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Poe's first book, the anonymous Tamerlane, printed at Boston in 1827, fell flat, attracting so little attention that the author said (perhaps euphemistically) that it had been suppressed. But during his enlistment in the U. S. Army under the alias of Edgar A. Perry, the poet did not abandon poetry. Revised versions of the two minor poems from Tamerlane appeared over his brother's initials in the Baltimore North American in 1827; and though no other publications of the period have been traced as yet, anonymous or pseudonymous printings may still lie hid in some obscure paper. Evidence of his continual revision of his old work is contained in the Wilmer MSS. in the Pierpont Morgan Library, which include revised versions of Tamerlane and other minor poems that surely antedate 1829. And he was at work on a new narrative poem, too.

The death of his foster-mother and a partial reconciliation with the dour John Allan brought about his release from the army; and in the spring of 1829 he was in Baltimore, intent on gaining admission to West Point, and finding a publisher for his verses. After delays he was destined to succeed in both ambitions. We are here concerned only with the second.