ingly, by the poet himself, seems to me quite credible.
The exact date of publication is uncertain, but a letter of December 29, 1829, from Poe to John Neal makes it clear that the book was out that month. Even before publication Poe was circulating his poems in manuscript and seeking prepublication of selections from the volume. John Neal had recently changed a weekly newspaper into a monthly literary magazine, The Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette. In the issue of September, 1829, Neal rejected, not unkindly, some verses on Heaven by E. A. P. of Baltimore (the poem we know as Faziryland); in the issue of December under the heading Unpublished Poetry, he gave extracts from the forthcoming book, from a letter of the author about it, and decidedly favorable criticism of the work. N. P. Willis in the American Monthly, for November, also rejected Fairyland (quoting four lines that identify it). And in a forthcoming issue of American Literature we may hope to see an article by Mr. Rede dealing with another attempt to arouse interest in Al Aaraaf. There may be others still undiscovered.
After the book was issued, an unfavorable review by John H. Hewitt was published in the Baltimore Minerva and Emerald—the date is uncertain for the unique Yale file of the paper is incomplete. But
