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Edgar Allan Poe — “The Sleeper”






Texts and Variant Texts

Reading copy:
  • “The Sleeper” — reading copy (copy-text is based on Text 00)

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings:

  • "Irene" — 1831, no original manuscript or fragments are known to exist (but this version is presumably recorded in Text 02) — Text 01
  • "Irene" — 1831 — POEMS — Text 02  (Mabbott text A)  (This is Mabbott's copytext for "Irene")
  • "Irene" — May 1836 — Southern Literary Messenger — Text 03  (Mabbott text B)
  • "Irene" — about January 1837 — "McCabe" manuscript — Text 04  (Mabbott text C)
  • "The Sleeper" — May 22, 1841 — Saturday Chronicle — Text 05  (Mabbott text D)
  • "The Sleeper" — April 18, 1842 — Poets and Poetry of America (The poem continued to appear in later editions.) — Text 06  (Mabbott text E)
  • "The Sleeper" — February 25 and March 4, 1843 — Saturday Museum — Text 07  (Mabbott text F)
    • "The Sleeper" — February 25, 1843  (no surviving copies located)
    • "The Sleeper" — March 4, 1841 (reprinted from February 25, 1843)
  • "The Sleeper" — May 3, 1845 — Broadway Journal — Text 08  (Mabbott text G)
  • "The Sleeper" — 1849 — manuscript revisions in J. Lorimer Graham copy of RAOP — Text 10  (Mabbott text J) (This is Mabbott's copytext for "The Sleeper")

Reprints:

  • Irene” — May 1831 — Casket  (This poem is quoted, along with two others, from Poe's 1831 volume of Poems. According to Mabbott, Poems, 1:542, the brief introductory note is presumably by Poe's friend Lambert A. Wilmer. Although the identical note appears in the Saturday Evening Post for May 21, 1831, only the poem "To Helen" is reprinted there, not the other two items.)
  • "Irene"  — July 8, 1831 — Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer  (This poem is quoted, along with two others, from Poe's 1831 volume of Poems. It is interesting that these are the same three poems as reprinted by the Casket for May 1831.)
  • "The Sleeper" — about September 1849 — Richmond Examiner proof sheets — (the text given by Whitty matches Text 10 exactly. It may be surmised that the Examiner text was set from Poe's copy of RAOP. Strangely, Whitty does not list the J. L. Graham copy of RAOP in his versions of this poem, although he does include references to this volume in the variants for other poems.)
  • "The Sleeper" — 1850 — WORKS — Griswold reprints Text 09  (Mabbott text K)
  • “The Sleeper” — 1875 — The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol 3: Poems  and Essays, ed. J. H. Ingram, Edinburgh, Adam and Charles Black (3:57-58)
  • “The Sleeper” — 1894-1895 —  The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 10: Poems, ed. G. E. Woodberry and E. C. Stedman, Chicago: Stone and Kimball (10:14-16, and pp. 162-166)  (The full text of "Irene" is given in the notes)
  • “The Sleeper” — 1902 — The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 7: Poems, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (10:51-52, and 10:178-182)  (The full text of "Irene" is given in the notes)
  • “The Sleeper” — 1911 — The Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. J. H. Whitty, Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co. (pp. 17-18, and pp. 204-207)
  • “The Sleeper” — 1917 —  The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Killis Campbell, Boston: Ginn and Company (pp. 63-67, and pp. 211-213)
  • “Irene” — 1925 — Armistead C. Gordon, Memories and Memorials of Gordon McCabe, Richmond  (1:20-21)  (the first printing of the McCabe manuscript)
  • “The Sleeper” — 1965 — The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Floyd Stovall, Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia (pp. 52-54, and pp. 218-225)  (In his notes, Stovall gives the full text of the 1831 "Irene")
  • “Irene” — 1969 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 1: Poems, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (1:179-186)
  • “The Sleeper” — 1969 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 1: Poems, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (1:186-189)

Associated Material and Special versions:

  • None













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Bibliography:
  • Heartman, Charles F. and James R. Canny, A Bibliography of First Printings of the Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Hattiesburg, MS: The Book Farm, 1943.
  • Hunter, W. B., "Poe's 'The Sleeper' and Macbeth," American Literature, May 1949, 20:55-57
  • Kiehl, James, "Valley of Unrest: A Major Metaphor in the Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe," Thoth, Winter 1964, 5:42-52
  • Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, "Poe's 'The Sleeper' Again," American Literature, November 1949, 21:339-340
  • Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, ed., The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Vol 1 Poems), Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1969.





 
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