 "Metzengerstein" was one of 11 tales Poe would have collected as Tales of the Folio Club, a tale collection Poe announced but never actually printed. The "Folio Club" would have been a fictitious literary society the author called a group of "dunderheads" out to "abolish literature". At each monthly meeting, a member would present a story. In the case of "Metzengerstein", the speaker was "Mr. Horrible Dictû, with white eyelashes, who had graduated at Gottingen" according to an early draft. The Baltimore Saturday Visiter ran an advertisement calling for subscribers for the collection at $ 1 apiece. A week later, however, the newspaper announced that the author had withdrawn the pieces with the expectation they would be printed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Poe also considered publishing "Metzengerstein" in a collection of stories to be called Phantasy Pieces as "The Horse-Shade", though the edition was never printed.
