The Rare, First Book of Poe Up for Sale Again

Christened "the black tulip of U.S. Literature" owing to its once in a blue moon surfacing, a copy of the first work ever published by Edgar Allan Poe, will be made available by Christie's for rare art collectors today. Tamerlane and Other Poems, a 40 page book, of which only 50 - 60 copies were made has only about 12 copies existing today. Believed to be composed mostly before he crossed the threshold of 14, Poe published the book when he turned 18 in 1827. The present copy which will be auctioned off in New York, belongs to a Los Angeles resident, 88 year old William Self, the former president of 20th Century Fox Television.

The house of Christie's in New York expects this fairly old and tattered copy to fetch anything between 500,000 to 700,000 dollars. According to Francis Wahlgren, Head of antiquarian books and manuscripts at Christie's, the estimate was drawn up based on the price the last copy of "Tamerlane" fetched when it was auctioned off 20 years back. 250,000 dollars in fact is an all time record price for any work of American literature.

As the present owner Self himself puts it, "it's kind of a beat-up copy", this compilation of 19 poems is indeed rather frayed and discolored owing to its age, with a marked V shaped snick on its right hand side margin. Funded entirely by the then nouveau writer and printed by fliers and pamphlets, the pièce de résistance of the book was the 403 line long verse "Tamerlane". It portrays an Asian ruler in his deathbed, yearning for the one true love he sacrificed to build an array of successful military conquerings.

A very interesting fact about this first publication of Poe is the fact that, the author who also used a pseudonym of 'Henri Le Rennet', early in his literary career published the book anonymously simply ascribing it to 'A Bostonian'. James Hutchisson, a Poe scholar and English professor at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, attributes this as an effort on the part of Poe to pay tribute to his mother, Eliza Poe, who was from Boston. Poe in fact has printed the book when he had moved to Boston early in life as a result of his less than peaceful relationship with his father. "He never felt he was loved by Allan. He never got any affection from him," explains Hutchisson. Amazingly, Poe did re-publish the work sometime later and apologized to his readers saying that these poems were qualitatively disappointing in comparison to his later works be it in the realm of poetry, Gothic tales, satires or hoaxes. The justification he gave however, was that they were never meant for the public eye, contradicting his move to actually resurrect these seemingly immature verses.

Poe's archaic work will actually be a contender in a larger auction of 300 other books that includes rare books of Mark Twain, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, the entire collection of Self. According to him, "These books have given me so much pleasure, now it's time for them to give someone else pleasure." The decision to sell off his invaluable treasure trove was influenced by the fact that he himself is at an advanced age in life and has already lost his co-collector, his wife Peggy three years back. Self also does not wish his children to be bothered with tending to his priceless but fragile collection.