Morning on the Wissahiccon
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"Morning on the Wissahiccon" (also called "The Elk") is an 1844 work by Edgar Allan Poe describing the natural beauty of Wissahickon Creek, which flows into the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. It borders between being a short story and a travel essay.
The work was published in The Opal annual in 1844.
Poe criticizes tourists who focus on "the most beaten thoroughfares of the country" and do not look at the beauty of sites "far away from the track." He describes the area in detail and its wild beauty, in particular the creek itself. On one visit, he sees an elk on a cliff. The majesty of this "oldest and boldest" of elks is ruined when he realizes it was a domesticated pet, not a wild creature, belonging to "an English family occupying a villa in the vicinity."
Poe refers to the writing of actress Fanny Kemble in this essay, saying it was she who first brought the beautiful area to people's attention in her "droll book", Journal, in 1835.
Publication history
The work was first published as "Morning on the Wissahiccon" in the annual The Opal: A Pure Gift for the Holy Days in 1844.[1] Like Poe's previous "The Island of the Fay," it was originally a "plate article," a work written specifically to accompany an engraving. The original engraving by John Gadsby Chapman depicted an elk in an idyllic nature setting.[2]
The Opal was an annual gift book edited by Nathaniel Parker Willis. Established by Rufus Wilmot Griswold, it was published in New York by John C. Riker.
