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Edgar Allan Poe — “The Oval Portrait”






Texts and Variant Texts

Reading copy:
  • “The Oval Portrait” — reading copy — based on Text 00

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings:
  • "Life in Death" — 1842, no original manuscript or fragments are known to exist (but this version is presumably recorded in Text 02) — Text 01
  • "Life in Death" — April 1842 — Graham's — Text 02  (Mabbott text A)
  • "The Oval Portrait" — 1842 — TGAPP (manuscript of title only) — Text 03  (The tale is listed, under its new title, in Poe's handwritten table of contents, but the text itself no longer survives. It was probably a modified version of the printed text from Graham's Magazine, and is presumably recorded, with perhaps a few additional changes made in proof, in Text 04)
  • "The Oval Portrait" — April 26, 1845 — Broadway Journal — Text 04  (Mabbott text B)

Reprints:
  • “The Oval Portrait" — May 10, 1845 — Weekly News (New York)  (This reprint from Text 04 was first noted by Tanselle, p. 252)
  • "The Oval Portrait"  — 1850 — WORKS — Griswold reprints Text 04  (Mabbott text C)  (This is Mabbott's copytext)
  • “The Oval Portrait” — 1894-1895 —  The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 1: Tales, ed. G. E. Woodberry and E. C. Stedman, Chicago: Stone and Kimball (1:169-173)
  • “The Oval Portrait” — 1902 — The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 4: Tales III, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (4:245-249, and 4:316-319)
  • “The Oval Portrait” — 1978 — The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 2: Tales & Sketches I, ed. T. O. Mabbott, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2:659-667)

Associated Material and Special versions:
  • "Le portrait ovale" —  (French translation by William Little Hughes)
    • "Le portrait ovale" — March 6, 1856 — L'Ami de la Maison  (with an illustration by Auguste Rocinet.)
    • "Le portrait ovale" — June 12, 1856 — Le Mousquetaire
    • "Le portrait ovale" — 1885 — Oeuvres Choisies d'Edgar Pöe, Paris: A. Hennuyer
  • “Le portrait ovale” — (French translation by Charles Baudelaire)
    • “Le portrait ovale” — January 28, 1855 — Le Pays
    • “Le portrait ovale” — 1857 — Nouvelles histoires par Edgar Poe, Paris: Michel Lévy frères
  • "[The Oval Portrait]" — 1868 — Phantastiske Fortaellinger [Fantastic Tales] (Copenhagen)  (Danish translation by Robert Watt, noted by Anderson, p. 15)
  • "Het Ovale Portret" — about 1930 — Fantastische Vertellingen van Edgar Allan Poe, Haarlem: H. D. Tjeenk Willink & Zoon (Dutch translation by Machiel Elias Barentz, with elaborate illustrations by Albert Hahn, somewhat reminiscent of those by Harry Clarke)











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Bibliography:
  • Anderson, Carl L., Poe in Northlight: The Scandanavian Response to His Life and Work, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1973.
  • Cobb, Palmer, "The Influence of E. A. T. Hoffman on the Tales of Edgar Allan Poe," Studies in Philology, 1908, 3:1-104
  • Dowell, Richard W., "The Ironic History of Poe's 'Life in Death': A Literary Skeleton in the Closet," American Literature (January 1971), 42:478-486.
  • Gross, Seymour, "Poe's Revision of 'The Oval Portrait'," Modern Language Notes (January 1959), 74:16-20.
  • 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.
  • Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, ed., The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Vols 2-3 Tales and Sketches), Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1978.
  • Tansell, G. Thomas, "Unrecorded Early Reprintings of Two Poe Tales," Publications of the Bibliographical Society of America (2nd Quarter, 1962), 54:252.
  • Thompson, Gary Richard, "Dramatic Irony in 'The Oval Portrait': A Reconsideration of Poe's Revisions," English Language Notes (December 1968), 6:107-114.
  • Wyllie, John Cooke, "A List of the Texts of Poe's Tales," Humanistic Studies in Honor of John Calvin Metcalf, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1941, pp. 322-338.



 
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