Anthologizing Poe : Editions, Translations, and (Trans)National Canons

This book examines the processes of editing and anthologizing as innovative contributions to the field of literary culture, analyzing how single-author editions and multi-author anthologies have created distinct reputations for Edgar Allan Poe. The book explores how Poe’s editors, anthologizers, and translators continue to shape his global images.

Edgar Allan Poe wields more influence in the spheres of literature and popular culture on a world scale than any other US author. This influence, however, does not rely on the quality of Poe’s texts alone nor on the compellingly tragic nature of his biography; his reputation and his ubiquitous presence owe much of their longevity to the ways Poe has been interpreted and portrayed by his advocates—other writers, translators, literary critics, literary historians, illustrators, film makers, musicians—and packaged by various mediators in the literary field, especially editors and anthologizers. As this study demonstrates, the division between Poe’s advocates and the mediators who organize his work for consumption by the reading public can be very porous since many of Poe’s most adamant proponents—Charles Baudelaire and Julio Cortázar, for example—also anthologized, edited, and/or translated his works. Anthologizing Poe: Editions, Translations, and (Trans)national Canons focuses on the works produced by Poe’s anthologizers and editors, both the famous and the lesser-known, whose labor often takes place behind the scenes. Poe’s editors and anthologizers exercise real power, and over the last 170 years, they have crafted and framed the various Poes we recognize, revere, cherish, and critique today.