As the earliest foreign study of the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe, the text presented in this volume is something of a landmark in the history of comparative literature. In its definitive form, revised and abridged to serve as the preface to the first volume of Baudelaire’s translations of Poe, it has probably been read by more people in more different countries than anything ever written on Poe. It certainly had a major part in shaping the European view of Poe, which is so different from that which has prevailed in the United States, even to the present...

The history of the reception of Poe’s works abroad has long been encumbered with numerous legends, many of which unfortunately continue to flourish. Poe’s own claim that translations of ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ appeared inLe Charivariand in theRevue françaiseshortly after the tale was published in America (that is, around 1841) has long since been discounted, if not disproven.¹ Two other myths, which have plagued bibliographers for years, call for a few words at this point.

The first concerns a volume allegedly printed in Paris in 1846, under the title,Contes d’Edgar Poe. Major responsibility...

Il y a des destinées fatales; il existe dans la littérature de chaque pays des hommes qui portent le motguignonécrit en caractères mystérieux dans les plis sinueux de leurs fronts. Il y a quelque temps, on amenait devant les tribunaux un malheureux qui avait sur le front un tatouage singulier:pas de chance. Il portait ainsi partout avec lui l’étiquette de sa vie, comme un livre son titre, et l’interrogatoire prouva que son existence s’était conformée à son écriteau. Dans l’histoire littéraire, il y a des fortunes analogues. On dirait que l’Ange aveugle de l’expiation s’est emparé de...