The Monetary Imagination Of Edgar Allan Poe

In this first-of-its-kind treatment, Heinz Tschachler offers an account of Edgar Allan Poe's relation to the world of banking and money in antebellum America. He contends that Poe gave the full force of his censure to the acrimonious debates about America's money, Andrew Jackson's bank war, the panic of 1837 and the ensuing depression, and the nation's inability to furnish a "sound and uniform currency." Poe's attitude is overt in his early satires, more subdued in "The Gold-Bug," and almost an undercurrent in writings that enter into and historicize the discovery of gold in California. In Poe's writings much is concealed, though his art also reveals while it conceals, in this instance, a deep felt desire for an authority that would guarantee a measure of permanence and continuity to the nation' s currency. That kind of currency was finally furnished by Abraham Lincoln (both were born in 1809; Poe died in 1849), at one time a dedicated reader of Poe's tales and sketches. Wielding his "power of regulation," Lincoln came to save the Union not just militarily but also economically. Under him, the United States government finally provided the kind of "sound and uniform currency" that Poe in his writings could only name and rehearse.

In this first-of-its-kind treatment, Heinz Tschachler offers an account of Edgar Allan Poe's relation to the world of banking and money in antebellum America. He contends that Poe gave the full force of his censure to the acrimonious debates about America's money, Andrew Jackson's bank war, the panic of 1837 and the ensuing depression, and the nation's inability to furnish a "sound and uniform currency." Poe's attitude is overt in his early satires, more subdued in "The Gold-Bug," and almost an undercurrent in writings that enter into and historicize the discovery of gold in California. In Poe's writings much is concealed, though his art also reveals while it conceals, in this instance, a deep felt desire for an authority that would guarantee a measure of permanence and continuity to the nation' s currency. That kind of currency was finally furnished by Abraham Lincoln (both were born in 1809; Poe died in 1849), at one time a dedicated reader of Poe's tales and sketches. Wielding his "power of regulation," Lincoln came to save the Union not just militarily but also economically. Under him, the United States government finally provided the kind of "sound and uniform currency" that Poe in his writings could only name and rehearse.

Winner of the 2019 Patrick F. Quinn Award for the best book on Poe (awarded by the Poe Studies Association) Edgar Allan Poe and His Nineteenth-Century American Counterparts addresses Poe's connections with, critical assessments of, borrowings from, and effect on his literary peers. It situates Poe within his own time and place, paying particular attention to his interactions with, and impact on, figures such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Harriet Jacobs, and Pauline Hopkins. John Cullen Gruesser rebuts myths that continue to cling to Poe, demonstrates Poe's ability to transform themes he encountered in the works of his literary contemporaries into great literature, and establishes the profound influence of Poe's invention of detective fiction on nineteenth-century American writers.

A classic collection of short stories.

Introduction: the corporation as metaphor -- John Locke, desire, and the incorporation of money -- Wonderful event: the South Sea bubble and the crisis of property -- Insurance and the problem of sentimental representation -- "Bodies of men": abolitionist writing and the question of interest -- Held in reserve: banks, serial crises, and the ekphrastic turn -- Coda: the entrepreneur as corporate hero

This collection takes stock of current discourses in American studies on the political valence of American utopias, be they as religious diasporas or as socialist experiments, fantastic or realist, successful or failed. The included essays take into account the spatiality of utopias (especially in their visionary scope), analyze currents in literary utopias, and look at dystopian visions in literature. This volume strives to keep alive the long tradition of writers, artists, and scholars who warned against imminent disasters and envisioned ways to counter such ruinous bearings. (Series: American Studies in Austria, Vol. 17) [Subject: Sociology, Literary Studies]

The nineteenth century was a time of intense monetization of social life: increasingly money became the only means of access to goods and services, especially in the new metropolises; new technologies and infrastructures emerged for saving and circulating money and for standardizing coinage; and paper currencies were printed, founded purely on trust without any intrinsic metallic value. But the monetary landscape was ambivalent so that the forces unifying monetary practice (imperial and national currencies, global monetary standards such as the gold standard) coexisted with the proliferation of local currencies. Money became a central issue in politics, the arts, and sciences - and the modern discipline of economics was born, with its claim to a monopoly on knowing and governing money. Drawing upon a wealth of visual and textual sources, A Cultural History of Money in the Age of Empire presents essays that examine key cultural case studies of the period on the themes of technologies, ideas, ritual and religion, the everyday, art and representation, interpretation, and the issues of the age.