The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 5 — Reading Notes

Satirical Openings and Cultural Jabs

The first tale, 'A Tale of Jerusalem,' immediately follows the furniture essay and continues the sardonic vein. It depicts a comic misunderstanding during a siege, with characters named Buzi-Ben-Levi and the Roman commander Pompey. The humor relies on exaggerated Jewish stereotypes and wordplay, typical of Poe’s early magazine work. 'Never Bet the Devil Your Head' mocks moralistic fiction, with a narrator who insists on 'a moral' while recounting a ludicrous death. These pieces show Poe testing the boundaries of the periodical market, mixing learned allusions with broad comedy.

In 'Why the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Sling,' the narrator’s dialect—'it’s my opingion that it’s all along o’ that rascal Sir Pathrick O’Grandison'—parodies Irish and French accents. The story is a farce of social climbing and mistaken identity. Readers encountering these early works should expect a playful, sometimes cruel, authorial persona that contrasts sharply with the melancholic poet of later pages.

The Mummy’s Critique of Progress

'Some Words with a Mummy' is the volume’s centerpiece of intellectual satire. The narrator and his friends revive an Egyptian mummy named Count Allamistakeo, who then debates them on modern achievements. When they boast of democracy, the Count recalls a similar experiment that ended in 'the most odious and insupportable despotism' ruled by 'Mob.' The moderns try steam engines, but the Mummy notes Hero of Alexandria’s prior invention. The climax comes when Doctor Ponnonner asks about patent medicines; the Mummy blushes and hangs his head, conceding nothing.

Poe structures the tale as a series of deflations: each modern claim is met with ancient precedent. The narrator’s final decision to get embalmed himself—'I am heartily sick of this life and of the nineteenth century in general'—caps the satire with a deadpan punchline. This story rewards attention to its layered references, from the 'Dial' magazine to Egyptian history, and to the way Poe uses the Mummy’s silence as a weapon.

Poems of Obsession and Loss

The poetic section occupies roughly half the volume, arranged in groups: 'Poems of Later Life,' 'Poems of Manhood,' and 'Poems of Youth.' 'The Raven' appears early, with its famous refrain and incremental repetition. 'Ulalume' and 'Annabel Lee' explore similar territory—a bereaved lover haunted by a dead beloved—but with different meters and settings. 'The Bells' showcases Poe’s phonetic virtuosity, moving from silver bells to iron bells.

Lesser-known pieces like 'Eldorado' and 'The City in the Sea' offer compressed allegories. The notes Poe appended to some poems reveal his meticulous craft: he explains the symbolism of 'The Raven' and corrects misreadings. Readers should compare the early 'Tamerlane' with the later 'Lenore' to see how Poe’s diction tightened over time. The 'Poems of Youth' section includes the ambitious 'Al Aaraaf,' a cosmological fantasy that rewards patient reading.

Structure and Voice Across Genres

Poe organizes this volume by mixing genres rather than chronology. The prose tales range from hoax ('The Sphinx') to revenge tragedy ('Hop-Frog') to detective precursor ('Thou Art the Man'). 'The Man of the Crowd,' subtitled 'a tale of the London police,' follows a narrator obsessed with a mysterious old man; its refusal to resolve anticipates modernist ambiguity. 'Bon-Bon' is a philosophical dialogue with the devil, full of culinary metaphors.

The variety can disorient: a reader moving from 'The Raven''s solemnity to 'Never Bet the Devil Your Head''s slapstick may wonder at Poe’s range. Yet common threads emerge: a fascination with extreme mental states, a love of erudite jokes, and a tendency to undermine his own narratives. The 'Philosophy of Furniture' essay, for instance, is both serious aesthetic theory and a put-on. Recognizing this playful instability helps make sense of the collection’s shifts in tone.

This volume offers no single key to Poe, but rather a gallery of his many masks. The satirist who mocks American pretensions shares space with the elegist who mourns lost Lenore. The best approach is to read sequentially, noting how each piece reworks familiar obsessions—death, pride, the limits of reason—in a different key. Pay attention to the footnotes and prefaces, where Poe often tips his hand. And when the Mummy has the last laugh, remember that the joke may be on you.

Some nights, after reading Poe's Hop-Frog, I think of Innsmouth’s damp shadows and think both share a patient, creeping dread—the feeling that something ancient watches from the edges of lamplight. The old librarian in me nods to that quiet kinship, found between yellowed pages of The shadow over Innsmouth — Background and Themes, where time itself feels unhurried, and so do we.