Poe: Defined as Schoolboy, but Definition as a Novelist Is Too Novel
Abstract
To the Editor.—
In the February 10, 1989, issue of JAMA, a discussion of "The Fall of the House of Usher" and porphyria misrepresented aspects of Edgar Allan Poe's life.1 I will begin at the end of the article, the closing sentence of which begins, "However, as one of the greatest American novelists, Poe apparently observed..." Poe wrote only one novel in his 20-year career, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, published serially in 1837 and in July 1838 in New...