# Is "Tamerlane and Other Poems" by Edgar Allan Poe ('A Bostonian') a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Tamerlane and Other Poems by Edgar Allan Poe ('A Bostonian') (Calvin F. S. Thomas, 1827) is identified by: First edition: a thin pamphlet of 40 pages (collation [i-iv], [5]-40), roughly 6.75 x 4.5 in., in plain printed paper wrappers variously described as tan, drab, or 'tea-colour,' attributed only to 'A Bostonian' (Poe's name nowhere present); imprint of Calvin F. The 1827 Thomas (Boston) pamphlet is the true first and one of the rarest landmarks in American literature -- for a donor's purposes it is effectively unobtainable, the few copies that reach the market doing so only at major auction.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition: a thin pamphlet of 40 pages (collation [i-iv], [5]-40), roughly 6.75 x 4.5 in., in plain printed paper wrappers variously described as tan, drab, or 'tea-colour,' attributed only to 'A Bostonian' (Poe's name nowhere present); imprint of Calvin F. S. Thomas, Boston, 1827
- Poe, then eighteen, paid to have it printed by Thomas, himself an eighteen-year-old jobbing printer
- The text is the early, unrevised version of 'Tamerlane.' Probably about 50 copies were printed (estimates vary widely, from under 40 to a couple hundred); only about a dozen are known to survive, several of them imperfect
- Publisher imprint reads Calvin F. S. Thomas
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Edgar Allan Poe ('A Bostonian') |
| Publisher | Calvin F. S. Thomas |
| Year | 1827 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition: a thin pamphlet of 40 pages (collation [i-iv], [5]-40), roughly 6.75 x 4.5 in., in plain printed paper wrappers variously… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
First edition: a thin pamphlet of 40 pages (collation [i-iv], [5]-40), roughly 6.75 x 4.5 in., in plain printed paper wrappers variously described as tan, drab, or 'tea-colour,' attributed only to 'A Bostonian' (Poe's name nowhere present); imprint of Calvin F. S. Thomas, Boston, 1827. Poe, then eighteen, paid to have it printed by Thomas, himself an eighteen-year-old jobbing printer. The text is the early, unrevised version of 'Tamerlane.' Probably about 50 copies were printed (estimates vary widely, from under 40 to a couple hundred); only about a dozen are known to survive, several of them imperfect.

## Is this the true first?
The 1827 Thomas (Boston) pamphlet is the true first and one of the rarest landmarks in American literature -- for a donor's purposes it is effectively unobtainable, the few copies that reach the market doing so only at major auction. It must not be confused with Poe's 1829 Baltimore book 'Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems' (Hatch & Dunning), a separate, later collection that reprints a revised 'Tamerlane.'

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Facsimiles and reprints exist from the 19th century onward -- a typeset facsimile by George Redway (London, 1884), photographic facsimiles (e.g., 1923), the Jacob Schwartz / Ulysses Bookshop facsimile (1931), and the Facsimile Text Society (Columbia University Press, 1941), among others. Any copy not matching the 1827 collation, wrappers, and paper is a facsimile or later reprint, not the 1827 first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Tamerlane and Other Poems* by Edgar Allan Poe ('A Bostonian') a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/tamerlane-and-other-poems
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.