Raven or Phoenix?: One of the 12...

Raven or Phoenix?: One of the 12 known first editions of Edgar Allan Poe’s first published book, “Tamerlane and Other Poems,” sold at auction in New York for $165,000, a spokeswoman for Sotheby’s said Tuesday. The book went to a private collector, she said.

Foul Play?: Clark Thiemann, a 9-year-old Bridgeport, Conn., boy, has sued Nintendo of America and Major League Baseball in Bridgeport Superior Court over a video game he claims fails to live up to its promises, his lawyer Lawrence Kanaga, said Wednesday. Thiemann asserts the video game, endorsed by professional baseball, falsely pledged that its users could simulate being a baseball manager by choosing which players to field. But the boy found the game “just has lists of uniform numbers”--insufficient information because baseball reference books aren’t based on the numbers, Kanaga said. Nintendo had no comment.

Last Bash: An alcohol-treatment center in Newport, R.I., has published the memoirs of Billy Carter, the late, beer-guzzlin’ brother of former President Jimmy Carter. “Billy: Billy Carter’s Reflections On His Struggle With Fame, Alcoholism and Cancer,” was released by the publishing arm of Edgehill Newport, an alcohol-treatment center. Billy, who died of cancer in 1988, wrote that “the Northern press still thinks we lynch blacks, wear overalls and go barefooted down here. If Jimmy had done some of the things (that Ronald) Reagan has done, they would have wanted to impeach him.”

Ho-Hum: Comedian Roseanne Barr of TV’s “Roseanne” topped the International Dull Folks’ list of the “10 Dullest Americans” of 1989. “She’s a complete blah,” the group said Tuesday in Rochester, N.Y. “She’s such a blockhead, she gets a splinter in her finger every time she scratches her head.” Others on the--yawn--list: actor Danny DeVito, talk show host Arsenio Hall and Vice President Dan Quayle.