"Edgar Allan Poe Annotated and Illustrated" Interview
(Part II)
by
Andrew Barger
Q6: Top five Poe poems?
A6: This is a little easier than the stories. I like “Ulalume,” “The Raven,” “The Coliseum,” “Annabel Lee,” and “The Conqueror Worm” in that order. Poems that tell a story always seem to work the best and Poe takes it to a whole new level.
Q7: If a person wants a different perspective on Poe other than your book, do you have any recommendations?
A7: I like two other books . . . well, they are actually multiple volumes each. The first is titled “Edgar Allan Poe: The Man” by Mary Phillips. It was published in the early 1900s and stands today as the best Poe biography. The second is “Complete Poems” and “Tales and Sketches” by Thomas Mabbott. He was a Harvard professor who spent his career researching Poe. He was able to find a number of Poe writings that were not known before and he produced great research on Poe. My only complaint is that he spends an inordinate amount of time in his books trying to figure out where Poe, one of the most original authors in modern history, got his ideas. Mabbott does not approach Poe from my perspective, which is to focus on the underlying meaning of the stories and real people involved in them. There are few photographs. He also does not include poems written to Poe from his romantic interests.
A8: Sure. Poe was a great critic, perhaps one of the best, but it was not the best career move given his talents. I figured out that if Poe had written just 1/5th of additional fiction as he did critiques, we would have another forty stories by him. That is sad and amazing to think about. Of course, money comes into play. Poe was paid more for lambasting other authors than for his fiction. His total payment for “The Raven” was between $10 and $15. That is a travesty. So from a purely financial perspective I can’t blame Poe for time spent as critic when he was trying to support his family solely off writing at a time when there was no international copyright treatise, which allowed U.S. publishers to print the stories of more popular European authors free of charge. What a tough system (or lack of a system) for Poe. Regardless, it is fun to be able to read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Twice Told Tales” and then to read what Poe thought of it. He was a big fan of Hawthorne and his critiques helped focus much needed attention toward the little-known author from Salem, Massachusetts.
Q9: Both Poe and Hawthorne wrote of the supernatural. Do you believe in the supernatural?
A9: Now that’s a juicy question. Ghosts and goblins, no. The closest I’ve ever come to a supernatural event was actually when I was editing this book. I was sitting at the computer doing the background story for “Berenice” when a raven flew against my window. It was the largest raven I have ever seen; large almost like a chicken, and it hit the window so hard that I jumped out of my seat in fear it would shatter over the keyboard and me. After the first hit it backed off in a bit of a daze, fluttered there for a moment staring at me, and then hit the window twice more. It then took off. By that time I was near the door in a cold sweat. I have never seen a raven outside my window since, nor has one ever hit the window apart from that time. Eerie. I do believe God works in mysterious ways. Too much happens in this world to just pass off as happenstance or luck. A butterfly might flap its wings in Timbuktu and cause a tornado in Texas, but then a lot of good happens in this world that we rarely hear of it in the media. By the way, we need to round up all these butterflies. They’re causing too much havoc in this world. These tornado-causing butterflies are truly a danger to mankind. The FDA should put a label on them. (Smiles)
Q10: Why did you include the illustrations of Henry Clarke and Gustave Dore? There have been a number of Poe illustrators.
A10: Poe's short stories beg to have illustrations shown. Henry Clarke has some really great Poe illustrations he did on reverse plates; that is, he started with a black page and etched out what he wanted to display. "The Raven" has the great illustrations of Gustave Dore. A hundred years later and they are still unmatched.
