POE, Edgar Allan "The Poetical Works" [Addey & Co, 1856] 2nd Edition, Illustrated

POE, Edgar Allan. The Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe of America. With a Notice of His Life and Genius.

London: Addey & Co., 1856. Second Edition. 7" x 4.5", xxxiv + 192pp with 20 illustrations by E.H. Wehnert, James Godwin, F.W. Hulme, and Harrison Weir. Green cloth with embossed borders and gilt titling. Light rubbing to extremities, one soil spot on each board, and hinges starting but holding. Very Good.

An early and uncommon British illustrated edition produced at a moment when Poe’s reputation in America was still shaped by Griswold’s hostile biography. British critics were generally more receptive to Poe in the 1850s, and publishers there issued some of the first sympathetic biographical notices along with early illustrated collections of his poetry. The Addey printings show Britain taking Poe seriously as a poet at a time when American reviewers were still divided.