The World of Edgar Allan Poe

Some Overlooked Poe Reminiscences

2012-02-09T07:29:00.000-08:00

The following article, “The Character of Edgar Allan Poe,” appeared in the “Brooklyn Magazine” for March 1886. It was written by Margaret E. Wilmer, whose father, journalist Lambert A. Wilmer, knew Poe off-and-on for about a ten-year period beginning from the early 1830s. Miss Wilmer wrote a piece about Poe for “Beadle’s Monthly” in 1867 that has been quoted in several books and articles about the poet, but the existence of this later article seems to be unknown to researchers. Because the essay is so obscure, I repeat it here, for the benefit of anyone with a fondness for Poe anecdotes. There are several obvious factual errors in Miss Wilmer’s account (and it is certainly an exaggeration to claim that “not one whisper of the plaudits which now proclaim his genius to the world…came to cheer him while he lived and toiled upon this earth,”) but her reminiscences are still of some historical interest:

Nothing in modern biography is more remarkable than the wide variation between different estimates made of the character of a person who lived and moved amidst us so recently as did Edgar Allan Poe. Yet it is not really marvelous that there should be a great deal of fanciful speculation concerning a celebrated man with whom very few people ever obtained any real intimacy, and whose most characteristic traits did not so float upon the surface as to be obvious to all his acquaintances.

The writer's father (whose last earthly days were spent in Brooklyn) was the most confidential friend of Poe when both were just entering upon a professional literary career, and they continued in constant and intimate association until the author of "The Raven" finally changed his place of residence from Philadelphia to New York.

Everyone has read descriptions of Poe as a wild and haggard-looking wretch roaming the streets at midnight, and muttering fearful fancies, and still more fearful maledictions to the silent stars. Indeed, to judge a literary man (as many appear to do) by the creations of his pen, it would be easy to believe that no more weird, awful, and unearthly-seeming being than he who wrote "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque" was ever seen in the mortal flesh. To most readers, such writings seem the product of a brain burning with madness or intoxication, and a heart tortured by
passion and despair, or, as some will have it, by remorse, for mysterious and appalling sins.

The Edgar A. Poe who, with his lovely and fragile wife, so often visited the house of my parents, was not only a man of the most gentlemanly appearance and manners, but unusually precise in his dress, his deportment, and his habitual modes of speech. So far from having about him any suggestion of the wild, erratic and terrible, he was one of whom most people would criticise as being over fastidious, and even finically particular in his tastes. In fact, his nature was not excitable, hot-blooded and impassioned, though a contrary impression might be produced by his readiness to resent anything which he took as an impertinence or an injustice to himself. But let it be remembered that Poe was a Virginian, trained in the old Southern school of honor, which taught that pride and an intolerance of affronts were to be regarded as cardinal virtues. His sensitiveness, too, was wound up to much more than its normal tension by the effect which hard and enforced brain work has upon the nervous system, and yet more by the bitterness of finding himself doomed to a life of pinching poverty, and to the endurance of sneers and slights from men of intellect far inferior to his own. We need to remind ourselves that not one whisper of the plaudits which now proclaim his genius to the world, not one flash of such glory as now surrounds the name of Edgar Allan Poe, came to cheer him while he lived and toiled upon this earth.

True, the poet, his wife and her mother, Mrs. Clemm, all shared the gift of preserving, both in themselves and their home surroundings, an air of exquisite neatness and refinement which could not be lost amidst the privations of their utmost poverty. I believe no one has ever thought of accusing Poe of being an unkind husband, and he certainly was not in sympathy with that vulgar smartness which displays itself in jests concerning the anxiety of every married man to see his mother-in-law a corpse as soon as possible. The stanzas addressed by the poet to his Virginia and to her mother (who was also his own aunt) are full of tenderness, admiring appreciation and reverential love.

A doubt has recently been raised in regard to the long and universally credited assertion that Poe was, at some time or other, a slave to strong drink. Reverend J.J. Moran, of Virginia, who became acquainted with the poet in his last days, states that he indulged in pernicious stimulants only at very rare intervals during his life, as he knew that the effect of alcohol upon an organization like his was most potent and terrible. Dr. Moran believes that intemperance was no habit of Poe's closing years, at least, and had nothing to do with his untimely death. Here there seems to be a mystery equal to any which the great writer himself ever interwove with his fictitious plots. It is certain that during the years of their constant association, my father never discovered in Poe any tendency toward drinking habits, and the testimony of parties with whom he resided soon after his removal to New York is to the same effect. If Dr. Moran can prove that the poet had no such vice in his later days, then one of the most extraordinary and obstinate slanders that ever pursued the memory of genius will be crushed forever.

And now we come to speak of a circumstance in regard to which Edgar A. Poe may be pronounced the most unfortunate of all distinguished men, either ancient or modern. In all previous instances, those who felt especially called upon to write a certain man's biography, seemed by that act to enter into such sympathy with him that they could do nothing else than to make the fullest possible exhibition of his good qualities and gifts, and the best apologies for his short-comings. Macauley has alluded to a memoir of Lord Bacon as having been written with an enthusiasm even "passing the love of biographers." Among his last recorded wishes, Poe had expressed a desire that his writings should be selected and arranged for publication by N. P. Willis, and his biography written by Rufus W. Griswold. Mr. Griswold was a "Reverend" who was but little known as a preacher, and a literary man whose celebrity rested principally upon books made up of selections from and sketches of other authors. Poe had written some caustic things of this industrious compiler, but he paid him the high compliment of entrusting to his magnanimity and sense of justice the guardianship of his memory when he was no more.

Misplaced laudation in obituary sketches may be a blameable weakness, but what shall we say of a biographer who, through every page, pursues the object of a memoir with such furious hatred that it is impossible to imagine how so much prejudice and spite could keep within the bounds of truth and justice? Most people, under the circumstances, would have felt that there was a sacredness about the trust reposed in them by the dying poet. Dr. Griswold made use of that trust, not only to expose in the fullest manner every admitted fault of Poe, but to bring to light new charges against his character, some of which, at least, were supported only by testimony which would not warrant their repetition even by a professed enemy. For instance, Dr. Griswold accuses Poe of a most disgraceful attempt at blackmailing a woman, and then adds with a hypocritical "Alas!" that the poet was undoubtedly guilty of "many such" actions. We do not believe that there is any man who never spent a term in the penitentiary, and yet has been guilty of "many such" outrages upon humanity and honesty as this case would involve. How could a long array of such crimes (whose very essence consists in their secrecy and concealment) be known to Dr. Griswold, and yet never be brought under the notice of any legal official?

But by far the worst feature of this whole case yet remains to be spoken of. The biography of whose spirit we have noticed this small sample, was written for and prefixed to an edition of Poe's works which, as its preface states, was published for the pecuniary benefit of Mrs. Clemm, the mother of the poet's deceased wife. She was a lady of lovely and noble character, superior culture, and most delicate refinement of feeling. Even before Edgar Poe became the husband of her daughter —the dear and early lost—she had loved him with the most maternal tenderness as her only sister's only child. Her pride in the genius of "darling Eddy," her sympathy with his struggles, and her anxiety to smooth the path of toil for him as far as possible, were equal toVirginia's own. When death had deprived her of both her children, and she was left to utter helplessness and desolation, hers was surely a case to be approached only with the most delicate and respectful assistance. The publication of a handsome edition of Poe's works formed a highly befitting mode of raising a fund for her relief, but when the unfortunate lady came to peruse the pages of her Edgar's memorial, what did she find? A horrible delineation of him as a monster of baseness and corruption, and all this accumulation of injuries to the beloved dead sent forth as part of a scheme for her benefit, and under the sanction of her name! A plan to publicly exhibit the poet's fleshless bones, and give a share of the proceeds to the afflicted mother, would have been less shocking than this!

But the hater and the mourner, as well as the poet himself, have now passed into the unseen land, and Edgar Allan Poe may come to be treated with as dispassionate fairness as any other historical character. He had faults and weaknesses, known to all who really knew him, but let not these be magnified and multiplied either by unrelenting malice or by the almost equally culpable recklessness of those who would claim a knowledge that they do not possess.

Note: Poe, of course, was not the child of Maria Clemm's "only sister," but of her brother David Poe. Dr. Moran's statements on this or any other matter must be treated with extreme caution, as the good doctor was notoriously as uncertain as a weather forecast and as trustworthy as Wikipedia.

(Image: Life Magazine.)

Walt Whitman and "The Raven"

2012-01-29T04:35:00.000-08:00

"The Raven," as you may already know, saw its probable first publication (in the New York "Evening Mirror") on this day in 1845. I decided to celebrate the noble anniversary by spotlighting two of the poem's more curious homages.

On January 11, 1848, Walt Whitman, who was at that time the editor of the "Brooklyn Eagle," published in his newspaper "A Jig in Prose," one of the innumerable parodies of "The Raven." It ran:

"Once upon a evening dreary,while I pondered lone and weary--o'er many an olden paper, reading forgotten stories o'er; suddenly I heard a curious, lonely, ghostly, strange, mysterious grating, underneath the floor! "'Tis some little mouse, I muttered, underneath the office floor--and nothing more. And again I trimmed the taper--and once more resumed my paper--aged, forsaken, unique paper--poring its ancient contents o'er; when again I heard repeated, this same mysterious grating, but much louder than before--and it seemed like someone sawing wood beneath the office floor; 'tis no mouse thought I, but more. As I listened, each particular hair stood upright perpendicular--cold, outstanding drops orbicular soon my forehead o'er--while a strange mysterious terror, filled my soul with fear and horror, such as I never felt before; much I wondered what this curious grating meant beneath the floor! Thus I sat and eyed the floor. And thus watching, gazing pondering, trembling, doubting, tearing, wondering, suddenly the wall was sundered, as for Banquo's ghost of yore--and while gazing much astounded, there--from there bounded a huge rat upon the floor! Not the least obeisance made he, but a moment stopped and stayed he, and nothing more. And, while gazing at each other, suddenly out came another--somewhat greyer than the other, with the weight of years he bore; then with imprecations dire, I raised my boot and higher, a step advancing nigher, whirled it safe across the floor; but the little imps had scatttered, and the door was bruised and battered, that it hit and nothing more!"

Poe scholars have speculated that these lines were composed by Whitman himself, who was known to have greatly admired Poe's work--"The Raven" in particular. (Whitman briefly met Poe in 1845, when the "Broadway Journal" published one of his essays. He later recalled that "Poe was very cordial, in a quiet way, appear'd well in person, dress, &c. I have a distinct and pleasing remembrance of his looks, voice, manner and matter; very kindly and human, but subdued, perhaps a little jaded.")

An additional clue for his possible authorship is the fact that "Jig in Prose" was published anonymously, and it was Whitman's usual practice to give credit to "Eagle" articles he did not write. If Whitman did indeed write this little jeu d'esprit--surely one of the feebler "Raven" tributes--it would not be a great surprise that he'd hesitate to reveal himself as the author. (In an ironic touch, Whitman was--for political, not, as one would assume from the above doggerel, artistic reasons--fired from the "Eagle" shortly after this poem's appearance.) One can only say that the available evidence for his authorship is sparse, but certainly plausible.

Whitman certainly had a taste for "Raven" knockoffs, however strange they may have been. Exactly one year earlier, he published in the "Eagle" another exercise in transforming Poe's celebrated bird into a turkey. Whitman described J.J. Martin's "The Dove" as "not possessing the artistic beauty of Mr. Poe's celebrated 'Raven,'" but it was, he declared, a work that "commends itself to every reader by its graceful spirit of the Christianity...its influence, as far as it goes, will be more apt to soften, and meliorate the heart."

'Twas midnight, solemn, dark and deep,
And vainly I had courted sleep,
When, worn with pain, and anguish-tossed,
Hope, faith, and patience nearly lost,
I heard a sound, a gentle sound.
Breaking the solemn stillness round.
A gentle, soft and murmuring sound,
Making the stillness more profound.

I hushed my breath--again it came--
My heart beat faster--still the same
Low, gentle murmur met mine ear,
Approaching nearer and more near,
A single sound, yet soft and clear,
And strongly fraught with memories dear,
A flood of clear and single light,
Then burst upon my raptured sight,
Filling my little chamber quite.
And in that light a bird was seen,
Not "grim and black" with stately mien,
But purely white and beautiful,
With look so mild and dutiful,
A lovely bird, with plumage white,
In that calm, still and clear moonlight.

This winged visitor answers every piteous wail of the narrator not with an ominous "Nevermore," but with a cheery "God is love!" After four more verses which I simply do not have the fortitude to transcribe, the poem concludes:

"Thanks heavenly messenger," I cried,
"Remain that picture still beside,
Surrounded by the light of truth,
Companion meet for sinless youth,
Thou blessed type of Love and Peace,
My hope and faith thou'lt still increase;
Be ever near me, gentle dove,
I know I feel that--"God is love!"

By that Heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore--If poetry like that isn't sacrilege, I don't know what is.

Well, never mind. As I suggested last year on this date, do give yourself some respite and nepenthe by reading the real thing.

Happy Birthday To You...

2012-01-19T04:51:00.000-08:00

"If I could dwell
Where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody,
While a bolder note than this might swell
From my lyre within the sky."
-Edgar Allan Poe, "Israfel"

In honor of Poe's 203rd, I present "Our Israfel," a poem written by Edwin Markham in commemoration of the Poe Centennial in 1909. Inevitably, it pales compared to whatever Poe and his lyre within the sky might compose for this day, but, alas, a mere "mortal melody" is the best I can offer here and now:

"The sad great gifts the austere Muses bring
In their stern hands to make their poets of
Were laid on him that he might darkly sing
Of Beauty, Death and Love.

They laid upon him hunger as a dower,
A hunger for a loveliness more strange
Than Earth can give--more wild than any hour
Of all this chance and change.

They laid upon him Music's trembling charm,
The mystery of sound, of shaken air,
Whose touch can lift the spirit or alarm--
Build rapture, build despair.

They touched him with imagination's rod,
The power that built these heavens that soar and seem--
These heavens that are the daring of some God
Stirred by the lyric dream.

And then (for oh, the Muses do not spare!)
They set for him one final gift apart:
They gave him sorrow as a pack to bear,
Sorrow to break the heart.

And so they called the poet into Time,
The saddest and the proudest of the race
That ever came this way with sound of rhyme,
In quest of Beauty's face.

He came with rumor of the mystery,
Crying the wonder ever on before,
The laureate of dreams that cannot be,
Of Night and the Nevermore.

He steered toward shadow with melodious helm,
Touching with somber prow the wharves of Dis,
Exploring all the dim and hollow realm
This side the last abyss.

He looked on cities in their crumbling hours,
Where Death obscurely mumbles out his rune,
Hoary, remote, alone, where time-torn towers
Hang spectral in the moon.

He mused among the dim sarcophagi,
While far upon the rim of ruin fled
A host of hooded forms that hurried by
With laughters to the dead.

He walked our streets as on a lonely strand:
His country was not here--it was afar.
Not here his home, not here his motherland,
But in some statlier star.

Life was his exile, Earth his alien shore,
And these were foreign faces that he passed:
For he had other language, other lore,
And he must home at last.

His country was not here, but in the isles
Of Aidenn ringed around with lustrous seas,
Where golden galleys skim the silver miles
Or sleep upon the breeze.

And there were gardens where the fountains springs
In valleys of a many-colored grass--
Gardens where bulbuls in the shadows sing,
And rose-pale maidens pass--

Gardens of hyacinths and asphodels,
Inwoven with the sounds of warbling rills,
With triple-tinted suns and lilied wells,
Walled in by golden hills.

And there he built him palaces of song,
Lifting their spires against the pallid moon,
With corridors where shapes of shadow throng
When night is at her noon.

He sought his dream-love there by many names
Of terror and of pity and of peace--
Lenore, Ligeia (burning like pale flames)
Morella, Berenice.

He trod high chambers lit with ruby light,
And heard in the hush the somber arras stir,
And stir again, in the deep and secret night,
With memories of her.

He heard the demon whispers in the deep,
And songs of deathless love where seraphs are;
He saw the cliffs of Time, a ghostly heap,
But over the cliffs the star!

O poet, not for you the trampling street,
The wrangling crowd that cry and clutch for gold,
And so you followed Beauty's flying feet
Into the dim and old.

O poet, life was bitter to your heart:
These stones have memories of the tears you shed.
Forgive the serpent tongue, the flying dart--
Forgive us from the dead.

You sang your song: we gave you scorn for pay:
For beauty's bread we gave a stone; and yet
Because our eyes were holden on the way,
Remember to forget.

Sing, Israfel: you have your star at last,
Your morning star; but we--we still must live!
So now that all is over, all is past,
Forget, forget--forgive!"

Indeed, there is still very much for you to forgive, old boy.

Plagiarism Carnival #2

2012-01-11T09:06:00.000-08:00

...Although, by this point, perhaps it would be more appropriate to forget about carnivals, and start in on the "Masque of the Red Death" references.I thought it was about time for yet another update on the "Raven's Bride"/"Very Young Mrs. Poe" plagiarism case, for the benefit of newcomers to this blog and anyone not following the latest news on Twitter. (Note to St. Martin's Press--despite your fondest hopes, this story is not going to go away anytime soon.)

Archie Valparaiso, the hardest-working man in show business, is the major contributer to this edition of the Carnival. First, he makes a further examination of Lenore Hart's "I just used the same historical sources" excuse and finds that it is, well, all wet.

Next, he looks at the "It's all just coincidence that the two novels share at least 57 similar passages!" argument, and does the math.

In this post, Mr. Valparaiso ponders, weak and weary, the mystery of SMP's inexplicable determination to stick to a long and embarrassing public cover-up all to protect a little-known, lightweight fiction writer whose novels are evidently about as popular as IRS audits. He takes a closer look at Ms. Hart's husband, a considerably more successful author, and unearths some interesting information. David Poyer may turn out to be the crucial figure in this whole scandal.

Salon magazine recently held an online symposium on "What is plagiarism," featuring, among others, Jeremy Duns and Dennis Johnson of Melville House. "The Raven's Bride" is among the cases discussed.

IThenticate, a plagiarism detection software company, included Ms. Hart's little masterpiece among their "Best of 2011 Plagiarism Events." The blog includes this highly suggestive comment: "I sense a deja vu here, and feel this will be an ongoing story in 2012, as St. Martin's Press takes a look at her other work and determines whether their stance remains the same."

Probably the most notable development to date is that New York's Norman Mailer Center and Writers Colony, a nonprofit educational institution where Lenore Hart teaches creative writing (!), has suspended its connection with her pending what it hopes will be an "early resolution" of the "issues" that have arisen concerning her work. One wonders what "resolution" they expect to see.

I honestly have no idea if the Mailer Center is sincere in this expressed desire to keep their distance from a writer with "issues"--if this is the case, my guess is that Ms. Hart may as well permanently kiss the place goodbye right now--or if the statement is merely a public face-saving cover story, designed to get people off its back until the whole issue eventually dies. We shall see.

Well, that's it for now, folks. It's amazing to realize that it's been nearly a year since that fateful day when I settled down to read my just-arrived-in-the-mail copy of a new Poe novel. During that time, the "issues" surrounding the book have become bigger and stranger than anything I ever could have imagined, and who knows where it all may end. To quote an old tune that's long been a sort of personal anthem of mine, "I can't help but wonder where I'm bound."

"Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!"

2012-01-04T08:00:00.000-08:00

"What I here propound is true:--therefore it cannot die--or if by any means it be now trodden down so that it die, it will 'rise again to the Life Everlasting.'"
-Preface to "Eureka"

Albert Einstein is one of the most illustrious people ever to critique Poe's magnum opus "Eureka." Unfortunately, his opinions of the work--which appear in two letters to Poe collector Richard Gimbel and two more to biographer Arthur H. Quinn--are disappointingly limited and contradictory. It should also be noted that, perhaps unsurprisingly, Einstein's focus was merely on the strictly scientific aspects of Poe's work, largely ignoring "Eureka's" even more compelling spiritual elements.

In December 1933, Einstein answered what was evidently a request from Gimbel to comment on "Eureka." He wrote a brief, but friendly note, agreeing to read "the story by the master," and pass on his opinion. The next month, he wrote again, saying he had "partly studied" "Eureka," but doubted he would be able to make a thorough analysis of the work, "in spite of all the attraction which radiates from this wonderful man." He described the opening section as "a very beautiful achievement of an unusually independent mind," but deprecated Poe's cosmogony as inadequate, due to the limited scientific advances of his era. (As Poe anticipated certain of Einstein's own concepts, this is somewhat ironic.)

Seven years later, Arthur Quinn also asked the scientist for his views of Poe's masterwork, as part of Quinn's research for his book about the poet. Mysteriously, Einstein's letters to him reveal a much more negative attitude towards both "Eureka" and Poe personally. In June 1940, he wrote Quinn that he had read "Eureka" some years back, but remembered little about it, except that it was to be "valued more from the artistic than from the scientific standpoint." He asked Quinn to send him the work, if the biographer wished a more detailed response.

Two months later, he wrote that after looking through the copy of "Eureka" Quinn had provided, he realized he was mistaken--that he had never read it before, and he now found the book "a bad disappointment." He found the first part clever in some ways, but ultimately weak in many scientific respects. The latter half of the book, where Poe described his own theories of the universe, was, Einstein sniffed, like "the scientific crank-letters I receive every day." He attributed this to Poe's "pathological personality" depriving the poet of the ability for self-criticism.

As Poe scholar René van Slooten noted, Einstein's critique of "Eureka" was itself full of flaws, and he also pointed out, as reason for Einstein's sudden hostility, that he was at that time at odds with Alexander Friedmann and Georges Lemaître, two scientists who had taken inspiration from Poe's writings. It is also undoubtedly true that "Eureka's" strong religiosity was anathema to the strictly materialist mind of the famed physicist. It is assumed that a good part of Einstein's suddenly antipathetic attitude was due to his increasing tension over the advent of World War II. However, I suspect there is even more to it than that. From Einstein's comments, I found myself wondering if he had actually even studied "Eureka" thoroughly, and it is clear that whatever he did read rather baffled him. As heretical as it may be to suggest the fabled genius had his limitations, I suspect "Eureka" so irritated him simply because he failed to understand it.

In any case, it is obvious that Poe himself believed that "Eureka's" true importance lies in its philosophy, not the literal cosmogony. However, even his scientific claims have experienced a renaissance in recent years, as it becomes increasingly obvious that Poe was not limited to his era scientifically, but was actually in many ways far ahead of his time. Whatever flaws "Eureka" may have, no serious modern authority would dream of dismissing it as a mere "crank-letter."

Einstein himself may not be as infallible as is commonly assumed. If recent scientific experiments suggesting that neutrinos (subatomic particles) travel faster than light are verified, it would require a revision of Einstein's special theory of relativity--one of the cornerstones of modern physics.

In such a changing and uncertain universe, who can say with any true confidence where and how Poe was wrong?

Note: More about Poe and Einstein, including facsimiles of some of the letters quoted here, can be found at that fascinating work-in-progress, "The Eureka Project." This post is obviously heavily indebted to the site.

Happy New Year From the World of Poe

2011-12-31T08:30:00.000-08:00

Ringing in the New Year at Washington Cathedral:

...What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future!--how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells!--
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells--
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

Decking the Halls, Edgar Allan Poe Style

2011-12-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

A little gem I found on YouTube. Poe! Poe! Poe! Merry Christmas!

Plagiarism Carnival #1

2011-12-15T08:01:00.000-08:00

“We repeat that ‘somebody is a thief,’ and the only doubt in our mind is about the sincerity of any one who shall say that somebody is not.”
-Edgar Allan Poe, “Plagiarism,” the Evening Mirror, February 17, 1845

I thought it was time to hold a (nearly) end-of-week wrap-up of the latest developments in the ever odd and contentious "Raven's Bride" saga. There have been times lately when I find myself picturing this:

Or perhaps this:In any case, here's a sampling of the most recent online commentary on the controversy:

The Christian Science Monitor gives us Plagiarism's Greatest Hits, with a special guest appearance by "The Raven's Bride."

Archie Valparaiso and Jeremy Duns both examine one of the main arguments Lenore Hart has made in her defense, and find a real train wreck.

Ellis Shuman sees a resemblance between "The Raven's Bride" and an earlier plagiarism case.

A poster at an online discussion forum for writers explains it all: Spectral writing!

The Left Room looks at the attitude St. Martin's Press has taken and wonders, "Surely St Martin’s can’t really expect people to be satisfied with that, or for the whole thing to just… go away?"

Lloyd Shepherd offers some colorful musings on the Impenetrable Skin of the Plagiarist.

Dennis Johnson of Melville House, who has been following this story for some time now, weighs in with vivid style. He also contributes the more-painful-than-plagiarism detail that "Raven's Bride" has sold a whopping 548 copies to date, at least half of which, I'll wager, were bought by people who have heard of this dispute and wished to do their own forensic examination of the book. Ms. Hart should be thanking us for all this free publicity. (And while you're visiting MH, do check out their Adopt-a-Penguin program. Greatest book-promotion idea ever.)

Lit Reactor presents us with the Five Lame Excuses For Plagiarism. Our Lenore is #3 with a bullet.

And finally, the other day on Amazon Mr. Duns found himself in an increasingly strange showdown with a remarkably, ah, excitable friend and colleague of Hart's. At least one of "Red Radiator's" comments--the most vulgar of the lot--has already been deleted by Amazon (she should be grateful to them for that,) but you can still read this discussion thread.

Her responses to Duns' attempts to have a reasoned debate over the book are remarkably similar to the ones I encountered from Hart's myrmidons some months ago, when I first drew attention to "The Raven's Bride." For me, the strangest part of this story is not only that she has a pack of online Baghdad Bobs willing to fight her dismal personal battles for her, but that they all seem to read their lines from the same peculiar script. Ironically, their arguments on her behalf--largely characterized as they are by illogicality and personal attacks--do absolutely nothing to add to Hart's credibility. Indeed, they only serve to highlight the weakness of her case, and alienate spectators who might otherwise be neutral or even sympathetic. As the old saying goes, with "friends" like these, she has no need whatsoever for enemies.

Speaking of odd scripts, I shall end with a link to St. Martin's statement, such as it is, on the entire rumpus. What I find most interesting about their very brief remarks is that they carefully avoid saying that anyone at SMP has compared "The Raven's Bride," and "The Very Young Mrs. Poe," for themselves. They make it clear that they are basing their public belief in Hart's innocence entirely on this 18,000 word defense she wrote some months ago--a defense that Jeremy Duns succinctly described as "astonishing and utterly bonkers." In other words, they appear to be aiming for "plausible deniability," where, if need be, they can excuse themselves from any responsibility in the matter by saying they were guilty of nothing more than trusting their author. SMP appears to be tacitly admitting that they realize they cannot get away with saying they themselves had read the two novels, and still found no alarming similarities between them.

Update 12/17: Over on Jeremy Duns' blog, Lawrence Block, whom Duns describes as "one of the great crime novelists of our age," offers his opinion on "The Raven's Bride," and St. Martin's stubborn efforts to acknowledge the obvious. "What this woman has done, clearly, is sit down with a book and rewrite it."

We shall see where things go from here. In the meantime, believe it or not, one of these days I will tear myself away from contemporary literary scandals and come up with a post that is actually about Edgar Allan Poe. Although, as I have said before, I think Edgar himself would have had the time of his life with this. Longfellow wasn't a patch on Lenore Hart.

In Which We Recall the Old Saying, "It's Not the Crime, It's the Cover-Up"

2011-12-08T07:47:00.000-08:00

"But the man who shall deny the plagiarism abstractly--what is it that he calls upon us to believe?...Now the chances that these...coincidences, so peculiar in character...the chances, I say, that these coincidences are merely accidental, may be estimated, possibly, as about one to one hundred millions; and any man who reasons at all, is of course grossly insulted in being called upon to credit them as accidental."
-Edgar Allan Poe, "More of the Voluminous History of the Little Longfellow War," Broadway Journal, March 22, 1845

In today's episode of that "Raven's Bride"-inspired soap opera, "As the Plagiarist Turns":

As we have seen, St. Martin's efforts to deal with the plagiarism charges being brought against Lenore Hart's Poe novel have consisted of stonewalling, followed by denial and obfuscation. As a lovely little example of "unintended consequences," this curious PR campaign has not only gained them some much-deserved online mockery, but it has brought the controversy to the attention of first, the Associated Press, and now, the New York Times.

I find it particularly interesting that, according to the Times, "St. Martin's declined to make Ms. Hart available," which indicates that SMP is at least familiar with the First Rule of Holes.

Very good work, Mr. Duns, and thank you. You are clearly a troublemaker and rabblerouser after my own heart.

Stay tuned...

(P.S. Just for the benefit of newcomers, here's The Post That Started It All.)

St. Martin's Press Channels Their Inner Outis, With Predictable Results

2011-12-06T14:34:00.000-08:00

I think this news story speaks for itself. (Yes, the whole "Raven's Bride" kerfuffle has now drawn the attention of the Associated Press.) Such a response is sad, but given St. Martin's overall attitude, not unexpected. However, judging by the response it's been getting from the online community, I suspect this "see no evil" tactic will backfire on the Flatiron Building, sooner rather than later.

In response, all I can do is offer some more words of wisdom from Mr. Poe himself: "To attempt the rebutting of a charge of plagiarism by the broad assertion that no such thing as plagiarism exists, is a sotticism, and no more."

Lenore Hart, the Guardian...and World of Poe

2011-11-21T15:30:00.000-08:00

Regarding that column in today's Guardian (I had hoped to leave a comment at the Guardian site itself, but for some reason I was unable to register to post): Hart claims that I have “made a crusade of attacking anyone who writes about Poe.” No. I have read enough about Poe, and done enough research into his life to know that he has often been maligned by history. I try to correct misrepresentations and lies, and those are what I attack. I don’t think of myself as someone who attacks others for sport. (Incidentally, anyone reading this blog’s archives will notice that there are writers—both in fiction and nonfiction--that I’ve gratefully praised. It is particularly ironic that Hart would make this charge, as when I first heard of her book, I posted that I hoped I would like it, and at first—before I reread “Young Mrs. Poe”—I did like certain things about her novel, and said so.)

Hart also says, “if you know the sources…then you certainly might say, I and the previous author are both guilty of sticking to our sources.” You certainly might say anything you want, but the truth is that, as there is very little historical documentation about Virginia Poe, Cothburn O’Neal fabricated much of his book from whole cloth. As I have said before, he invented several incidents which were reproduced in Hart’s novel—incidents which do not appear in any “sources.” I am curious to know if Hart can produce any specific examples where I criticized her for merely “sticking to our sources.”

When Hart accuses me of posting text that was “altered, edited, and in some cases even transposed…to make it more closely resemble [O’Neal]” I take offense. Many of the words I copied don’t just resemble O’Neal’s, they’re identical. I, as well as the friend who helped me compile the quotations I used, want only to present an honest and unbiased case, not start a “crusade.” I have repeatedly urged everyone interested in this issue to read the two novels themselves, and come to their own conclusions. However, if Hart can give me any specific examples of where I erred in describing her book, I will instantly and humbly apologize. Unlike some writers, I am always ready to concede when I am in the wrong.

(Note 11/22: The Guardian finally resolved whatever technical glitches it was going through and allowed me to register, so I repeated all this in the comments section of the article.)

P.S. I'm reminded of yet another passage Poe wrote during his "Little Longfellow War":

“But to be serious; if Outis has his own private reasons for being disgusted with what he terms the ‘wholesale mangling of victims without rhyme or reason,’ there is not a man living, of common sense and common honesty, who has not better reason (if possible) to be disgusted with the insufferable cant and shameless misrepresentation practiced habitually by just such persons as Outis, with the view of decrying by sheer strength of lungs--of trampling down--of rioting down--of mobbing down any man with a soul that bids him come out from among the general corruption of our public press, and take his stand upon the open ground of rectitude and honor.”

“The Outises who practice this species of bullyism…are either the ‘victims without rhyme or reason who have been mangled by wholesale,’ or they are the relatives, or the relatives of the relatives of the ‘victims without rhyme or reason who have been mangled by wholesale.’ Their watchwords are ‘carping littleness,’ ‘envious malignity,’ and ‘personal abuse.’ Their low artifices are insinuated calumnies, and indefatigable whispers of regret, from post to pillar, that ‘Mr. So-and-So, or Mr. This-and-That will persist in rendering himself so dreadfully unpopular’--no one, in the meantime, being more thoroughly and painfully aware than these very Outises, that the unpopularity of the just critic who reasons his way, guiltless of dogmatism, is confined altogether within the limits of the influence of the victims without rhyme and reason who have been mangled by wholesale.”

–“Imitation—Plagiarism,” “Broadway Journal” March 29, 1845

The Tell-Tale Hart

2011-11-20T10:08:00.000-08:00

Apologies to anyone getting bored by the fact that this blog seems to have morphed into “Plagiarism ‘R’ Us,” but I wanted to summarize the progress of “The Raven’s Bride”/”The Very Young Mrs. Poe” affair. (AKA The Case of the Purloined Novel.)

As the old-timers around this blog may remember, the whole mess started back in February 2011, when I read Lenore Hart’s newly-published novel, “The Raven’s Bride.” At first, I liked it well enough—particularly compared to the excruciatingly insulting drivel that is the average Poe novel—but as I read further, I realized parts of the book seemed oddly reminiscent of another novel about Virginia Poe that I had read some years earlier, Cothburn O’Neal’s “The Very Young Mrs. Poe.” I exhumed my copy of O’Neal’s book, and the more I read, the more stunned I became. I realized I was looking at something very strange indeed. I shared my discovery at Goodreads and other book sites that were discussing Hart’s novel.

At this point, one of the weirdest developments in this very weird tale emerged. From out of nowhere, a group of newly-registered posters emerged at all these places, touting “Raven’s Bride” as the greatest thing to hit publishing since Gutenberg and attacking me as some sort of delusional crackpot for daring to say one word against this obvious masterpiece. These were obviously all personal friends of Hart’s, but seeing such hyperbolic enthusiasm being used in such an obviously unworthy cause was a bizarre experience. I had never before seen a third-rate scribbler with a claque.

These sycophantic trolls made the mistake of annoying me. Ironically, if they had only left me alone—or at least been a bit more civil—I probably would have let the matter drop. Instead, out of a sense of self-defense, I was compelled to write a blog post, “My Little Longfellow War,” where I detailed some of the more egregious “similarities” between the two books, just as proof that I was not making the whole thing up. (I later compiled more “similarities” here and here.)

My post was noticed by a couple of the book blogs, but this was not enough to bring the controversy to any sort of widespread attention. I wrote to St. Martin’s Press, Hart’s publisher, but they never replied. I admit that I was a bit puzzled by this apparent indifference to my discovery, as previous cases of plagiarism, such as the one involving the romance novelist Cassie Edwards, inspired immediate public outcry. However, not knowing what else to do, I just shrugged it off as part of the “ways of the world,” although I retained in the back of my mind a slight feeling of irritation that Hart had “gotten away with it”…and I also wondered how many other writers had pulled off the same stunt.

Then, the case of the plagiarized spy novel “Assassin of Secrets” hit the news, becoming a major scandal in the publishing industry. Just on a whim, I left comments at several online stories about “Assassin,” mentioning “Raven’s Bride” as an overlooked example of what was beginning to look like a plague of plagiarism.

Enter novelist Jeremy Duns. He had played a role in the “Assassin of Secrets” unmasking, and when he read my comments, he was sufficiently curious to look into the matter. He came across “My Little Longfellow War,” and thankfully for us all, he was inspired to put on his Superman cape and see that justice was finally done. As an established author, he had the credibility and influence that an unknown, eccentric, pseudonymous Poe blogger lacked.

He wrote about the matter on his own blog, as well as Twitter, giving his opinion that what Hart did was unquestionably literary thievery. He also contacted St. Martin’s, and spoke to others about Hart’s book, in the hope of finally making her actions publicly known. (There was also an utterly surreal confrontation with Hart on her Facebook page, where the lady demonstrated debating tactics that Orwell’s Ministry of Truth would have envied.) He’s become the hero of this sorry little story.

So…where do things stand, to date? Who knows? So far, St. Martin’s is ignoring Duns as completely as they ignored me. (I learned from Duns that at least one other person had also alerted the publishers about "Raven's Bride," to no avail.) Hart is still evidently hoping to continue to ride out the storm by attempting to befuddle us into ignoring the obvious. “Raven’s Bride” is still on the bookshelves, and I assume people are still buying it, unaware they are purchasing questionable goods. O’Neal’s novel is still under copyright, but unfortunately he died a few years ago. If he left any heirs to his literary estate, as far as I know they have yet to weigh in on the matter. “Vox populi” is our only hope of coming to any sort of resolution in this dispute. If you have read my posts on the issue, or if you have read these two novels for yourself, and agree that there is mischief afoot, all I can say is: Speak out. Spread the word. Let’s make ourselves so noisy and obnoxious (something that comes easily enough for yours truly) that St. Martin’s can no longer sweep the business under the rug. Without public exposure, I fear that cases like "The Raven's Bride" will become commonplace. (As an aside, for anyone who has the time and/or curiosity, Hart's previous novels might be worth investigating...)

If in the future I have any updates, I’ll add them to this post. In the meantime, we should all feel grateful to Jeremy Duns for taking the time from his own busy career to right what he sees as an obvious wrong. I’m sure that Edgar himself, wherever he is now, certainly does. The General of the original "Little Longfellow War” must be enjoying all this immensely.

Update 11/21: We've made the Guardian!

Update II: Archie Valparaiso compiled Hart's most egregious "similarities" to O'Neal's book into one document, including a few examples not included in my blog posts. (Thank you!)

(Image via sociology.camden.rutgers.edu/)

Quote of the Day

2011-11-18T09:01:00.000-08:00

“…if the theft had to be committed ‘in open day’ it would not be committed; if the thief ‘knew’ that everyone would cry him down, he would be too excessive a fool to make even a decent thief if he indulged his thieving propensities in any respect. But he thieves at night--in the dark--not in the open day (if he suspects it), and he does not know that he will be detected at all. Of the class of willful plagiarists nine out of ten are authors of established reputation, who plunder recondite, neglected, or forgotten books.”

-Edgar Allan Poe, "Imitation--Plagiarism," “Broadway Journal,” March 8, 1845

...Stay tuned.

The Return of The Raven's Bride!

2011-11-16T04:47:00.000-08:00

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the bookstores...

Life is getting interesting.

The Joke of the Thing: Poe and George Lippard

2011-10-20T08:26:00.000-07:00

On this date in 1849 the writer George Lippard, a strange, colorful purveyor of ultra-lurid melodrama, Gothic mysticism and eccentric social activism who probably deserves a blog all of his own, published in the Philadelphia “Quaker City” a characteristically iconoclastic eulogy of Edgar Allan Poe, a man he revered both personally and professionally. Unfortunately, Lippard's exotic, if undoubtedly heartfelt, recollections are virtually all we know of the friendship between two of the most unusual figures in American literature.

He described the last time he saw Poe, just a few months before the poet's death, when his friend was clearly feeling weary of the world. “We talked of the time we had first met, in his quiet home on Seventh Street, Philadelphia, when it was made happy by the presence of his wife--a pure and beautiful woman. He talked also of his last book ‘Eureka,’ well termed a ‘Prose Poem,’ and spoke much of projects for the future.”

Lippard described Poe as “a man of genius, hunted by the world, trampled upon by the men whom he had loaded with favors, and disappointed on every turn of life.” He went on to say, with a palpable snarl, “We frankly confess that, on this occasion, we cannot imitate a number of editors who have taken upon themselves to speak of Poe and his faults in a tone of condescending pity! That Poe had faults we do not deny…He was a harsh, a bitter and sometimes an unjust critic. But he was a man of genius--a man of high honor--a man of good heart…As an author his name will live, while three-fourths of the bastard critics and mongrel authors of the present day go down to nothingness and night. And the men who now spit upon his grave, by way of retaliation for some injury which they imagined they have received from Poe living, would do well to remember that it is only an idiot or a coward who strikes the cold forehead of a corpse.”

Almost exactly five years later, on October 21, 1854, the Boston publication “Dodge’s Literary Museum” printed another column Lippard wrote about Poe. Although, like his earlier reminiscences, he was ostensibly discussing only Poe's personal and professional travails, Lippard was a literary and political firebrand who had himself suffered battles with the establishment. (His brief, hectic life ended a few months before the publication of this article, when he was only thirty-one.) Lippard's writings about Poe show a clear identification with his struggles. He obviously intended more than a mere personal account of his friend--he wished to make a statement, to hold up Poe's sad last days as a cautionary tale showing the evil wrought by the current literary and social hierarchy. This being the case, it is possible that Lippard's descriptions of Poe were somewhat exaggerated, but they are nonetheless both interesting and moving.

Lippard's article is one of the stranger contemporary reminiscences of the late poet, never even directly mentioning him by name. It is a cryptic, dreamlike account of his encounter with Poe in Philadelphia during the summer of 1849.

He described his late friend as sick in mind and body, missing one shoe (an odd and unlikely detail that may be a coded reference of some sort,) and desperately in need of money. Lippard claimed he made the rounds of the city’s literary set on Poe's behalf, and finally managed to put together a small amount of money to enable his beleaguered companion to continue his journey. Lippard said he never forgot “that saddest of all sights--a great man whose genius had enriched publishers, begging his bread in Philadelphia, on a hot summer’s day.”

He continued, “One day, news came that the poet was dead. All at once the world found out his greatness. Literary hucksters who had lied about him, booksellers who had left him to starve, gentlemen of literature, who had seen him walk the hot streets of Philadelphia without food or shelter—these all opened their floodgates of eulogy, and slavered with panegyric the man whom living they would have seen die in the next ditch without one effort to save him.

This is the joke of the thing.”

Lippard concluded sardonically: "Great is the poet who is dead! Allah il Allah! Allah bismallah!”

In Memoriam

2011-10-07T08:40:00.000-07:00

Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old--
This knight so bold--
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell, as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow--
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be--
This land of Eldorado?"

"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied,--
"If you seek for Eldorado!"

RIP, Edgar, wherever you are. Here's hoping you finally found your Eldorado.

I'm back...

2011-10-02T04:54:00.000-07:00

...Temporarily, at least. And not here. Today I'm guest-posting over at that lethally interesting blog, Executed Today. I'm exploring a sordid little mystery from 1876: Was Mary Stanley's death the result of natural causes, criminal neglect...or murder? (And, yes, there is a Poe connection.)

Hope you like it.

(Image via Wikia.com)

Be That Word Our Sign of Parting...

2011-07-13T04:56:00.000-07:00

This is just to say that I'll be taking a hiatus from this blog. (I'm suddenly picturing all of you responding to this statement by quoting to me the words of Oliver Cromwell: "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately...Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!")

I had only one reason for starting World of Poe back in 2009--to leave "on the record" (even if it's in this obscure back alley of cyberspace) some sort of counterargument to the many errors, misconceptions, deliberate lies, and, here and there, (particularly on the Internet) sheer gibbering insanity that have hopelessly befuddled any efforts to truly understand Edgar Allan Poe.

Like so many others before me, I found it very difficult to reconcile the profound idealism and deep spiritual insight of Poe's writings with the degraded, almost buffoonish person found in his biographies. It is easy to imagine that a man can be a deeply flawed person and still be a talented writer. It is impossible to imagine that such an individual can be a wise writer. And Poe was not only a wise and enlightened writer indeed--one of the very wisest I have ever encountered--but an eminently sane, even compassionate one. ("Not only do I think it paradoxical to speak of a man of genius as personally ignoble, but I confidently maintain that the highest genius is but the loftiest moral nobility.") I realized that something had to be wrong somewhere. So I began examining his history more closely, and soon discovered that nearly everything was wrong. His "accepted" life story consisted largely of one bizarre falsehood after another. Rufus Griswold's memoir was not an anomaly. It was a template. (And, if you can imagine it, I have avoided writing here about some of the more appalling crimes that have been perpetrated against Poe, simply because I knew few would believe me.)

However eccentric or inept my rebuttals may have been, well, Edgar, at least I tried. I only hope I've done my "mite" (as George W. Eveleth would say) in aiding what I have come to think of as the Poe samizdat. Let me put it this way: If I've managed to persuade just one person to look at everything said or written about the man with a certain healthy skepticism, it will all have been worth it.

I suppose my admittedly odd crusade is all thanks to "Eureka." For many years, the work was generally regarded as the ravings of a madman or megalomaniac. In recent times, the focus has been almost exclusively on Poe's cosmology, reducing his book to a mere scientific essay. What both schools of thought have largely overlooked is that "Eureka" is, as Poe himself said, "a poem"--to my mind, one of the greatest ever written. It is difficult to pull individual quotes from this work--it must be read as a whole, really, or not read at all--but there are some particular passages that I have studied so often I practically have them memorized:

"...But now comes the period at which a conventional World-Reason awakens us from the truth of our dream. Doubt, Surprise and Incomprehensibility arrive at the same moment. They say:--'You live and the time was when you lived not. You have been created. An Intelligence exists greater than your own; and it is only through this Intelligence you live at all.' These things we struggle to comprehend and cannot:--cannot, because these things, being untrue, are thus, of necessity, incomprehensible.

No thinking being lives who, at some luminous point of his life of thought, has not felt himself lost amid the surges of futile efforts at understanding, or believing, that anything exists greater than his own soul. The utter impossibility of any one’s soul feeling itself inferior to another; the intense, overwhelming dissatisfaction and rebellion at the thought;--these, with the omniprevalent aspirations at perfection, are but the spiritual, coincident with the material, struggles towards the original Unity--are, to my mind at least, a species of proof far surpassing what Man terms demonstration, that no one soul is inferior to another--that nothing is, or can be, superior to any one soul--that each soul is, in part, its own God--its own Creator:--in a word, that God--the material and spiritual God--now exists solely in the diffused Matter and Spirit of the Universe; and that the regathering of this diffused Matter and Spirit will be but the re-constitution of the purely Spiritual and Individual God.

In this view, and in this view alone, we comprehend the riddles of Divine Injustice--of Inexorable Fate. In this view alone the existence of Evil becomes intelligible; but in this view it becomes more--it becomes endurable. Our souls no longer rebel at a Sorrow which we ourselves have imposed upon ourselves, in furtherance of our own purposes--with a view--if even with a futile view--to the extension of our own Joy."

The close of "Eureka" contains the two finest lines he ever wrote:

"Think that the sense of individual identity will be gradually merged in the general consciousness--that Man, for example, ceasing imperceptibly to feel himself Man, will at length attain that awfully triumphant epoch when he shall recognize his existence as that of Jehovah. In the meantime bear in mind that all is Life--Life--Life within Life--the less within the greater, and all within the Spirit Divine."

Strange, and to some, outrageous, though it may sound, "Eureka" has been a vital help and consolation in my long, painful struggles to make some sense of this "material and spiritual universe." For that reason alone, I will always feel love and gratitude towards Edgar Poe, and a corresponding desire to defend his name against all the dirty work--whether anyone in the world listens to me or not. I owe the man at least that much.

I hope to continue posting here from time to time, whenever I come across anything else in Poe "scholarship" that particularly annoys me. (Or if, God help us, Lenore Hart decides to ~~lift from~~ write another Poe novel.) I find abandoned blogs peculiarly depressing; it's like walking into a ghost town. For now, however, I'll "sling the knapsack for new fields," and focus my energies, such as they are, elsewhere.

So, as far as this space is concerned, I bid farewell--as cordially to foes as to friends.

Mr. Poe Takes the Stage (Part Two)

2011-07-05T04:56:00.000-07:00

"The Frogpondians may as well spare us their abuse. If we cared a fig for their wrath we should not first have insulted them to their teeth, and then subjected to their tender mercies a volume of our Poems:--that, we think, is sufficiently clear. The fact is, we despise them and defy them (the transcendental vagabonds!) and they may all go to the devil together."
-Edgar Allan Poe, writing in the "Broadway Journal," November 22, 1845

Poe was clearly having far too much fun with his antagonists. When reading his editorial, it is difficult to imagine anything better suited to add fat to the fire, and it is even more difficult to imagine that this was not precisely his intention. Inevitably, this only invited further attacks upon him from Miss Walter and her editorial allies, who seemed to never tire of informing their readers that Poe was a pathetic, indigent madman who had, it was suggested, been visibly drunk during his Lyceum recital. (The allegation that Poe took the stage intoxicated is still widely repeated today, despite the fact that it is utterly fictitious. Despite what such unfortunate productions as Jeffrey Combs’ recent one-man show about Poe would have us believe, he never made any sort of stage appearance when he was under the influence.) Poe himself snorted at such insinuations, wondering why “these miserable hypocrites” couldn't “say ‘drunk’ at once and be done with it?”

The literary battle over his Lyceum appearance continued for an astonishing length of time, at least partly due to the fact that, whenever it showed any signs of dying a natural death, Poe would use the pages of the “Broadway Journal” to eagerly bring it back to full strength. Other newspapers and magazines were drawn into the fray, either for or against him, and Poe responded to both praise and abuse with equal gusto. (When the "Harbinger," the official journal of the transcendental Brook Farm commune, published a column questioning Poe's mental condition, he responded, "Insanity is a word that the Brook Farm Phalanx should never be brought to mention under any circumstances whatsoever." He added condescendingly that the "Harbinger" was "the most reputable organ of the Crazyites," run by people whose objects were honorable, "all that anybody can understand of them." He also noted with malicious delight that the circulation of the "Broadway Journal" had doubled since his Lyceum appearance.)

He probably would have kept the debate going in perpetuity—the opportunity it gave him to publicly mock the Transcendentalists was clearly a source of unflagging joy to him—if it had not been for the untimely demise of the “Broadway Journal” in January of 1846. Deprived of his public forum, Poe was forced to retreat from the field, a complication which allowed his enemies to attack him with impunity.

When the "Journal" folded, the Transcendentalists immediately proclaimed victory over Poe. Cornelia Walter even published a clumsy little poem in which she hinted that a conspiracy had deliberately brought down the magazine:

"To trust in friends is but so so,
Especially when cash is low;
The Broadway Journal's proved 'no go'--
Friends would not pay the pen of Poe."

Clearly, Poe and the Transcendentalists were adversaries to the death. But why? Initially, the Transcendentalists had wanted to bring Poe into the fold; to make him one of their own. Poe, however, felt contempt for them from the beginning.

Many of the early Transcendentalists were evolving Unitarians who desperately wanted to be spiritual, but could not commit themselves to the existence of God. They chose to instead worship environmentalism, and European philosophers, and communitarianism, and "good works," and anti-industrialization.

And Poe considered them frauds, phonies, and misguided lost souls. He said as much often enough, and he said it to their faces when he mischievously recited "Al Aaraaf." As a truly spiritual man, Poe disdained the pretensions of the Transcendentalists, whose religion was the movement itself. So many of Poe's poems and stories are about the soul's quest for Heaven, for God, for escape from earthly entombment. Yet, some souls don't make the grade. In "Ulalume," the soul briefly soars, but then falls back to the hell of earth. In "Al Aaraaf," the souls choose to exist in a grey area where they will eventually perish because they retained earthly thoughts and desires, and never achieved true spirituality. "I know how to get to Heaven," he seemed to be saying, "and you don't."

This was the message he intended to convey to his Boston audience.

Perhaps the most curious thing about the Boston incident is that, contrary to what one would assume, it had no discernible impact on Poe’s career as a lecturer. Even though the Lyceum’s Board of Trustees would later censure him, (not so much for his appearance there itself, but for the insulting things he published about it afterwards,) he continued to receive invitations to lecture or recite at various venues. Although he did not make very many more public appearances in the four years before his death, this appears to have been by choice. His lectures were generally very well reviewed, and frequently well-attended. If he had wished to, Poe, like Ralph Waldo Emerson, probably could have made a good living by concentrating on lecture tours. His reasons for not doing so are unknown, but he probably simply had other priorities. In any case, the controversy which surrounded his Lyceum appearance was never repeated in any of his other stage performances.

There is another thing that needs to be said about his Boston Lyceum failure— it was hardly universally regarded as having been a failure. As was noted earlier, some of the more objective papers found his recital mystically compelling. The “Boston Daily Courier” called “Al Aaraaf” “an elegant and classic production,” that was, they implied, simply too good for his audience. In 1879, the Transcendentalist writer Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who had been in the audience on that memorable night in Boston, recorded the remarkable impact of Poe’s performance. Higginson recalled that the spectators found the poem “rather perplexing,” and it failed to make a great impression upon them until Poe began to read the second half of the poem. His tone began “softening to a finer melody." When he came to the verse that began:

Ligeia! Ligeia!
My beautiful one!
Whose harshest idea
Will to melody run,
O! is it thy will
On the breezes to toss?
Or, capriciously still,
Like the lone Albatross,
Incumbent on night
(As she on the air)
To keep watch with delight
On the harmony there?

Higginson said Poe’s voice “seemed attenuated to the finest golden thread; the audience became hushed, and, as it were, breathless; there seemed no life in the hall but his.” He added that “every syllable was accentuated with such delicacy, and sustained with such sweetness as I never heard equaled by other lips...I remember nothing more, except in walking back to Cambridge my comrades and I felt we had been under the spell of some wizard.” Surely, any event that could elicit such a reaction could hardly be called disastrous.When Cornelia Walter began trumpeting his performance as a pitiful debacle, Poe clearly relished the attention, no matter how negative it may have been. He was an instinctive showman, who would have been in full agreement with the old Hollywood adage of “say anything you like about me, as long as you spell my name right.” He saw Walter’s campaigns against him as chances to not only publicize the “Broadway Journal,” and his recent book, “The Raven and Other Poems,” but to highlight what he saw as the mendacity and imbecility of his enemies. He certainly accomplished both those goals. Poe’s so-called “madness” had a cool-headed method to it much more often than is popularly assumed.

Mr. Poe Takes the Stage (Part One of Two)

2011-06-28T05:21:00.000-07:00

“[T]he most exquisite of sublunary pleasures…[is] the making of a fuss, or, in the classical words of a western friend, the ‘kicking up a bobbery.’”
-Edgar Allan Poe, writing in the “Broadway Journal,” November 22, 1845

One of the most notable incidents that led to the destruction of Poe's reputation was his appearance at the Boston Lyceum on October 16, 1845. The uproar surrounding his recital of "Al Aaraaf"--a performance that seems to have largely confounded his audience--and his subsequent public war of words with "Boston Transcript" editor Cornelia Walter served, perhaps more than any other event during his lifetime, to cement Poe's image as a drunken, erratic lunatic. While at least some of Poe's biographers realize that the disastrous nature of his actual appearance before the Lyceum was greatly exaggerated afterwards--in no small part due to the efforts of Poe himself--there has been no consensus about Poe's motives and intentions regarding the notorious recital. Did his failure to produce an “original” address for the occasion lead him to recycle an old poem out of desperation, or, as he asserted, did he deliberately mean to "quiz the Bostonians?" Or was it a sign he was simply going mad?

It is possible that Poe did find himself unable to produce a new poem “on order” for the occasion—like most men of genius, he was unable to “commercialize” himself—and so resorted to this obscure early work. However, I suspect that Poe's own explanation was closest to the truth. His disdain for the Bostonians was certainly quite genuine. It is easy to picture him presenting them with "Al Aaraaf"--a mystical exploration of Heaven, Hell and the grey area that lies between, as a deliberate challenge to their well-known intellectual and spiritual pretensions. He likely assumed the poem, a cousin of "Ulalume," "Israfel," "Dream-Land," "The Conqueror Worm," and others, would be completely over their heads, and he undoubtedly saw their confusion as further proof of their inferiority.

When Poe accepted the invitation to appear in Boston, he knew perfectly well that he was entering enemy territory. His very public mockery of the New England intelligentsia, as well as his recent campaign to prove that Longfellow, the darling of the Bostonians, was a plagiarist, ensured that his appearance would be controversial. The Boston newspapers even predicted that if Poe dared to show his face in their city, the audience "would poh at him, at once." It is usually assumed that Poe's motives in taking on such an obviously hazardous assignment were purely financial. Pressed for money, he agreed to appear in front of the Lyceum, despite the potential for disaster. However, just the opposite may be true--that he welcomed the invitation precisely because of the potential for disaster. Poe was never happier than when in the thick of literary battle--the noisier and more violent it was, the better he liked it. When he cheerfully asserted in the "Broadway Journal" that he accepted the chance to appear before a Boston audience because he was curious to see what it would be like to be hissed at in public, he may not have been entirely facetious.Certainly, his performance seemed designed to confuse and irritate his audience as much as possible. After delivering a brief, self-deprecating address that was clearly dripping with sarcasm, he proceeded to recite “Al Aaraaf"—lengthy, complicated verses that are probably the most abstruse he--or just about anyone else, for that matter--ever wrote. Although he followed up his performance by fulfilling audience requests to hear "The Raven"--a recitation that, by most accounts, went over well--the damage had been done. Some attendees, already stupefied by a three-hour speech by Massachusetts politician Caleb Cushing, found Poe's obscurities too much to handle, and walked out on him with the vague feeling that they had been insulted.

That feeling was entirely justified. At a private gathering that was held after the recital, Poe asserted that "Al Aaraaf" was intended to spoof the audience. It had, he claimed, been written before he was twelve years old, and that such a juvenile work was quite sufficient for the likes of the Bostonians. His expressions of contempt for his audience were, of course, widely circulated, and, of course, the local papers responded in kind. Cornelia Walter, who already had it in for Poe because of his "Longfellow War," immediately published an editorial describing Poe's performance as a humiliating failure. From then on, she used the "Boston Transcript" as a forum to regularly mock him, often in the crudest terms possible. Although at least one other Boston paper, as well as several members of the audience, described Poe's recital as beautiful, if somewhat baffling to most listeners, they were drowned out by the catcalls of his enemies, who made full use of the means Poe had provided to attack him.

Say what you will about Poe, but he was always ready to give his opponents as good, or better, than he received. As his contemporary John Du Solle once remarked, "If Mr. P. had not been gifted with considerable gall, he would have been devoured long ago by the host of enemies his genius has created." Two weeks after his Lyceum appearance, Poe wrote a lengthy editorial in the "Broadway Journal" giving his side of the story. He showed no remorse for his actions. Indeed, he countered that “that most beguiling of all beguiling little divinities" Miss Walter "has been telling a parcel of fibs about us, by way of revenge for something we did to Mr. Longfellow (who admires her very much) and for calling her ‘a pretty little witch’ into the bargain." According to Poe, his recital was a smashing success. The approbation he received “was considerably more (the more the pity too) than that bestowed upon Mr. Cushing.” He asserted that all the claims his appearance had been a failure were entirely due to “that amiable little enemy of ours,” at the “Boston Transcript.” (He added that “We shall never call a woman ‘a pretty little witch’ again, as long as we live.”)

Having finished with his defense, Poe gleefully went on the offense. He acknowledged that he himself had been born in Boston, “and perhaps it is just as well not to mention that we are heartily ashamed of the fact.” Bostonians “have always evinced towards us individually, the basest ingratitude for the services we rendered them in enlightening them about the originality of Mr. Longfellow.” This prejudice against him, Poe explained, made it scarcely possible that he would put himself to the trouble of composing an original poem for such an audience, so he favored them with one that was “quite as good as new—one, at all events, that we considered would answer sufficiently well for an audience of Transcendentalists.” This poem, he blandly assured his readers, was one which he had written, printed, and published in book form “before we had fairly completed our tenth year.” He sardonically commented that “We do not, ourselves, think the poem a remarkably good one:--it is not sufficiently transcendental.” However, his listeners “evinced characteristic discrimination in understanding, and especially applauding, all those knotty passages which we ourselves have not yet been able to understand.” Unfortunately, he sighed, he could not resist “letting some of our cat out of the bag a few hours sooner than we had intended,” when he told his dinner companions of the success of his hoax. His conclusion: “We should have waited a couple of days.”

Next post: The power of words.

(Image: Boston Common--Frogpondians and all--circa 1845. NYPL Digital Gallery.)

The Many Deaths of Edgar Poe

2011-06-21T04:56:00.000-07:00

"And all the woe that moved him so
That he gave that bitter cry
And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats
None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die"
-Oscar Wilde, "Ballad of Reading Gaol"

The major roadblock in the efforts to solve the mystery of Poe's death is the strange fact that none of the witnesses to his final days ever managed to coordinate their testimonies with each other, or even themselves. Poe's biographers tend to cherry-pick among the various accounts given over the years by Joseph Snodgrass, Dr. Moran, Neilson Poe, and other minor figures, selecting and arranging statements as they would pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in order to build whatever narrative most pleases them. For the most part, these chroniclers find it easiest to ignore the fact that whenever you are presented with multiple conflicting accounts of the same event, that only means that none of them can be trusted.

The most commonly accepted story is that a Joseph Walker encountered a disheveled, semi-conscious man "who goes under the cognomen of Edgar A. Poe," in Baltimore's Ryan's Tavern. Walker was able to ascertain that the unfortunate man was an acquaintance of Snodgrass, who was immediately summoned. According to Snodgrass, he accompanied the poet to the hospital. Unfortunately, his details of the event varied over the years that he told and re-told the story, and it is established that he manipulated facts in at least one crucial area--the text of the note Walker supposedly sent alerting him to Poe's desperate condition. He falsely claimed Walker warned him that Poe was intoxicated, a lie which does little for Snodgrass' credibility.

Then, of course, the biographies go on to relate Dr. Moran's colorful and harrowing descriptions of his famous patient screaming the name "Reynolds" in his delirium, declaring that the best thing his friends could do for him was to blow out his brains, finally conquering the fever called living with the plaintive plea for God to help his poor soul, etc., etc. (Historians generally ignore Moran's later accounts, which are, amazingly, even more lurid. He also showed a remarkable inconsistency with even the most basic facts, such as the day Poe was brought to the hospital, where he was found--he occasionally liked to say the poet was discovered by an anonymous passerby "lying on a bench by a wharf"--and when he died. According to Poe’s biographer Eugene Didier, Moran lied about having personally attended Poe at all. Again, the point has to be made--if Moran's later versions of Poe's death are demonstrably inconsistent and untrustworthy, why should his original tale be trusted?)

What further complicates the whole matter is the fact that there is a much lesser known, and seemingly equally credible, version of Poe's death that utterly contradicts everything cited above. It comes from a distant relative of his, Elisabeth Ellicott Poe. According to Miss Poe, on October 3, 1849, her grandfather, George Poe Sr. (who was Edgar’s first cousin,) was walking along the streets of Baltimore when saw a man, whom he presumed to be in a drunken stupor, lying beneath the steps of the Baltimore Museum. When he looked closer at the figure, he realized, to his horror, that it was his literary cousin. After sending for Neilson Poe, who lived nearby, George Poe took his unconscious relative to the hospital. Mrs. Clemm was sent for, and doctors worked for days to save the poet. However, he never fully regained consciousness, and finally died on the morning of October 7. Elisabeth Poe was an advocate of the “cooping” theory—that Edgar had been shanghaied by the “Plug Uglies,” a local political organization, drugged, and utilized for their curious electoral purposes. The combination of drugs and exposure, she declared, had killed her famous relative.

Now, of course, Miss Poe’s story—which she claimed was verified by Neilson Poe himself—contradicts the accepted Snodgrass/Moran accounts in practically every detail. Neilson Poe himself was of little help in getting to the bottom of the mystery. Others who knew him asserted that he believed Poe had indeed been “cooped,” a misadventure which resulted in his death. However, a month after Edgar’s demise, Neilson wrote Rufus Griswold that "The history of the last few days of his life is known to no one so well as to myself...I think I can demonstrate that he passed, by a single indulgence, from a condition of perfect sobriety to one bordering upon the madness usually occasioned only by long continued intoxication, and that he is entitled to a far more favorable judgment upon his last hours than he has received..." In short, his famous cousin went on one spree too many. Neilson promised to make a “deliberate communication” on the subject, but so far as we know, he never did.

In 1871, a journalist provided Richard Henry Stoddard with an account he claimed to have received from Neilson. Assuming this journalist quoted him accurately, Neilson claimed that he somehow found Edgar “in a state of insensibility,” and brought him to the hospital. In this version of the story, there was merely a “horrible suspicion” that he had been “cooped.” According to this journalist, while Edgar was traveling to Philadelphia from Baltimore, he took one drink that immediately sent him into a “state of delirium,” and the conductor of the train returned him to Baltimore (presumably, just dumping this stricken stranger on the street to fend for himself.) What happened next was unclear, but the implication was that he then somehow fell into the hands of the unscrupulous ward managers.

Unfortunately, this story is, of course, undocumented (and this journalist never made it clear how Neilson Poe learned all this, as Edgar himself was unable to say what had happened to him.) It does not even come directly from Neilson. It is one of the many inexplicable enigmas surrounding Edgar Poe’s death that, although Neilson evidently spent a good deal of effort investigating the tragedy, he never publicly gave any detailed, first-hand account of what he believed had happened. The reasons for his odd reticence are unknown.

It is strange enough that we do not know for certain where Edgar Poe was or what he was doing in the five or so days between his departure from Richmond and his arrival in Moran’s hospital, or that we cannot even make an educated guess about what killed him. It is virtually incomprehensible that so basic a matter as who first discovered him in Baltimore and brought him to the doctors, where he was found, and whether or not he was intoxicated at the time should be such a matter of dispute. It all makes George W. Eveleth’s assertion that Poe’s death was simply a hoax seem quite rational in comparison.

Poe and the Milk of Paradise

2011-06-14T04:56:00.000-07:00

"[I] was afraid, from the wild imaginations manifested in your writings, that you were an opium-eater--had some chance for hope that this might not be the case, as the same wildness was evident in your childhood productions--supposed that you could not have acquired the habit when so young, and therefore hoped."
-George W. Eveleth, letter to Edgar Allan Poe, January 11, 1848

One of the many disastrous effects of a strange, near-universal mania for reading Poe’s writings as hidden autobiography is the fact that, because several of the narrators of his stories used opium, it is often assumed that he himself was familiar with the narcotic. No serious modern-day Poe biographer credits the idea that he was a habitual drug user, as scholars recognize that his literary depictions of the drug were inspired by contemporary works such as Thomas De Quincey’s “Confessions of an English Opium-Eater.” However, the image of him as the wild-eyed poète maudit ecstatically scribbling verses and stories while in an opium-fueled frenzy is amazingly durable, particularly on the Internet. Never underestimate the power of mythology.Considering the popularity of the belief that Poe was an opium addict, it is rather remarkable that the evidence in its favor is so weak. In 1850, the poet William Ross Wallace wrote John Neal that alcohol, taken alternately with opium, “kept him [Poe] half his days in madness.” Wallace knew Poe, but not at all intimately, and Poe seems to have privately disliked him, although he admired some of Wallace’s poetry. The tone of Wallace’s letter is of someone passing on gossip rather than relaying first-hand information. (Ironically, Wallace himself was an unstable character notorious for his dissipation. He may well have been projecting his own failings on Poe.) Poe’s biographer George Woodberry said that Neilson Poe’s daughter Amelia told him that Edgar’s cousin Elizabeth Herring stated that “his periods of excess were occasioned by a free use of opium.” I have mentioned my reasons for doubting this—at best—third-hand testimony here. Our ubiquitous old friend Susan Archer Talley Weiss wrote that Rosalie Poe had visited Fordham in the spring of 1846 (we have no other evidence this visit took place,) and had witnessed an incident where her brother “begged for morphine.”

I have chronicled Mrs. Weiss’ amazing powers of imagination since literally the first day of this blog. Suffice to say that if she asserted the sun rose in the east, that alone would be enough to make me dismiss the notion.

In the 1870s, Annie Richmond produced a copy of a letter she claimed to have received from Poe in November of 1848, describing his attempts to commit suicide through an overdose of laudanum. According to this letter, he miscalculated. His body, unused to such poison, rejected the laudanum and sent him into unconsciousness before he could take the full dose. Assuming Mrs. Richmond provided an accurate transcript of this letter—and it must be said I believe her to be only slightly more honest than Susan Weiss—and also assuming the incident was not one of the colorful fables Poe enjoyed telling about himself, this has been seen as proof that Poe was not accustomed to taking drugs.

In his 1896 “Reminiscences of Poe,” Thomas Dunn English firmly rejected the idea that Poe took drugs. He said, “Had Poe the opium habit when I knew him, I should, both as a physician and a man of observation, have discovered it…” English’s account is a remarkably ingenious work of libel, relying on malicious, sly intimations against Poe which he did not have even have the courage to explicitly describe (likely because he knew they could be refuted if he did.) It is something of a minor masterwork of the use of vague insinuation in the cause of character assassination. As I have said before, I do not believe English knew Poe nearly as well as he claimed, but in any case, it is reasonable to believe that if he thought he could get away with using charges of drug use against his old enemy, he would have done so. The fact that he did not is surely a strong piece of evidence in Poe’s favor.

Similarly, English’s business associate Thomas H. Lane, who knew Poe in his Philadelphia and New York years, alleged that one or two drinks could instantly transform Poe from someone “in every way a gentleman” into a surly drunk. However, he was positive the poet was never a drug user.

John Carter, a Richmond doctor who had socialized with Poe during the poet’s visit there in 1849, wrote Woodberry that “Poe never used opium in any instance that I am aware of, and if it had been a habitual practice, we certainly would have detected it, as he numbered amongst his associates half-dozen physicians…I never heard it hinted before, and if he had contracted the habit, it would have accompanied him to Richmond.” (Unfortunately for Poe, Woodberry ignored this unequivocal, first-hand medical testimony in favor of the Susan Weiss/Amelia Poe hearsay. In his biography of Poe, he asserted his belief that Poe used drugs, although he admitted that “it is only a personal view, and may be erroneous.”)

Incidentally, this passage from Woodberry’s book serves as an example of the dangers of trusting Poe biographies too implicitly. Hervey Allen, in his inexplicably popular “Israfel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe,” quoted—whether through a deliberate desire to smear Poe or sheer stupidity (the baroque silliness of his book makes either theory plausible) repeated Woodberry’s conjecture that Poe used drugs—but quoted it as part of Dr. Carter’s letter to Woodberry. Thus, the unsuspecting reader of Allen’s book was left to believe that a medical man who knew Poe well believed he was an addict, when, in truth, he said precisely the opposite. This is just one of the many reasons why, whenever I begin to peruse Allen’s biography, I am faced with the strong urge to hurl it against the wall. (I refrain, however—flinging around Kenneth Silverman’s “Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance” left enough damage in my home.)

In short, while it cannot be proved “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Poe did not take opium—in history, nothing is more futile than trying to prove a negative—there is no reliable evidence of his drug use, and the testimony refuting the charge is considerably more assertive and credible.

There is, as well, an odd legend that Poe also took absinthe, which, in his day, acted as a hallucinogenic. The sole evidence for this is a 1988 book describing itself as a “history” of the liqueur. It listed “Edgar Allen Poe” (whenever a Poe source cannot get the middle name right, you know you’re in for a rocky ride,) as a drinker of “absinthe and brandy.” This claim is found nowhere else in history, and the author provided no documentation or source for his statement.

Unfortunately, once any allegation, no matter how absurd and unproven, gets into print, it takes on an invincible life of its own. Sure enough, every few weeks or so I stumble upon a blog, website, or newspaper article chattering merrily about the notorious madman Edgar Poe, opium and absinthe addict.

It’s all enough to make a poor-devil Poe blogger want to reach for the laudanum bottle herself. With an absinthe-and-brandy chaser, please.

Whether You Loved or Hated "Arthur Gordon Pym"...

2011-06-11T05:55:00.000-07:00

...I recommend reading Mat Johnson's "Pym." It's often hilarious, and refreshingly original. I thought the first half of the book was much better than the second, but, then, that's what a lot of people have said about Poe's original work. If, like me, you've had some harrowing experiences in the deranged world of academia, you'll find some of the mockery particularly delicious. However, even if you have no interest in Poe (in which case, pray tell, why are you here?) this is one of the best social satires (a sadly dying breed) I've read since "A Confederacy of Dunces." A comedic novel based largely on racial issues is a particularly tricky business, but I think Johnson handled that aspect of the book cleverly and sanely, simply by lampooning us all.

In any case, how could I not like a book containing the line, "In this age when reality is built on big lies, what better place for truth than fiction?"

Despite what most of the reviews have said, however, I think it's a good idea to read (or re-read) Poe's novel before tackling this book. I've always believed "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" was itself meant as satire--albeit of a characteristically cryptic and mystical kind--so having a detailed familiarity with his work brings a fuller dimension to Johnson's reinvention. (Incidentally, I largely disagree with Johnson's interpretation of Poe's "Pym," but that's irrelevant to this novel, particularly since, considering the context of his book, I question whether he meant this interpretation to be treated completely seriously.)

Yet Another Cautionary Tale

2011-06-07T04:56:00.001-07:00

On January 11, 1848, George W. Eveleth wrote Poe a letter in which he quoted from a statement made by an editor of a paper called the "Weekly Universe." This statement said, "Edgar A. Poe, in the estimation of the editors of the 'Universe,' holds a high rank, regarded either as an elegant tale-writer, a poet, or a critic. He will be more fairly judged after his death than during his life. His habits have been shockingly irregular, but what amendment they have undergone within the past six months we cannot say, for Mr. Poe, during that time, has been in the country--we know him personally--he is a gentleman--a man of fine taste and warm impulses, with a generous heart. The little eccentricities of his character are never offensive except when he is drunk..." Eveleth went on to say that he had been told the names of the editors and contributors of the "Universe," and asked if Poe indeed knew them.

On February 29, Poe responded, "The editor of the 'Weekly Universe' speaks kindly and I find no fault with his representing my habits as 'shockingly irregular.' He could not have had the 'personal acquaintance' with me of which he writes; but has fallen into a very natural error...I do not know the 'editors & contributors' of the 'Weekly Universe' and was not aware of the existence of such a paper."

Poe's statement is something to be kept in mind when weighing the validity of the numerous "reminiscences of Poe" that were brought before the public after his death. With many of these reminiscences, not only are the stories they offered completely uncorroborated, but we have only the speaker's unsupported word that he or she had ever even laid eyes on the poet--and Poe, unlike in the case noted above, was no longer around to confirm or deny their acquaintance.

The Poetic Principle

2011-05-31T04:56:00.000-07:00

"The Poetic Principle" was Poe's last major prose work. It was a lecture he delivered several times in 1848 and 1849, although it was not published until after his death. While ostensibly merely an analysis on his pet theories about verse, it is also, like "Eureka," and "The Domain of Arnheim," an exploration of his most deeply-held personal philosophies.

He began with his famous claim that "a long poem does not exist." While verses should not be so brief that they "degenerate into mere epigrammatism," a poem "deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul...But all excitements are, through a psychal necessity, transient...After the lapse of half an hour, at the very utmost, it flags--fails--a revulsion ensues--and then the poem is, in effect, and in fact, no longer such."

Anyone who had to read "The Faerie Queene" in school can't disagree.

His next dictum was that the sole effect of a poem should be to "elevate the soul," that "the value of the poem is in the ratio of this elevating excitement." Again, he made the point that a long poem would necessarily be a failure because "that degree of excitement which would entitle a poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained throughout a composition of any great length."

Thirdly, he called for poetry to have unity, a "totality of effect or impression." In other words, one part of a poem should not clash in style or mood with another. This unity, Poe believed, was impossible with lengthy poems.

Most importantly, he said, the poet had to discard what he called "the heresy of the didactic." "It has been assumed, tacitly and avowedly, directly and indirectly, that the ultimate object of all Poetry is Truth. Every poem, it is said, should inculcate a moral; and by this moral is the poetical merit of the work to be adjudged...We have taken it into our heads that to write a poem simply for the poem's sake, and to acknowledge such to have been our design, would be to confess ourselves radically wanting in the true poetic dignity and force."

Poe was having none of that. He stated that the enforcement of the True required severity, simplicity, preciseness, coolness--in other words, the exact opposite of the poetic spirit. The aim of all genuine poetry was not Truth, but Beauty; to invoke an instinctive response that awakens the reader to a sense of his or her own divinity--an "elevation of the soul." His description of this goal is impossible to paraphrase:

"An immortal instinct, deep within the spirit of man, is thus, plainly, a sense of the Beautiful. This it is which administers to his delight in the manifold forms, and sounds, and odors, and sentiments amid which he exists. And just as the lily is repeated in the lake, or the eyes of Amaryllis in the mirror, so is the mere oral or written repetition of these forms, and sounds, and colors, and odors, or sentiments, a duplicate source of delight...We have still a thirst unquenchable...This thirst belongs to the immortality of Man. It is at once a consequence and an indication of his perennial existence. It is the desire of the moth for the star. It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us--but a wild effort to reach the Beauty above. Inspired by an ecstatic prescience of the glories beyond the grave, we struggle, by multiform combinations among the things and thoughts of Time, to attain a portion of that Loveliness whose very elements, perhaps, appertain to eternity alone."

Poe saw this human instinct to connect with the world of the spirit as taking various forms--painting, sculpture, dance, architecture, landscape gardening (a look back at "The Domain of Arnheim,") but particularly in music, where "the soul most nearly attains the great end for which, when inspired by the Poetic Sentiment, it struggles--the creation of supernal Beauty." He saw poetry and music, with their similar modes of rhythm and rhyme, as virtual partners in this creation. (Although one wonders how much of the Beautiful he would find in your typical Top 40 playlist of today. But I digress.) The true artist acts as a guide for the rest of humanity in their unconscious need to transcend the earthly bodies which cage our souls, and unite with God--a God whose spirit is within every object and creature in our world. "The struggle to apprehend the supernal loveliness--this struggle, on the part of souls fittingly constituted--has given to the world all that which it (the world) has ever been enabled at once to understand and to feel as poetic."His description of the "Human Aspiration for Supernal Beauty" should be read by everyone who accepts with the utmost seriousness all the legends of his many bizarre romantic entanglements. One finds it hard to reconcile the man depicted in, say, "Poe's Mary," or the libels of John Evangelist Walsh with the writer of these lines:

"...the manifestation of the Principle is always found in an elevating excitement of the Soul, quite independent of that passion which is the intoxication of the Heart--or of that Truth which is the satisfaction of the Reason. For, in regard to Passion, alas! its tendency is to degrade, rather than to elevate the Soul. Love, on the contrary--Love--the true, the divine Eros--the Uranian, as distinguished from the Dionæan Venus--is unquestionably the purest and truest of all poetical themes."

At the end of the essay, Poe gave us his conception of true Poetry by listing some of the elements "which induce in the Poet himself the true poetical effect." It is among my favorite passages in any of his works, and if I ever get my hands on a time machine, one of the first places I'm going is Richmond in the summer of 1849 to hear them recited by their author. This peroration, in the opinion of Arthur H. Quinn, was where "Poe's true self flashed out." If he was correct, it would serve as proof for what I have argued on practically every post on this blog--that the Edgar Allan Poe depicted in most of his biographies never existed, that nearly all we think we know about him is based on some of the most shameless lies imaginable.

The Poet, Poe said, "...recognises the ambrosia which nourishes his soul, in the bright orbs that shine in Heaven--in the volutes of the flower--in the clustering of low shrubberies--in the waving of the grain-fields--in the slanting of tall, Eastern trees--in the blue distance of mountains--in the grouping of clouds--in the twinkling of half-hidden brooks--in the gleaming of silver rivers--in the repose of sequestered lakes--in the star-mirroring depths of lonely wells. He perceives it in the songs of birds--in the harp of Æolus--in the sighing of the night-wind--in the repining voice of the forest--in the surf that complains to the shore--in the fresh breath of the woods--in the scent of the violet--in the voluptuous perfume of the hyacinth--in the suggestive odor that comes to him, at eventide, from far-distant, undiscovered islands, over dim oceans, illimitable and unexplored. He owns it in all noble thoughts--in all unworldly motives--in all holy impulses--in all chivalrous, generous, and self-sacrificing deeds. He feels it in the beauty of woman--in the grace of her step--in the lustre of her eye--in the melody of her voice--in her soft laughter--in her sigh--in the harmony of the rustling of her robes. He deeply feels it in her winning endearments--in her burning enthusiasms--in her gentle charities--in her meek and devotional endurances--but above all--ah, far above all--he kneels to it--he worships it in the faith, in the purity, in the strength, in the altogether divine majesty--of her love."

Two Questionable "Poe Poems"

2011-05-23T04:56:00.001-07:00

Over the years, many works that have either disappeared or that were published anonymously have been "attributed" to Poe. Some of these attributions are credible, but far too many writings have been attached to his name due to sheer reckless disregard for any standards of normal scholarship. Two of the best-known examples of the latter category are two "lost" poems, "Lines on Ale," and "The Beloved Physician."

The responsibility for anointing "Lines on Ale" as a Poe composition rests upon Thomas O. Mabbott. In 1939, he published in the journal "Notes and Queries" the claim that on one of Poe's visits to Lowell, Massachusetts, he visited a local tavern and was inspired to pen the following lines:

Fill with mingled cream and amber,
I will drain that glass again.
Such hilarious visions clamber
Through the chamber of my brain--
Quaintest thoughts--queerest fancies
Come to life and fade away;
What care I how time advances?
I am drinking ale today.

This so-called poem was quoted to Mabbott by a man who claimed to be a former bartender at this establishment. Supposedly, the manuscript hung on the wall of the tavern for some years, but this Poe relic disappeared, as Mabbott vaguely put it, "before 1920." Despite the lack of any sort of corroboration of this man's story, as well as the inherent implausibility that Poe would have written such puerile doggerel, Mabbott--as was his habit in many matters--fell for it with a gullibility that almost defies belief. Simply because he chose to give this poem his official seal of approval, it is widely accepted as a genuine Poe work. However, it is far more likely that this bartender was enjoying a good joke at Mabbott's--and Poe's--expense.

"The Beloved Physician" may be an even more astonishing attribution. In 1875, Marie Louise Shew Houghton wrote Poe's biographer John H. Ingram that the late poet had written a ten-stanza poem in her honor. She was, as usual with her, unable to provide any proof of this assertion--as was the case with "Lines on Ale," the manuscript of the poem was conveniently "lost"--but she supplied Ingram with some stray lines that she claimed to remember from the composition:

The pulse beats ten and intermits;
God nerve the soul that ne'er forgets
In calm or storm, by night or day,
Its steady toil, its loyalty.

The pulse beats ten and intermits;
God shield the soul that ne'er forgets.

The pulse beats ten and intermits;
God guide the soul that ne'er forgets.

...so tired, so weary,
The soft head bows, the sweet eyes close,
The faithful heart yields to repose.

If Poe wrote these lines, I'm Rufus Griswold's grandma.

It's hard to even know what else to say about these poems. You might say they speak for themselves. It has long been a marvel to me how Poe specialists, even more than most historians, seem utterly incapable of judging evidence. As Josephine Tey observed in "The Daughter of Time," historians "have no talent for the likeliness of any situation." What is worse, they usually appear indifferent to the fact that the need for such scrutiny even exists. And poor old Edgar has certainly paid the price for this indifference.

Marginalia: Special J.H. Whitty Memorial Edition

2011-05-16T04:56:00.001-07:00

In 1911, Poe enthusiast J.H. Whitty published what he said were previously unknown recollections of Poe written by the poet's close friend Frederick W. Thomas (who died in 1866.) These lengthy, detailed reminiscences have been used as source material by Poe biographers ever since. There are, however, certain obvious problems with these "Thomas Reminiscences":

1. All we have of Thomas' alleged acount is what Whitty published. The actual manuscript is not extant, and there is no record of it being seen by anyone other than Whitty. (His long-time associate Thomas O. Mabbott wrote that Whitty became "evasive" when Mabbott asked to see the document.)

2. We have only Whitty's word that he even acquired this previously unknown MS., and he was very vague about how they came into his hands. (He also claimed to have acquired proof-sheets of "late drafts" of several of Poe's poems that also somehow came into Thomas' hands, but these have similarly vanished.)

3. Whitty was, as one acquaintance described him, a "crank." He was an extremely peculiar fanatic who, like so many of the more unbalanced amateur Poe specialists, had an egomaniacal obsession with showing the world "new and previously unknown" material related to his idol. And--again like others of his type--it seems to have been unimportant to him if this material was genuine or not. During his long career, he came up with many other examples of "previously unknown" Poeana--much of which proved to be, as other Poe scholars were forced to admit, completely imaginary. The editors of the published collection of Poe's letters wrote tactfully that Whitty was "inclined to make exaggerated claims without documentation, and prone to romantic fancies." They admitted that Whitty's "veracity" has been questioned. Mabbott nonchalantly conceded that Whitty was "eccentric," "often wrong," "far from reliable," and inclined to mix fact with colorful fiction. He also wrote that Whitty "brought himself into disrepute by farfetched claims to 'discoveries about Poe'."

Given all of this, why in the world is this "Thomas manuscript" accepted unreservedly?

Incidentally, there are a number of other Whitty "discoveries" that are also, inexplicably, still used as source material, such as his completely lunatic--and completely undocumented--claim that Poe wrote two poems that appeared anonymously in "Graham's Magazine" in 1845, "Stanzas," and "Divine Right of Kings." Whitty claimed his source for this attribution was an old volume of "Graham's" in his possession, where Frances S. Osgood had written Poe's name at the bottom of these two poems. When asked to bring forth this volume, Whitty flatly refused, and to this day it has yet to be seen. Despite this highly self-incriminating refusal to prove his claims, these two dreadful poems are still to this day--for reasons that frankly baffle me--often republished as Poe's work, an attribution that undoubtedly would mortify the poor man. (Mabbott, who is largely responsible for these poems being accepted as Poe's, claimed that years after Whitty's "discovery" of these verses, a volume of "Graham's" was discovered in the Boston Public Library, with annotations in an unknown handwriting--definitely not Osgood's--assigning them to Poe. As I have pointed out before, it never occurred to Mabbott that we have no idea who wrote these notations and when it was done. It was undoubtedly the work of someone who had heard of Whitty's claims--or even Whitty himself. In any case, anonymous notations to anonymous poems can hardly be considered scholarly proof of anything.)

This attribution also ignores the fact that what evidence we have on the subject indicates that the poems in question, which were signed merely "P," were authored by Charles J. Peterson, who was then on the staff of "Graham's." Thomas O. Mabbott even admitted that signing poems with a single initial of a surname was "usually an editor's prerogative," which made his agreement to attribute these poems to Poe, rather than editor Peterson--who is accepted to have written other poems for "Graham's" signed "P"--utterly incomprehensible.

Incidentally, it was also Whitty who first posited the curious notion that Poe and Mrs. Osgood conducted a poetic "literary flirtation" in the pages of the "Broadway Journal." Until he began weaving this strange yarn in the early 1900s, no one had ever taken the least notice of these poems as any sort of biographical source material. (He also devised the even more ridiculous idea that Osgood's story "Ida Grey" reflected their relationship.) There really is little basis for his assertions, but Poe's biographers, charmed by the implied salaciousness of it all, have automatically parroted Whitty's fantasies ever since. All in all, if Whitty, like Susan Archer Talley Weiss, had not displayed the complete humorlessness that characterizes the true crackpot, I would seriously suspect that everything they wrote about Poe was an elaborate prank on history.

*****

It is exasperatingly typical of Poe that even details about his wedding are uncertain. His Richmond marriage to Virginia, which took place on this date in 1836, (happy anniversary, kids!) is usually described as having taken place in the parlor of the boardinghouse run by a Mrs. Yarrington, where he and the ladies Clemm were then living. It is also accepted that the young couple enjoyed a brief honeymoon in Petersburg, Virginia, as the guests of a local newspaper publisher named Hiram Haines. These claims, as well as nearly all the other details we have about the wedding, were first publicized in 1926, in Mary E. Phillips' "Edgar Allan Poe: The Man." Phillips' source for her account of the marriage and honeymoon was--wait for it!--none other than James Howard Whitty, who cited a "Jane Foster" who was supposedly one of the wedding guests.

However, F. B. Converse, the son of Amasa Converse, the minister who married the pair, told a journalist years later that the wedding was held in the parlor of his father's home. Dr. Converse added, "There were very few persons present at the wedding; my mother and the members of the family, and perhaps one or more companions, whom they brought with them." A Mrs. Mallory, who also lived in Mrs. Yarrington's boardinghouse, described Mrs. Clemm inviting her and some other ladies into her room, where she offered them cake and wine in celebration of the marriage, but this witness said nothing about the ceremony itself being held in the house. (Mrs. Mallory indicated that Mrs. Clemm's little impromptu party was the first she or any of the other women had heard of the marriage.)

If these accounts are true (and they at least have the virtue of being first-hand) it would discredit everything Whitty said this Jane Foster--who makes no other appearances in Poe's history--told him about the Poe wedding. I am not aware of any other independent source that verifies this alleged honeymoon--if anyone out there has found any such documentation, I would certainly like to know about it. (We also have nothing directly from Jane Foster herself.) Having Whitty's fingerprints on the tale is alone enough to make me uneasy about practically everything we think we "know" about the wedding, including Poe and Virginia's supposed Petersburg sojourn--as much as I'd like to think this star-crossed pair had at least one pleasant vacation during their union. The story of their honeymoon may well be true--at least, we know of no evidence that directly disproves it. (I emphasize this point in order to keep the good citizens of Petersburg from coming after me with the feathers and tar.) However, as is usual with Poe's history, it comes with a bit of a question mark. In any case, I hear that Petersburg's "Hiram Haines Coffee House," located in the building where the Poes supposedly resided during their honeymoon, is a charming place, and well worth a visit if you're ever in the area.

(Images via NYPL Digital Gallery)

Update 12/10/11: While researching the "Raven's Bride" plagiarism case, blogger Archie Valparaiso unearthed a bit of historical information that not only refutes Lenore Hart's claims to have done original "historical research" on her now-discredited novel, it demolishes the legend of the entire Petersburg trip. Read of his discovery here, and savor the pure comedy gold.

If the railway from Richmond to Petersburg was only built after Edgar and Virginia were married, it, of course, renders the Whitty/Foster story about the newlyweds traveling by train an impossibility. And if that detail is false, it naturally discredits all of Whitty's account about the wedding and alleged honeymoon--a story that has been endlessly and trustingly repeated to this day.

Quote(s) of the Day

2011-05-09T04:56:00.001-07:00

"'The Legend of Edgar Allan Poe' would not be an inappropriate title for his biography. The most striking of the few things that the narratives of Poe's life have in common is a mythological strain, as if some subtle influence were at work in the minds of men to transform his career into a story stranger than truth, and to make his memory a mere tradition. It appears in that first newspaper article which Griswold wrote before the earth had chilled the body of the dead poet: 'He walked the streets, in madness or melancholy, with lips moving in indistinct curses, or with eyes upturned in passionate prayer for their happiness who at the moment were objects of his idolatry; or with his glances introverted to a heart gnawed with anguish and with a face shrouded in gloom, he would brave the wildest storms, and all night, with drenched garments and arms beating the winds and rains, would speak as if to spirits that at such times only could be evoked by him from the Aidenn.' It is as plain to be seen in Baudelaire's declamatory eulogy over him as the martyr of a raw democracy. In Gilfillan he is the archangel ruined; in Ingram he is the ruined archangel rehabilitated; in all the biographies there is a demoniac element, as if Poe, who nevertheless was a man and an American, were a creature of his own fancy."
-George Woodberry, "Poe's Legendary Years," The Atlantic Monthly, December 1884

Woodberry certainly had his flaws as a Poe biographer. He was commissioned, against his inclination, to write a life of the poet, even though he made no secret of the fact that he detested Poe personally and thought little of most of his writings. It was rather like choosing me to write a biography of Fanny Osgood. He never understood Poe, and made it clear he did not want to even try. (In what Edward Wagenknecht delightfully described as "one of the most beautiful examples of New England snobbery on record" which "goes far toward justifying even Poe's attitude toward that region," Woodberry sighed that the difficulty with describing Poe's history is "that it is a life led outside of New England.")

After his biography was completed, Woodberry even had to flee to Italy for a spell simply to try and get the taint of Poe out of his system!

Despite all that, the first version of his biography, published in 1885, has value. It was certainly the first truly professional book about Poe, and would prove to be the last until Arthur Quinn's 1941 work. Unfortunately, his subsequent, heavily revised editions are increasingly riddled with factual errors, absurd, utterly unfounded speculations, and painfully damaging misconceptions (particularly when he began relying heavily upon Susan Talley Weiss as a source.) With all that, however, he was still more scholarly and readable than the average Poe biographer, and he often came up with interesting observations and conclusions. The above passage is one of them.

Of course, so far as Poe's posthumous reputation goes, I think the man himself said it best, in a well-known quote from "Marginalia," published in the "Southern Literary Messenger" in June 1849:

"I have sometimes amused myself by endeavoring to fancy what would be the fate of any individual gifted, or rather accursed, with an intellect very far superior to that of his race. Of course, he would be conscious of his superiority; nor could he (if otherwise constituted as man is) help manifesting his consciousness. Thus he would make himself enemies at all points. And since his opinions and speculations would widely differ from those of all mankind--that he would be considered a madman, is evident. How horribly painful such a condition! Hell could invent no greater torture than that of being charged with abnormal weakness on account of being abnormally strong.

In like manner, nothing can be clearer than that a very generous spirit--truly feeling what all merely profess--must inevitably find itself misconceived in every direction--its motives misinterpreted. Just as extremeness of intelligence would be thought fatuity, so excess of chivalry could not fail of being looked upon as meanness in its last degree:--and so on with other virtues. This subject is a painful one indeed. That individuals have so soared above the plane of their race, is scarcely to be questioned; but, in looking back through history for traces of their existence, we should pass over all biographies of 'the good and the great,' while we search carefully the slight records of wretches who died in prison, in Bedlam, or upon the gallows."

I believe that's the closest anyone has ever gotten to writing an honest account of Poe's life.

(Image: Statue of Poe by Sir Moses Ezekiel, Baltimore, MD. Via Art Inventories Catalog, Smithsonian Art Museum.)

My Interview With Edgar

2011-05-02T04:56:00.000-07:00

"The mysteries of his [Poe's] life were never revealed to anyone, but his intimates well understood that to mystify his hearer was a strong element of his mind."
-George Rex Graham

Studying Poe's life is not recommended for anyone who likes their history uncomplicated. The man is, quite simply, one long exercise in frustration. From his birth until his death, we are confronted with what seems to be one unanswerable mystery after another. If I could somehow interview Poe personally, my list of questions would probably take days to discuss, but these are some of the top items I'd wish to have him truthfully explain. I think I know the answers to a few of these riddles; with others I'm completely in the dark. In either case, I'd certainly like his side of these stories:

1. The obvious one: After he left Richmond late in September 1849, where was he during those five days or so before he turned up in Baltimore, what was he doing, and what led to his death?

2. In a letter Poe allegedly wrote Sarah Helen Whitman, dated Nov. 24, 1848, there is the statement that "You will now comprehend what I mean in saying that the only thing for which I found it impossible to forgive Mrs. O[sgood] was her reception of Mrs. E[llet.]"

What did that mean, "her reception of Mrs. Ellet?" Why did he find that made it "impossible to forgive Mrs. Osgood?" What, exactly, were these two women up to? Were they somehow in collusion? By stating that it was "the only thing" she did that he could not overlook, does that mean she committed other offenses of some sort? If Mrs. Osgood did do something Poe found unforgivable--and the fact that he refused to have any contact with her for the last few years of his life appears to confirm this--how can all his biographers assume he retained a friendly affection for her?

3. Would he truly, in the end, have been willing to marry Sarah Helen Whitman or Sarah Elmira Shelton? If so, why? (You won't convince me for a moment that love had anything to do with it.)

4. "Ulalume" is his one work that truly gives me the shivers each time I read it, all the more so because I can't even pretend to know what it means. Sarah Helen Whitman's interpretation of the poem--that Poe is depicting his struggle between memories of the dead Virginia and his longing to find new love--is generally accepted. Although I think it is possible that Virginia is represented by Psyche, the "sweet sister"--Sissy?--who tries in vain to save the narrator from doom, I feel that Whitman gave an overly simplistic explanation for such an esoteric and menacing creation. (And the inimitable John Evangelist Walsh's typically lunatic idea that the poem is an elegy for little Fanny Fay Osgood simply makes me ill.) This poem generates a sense of true evil that simply does not appear in his other works (even his most Grand Guignol tales, such as "The Black Cat," or "Hop-Frog," have a strong element of dark humor or satire that is utterly missing here.) I'd very much like to have Poe's own explanation of his most peculiar and ominous piece of writing.5. Did he really want Rufus W. Griswold to be his literary executor? If so, did that mean he anticipated that he would die soon? If not, what, if any, plans had he made for his literary estate?

6. We know that a great uproar was touched off in January 1846 when Virginia Poe--evidently on her own initiative--confronted Elizabeth F. Ellet with a letter written by Frances S. Osgood. What was in this letter, why did Virginia show it to Mrs. Ellet, and to whom was Osgood's letter addressed--Edgar or Virginia?

7. Did Virginia write any poems besides her 1846 Valentine to her husband? Did she--as I have speculated--have anything to do with the Valentine poem addressed to Frances Osgood?

8. While we're on the subject of Mrs. Osgood, what did Edgar and Virginia really think of that lady? And was my interpretation of Osgood's Poe reminiscences accurate?

9. Did he and Virginia secretly marry in 1835? If so, why was it a secret? If not, why did they take out a marriage license on September 22 of that year and not use it?

10. Which of the "lost" or anonymous writings that have been "attributed" to Poe were actually written by him?

11. Which of the extant letters written by Poe are genuine, and which are forgeries?

12. Was he--as both George W. Eveleth and I believe--"Outis?" (Cf. his surreal, hilarious unpublished essay, "A Reviewer Reviewed.")

If "Outis" truly was Poe--in Eveleth's words--"defying himself," that would prove he did not take his infamous "Longfellow War" half as seriously as many of his biographers do--although his charges were indisputably accurate. As sincere as his outrage may have been, Poe likely saw his whole noisy public campaign to expose Henry Wadsworth's misdeeds as a playful and instructive stunt. (That is, actually, a crucial point to understanding many of Poe's actions--he loved to, as he would put it, "kick up a bobbery" almost as much as he loved hoaxes.)

13. Did he regret the fact that he never had children? Did Virginia?

14. Did he really regret his final estrangement from John Allan? Or did he feel that, despite all the struggles he endured afterwards, he was still better off away from a guardian he had obviously come to despise? Whatever miseries he endured in his adult life, did he think he would have been any happier leading a staid businessman's life as the heir to John Allan and the husband of Sarah Elmira Royster or some similar dull, ultra-conventional Richmond girl?15. Did he really--as he wrote to Eveleth--have "inside information" about the Mary Rogers murder? Is the story related here about him and John Anderson at all accurate?

16. Was he engaged to Miss Royster in 1826?

17. What was the truth about Rosalie Poe's parentage?

18. In the 1846 newspaper column that inspired Poe's libel suit, Thomas Dunn English wrote of Poe that "...the 'Tombs' of New York, has probably a dim remembrance of his person..." implying that he once did a stint in prison. (English did not indicate the crime Poe allegedly committed.) Poe never addressed that specific charge, which, so far as I know, was never referred to again by anybody. Was English--for once--telling the truth, or was this just among his more outrageous libels? I find it hard to believe there was any basis to the story, (or that, if there was, English would be the only one of Poe's enemies to mention it.) However, if there was anything to English's strange statement, could that help explain the "blank period" in Poe's history when he lived in New York from 1837-38?

19. Of all his many, many reputed romantic interests, was he genuinely emotionally attached to any of these women, other than his wife? Did he even know all of them?20. Did he, as Dr. Moran once claimed, repeatedly cry out, "Reynolds!" soon before his death? If so, what did it mean?

21. We only have one letter of Poe's written to Virginia alone, which is dated June 1846. Unfortunately, it exists only in the form of a copy made by Marie Shew Houghton, which she sent to John H. Ingram. We have no record of the original manuscript of this letter having been seen by anyone other than Mrs. Houghton. (She claimed that she found the letter hidden inside the frame of a miniature portrait of Poe Virginia gave her. This alleged portrait--which Mrs. Houghton, in her typically addled fashion, alternately described as a painting or as a daguerreotype--has also disappeared without a trace.) Is this letter genuine?

22. What were the answers to the questions I raised here and here regarding Poe's libel suit?

23. Did he really attempt suicide in 1848?

24. Just how frequent, and how serious, were his drinking bouts?

25. I'd like to know how deep was his interest/involvement with alchemy and its related mystical arts--an interest evident in such stories as "The Fall of the House of Usher," "Ligeia," "Von Kempelen," and arguably poems such as "Ulalume" and "For Annie." I'd also have a possibly related question--what exactly were those "odd chromatic experiments" he mentioned undertaking in 1835?

26. And finally, who, in his opinion, was the more deranged forger--Rufus Griswold or his son William?

I'm sure anyone reading this has their own list of questions for Poe. Séance, anyone?

(Images: Wikipedia, Life Magazine)

Video Poe

2011-04-28T08:47:00.000-07:00

Here are several of the better tributes to Poe found on the wild, wild world of You Tube. (This is the first time I've tried to embed videos, so it will be...interesting, to say the least, to see what happens. Pray for me, good people, pray for me.)

First, there is Jeff Buckley's deservedly well-known rendition of "Ulalume." Buckley does some odd things with the rhythm of the poem, which only adds to the unsettling quality of his performance. It's very understated, too, which I like. I'm heartily tired of recitals of Poe's works where the reader feels the need to put exclamation marks! after every! phrase! believing! that heightens! the dramatic! effect!!! And by the end! they're practically! SCREAMING!!!!

I can do no more than say I think Edgar himself would approve.

Here's Virginia's Valentine poem set to music, with the title, "Ever
With Thee." The results are quite charming, although the selection of images in the video is sometimes a bit odd.

A bit of nostalgia: This is a tune I first heard when I was only two or three years old, and even then it left a great impression on me--a very young Joan Baez singing "Annabel Lee."

The Philosophy of Keywords; Or, What Hath Google Wrought?

2011-04-25T04:56:00.001-07:00

Allow me to present a few of the recent search terms that have led people to my doorstep:

sarah helen whitman is alive
sarah helen power whitman's children with edgar allan poe
ida grey furniture
was edgar allan poe vegan
hazards of harts
Heywood Summer Undine

Here's one that sums up this entire blog in only three words:

poe scholarship depressing

In all seriousness, I'd really like to know what this person is researching

rufus w griswold poe's wife poison

My personal favorite:

poe killed by family of stella anna lewis

Or maybe it's this:

Elizabeth Poe was pecked to death by crows

And people wonder why Poe drank.

edgar allan poe girl in ashland va

Ashland, a town in the Richmond metro area, has a very confused legend that an anonymous local girl, "a daughter of the Sheltons" was the inspiration for "Lenore."

Folk ballads from the World of Edgar Allan Poe blog

Pleased to oblige.
I actually own a copy of this record, and believe it or not, it's pretty good, if you've ever wondered what it would be like if Roderick Usher hosted a hootenanny

James P. Moss edgar allan poe's friend

Moss makes only one known appearance in the World of Poe, but it is a strange and possibly crucial one indeed. Poe's biographer Arthur H. Quinn provided the most detailed account of this man's story. Quinn heard of him from a friend of his named Dallas Fuguet. Fuguet, in turn, got his account from his cousin Thomas H. Lane (the same man who presided over the demise of the "Broadway Journal.") Lane's aunt was married to Moss. According to this Quinn-via-Fuguet-via-Lane-via-Moss story, Poe stopped off at Philadelphia in 1849, en route for New York. He became ill while there, and was brought to the home of Moss, who was a friend of his. Poe left the next morning, still feeling poorly but insisting that he was able to continue his journey home. Lane assumed that Poe, in his weakened and possibly confused condition, accidentally took the wrong train, which explained how he wound up in Baltimore.

This is a plausible story, to a certain extent, but unfortunately is full of enough hearsay to choke an elephant. We have no way of judging Moss' credibility--or even if he truly was a friend of Poe's. It is impossible to say how this story may have become distorted through these multiple retellings over the years. Quinn himself was obviously a bit dubious about his own anecdote, noting that it was "improbable but not impossible" that he took the wrong route. However, passengers traveling from Philadelphia to New York would first take a ferry to Camden, New Jersey, and then continue the rest of the trip by rail. Quinn noted dryly that "he must have been in very poor shape not to notice that he was taking an omnibus instead of a boat!"

The Moss story is frustrating. If true, it would at least partially fill in those "blank days" between Poe's departure from Richmond and his mysterious appearance in Baltimore. However, the utter lack of first-hand corroboration makes the tale impossible to fully trust.

Practically every day I see search terms that pursue one particular topic, all of them variations on the following:

lenore hart plagiarism
raven's bride plagiarism
raven's bride very young mrs poe
undine raven's bride

Well, if you insist. Back by popular demand, a few more comparisons--all in the interests of "fair use"--between Lenore Hart's "The Raven's Bride" and Cothburn O'Neal's "The Very Young Mrs. Poe":

Poe, Virginia, and Mrs. Clemm take rooms at Mrs. Yarrington's boardinghouse

O'Neal: "The house, near the southeastern corner of the Capitol grounds, was very much like Mrs. Poore's, set back on a wide lawn with the same Greek portico, the same half-glazed doors. Tom entered without knocking, as Eddy had done, and rang the bell."

Hart: "Mrs. Yarrington's looked so much like Mrs. Poore's...The same neat square of clipped yard and long painted portico, the same half-glazed doors, and Thomas swept in without knocking as if he lived there as well."

O'Neal: "'Mr. Poe is assistant editor of the Southern Literary Messenger,' Tom went on. 'He has been staying with us, but now that his aunt and cousin have come to live with him, Mrs. Poore doesn't have room for all three of them. We thought you might--.'" "No doubt she thought that Tom's 'we' had included Mrs. Poore as well."

Hart: "He [Tom Cleland] called down the landlady and introduced us. 'Mr. Poe is, ah, assistant editor at the Southern Literary Messenger, and--well, my mother-in-law hasn't room for, uh, the three of them. So we thought you might.'" "This was very clever, for that we made it sound as if Mrs. Poore herself had sent and thus approved of us."

When--in both books--Mrs. Yarrington tells them that she has a large front room for the ladies and an adjoining one for Mr. Poe, Eddy replies

O'Neal: "'My aunt will decide. Would you show them to her, please?'"

Hart: "'My aunt, Mrs. Clemm, will decide. Would you show the rooms to her, please?'"

Mrs. Yarrington accepts them as tenants:

O'Neal: "'I don't usually rent rooms to women. You never know what you are taking in. But, of course, a widow--I presume you are a widow--and her daughter--a lovely child, I might say--with a male member of the family to look after them. Well, that's different. And with Mr. Poe working for Mr. White on the Messenger. I have two other men on the Messenger living here. They're quiet, hard working, no trouble at all."

Hart: "'I don't usually let to females. But as you are a respectable widow...and with Mr. Poe, a male relative, here to protect the two of you...I have other lodgers who work at Mr. White's establishment. Quiet, hardworking men. No trouble at all."

In both books, Virginia muses over the strangeness of her life

O'Neal: "After they were gone Sissy sat alone before the fire. She tried to read, but she could not keep her mind on a book. Instead her thoughts traveled back over what her life had been with Eddy. It was like a long thin ribbon, sometimes twisted into knots, sometimes into pleasant little bows; or it was a narrow stream winding tortuously through straits and deep, restricted gorges which only occasionally offered a view of wider, happier places."

Hart: "So I sat by the fire waiting, drowsing in the heat, thinking about where our lives had led us. It seemed to me much like the course of the rocky Wissahickon River--sometimes a narrow, constricted stream, at others a wider, wilder torrent rushing on, carving its way tortuously through deep gorges which offered occasionally a glimpse of something finer, more pleasant--such as a country road, or a tame elk."

St. Martin's Press must be so proud. Incidentally, I have forgotten to mention that "The Raven's Bride" is also the name of Elizabeth Crook's 1991 novel about the wife of another famous 19th century figure, Sam Houston. Yes, my friends, even the title is a rerun.

(Header image via NYPL Digital Gallery.)

A Literary Anniversary

2011-04-20T05:31:00.000-07:00

As you may already know, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" was published on this date in 1841, an event that is generally heralded as the birth of modern detective fiction.

I've often wondered if Agatha Christie would even have had a career if it wasn't for this story. Poirot (note the name well) and Hastings are so obviously built upon Dupin and his narrator/sidekick that Christie should have spent at least half her royalties by building some sort of monument to Poe, by way of penance. Just the other day, I saw an episode of David Suchet's "Poirot" where the dramatic climax was a (badly-done) rip-off of "'Thou Art the Man!'" The solution to "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" was borrowed from "The Purloined Letter." I suspect that if I read more of Christie's stories--I'm not a huge fan of hers--I'd find other examples.

Ironic, isn't it, how the hero of the "Longfellow War" seems to be a veritable magnet for plagiarism?

Marginalia

2011-04-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

Our favorite Raven was, of course, born simply as "Edgar Poe," acquiring his middle name after he became the foster-child of John and Frances Allan. (Curiously, during his childhood, he was often known as "Edgar Allan.")

For some years now, a rather quixotic campaign has emerged asserting that he should only be known as "Edgar A. Poe," or "Edgar Poe." The theory seems to be that after his final estrangement from John Allan, his adopted name became so obnoxious to him that it is some sort of insult to his memory to continue to use it.

This is typical of the peculiar nature of Poe studies. While he most often signed his name using just the middle initial, (or, "E.A. Poe,") there is no evidence whatsoever that, however much he may have resented, or even hated, his foster-father, he found the name itself in any way repugnant. If he had, surely he would have simply dropped the "A" altogether. (Just to use one example, Mrs. Osgood nearly always signed her name as "Frances S. Osgood," but I have yet to see anyone suggest that this proves she had a psychological hangup about "Sargent." Ditto for Rufus W. Griswold, George R. Graham, P.P. Cooke, Thomas W. White, George W. Eveleth, etc., etc.) Poe used his full name in print at least once during his lifetime, and to the end of his days, he continued to occasionally sign his complete name--in fact, the title page he designed for his planned collection, "Phantasy Pieces," gives his name as "Edgar Allan Poe." And, of course, his wife used his full name in her acrostic Valentine to him. The envelope where she placed the poem and a lock of her hair was also addressed to "Mr. Edgar Allan Poe," which indicates that she knew he had no objection to his complete cognomen. Speaking personally, if "Allan" was good enough for Virginia, it's good enough for me.In short, if Poe returned to this earth today, I believe he would be far too disgusted by the endless piles of nonsense that have been written about him--the Poe material found in some of the stranger corners of the internet would alone be enough to give the poor man fits--to bother giving two hoots about whether people used his middle name or not. (Just for the record, Wikipedia readers: Poe never published poetry--or did anything else, for that matter--using the name "Edgar T.S. Grey." Lord have mercy.)

Although, considering his fanaticism about typographical errors, the common mistake of calling him "Edgar Allen Poe" would undoubtedly disgruntle him.

*****

Samuel S. Osgood's portrait of Poe was, for many years after the poet's death, the best-known image of him. The notoriety (fostered largely by his trashier biographers) surrounding Poe and Osgood's wife has only enhanced interest in the picture. Yet oddly, we know absolutely nothing about the painting's history--we cannot even be certain it is painted from life. This lack of information is particularly curious, as Samuel Osgood was a raconteur who enjoyed relating stories of his many travels and adventures. You would think he had something to say about one of his most famous works. It is also strange that his wife never mentioned the picture in her published "Reminiscences of Edgar A. Poe."

We do not even know who, if anyone, commissioned the picture. Osgood himself kept it until the early 1850s, when he either sold or gave it to Rufus W. Griswold (who owned a number of Osgood's other portraits.) Osgood was known to do portraits on his own initiative, sometimes with the hope of finding a buyer later on, sometimes simply out of friendship or admiration. Either may have been the case here. In any case, the picture is strong circumstantial evidence that contemporaries saw Poe and Frances Osgood's acquaintance as entirely innocent. It is hard to imagine Mr. Osgood painting, let alone keeping for any length of time, the likeness of a man who had entangled his wife in scandal. (And if, as has occasionally been theorized, Frances' esteem for Poe inspired her to commission the portrait, that would only further confirm the utter innocuousness of the relationship. Fanny Osgood was an odd woman, but it would take adjectives that go far beyond merely "odd" to describe a wife who could urge her husband to paint a portrait of her new paramour.)

It is assumed the portrait was done sometime in 1845, but that is unproven. Poe's biographer Mary E. Phillips believed he sat for Mr. Osgood in July of that year, when the painter and his wife were living in Providence, RI, but she offered no other information. About the only thing that can be said for certain about the painting comes from Samuel's niece, a Mrs. M.E. Porter, who wrote Phillips, "My uncle and aunt's married relations were exceedingly congenial, and had there existed any unpleasantness which would naturally arise from undue association of my aunt's name with that of Edgar A. Poe we should certainly have heard of same. Both my uncle and his much beloved wife were held in highest esteem by the entire Osgood family...I know well that there never would have existed a portrait of the poet from my uncle's brush had there not been a kindly feeling between them." This is one of those very rare statements in Poe's biography that has the ring of common sense.

(For what it's worth, John Sartain, who made a well-known engraving of this portrait, wrote that when he saw Poe in 1849, the poet stated that he wanted Osgood's work to go to Mrs. Clemm after his death. If there is any truth to the story, it shows that neither Poe nor his aunt felt the picture carried any uncomfortably "improper" associations.)

On the Dangers of Corresponding With Mrs. Ellet

2011-04-11T04:56:00.000-07:00

"What chance--what one event brought this evil thing to pass, bear with me while I relate."
-"William Wilson"

It is well known that a particularly lively section of Hell was stirred up early in 1846 when Poe accused Elizabeth F. Ellet of having written to him certain never-described but evidently highly discreditable letters. Unfortunately, we know virtually nothing of their acquaintance before that fateful moment when Virginia Poe--for reasons hidden from us--displayed to Ellet a letter (contents also unknown) written by Frances S. Osgood. Whatever happened during this meeting, it left Ellet with a vengeful hatred of Poe, Osgood, and--a highly pertinent fact that is universally ignored--Virginia herself.

Our lack of knowledge makes it highly difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain the truth about Ellet's prior dealings with Poe. We know he had published some of her poems in the "Broadway Journal," along with effusive words of praise about her work (praise he naturally bestowed upon all the contributors to the "Journal," whether their writings were good, bad, or indifferent.) There are hints from Charles F. Briggs, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, and Poe himself that the attractive young Mrs. Ellet had made some sort of unreciprocated amorous advances towards him. Otherwise, we are left groping in the dark--not an unusual position when studying the World of Poe.

We do not even know exactly what Ellet did to prompt Poe to make this scandalous revelation about her letters. Rufus W. Griswold's "Memoir" claimed Poe borrowed money from Ellet, and then "threatened to exhibit a correspondence" which "would make the woman infamous" if she did not drop the matter. (Griswold, in order to make Poe look as black as possible, claimed that, "of course" these letters never existed. He never bothered to explain how Poe could blackmail Ellet with letters she would have known were nonexistent.) Sarah Helen Whitman said that Poe, indignant that Ellet had instigated a demand that he return Frances S. Osgood's letters, impulsively blurted that Ellet had better look out for her own correspondence. (It must be noted that she is the only source to give anything like this version of the scandal.) Charles F. Briggs, who satirized the scandal in his novel "The Trippings of Tom Pepper," depicted Poe as actually displaying Ellet's letters to his acquaintances, as proof that she had tried to seduce him. Elizabeth Oakes Smith wrote Whitman a letter in the mid-1870s saying nothing about scandalous correspondence, but suggesting that certain ladies who had greatly admired Poe fell into a jealous feud as a result. Smith was said to have spread another story indicating that Ellet's ire was aroused when she caught Virginia Poe and Mrs. Osgood laughing together over a love letter Ellet had written Virginia's husband. Margaret Fuller, in a letter written to Elizabeth Barrett Browning soon after Poe's death, indicated that several women imagined themselves infatuated with him, but their emotions were no more than a "romantic illusion" which merely amused him. (It should be emphasized that none of these nosy little chatterboxes depicted Poe as returning the affections of these ladies, who were obviously Ellet and Osgood.)

In regard to the fate of these letters, we again are given multiple conflicting accounts. A letter Poe allegedly wrote Whitman in 1848 claimed that he returned Ellet's letters to her--whereupon she sent her brother to demand he produce these missives. Thomas Dunn English described Poe as telling him that he still had Ellet's letters in his possession, but that he refused to produce them under duress. (English, anxious to whitewash his friend Mrs. Ellet, claimed that Poe simply lied about possessing any letters from her--as if he would know.) Rufus Griswold, despite what he wrote in his Poe memoir, stated privately that he obtained these legendary documents after Poe's death--letters which he said were indeed highly indecent--and returned them to that indiscreet lady. It is anyone's guess what the truth may have been.

Ellet herself, naturally, asserted that no such letters ever existed. In fact, she claimed Poe had written her a note of apology acknowledging that he had lied about receiving letters from her. There is no record of anyone else having actually seen this alleged note, and Poe himself certainly never admitted making such a humiliating confession. Despite the absence of any confirmation for Ellet's claims, many of Poe's biographers accept them. Largely ignored, however, is the fact that two brief notes of hers to him survive, and one of them is strange enough to suggest that Poe's accusations against her were all too true.

The notes--which came into the hands of Griswold after Poe's death--were written in mid-December of 1845. The first one (which is signed simply, "E,") is largely businesslike, even curt, dealing with some article about a certain college that was to be published in the "Broadway Journal." Then, on the second page, she writes in German that she had a letter for him, and that he should send for it or pick it up himself after seven o'clock that evening. Under that--still in German--is a quotation from Schiller which translates as:

"O, what a rent you have made in my heart
The senses are still in your bonds
Though the bleeding soul has freed itself."

The second note, evidently written a day or two later, is unaddressed and unsigned, and says only: "Do not use in any way the memorandum about the So. Ca. College. Excuse the repeated injunction--but as you would not decipher my German manuscript--I am fearful of some other mistake."

These notes raise some intriguing questions. The message about the letter she asked him to pick up was obviously something she wanted kept a secret between them, as she wrote it out in a foreign language. She also obviously did not trust this mysterious letter to the postal service, as she was so specific about how he should obtain it. Whether she herself was the author of that letter or not, it was clearly something she wanted kept very private. The rather startling lines from Schiller hint that she may indeed have been guilty of some impropriety. And what did Ellet mean by her complaint that Poe "would not"--as opposed to "could not"--pay heed to what she had previously written? Did that mean he had chosen to ignore her message?

Most unfortunately, we know nothing more about their correspondence. These two notes, however, possibly hint at why Mrs. Ellet was later so desperate to convince the world that this correspondence never existed.

A footnote: It is universally assumed that Mrs. Ellet spent the rest of her life (which came to an end in 1877) spreading vicious reports about Poe. However, aside from Ellet's assertion that Poe admitted he had lied about her letters, I know of only one other extant first-hand comment from her about the poet. It is a letter she wrote George W. Eveleth in 1856, in response to what was evidently his request that she give her opinion about her old antagonist. (Eveleth was in the habit of writing interrogatory letters about Poe to complete strangers--and oddly enough, they generally answered him.)

Ellet disclaimed any real personal knowledge about Poe, saying only that "I always understood that Mr. E.A. Poe, though a man of genius, was intemperate, and subject to attacks of lunacy. He was frequently in the asylum..."

There is a little epilogue to their acquaintance which is even more curious. In the 1850s and '60s, Mrs. Ellet frequently raised money for various charities by giving public readings of poems and other dramatic works. She often closed these performances with a well-regarded recitation of..."The Bells."

Make of that what you will.

(Image: NYPL Digital Gallery)

The Name of Annabel Lee (Part Two)

2011-04-04T04:56:00.000-07:00

4. Frances Sargent Locke Osgood

In Osgood's case, it has not been suggested that she herself was the inspiration for "Annabel Lee," but that one of her poems was. In 1983, in the journal "Studies in the American Renaissance," Buford Jones and Kent Ljungquist published a strange little article, "Poe, Mrs. Osgood, and 'Annabel Lee,'" where they made the argument that Osgood's "The Life-Voyage" was a source for Poe's work.

This remarkably silly thesis was quickly demolished in a rebuttal by John E. Reilly ("Mrs. Osgood's 'The Life-Voyage' and 'Annabel Lee,'" "Poe Studies," June 1984.) Despite this, it still has a few adherents among Osgood's modern-day champions, who fondly cherish a revisionist fantasy of her as an unappreciated feminist genius. However, all one has to do is read "The Life-Voyage"--something, incidentally, I do not really recommend doing, as it is a lengthy and quite tedious experience--to realize that it is as unlike "Annabel Lee" as anything calling itself a poem could possibly get.

5. Sarah Anna ("Stella") Lewis

After Poe's death, Mrs. Lewis was reputed to have said that she was the poem's inspiration, with one version of the rumor claiming that she had heard this directly from Mrs. Clemm. It is not clear whether we have anything first-hand from Mrs. Lewis herself about the matter, but in any case, the idea of a connection between "Stella" and "Annabel Lee" is something not even Poe scholars have been able to take seriously. It is highly questionable that even Mrs. Lewis did.

6. Nancy Locke Heywood ("Annie") Richmond

The similarity of Mrs. Richmond's adopted first name to that of Poe's heroine has led some of the more fanciful biographers to speculate on a possible connection. However, "Annie" herself found no personal significance in the poem. In fact, she wrote John H. Ingram that Mrs. Clemm always maintained that "Annabel Lee," a poem which Mrs. Richmond claimed not to "understand," was written for Virginia. She added rather puzzlingly, "I think myself, that it has very little significance, if it was intended for anyone else, but his bride."7. Nobody

Chief spokesperson for this theory was Susan Archer Talley Weiss, who claimed that during the summer of 1849, Poe made a point of telling her that "Annabel Lee" (which was, of course, unpublished at the time,) had no connection to his late wife, or any other woman.

8. Everybody

Kenneth Silverman opted to cover all the bases by suggesting the poem "represents all of the women he loved and lost."

9. Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe

A couple of the nuttier disciples of Freud have made hazy speculations that Poe had his long-lost mother in mind when he wrote the poem. Which brings us into pop-psychological waters I refuse to even wade into.

10. Maria Scott

That ever-industrious fabulist Susan Weiss at times blithely ignored the story she gave in #7 above, instead stating that "Annabel Lee" was this Miss Scott, an early love of Poe's who entered a convent and died young. (Weiss also wrote that at the age of ten, Poe wrote "To Helen" for this same girl.) Needless to say, there is no other evidence whatsoever that "Maria Scott" ever existed.

11. Mary J. Leland

I discussed this particular historical atrocity here.

12. Annabel Lee Ravenel

This is among the plethora of Poe legends that has absolutely no basis in reality, but refuses to die a decent death. In Charleston, South Carolina, there is a local legend (started, I suspect, by tour guides who had a few too many,) that when Poe was stationed there during his army career, he had the obligatory ill-fated love affair with a local belle, which, years after her untimely death, inspired his famous verses. Although the Ravenels were a genuine Charleston-area family, there is no evidence Poe knew any of them, and, as with the case of Mrs. Weiss' Maria Scott, there is no reason at all to believe anyone named "Annabel Lee Ravenel" ever so much as walked the face of the earth. But why let a little detail like that keep a good story down?

13. Jane Stith Stanard

Mrs. Stanard reputedly acted as friend and mentor to Poe during his boyhood, and her tragic descent into insanity and death when he was fifteen was believed to have been a serious blow to him. She was supposedly the inspiration for his first "To Helen" poem--which would be curious, as the lines are so obviously describing Helen of Troy, and have no discernable connection to the ill-fated Richmond matron. One or two literary critics have suggested that Mrs. Stanard was also the model for "Annabel Lee," (and, like most of the other women on this list, "Lenore,") but any possible link is far too tenuous for serious consideration.

So, there you have it; a veritable Army of Annabels. I am not aware of any stories arguing that the poem was inspired by Maria Clemm, Elizabeth Ellet, his landlady at 85 Amity Street, or Catterina, but if there are such claims, please do not tell me about them.

The Name of Annabel Lee (Part One of Two)

2011-03-28T04:56:00.000-07:00

"It was many and many a year ago
In a kingdom by the sea
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee..."

The debate over which woman--or women--inspired what is arguably Poe's most beautiful poem has raged with remarkable vigor practically from the moment "Annabel Lee" first appeared in print, only days after the author's death.

It is a tribute to the unique emotional resonance of the poem that such a controversy even exists, considering that it is so overtly allegorical, rather than autobiographical, and there is certainly no valid evidence that Poe himself gave clues about any personal significance it may have had for him. (Poe was never one to offer explanations for any of his writings--in fact, he seemed to rather enjoy mystifying his readers with an air of, "It's none of my concern if you're too dull-witted to know what I mean.") However, this has not stopped Poe fans from linking his fable of the "kingdom by the sea" with virtually every woman he ever knew--something that, I suspect, would have both amused and disgusted him.

The leading actresses who have auditioned for the role of "Annabel Lee" are, roughly in order of popularity:

1. Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe

Poe's wife, is, by far, the woman most identified with the poem, and, while one Poe scholar perhaps became overly partisan when he said it was "sacrilege" to associate any other name with "Annabel Lee," she is the only logical choice if one wishes to read the lines as having any basis in fact.

The first to publicly state that the poem was a tribute to Virginia was Frances S. Osgood, in the "Reminiscences of Edgar A. Poe" she published in "Saroni's Musical Times" in December 1849. (Rufus W. Griswold later reprinted her account in his "Poe memoir.") Osgood's stated aim was to counter a current rumor that the poem was written in memory of a "late love affair" of the poet's. (It is not known if she was referring to Sarah Helen Whitman, Sarah Elmira Shelton, Sarah Anna Lewis, or some other lady--who hopefully was not named "Sarah.") Osgood commented disdainfully that "There seems a strange and almost profane disregard of the sacred purity and spiritual tenderness of this delicious ballad, in thus overlooking the allusion to the kindred angels and the heavenly Father of the lost and loved and unforgotten wife."

Whatever Osgood's motives may have been in making this assertion--whether it was out of spite against one of these other women, a desire to show intimate knowledge of the love between Poe and his wife, or simply a wish to give Virginia her due--she may have, for once, told the truth. Aside from the probability that Virginia was, as Mrs. Osgood conceded, his one genuine love, of all the women Poe knew, she was the only one who had "no other thought than to love and be loved by me," she alone was his "bride," and, of course, unlike the other leading candidates, she was dead when he wrote the poem. (The "wind" that "came out of the cloud, chilling/And killing my Annabel Lee" could be interpreted as a reference to Virginia's tuberculosis.) "Annabel Lee" is very possibly simply a lovely piece of imagery with no specific personal implications, but if Poe did intend it as autobiography, applying it to anyone other than his late wife is pure absurdity.

Not that this has stopped many people from trying.2. Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton

Mrs. Shelton is the only other "Annabel" whose candidacy has developed any sort of following, in spite of the fact that her sole claim to the role rests upon a 1901 article by Edward Alfriend, "Unpublished Recollections of Edgar Allan Poe." Alfriend, who claimed to have been a friend of Shelton's (even though he gave her first name as "Elizabeth,") stated that she told him that Poe had assured her that she was his inspiration for the poem (and that she was the "lost Lenore," to boot!) Alfriend's piece is among the most easily-ridiculed Poe articles--it is packed from beginning to end with statements that are both easily disproved and manifestly ludicrous. It is impossible to read his "recollections" without coming to the conclusion that he didn't know the first thing about either Poe or Mrs. Shelton.

There is absolutely no other valid reason to link La Royster to "Annabel Lee," (and it should be noted that in the interview Mrs. Shelton allegedly gave Edward V. Valentine in 1875, she stated that Poe never addressed any poems to her.) Nevertheless, she still has her champions, most notably Thomas O. Mabbott.

Mabbott, as was often his habit in many other matters, gave varied and uncertain opinions about the poem's origins, but he was fondest of naming Mrs. Shelton as the poem's inspiration--largely, it seems, because of his strange antipathy towards Virginia Poe. For whatever reason, he swallowed whole all of Susan Archer Talley Weiss' unfounded slurs against Virginia and her marriage, making it impossible for him to accept the possibility that Poe had loved his wife enough to immortalize her memory in verse. (Mabbott was also under the impression that Poe wrote the poem during the brief period of his 1849 reacquaintance with Mrs. Shelton. He seemed oblivious to the fact that "Annabel Lee" was completed by the early spring of that year--months before Poe reconnected with his old neighbor.)

Here I must pause for an admittedly off-topic rant: What made all of Mabbott's pronouncements regarding Virginia all the more exasperating is the fact that--like other Poe biographers, most notably Hervey Allen, George Woodberry, and Frances Winwar--he seldom directly named Weiss as his source. He would instead write statements along the lines of, "Rosalie Poe's foster-brother John Mackenzie said..." or "Rosalie said..." or simply relate anecdotes without giving any source at all. (He often did this trickery with other sources as well.)

This was completely misleading Mabbott's readers. What he quoted was, rather, what Mrs. Weiss--a chronicler who made King Rufus himself seem a model of probity--alleged these people said to her. (Susan Weiss is also, lest we forget, the same person who asserted that Elmira Shelton instigated Poe's murder.) The fact is, we have no statements about Poe that come directly from any of the Mackenzies--I suspect they had only a formal social acquaintance with him--and nothing of any interest or importance from Rosalie, who made it clear to John H. Ingram that she had virtually no personal knowledge about her famous brother--she did not even know she had siblings until she was "a good size girl." In short, Mabbott, Allen, Winwar, Woodberry, et al, relied on uncorroborated and easily discredited hearsay. Mabbott's boast that, unlike others who wrote about Virginia, he was relying on the words of people who were close to Poe, while dismissing first-hand testimony from those who actually did know both the Poes, all of whom lauded Virginia and testified to the couple's devotion to each other, witnesses such as Maria Clemm, Lambert A. Wilmer, George Lippard, Mayne Reid, George R. Graham, Thomas C. Clarke and his daughter Anne, Mary Brennan, William Gowans--even Rufus W. Griswold and Frances S. Osgood, for crying out loud--makes one wonder if Mabbott wasn't permanently possessed by the Imp of the Perverse.

Mabbott's copious and incredibly influential writings (the question of how he obtained this influence is a mystery I will likely never solve) were usually not even bad scholarship--they were bad historical fiction.

3. Sarah Helen Power Whitman

What makes Mrs. Whitman stand out among the parade of Annabel wannabes is that she herself was the sole promoter for her connection to the poem. Sometime after Poe's death, she conceived the notion that "Annabel Lee" was written to her as a "peace offering." She insisted the poem disproved the common belief that Poe went to his grave harboring negative feelings towards her. (Although, in a letter to Rufus W. Griswold written two months after Poe's death, Mrs. Whitman evinced no personal knowledge about the origins of "Annabel Lee"--in fact, she even asked Griswold if he had any idea who had inspired the poem. He offered no opinion on the subject.) To the end of her life, Mrs. Whitman tried, with increasing desperation, to convince the world of her link to "Annabel Lee," and how it proved she had a special place in Poe's heart--despite the fact that she must have been aware that few people, if any, believed her. Of all the parade of possible Annabels, Mrs. Whitman's exercise in self-delusion is undoubtedly the saddest and most pitiful of the lot.
Next post: The Annabel Also-Rans.

History Is Not the Only Thing That Repeats Itself

2011-03-22T04:56:00.000-07:00

"Is this plagiarism or is it not?--I merely ask for information."
-Edgar Allan Poe, "Marginalia"

Sorry for the lack of activity this week. My computer had some sort of wardrobe malfunction that stripped off what I had planned to post yesterday, and "real life" events are delaying me from rewriting it all. While I put Humpty Dumpty back together again, I couldn't resist presenting you, just for fun, with a brief encore from my last post. Here are a few more "Raven's Bride"/"Very Young Mrs. Poe" comparisons:

The scene: The newly-married Edgar and Virginia are on the train to Petersburg...

O'Neal: "As the train pulled out of the depot and onto the bridge across the James River, Eddy pointed out Gamble's Hill rising to the right above the State Armory and the ironworks situated on the banks of the canal. He shouted the names into her ear. But when the train stopped for a few minutes outside Manchester, just across the river, they were both mute again."

Hart: "As we chugged away from the confines of Richmond, Eddy leaned over and shouted the names of landmarks into my ear: 'Gamble's Hill. The State Armory, there. Oh--and the Tredegar Iron Works.' By the time we stopped briefly at Manchester, on the opposite side of the James River, he'd fallen silent again, either out of names or out of breath."

O'Neal: "Sissy was sure that she could smell the blossoms in spite of the wood smoke which funneled out of the locomotive stack and sometimes swirled around the ladies' coach, stinging her eyes and bringing on fits of coughing. Whenever anything seemed to mar her comfort Eddy's eyes would become filled with anxiety, but she would smile, and, if the ladies were not looking, reach for his hand and give it a reassuring squeeze."

Hart: "Sometimes smoke swirled around inside the car like an evil genie, stinging our eyes and making us cough. Whenever that happened Eddy bent to me with concern, until I smiled and shook my head to let him know I was fine." "During the rare moments the ladies weren't looking our way, I'd slide a hand along the seat behind the swell of my skirts, capture Eddy's fingers, and give a quick squeeze."

The newlyweds arrive in Petersburg for their honeymoon, where they are greeted by their hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Hiram Haines:

O'Neal: "'Welcome to Petersburg,' Mr. Haines said jovially."
Hart: "'Welcome to Petersburg, Mrs. Poe,' he [Haines] boomed."

O'Neal: "'Did the trip tire you, Mrs. Poe?' Mrs. Haines asked as her husband clucked the horses into motion. 'No. I enjoyed it very much.' 'Of course. Imagine my asking a bride if a train trip tired her on her wedding day. They didn't have trains when I was married. We rode all day in a stagecoach. But I don't think I was tired either.'"

Hart: "Hiram Haines asked whether the trip had tired me out. 'No, not a bit,' I assured him." "Mrs. Haines laughed. 'Pshaw. She can't possibly be tired, Mr. Haines. Remember back when we wed? There were no trains then so we rode all day long on a stagecoach to our honeymoon cottage. And yet I was not fatigued, not one little bit!"

Enough. I'm starting to feel like Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day." See you next week, when, I swear it, things will get back to what passes for normal around here. In the meantime, let me leave everyone with a question that has been nagging at me ever since I did this little experiment of reading both these novels simultaneously. I have yet to find a solution to the mystery; perhaps one of you will have better luck. What I would like answered is this:

What in hell was Lenore Hart thinking??!!

My Little Longfellow War

2011-03-15T13:52:00.000-07:00

"Is it altogether impossible that a critic be instigated to the exposure of a plagiarism, or still better, of plagiarism generally wherever he meets it, by a strictly honorable and even charitable motive?"
-Edgar Allan Poe, "Mr. Longfellow and Other Plagiarists"

Yes, one more "Raven's Bride" post. Not to fear, I'll be getting back to regularly scheduled programming next week or so. But my observations that many parts of this novel are a virtual cut-and-paste job from "The Very Young Mrs. Poe" have caused a certain amount of, shall we say, unrest in some quarters. Much to my amusement, I've even acquired my very own Outis--although he is hardly of the same caliber as his distinguished predecessor. As a result, I wanted to post a short "reader's guide" listing a sampling of the too-close-to-be-coincidental resemblances between the two novels. I won't list all the exact resemblances I've found--I'm sure they'd be as tedious for you to read as they were for me to compile--but enough for my point to be made.There are entire episodes these two books have in common, which are too lengthy to quote verbatim. Mind you--and this is a point I cannot emphasize enough--I am not speaking of episodes that both writers merely repeated from historical sources. It is, of course, a given that biographical novels about the same person will repeat many of the same incidents of that person's life. I am saying that Lenore Hart's novel repeats events that Cothburn O'Neal invented out of whole cloth. In other words, she used another work of fiction as her main source. For instance, history tells us that when Poe returned to Richmond in the summer of 1835, he stayed at a boardinghouse run by a Mrs. Poore. In October of that year, when he brought Mrs. Clemm and Virginia to live with him in that city, the two women lodged with a Mrs. Yarrington. It is not clear if Poe lived in the same boardinghouse with them, or returned to Mrs. Poore's. That is all we know.

O'Neal expanded upon these few details, creating a scene where the trio arrive at Mrs. Poore's, hoping to find rooms. She refuses to let them in the house. Poe is utterly puzzled by her attitude, but the implication is that her hostility is due to Poe's drunkenness while he lived there. Thomas Cleland then helpfully leads them to Mrs. Yarrington's, where they all take lodgings. These imaginary details--including their initial walk through Richmond to Mrs. Poore's and the description of the room Virginia and her mother are given at the Yarrington house--are all repeated in Hart's book."The Raven's Bride" is even peppered with lines of dialogue and descriptive passages that were copied only from "The Very Young Mrs. Poe." (The main difference is that, while both novels are told from Virginia's viewpoint, "The Raven's Bride" is directly narrated by her.) Some examples from the opening chapters of each book:

In both novels, when Virginia first meets "Eddy" she is a small girl who arrives home after playing with two French neighbor girls.

O'Neal: "...making puppet motions with her hands and repeating the words to a gamesong they had been playing..."

Hart: "...making the sweeping hand motions that went along with our last shared song..."

She comes in to be introduced to her cousin:

O'Neal: "A stranger was sitting...before the empty fireplace, talking to Granny Poe, who was propped up on her couch as usual."

Hart: "Granny Poe was propped up on her settee by the fire, a sight which I'd expected."

In both novels Sissy feels "shy" as she approaches him.

In both novels "Eddy" remarks to her how much he likes her black curls and black eyes.

Later in both books, "Sissy" and "Muddy" are shown on the Light Street Wharf in Baltimore, ready to travel to Richmond. Muddy remarks to her daughter:

O'Neal: "I hope Eddy gets a letter...I'd feel better...if he had had some word from Mr. White."

Hart: "I do wish Eddy had received another letter from Mr. White."

Same scene:

O'Neal: "Sissy felt like hugging her mother. But it was such a public place, so many people around...That would look childish." (She wanted to live up to the chic traveling dress Maria had made for her.)

Hart: "For a moment I wanted to cling to my mother...But people were thronging all around us. Such behavior would look so childish..." (Even the dark traveling dress Muddy had cut down and restitched would not be sufficient to mark her as a grown woman.)

O'Neal: "She [Virginia] turned to look out across the basin toward Federal Hall."

Hart: "I turned away to look out across the basin toward Federal Hall."

O'Neal: "The docks...looked like a forest bare of leaves, the tall masts and spiky yards of...clippers standing naked...resting between trips to Brazil."

Hart: "Clipper ships...[with]...tall naked masts and spiky yards were bare of sails, their snarl of lines a thick forest without leaves...resting between dashes to Brazil and New York and Cuba."

O'Neal: "...his [Eddy's] plain black suit amid the colorful clothes...was all to his advantage. His fine head and scholarly demeanor set him apart."

Hart: "Eddy's black sack coat, black trousers...his broad pale forehead...set him apart to advantage."

O'Neal: "...there was no one on the pier to see them off, since they had already said good-bye to the family. Sissy waved anyway...she could wave farewell to Baltimore."

Hart: "There was no one to say good-bye and see us off...we'd already written or called on the few family and friends left in Baltimore....I waved from my spot at the rail...'She's waving good-bye to Baltimore,' he said..."

O'Neal: "The boat from Norfolk to Richmond was smaller and slower than the one they had boarded in Baltimore. The trip up the James River was more leisurely, too..."

Hart: "The boat we boarded in Norfolk to continue on to Richmond was smaller and a good deal slower than the Baltimore Line steamer. Our trip up the James was more leisurely too."

O'Neal: "Beyond ...the confluence of the Appomattox, the James grew narrower and wound in great loops around Bermuda Hundred."

Hart: "Beyond the confluence of the Appomattox, the James grew narrower and wound in great loops around Bermuda Hundred."

On their arrival in Richmond, Eddy describes Mrs. Poore's boardinghouse.

O'Neal: "She has a large house. There's always room."

Hart: "It's a large house. There's always space."

O'Neal: "The docks were busy, and the wagonette was held up now and then by dray wagons loaded with hogsheads of tobacco and sacks of flour and cornmeal. Sometimes an empty collier's wagon rumbled toward the coal yards...farther upstream."

Hart: "...the docks were very busy. We would lurch forward, only to stop for a dray loaded with sacks of flour and cornmeal, or an empty collier's wagon rumbling...toward the coal yards upstream."

The trio arrives at Mrs. Poore's (and, keep in mind that there is no detailed historical description of the house):

O'Neal: "'This is Capitol Square,' he said. 'Mrs. Poore's house is the next one here on Bank Street.'" "They turned into the yard of a large two-story brick house with a Greek portico fronting in the square. The half-paned front door revealed a well lighted hallway inside. Eddy climbed the steps and opened the door without knocking, just as though he still lived there."

Hart: "'Capitol Square,' he said. 'Mrs. Poore's is the next house on Bank Street.'" "We turned into the yard of a two-story brick structure with a whitewashed Greek portico facing the neatly-planted square. Within lay a wide, well-lighted hall. Eddy opened the door without even ringing a bell or knocking." "'Well, he used to live here,' I whispered."

In both books, the little family gets a negative reception (again, a scene that does not exist in the historical record):

O'Neal: "There was a wait, then the sound of a door opening upstairs. 'What was that, Tom?' a voice shrilled. 'I say Mr. Poe is back--' 'That's what I thought you said,' the voice interrupted. 'Well, you can tell him I don't have a vacancy and I'm not likely to have one.' The door slammed shut....'She doesn't have a vacancy,' he [Cleland] said with a grin. Eddy looked helplessly from Tom to Maria to Sissy and back to Tom. 'What are we to do?' he asked, of anybody."

Hart: "A door creaked shrilly on protesting hinges upstairs, and an equally high voice called down, 'What was that, Tom?'...'I said Edgar Poe is back, and he--' 'That's what I thought you said," the woman shouted. 'Well, you can tell him for me, I do not have lodgings for him, and am not likely to have any now or later!' The hinges squealed derisively as the door slammed again...Cleland turned back, avoiding our eyes. 'Ah, well, It seems my mother-in-law has no vacancy here just now.' Eddy stared at him helplessly. 'But I--then what are we to do?'"

In both books is the same completely imaginary scene where, after Virginia has some very unsettling "lessons" with the mentally disturbed Rosalie Poe--something that never happened in reality--she upsets "Eddy" by saying she can't help but love Rosalie, as he is so much like her. He runs off hysterically, crying out (in both books) "We are nothing alike." Later that night, he returns to their boardinghouse, and visits the room Virginia and her mother share.

O'Neal: "'I wanted to say good night,' he [Eddy] said...He pecked her [Mrs. Clemm] on the cheek. Then he kissed Sissy on the lips. There was no liquor on his breath. Perhaps that was what he wanted known. He made no explanations. No one asked him where he had been or what he had been doing. He looked tired, haggard...'It is good to come home to a room that has love and beauty in it,' he said."

Hart: "I wanted to say good night,' Eddy muttered from the foot of the bed...He came around and kissed my mother's cheek, then moved to my side and pressed his mouth to mine...He did not explain, and I did not ask where he'd been...he looked gaunt and hollow and tired. 'It's good to come home to such love and beauty,' he whispered...There'd been no taint of liquor on his breath. Perhaps that was why he'd kissed me full on the mouth, in front of my mother. So I would know that."

After Eddy and Virginia are married, they take a train to Petersburg for their honeymoon. In both novels, the conductor, recognizing them as newlyweds, escorts them to the ladies' coach so they may sit together.

O'Neal: "He [the conductor] asked permission of the half-dozen lady passengers to bring them aboard. 'If you ladies don't object,' he said, 'I will close my eyes to company rules and allow the groom to sit in the ladies' coach with his lovely bride.'...She [Sissy] felt that she passed inspection...It was difficult to determine the age of a young lady, especially if she were reasonably well filled out and modestly veiled. 'I must ask you not to smoke, Mr. Poe,' the conductor warned in parting. 'Smoking is restricted to the gentleman's car on the rear.' 'Thank you,' Eddy said. 'I seldom smoke.'"

Hart: "'Going to flout company rules, folks, and seat you all in the second coach.' He [the conductor] grinned at Eddy. 'Already cleared it with the ladies aboard.' When we climbed up no one looked askance or asked how old I was. Of course, if a female is veiled and reasonably well filled out, it's hard to tell her exact age anyhow. The conductor left after admonishing the groom, 'Smoking is restricted to the gentleman's car at the rear, sir.'...'Thank you for the information,' he said. 'In any case, I seldom smoke.'"

Both novels have a scene where William Burton comes to their house for dinner. (There is no historical record of this happening, and it is highly unlikely, as the two detested each other.) In both scenes, Burton offers to hire Virginia for his theatre, has an identical discussion with her about comedy being "a very serious business," (an observation of Virginia's which in both scenes has Burton holding a piece of cake halfway to his mouth in surprise,) and where Burton seeks to hire Poe for his new magazine.

In both novels, the scene with Burton is immediately followed by one where the Poes go boating on the Wissahickon. (O'Neal drew the scene from Poe's essay, "Morning On the Wissahickon," but added Virginia to the outing.) Again, we have no proof this ever actually took place. In both novels, Poe comes up with a skiff that someone had left on the bank. When Virginia objects to him appropriating it, he answers that the owner can steal their horse in exchange. They have a picnic where, afterwards, Eddy rests with his head in Virginia's lap. In both scenes, there is reference to their hopes of living someday in a cottage overlooking the river.

In both books is a scene where Eddy gets drunk on his way back from Henry Hirst's office. He stays away overnight, although there is hot soup waiting for him. Virginia spends the night in her mother's room, suffering terrible nightmares about what might have befallen him. The next day, as Mrs. Clemm goes out to look for him, Virginia anxiously prepares dinner for three--hot biscuits and sweet potatoes. Mrs. Clemm finally brings back the intoxicated Eddy. He has with him a caged talking bird (in O'Neal's book, it is a parrot; in Hart's, a black bird.)

In both books is a scene where Virginia forces her doctor (in O'Neal's book, Dr. Mitchell; in Hart's, Dr. English) to tell her how much time she has left. These two scenes--of which we have no historical record--are virtually similar.

In both novels, Virginia develops pneumonia. (Again, there is no factual evidence for this.) In both cases, Rosalie comes to help attend her. The combination of Virginia's illness and his sister's presence causes Eddy to go on a bender. Their landlady brings her some broth, commenting on how thin Virginia looks.

Both novels have Eddy getting into a quarrel with a "young lieutenant" at his gymnasium after Eddy outpoints him in a pistol-shooting contest. In both cases, the lieutenant tells Eddy that poets have no intelligence or common sense, and can't be trusted with firearms. In both novels, Virginia is suffering from a touch of pleurisy at the time. The Poes are both feeling ill, and are confined to bed, much to their mutual boredom, although Virginia suspects Eddy is just "sulking." Virginia recovers, although Muddy won't let her out of bed until she is free of pain and fever for two days. While the two invalids are recuperating, Eddy quickly solves a magazine's word puzzle, which gives him the idea of offering a public challenge for people to send him cryptograms to solve. The thought inspires him to rise from his sickbed, get dressed, and go out the door, fully recovered. To repeat: This fictitious scenario O'Neal invented appears in both books.

In both novels, after Virginia has her first hemorrhage, doctors order her to bed for many months. This evidently did not happen in reality. (Also, in both novels her initial physician is none other than a kindly Thomas Dunn English. Although English had a physician's license, he does not seem to have ever actually practiced as a doctor--and we certainly have no reason to believe Virginia was ever his patient.)

In both novels, there is the same scene when they are living at the Brennan Farm. Eddy is going into town, so Virginia--who is trying to convince him that she is well--takes advantage of his absence to take some laudanum and rest. Because of the heavy snowfall, he returns unexpectedly, and is aghast to find her in bed. In both scenes, he picks up the laudanum bottle and asks her, "How long have you been taking this?" In O'Neal's book, his question is described as "not an accusation; it was a petition, a supplication, a plea for a reprieve from doom." In Hart's, it is "less a medical inquiry than a child's plea: Tell me a story. Make me believe all is well, and will end happily ever after." In both cases, the scene ends with Poe brooding on birds and coming up with the genesis for "The Raven."

All the above does not fully detail all the fictional resemblances to be found in these two books. Not even close. I think, however, I have given enough examples. I find it impossible to believe that, after reading all this, any disinterested observer could fail to see that there are major-league shenanigans afoot. I truly have never come across anything like this.

The Hazards of Poe Fiction: "The Raven's Bride" Revisited

2011-03-14T04:56:00.000-07:00

I have noticed that over the past two weeks or so, this blog have gotten a number of hits where people appear to be looking for information related to Lenore Hart's recent Virginia Poe novel. Elsewhere online, it has struck me that readers who are unfamiliar with Poe take this work of fiction as some sort of "guidebook" to his real life--which is hardly the case. The novel is well-written and often intriguing, and I always appreciate Poe's wife getting some of the spotlight. However, certain things about "Bride" were simply utterly misguided, and I hate the thought that unwary readers will assume they were based on solid historical research. This seems to be a common trap for fans of historical fiction, and if it seems odd that I'm spending so much time discussing a mere novel, it's because I have come to believe that works of fiction have a greater influence than any biography in shaping general public perceptions of a historical figure. Just look at Shakespeare and Richard III.

Leaving aside the "Raven's Bride"/"Very Young Mrs. Poe" connection (and, again, I hope fans of Hart's novel will read Cothburn O'Neal's book and come to their own conclusions about that matter,) these are a few of the myths I fear this novel will popularize:

1. I assume in the interests of heightened drama, Hart way oversold the "Poe lived in poverty" angle. Yes, the Poes were never rolling in wealth. (Something that, I am convinced, was never important to them anyway.) Yes, there were several periods when they faced serious financial problems, most notably in the months before and after Virginia's death. However, Hart gives the impression that the Poe trio lived in practically unrelieved depressing and degrading squalor. Their lodgings are consistently described as "dingy," their clothes as humiliatingly "shabby," their tableware cracked and chipped. If you take Hart's word for it, Poe made Oliver Twist look like Louis XIV. And Virginia is depicted as privately gnashing her teeth in misery at the deplorable existence her feckless husband has imposed upon her.

This is, to say the least, exaggerated. Despite their lack of funds, contemporaries agree that Poe and his wife always dressed quietly, but with taste and even a modicum of style. Their clothing was always perfectly respectable. Similarly, their various living quarters were invariably described as simple, but comfortable, immaculate, and even charming. We know that, right into 1846, Virginia even owned unnecessary little luxuries such as stationery--which must have been custom-made--embossed with her initials (she owned another set with a flowered pattern,) and an elegant cut-glass perfume bottle. An acquaintance later described Virginia as having been "brought up in the South in perfect indolence and perfectly unfitted for toil. Her hands have never been soiled with work." Such details hardly indicate a hardscrabble existence. The Poe household may have been monetarily poor, but they surrounded themselves with what Poe's biographer Arthur H. Quinn described as "the neatness and self-respecting atmosphere, for which all three of the family were responsible." Their final New York City residence was located in what was then the most fashionable part of town. It should be noted that, even with the ill health she endured the last five years of her life, Virginia's friends all described her as a very cheerful, vivacious, happy personality who appeared utterly content with her lot. It is a disservice to both Virginia and Edgar that Hart failed to acknowledge that aspect of their story. There is no indication anywhere that Virginia ever regretted her life, or blamed her husband in any way for whatever problems they faced. Not one.

2. Poe's drinking was also overemphasized. It would be futile to deny that he had a problem with alcohol, but he was hardly the chronic "dipsomaniac" (Hart's words) portrayed in the novel. However, "Poe the drunk" has become such a beloved legendary figure--rather like Santa Claus--that it scarcely seems worthwhile pointing this out.

3. Hart completely misrepresents Poe's view of the afterlife. She depicts him as basically an atheist, convinced that there is nothing after we die, and that everyone we love is lost to us forever. If she had ever bothered to read "Eureka," or "The Island of the Fay," or "The Poetic Principle"--practically anything he ever wrote, for all that--she would have realized her grave error. (For anyone interested in Poe's religious views, Edward Wagenknecht's "Edgar Allan Poe: The Man Behind the Legend" closes with a fine chapter on the subject.)

4. Hart made a complete muddle of the Poe/Ellet/Osgood scandal. Most books about Poe inevitably do, as the subject is so murky and confounding, but I get the feeling she didn't even try to understand what happened. (And, of course, she also included that stale canard about Mrs. Osgood supposedly being estranged from her husband.) Hart simply combined two different, contradictory pieces of completely unverified gossip, and wound up with an illogical mess that doesn't even fit the few facts we have on the subject. For anyone who's interested, I've chronicled the whole complicated unpleasantness involving Poe and those two women here, here and here. (Incidentally, Hart's sloppy research is typified by her description of the very married Elizabeth Ellet as "Miss." And I am confounded by Hart's decision to have all the other characters call her "Lizzie." Mrs. Ellet was called a great many things by her contemporaries--few of which are repeatable here--but I can guarantee "Lizzie" was not among them. And I feel equally confident in asserting that Mrs. Osgood was never on a first-name basis with Poe or Virginia.)

I also found it interesting that Hart couldn't even make up her mind what Poe's relationship to Frances S. Osgood may have been. At one point, he mocks her personally and is unenthusiastic about her poetry. Then, he suddenly winds up in a public "flirtation" with her, and Hart describes him as appearing "disappointed" when Virginia tells him Osgood wants to be friends with both of them--the implication being that he had hoped for something more with the lady. This, of course, makes a startling and inexplicable contrast to Virginia's calm certainty that her husband "loved only me. I had his undying devotion, and all his true attention, in life and on the page..." Then, towards the end of the novel, Virginia classifies Osgood as just another of the literary women whom Poe "wooed" simply in the hopes of getting "favors" or "patronage" from them. (A rather ugly and unfounded smear Hart seems to have picked up from Cothburn O'Neal. In truth, these women were doing the "wooing" to win "favors" or "patronage" from him.) Also, Virginia feels no jealousy about the poems Poe and Osgood published to each other, as she realizes that such writings were merely "a reflection of the poet's ego, not the subject's life." But then, Virginia is depicted as being aware that "Poor Frances Osgood" is in love with Poe. How does she know this? From Osgood's poetry!

Couldn't Hart have made up her mind what she wanted to write before she sat down at the keyboard?

5. Hart's lack of knowledge about Poe is revealed by her ludicrous depiction of Thomas Dunn English as a kindly fellow who acted as Virginia's physician. (This bizarre touch is among her "borrowings" from Cothburn O'Neal.) For anyone who knows the true Poe/English history, this adds a positively surreal tone to the novel.

6. A central theme of the novel is Virginia's stifled dream to be a professional singer. Although we know she played the harp and piano, and was said to have a lovely singing voice, we have no indication she ever harbored any sort of professional ambitions. Virginia was described by everyone who knew her as a strong character, but very modest, dignified, and private, which makes this supposed aching desire to perform publicly seem unlikely. And I doubt her mother and husband would have objected if she had harbored such longings. After all, Poe's mother was an actress and singer, and he was very proud of the fact. As I noted in an earlier post, he publicly asserted the intrinsic morality of the stage, and strongly championed female performers. If his wife had dreamed of following in Eliza Poe's footsteps, I suspect he and "Muddy" would have been supportive, rather than horrified. However, I did not find the idea that she had such dreams convincing. I suspect Hart devised this "would-be career woman" plotline--which comes off as jarringly anachronistic--in order to make it easier for the modern-day female reader to "relate" to Virginia. (I got the strong feeling that "The Raven's Bride" was essentially written for teenage girls.)

7. As was the case in O'Neal's book, Poe's sister Rosalie plays a much larger role than the facts warrant. Rosalie herself admitted that she knew virtually nothing about Edgar and did not even know she had siblings until she was grown. There was always little contact between the two, and what relationship they had was decidedly chilly on both sides. (Although, once Edgar was dead, Rosalie never hesitated to exploit her connection to him.)

8. If I had to pick one thing I disliked about this novel, it was the air of subterranean hostility between the three principals. If you believe Hart, Virginia and her mother secretly resented Poe because he drank and couldn't hold a job. Virginia secretly resented her mother for dominating her. (This domination extended to the point where Mrs. Clemm was able to intimidate Edgar and Virginia into not consummating their marriage for two years!) Mrs. Clemm secretly resented Virginia for fighting this domination. Poe secretly resented them both because their presence kept him from speedily drinking himself to death. (And, of course, Virginia sensed his resentment--and resented him back for it, with interest.) I would not object to seeing such emotions depicted, if it wasn't for the fact that there is nothing on record to support any of it. Even Poe's worst enemies acknowledged that his family life was unusually close, loving, happy, and mutually supportive, with no hint of the clenched-fist antagonisms Hart imagined. Mrs. Clemm expressed nothing less than the truth when she wrote, "We three lived only for each other." Why do modern-day novelists have to turn every family relationship into something out of Tennessee Williams?

9. Just for the record, history gives no indication that Virginia ever had pneumonia. Hart evidently acquired that plotline from Cothburn O'Neal's novel. Similarly, we have no evidence that "Sissy" was a general "family name" for Virginia. As far as we know, no one except her husband ever called her by that pet name. Make of that what you will. The source for Hart's belief that "Sissy" was an appellation used by all her relatives appears to be...Cothburn O'Neal. (The same goes for the idea that Maria Clemm's mother was called "Granny Poe.")

I realize this entire post has an "Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?" quality. There are some things to like about this novel, and I would not wish to dissuade anyone from reading "The Raven's Bride"--if for no other reason than that Virginia is in desperate need of reappraisals. There certainly are worse books about Poe in circulation. I just want to emphasize that this is very definitely a work of fiction. Magna est veritas et praevalebit.

Poe's Perplexing Parents: Elizabeth Arnold Poe

2011-03-07T04:56:00.000-08:00

In regards to Edgar Poe's mother, Elizabeth Arnold Poe, her mystery lies not in her death, but her life. It is a curious fact that the mother of one of literature's best-known and most-scrutinized figures is virtually an enigma to us. She was born in England, possibly in 1787. Her mother was also an actress named Elizabeth Arnold, who came with her daughter to America in 1796. We do not know the identity of her father. Edgar's biographer Mary E. Phillips discovered a 1784 London marriage record for a Henry Arnold and Elizabeth Smith, and, in her usual highly fanciful fashion, imagined she had located documentation of her subject's maternal grandparents. "Arnold" and "Elizabeth," are, however, among the most common British names imaginable, so it is impossible to know if Phillips was correct. Historians discount Edgar's own assertion that his mother was an illegitimate daughter of Benedict Arnold, although it would be interesting to know if he himself believed the story.

Elizabeth Arnold, senior, disappeared from the historical record in May of 1798, and it is presumed she died around that time. In 1802, young Elizabeth married another actor named Charles Hopkins. Her husband died in October of 1805, and five or six months later, she and David Poe Jr. entered into their brief union--a marriage she probably heartily regretted by the time she died on December 8, 1811.

Those are the only facts about Eliza Poe's life that can be stated with any certainty. She was by all accounts a performer possessing beauty and charisma, with a particular talent for comedic and musical roles, but we have little idea of what she was like off the stage. The only personal relic we have of her is a very brief, unimportant, poorly-written note thanking a Mrs. Tazewell "for her great kindness." Her posthumous reputation has always been haunted by allegations that her youngest child Rosalie was illegitimate (according to more than one source, her sister-in-law Maria Clemm asserted that Rosalie was not the child of either David or Eliza,) but we cannot know if there was a firm basis for the legend. Many years later, Mrs. Clemm described Edgar's mother as "a lovely little creature and highly talented. I loved her most devotedly." However, she admitted that the Poe family had violently disapproved of David's marriage, only unbending somewhat when the couple's children were born. Unfortunately, Mrs. Clemm volunteered little other information about a woman she evidently barely knew.

Our main source of personal information about Eliza is Marie Louise Shew Houghton, of all people. She often mentioned Edgar's mother in the long, incoherent, bizarre letters she sent to John H. Ingram in the 1870s, but unfortunately her information is largely uncorroborated and usually unbelievable. (In truth, it is nearly impossible to think of anything she wrote that can be verified.) Mrs. Houghton told Ingram that Edgar had had a bundle of his mother's letters, and two sketches she had made, including one of Boston Harbor that contained the inscription "For my little son Edgar, who should ever love Boston, the place of his birth and where his mother found her best and most sympathetic friends." Houghton claimed that Mrs. Clemm resented any mention of Eliza and disparaged these mementos.

We have no other evidence of any of this. These letters and sketches are not extant, and there is no record of anyone else seeing, or even mentioning, these items, leading one to doubt they ever existed. There is also no other testimony that Mrs. Clemm had any negative attitudes towards Edgar's mother. (It must always be remembered that although Ingram--very inexplicably and irresponsibly--used Mrs. Houghton as a major source for his biography of Poe, he privately admitted that he found her mentally unstable and "imaginative.") We can also credit Mrs. Houghton for the well-known miniature painting that we have of Eliza, but even that comes with a decided question mark. Houghton admitted that the portrait had been painted by herself, using as a model a miniature once owned by Edgar. This alleged original portrait, like the other artifacts mentioned by Mrs. Houghton, has never been found, making it impossible to verify if it is an authentic likeness. (Art historian Michael Deas dismissed the Houghton picture as "questionable.")

It is unfortunate that we know little about one crucial question involving David and Eliza Poe--their son Edgar's true opinion of them. It can be taken for granted that he keenly felt his orphaned status, but everyone who ever knew him--save the verbose and imaginative Nurse Marie Louise--agreed that he very seldom, if ever, even mentioned his parents. Mrs. Houghton quoted him as declaring that he owed to his mother "every good gift of his intellect, & his heart," and that Eliza was "as pure, as angelic and altogether lovely, as any woman could be on earth." Poe may have uttered words of the sort--even though he evidently had no personal memories of his mother--but, again, we only have Mrs. Houghton's ever-unreliable word for it. (Marie Louise was, let us not forget, the same source who also insisted to Ingram that Richard Henry Stoddard--who we know met Poe on only two very brief and ultimately very unpleasant occasions in 1845--had not only attended Virginia Poe's funeral, but helped her arrange flowers and sprinkle cologne about the house. "With green goggles over his eyes.")

The most revealing remark we have from Poe about his parents comes from a letter he wrote in December of 1835 to Beverley Tucker, a friend of Poe's then-employer Thomas W. White. Tucker had written White a letter mentioning his memories of seeing the beautiful Eliza Poe on stage, a statement which White passed on to Edgar. Poe responded with some of the most touching words he ever wrote, telling Tucker that, "In speaking of my mother you have touched a string to which my heart fully responds. To have known her is to be an object of great interest in my eyes. I myself never knew her--and never knew the affection of a father. Both died (as you may remember) within a few weeks of each other. I have many occasional dealings with Adversity--but the want of parental affection has been the heaviest of my trials."

Ten years later, he wrote in the "Broadway Journal" a spirited defense of the acting profession, concluding that "The writer of this article is himself the son of an actress--has invariably made it his boast--and no earl was ever prouder of his earldom than he of his descent from a woman who, although well born, hesitated not to consecrate to the drama her brief career of genius and of beauty." (We have no idea if his claim that his mother was "well born" came from any genuine information or--much more likely--simply his habitual fondness for fictionalizing his background.)

With David and Eliza Poe, we are faced with the common themes of Edgar's history--rumor, speculation, hearsay, contradiction, and facts that are all too few and far between.

More Poe-Related Poetry

2011-02-28T04:56:00.000-08:00

...Whether you like it or not.

As I have already posted several poems inspired by the mystique of Edgar Allan Poe, I thought that, in the interests of equality, I should include a tribute to his wife. The following anonymous poem, entitled simply, "Virginia Clemm," was published in honor of Poe's 100th birthday. As odes go, it's certainly no "Annabel Lee," but there is a sweet sincerity in these awkward, rather awful lines that I find oddly touching. If nothing else, it is a demonstration on the remarkable hold both Edgar and Virginia had acquired over the imaginations of so many readers. (Incidentally, this poem's theme of "If a woman as admirable as Virginia could love Edgar Poe, the guy couldn't have been that bad," was a popular, if slightly backhanded, argument used by his early defenders.)

If he had had no other thing,
No harp upon whose diverse string
To strike with music's sovran spell
The witchering note of Israfel;
If he had had no other art
Except this lad's love in the heart,
This holy, pure, unsullied flame--
It would have been immortal fame!

If he had had no other light
Except this love to lead him right;
If he had had no other dream
Except this woman's eyes of gleam,
No man e'er had so much as he
To lift his soul in melody,
No man e'er had such diadem
As thy pure love--Virginia Clemm!

Oh, spirit that in shadow moved,
This any, o'er the rest, beloved!
What though he bent beneath the care
Whose bitter brood stalks everywhere;
What though he suffers slander yet
From tongues of scorn against him met;
Had he no other single claim
On time, his love would crown his name!

Sting, sting, the dead cannot arise!
But O Virginia, in thine eyes
He was a lover, and we know
Your love uplifted all below;
You would not, could not, love, indeed,
A worthless thing, a bitter weed;
Thy love around him makes hate vain
And wipes out every mortal stain!

Truth mocks the living through the dead;
Hate, writhing on Procrustean bed,
Sees the thing slayed by it unslayed,
Sees the thing cursed by it remade;
So from his shadow and his night
Poe walks out into newer light,
Grandeur upon him in that she
Dwelt in his heart's idolatry!

She was his sun and star and moon,
His ambient autumn and his June,
His balmy cloud, his pillared sea,
His gate to music's mystery;
There by her bed he saw her perish
Whom he had not the food to cherish;
His summer died--alone with Strife
He fought the unfinished fight of Life!

Time has his song and fame his art,
But in her spirit dwells his heart,
Who with her whole soul drew and drew
His own soul, singing, through and through.
A woman, yet a little child,
Set all his wondrous harp strings wild;
And so we say that it were best
Take up his love and leave the rest!

Tear from his brow the singer's Lay,
Take all his crowns of art away;
Strip him of genius, say he sinned,
Yet over Paradise a wind
Wafting the balmy rose of spring
Shall crown him kinglier than a king
Whose spiritual passion won this gem--
The saintly, sweet Virginia Clemm!

Marginalia

2011-02-26T05:41:00.000-08:00

I have always instinctively believed that "The Raven" was not, as is generally assumed, some sort of autobiographical expression of his private, tormented longings for his own "lost Lenore," or even, as he himself claimed in "The Philosophy of Composition," a mere mathematical exercise. Indeed, the poem strikes me as cryptic black comedy, with "Nevermore" as the punchline. It was only recently, however, that I unexpectedly stumbled upon the key to Poe's inside joke.

It centers around St. Expedite, the patron saint for those who wish to avoid procrastination, and obtain general financial success. Expedite is usually depicted as a Roman centurion crushing a crow beneath his foot. The dying crow is shown as saying "Cras," the Latin word for "tomorrow." In other words, Expedite vanquishes tomorrow in favor of today."Cras" (which was later anglicized to "Caw") was a Roman pun, as it also stood for the sounds made by crows and ravens. Thus, these birds were seen as speaking of nothing but "tomorrow."

This is where we reach the night's Plutonian shore. The narrator of "The Raven" obsessively asks his feathered visitor when he will be reunited with his beloved, expecting to hear "Cras"--tomorrow. Instead, to his discomfiture, he gets the answer, "Nevermore."

This helps illustrate why this compulsion to read all of Poe's writings as mere psychological autobiography is so inexpressibly exasperating. The man was a mystic, a satirist, a practical jokester, a savant, an esoteric philosopher...in short, he was the last writer in the world who could be described in such shallow terms.

(Many thanks to the invaluable Pauline at Triple P and HoodooQ for guiding me in Expedite's direction.)

*****

One of the many oddities about the letters Sarah Helen Whitman said she received from Poe is the fact that, in her own correspondence to others, she herself echoed passages from these letters.

For example, in a letter to Mary Hewitt written not long after Poe's death, Whitman said:

"In the fall of 1848 I one day heard Mr. Poe talking about the intellectual women of New York to a gentleman of our city. Something that he said of you arrested my attention &, in reply to my questions, he drew a portrait of you which imprinted itself on my heart and caused my thoughts often to revert to you with feelings of unwonted sympathy & interest."

Similarly, one of the Poe letters to Whitman stated:

"I have already told you that some few casual words spoken of you--[not very kindly]--by Miss Lynch, were the first in which I have ever heard your name mentioned. She described you, in some measure, personally...enchained and riveted, my attention...A profound sympathy took immediate possession of my soul...your unknown heart seemed to pass into my bosom..."

In regards to Poe, Whitman wrote Hewitt:

"I can never forget the impressions I felt in reading a story of his for the first time about six or seven years ago. I experienced a sensation of such intense horror that I dared neither look at anything he had written or even utter his name...I now think that the conscious soul recoiled with an instinctive apprehension of the agonies it was destined to suffer through its strange union with his own--By degrees this terror took the character of fascination..."

From the "Poe letters":

"I dared not speak of you--much less see you. For years your name never passed my lips, while my soul drank in, with a delirious thirst, all that was uttered in my presence respecting you. The merest whisper that concerned you awoke in me a shuddering sixth sense, vaguely compounded of fear, ecstatic happiness, and a wild, inexplicable sentiment..."

So...Whitman wasn't merely a Transcendentalist, (one of the "Crazyites," as Poe called them,) a Fourierist (a group about whom he had even worse things to say,) a spiritualist, and a woman who spent most of her days in an ether fog (how did that affect her memories of Poe?) while dressing like an antebellum Stevie Nicks--she was either a plagiarist or, as I often suspect, something far worse. And she presented herself to history as Poe's soul mate?

(Header image: Life Magazine)

Poe's Perplexing Parents: David Poe, Jr.

2011-02-21T04:56:00.000-08:00

The greatest achievement of Edgar Allan Poe's father is that he managed the considerable feat of having a death even more mysterious than that of his famous son.

David Poe Jr. was born July 18, 1784. He was trained to be a lawyer, but at a young age defied his family's wishes and became an actor instead. He had a busy, if only modestly acclaimed career until he made his final known stage appearance on October 18, 1809. After that, his trail immediately goes cold. By July of 1811, his wife Eliza was described as "left alone, the only support of herself and several small children." No explanation was given for the absence of her spouse. In November of that year, it was said merely that Mrs. Poe had "quarreled and parted with her husband." She died the following month of a lingering illness, assumed to be either tuberculosis or pneumonia, leaving three young children as penniless orphans.

And that is the last we know of David Poe. No death or burial records have ever been found for him, or even contemporary references to his demise. This is strange, considering that he was a relatively famous and well-traveled performer. A newspaper story from a much later era claimed he died in Norfolk, Virginia on October 19, 1810, but this is completely unverified, and the source for the claim is uncertain. Long after the fact, various members of the Poe family and his early biographers gave very brief remarks indicating merely that David died on some uncertain date shortly before or after his wife. The nonspecific and conflicting nature of these accounts only proves that no one had any exact knowledge of when, where, or how he met his end. They all have the air of people repeating vague legend rather than known fact. Over forty years later, his sister Maria Poe Clemm told Sarah Helen Whitman that Edgar's parents both died at about the same time of "consumption," a story Edgar himself echoed. If this was true, it makes the absence of any sort of definite record of David's death or burial all the more inexplicable, as his wife's pitiful end was widely publicized. It is plausible that neither Maria Clemm nor her nephew wanted to admit that David Poe abandoned his family, and so passed on a more palatable story. They may well have never known his true fate.

There is so little evidence about the disappearance of David Poe that it has the air of a sudden and unnatural end--one that would leave no documentation. Is it possible that Edgar Poe's father was the victim of a undetected murder, and is lying in an secret, hastily-arranged grave, with contemporaries assuming that he had deserted both his young family and his chosen career? The very little we know about Edgar's father gives the impression of a quarrelsome, immature, hot-tempered drunk. It is undoubtedly unfair to judge a person by the contents of a single letter, but David Poe's one surviving missive--written to his relative George Poe Jr. early in 1809--suggests a man who could not refrain from alienating even his kin:

"Sir, You promised me on your honor to meet me at the Mansion house on the 23d--I promise you on my word of honor that if you will lend me 30, 20, 15, or even $10 I will remit it to you immediately on my arrival in Baltimore. Be assured I will keep my promise at least as well as you did yours and that nothing but extreme distress would have forc'd me to make this application--Your answer by the bearer will prove whether I yet have 'favour in your eyes' or whether I am to be despised by (as I understand) a rich relation because when a wild boy I join'd a profession which I then thought and now think an honorable one. But which I would most willingly quit tomorrow if it gave satisfaction to your family provided I could do any thing else that would give bread to mine."

George Poe, when he forwarded this note to his brother-in-law William Clemm Jr., snorted: "To this impertinent note it is hardly necessary to tell you my answer--it merely went to assure him that he need not look to me for any countenance or support more especially after having written me such a letter as that and thus for the future I desired to hear not from or of him--so adieu to Davy."

It is not difficult to picture a man capable of arousing such contempt among his own family angering the wrong person, with deadly results.

This is, of course, mere conjecture. But the virtual black hole one encounters when looking at the unexplained vanishing act of a man only in his mid-twenties--a man with many relatives who must have made efforts to locate him, if only for the sake of his children, and whose face and name were reasonably well-known--makes such conjectures inevitable.

The Raven's Bride

2011-02-15T11:51:00.000-08:00

I've posted my assessment of Lenore Hart's new Virginia Poe novel, "The Raven's Bride" elsewhere, so I won't repeat myself here. Suffice to say:

I like it.

You never thought you'd see me say that about anything, eh? It's hardly perfect, but (especially by the generally gruesome standards of Poe-related fiction) it's not terrible, either. (Although I must say that I found myself quite fascinated by the fact that Ms. Hart must be--how can I best put it?--a great admirer of Cothburn O'Neal's earlier novel "The Very Young Mrs. Poe." Seriously, I wish someone would read both books back-to-back and tell me if I'm wrong.)

That aside, with James Spada's recent "Days When My Heart Was Volcanic," this means that two good Poe biographical novels have been published within the past year. By my count, that's precisely two more than have appeared this entire past century. And, interestingly, in both cases, Virginia--very atypically for Poe literature--is the heroine.I find this little short of miraculous.

If in 2011, someone writes a rational Poe biography, all of you may as well call an undertaker, because that could only mean that I've died and gone straight to Heaven.

(Obligatory note: I bought both these books on my own. No freebies. That does not mean, of course, that I'm not open to bribes, but, alas, who finds my opinions worth purchasing?)

An update: Since I wrote the above, I've dug out my copy of O'Neal's novel--which I hadn't read in some time, as it really isn't very good--and did a close side-by-side analysis with "Raven's Bride." I really wish anyone with an interest in either novel would do the same. I had thought Hart's novel was very reminiscent of this earlier work, but directly comparing the two is pretty amazing. I can honestly say that I've never seen two novels this similar.We may have to start a new Longfellow War here, folks.

The Grotesque and Arabesque Stella Lewis (Part Two)

2011-02-14T04:56:00.000-08:00

The Lewis divorce was also notable for a cameo appearance by none other than Elizabeth F. Ellet, in the role of espionage agent. According to Mrs. Lewis, while her divorce was in progress, Ellet paid a friendly call on her. Mrs. Lewis left to order them lunch, and wound up being absent for about half an hour. After the two women dined and Mrs. Ellet had left, Mrs. Lewis discovered that her desk had been ransacked and that a publisher's letter which "would have been worth $600" to her had vanished. Mrs. Lewis claimed that Mrs. Ellet, who was "in the pay" of Stella's estranged husband, stole it on his behalf. (When recounting the story to John H. Ingram, she snarled, "I blame myself only, for having received such a viper after all the things I had heard of her!") Mrs. Lewis never explained exactly what this letter was, why it was so valuable, or how and why Mrs. Ellet was enlisted for this bit of burglary, so this episode's exact implications are unknown. However, the combination of Stella Lewis, Elizabeth Ellet, divorce intrigue, and Purloined Letters in the same anecdote presents a sort of Poean Perfect Storm of sleaze that practically takes one's breath away.

Mrs. Lewis may have figured in another story involving letters. Maria Clemm once stated that soon after Poe's death, Rufus W. Griswold offered her a large sum of money for letters a certain literary lady had written Poe. She claimed she destroyed them instead. Most Poe biographers assume--on absolutely no evidence--that the "lady" in question was Frances S. Osgood, (even though that would contradict Sarah Helen Whitman's story--which they also blindly accept--that in 1846 a delegation of ladies obtained Osgood's letters from Poe.) Ingram, however, thought otherwise. He confided to Whitman that, judging by what he heard from others, the letters were not Osgood's, but those of Mrs. Lewis. Ingram hinted that Griswold had hoped to obtain them in order to subject the wealthy woman to a little casual blackmail. A remarkable sidelight on the literary society of the time. (A footnote: Ingram may have been correct, but my own suspicion is that what Griswold sought were the mysterious, scandal-igniting letters Poe claimed Elizabeth F. Ellet had written him. At that time, Ellet and Griswold were locked in a remarkably vicious personal war--which the lady was winning handily--and he undoubtedly felt her letters, whatever they contained, would be life-saving ammunition.)

After her divorce, Mrs. Lewis lived a solitary life, mostly in England and the Continent. By all accounts, she had a genius for inspiring loathing, and Ingram, who saw much of her when she lived in London, described her as a very lonely and pathetic--and dreadful--woman whom he both pitied and detested. (He also occasionally implied that she was not entirely sane.) Before she died in 1880, Mrs. Lewis spent most of her last years writing Ingram over a hundred letters desperately trying to convince him of her importance in Poe's life. (He came to the conclusion that she did not "evince much real knowledge of the man.") Ingram later rewarded her efforts at self-glorification by writing a cruelly hilarious article for the July 1907 "Albany Review" entitled "Edgar Allan Poe and 'Stella'" where he dismissed her as one of the many "harpies" who helped make Poe's last years a misery.

Mrs. Lewis ranks among the worst of the many bizarre figures in Poe's history. (And considering that includes a cast of characters such as Sarah Helen Whitman, Frances S. Osgood, Annie Richmond, Rufus W. Griswold, Thomas Dunn English, Marie Louise Houghton, Thomas Holley Chivers, et al, that is a fairly frightening thought.) Poe was never truly close to anyone other than his wife and his mother-in-law, but there is a grim insincerity to his "friendship" with Mrs. Lewis that is quite depressing. In print and to others, his attitude towards Stella was warm, even effusive, and he was sincerely grateful for what he naively believed was her "kindness" to Mrs. Clemm. In truth, however, the sight of her evidently made him ill, and (according to Mrs. Clemm) she knew it. (Considering his similar encomiums to Frances Osgood, one is reminded of Hiram Fuller's cryptic remark that Poe's praise was as sinister as his abuse.)

As for Mrs. Lewis' feelings, it is quite clear that she never had any, for Poe or anyone else. When Poe was alive, she determinedly pried what she could out of him, for the sake of her literary ambitions. Immediately after his death, when Griswold's star was in the ascendant, she unblushingly transferred her loyalties to him. In 1853, she wrote that august biographer, "Nothing has ever given me so much insight into Mr. Poe's real character as his letters to you, which are published in this third volume. They will not fail to convince the public of the injustice of [George R.] Graham's and [John] Neal's articles." (It is doubtful she would have written any differently if she had known these letters were forgeries.) She continued, "I have ceased to correspond with Mrs. Clemm on account of her finding so much fault, and those articles of Graham's and Neal's. I cannot endure ingratitude. I have felt and do feel that you have performed a noble and disinterested part towards Mr. Poe in the editing of his works."

In later years, after Griswold was dead and his slanders of Poe discredited, she again did a 180-degree-spin any Olympic figure skater would envy. Eager to claim her share of Poe's burgeoning legend, she published a series of quite nauseating sonnets commemorating their "friendship," instructed everyone within earshot about the many kind services she had done him, and earnestly told Ingram that the late poet was "an angel," who had been cruelly defamed. (Unfortunately for her, Ingram lived long enough to see her correspondence with Griswold in print.)

Probably the clearest view of Mrs. Lewis' character and "friendship" with Poe comes through a letter of hers to an acquaintance in 1858. In the course of again asserting that Poe had asked her to write his life story, she managed, fittingly, to out-Griswold Griswold. She wrote:

"If anyone else should write it [Poe's life] do not permit the name of that old woman who calls herself his mother-in-law to appear in it. I have heard that she is not his mother-in-law. That she was something else to him. Anyhow, I believe that she was the black cat of his life. And that she at last strangled him to death."

After quoting this passage, Poe's biographer Edward Wagenknecht wrote with telling terseness: "And what the woman writes about herself in the same letter is almost equally repulsive."

At the end, when Poe lay slowly dying in that pitiful hospital bed in Baltimore, it can be hoped that he consoled himself with the thought that at least he had finally seen the last of Stella Lewis.

The Grotesque and Arabesque Stella Lewis (Part One of Two)

2011-02-07T04:56:00.000-08:00

In an earlier post, I touched briefly on the odd and rather slimy role Sarah Anna Lewis played in the last two years of Poe's life. I realized that this woman was just deranged, destructive, and creepy enough to earn her very own post. Happy reading.

We do not know exactly how and when Lewis made Poe's acquaintance, but it was possibly during the period he lived in New York City in 1845. However, her real involvement in his history did not commence until late in 1846. The twenty-two year old woman was the wife of a wealthy lawyer named Sylvanus D. Lewis. Mrs. Lewis (who made several increasingly colorful changes to her Christian name until she finally settled on "Stella,") had, like so many members of the 19th century literati, both the money and leisure to pursue an interest in poetry. The question of whether or not they had the talent for it was considered irrelevant. She was a theatrical, narcissistic, flashily-dressed woman who imagined herself to be not only a profound artist, but a fascinating siren and muse. (Alas, no one else seemed to concur in this.) Mrs. Lewis was, in short, a living, breathing embodiment of the worst caricatures of the female literary dilettante, with a touch of a Hogarth engraving thrown in.

She insinuated herself into Poe's life when he was at the lowest point he would see until he turned up at that Baltimore tavern in October 1849. His wife Virginia was dying, and he himself was sick, persecuted, increasingly broken in spirit, and virtually penniless. His misery was widely--and, by his enemies, gleefully--advertised in the press. Although we--probably mercifully--do not know the details, the Lewises took full advantage of his public vulnerability, and provided the Poe family with money and other assistance. In exchange, there was said to be an unabashed extortion that Poe would do what polishing he could to Stella's clumsy verses and write laudatory notices of her for the magazines.

As I have said before, if this latter tale is true (and it mostly relies upon the ever-questionable testimony of Marie Louise Shew Houghton, who was infuriated about Mrs. Lewis' desire to present herself as the official Poe Family Protector--a role Houghton herself coveted--and thus wished to demean the woman's role in Poe's life as much as possible,) one must feel sadness and pity, rather than the scorn Poe and Mrs. Clemm have garnered. At that time, the Poes were virtually helpless, and if Stella Lewis took the opportunity to exploit this helplessness for her own ends, the odium belongs entirely on her own head. As later events would show, it was an odium she thoroughly deserved for more reason than one.

As it happened, it was not until after Poe died that Mrs. Lewis' talents for crude self-aggrandizement reached their full flower. At some point, she reputedly began circulating the story that she was the model for "Annabel Lee." When this reached the ears of Poe's erstwhile quasi-fiancee Sarah Helen Whitman, she was indignant. How dare this woman poach on her own claims to have inspired Poe's most romantic poem? Mrs. Whitman informed everyone within earshot that Mary Hewitt (another gossipy "literary lady") had written her that Mrs. Clemm told Mrs. Lewis that she was Poe's heroine as mere flattery, a way of paying back favors granted--the implication being that there was not a word of truth to Lewis' boasts. Quite cleverly, Whitman added that Hewitt also told her that Frances S. Osgood had written that the poem was a tribute to Virginia Poe only to spite Mrs. Lewis. Thus, her account achieved a neat double play, by simultaneously discrediting Whitman's two rival "claimants" to "Annabel Lee," Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Poe. (Not to mention discrediting Osgood's declaration that Virginia had been Poe's one true love, a statement Whitman took as a deliberate insult to herself.) Sarah H. Whitman was an absurd woman in many ways, but stupid she was not.

We have no other evidence Hewitt actually made this statement about the poem, (Whitman, quite suspiciously, did not preserve these letters she allegedly received from her,) and it seems like an implausible thing for Mrs. Clemm to have done, no matter how indebted to Mrs. Lewis she may have felt. (For what it's worth, Annie Richmond wrote Poe's biographer John H. Ingram that Mrs. Clemm maintained that "Annabel Lee" was about Virginia, and was always somewhat affronted whenever anyone did not seem to grasp that fact on their own. If Mrs. Richmond spoke accurately--which, admittedly, would be something of a novelty for her--that would settle the "who was Annabel Lee" debate once and for all.) It seems most likely that Mrs. Lewis herself, always eager for publicity and indifferent about how she got it, simply invented her connection to Poe's poem.Mrs. Lewis--when she was not asserting that Poe had asked her to write his biography--also played a key, if still-mysterious role in Rufus W. Griswold obtaining the job of acting as Poe's literary executor. From what both she and Griswold said afterwards, it appears that she was the one to actually enlist him for the task. She claimed this is what Poe had instructed her to do, but she never offered any proof of this. Why she would so interest herself in the matter is also unclear, but her involvement only adds to the dark, unfragrant cloud that hangs around the whole issue of Griswold's appointment.

The Lewises divorced in 1858. The breakup of their marriage seems to have also permanently estranged her from Mrs. Clemm--reputedly, Poe's aunt took Mr. Lewis' side in their dispute. However, there was never any real friendship between the two women--all that ever bound them was hunger on one side, and hunger for glory on the other. In any case, thereafter Maria Clemm became one of Mrs. Lewis' favorite targets for vilification.

In Part Two: The return of Elizabeth Ellet!

Poe's Cottage at Fordham

2011-02-02T04:56:00.000-08:00

More Poe-inspired poetry. I'm just in that sort of mood.

Beginning during his own lifetime, and continuing down to the present day, Poe has been the subject of a remarkable number of poems (it is puzzling that, so far as I know, no one has ever published a full compilation of them.) One of the best-known is the following poem by John Henry Boner, "Poe's Cottage at Fordham," which was first published in 1889. As this is the anniversary of Virginia Poe's funeral at Fordham's Old Dutch Reformed Church--a day, I believe, that marked the beginning of the end for her husband--these lines seemed somehow appropriate. It also exemplifies the peculiar mythology Poe inspired. Boner's work was written a mere forty years after Poe's death, but it does not describe a flesh-and-blood man, but a creature out of legend.

Here lived the soul enchanted
By melody of song;
Here dwelt the spirit haunted
By a demoniac throng;
Here sang the lips elated;
Here grief and death were sated;
Here loved and here unmated
Was he, so frail, so strong.

Here wintry winds and cheerless
The dying firelight blew,
While he whose song was peerless
Dreamed the drear midnight through,
And from dull embers chilling
Crept shadows darkly filling
The silent place, and thrilling
His fancy as they grew.

Here with brows bared to heaven,
In starry night he stood,
With the lost star of seven
Feeling sad brotherhood.
Here in the sobbing showers
Of dark autumnal hours
He heard suspected powers
Shriek through the stormy wood.

From visions of Apollo
And of Astarte's bliss,
He gazed into the hollow
And hopeless vale of Dis,
And though earth were surrounded
By heaven, it still was mounded
With graves. His soul had sounded
The dolorous abyss.

Poor, mad, but not defiant,
He touched at heaven and hell.
Fate found a rare soul pliant
And wrung her changes well.
Alternately his lyre,
Stranded with strings of fire,
Led earth's most happy choir,
Or flashed with Israfel.

No singer of old story
Luting accustomed lays,
No harper for new glory,
No mendicant for praise,
He struck high chords and splendid,
Wherein were finely blended
Tones that unfinished ended
With his unfinished days.

Here through this lonely portal,
Made sacred by his name,
Unheralded immortal
The mortal went and came.
And fate that then denied him,
And envy that decried him,
And malice that belied him,
Here cenotaphed his fame.

(Header Image: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division. Footer: NYPL Digital Gallery)

It Was Many and Many a Year Ago...

2011-01-30T04:56:00.000-08:00

Forget about who's buried in Grant's Tomb. I want to know who's in Virginia Poe's. Poe biographer William Gill claimed that when the Fordham cemetery where Virginia lay was razed, many years after her death, he "just happened"--mirabile dictu!--to be visiting the burial ground at the precise moment when her remains, which lacked anyone to claim them, were to be discarded. Gill said he recovered what he could of her bones, and kept them in his bedroom for some time.

This rather ghoulish tale--which does not appear to have ever been independently verified--seems just too coincidental and fortuitous (not to mention self-glorifying) to be automatically believed, particularly since Gill, like J.H. Whitty, was among the more eccentric and untruthful Poe acolytes. (Published accounts of Gill's story vary in their details, making the truth all the harder to pin down.) In 1885, what was said to be these same bones were reburied with Poe and Maria Clemm in Baltimore. (What was left of them, at any rate--the sexton at the Baltimore churchyard later described Virginia's remains as being delivered to him in a container the size of a cigar box!) Of course, it would have been impossible in that pre-DNA-testing era to prove these bones were actually Virginia's. However, no one ever even tried to examine them to determine if they at least could have belonged to a woman of Virginia's age. Gill's account is simply too strange to be completely trusted, and it is also curious that he supposedly kept these bones for some indeterminate length of time before delivering them to a decent resting-place. It really is not at all certain who--or what--is buried under Virginia's name.

And, of course, there is a very curious allegation that when Edgar himself was reburied under an elaborate monument in 1875, they accidentally exhumed the wrong corpse, that of a young man named Philip Mosher Jr. Unless yet another exhumation takes place--which is unlikely, as the Baltimoreans, who are understandably touchy about the issue, prefer to literally let sleeping bones lie--the controversy can never be resolved with any certainty, as the various accounts of Poe's death, burials, and exhumation abound in contradictions. However, Poe himself would undoubtedly delight in the thought that, for all those years, his monument was graced by annual visits from the Mosher Toaster. It would certainly be his last, greatest hoax. In short, there is at least an outside chance that poor Maria Clemm is spending eternity in the company of complete strangers.In an earlier post, I discussed an oddly disquieting reminiscence of Poe and Virginia entitled, "The Bones of Annabel Lee." The anonymous author was either unaware of or unconvinced by the stories that Virginia had been reburied at her husband's side, as he presumed that her "fragments" "are still wandering about..." Perhaps he was nearer the truth than we know.In any case, spare a thought today for the gallant and undervalued spirit of Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe, who died on this date in 1847.

In pace requiescat!

And the World Has Been Raven Mad Ever Since

2011-01-29T04:56:00.000-08:00

In honor of the anniversary of the first appearance in print of Poe's most famous work, I offer several contemporary tributes, which, whatever their merits--or lack of same--as poetry, serve as eloquent testimony to the immediate and remarkable cultural effect of his grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore.

One of the earliest "Raven" parodies appeared in the April 19, 1845 issue of the "New World." Poe reprinted it in the "Broadway Journal" a week later under the headline, "A Gentle Puff." He added, "If we copied into our Journal all the complimentary notices that are bestowed upon us, it would contain hardly anything besides; the following done into poetry is probably the only one of the kind that we shall receive, and we extract it from our neighbour, the 'New World,' for the sake of its uniqueness."

Small wonder Poe was pleased; the anonymous lines not only defend, but celebrate his contemporary reputation as the critical "Tomahawk Man"--a novelty indeed in those days.

Then with step sedate and stately, as if thrones had borne him lately,
Came a bold and daring warrior up the distant echoing floor;
As he passed the Courier's Colonel, then I saw The Broadway Journal,
In a character supernal, on his gallant front he bore,
And with stately step and solemn marched he proudly through the door,
As if he pondered, evermore.

With his keen sardonic smiling, every other care beguiling,
Right and left he bravely wielded a double-edged and broad claymore,
And with gallant presence dashing, 'mid his confreres stoutly clashing,
He unpityingly went slashing, as he keenly scanned them o'er,
And with eye and mien undaunted, such a gallant presence bore,
As might awe them, evermore.

Neither rank nor station heeding, with his foes around him bleeding,
Sternly, singly and alone, his course he kept upon that floor
While the countless foes attacking, neither strength nor valor lacking,
On his goodly armor hacking, wrought no change his visage o'er,
As with high and honest aim, he still his falchion proudly bore,
Resisting error, evermore.

It is fascinating how, even in Poe's own lifetime, his contemporaries were eager to identify him with his renowned poem. He became, in their eyes, a creature straight out of his own fancy--an impression, unfortunately, that still lingers today. He was not merely "the writer of 'The Raven'"--to many, even people who knew him personally, he was the Raven. One of the better-known poems to embody this view was published in April 1847 in "Godey's Lady's Book." It was, "To Edgar A. Poe," the most famous work by an otherwise utterly forgotten poet named Alonzo Lewis, who styled himself "the Lynn Bard." According to Annie Richmond's testimony, she considered the poem notable enough to ask Poe to send her a copy a couple of years later.

I read thy "Song of the Raven," Poe:
The thrilling notes of its magic flow
Sunk into my heart, like the summer rain
In the thirsty earth, till it glowed again.

When I read the first lines of that wondrous song,
That doth to a brighter world belong,
I said--no poet of Freedom's land
On the summit of such a height can stand.

'Tis a clime of supernal ether rare,
No mortal poet can breathe and bear;
And he must make, in his sad confusion,
A ''most lame and impotent conclusion."

Another verse, and I seemed to stand
On the verge of limitless Fairy Land,
While spirits were passing to and fro,
And the earth lay far and dark below.

Then I went higher, and higher still,
O'er the summit of many a star-crowned hill,
Through the trackless realms of immortal mind,
Which the sons of song alone can find

Could I have my choice of the treasured lore
Of classic land, I would give more
The author of that strange song to be,
Than of volumes of unread casuistry.

There are hearts so cold they may never feel
The thrills which the harp's fine strings reveal;
But while my life's warm pulses flow,
I bless thy name and thy memory, Poe.

A thousand brilliant years may flit,
And still that classic bird will sit,
As he sat in the golden days of yore,
On the bust of Pallas above the door.

A thousand strains may rise and sink
In the bubbles of old Castalia's brink--
But thy lay shall float by Song's bright shore,
On the countless tides of "Evermore."

And many a heart in this dark, cold world,
From its throne of sweet affection hurled,
As it cons that strange, wild ballad o'er,
Will sigh for its own loved, lost Lenore.

An even more sentimental Raven-inspired effusion, "One of Our Poets," was published in 1848 by Frances A. Fuller. It captures perfectly the intensely emotional response Poe's image inspired, particularly among women--even women, like Fuller, who never even met the man.

Oft my fancy draws the picture, and for evermore he seems
Sitting silent in his chamber, brooding o'er his wondrous dreams;
Sitting motionless and weaving visions in his mighty brain--
Visions soft, and pure, and glowing, and with scarce an earthly stain--
Weaving into them his being, all its pleasures and its pain.

Coyly through the open casement steals the fragrant air of June,
Humming to itself the murmur of the woodland's pleasant tune;
Lifting up the silken curtain, through which comes the ruby tinge
Glowing in the chamber's twilight, toying with the golden fringe,
Prisoning the window-roses in its tassel-tangled swinge.

Fitful gleams of yellow sunlight flash across the velvet floor,
As the breeze in rising gladness lifts the curtain more and more,
And a smile seems stealing over the dim faces in the room,
'Till the pictured wall looks breathing through the soft and dreamy
gloom,
Antique jewels seem to sparkle, and to wave the bending plume.

Nothing cares the silent dreamer that those pictures, old and dim,
Give more sense of life and motion to the gazer's eye than him;
Little heeds he sun or shadow, pleasant sounds or fragrant air;
He is in a world whose visions are a thousand times more fair,
Musing, speechless with enchantment, on the glorious beauties
there.

More and more the curtain flutters, and upon the dreamer's hair
Falls the crimson glow of sunset, resting in a halo there;
On a brow so proud and pensive fitly placed the glory seems--
Looking like the lingering radiance borrowed in his land of dreams,
Broken, as the curtain flutters, into bright and changing gleams.

But anon the sun is setting, and the breeze has died away,
And the curtain and the sunbeam cease to quiver and to play,
And the spell so deeply woven round the dreamer seems to part,
Till the tide of life comes rushing faster from his fettered heart,
And his own unconscious murmurs wake him with a sudden start.

Hard upon his fevered eyelids presses he his trembling hand,
While a troop of white-winged visions vanish at his sad command;
Still he murmurs lightly to them, whispers to them o'er and o'er,
As he paces, in the twilight, noiselessly the chamber floor,
Murmuring ever, like a river, one same sound, and that Lenore!

Talking to his love in heaven, she who never leaves his side,
Hovering near, a winged spirit, still his angel and his bride;
Counting ceaselessly the hoarded treasures of his memory's store;
Burning out his heart in incense at the shrine he loved of yore,
Haunted by the "rare and radiant" maiden of his heart, Lenore.

And whatever you do, don't forget to read the real thing.

Marginalia

2011-01-24T04:56:00.000-08:00

In his recent book, "Poe in His Own Time," Benjamin F. Fisher made reference to Elizabeth Oakes Smith's copious writings about Poe by commenting that Smith "knew well the American literary milieu of Poe's own day, even if she hadn't known Poe himself." Strangely, Fisher either overlooked or deliberately disregarded the significance of his own observation. If Fisher is correct that Smith never actually knew Poe at all, then everything she wrote about him--most particularly her detailed, and highly implausible, accounts of her meetings and conversations with the poet, which his biographers have extensively used for source material--were massive and flagrant fictions.

Evidence that Fisher's statement was accurate comes from Smith's close friend Sarah Helen Whitman. When writing to John H. Ingram in the 1870s, Whitman expressed her contempt for a recent article Smith had published about Poe. In particular, she pointed to Smith's description of an intimate talk she claimed to have had with Poe about his relationship with Mrs. Whitman. Whitman, who described Smith as "constitutionally inaccurate," stated flatly that she was certain no such conversation had ever taken place. How could Whitman know Poe had never expressed the sentiments in question unless she was aware that Smith had never had any conversations with Poe at all?

Whitman made an even more intriguing remark on the subject. She wrote Ingram a strangely cryptic reference to Smith's Poe reminiscences. She stated they "did not spring so much from genuine friendliness & regard as from other motives which are betrayed in some of the--but I will not carp or criticize."

Maddeningly, Whitman never explained what these "other motives" may have been. I'd certainly like to know.

*****

One of the innumerable overlooked little oddities in Poe's history is that Maria Clemm's handwriting bore a distinct resemblance to her nephew's. In fact, it was said that she could copy his manuscripts so exactly that no one could guess it was not his writing. (A copy, presumed to have been made by Mrs. Clemm, of a letter Poe sent her on September 18, 1849 has sometimes been mistaken for an actual Poe MS. Incidentally, for whatever mysterious reason, we have only a fragment of the original letter.) Richard Henry Stoddard even quoted her as saying to him that after Poe's death, she received so many requests for his autograph that she would simply forge samples of his writing and send them on to his admirers.

All of this puts a curious question mark over many of our extant "Poe" letters and manuscripts.

*****

The only full transcript we have of the last letter Poe sent to Sarah Helen Whitman comes to us from Annie Richmond, of all people. (Whitman herself, in her typically strange fashion, preserved only an meaningless eight-line fragment of the original letter. She always aimed to shape the historical record by carefully copying, destroying, and mutilating her Poe-related correspondence in an effort to display the story she wanted told.) Mrs. Richmond told John Ingram that before Poe sent Mrs. Whitman this letter discussing the end of their relationship and the ugly gossip surrounding that event, he sent it to her so that she could read it over and then forward it (anonymously, I presume) to Whitman in Providence. Mrs. Richmond claimed to have made a copy of this letter, which she sent to Ingram.

Now, can I possibly be the only one who finds her story to be exceedingly suspicious? First of all, I find it odd that Poe would send Mrs. Richmond the actual letter to forward to the other woman. Aside from the unseemliness in sharing his private relations with Mrs. Whitman with a third party, if he wished to defend his actions in the Whitman episode to Annie (she told Ingram that the stories she had heard about his disgraceful behavior in Providence led her to contemplate ending her friendship with Poe--which says a lot about her "devotion" to him,) it would have been sufficient for Poe to tell her "I wrote Mrs. Whitman this-and-this..." Secondly, why in the world would Mrs. Richmond have bothered to write out and keep a copy of this letter--particularly since the contents were certainly none of her business? Surely, in January of 1849 she could have had no idea that, nearly thirty years later, her transcript of this letter might be useful biographical source material.

The final oddity about this story is that Mrs. Whitman--a fragile and cowardly woman who shrank from even the mildest confrontation--never worked up the nerve to even answer this letter. (Which confirms my suspicion that she was hardly blameless in whatever went on between her and Poe.) Mrs. Richmond, however, told Ingram that Whitman had responded, with a letter exonerating Poe's behavior. What makes Annie's statement even more peculiar is the fact that among the copies of Poe's letters to her that she gave Ingram is one where he commented on Whitman's failure to answer his letter!

Annie Richmond, like so many other figures in Poe's history, made a very unsatisfactory witness. Nearly everything she ever said about him inevitably took on an air of shenanigans.

Happy Birthday, Edgar!

2011-01-19T04:59:00.000-08:00

The following lines were written by an anonymous wit in 1909. The writer was having a bit of fun with the various events held for the Poe Centennial, but it's worth reviving today.

Hear the tributes paid to Poe!
(Might he know!)
What a world of immortality his celebrants bestow!
Hear the speakers clear their throats
And consult their little notes!
Hear them laud him to the skies!
How they prize, prize, prize
All he wrote;
How they dote
On his “Raven” and his “Bells”;
How they quote
“Ulalume” and all the rest
Of his verseAnd rehearse
His catalogue of triumphs with a breast
All a-glow,
Praising Poe, Poe, Poe, Poe,
Poe, Poe, Poe,
Their thrice-inspired Poe,
The only son of genius that we ever had, you know!
So it’s natural to blow
The trumpet blast of Poe,
Of Poe, Poe, Poe, Poe,
Poe, Poe, Poe!--
For perhaps ten days or so,
Of emotion and commotion over Poe!

The Reticent Mrs. Shelton (Part Two)

2011-01-17T04:56:00.000-08:00

"The more meticulously we scrutinize the documents, the more painfully do we become aware how dubious is the authenticity of historical evidence, and how untrustworthy therefore the conclusions of historians. For no matter how incontestably genuine an ancient document may be, this genuineness does not provide any guarantee as to the human validity of its contents."
-Stefan Zweig, "Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles." Pity he never tackled writing a biography of Poe.

Clearly, there is something deeply wrong with this entire picture. During the forty years that she survived Poe, Sarah Shelton was completely mute about him, even to relatives, only breaking her silence to state that she had no important recollections of him. Then, if Valentine is to be believed, she somehow decided to honor him--and only him--with these strange, illogical revelations that were unknown to her own kin. (Another peculiarity of these "notes" is their garbled, disconnected quality--they read like confused scraps of conversation Valentine happened to eavesdrop upon. This impression is heightened when, immediately following a description of Poe's childhood friend Ebenezer Burling, Shelton is quoted as saying, "Spoke of the first Mrs. Allan in the most affectionate manner." Valentine added the parenthetical note, "This last remark I think refers to Poe." If Valentine was truly talking to her, wouldn't he know to whom she referred? And if he was unsure, why not ask her at the time?) After supposedly pouring her secret history out to him, she maintained her previous Sphinx-like silence the rest of her life, failing to either confirm or deny Valentine's account of their conversation. (Her newspaper obituaries even made a point of noting that no one ever heard her so much as speak Poe's name.)None of this fits. If it was true that she had little to say about Poe, where did Valentine's story come from, except his own desperate imagination, cobbling together bits of local gossip? (It is one of the many peculiarities of this incident that Valentine wrote out at least two versions of his Shelton interview, which contain some substantial textual differences between them.) If she wished to draw a discreet veil over her love life, why not simply say so from the beginning? If she truly granted him this interview--an interview which raises more questions than it answers--why bother maintaining her silence after it appeared in print? And if she had decided the time had come to bare her soul, why not deal directly with Ingram himself, to ensure that her relationship with Poe would be described the way she wished it to be told, instead of trusting her long-hidden confidences to be transmitted by an unreliable third-party? And if she gave this interview, either her previous declaration that she knew virtually nothing about Poe or the interview itself was a brazen lie. Either way, what does that say about Shelton's credibility? And if--as nearly everyone assumes--she lied when she denied being engaged to Poe in 1849, again, why should we trust anything in these "notes?" As the lawyers would say, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus--"false in one, false in all."

In short, the "Valentine notes"--however you choose to look at them--are impossible to reconcile with reality.

**A footnote: "The Poe Log" described the reunion between Poe and Mrs. Shelton as having taken place in the summer of 1848. (Kenneth Silverman, taking his information from TPL, repeated this statement.) This is simply wrong. The Valentine notes make it clear that Poe's sudden reappearance in her life was in the summer of 1849. "The Poe Log" evidently made this change in chronology in order to make the Valentine/Shelton account fit in with Sarah Helen Whitman's claim that Poe told her he had considered marrying Shelton during his (very brief) visit to Richmond in 1848, but on finding that his old neighbor had become uncongenial to him, resolved to woo Whitman instead. As with so many of the stories related by "Poe's Helen," we have only her word that Poe made this odd and rather ungallant remark, and what little evidence we have directly contradicts the idea that he and Shelton had any renewal of their acquaintance before 1849. (As an aside, Maria Clemm stated years later that Poe was never in Richmond at all in 1848, and the evidence for this visit is so generally unsatisfactory that his biographer Arthur H. Quinn was tempted to agree with her!)

"The Poe Log," incidentally, did a similar juggling of dates with Mary Gove Nichols' description of a visit to Fordham late in 1846. In order to reconcile her account of Poe offering for sale a poem that is presumed to be "Ulalume" with that work's publication at the end of 1847, they give her visit a date of c. November '47. This ignores Nichols' statement that Virginia Poe was still alive at the time described. Of course, Nichols' account also conflicts with Poe's own description to George W. Eveleth of how and when he sold "Ulalume," making her story worthless as a historical source in any case.

***Another footnote: Among the items that were published in the "Century" magazine in 1903 as part of the "Poe/Chivers Papers" is the text of a hysterical letter Mrs. Shelton supposedly wrote Maria Clemm immediately after hearing of Poe's death. (The assumption is that Mrs. Clemm sent it to Chivers for his edification.) It is universally accepted as genuine by historians. However, there are reasons for doubting the authenticity of the "Chivers letter."

For one, we only have a copy among the "Chivers papers" in the Huntington Library--made allegedly by Chivers himself--of the letter. No original manuscript has ever been seen. (Although Maria Clemm told Annie Richmond that Shelton had written her about the tragedy in Baltimore, she gave no details about the letter, and as the manuscript is not extant, it is impossible to verify if the text of the letter in the "Chivers papers" matches the one sent to Mrs. Clemm.)

Even taking the view that Mrs. Shelton would have been greatly distressed at the time of writing this letter, the writing style simply does not sound like any other known letter of hers. In addition, the little evidence we have indicates that after Poe's death Mrs. Shelton immediately tried to distance herself from Mrs. Clemm, as well as anything else concerning Poe. (A few years afterward, Mrs. Clemm told Sarah Helen Whitman that she knew nothing of Mrs. Shelton's life, and even suggested that she and Poe's putative final fiancee were on hostile terms. Unfortunately, she did not say why.) Also, the description in this letter of Mrs. Shelton's final meeting with Poe, and his physical condition when they parted, directly contradicts the Valentine notes, as well as all other accounts we have of Poe's departure from Richmond. Finally, the whole history surrounding the "Poe/Chivers Papers"--as I have said before--is enough to embarrass Joseph Cosey.

The Reticent Mrs. Shelton (Part One of Two)

2011-01-10T04:58:00.000-08:00

"In biography the truth is everything, and in auto-biography it is especially so."
-"The Business Man"

In 1874, a Richmond, VA Poe admirer named Edward V. Valentine made efforts, on behalf of biographer John Ingram, to persuade Sarah Elmira Shelton to clarify her relationship with Edgar Allan Poe. For many years, it was rumored that she had had a youthful romance with him, and that, shortly before his death, they had rekindled their old relationship and planned to marry. However, no one seemed to have any definite knowledge about this story, and Mrs. Shelton herself had yet to speak a word on the subject.

She answered Valentine's pleas for information with the simple and seemingly sincere statement (in a letter now in Richmond's Valentine Museum,) that "I am not prepared to give any information in regard to Mr. Poe's early life--we were both very young when I did know him, and the slight recollection I have of his history (at that time) will not justify any attempt that I might make, to undertake it. The meridian and latter part of his life, there are many others, who profess to know much more than I do."

That, one would think, would be that. The lady herself declared--in writing--that she barely remembered Poe in his youth, and knew scarcely anything of his adult life. However, according to Valentine, just a year after penning him these unequivocal words, Shelton granted him an exclusive interview about Poe where, in modern parlance, she sang like a canary. The notes he made of this alleged interview (now also in the Valentine Museum,) tell a disjointed, fragmentary, but quite intimate history, revealing her precocious engagement to Poe (the "notes" have her say she was "15 or 16" at the time, but in truth she would have been 14. Also, the "notes" seem to indicate that at the time of their supposed engagement, their "acquaintance" must have been only a few months old, which makes the idea of a betrothal between a sixteen-year-old boy and a girl barely into her teens seem all the more implausible.)

The "notes" say that when Poe departed for the University of Virginia, her father, objecting to the pair corresponding because of their youth, secretly intercepted Poe's letters to her. (It is not explained how she and Poe both--without so much as exchanging a word--apparently took this mutual failure to receive correspondence as a sign that their relationship was irrevocably over, why her father resorted to such cruel and unnecessary measures, or how she eventually came to discover the truth.) Then, in the summer of 1849, by which time the pair had lost both their spouses, Poe--a stranger to her for some twenty-three years--suddenly appeared in her parlor, and after barely saying more than "hello," pressed for an immediate marriage. However, the "notes" have Mrs. Shelton declaring that this marriage never would have actually transpired.

This last statement, at least, could very well have been the truth. Poe scholars take a letter Shelton wrote Maria Clemm in late September 1849 as proof she had consented to marry Poe. However, while this letter certainly expressed fondness towards him and a desire to ingratiate herself with his aunt--a complete stranger to Shelton--she said nothing to indicate she and Poe were betrothed. Actually, Shelton's references to her jealousy when she happened to see Poe and "his lovely wife" together soon after their marriage, and her descriptions of how often and lovingly Poe talked to her of "his Virginia" seem, if anything, to argue against the idea that Poe was ardently and successfully wooing her! Poe's own letters to Mrs. Clemm during this period, if authentic, confirm Shelton's infatuation with him, but they also betray a positive distaste at the thought of wedlock with his childhood neighbor. His penultimate letter to "Muddy" even warned her not to count on getting an addition to their family, as "my heart sinks at the idea of this marriage..." (This is oddly reminiscent of his earlier recorded comment about his reputed engagement to Mrs. Whitman: "That marriage will never take place.")

In short, if you accept the testimony of the "Valentine interview," Poe was desperate to wed Mrs. Shelton as soon as possible, but she, for unspecified reasons, had strong reservations against the idea. On the other hand, the letters to Maria Clemm from both Poe and Mrs. Shelton paint Elmira as deeply enamored of her childhood friend and the assertive one in the relationship, while he is depicted as haunted by grave doubts about marrying a woman he knew he did not really love. (His qualms would not be surprising, as the little we know about Mrs. Shelton suggests a Victorian Hilda Rumpole.)

This was, after all, the man who wrote that "the mere death of a beloved wife does not imply a final separation so complete as to justify a union with another."

After these "notes"--upon which the entire history of the Poe/Shelton relationship is based--were published by Ingram, Shelton continued to maintain her old blank silence. All her family members agreed that they never heard her so much as mention Poe's name. Her granddaughter--who lived under the same roof with her--later stated that she grew up having no idea the family matriarch even knew Poe. And Mrs. Shelton failed to provide her--or anyone else--with additional details. Biographers, like nature, abhor a vacuum. As a result of this paucity of information, no relationship in Poe's life has been more exaggerated or mythologized than the "romance" with Sarah Royster Shelton, his so-called "first and last love."

J.J. Moran, the doctor who claimed to have attended Poe on his deathbed--although even that has been disputed--published an account of a call he supposedly paid to Shelton sometime before her death in 1888. According to him, he and Shelton shared an emotional and highly theatrical-sounding conversation about Poe. Unfortunately, Moran's anecdotes about his most famous patient grew increasingly colorful and fictional over the years, particularly once he hit the lecture circuit. Like so many others, he found Poe to be an irresistible cash cow. These alleged confidences of Shelton's are believed to be just one more of his fables. The same holds true for a widely-circulated 1901 article about Poe and Shelton written by a Richmond journalist named Edward Alfriend, as well as legends about the Poe/Shelton relationship promulgated by fellow Richmond folklorists Charles Marshall Graves and the ineffable, ubiquitous, reality-challenged J.H. Whitty. All these men depict Mrs. Shelton as doing little over the years except endlessly chattering about Poe to anyone who would listen--which would surely have come as a surprise to her own family. Furthermore, the stories they related (which not only contradict each other, but the Valentine notes as well,) are all so unrealistic, when they're not demonstrably untrue, (Alfriend, who claimed to know Mrs. Shelton well, even gave her first name as "Elizabeth!") that even most Poe scholars--a lot normally willing to swallow virtually anything--have treated them gingerly, relying instead on the Valentine interview.

In Part Two: More on the Colloquy of Sarah and Edward. Plus a note on why you can't blindly trust "The Poe Log."

Quote of the Day

2011-01-06T04:56:00.000-08:00

"It is observable that, while among all nations the omni-color, white, has been received as an emblem of the Pure, the no-color, black, has by no means been generally admitted as sufficiently typical of Impurity. There are blue devils as well as black; and when we think very ill of a woman, and wish to blacken her character, we merely call her 'a blue-stocking,' and advise her to read, in Rabelais' 'Gargantua,' the chapter 'de ce qui est signife par les couleurs blanc et bleu.' There is far more difference between these 'couleurs,' in fact, than that which exists between simple black and white. Your 'blue,' when we come to talk of stockings, is black in issimo--'nigrum nigrius nigro'--like the matter from which Raymond Lully first manufactured his alcohol."
-"Fifty Suggestions," "Graham's Magazine," May 1849

The above passage is--with the possible exception of "Ulalume"--the most enigmatic and subtly sinister thing Poe ever published. (One wonders what the unsuspecting readers of "Graham's" made of it.) And, for whatever reason, it has gone almost completely unnoticed by mainstream Poe scholars. Burton R. Pollin, in his book "Discoveries in Poe," noted that a couple of phrases in this quote were borrowed from Horace Binney Wallace's 1838 novel "Stanley," but this did nothing to explicate Poe's meaning. (As a side note, it is interesting that Wallace wrote under the name "William Landor." The obvious tribute in "Landor's Cottage," and the long-acknowledged fact that Wallace helped influence other Poe writings, suggests that he was a more significant figure than we now think.)

Many of Poe's works reveal a familiarity with alchemical lore, but we simply do not know enough about his true private life to say with certainty if this familiarity was merely academic, or an indication that he himself practiced the ancient art. (It should be noted that true alchemy is a process to transform the alchemist himself--or herself--mentally, physically, and spiritually, not merely an effort to turn base metals into gold. In fact, the genuine alchemist disdains the single-minded quest for gold as a childish, and ultimately destructive, parlor trick--something Poe himself intimated in "Von Kempelen and His Discovery.")

I would very much like to know exactly what cryptic message Poe was conveying by tying together references to "blue-stockings" (he obviously had in mind some pseudo-learned women--or one woman in particular--whom he had cause to despise,) "Gargantua and Pantagruel," (another highly esoteric work,) and the legendary alchemist Lully.Whatever it was, I am certain it would explain a lot.

A Particularly Questionable Poe Letter

2011-01-03T04:58:00.000-08:00

"My dear little wife grew much better from the very first day after taking the Jew's Beer. It seemed to have the most instantaneous and miraculous effect. She had been dreadfully weakened, as you know, by continual night-perspirations; but the very night on which she first took the Beer she missed her usual one, and had them no more until an accident occurred by which we got out of Beer, and could not replenish our stock for three days. In this interval the perspirations returned, and her cough, which had almost ceased, came back. Upon procuring the Beer again, however, she grew better at once, and became in a short time quite strong and well. About ten days ago, however, I was obliged to go on to New York on business which absolutely required my personal attendance, and no sooner had I turned my back than she began to fret...because she did not hear from me twice a day, she became nearly crazy, and in spite of all Muddy could do, she would neither eat or sleep...I will never leave her again, as long as I live, for more than six hours at a time. What it is to be pestered with a wife!...I myself am quite well...and doing well, although I have resigned the editorship of 'Graham's Magazine'..."

This is all we have of a letter Poe supposedly wrote on July 7, 1842 to his cousin Elizabeth Herring Tutt. No complete text of the letter exists. For nearly a hundred years, his biographers have frequently quoted from this passage. However, there are solid reasons for believing it is yet another example of a Poe forgery.

To begin with, this clumsily jocular, rather puerile letter is simply nothing like Poe's writing style. The part about the "Jew's Beer"--a popular tonic for consumptives that was also known, less offensively but just as unappetizingly, as "Wine of Tar"--reads like a contemporary quack advertisement. The passage about Virginia fretting and going "nearly crazy" because "she did not hear from me twice a day" is patently absurd. (It should also be noted that Maria Clemm once stated that there was never any correspondence between Poe and Virginia, as she generally accompanied him whenever he left town for more than a day or two.)

The existence of this letter was unknown until 1922, when it was put up for auction. (We have no other letters between Poe and this cousin.) The auction catalog gave no details about its history. After the sale, the letter promptly disappeared, and has never been seen since. (The text quoted above comes from the catalog.) If this was a genuine Poe document, would not this very valuable artifact have turned up sometime during the past nine decades?

In the 1880s, Neilson Poe's daughter Amelia related to Poe biographer George Woodberry what she claimed were reminiscences of Poe that had been told to her by Elizabeth Herring. (We have nothing about Poe from Herring herself, and it is quite suspicious that she did not simply directly communicate with Woodberry.) These reminiscences say nothing of Herring possessing letters--or any other mementos--of her famous relative. Even more striking is the fact that her account claims that during the exact period that the "Poe letter" was supposedly written, Herring--who was by then a widow--was living with her father in Philadelphia. This "Poe letter" indicates that Herring was then residing in Woodville, Virginia. In other words, either this letter or Amelia Poe's information is fraudulent. Or, even more likely, both are artificial.

Until the actual manuscript of this letter is found, it is impossible to know if it is genuine. In the meantime, however, it is impossible to implicitly trust as source material.

***A footnote: Several Poe historians (most notably Mary E. Phillips, Hervey Allen, and the compilers of "The Poe Log") assume that the Herring cousin who supposedly gave information to Amelia Poe was Elizabeth's much younger half-sister, Mary Estelle Herring. (Woodberry only referred to his source as "Miss Herring," and Amelia Poe's letters to him are not extant.) It is a mystery how they could come to this conclusion. "Miss Herring" claimed that Poe paid her frequent "attentions" during a period from 1830 until 1834, when she married (these alleged "attentions" could not have been very serious,) and left Baltimore. Elizabeth Herring married Arthur Turner Tutt in 1834. Mary Estelle, who was only a child then, did not marry until some years later. "Miss Herring" also stated that beginning around 1840, after the death of her husband, she lived with her father in Philadelphia for several years before they returned to Baltimore. This, again, could only apply to Elizabeth, not Mary Estelle.

There are other problems with these "reminiscences." This account indicated that Poe did not actually live in Baltimore during the early 1830s, but only paid occasional "flying visits" to the city. Of course, this completely contradicts all the other evidence that he was living in Maria Clemm's Baltimore household at the time in question. (It also conflicts with the evidence given by the 1889 "Poe's Mary" article, where "Mary" claimed that Poe was courting her during this exact period.) Amelia Poe also stated that "Miss Herring" told her that Poe was an opium addict. This is a smear that was vigorously denied by many others who knew him--even virulent enemies such as Thomas Dunn English.

In short, both the "Herring letter" and the "Herring reminiscences" are more of the untrustworthy, implausible, and contradictory items one comes to expect from Poe biography.

(Image: NYPL Digital Gallery)

January History Carnival

2011-01-01T05:24:00.000-08:00

Yours truly has the admittedly undeserved honor of being part of 2011's first History Carnival, hosted this month by Jen Newby's terrific blog Writing Women's History.

Do click on over and see the show. You'll get the inside scoop on everyone's favorite warlock John Dee, celebrity quacks, Victorian pawnbrokers, looking for love in 19th century New York, and much, much more!

First time in years I've been part of respectable society.

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T04:56:00.000-08:00

Be of good cheer. At least you're not spending New Year's Eve with this guy.Actually, this card wouldn't make a bad illustration for "The Masque of the Red Death."

Enjoy the last of 2010, and look ahead to a wonderful 2011 for us all!

(Image via the ever-peculiar NYPL Digital Gallery.)

The Island of the Fay

2010-12-27T04:56:00.000-08:00

"The Island of the Fay," which was first published in the June 1841 issue of "Graham's Magazine," is classified as merely an example of Poe's "plate articles"--brief essays that were written specifically to accompany magazine engravings. In this work, however, Poe took such a mundane enterprise to a sublime level. "Fay," is, indeed, one of his most ethereal and beautiful pieces of writing. It is also one of his earliest works to anticipate his magnum opus, "Eureka." Thus, this seemingly irrelevant piece actually plays a key role in the Poe canon.

The scenario of the sketch is a simple one. The narrator begins his tale by commenting that "the higher order of music is the most thoroughly estimated when we are exclusively alone." Only then, he states, can its "spiritual uses" be fully appreciated. "But there is one pleasure still within the reach of fallen mortality--and perhaps only one--which owes even more than does music to the accessory sentiment of seclusion. I mean the happiness experienced in the contemplation of natural scenery. In truth, the man who would behold aright the glory of God upon earth must in solitude behold that glory." The narrator explains that the presence of any other form of life other than "the green things which grow upon the soil and are voiceless" is "at war with the genius of the scene." The "dark valleys," the "grey rocks," the "waters that silently smile," the "proud watchful mountains" are "the colossal members of one vast animate and sentient whole...whose life is eternity; whose thought is that of a God; whose enjoyment is knowledge; whose destinies are lost in immensity; whose cognizance of ourselves is akin with our own cognizance of the animalculæe which infest the brain--a being which we, in consequence, regard as purely inanimate and material, much in the same manner as these animalculæe must thus regard us."

In a declaration Poe would echo seven years later in "Eureka," he states the unity of all things in the universe. "As we find cycle within cycle without end--yet all revolving around one far-distant centre which is the Godhead, may we not analogically suppose, in the same manner, life within life, the less within the greater, and all within the Spirit Divine? In short, we are madly erring, through self-esteem, in believing man, in either his temporal or future destinies, to be of more moment in the universe than that vast 'clod of the valley' which he tills and contemns, and to which he denies a soul for no more profound reason than that he does not behold it in operation."

The narrator then describes how, on one of his solitary wanderings through the wilderness, he chanced upon a little river with a small circular island. The western extremity of this islet was "all one radiant harem of garden beauties" that "glowed and blushed beneath the eye of the slant sunlight...There seemed a deep sense of life and joy about all..."

The eastern end, by contrast, "was whelmed in the blackest shade. A sombre, yet beautiful and peaceful gloom here pervaded all things." The trees "conveyed ideas of mortal sorrow and untimely death," the grass had the aspect of mournful cypress, and the many small hillocks resembled graves.To the narrator, the island appeared enchanted--"the haunt of the few gentle Fays who remain from the wreck of the race." As he daydreamed, he fancied he actually saw a fairy circling the island in a fragile canoe. She radiated joy as she floated amid the sunlight of the western half of the isle, but became deformed by sorrow as she passed into the shadows of the east. Over and over, the narrator watched her pass from light and life, to darkness and death, and back again. "The revolution which has just been made by the Fay," he thought, "is the cycle of the brief year of her life. She has floated through her winter and through her summer. She is a year nearer unto Death: for I did not fail to see that as she came into the shade, her shadow fell from her, and was swallowed up in the dark water, making its blackness more black." He asks, "What the wasting tree is to the water that imbibes its shade, growing thus blacker by what it preys upon, may not the life of the Fay be to the death which engulfs it?"

With each cycle, the fairy became increasingly indistinct, and enveloped in shadow. Finally, as the sun set, she and her boat disappeared into the "ebony flood," and "darkness fell over all things, and I beheld her magical figure no more."

What was Poe revealing in this allegorical prose poem? All that is, is intelligence, and intelligence is God. By contemplating nature and music in solitude, we come closer to communing with God and understanding our place in the universe. The meditative exploration of nature is the exploration of the universe, which is within all intelligence. In nature, we are able to observe ourselves--the God within us, or that is us--and we can establish a direct relationship with that God. (Poe explored these same themes in "The Domain of Arnheim," "Landor's Cottage," "Instinct vs. Reason," and "The Philosophy of Furniture.")

Even shadows are substance and therefore intelligence. As the intelligent waters "imbibe" them, the waters are nourished and enriched. The gradual dissolution of the fairy into the darkness is one aspect of eternity--the cycle of life, never-ending, repeated everywhere--which man can observe and comprehend as the work of God.

And it is still popularly believed that Poe was amoral and irreligious!

In "Marginalia," published in the "Southern Literary Messenger" in June 1849, Poe wrote that "Not only do I think it paradoxical to speak of a man of genius as personally ignoble, but I confidently maintain that the highest genius is but the loftiest moral nobility." He expressed this same sentiment indirectly in his more overtly metaphysical writings such as "Island of the Fay." Men and women of true genius (as opposed to those who are merely intellectually clever) are those rare individuals who exist on a higher plane, and because of their elevation, they have a better understanding of who we are, why we are here, our place in the universe, and our relation to "the Godhead." Figures such as Poe--one of the most purely idealistic writers of the modern era--channel their vision of heaven to less enlightened humanity through fiction, poetry, art, philosophy, music, and other creative expressions. Their proximity to what Poe called the Spirit Divine, or Supernal Beauty, eliminates the possibility of an ignoble nature. They cannot perceive, contemplate, and channel the world of the spirit and yet lead degraded lives--no matter how desperately Poe's enemies and his biographers (pardon the redundancy) want us to believe otherwise.

While those very rare geniuses, such as Poe, channel their vision of the universe through their creative work, he also made it clear that by contemplating nature, meditating upon it in solitude, any of us can achieve a more direct relationship with the Divine.

This is why it is exasperating how Poe is commonly labeled simply as a "horror" or "Gothic" writer. This is far from the case. In truth, he was a pure mystic (and a highly-underrated satirist.) Reducing his remarkable and utterly unique body of work to mere "sensationalist" fiction, or worse, simplistic Freudian autobiography, does him the ultimate disservice. Insult Poe if you please, but do not cheapen him.

Joy to the World

2010-12-24T04:59:00.000-08:00

I wanted to offer everyone the most Poe-like seasonal cheer I could find.Seriously, I think this is the most malevolent-looking Santa Claus I've ever seen.

Merry Christmas and the very happiest of holidays to all!

And may this guy never come down your chimney.

(Image: NYPL Digital Gallery. Which really should be more careful about what it digitizes.)

The Literary Life of Joseph Cosey, Esq.

2010-12-20T04:59:00.000-08:00

The period of the 1920s-1950s was a Golden Age for Edgar Allan Poe-related "discoveries." During these years, many previously unknown letters and documents of the legendary poet surfaced for the first time. Unfortunately, a great deal of credit for these additions to Poe lore can be given to an astoundingly imaginative, talented, and energetic forger named Martin Coneely.

Coneely, who was born in 1887, is best known by his favorite alias of "Joseph Cosey." Little is known of his early life. He ran away from home at an early age, and henceforth led a solitary, nomadic life, supporting himself through a series of petty crimes. He apparently had no friends or family ties. Despite his shady and hardscrabble background, he was a highly intelligent man with an instinctive love for books and history--19th century Americana in particular. In other circumstances, he would have become a genuine scholar, but as it happened, his fate was instead not to merely study history, but to make it. Literally.

In the 1920s, he paid what proved to be a life-changing visit to the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress. His motives in requesting to see signatures and documents belonging to such greats as Jefferson and Washington were entirely innocent--he merely wished to gratify his passion for Americana. However, once he was able to actually see and touch these priceless relics of the past, he felt he could not let them all go. Settling his desire upon a pay warrant signed by Benjamin Franklin in 1786, he slipped the paper into his pocket, and, in those more trusting times, left the library unnoticed.

A year or so later, he was living in a tenement in New York City, drunk, alone, and flat broke. Desperate for money, he steeled himself to sell his one prized possession--his stolen Franklin document. Upon taking it to a book dealer, however, he was stunned and indignant when the man scornfully rejected it as a forgery. In his disgust, Cosey resolved to teach this impertinent fool a lesson. He, himself, would create a real forgery and sell it to him! He haunted the local public libraries, studying facsimiles of the handwriting of historical figures. He found that Abraham Lincoln's signature came easiest to him, and after some months of practice, whipped out a handsome "Yrs. Truly, A. Lincoln" on a scrap of paper. The same dealer who dismissed his authentic Franklin bought the bogus Cosey for ten dollars.

It was an epiphany. Cosey, after a lifetime of aimless and unproductive wanderings, felt he had finally found his mission in life. He threw all his previously dissipated energies into his new calling, and he exceeded beyond all expectations. He became to manuscript forging what Tiffany's is to diamonds. G. William Bergquest, an expert on literary hoaxes, called him "the greatest forger of his kind in this century." The renowned book and autograph dealer Charles Hamilton went even further, describing Cosey as "the most skilled and versatile forger of all time." During his long and prolific career, he forged many items of Americana, particularly ones imitating the handwriting of Lincoln and George Washington.

Alas for Poe scholarship, Cosey also had a personal devotion to the author of "The Raven," which he expressed in his own singular manner. He also, for whatever reason, had a predilection for Poe's literary contemporary Nathaniel Parker Willis. He is known to have created more than one letter from Poe to Willis, and enjoyed adding forged notations by Willis to his "Poe manuscripts." Physically, they were impeccable pieces of work, but Cosey occasionally made several factual errors in the text. The errors were relatively minor--I've seen far worse in many Poe biographies--but they were enough to discredit the documents. Otherwise, the letters may well have been permanently accepted as genuine. In fact, Hamilton stated that all of the extant Poe/Willis correspondence has to at least be suspected as being Cosey's handiwork. (All this makes me very curious about a manuscript copy of Poe's poem "For Annie" which sold at auction not long ago for a cool $830,000, even though very limited information was given about the document's provenance. Among the distinguishing features of this artifact were notations added by none other than N.P. Willis.)

Cosey was considerably more ambitious than the typical forger. Not content merely with reproducing signatures or brief snippets of already-published texts, he did serious preliminary research on his subjects, enabling him to convincingly channel the literary style of Poe and his other favorite targets, churning out with unnerving speed and agility lengthy, interesting letters, artifacts such as account books and legal papers, and long samples of documents (including manuscripts of "The Poetic Principle," "The Raven," and "The Fall of the House of Usher.") His instinctive skill for replicating handwritings was coupled with the savvy to use genuinely antiquated paper and writing implements, including a distinctive brown ink specific to the 18th and early 19th centuries. He even became adept at forging letters of verification to accompany his creations. All this combined to make him a formidable menace to the world of manuscript collecting.

Cosey was also clever enough to take advantage of an odd quirk in the penal codes of New York (and a number of other states.) According to the law, merely forging any "archaeological object" was not in itself illegal. The crime occurred only when the owner of the "object" deliberately presented it for sale it as a genuine artifact. Cosey would merely diffidently present his documents to dealers or private collectors as objects of unknown value that he had "inherited," or "been given," or simply "found," and left it up to the prospective buyer to decide whether it was of any worth. Ironically, his seeming casualness about the documents served to enhance their plausibility. And if the forgery was detected, all he had to do was innocently state that he had never claimed the manuscripts were anything other than old pieces of paper.

Another thing that made Cosey notable was that, like many other great figures of his unusual profession, he saw himself as no mere criminal, but as an artist, a craftsman. He took great pride in his output, which he invested with a care that arose not merely from a desire to avoid exposure, but from a love of the work itself. He was, in the words of one of his parole officers, "a likable, ingratiating fraud." To paraphrase one of his favorite subjects, for him forgery was not a purpose, but a passion.

What is more, he convinced himself that he was actually doing a public service. After all, relatively few of even the most ardent Poe devotees have the money or opportunity to possess a letter or other document in his writing. Thanks to Joseph Cosey, many more of them would get that chance! He once told a story about going to a bookstore with a "Poe letter" he had created. "The owner was out," he said, "but his secretary told me she was a student of Poe and would be thrilled to see something in his handwriting. I finally sold it to her for three dollars, but only because I was broke. Well my conscience bothered me about it for weeks, and the first time I had three dollars I went back to the shop to tell her it was a counterfeit, and buy it back from her. But when I heard her talk about how much pleasure that letter had given her, I didn't have the heart to disillusion her. So I walked out and let her keep it and believe in it."

I'd like to know where that letter is now. And how often it has been quoted as source material in Poe biographies.

For all his natural gift for chicanery, Cosey did sometimes turn out product sufficiently flawed to be exposed by the experts. He often ignored the fact that a person's handwriting inevitably changes with age. A Cosey "Benjamin Franklin," for example, would have the same signature in old age that he had in his prime. He would occasionally cut corners by chemically treating modern paper to give it the appearance of age. Such mistakes led to his arrest in 1937, after he sold an "Abraham Lincoln" letter. It was dated "December 2, 1846." but, with uncharacteristic sloppiness Cosey wrote it on paper bearing a discernible 1860 watermark. (By this time, Cosey was not only an alcoholic, but a heroin addict, which undoubtedly affected his talents.) His victim was content to chalk it up to the hazards of the business, but after he heard Cosey was attempting to sell a similar letter to another dealer, the police were summoned. The detectives who brought him in for questioning immediately saw from the marks on his arms that he was a drug user, and evidently promised him a much-needed "fix" if he confessed. He did, and was convicted of petty larceny. He was paroled after less than a year, and he inevitably immediately went back to his life's work. He is believed to have kept up his cheerfully felonious ways right until his death, which is generally thought to have taken place around 1950, when he simply dropped out of sight. Some sources, however, believe he was still producing "artifacts" for some years afterwards. His end, appropriately enough for a Poe impersonator, is a mystery.

Thankfully, many documents have been exposed as his handiwork. (A fine example can be seen here.) Such is his reputation, that many of them have fetched high prices at auction as "Genuine Cosey Forgeries." A side industry even emerged of--seriously--forged "Cosey forgeries." The New York Public Library did him the dubious, if unmistakable, honor of setting up a permanent collection of his "Greatest Hits." (One of the founding items in this file was an assortment of notes Poe supposedly wrote in relation to the printing of "Tamerlane.") However, it is acknowledged that there are many, many more "Coseys" in circulation that have gone undetected. Early on in this blog, I posted a quote from Charles Hamilton (who made a particular study of Cosey's career.) "Long ago," he wrote, "I concluded that there must be far more forgeries of Poe by Cosey than there are original Poe letters."Considering how many leading items of Poeana--items which largely have a sketchy or nonexistent history--first appeared during Cosey's prolific heyday, Hamilton's words should be memorized by any student of Poe's life. And it must be remembered that Joseph Cosey was hardly the first Poe forger, nor the last. Caveat emptor. And then some.

Poe's Overlooked Enemy (Part Two)

2010-12-13T04:59:00.000-08:00

Clark was now becoming truly unhinged on the subject of Poe--he seems to have found his enemy's teasing much harder to bear than mere hatred. He published an lengthy editorial devoted to working off some of his fury. Clark opened by addressing a correspondent he identified only as "J.G.H.," who had supposedly sent Clark a letter containing charges against Poe. (We do not know what these accusations may have been, or even if "J.G.H." existed outside of Clark's imagination.) Clark thanked "J.G.H." for his communication, but added, "bless your heart, man! you can't expect us to publish it," thus intimating to his audience that this letter contained revelations about Poe too shocking even for publication. (This clever tactic of hinting at horrifying scandals regarding Poe--while never, of course, describing what these scandals may have been, thus allowing the imagination of the reader to picture the worst--went on to become a favored, and highly effective, tactic among his defamers. Cf. the "Poe reminiscences" of Rufus W. Griswold, Charles F. Briggs and Thomas Dunn English.) Clark went on to describe Poe as "the wretched inebriate," a "jaded hack," who was "too mean for hate, and hardly worthy scorn." Clark sneered that "there are but two classes of persons who regard him in any light--those who despise and those who pity him; the first for his utter lack of principle, the latter for the infirmities which have overcome and ruined him." As a means of corroborating his insults, Clark also made reference to recent assaults against Poe that had been made by Hiram Fuller and others, painting a picture of Poe as a drunken, deranged, pitiful scoundrel whose critical opinions could not be taken seriously. For good measure, he closed with a brazen and deliberate lie--the claim that Poe satirized him in "The Literati" only because Clark had rejected some of his manuscripts.

This despicable piece of writing was something of a landmark in the destruction of Poe's reputation. As Moss noted, "Here for the first time--three years before his death--we have in print the allegations so familiar these days..."

The "Knickerbocker" followed up this rant with another clumsy jab at Poe in the form of some feeble doggerel entitled "Epitaph on a Modern 'Critic'," which was probably written by Clark himself:

"'Here Aristarchus lies!' (a pregnant phrase,
And greatly hackneyed, in his early days,
By those who saw him in hs maudlin scenes,
And those who read him in the magazines.)
Here Aristarchus lies, (nay, never smile,)
Cold as his muse, and stiffer than his style;
But whether Bacchus or Minerva claims
The crusty critic, all conjecture shames;
Nor shall the world know which the mortal sin,
Excessive genius or excessive gin!"

Poe, never one to be cowed, again favored Clark with his notice in the subsequent "Literati" essay on Charles Fenno Hoffman. Noting that Hoffman was the original editor of the "Knickerbocker," Poe lamented that the publication subsequently entered into a "dense region of unmitigated and unmitigable fog," a "dreary realm of outer darkness, of utter and inconceivable dunderheadism," under the editorship of "the august person of one Lewis Gaylord Clark."After this exchange, the public quarrel lapsed--possibly because Clark either realized he was quite literally outwitted or he simply ran out of nasty things to write about Poe. He largely avoided the topic of his old antagonist until Griswold's notorious biography of their common enemy appeared in 1850. Clark and Griswold were long-time friends, and this gave him additional motivation to defend Poe's literary executor from the outrage that arose over his defamation of the dead poet. As the volumes of Griswold's edition of Poe's works appeared, Clark published several reviews designed to offer Griswold support. Clark enthusiastically reiterated all of Griswold's calumnies, describing Poe as someone "destitute of moral or religious principle." Clark, like Griswold, accused Poe of being a serial plagiarist. In particular, he repeated a claim that Clark himself had originally made in print and that was echoed by Griswold--the allegation that Poe's poem "The Haunted Palace," was a shameless steal from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Beleaguered City." Longfellow--to his credit--refuted this charge, pointing out to Griswold that his own poem was written after "The Haunted Palace" had been published. (Poe himself, noting the similarities between the two poems, had drawn Griswold's attention to this fact as early as 1841.) Clark and Griswold coolly ignored him. As Sidney Moss (with remarkable understatement) wrote: "both Clark and Griswold were parties to deliberate falsehoods. To concur in a truth is simple; to concur in a lie betrays collaboration." We will likely never know just how many more of Poe's supposed sins and personal flaws were merely similar lies his enemies "collaborated" in creating and spreading.Clark, like Griswold, could not allow his loathing of Poe to rest. As late as 1856, he was still on the attack, approvingly republishing a passage from an article in the "North American Review" which was essentially a rehash of Griswold's old libels (it has been noted that, however, he carefully omitted a section from this article referring to Poe's battle against "cliquism.") Clark added to this passage his declaration that Poe had had "no literary influence whatever," because he was "destitute of moral sentiment." His final public comment on Poe came in 1860, when he reviewed Sarah Helen Whitman's "Edgar Poe and His Critics." He wrote that his own negative assessments of Poe had been given "frankly and conscientiously." He asserted that "it would give us pleasure to add, that Mr. Poe's biographers had since given us occasion to change them." Clark made it clear that no such transformation had occurred by quoting another review of Whitman's book that asserted it "does not wipe out the...dishonorable records in the biography of Dr. Griswold." The "Knickerbocker" editor ultimately failed in his true goal of discrediting Poe as a critic, but succeeded beyond his wildest dreams in discrediting Poe as a man.

Lewis Gaylord Clark, the man who was, in Moss' words, "the man most guilty of creating and circulating calumnies of Poe while Poe was alive," died in 1873. His friend Thomas Bangs Thorpe eulogized him as a man "never else to the world than light-hearted, always kindly disposed," who "viewed every thing, if you please, from a delicate, truly refined, and humorous stand-point."

If such a petty, crude, unscrupulous and mendacious man was truly so admired by his contemporaries, it provides an eloquent, if unwittingly revealing, commentary on the literary milieu of Poe's time.

(Header image: NYPL Digital Gallery)

Poe's Overlooked Enemy (Part One of Two)

2010-12-06T04:58:00.000-08:00

Everyone who has even a casual interest in Poe's life story knows of the posthumous attacks on his character made by Rufus W. Griswold. However, surprisingly few people are aware that Poe had another equally vicious, and arguably equally influential libeller: Lewis Gaylord Clark. Unlike Griswold, Clark began his public assaults on Poe while his enemy was still very much alive. Thus, he not only played a major role in laying the foundation for Poe's posthumous image, he did much to shape the living Poe's career and reputation.

Another notable thing about Clark is that, unlike other leading Poe enemies such as Griswold, Thomas Dunn English, and Charles F. Briggs, he had no known personal dealings with Poe. In fact, the two likely never even laid eyes on each other on more than two or three very brief occasions. Clark's efforts to destroy Poe's personal and literary reputation were solely and irrefutably based on nothing more than literary politics--thus contradicting the commonly-held assumption that Poe's controversial career was nothing but a self-inflicted wound, a downfall that was entirely due to his own personal foibles.

Clark, the long-time editor of the widely-circulated and extremely powerful "Knickerbocker" magazine, saw himself as the chief promoter and defender of New York's literary clique. Poe's efforts to weaken the influence of this group--which could be said to have commenced with his devastating review of NYC "insider" Theodore Fay's novel "Norman Leslie" in 1835--would in itself be enough to antagonize Clark. In addition, Clark was a determined sectionalist, promoting only New York (and, to a limited extent, New England) writers, and denigrating the literature of the South. Poe, as the guiding force of the "Southern Literary Messenger," that region's leading magazine, would inevitably be seen as his opponent.

It has also been suggested that a minor reason for the feud between Clark and Poe was the latter's resentment towards Richard Adams Locke. A few weeks after Poe published his "Hans Phaall" in the June 1835 issue of the "Messenger," the "New York Sun" came out with Locke's "Moon Hoax," which Poe considered--not without reason--to be a blatant plagiarism of his own work. Clark had had a hand in creating Locke's story, and it may be that when Poe heard of this, it served to increase his antagonism towards the "Knickerbocker" editor. This remains only speculation, however.

Clark launched his war upon Poe in August of 1838, when he wrote for his magazine a mocking review of "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym." Professing to treat the novel as a factual account, he characterized "Pym" as "a great many tough stories...told in a loose and slip-shod style, seldom chequered by any of the more common graces of composition..." and loftily derided the "veracity" of the narrator. In those days, positive reviews were the only way to advertise a book, and negative notices were generally enough to kill a book's chances for success. Clark's review, appearing as it did in one of the country's leading literary magazines, is considered one of the major reasons why "Pym" was a commercial failure in America. (Ironically, a pirated edition of the novel that appeared in England did well--but, of course, did not earn Poe a penny.)

His next major attack came in 1840, when Poe published a prospectus for his planned "Penn" magazine. The prospectus made it clear that he saw the "Knickerbocker" as one of the magazines his own publication was intended to supplant, and Clark responded to the implied challenge with his usual gusto. He published a snide editorial hinting that Poe, when working for William Burton's "Gentleman's Magazine," had run that enterprise into the ground, and misquoted Poe's prospectus in a way that suggested he meant to merely imitate the "Knickerbocker."

Poe largely ignored such gibes--he apparently found Clark an unworthy opponent--but during the early 1840s, he continued to antagonize Clark by deriding the output of the "Knickerbocker's" favored writers, while establishing "Graham's Magazine" as Clark's chief competition. In 1843, the "New World" magazine published an anonymous article that was one long, scathing critique not just of the "Knickerbocker" itself, but of Clark personally, stating dryly that "Mr. Lewis Clark has made a considerable noise in the literary world, but how he has made it, would be difficult for his best friends to explain." (The article also lambasted Rufus W. Griswold, calling him "wholly unfit, either by intellect or character, to occupy the editorial chair of Graham's Magazine.")

The author of this article has never been determined, but the important point is that--rightly or wrongly--Clark believed it was Poe, and as a result he--in the words of Poe scholar Sidney P. Moss--"began gunning for Poe with a vengeance." Poe became one of the "Knickerbocker's" favorite targets. When Clark did not publish reviews of Poe's writings that were little more than excuses to attack him personally, he reprinted assaults on his enemy that had appeared elsewhere, thus giving these libels greater circulation and credibility. (For his part, Poe, during his editorship of the "Broadway Journal," published several notices of Clark's magazine that were so ostensibly genial and flattering that the effect is of mockery of a particularly polished order.)

With all this, it is not surprising that when Clark heard that he was to be included in Poe's "The Literati of New York City," a series of gossipy satirical essays about literary celebrities that appeared in "Godey's Lady's Book" in 1846, he panicked. He sought to head off what he assumed would be Poe's revenge against him by publishing an editorial on "The Literati," sneering at "a wandering specimen of 'The Literary Snob' continually obtruding himself upon public notice; today in the gutter, tomorrow in some milliner's magazine; but in all places, and at all times, magnificently snobbish and dirty..." and adding that "We do not think that the 'ungentlemanly and unpardonable personalities of this writer,' of which our contemporary complains, are worthy of notice simply because they are so notoriously false that they destroy themselves."

When Poe's sketch of Clark appeared in the September issue, it fully justified all the "Knickerbocker" editor's fears. Claiming derisively that his subject was "known principally as the twin brother of the late Willis Gaylord Clark," Poe characterized Clark's editorials as "easy writing and hard reading." He commented that "Mr. Clark once did me the honor to review my poems and--I forgive him." Poe playfully gave an insultingly low estimation of the "Knickerbocker's" circulation, and said that Clark "is noticeable for nothing in the world except for the markedness by which he is noticeable for nothing." As he did in all the "Literati" papers, Poe closed by giving a detailed, and highly unflattering, physical description of his subject, making Clark a number of years older than he really was, remarking on his "bullety" forehead, and concluding that his smile "is too constant and lacks expression."In Part Two: The "Knickerbocker" strikes back.

(Header image: NYPL Digital Gallery)

A Brief Technical Note

2010-12-01T05:30:00.000-08:00

As you can see, my list of "Followers" has suddenly vanished. (Bye, folks, nice knowing you!)

The Stats page still isn't working.

These seem to be pretty universal problems, and Blogger has been discreetly mum about when or if any of this will be fixed. And as I have all the computer know-how of a tree stump, I'm completely lost about what, if anything, I can do about it.

I fully expect the plague of locusts to come next.

I just knew that instead of attempting a blog, I should've simply handed out xeroxed copies of my Poe writings on street corners, like any self-respecting crank and public nuisance would do.

A Further Note About Poe and Thomas H. Chivers

2010-11-29T04:59:00.000-08:00

Some time ago, I wrote about the strange history of the so-called "Life of Poe" manuscript that was allegedly written by Dr. Thomas Holley Chivers.

There are additional details which make these documents even more questionable. To recap: Chivers' nephew John Q. Adams announced in 1888 (thirty years after Chivers' death) that he had, through mysterious and never-explained means, acquired an iron box containing letters from Poe to "a friend," as well as a complete MS. copy of a Poe biography penned by this same "friend." (Very strangely, he avoided giving the name of this "friend" of Poe's, let alone giving any hint that this Poe intimate was Adams' own uncle.) There is no proof Adams ever actually displayed these supposedly very valuable documents to anyone, although in 1903 the "Century" magazine published what are assumed to be excerpts from these papers (although no connection to Adams was stated--the magazine did not say where they acquired this material at all--and these published excerpts bear little resemblance to the papers he described.)

In the 1920s, Henry Huntington purchased Poe-related documents through a book dealer (who acquired them from an unknown source.) These papers, which are now in California's Huntington Library, are assumed to be the same Chivers/Adams/"Century" collection. However, again, it was never established that these were the same papers used for the 1903 publication. George Woodberry, the editor of the "Century" article, only worked with transcripts, not the original documents, and there is no known connection between Adams and the papers Huntington purchased. The "Chivers' 'Life of Poe,'" published in 1952, comes from this Huntington collection. (Although it does not consist of a complete manuscript, such as the one Adams described; it is merely a handful of brief, carelessly-written, virtually illegible fragments.)

Joel Benton relied heavily upon Adams as a source for his 1899 book, "In the Poe Circle." Adams said nothing to Benton about this cache of important Poe/Chivers manuscripts he supposedly had acquired. Rather, Benton wrote that Chivers' library was destroyed during the Civil War, "and that all his manuscripts were more or less injured," indicating that Adams had told him there was virtually nothing left of Chivers' papers. Benton stated that Adams had in his possession one--evidently only one--letter that Poe wrote to Chivers. All Adams provided from this letter was one line: "Please lend me $50 for three months--I am so poor and friendless I am half distracted; but I shall be all right when you and I start our magazine." This rather artificial-sounding quote does not appear in any extant letter Poe wrote to Chivers or anyone else, which just adds to the general air of shenanigans which surrounds the "Chivers manuscripts" we have today.

Further complicating an already convoluted story is an article which appeared in the "Atlanta Constitution" on June 20, 1909. The writer of the column made a reference to Chivers' papers, commenting that "The wife of Dr. Chivers lived for several years after him, and through the war, many valuable documents were lost, together with an iron box, always a mysterious thing in the family, and remains a mystery till today. This box, I learn, was buried and hid about during the war till eventually it was lost--whether the soldiers found it, or whether it still remains where it was hid and the place forgotten, remains unknown."

Now, where does this leave Mr. Adams and his story about acquiring this "iron box" of documents--documents he never displayed--a discovery he announced 21 years before in the pages of the "Atlanta Constitution?" We appear to be dealing with four unconnected sets of documents: The set Adams claimed to have (but never displayed,) the set published by the "Century" (which came from an unnamed source, and where the original documents were not even used,) the set purchased by Henry Huntington (a transaction where--according to a staff member of the Huntington Library itself--the dealer who sold them would not or could not reveal their provenance,) and the set the "Atlanta Constitution" writer said had disappeared during the Civil War!

Every story connected with the history of the "Poe/Chivers papers" reeks of mystery, evasion, and hopeless contradiction. Nevertheless, since their publication, these same papers have been extensively quoted--as unimpeachable fact--in all Poe biographies. Why do Poe scholars blithely assume the Poe/Chivers documents in the Huntington Library are perfectly trustworthy as source material, when the "chain of custody" linking them to Chivers himself--or even John Quincy Adams--is not merely broken, but utterly nonexistent? Why is this material still used today to shape public perceptions of Poe, particularly since the "Chivers' Life of Poe" itself, even if genuine, is intrinsically worthless as source material? (It must be kept in mind that even if Chivers truly wrote these manuscript fragments--which is, to put it mildly, not proven--he scarcely knew Poe personally, and had--to his mind at least--reason to resent him. After Poe's death, Chivers made a laughingstock of himself by making increasingly strident and unbalanced claims that the late poet had plagiarized Chivers' own work.)

When studying Poe's history, I find myself continually reminded of his biographer William Bittner's wry observation that "The forging of Poe documents has proved to be so profitable that ingenuity has been expended on it that might better have been put to legitimate Poe research, perhaps with a little counterfeiting on the side to finance the long work required."