The Opal (annual)

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The Opal frontispiece from 1847
The Opal frontispiece from 1847

The Opal, A Pure Gift for the Holy Days, was an annual gift book, founded by Rufus Wilmot Griswold[1][2] and published in New York by John C. Riker, from 1844 to 1849. Content included short stories, illustrations and poems.

Griswold began soliciting contributions for the annual in 1843, initially intending to call it The Christian Offering. It was first edited by Nathaniel Parker Willis, John Keese and finally by Sarah Josepha Hale.[3][4] Contributors included Edgar Allan Poe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Elizabeth F. Ellet and John Greenleaf Whittier.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Bayless, 83
  2. ^ Morris, 125
  3. ^ The Miscellanea of Edgar Allan Poe. Doings of Gotham. Retrieved on April 11, 2008.
  4. ^ Stanford University Libraries & Academic Information Resources. The Chadwyck-Healey American Poetry Database.

[edit] Sources

  • Bayless, Joy (1943). Rufus Wilmot Griswold: Poe's Literary Executor, Hardcover ed., Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. 
  • Morris, George (editor) (1844). The New Mirror, Hardcover ed., New York: Morris, Willis and co.. 
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