University of Virginia Library

A New Manuscript of Poe's "For Annie"
by
J. Albert Robbins

A previously unknown Poe letter and manuscript of a major poem has recently been acquired by the Lilly Library of Indiana University.

It exists because a Presbyterian minister in Saratoga Springs, New York, admired Poe and early in 1849 requested an autograph poem. Poe found the request "flattering" and responded with his recent 102-line poem, "For Annie," copied out in his neat, decorative hand.

At some time, on or before 1887, this manuscript passed—perhaps as a gift—from the Rev. Anson Gleason Chester (1827-1911) to E. Kirke Hart (1841-1893), businessman, Congressman, leading citizen, and autograph collector of Albion, in western New York. We have a detailed description of Hart's autographs because on April 2, 1887, the Post-Express in nearby Rochester published a lengthy interview and description of the collection. There were signatures of local politicians of very limited reputation; but many names are still famous today: Theodore Roosevelt, Sam Houston, General William T. Sherman, Samuel F. B. Morse, John C. Calhoun, Horace Greeley, and P. T. Barnum. There were autographs of writers great and small: J. Fenimore Cooper, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles F. Browne (Artemus Ward), Benjamin P. Shillaber, William Cullen Bryant, Henry W. Longfellow, Rufus W. Griswold, Alfred B. Street, Elizabeth F. Ellet—and Edgar Allan Poe. Though the Poe manuscript was fully described in the Rochester newspaper in 1887, its provenance remained unknown until recently, when the heirs of E. Kirke Hart offered the Poe piece for sale.

The new manuscript is in excellent condition, showing few signs of handling

or exposure to light. The two leaves, 25 cm by 20 cm, are wove paper, joined at the left edge by a paper hinge. In the upper left corner is an embossed stationer's seal, with an upper and a lower scroll framing the initials "p&s". The verso of the second sheet, folded and sealed with wax, carries the address: A. G. Chester Esqre / Saratoga Springs, N.Y. In the lower left corner Poe wrote his initials, EAP. The postmark reads: NEW YORK / 2 / APR / 5 cnts.

Heretofore, only one complete manuscript of "For Annie" was known—the one recently owned by Colonel Richard Gimbel and now in the Poe collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia. The Chester manuscript now gives us two. To the seven variant printed texts, we now, with the reproduction of the Chester manuscript in Studies in Bibliography, have eight on record.

Before we examine the variants in the new Chester manuscript let us review the eight extant texts.[1] The inferred chronological sequence of composition is as follows:

In order to highlight successive alterations and make it easy to follow Poe's revisions, I have keyed all variants to the first (Flag of Our Union) text. The Flag text is photographically reproduced in John W. Robertson, A Bibliography of the Writings of Edgar A. Poe (2 vols., San Francisco: Russian Hill Private Press, 1934), II, 273.

Textual Collation, Manuscript and Printed Texts of Poe's "For Annie"

• [The order of stanzas 4 and 5 in texts 1 and 2 is in texts 3 through 8 reversed. For purposes of simplicity and clarity in the collation, I presume no reversal of stanzas.]
• Stanza Line
• (1) 1 Heaven!∧]˜!— 2-3
• 2 danger∧]˜, 7
• past;]˜, 3-8
• 5 fever,]˜∧ 2-8
• 'Living,'] "˜∧" 2-8
• 6 conquered] conquer'd 7
• (2) 7-8 know, I am / Shorn] know∧ / I am shorn 4-8
• 8 strength;]˜, 2-8
• 9 move∧]˜, 2-3
• 10 length:—]˜∧— 3-6; ˜; 7-8
• 12 better∧]˜, 2
• (3) 13 composedly∧]˜, 4-5,7-8
• (4) 21 ceased∧]˜, 2,4,7-8
• 23 fever,]˜∧ 3,5-6
• 'Living,'] "˜∧" 2-8
• 24 burned] burn'd 7
• (5) 25 groaning,]˜— 2
• 26 sobbing,]˜— 2; ˜∧ 3-5
• 27-28 now; and the / Horrible] now; with / The horrible 2-3; now∧ / With that horrible 4; now, / With that horrible 5-8
• 29 O,] oh, 2; ah, 3,8; ah∧ 4-5,7; Ah 6
• (6) 31 ah!] ah, 2; oh, 3; oh! 4-8 tortures,]˜∧ 2-6,8
• 32 worst,]˜∧ 2-8
• 35 river] rivers 3
• 36 glory] Passion 3
• 38 thirst.]˜:— 2-8
• (7) 39 flows,]˜∧ 5
• 41 fountain,] spring∧ 2-8
• (8) 45 And] But 6
• 45-46 never be / Foolishly] never / Be foolishly 4-8
• 47 room,] room∧ 2-8
• 50 bed—]˜; 3
• 51 to sleep,] to sleep 3,6,8; to sleep, 4-5,7
• (9) 53-54 spirit∧ / Here blandly] spirit here / Blandly 2; spirit, here, / Blandly 3
• 56 Regretting,]˜∧ 8
• 58 roses:]˜. 2-3; ˜: 4-5,7-8; roses— 6

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264




• (10) 60 it fancies] I fancy 2-3
• 61-62 odor / About it, of pansies—] odor about me, / Of pansy— 2-3; odour / About it, of pansies— 7
• 63 odor∧] odor, 4-6,8; odour, 7
• 64 pansies—] pansy— 2-3
• 66 pansies.] pansy. 2-3
• (11) 67 it lies, happily∧] I lie happily 2; I lie tranquilly, 3; it lies, happily, 4; it lies∧ happily, 5-8
• 69 love] truth 3-8
• 71 Drowned] Drown'd 7
• (12) 73 kissed] kiss'd 7
• 74 caressed—]˜, 3-6,8; caress'd, 7
• 77-78 sleep from the / Heaven] sleep / From the heaven, 4-8
• (13) 79 extinguished,]˜∧ 3 extinguish'd, 7
• 80 covered] cover'd 7 warm:]˜, 2-8
• 81 prayed] pray'd 7
• (14) 85 composedly∧]˜, 4-8
• 86 Now,]˜∧, 5 bed—]˜, 2-8
• 87 Knowing her love—] (Knowing her love∧) 2-6,8; (Knowing her love,) 7
• 88 dead.]˜— 2-8
• 91 With] (˜ 2-8 breast,]˜∧) 2-6,8; ˜,) 7
• 94 dead.]˜:— 2,4-8
• (15) 97-98 of the heaven, / For it sparkles] of the Heaven—for it / Sparkles 2; of the sky, for it / Sparkles 3; of the sky, / For it sparkles 4-5,7; in the sky, / For it sparkles, 6,8
• 99 fire] thought 2; light 3-8

In comparing the eight texts of "For Annie" the principal fact is that the poem underwent no reconstitution or fundamental revision. The varying texts all retain the original stanza structure (ten stanzas of 6 lines, four of 8 lines and one of 10 lines), giving a total of 102 lines. As the collation shows, there is much tinkering with accidentals and some, of no great consequence, with substantives.

The principal revision, as noted in the collation, is, commencing with the Chester copy, the reversal of stanzas 4 and 5—a reversal retained in all subsequent texts.

In the eight texts there are twenty-four substantive variants—none of them greatly different in meaning, tone, or imagery. Most of them are substitution of a close synonym (italics mine): fountain changed to spring, happily to tranquilly, for example. The most substantial, in the final stanza, is fire to thought to light. A few changes substitute plural for singular (river to rivers, pansies to pansy). A few word shifts seem to indicate change in meaning (glory to Passion, love to truth), but if viewed in context, they seem not so much shifts in meaning as experimenting with loosely synonymous conceptual terms. Occasionally the emendations verge on the trivial, as when in line 29 the expletives in the eight texts are successively O, oh, ah, ah [no comma], ah [no comma], Ah [no comma], ah [no comma], and ah [comma]. Not one of these changes affects meaning or tone.

Of the eight texts, when we examine the record of emendations of substantives, it is the "Annie" copy (text 2) which has the most (nine) substantive revisions. In second rank is the Chester text (text 3) with five substantive word revisions and the unique reordering of stanzas 4 and 5. In only two instances are there substantive emendations in the last four texts: the change

of But to And in line 45 of text 6 and the change of a preposition (of to in) in texts 6 and 8. The seminal emendations come in texts 2 and 3. Texts 4 through 8 have no textual authority except for these changes of conjunction and preposition.

There is a different profile of the eight texts when we consider metrical emendations, and here by metrical emendations I mean shifting words from one line to another. The collation shows that we have one instance of a shift made in text 2, plus two shifts made in text 2 and retained in text 3. Even more striking are metrical emendations initiated in text 4. One shift occurs in text 4 and no subsequent texts, but four shifts occur first in text 4 and are retained in subsequent texts (5, 6, 7, and 8). So many metrical emendations appearing first in the Home Journal text (text 4) surely are what Poe had in mind when he wrote to Mrs. Nancy Locke Richmond that "The [Flag] so misprinted them [the lines] that I was resolved to have a true copy" (Ostrom letter 311).

As the collation shows, there is much tinkering with accidentals; some alteration of meter, chiefly by moving a word from one line to another; and some changes of substantives, principally adoption of synonyms. As examples of accidentals, note in line 51 that the infinitive to sleep, in texts 1 and 2, becomes to sleep, in texts, 3,6,8, and to sleep, in text 4-5,7. The first two lines of stanza 9 (below) show both accidentals and shifting meter: the commas come and go; and the word "here" moves from the second to the first and back to the second line of the stanza:

• Text 1 My tantalized spirit Here blandly reposes,
• Text 2 My tantalized spirit here Blandly reposes,
• Text 3 My tantalized spirit, here, Blandly reposes,
• Texts 4-8 My tantalized spirit Here blandly reposes,

All in all, one must admit, these various emendations of word and of punctuation are hardly monumental.

A study of emendations indicates another, but minor, pattern of changes. These are a shortening of the -ed suffix in seven past tense verbs: conquer'd, drown'd, kiss'd, caress'd, extinguish'd, cover'd, and pray'd. Poe was not given to this type of affectation and since they all occur in text 7 (The Poets and Poetry of America, 10th edition, edited by Rufus W. Griswold) and since these verbs were all normalized in text 8 (Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe, also edited by Griswold), we may conclude that it was either editorial policy in compiling that volume, or else was house styling of the publisher, Carey and Hart. It is very likely, it seems to me, that Poe had no chance to read proof of the Poets and Poetry text. Or if he did, he kept silent about such pointless contractions, for, since this printing was his first inclusion in Poets and Poetry he might have been reluctant to demand the resetting of these seven lines.

Notes