Edgar Allan Poe: Malacologist
Writer turns snail fancier
In 1839, Edgar Allan Poe wrote ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’. That same year, he also wrote ‘The Conchologist’s First Book’, an introductory text to the scientific study of molluscs and other shelled organisms. It would not be difficult, with a little imagination, to identify a thematic link between the Usher home and dynasty and the intertwined fate of the two, and a book that examined the
…relations of the animal and shell, with their dependence upon each other…
But let’s not, eh?
‘The Conchologist’s First Book’ was an enormously popular work, with two more editions released over the following six years. It was deliberately low priced compared with similar volumes to make it accessible to a wide audience.
To afford, at a cheap rate, a concise, yet sufficiently comprehensive, and especially a well illustrated school-book, has been the principal design.
But only the first two editions carried Poe’s name as author. When the third edition was published in 1845, his name was omitted from the title page and he was credited only for the prefaces and introduction. The third…
