“Baudelaire’s Poe” Site Launched at the W. T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire and Modern French Studies

“Baudelaire’s Poe: Selections from the W. T. Bandy Collection,” an online exhibition of digital images of rare books and materials from the collection of nineteenth-century literary scholar, Vanderbilt alumnus, and professor of French W. T. (William Thomas) Bandy, was launched on January 19, 2015—the 206th anniversary of Poe’s birth—at the W. T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire and Modern French Studies at Vanderbilt University.

This exhibition was curated by Poe Studies Association President Philip Edward Phillips with the assistance of associate curators Emily H. James and Erica I. Rodgers, in cooperation with the Jean and Alexander Heard Library, Vanderbilt University.

The site chronicles the establishment of the Center for Baudelaire Studies—now the W.T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire and Modern French Studies—and showcases important interconnections between the lives and works of Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) and Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867), with special emphasis on the pervasive influence of Baudelaire’s masterful French translations of Poe’s works in France, Europe, and the rest of the world (including the United States). It also provides interactive timelines of Poe and Baudelaire.

Phillips received a 2010–12 W. T. Bandy Fellowship to conduct initial research for the project. He delivered a presentation on “Resources for the Study of Poe and Baudelaire at the W. T. Bandy Center” as part of a panel on “Poe, Baudelaire, and Their Influence” at the Poe Studies Association’s Fourth International Edgar Allan Poe Conference, which was held at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, February 26–March 1, 2015.

Vanderbilt alumnus Phillips dedicated the site to the memory of fellow alumnus Bandy. Link to online exhibition: http://exhibits.library.vanderbilt.edu/BaudelairePoe/index.php.

Fig 1.

(Left to right) Tao You, Emily H. James, Philip Edward Phillips, Yvonne Boyer, Carla Beals (not shown: Erica I. Rodgers); see Credits on the site for the roles played by each person.