The Edgar Allen Poe Digital Collection was launched to accompany the 2009 Poe Bicentennial exhibition, “From Out That Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Edgar Allan Poe,” a joint venture of the University of Texas Harry Ransom Center and the Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia.
The digital collection incorporates images of all Poe manuscripts and letters at the Ransom Center with a selection of related archival materials, two books by Poe annotated by the author, sheet music based on his poems, and portraits from the Ransom Center collections. Poe’s manuscripts and letters are linked to transcriptions on the website of the Poe Society of Baltimore.
Most of the items in the exhibition from the Harry Ransom Center collections once belonged to William H. Koester (1888–1964). Koester, a resident of Baltimore, began collecting first editions and manuscripts of Poe in the 1930s; his major acquisition was the collection of the Richmond Poe scholar and collector J. H. Whitty. In addition to the manuscripts of “The Domain of Arnheim,” “The Spectacles,” and some of Poe’s most famous poems, the Koester collection includes many letters written by and to Poe, books belonging to Poe (including the author’s annotated copies of the Tales and Poems and Eureka), and a large group of sheet music for songs based on Poe’s works.
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