Tales

New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1845. First Edition; first printing (BAL 16146). Bound with the front and back blanks, the half-title and the integral four pages of ads (but not with the additional 16 pages of advertisements) in dark burgundy morocco, decorated in gilt and blind; all edges gilt; raised bands and gilt decorations in compartments; titled in gilt “Poe’s Tales.” Later bookplate; the original owner’s name, J.A. Cassedy, is gilt stamped at the bottom of the front inner dentelle; his 1856 Ohio pencil owner’s inscription on the half-title confirms that this was bound in America not long after the book’s publication. Aside from some foxing and minor page stains, overall an excellent copy with wide and tall margins; in a custom clamshell box. The Bibliography of American Literature, a thorough, detailed and authoritative work, notes three printings of this book (although cautioning that the presumed second and third could prove to be states of a single printing), and notes that the repairs in some examined copies made it difficult to definitely determine “the relation of printing to binding.” However, the first printing was evidently issued only in publisher’s wrappers. Few copies in those wrappers have survived, and their appearance at auction is scant. This cataloguer handled a copy in the distant past that lacked the back wrapper; another copy sold long ago was bound complete with the wrappers and all the ads, and although in fine condition, was trimmed considerably. We’ve had a couple of other first printing copies much like this one, bound from the wrappers, at least one of which was in a binding dated 1905; the other clearly bound later. Of the twelve stories printed, three are the first three detective stories written (”The Murders in the Rue Morgue” was issued in a separate edition in 1843, one of the great rarities of American literature) and this collection is widely considered to be the most important volume of short stories, certainly in American literature, and arguably in the English language. Queen’s Quorum No. 1; Haycraft-Queen cornerstone (noting its antecedents by Vidocq and Godwin). Born in Boston and stationed unhappily there in the army, Poe’s first book, Tamerlane, was printed only yards from where this cataloguer once sat. However, as with Franklin in the previous century and Bloomberg in the following one, his talents were best exercised elsewhere. Dead at forty, Poe in his short, ferocious career, despite a difficult and even dysfunctional upbringing, a troubled love life, and serious health problems, produced a substantial body of praised prose, poetry, and even criticism. The term “genius” is applied all too often and too easily, but in Poe’s case there seems to be no other word to adequately describe him.