# Is "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque" by Edgar Allan Poe a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque by Edgar Allan Poe (Lea and Blanchard, 1840) is identified by: First edition, two volumes, published by Lea and Blanchard, Philadelphia, issued in November 1839 though the title pages are dated 1840, Poe's first collected book of short fiction, in a printing generally accepted at 750 copies. Most of the twenty-five tales collected here had already appeared individually in periodicals, chiefly the Southern Literary Messenger during Poe's 1835-1837 tenure there, so this two-volume set is the true first appearance of this particular collection, not the true first publication of the individual stories.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, two volumes, published by Lea and Blanchard, Philadelphia, issued in November 1839 though the title pages are dated 1840, Poe's first collected book of short fiction, in a printing generally accepted at 750 copies
- Bound in purple muslin, each volume's spine carrying a paper label reading 'TALES / OF THE / GROTESQUE / AND / ARABESQUE / BY / E. A. POE.' A key first-issue point: during printing, the type for pages 213 and 219 of volume two worked loose, so the earlier state has page 213 correctly numbered while later copies show it misnumbered as '231,' with a corresponding shift on page 219 in the position of the 'i' in 'ing' and the hyphen at the end of line 26 -- collectors check both pages against BAL's recorded states to establish priority
- Publisher imprint reads Lea and Blanchard
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Edgar Allan Poe |
| Publisher | Lea and Blanchard |
| Year | 1840 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, two volumes, published by Lea and Blanchard, Philadelphia, issued in November 1839 though the title pages are dated 1840… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
First edition, two volumes, published by Lea and Blanchard, Philadelphia, issued in November 1839 though the title pages are dated 1840, Poe's first collected book of short fiction, in a printing generally accepted at 750 copies. Bound in purple muslin, each volume's spine carrying a paper label reading 'TALES / OF THE / GROTESQUE / AND / ARABESQUE / BY / E. A. POE.' A key first-issue point: during printing, the type for pages 213 and 219 of volume two worked loose, so the earlier state has page 213 correctly numbered while later copies show it misnumbered as '231,' with a corresponding shift on page 219 in the position of the 'i' in 'ing' and the hyphen at the end of line 26 -- collectors check both pages against BAL's recorded states to establish priority.

## Is this the true first?
Most of the twenty-five tales collected here had already appeared individually in periodicals, chiefly the Southern Literary Messenger during Poe's 1835-1837 tenure there, so this two-volume set is the true first appearance of this particular collection, not the true first publication of the individual stories.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Poe's later 1845 Wiley and Putnam collection titled simply Tales draws on some of the same stories but is a distinct, differently selected volume from a different publisher; it should not be confused with this earlier 1839/1840 Lea and Blanchard collection.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque* by Edgar Allan Poe a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/tales-of-the-grotesque-and-arabesque
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.