Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

James M. Hutchisson

1

Poe’s “Philosophy of Furniture” and the Aesthetics of Fictional Design
C. T. Walters

2

Race, Pirates, and Intellect: A Reading of Poe’s “The Gold-Bug”
John F. Jebb

3

Storytelling, Narrative Authority, and Death in “The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade”
James M. Hutchisson

4

The Man in the Text: Desire, Masculinity, and the Development of Poe’s Detective Fiction
Peter Goodwin

5

Gothic Displacements: Poe’s South in Politian
Amy C. Branam

6

Poe in the Ragged Mountains: Environmental History and Romantic Aesthetics
Daniel J. Philippon

7

“King Pest” and the Tales of the Folio Club
Benjamin F. Fisher

8

Understanding “Why the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Sling”
Kevin J. Hayes

9

“Eyes Which Behold”: Poe’s “Domain of Arnheim” and the Science of Vision
Laura Saltz

10

“A Species of Literature Almost Beneath Contempt”: Edgar Allan Poe and the World of Literary Competitions
Leon Jackson

11

Poe’s Early Criticism of American Fiction: The Southern Literary Messenger and the Fiction of Robert Montgomery Bird
Justin R. Wert

12

Mad Ravings or Sound Thinking?: “The Philosophy of Composition” and Poe’s Parodic Raven
Dennis W. Eddings

About the Contributors