Readings of the House of
Usher
revisiting Poe's bibliography with the help of the Internet and Google...
14th of April 2005
I am a fan of Edgar Allan
Poe. It is a fact that, thanks to Charles Baudelaire, and his – sometimes buggy
– translation of Poe, France is one of the countries counting many fans of Poe literature, and where
he is not considered merely as an author for yougsters. One of my favourite
readings, besides The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is The Fall of the House
of Usher. I have a wonderful translation in French, strikingly illustrated
by Albert Dubout.
It happens that I have
always been puzzled by a paragraph in that novel where Edgar Allan Poe, with a
little bit of mystery, mentions a list of books he is reading to his friend
Usher. The titles he mentions are so extraordinary that I have always wondered
if they all existed really. Some authors were familiar but not all of them. During my last reading of the novel, I realized
that internet was a good way to check the existence of those works, and find
some information on them. This page will
bring you to a journey across internet, ending on a
very rare and forgotten incunabula, stored in the library of the venerable University of Cambridge.
Here is the original text
from Poe:
<<Our books—the books which, for years, had
formed no small portion of the mental existence of the invalid—were, as might
be supposed, in strict keeping with this character of phantasm. We pored
together over such works as the “Ververt et Chartreuse” of Gresset; the
“Belphegor” of Machiavelli; the “Heaven and Hell” of Swedenborg; the
“Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm” by Holberg; the “Chiromancy” of Robert
Flud, of Jean D’Indaginé, and of De la Chambre; the “Journey into the Blue
Distance” of Tieck; and the “City of the Sun” of Campanella. One favorite
volume was a small octavo edition of the “Directorium Inquisitorium,” by the
Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there were passages in Pomponius Mela, about
the old African Satyrs and Œgipans, over which Usher would sit dreaming for
hours. His chief delight, however, was found in the perusal of an exceedingly
rare and curious book in quarto Gothic—the manual of a forgotten church—the Vigiliæ Mortuorum Secundum Chorum Ecclesiæ Maguntinæ.>>
and
<<The antique volume which I had taken up was
the “Mad Trist” of Sir Launcelot Canning; but I had called it a favorite of
Usher’s more in sad jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there is little in its
uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which could have had interest for the lofty
and spiritual ideality of my friend. It was, however, the only book immediately
at hand; and I indulged a vague hope that the excitement which now agitated the
hypochondriac, might find relief (for the history of mental disorder is full of
similar anomalies) even in the extremeness of the folly which I should read.
Could I have judged, indeed, by the wild overstrained air of vivacity with
which he hearkened, or apparently hearkened, to the words of the tale, I might
well have congratulated myself upon the success of my design.>>
In 1907, J. Montgomery
Gambrill published a book through New York Ginn and Company, entitled “Selections from Poe”. In this
book, Gambrill commented the paragraph above:
<<All of these titles have been traced, except
the last, which Poe either invented, or, in quoting, altered. Some of the works
named he apparently had not read, since their character is not suited to his
purpose. Jean Baptiste Louis Gresset (1709-1777) was a French poet and
playwright; the two works mentioned are poems,--the first, a tale of an escaped parrot who stopped at a convent and shocked the nuns by his
profanity. Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) was a famous Italian historian and
statesman, who wrote a celebrated treatise called "The Prince";
"Belphegor" is a satire on marriage. Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772)
was an eminent Swedish theologian and religious mystic. Ludvig Holberg
(1684-1754) was a great Danish poet and novelist; the work mentioned is one of
his best known poems and has been translated into the principal languages of Europe. Flud,
Robert Fludd (1574-1637), was an English physician, inventor, and mystic
philosopher. Jean D'Indagine (flourished in the first half of the sixteenth
century) was a priest of Steinheim, Germany, who wrote
on palmistry and similar subjects. Marin Cureau de la Chambre (1594-1675),
physician to Louis XIV, who was an adept in physiognomy, and wrote a work on "The Art of Judging Men." Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853) was a German
romantic novelist. Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639) was an Italian monk and
philosopher, who suffered persecution by the Inquisition.>>
<<Eymeric, Nicolas Eymericus (1320-1399), was a
native of Gerona, Spain, who entered the Dominican order and rose to the rank
of chaplain to the Pope and Grand Inquisitor; his famous "Directorium Inquisitorum"
is an elaborate account of the Inquisition. Pomponius Mela was a Latin writer
of the first century A.D., who wrote a famous work on geography "De Situ
Orbis" (Concerning the Plan of the Earth).>>
<<The Latin title, which has not been found,
means "Vigils for the Dead according to the Choir of the Church of Mayence.">>
<<The "Mad Trist" of Sir Launcelot
Canning has not been found; undoubtedly the title was coined and the quotations
invented to fit the text, as they do perfectly.>>
Now that the 21st century has provided new ways to search for information, for instance internet
search engines, it is interesting to revisit Grambill’s assumptions, or give
clearer indications on the origin of the mysterious list Poe inserted in The
Fall of the House of Usher. The remainder of this page is dedicated to the
information which could be gathered. The most striking is the one related to
the most mysterious of the list, invented by Poe, according to Gambrill: “an exceedingly rare and curious book in
quarto Gothic—the manual of a forgotten church—the Vigiliæ Mortuorum Secundum Chorum Ecclesiæ Maguntinæ”.
The Ververt of Gresset
The Chartreuse of Gresset
The Belphegor of Machiavelli
The Heaven and Hell of Swedenborg
http://swedenborg.newearth.org/hh/hh00toc.html
The Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by Holberg
That book indeed exists, and
is not a rarity. It was originally published in latin,
by Ludvig Holberg, one of the very famous Danish authors. Here is a picture of
the two first pages of the original publication:
I welcome emails from people having an
original copy, and capable of sending me a better scan. I do not have a copy of
the book.
This is the original
reference:
Nicolai Klimii iter subterraneum : novam tellurius theoriam ac historiam qvintæ
monarchiæ adhuc nobis incognitæ exhibens e Bibliotheca B. Abelini. Hafniæ &
Lipsiæ : Sumptibus Jacobi Preussii, MDCCXLI (1741).
The text is not available
on project Gutenberg website, but a translation in English has been
put online by Dennis List:
A modern paper
copy can be purchased from Amazon:
Product
Details
·
Paperback: 234 pages
·
Publisher: Bison Books (October 1, 2004)
·
ISBN: 0803273487
·
Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
·
Shipping Weight: 10.9 ounces.
At the time of writing, it
is ranked #700,447 in
Books amongst Amazon sales.
The Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean D'Indagine,
and of De la Chambre
The Journey into the Blue Distance by Tieck
The City of the Sun of Campanella
The Directorium Inquisitorum, by Eymeric de Gironne
Pomponius Mela
The Vigilæ
Mortuorum Secundum Chorum Ecclesiæ Maguntinæ
This
one is the most mysterious, and therefore the most interesting of the list.
Gambrill strongly suspects that Poe made it up. The fact is that I was capable
of finding a copy of it!
This book is indeed a very rare one, classified as an
incunabula (pre 1500 print).
Here
is the only (!) reference to it found by google
on the entire internet (thank you google…).
http://www.lib.unc.edu/music/film/filmv.html
Which
contains:
Vigilae mortuorum secundum chorum ecclesiae Maguntinae.
Basel: Wenssler, 1488.
55-M493
One reference is usually
enough…
Once I found this, my heart
was pounding, and I knew that the book existed, was an
incunabula published in 1488 by Wenssler at
Basel, and therefore as rare as what Poe had reported. I
had on top the very precious information that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had it microfilmed.
Next step was to get in touch (through internet) with one of their librarians, somewhere
on the opposite side of the ocean, and ask them if it was a hoax created by a
librarian – highly unlikely – or if they could help me locate an original copy
of the work. It happens that the website of the University is very well made,
and a page exists
to ask a question to a librarian. This is what I used. I got a very quick
answer that indeed that work existed, that the
University had purchased the microfilm from the University of… Cambridge. The librarian, Diane Steinhaus, explained to me that the entry referred to a piece of music, and was kind
enough to give me a comprehensive list of email addresses to get in touch with Cambridge, and the reference of the microfilm:
The microfilm you ask about is in our Music Library collection. We
originally purchased it from Cambridge University. If you wish to
purchase a copy, the Cambridge identification on the film is: Class
mark Inc.5.C.1.2 [2291] Oates 2748. You would need to contact Cambridge
directly. Their Inter-Library Loans address is: ill@lib.cam.ac.uk < mailto:ill@lib.cam.ac.uk > ; Imaging Services is photo@lib.cam.ac.uk < mailto:photo@lib.cam.ac.uk > ; and Manuscripts is mss@lib.cam.ac.uk < mailto:mss@lib.cam.ac.uk >
Of course, Gambrill in 1907
did not have internet, did not have access to e-mail, and above all, did not have google…
The Mad Trist of Sir Launcelot Canning
This one is quite certainly an invention from Poe, as
suggested by Gambrill. But we must be very careful, no reference to it exists
on google, but it may appear one of these
days!
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