ABSTRACT
As a boy, Edgar Allan Poe read British periodical tales and criticism in the Richmond, Virginia household of his foster father, merchant John Allan. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (1817-32), one of the most widely read periodicals in the Jacksonian United States, was the name-brand monthly that would provide important models for Poe’s prose journalism. One of Poe’s earliest published tales, “Loss of Breath: A TALE NEITHER IN NOR OUT OF BLACKWOOD,” (1832) suggests his work’s straddling the Atlantic Ocean in the manner of the influential magazine. My book will explain the responses to literary authority, as represented by Blackwood’s, that are articulated in Poe’s tales and criticism of 1831-49. While the tales were designed to be readily reprinted in Britain and the United States, the criticism primarily targeted American audiences.1 This initial chapter will describe the economic conditions for Poe’s prose career.
