Edgar Allan Poe reads Simon Suggs?

Since many of Edgar Allan Poe's newspaper reviews were unsigned, attribution of his articles to him is sometimes a matter of guesswork. Nevertheless, a paragraph from a newspaper column believed to be Poe's praises Hooper's collection (which, like our edition, includes several other sketches by the author):

Text: Edgar Allan Poe (?), "Our Book-Shelves (IV)," from the Aristidean, October 1845, pp. 320-322.]


CAREY and HART have issued "The Life and Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs," &c. With engravings after designs, by DARLEY. We sat down to this book quietly; read, laughed — read, and laughed again. There is more true, indigenous humor in this, than anything we have yet seen, from the American press — "Jack Downing," "Jonathan Slick," and "Major Jones," not excepted. Captain SUGGS is a man of metal — "yea! an honest, incorruptible — very jewel of a fellow." And Daddy ELIAS BIGGS — with his repeated visits to the "yeathen war" — and his hatred of the Chatahospa people! That he may speedily have another scrape at COCKERELL'S BEND, is our earnest wish. The designs of DARLEY, in the book, like all he does, are inimitable. The look of profound fright in the sentry — the solemn grandeur of Captain SUGGS, at the drum-head court-martial — the portrait of the veritable Captain himself — his reception of the Bank President — with KIT KUNCKER, his horse and his dog — are they not all pictured by the graver?

The author of this book is the editor of a country paper, in ALABAMA, in which, we believe, the sketches first appeared. He is evidently a man of the most decided, unapproachable and original humor.