Letter to the Editor

To the Editor:

The second endnote of my “MAD About ‘The Raven,’” in the Edgar Allan Poe Review 14, no. 2 (2013), contains the following statement: “Still, it may be satisfying to the Poe world to know that when it comes to gracing (if that’s the right word) the pages of MAD, Poe takes the gold with his eighteen appearances. The despised (by Poe) Longfellow is a close second, with fifteen appearances” (161). This is a bold, forthright statement indeed. It is also, unfortunately, wrong. Work on a recent project has sent me back into the pages of MAD, and along the way, I’ve had occasion to recheck my count of appearances by various poets. I’m pleased to report that Poe holds good at eighteen, but my count of fifteen for Longfellow falls embarrassingly short. Assuming that recount is correct (and while I have been very careful with this, I’m still very human), the number should be twenty-four. And while this correction is undoubtedly inconsequential, it yet seems to me accuracy is absolutely the prime responsibility of anyone who presumes to be called a scholar, and so it is that I feel compelled set the record straight.

Thanks to the Edgar Allan Poe Review for allowing me the space for this acknowledgement.