Suggestions for the primary source of Poe's Tamerlane have been either indefinite or improbable. Killis Campbell suggested that while Poe was at school in London he may have learned something of the part played by Tamerlane in history, and that either then or after his return to Richmond in 1820 he may have become acquainted with some of the literary versions of the story. He considered the possibility of Poe's having seen one of the Tamerlane plays on the stage, and noted that Timour the Tartar was acted in Baltimore as late as 1829. Mary E. Phillips advanced the possibility that Poe may have come across a copy of the play Tamerlane in the library of Rector Bransby, since the rôle of Dervish in Tamerlane at Drury Lane was taken by a Mr. Bransby who might have been a relative of Rector Bransby.