Edgar Allan Poe
This Web page has information to help researchers find materials related to the American author Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-1849.
Books | Articles (includes tips for searching MLA online) | Web | Related Materials
Books are a key resource for literary research. Books by and about Edgar Allan Poe can be found in Morgan Library between call numbers PS 2600 and PS 2645 (over 5 shelves of books). They are located in the lower level (basement) of the building.
Locate individual tales by doing a title search in SAGE, the library catalog (for works in anthologies or compilations from the past ten years and selected older titles):
Cask of Amontillado
Tell-Tale Heart
City in the Sea
Note: this search also picks up materials about the story or poem.
- The Concordance to the Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe PS2645 .W55 1989 Morgan is a useful resource for identifying specific words in Poe's poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe A to Z. PS 2630 .S68 2001 Reference is another useful book.
For literature, and therefore Edgar Allan Poe, there are three indexes that provide the most sources for research on the author and his works. The indexes are MLA Bibliography, Academic Search Premier, and Humanities Index.
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Search the MLA Bibliography for articles, book chapters, etc. After finding a citation, use the
to see if the library has an electronic version of journal articles; from the screen there is often a link to check the library catalog SAGE to see if CSU owns the journal or book.To find resources about Poe, search MLA for:
There are many entries on Edgar Allan Poe in MLA (as of July 2008 there are over 3460 entries).You can narrow your search by publication type by selecting your choice from the left hand side of the screen:
For example, select Journal Articles and the displayed entries change to that category only. In addition, the category type is highlighted:
.
You can limit your search by publication type from the initial search screen by clicking on
. Publication types are: Book; Book Article/Chapter; Book Collection; Dissertation Abstract; Journal Article; Website. The left example below shows a search limited to journal articles. You can also exclude dissertations from a general search (right example).
You can also limit your search by language of the article by scrolling and selecting your choice:
In this case, limiting "Poe, Edgar Allan" to journal articles in English retrieves over 2090 articles. You may select more than one language; just use the Ctrl key to choose languages that are not sequential:
(finds over 45 articles)
Once you set limits, they will stay as long as you do new searches in the main search box (
shows just above entries for search results). If you return to
Because there are so many records, narrow your search by topic. For example:
narrows the number of items to 25 (late July 2008). "Poe, Edgar Allan" in Subject and "short story" in Default Fields brings up 886 records (552 if limited to journal articles in English). Always look at the full record of any source of interest. It will help you identify terms that will be useful for finding additional sources:
If you are interested in one story in particular, click on the hyperlink or do a new subject search for it. (There are 132 English language article records for "The Fall of the House of Usher " in MLA online (1963- ). )
After you have done a search you may limit it in a few ways:
The full text limiter in not generally recommended in MLA, because there can be so few results, and
; the slide will reconfigure itself:
The "Search History" shows you your earlier searches. Click on the box in the "Add to Search" column to the left of the search you want to repeat or combine (with and, or, or not) and click on the "Add" button. You will then need to click the "search" button to do the search--or you can add additional terms in the same or other search boxes. Search history/alerts, will continue to display until you click on it again
(difference is direction of arrow to left of the words.)
(July 30, 2008)You may also set up an RSS feed, by clicking on the
to receive notification when there are new items for that particular search in the database.
To eliminate the book reviews from your search, do a people search for Edgar Allan Poe not books-reviews (PE Edgar Allan Poe NOT SU books-reviews). Same software as MLA above. There are over 560 records on Poe in Academic Search Premier. Some of the records are for a more general audience than MLA, and may be very useful. You can also limit your results, under "search options," to scholarly articles (over 390) (this option is not found in MLA--generally speaking, everything in MLA is scholarly).
- Humanities Index (AI 3 .I495 Reference South 1974-98; online 1984- ). Online (different publisher, similar subject coverage): Humanties International Index Varies.
Over 910 articles about or mention Edgar Allan Poe and his works/influence in the online database; in over 500 he is mentioned as a subject.
Subject Terms: POE, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849
Note: some of the Web sites linked to on this page won't let you go "back" with your browser's back button. Use Netscape's "Go" drop down menu or Internet Explorer's View-->drop down menu (select Go To) to return to this page when your back arrow doesn't work.
Also, some of these and the items in the next sections have excessive pop-up and/or pop-back advertisements attached.
In all cases, be sure to evaluate what you find, no matter the source: book, article, Web page.
The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe. University of Washington Eserver.
Alphabetical by title. Includes date written.
The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore.
General Topics About Poe; The Works of Edgar Allan Poe; A Selection of Lectures and Articles on Poe; Articles from Poe Studies / Dark Romanticism, more. While parts of this site are still under construction, it is quite extensive and explores such ponderables as "Allan" or "Allen"?
Poe Museum. Richmond, Virginia.
Has information about the museum, Poe's life, selected works (six titles full text), etc.
A Poe Webliography: Edgar Allan Poe on the Internet. Heyward Ehrlich.
"A critical guide to electronic resources for Poe research on the World Wide Web and CD-ROM, including electronic texts, HTML-encoded texts, hypertexts, secondary works, commentaries, and indexes." Extensive. Links kept up-to-date.
The Sesquicentennial of the Death of Edgar Allan Poe: A Commemoration. University of Virginia.
October 7, 1999. Information about Poe, letters, fiction, and search the archives. JPEG images of letters, notes, etc. in the University of Virginia Library's special collections, the Valentine Museum, and Poe Museum. See also Edgar Allan Poe Fiction.
Poe Decoder. Christoffer Nilsson.
Six essays (all by the same author, David Grantz) available on the Web. Background image of Poe, albeit somewhat faded, makes essays difficult to read. To get a clean background in Netscape, go to Edit --> Preferences --> Colors and check the box for "Always use my colors, >overriding document." In Internet Explorer go to Tools --> Internet Options --> Accessibility [button] and check box for "Ignore colors specified on Web pages."
Poe, Edgar Allan 1809-1849, Writer. J. Lasley Dameron, Memphis State University. © Academic Affairs Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
Brief, but informative biography of Poe.
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001.
Brief, but informative biography of Poe that includes an assessment of his work.
Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site. National Park Service.
Maps, image of house, calendar of events, etc. Philadelphia, Pa.
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. Vol. 16 Early National Literature. Bartleby.com.
Scroll down to section XIV on Poe (by Killis Campbell, Ph.D., Professor of English in the University of Texas). Sections: 1.Youth; 2.Education; 3.Tamerlane and Other Poems; 4.West Point; 5.Baltimore; 6.The Southern Literary Messenger; 7.Philadelphia; 8.New York; The Raven; The Broadway Journal; 9.Later Misfortunes; 10.Character; 11.Poe as Critic; 12.His Creed and Practice of Poetry; 13.Tales; Bibliography (last section biography and criticism).
Specific Stories Discussed/Analyzed
It is recommended that sources from reputable journals be used as much as possible. That said, these pages look useful.
Poe, "The Cask of Amontillado" (1846). David S. Miall. University of Alberta.
Discusses plot and structure of the story. See also Project #1. Web of Theory. Michael's Commentaries: Edgar Allen Poe's Theory of the Short Story applied to his own and other works.
Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado." Poe Decoder. Martha Womack.
Summary of the story; Setting; Characters; Point of View; Style and Interpretation; Theme; Related Information; Works Cited.
Links to short stories in full text. These can be useful for comparison with Poe's works.
Short Stories: East of the Web. © East of the Web and contributors 2000-2001.
Full text of short stories grouped by type: fiction, sci-fi & fantasy, hyperfiction, horror, romance, humour, non-fiction, crime, and children.
See also Milton, Chaucer, O'Connor, William Carlos Williams & Wallace Stevens, Dickinson & Wright, Faulkner, and Shakespeare.