Poe's Life in Boston

EDGAR ALLAN POE
Tamerlane and Other Poems, By a Bostonian.
Boston: Calvin F. S. Thomas, printer, 1827

The author identification on the frontispiece of Poe's first book–"By a Bostonian"–is Exhibit A in demonstrating that he had positive feelings about the place of his birth. The speaker of Tamerlane, a dying Tartar warrior, is less interesting as an historical figure than as a projection of its newly independent author's concerns about lost innocence and love. In this way, one hears more of young Edgar than old Tamerlane in lines like these: "For I was not as I had been; / The child of Nature, without care, / Or thought, save of the passing scene.

Because Tamerlane sank into obscurity as soon as it was published and is so rare, this first collection of Poe's poems is regarded as the "Holy Grail" and "Black Tulip" of American book collecting. Of the estimated fifty copies Poe is believed to have paid his 19-year-old friend, Boston printer Calvin Thomas, to produce, only twelve are known to exist today. This copy-one of two in private hands-is the most recent to come to light. In 1988, it was found among vintage agricultural pamphlets in a New Hampshire antiques shop where it was purchased for $15.

The Edgar Allan Poe Collection of Susan Jaffe Tane