Poe's Quarrel with Boston Writers

Edgar Allan Poe
The Boston Book
Boston: Light and Horton, 1836

The thesis-driven poems and stories in this collection suggest that Poe's association of Boston with literary didacticism was anything but arbitrary. Among the works included: "The Blind Mother" by H. T. Tuckerman, "The Vision of Liberty" by Henry Ware, Jr., "Mother's Love" by Mrs. Hale, "To the Chanting Cherubs" by R. H. Dana, and, of course, "Truth" by H. W. Longfellow. Even a tale that promises to be descriptive, Andrews Norton's "A Winter Morning," moves from an account of waking up on a snowy day to a moral and religious lesson.

Boston Public Library, Rare Books & Manuscripts