"It’s hard not to grieve the loss of this peculiar form of personal critical commentary as we transition to digital text — which is yet to solve the question of annotation — so it pays to consider what it is, exactly, that we’re losing. In the inaugural installment of his column, Poe captures the allure of transacting thoughts with an author in the margins of his work:

In getting my books, I have been always solicitous of an ample margin; this not so much through any love of the thing in itself, however agreeable, as for the facility it affords me of penciling suggested thoughts, agreements and differences of opinion, or brief critical comments in general. Where what I have to note is too much to be included within the narrow limits of a margin, I commit it to a slip of paper, and deposit it between the leaves; taking care to secure it by an imperceptible portion of gum tragacanth paste."

Edgar invented the Post-it.

And the highlighter, too!

His observation is why paper notebooks still make sense, too.