader could easily infer from his remark that this newspaper first revealed Poe as author or at least first reprinted the introductory paragraph. But it appeared in the Weekly News a week earlier than in the Howard District Press.
The Weekly News began publication on September 7, 1844, and by the following August 23 it was advertised as "already the second in point of circulation of the weekly papers published in the city of New York, not taking the exclusively religious journals into the count. It is so generally known, that any comment upon its merits is not necessary." For further information about O'Sullivan (mainly in his connection with the Democratic Review), see Frank Luther Mott, History of American Magazines 1741-1850 (1930), pp. 677-684.
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