Poe's Weirdest Woman, Sarah Helen Whitman; Or, The Biter Bit

"Even when the facts are available, most people seem to prefer the legend and refuse to believe the truth when it in any way dislodges the myth."
-John Mason Brown

Sarah Helen Whitman lived for thirty years after her disagreeable and still-mysterious parting of the ways with Edgar Allan Poe. Over the long course of these years, his memory took on ever-greater importance in her life. Her growing interest in his life and work both fostered and fed upon Poe's increasingly legendary reputation. She developed a widening correspondence with Poe biographers and associates, and drew to herself many young Poe cultists, deftly utilizing her three-month acquaintance with the poet and her unique status as his reputed sort-of fiancee to transform herself into "Poe's Helen." This aging, plain, rather affected, modestly-talented poetess, spiritualist, Transcendentalist, and habitual drug user--a woman, in short, who appeared to be a completely incompatible match for Poe--became, to many of his acolytes, the ultimate Girl Who Got Away, a goddess of sorts. It is hard to believe Poe sincerely wished to marry a woman fatuous enough to solemnly have herself photographed dressed as Pallas Athena, but thanks to her, most observers did believe just that. She convinced a great many people who really should have known better that she--and only she--was the one great love of Poe's life. (Although Whitman's campaign to convince the world that "Annabel Lee" was a paean to her was a utter failure.)Like all the women who associated their names with Poe's, there was a predominant element of self-glorification in her desire to perpetuate the name and fame of "The Raven." One cannot but think the dead Poe meant much more to her than the live one ever did. A telling example of her narcissistic attitude came when she proudly allowed Richard Henry Stoddard to read the notorious letter she claimed to have received from Poe, which featured the poet mendaciously assuring Whitman, as a sign of his unique love for her, and of his sense of "honor," that by marrying Virginia, he had sacrificed his own happiness. Whitman was surprised and deeply upset when Stoddard expressed his dismay at the letter's depiction of Poe's callous disloyalty to the memory of a loving wife, rather than applauding the tribute to herself.

Of course, Sarah Whitman had a particular incentive to shape public perception about her "romance" with Poe--the widespread belief that he had jilted her, or worse, never really wanted to marry her at all. Rufus Griswold was the first to put into print the claim that when Poe went to Providence for the last time, he was determined to break his relationship with Whitman, even declaring to a New York poetess, Mary Hewitt, that the marriage would never take place. Griswold's lurid details about Poe deliberately staging a drunken tantrum at Whitman's house, all in order to compel her to break their engagement, were, of course, false, but after communicating with Hewitt herself, Whitman was forced to privately concede that Poe had denied they would marry. As late as 1877, she was irritated by a magazine columnist's assertion that Poe "disclaimed any personal interest in the projected marriage, in the presence of literary acquaintances here, even at the moment of receiving congratulations upon the sudden betterment of his prospects, and that his passionate letters to Mrs. Whitman were either wanting in sincerity, or he was weak enough to pretend an indifference that he did not feel." Whitman was understandably troubled and embarrassed to have such details become common knowledge, not because she had cared so deeply for Poe--in private letters, she asserted she never really loved him--but because of the blow to her pride. Any woman would surely find such talk painful--especially if she was aware there was truth to it--and Whitman was particularly vulnerable, being an emotionally fragile, hyper-sensitive and extremely vain personality. For her own psychological well-being, she had to do what she could to counter this perception of their relationship.

Nemesis finally came for Mrs. Whitman in the form of a Lowell, Massachusetts housewife, Annie Richmond. Whitman had never met her, but she knew of Mrs. Richmond as an acquaintance and admirer of Poe's, who was also corresponding with his biographer John H. Ingram. Ingram even told Whitman that "Annie" was providing him with interesting Poe letters.

Whitman had no idea just how interesting these letters were until Ingram published some of them as part of an 1878 "Appleton's Journal" article, "Unpublished Correspondence by Edgar A. Poe." This article revealed to her--and the world--the previously undreamed-of claim that, during Whitman's entire association with Poe--an association that had by then become central to her entire identity--he had been sending a married woman letters that made it painfully clear that she was his favored object of adoration, and the widowed, available "Poe's Helen" was a mere unsatisfactory consolation prize. If Mrs. Whitman had seen nothing wrong with informing the world that Poe had emotionally betrayed his dead wife to her, Mrs. Richmond was equally comfortable with asserting that Poe had betrayed both Virginia and Mrs. Whitman to her.

O. Henry could not have written a more stunning surprise ending to Mrs. Whitman's story. Her shock and humiliation must have been severe--the seventy-five year-old died about two months after the article's publication, and no wonder! What did the poor woman now have to live for?--but she publicly reacted with a commendable dignity.

Soon after Ingram's article appeared in print, she published a wry, telling commentary on the piece in a local paper, the "Providence Journal." She began by observing that "some of Poe's later memorialists may perhaps be blamed for not burning material confided to them for publication by Poe's nearest and dearest friends."

About the "material" itself, Whitman noted "the absence of all testimony as to the verbal authenticity of the letters." Referring in particular to a long, surreal letter Poe supposedly wrote Marie Shew Houghton, she pointed out that the text came from a mere copy provided by Mrs. Houghton, and was thus untrustworthy. Whitman wrote that when Ingram showed her the copy of this letter, she warned him that the "peculiarities of style" and phraseology were so different from Poe's known writings that it was impossible to accept this as a literal transcript, and that he ought not to present it as such. She said he had fully agreed with her opinion, and that he assured her nothing would be published until it had been "revised" and "recast." (The obvious irony here is that many of the letters by and about Poe among Whitman's papers exist only in copies written out by herself.)

Regarding Mrs. Richmond's contributions, Mrs. Whitman said only that she had no idea whether they had been "revised" or "recast," but "one can hardly imagine Poe to have said, 'You are the only being in the whole world whom I have loved at the same time with truth and with purity.'"

Whitman suggested to her readers that as an "offset to the confused and contradictory impression which these letters must inevitably leave," they should study the "Recollections" that Mrs. Richmond's sister Sarah provided for William Gill's "Life of Poe." Whitman praised the "exquisite fidelity" of Sarah Heywood's description of the poet. It is interesting that Whitman made this observation. Miss Heywood depicted Poe--whom, she made it clear, she scarcely knew--as a quiet, reserved, dignified, brilliant gentleman; always charming and courteous, but whose inner self was his own, something kept private from Sarah, from sister Annie, and from everyone else. She found a line from Wordsworth applicable to him: "Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart." In other words, he was the antithesis of the undignified, unmanly, ungrammatical jerk depicted in the letters both Mrs. Richmond and Mrs. Whitman claimed to have received from him.

Whitman summarized Ingram's article by stating that if Boileau's axiom, "a man's style is the man himself," is valid, the style of these letters leave us unable to find Poe the man in them. She closed with a quote from Samuel Johnson regarding Boswell: "Sir, if I thought that Bozzy was preparing to write my life, I should be tempted to anticipate him by taking his."

Whitman's short article is apt, witty, and insightful--one of the best brief Poe-related critiques I've seen. She obviously had a personal stake is discrediting letters that delivered such a grievous blow to herself, but that does not discount the validity of her criticism.

However, her article is the final, sardonic twist to her long career as a professional Poe fiancee. She seemed completely unaware--or was she, deep in her heart?--of one fact. All of the cogent arguments she used to cast suspicion on the integrity of these letters and the ladies who presented them--the reliance on mere copies, the startling stylistic variations from Poe's known writings, the inability to find "the man" Poe in any of these missives, the "absence of all testimony as to...authenticity of the letters," the dubious service Poe's "friends" provided him by bequeathing such material to posterity in the first place--all apply with equal force and justice to...herself.

Mrs. Ellet's Letters (Part Three)

"And if, in one, or perhaps two, insulated cases, the spirit of severe truth, sustained by an unconquerable will, was not to be put down, then, forthwith, were private chicaneries set in motion; then was had resort, on the part of those who considered themselves injured by the severity of criticism (and who were so, if the just contempt of every ingenuous man is injury) resort to arts of the most virulent indignity, to untraceable slanders, to ruthless assassination in the dark."
-Edgar Allan Poe, "Graham's Magazine," 1841

The letter Elizabeth Ellet wrote to Frances S. Osgood in July of 1846 was a reply to one she received from Osgood the previous month. (That letter, most unfortunately, is lost.) Ellet's comments regarding this letter make it clear that Osgood, awash in her habitual self-pity and desperate to pacify Ellet--who obviously terrified her--was throwing both Edgar and Virginia Poe well and truly under the bus. Evidently, Virginia had first described to and then shown Ellet a letter she said had come from Osgood. This letter--obviously the catalyst for the public feuding--Osgood now claimed was a forgery designed by the Poes themselves.

Here, incidentally, is proof that Osgood's letter--which, for all we know, was addressed to either or both the Poes--could not have been, as is assumed, a love note. Aside from the fact that Virginia would hardly share such a thing with her callers, I doubt even a woman as silly as Frances Osgood would be stupid enough to try peddling the notion of Poe forging billet-doux to himself and then displaying them to his wife. Another piece of evidence that the letter was not romantic in nature is the Valentine poem Poe's wife wrote for him not long after this incident. The poem, with its references to Virginia's desire to live with him in a remote cottage away from the evil of the world, to find a refuge where "love shall heal my weakened lungs," showed that, while she was well aware there was a bad moon rising, she did not blame her husband for their troubles.

And Ellet could not have read a purely "innocent" letter that she somehow miraculously managed to spin into something insidious. Not only would Virginia have equally little reason to show Ellet--who was hardly her friend--an innocuous letter, but if Ellet had tried such a tactic, all anyone she attacked would have to do is produce the letter to prove that Osgood was innocent and Ellet a liar. Instead, Osgood frantically repudiated it. The letter shown by Virginia was obviously an attack on Ellet--Osgood, as Horace Rumpole would say, grassed on her rival.

That is the only thing that explains why Virginia confronted Ellet with this document--she was demanding a response to Osgood's charges. That is the only thing that explains Ellet's reference to the letter's "fearful paragraphs" that "haunted me night and day like a terrifying spectre." That is the only thing that explains Ellet's reference to Samuel Osgood saying "things...too terrible to repeat" about her--"things" that she knows Frances can assure her he will no longer say, "now that he knows the truth" (i.e., that the letter Virginia said was written by his wife was a "forgery.") If Samuel had heard that Frances had written other men love letters, that would hardly lead him to openly insult Mrs. Ellet--rather, he obviously was repeating statements contained in his wife's letter. Finally, the idea that Osgood had written highly damaging revelations about Ellet is the only thing that explains the bitter hatred Ellet expressed not only towards Poe, but his wife as well. (In her letter to Osgood, she referred to "the falsehoods told by the Poes," and added that "it is most unfortunate both for you and me that we ever had any acquaintance with such people as the Poes." Obviously, whatever Virginia said to Ellet when she showed Osgood's letter had left a mark.

Ellet, of course, was only too willing to play along with Osgood's idiotic claim that her letter was forged. Agreeing that "any man capable of offering to show notes he never possessed would not, I think, hesitate at such a crime," she noted how now that Osgood had disowned the letter, the "wretch" Poe will not dare to work "further mischief" with it, and that neither woman need fear any more "verbal calumnies" from the poet, as "steeped in infamy" as he was by then. (Again, here is evidence that Poe was believed to have a grudge against both Ellet and Osgood.)

Ellet's letter also proved that Mrs. Whitman's story about a posse of literary women being sent out to retrieve Osgood's letters from Poe was a complete fable. Ellet's comment about Poe's inability to foment "further mischief" with Osgood's letter showed that the Poes still had this troublesome document, and she said nothing about any efforts to retrieve it.

All this obviously still leaves major questions unanswered. What did Poe discover about Osgood that caused him to avoid her completely for the rest of his life, and cause Greeley, Ellet, Edward Thomas, and who knows who else, to assume the two were enemies? What were Osgood's charges against Ellet, that she so cravenly later tried to take back? Poe later made public reference to Virginia being the target of vicious anonymous letters. Other evidence indicates he believed these letters were Ellet's handiwork. Did Osgood provide the Poes with this information? And are these poison-pen letters somehow linked to these mysterious, undefined, but extremely damning letters of Ellet's that both Poe and Griswold claimed existed? (If Poe was threatening to reveal them to the world, they could hardly have been love letters to him. Such letters would, naturally, embarrass him as well.)

Alluding to a particular sixteenth-century Scottish historical mystery, someone once expressed the pious belief that "at the Day of Judgement, we shall know the solution to the Gowrie Conspiracy at last!" In the case of the Poe Conspiracy, let us hope a less extreme method of enlightenment still might be found.

"O, that it were possible we might
But hold some two days' conference with the dead!
From them I should learn somewhat, I am sure,
I never shall know here."
-John Webster, "The Duchess of Malfi"

Mrs. Ellet's Letters (Part Two)

The little evidence left to us does indicate that, sometime late in January of 1846, there was a dispute involving Edgar Allan Poe and letters he claimed Elizabeth Ellet had written. Ellet's friend Thomas Dunn English took her part, echoing her hysterical denials of writing Poe so much as a line. (As if English could know one way or another.) This caused Poe's relations with English--never exactly affectionate even in the best of times--to blossom into open, bloody warfare, which culminated in Poe suing a newspaper that had published a libelous column English wrote about him.

English claimed--although proof was never produced--that Poe had "vilified a certain well-known and esteemed authoress of the South, then on a visit to New York; that he had accused her of having written letters to him which compromised her reputation..." Ellet then allegedly sent her brother, William Lummis, to demand that Poe produce these letters--letters Poe (depending on which story you prefer) either refused to produce, or had already returned to her. According to Ellet and English, Poe--fearing Lummis would kill him--then extricated himself by writing Ellet a letter retracting his claim about her letters. This Poe letter, incidentally, was never made public, then or ever, which is odd if his worst enemies had a statement so damaging to him in their hands.

Griswold, of course, later gave his own version of the event in his Poe memoir, claiming that Poe had borrowed money from this "distinguished literary woman of South Carolina," and, in order to get out of repaying the debt, "denied all knowledge of it, and threatened to exhibit a correspondence which he said would make the woman infamous, if she said any more on the subject. Of course there had never been any such correspondence..." How Poe thought he could carry off an effective blackmail with letters his victim knew never existed is not explained. Also "infamous" seems too strong a word to use in reference to mere love letters. And, of course, in private, Griswold evidently insisted to various people that Ellet had written Poe letters of some unspecified, but scandalous variety. Interestingly, he hinted they were anonymous.

Osgood's exact role in all this is never made clear, only that her actions caused Poe to never speak or write to her again. And the literati rose as one to go after Poe with bell, book, and candle. The bulk of the literary world set out to destroy him personally and professionally, and destroy him they did, in a manner that would disgrace the most savage pack of piranhas. As Sidney P. Moss wrote, "Poe as a person was reduced to ruin by the New York literati and their sponsors, who used the occasion while he was defenseless to work out old grudges or new ones. What the record fails to show clearly enough is that Poe, up to the time he had written 'The Literati' sketches, had achieved an unparalleled national reputation as a critic, whatever notoriety he earned in gaining that reputation; that on the strength of 'The Raven,' he became famous as a poet...his narratives, widely, if not invariably accepted as brilliant at home, were beginning to be acclaimed in England and France...His encounters with English, Fuller, and company, however, brought his career to a grinding halt, for his personal reputation, smeared beyond recovery by his enemies, soured his literary reputation, so that his manuscripts often went begging for publication..."

Here is what we know of the situation:

In a letter of May of 1846, Horace Greeley made a vague reference to Poe having "scandalized two eminent literary ladies" (presumably Mrs. Ellet and--interesting to note--Mrs. Osgood.)

In January 1848, Anne Lynch, in response to Sarah Helen Whitman's inquiries about Poe, wrote her an equally vague letter describing "a great war in bluestockingdom some time ago and Poe did not behave very honorably in it."

In 1875, Elizabeth Oakes Smith commented to Whitman that "Mr. Poe was the last person to whom I should ever have attributed any grossness...I saw women jealous in their admiration of him. I think he often found himself entangled by their plots and rivalries. I do not for a moment think he was false in his relations to them."

Shortly after Poe's death, Margaret Fuller wrote these words about him to Elizabeth Barrett Browning: "...several women loved him, but it seemed more with passionate illusion which he amused himself by inducing than with sympathy; I think he really had no friend."

Greeley, in a January 1849 letter to Rufus W. Griswold discussing rumors of Poe's engagement to Mrs. Whitman, thought Mrs. Osgood would make a good envoy to dissuade the widow from having anything to do with the author of "The Raven."

In the wake of Poe's successful libel suit against the "Mirror," the paper that had published English's actionable column, sinister anonymous items began appearing in that newspaper, predicting that Poe would now turn his attention to hauling certain literary ladies (note the plural) into the dock as well.

At the end of 1845, just before matters came to a head, Osgood sent the "Broadway Journal" a bitter, angry poem entitled "To the Lady Geraldine," which describes how a woman who posed as her friend had caused certain other people to turn against her. (A February 1846 letter to Osgood from another friend indicates that Frances had made similar complaints to her.)

In March 1847, Edward Thomas, a friend of the Osgood family, wrote Frances a letter discussing Poe's recent lawsuit. Thomas had testified on Poe's behalf, recanting accusations he had helped spread that Poe was a forger. (Incidentally, English claimed that Poe told him that Thomas--a man Poe had never even met--spread these charges in the hopes of eclipsing Poe in Mrs. Osgood's affections. This claim seems hardly supported by the known facts, including Thomas' own letters to her. In any case, considering that English had just been established in a New York courthouse as a libeler--not the last time he would face such charges--one should be wary of accepting his word on anything--most particularly his word on people he hated. Besides, if Thomas was jealous of anyone around Osgood, surely it would have been her husband.) In Thomas' letter to Mrs. Osgood, he noted that he was not surprised that Poe won his suit, as he himself had always thought English's column "a libel in reality," apologized to her for being unable to give "Sam" the loan Mr. Osgood had recently sought from him, and then commented: "Poor Poe--he has lost his wife--his home--may the folly of the past make him contrite for the future--may he live to be what he can be if he has but the will. He is now alone and his good or evil will not so much afflict others." Thomas' words indicate not only that he never regarded Poe as a romantic rival, but that he assumed his friend Mrs. Osgood did not know--or approve of--the troubled writer any more than he himself did.

Finally, there is a most curious quote from Poe himself. In 1846, he published a review of Osgood's poetry, where he discusses at length a verse drama of hers called "Elfrida." Referring to the title character--a heartless, treacherous woman who cold-bloodedly plots the murder of her innocent husband so that she may marry a king--he notes, "In the depicting the impassioned ambition of Elfrida, the authoress seems especially at home, and upon this character she has evidently put forth her strength." What in the world was he trying to insinuate about Mrs. Osgood?

What do all these fragmentary clues tell us? That certain "literary ladies"--obviously Ellet and Osgood, as theirs are the only names to surface--got into a jealous catfight over their mutual admiration of Poe. Ellet did or said something to Poe that caused him to think badly of Osgood. That "bluestocking," in revenge, fed Poe some even more damaging information about Ellet. (The proof that she did so will be described later.) Poe, now weary of both these ladies--or, to be more accurate, "women"--invited them both to go straight to the devil, and left town to bury himself in the country at Fordham, leaving no forwarding address, and telling no one--particularly his erstwhile female fan club--where he had gone. Which brings us to the most detailed and revealing piece of hard evidence we have regarding the whole deranged business: A letter Mrs. Ellet wrote Mrs. Osgood in July, 1846.

To be continued...

Mrs. Ellet's Letters; Or, Poe Poe Pitiful Me (Part One)

One of the landmark events in Edgar Poe's life--the famous January 1846 "letters scandal" involving Elizabeth F. Ellet and Frances S. Osgood--is remarkably undocumented and unfathomable. Anyone making an examination of the business immediately becomes lost in a maze of plot and sub-plot, accusation and counter-accusation, like something out of Jacobean drama (John Webster in particular would have adored this story.) Biographers struggling to understand how Poe so suddenly went from literary lion to social pariah as a result of the episode have unfortunately relied almost exclusively on Sarah Helen Whitman. In the 1870s, she began providing a version of the dispute (which she claimed to have heard thirty years earlier from literary socialite Anne Lynch,) and after a close study of the few known facts of the case, I am convinced that her story came straight out of her ether bottle. (Speaking of Mrs. Whitman, can anyone explain to me why Poe biographers all place such confidence in the accuracy of the reminiscences of an admitted habitual drug user?)

According to Whitman, "some ladies" visiting the Poe household (she quite erroneously claimed this was after Poe had moved to Fordham,) chanced to see a letter written by Frances S. Osgood, that had been left openly lying about the house. Something about this letter so agitated these callers that they went straight to Osgood and urged her to demand the return of her entire correspondence from Poe. (Whitman claimed that Elizabeth F. Ellet was the instigator and leader of all this, but she failed to explain Ellet's precise actions, her motivation, or why all these other women passively did her bidding.) Two women (Whitman vaguely thought they may have been Lynch and Margaret Fuller) were deputized to go to Poe and order him to hand over Osgood's letters. He, insulted and angry, asserted that Mrs. Ellet should be concerned about her own letters. And with those words, all hell proceeded to break loose.

All one has to do is consider the details of this story to realize its absurdity. Would anyone in Poe's family leave what everyone presumes was an indiscreet love letter to him lying about as a conversation piece? If Osgood, for whatever reason, desired the return of her letters, why not quietly ask Poe herself, rather than allowing the request to become a public performance for the entertainment of all? Why should any of these other women give two hoots about what Osgood wrote to whom? If Ellet (as the story suggests) had written compromising letters to Poe as well, why would she draw attention to Osgood's letters, thus leaving herself wide open to the same criticism? Poe's biographers all assume that Ellet's actions were motivated by jealousy over Osgood's friendship with him. If that was the case, what satisfaction could she have derived from revealing proof of his partiality to all the world? Why, in Whitman's story, is Poe described as expressing outraged fury towards only Ellet, and not Osgood, who did, after all, allow them both to be put in this humiliating position? And, most importantly, why is there no contemporary corroboration for any of this? Whatever truly happened, this obviously ain't it.

There is a letter, said to be from Poe to Mrs. Whitman, which seems to allude to the Ellet fracas, but unfortunately it is extremely vague and downright incoherent. The letter indicates only that Poe, angered by an unspecified insult Ellet delivered "upon both families," said something--we are not told exactly what--that he immediately regretted. He then, to compensate, gathered up some letters--presumably Ellet's--and delivered them to her doorstep. That lady responded by sending her brother to order Poe to...return her letters.

If you can make any sense of all that, I salute you.

More to come...

(Image: NYPL Digital Gallery)