From the Editors

From the Editors Call for Papers F or the next issue of Poe Studies, Volume 43 (2010), we plan a special thematic feature: Violence, Pain, and Trauma. Poe’s violence is often so stylized that critics tend not to take it seriously as violence. Instead, we recognize the satire in the abuse suffered by the narrator of “Loss of Breath” and the decapitation of Psyche Zenobia, and we contemplate the symbolic meaning of Rowena’s torture in “Ligeia” and Madeline’s premature burial in “The Fall of the House of Usher.” But given the fact that violence is pervasive in Poe’s tales and poems, should we not also consider what his work implies about the nature of physical cruelty, of suffering and anguish? How might recent research on trauma as well as its representation and literature inform a reconsideration of violence and pain in Poe? What might we find in Poe’s work that illuminates these dark strains in broader historical and cultural contexts? The editors welcome submissions and queries; please send to poestudies @wsu.edu by 15 January 2010. New Edition of Poe’s Letters A s we celebrate the bicentennial of Poe’s birth, Gordian Press announces a much-expanded and revised two-volume edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s letters, prepared by Burton R. Pollin and Jeffrey A. Savoye (fall 2008). Working with John Ward Ostrom’s 1948 and 1966 volumes, the editors have added new letters, corrected problems with previously published letters, and updated existing notes using the best available research from the last four decades of Poe scholarship. The format of the books has also been reworked to improve the presentation of the material, including a generous subject index with over two thousand entries and new appendices for promissory notes as well as for spurious and forged material. At over fourteenhundred pages, these two volumes double the total presented in the original edition. The retail price for the set is $100; contact Gordian Press at 37 Crescent Avenue, Staten Island, NY 10301; 718-273-4700. C  2009 Washington State University P O E S T U D I E S , VOL. 42, 2009 3 ...