Tamerlane and Other Poems - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

Tamerlane and Other Poems was virtually ignored and received no significant critical attention upon its publication. The only public notice of it was a mention of the title in a couple lists of recent books: The United States Review and Literary Gazette listed it in August and the North American Review listed it in October 1827. Samuel Kettell listed Tamerlane and Other Poems in his "Catalogue of American Poetry" section of his three-volume anthology Specimens of American Poetry in 1829. Literary historian Joel Porte suggests the American reading public during this period was more interested in fiction than poetry. Despite its lack of attention, the publication of Tamerlane and Other Poems gave a young Poe the confidence to continue writing.

After Poe became more popular with "The Raven", a reviewer who saw parts of Tamerlane and Other Poems commented, "'Poems written during youth' no matter by whom written, are best preserved for the eye of the writer". Modern scholar Joseph Wood Krutch said the collection "save for a few poems, distinctly prentice work". Poe biographer Arthur Hobson Quinn wrote: "The perfection which marked Poe's great lyrics was, of course, not yet present. But the promise was there." Quinn also credits Poe for publishing a collection of poetry before slightly older contemporaries who would become popular poets, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Scholar Harry Lee Poe, a distant relative of Poe, wrote in 2008 that the collection did not include great poetry. However, he added, "it was the trumpet blast announcing that a new poet had stepped upon the stage".

It is believed only a dozen copies of the original printing of Tamerlane and Other Poems remain, making it one of the rarest of first editions in American literature. Ironically, the value of one copy today is more money than Poe ever made in his lifetime. Its rarity was recognized in 1925, when the Saturday Evening Post ran an article titled "Have You A Tamerlane in Your Attic"? After the article ran, a woman in Worcester, Massachusetts named Ada S. Dodd searched and found a copy, prompting others to search as well. Today, most of the surviving copies are owned by libraries and museums. Two copies, for example, were purchased by The Huntington Library in New York in 1915. One copy is on display as part of the collection at the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia. Though copies do not circulate often, they command high prices when they do. One sold at auction for $125,000 and, later, another sold for $198,000. In December 2009, a copy from the William E. Self collection sold at Christie's, New York for $662,500, a record price paid for a work of American literature.