Why It Was Never a Good Idea to Send Poe Hate Mail

Today, we look back fondly on a minor Poe feud that took place this week in 1845. Obscure an incident as it may be, I felt it was still worthy of remembrance.

It all started so amicably. In early April, Poe, in his role as drama critic for the "Broadway Journal," wrote to William Dinneford, the manager of New York's Palmo's Opera House, asking for the usual free admission granted to journalists. Poe indicated that he wished to see Dinneford's upcoming production of Sophocles' "Antigone," and was anxious to do it "Justice."

Poe's subsequent review of the play was utterly withering. In the April 12 issue of the "Journal," he wrote: "The idea of reproducing a Greek play before a modern audience is the idea of a pedant and nothing beyond...Many persons will be curious to understand the mode in which the Greeks wrote dramas and performed them--but, alas! no person should go to Palmo's for such understanding." He added, "We are really ashamed of wasting so much space in commenting on such a piece of folly."


Dinneford was not pleased. On April 15, he sent Poe an indignant letter focusing on his outrage that Poe had been able to savage his play gratis.

"SIR!" he spat, "In your note of the 2d inst. you request of me the favor of being placed on the free list of this theatre, because (as your letter says) you were anxious 'to do Justice to Antigone on its representation.' Your name was accordingly placed on the free list. Your Critique has appeared, in the Broadway Journal, characterized, much more by ill nature and an illiberal spirit, than by fair and candid, or even just criticism.

In justice therefore to MYSELF, I have withdrawn your name from the free list. I am always prepared to submit; as a catererer [sic] for public amusement, to any just remarks, though they may be severe, but I do not feel MYSELF called upon to offer facilities to any one, to do me injury by animadversions evidently marked by ill feeling. I am SIR!

With very great respect,

Your most obt servt W. DINNEFORD.
To Edgar Poe, Esq., &c. &c. &c., Author of THE RAVEN.
New York, Apl. 15, 1845. No. 8 Astor House"

Poe's response was no surprise to anyone who knows anything about Poe. The April 19 “Journal” carried the headline “Achilles' Wrath.” Below it, Poe commented, "At 'No. 8 Astor House,' in a style (no doubt) of luxurious elegance and ease, resides a gentleman and a scholar, who (without paying his postage) has forwarded us a note, (through the Despatch Post,) signing it either Mr. W. Dinneford, or Mr. P. or Mr. Q. Dinneford--for he writes a shockingly bad hand, and we are unable to make out all his capitals with precision. It is not always the best scribe, however, physically considered, who is capable of inditing the most agreeable note--as the note of Mr. Dinneford will show. Here it is."

Poe then reproduced Dinneford's letter. He went on to say, "We are not wrong (are we?) in conceiving that Mr. Dinneford is in a passion. We are not accustomed to compositions of precisely this character--(that is to say, notes written in large capitals with admiration notes for commas--the whole varied occasionally with lower case)--but still, we think ourselves justified in imagining that Mr. Dinneford was in a passion when he sent us this note from his suite of boudoirs at the Astor House. In fact, we fancy that we can trace the gradations of his wrath in the number and impressiveness of his underscoring. The SIRS!! for example, are exceedingly bitter, and in THE RAVEN, which has five black lines beneath it, each one blacker than the preceding, we can only consider ourselves as devoted to the Infernal Gods."

"Mr. Dinneford is in a passion then--but what about? We had been given to understand, that it was usual in New York, among editors newly established, to apply (by note) for the customary free admission to the theatres. The custom is a wretched one, we grant, but since it was a custom, we were weak enough, in this instance, to be guided by it. We made our note to this Dinneford as brief and as explicit as possible--for we felt that the task was a dirty one. We stated distinctly that we wished to be placed on his free list for the purpose of 'doing justice to Antigone'--just as he says himself. To this note the inhabitant of No. 8 Astor House condescended to make no reply. Supposing that the man 'knew no better,' and pitying his ignorance from the bottom of our hearts, we proceeded to the theatre on its opening night, in the full certainty of at least finding our name on the free list. It was not there. And the blatherskite who could behave in so indecent a manner, as to fail first in answering our note, and secondly in paying attention to the request it contained, has the audacity to find fault with us because we dared to express an unbiased opinion of his stupidity--that is to say, of the stupidity of a play gotten up by himself, Mr. Dinneford."

"...We are not wasting words on this Quinneford[sic]--it is the public to whom we speak--to the editorial corps in especial. We wish to call their attention to the peculiar character of the conditions which managers such as this have the impudence to avow, as attached to the privilege of the free list. No puff no privilege, is the contract. That is to say, an editor, when admitted to the theatre, is to be understood as leaving his conscience in the street. He is admitted not to judge--not to criticise--but to adulate..."

"We have spoken, altogether, of 'such managers' as Quinneford--but fortunately such managers are few. There is certainly not in New York, at the present moment, any other member of the theatrical profession, who either would have behaved with the gross discourtesy of this gentleman, or who, in inditing the preposterous letter published above, could have proved himself, personally, so successful a 'caterer for the public amusement.'"

Poe dismissed the hapless manager with, "We told him that we meant to do him justice--and we did it."

Episodes such as this make me wish longingly that Poe was around today to write a blog. What he'd do with trolls would be a perfect joy to behold.

(P.S. Poe's fellow critics and New York audiences all agreed with his opinion of Dinneford's "Antigone." The play closed after barely two weeks.)


Images via Wikipedia, NYPL.

The Strange Life and Death of the "Broadway Journal" (Part Three)

"Misery is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform."
-"Berenice"

Whatever the true story may have been, the Briggs/Bisco deadlock was ended--and the downfall of Edgar Poe well and truly set in motion--when Briggs presumably left the "Journal." He allowed his erstwhile partner to continue publication, with his own name removed from the masthead. Bisco and Poe signed an agreement on July 14 making Poe sole editor. The contract also gave him half the profits and an "absolute lien" on the "Journal." However, as the original Briggs/Bisco contract had never been abrogated--and never would be--this agreement Poe entered into must have been legally worthless. It would be interesting to know when Poe discovered this--if he ever did--and if this had something to do with the "lies" Briggs claimed Poe was spreading about him at around this time. One also has to wonder what Bisco was thinking. Even if Poe did not know the terms of Bisco's first contract with Briggs, Bisco himself certainly did. Why did he even want to continue so troublesome a publication, particularly when he knew perfectly well Briggs could pull the plug on his enterprise on a whim? The only logical inference is that he and Briggs had a private mutual understanding, of which Poe knew nothing.

In any case, Briggs certainly acted as though he still had the upper hand. He huffed and puffed about taking Poe and Bisco to court in order to halt publication of the "Journal," but these threats proved to be empty. In spite of his claim that he could "displace" Poe and Bisco whenever he chose, Briggs actually seemed suspiciously pleased to allow Poe to dig himself deeper into that hole called the "Broadway Journal."

The apparent lack of capital, as anyone could have predicted, made the paper's continued existence increasingly unlikely. Because the original contract permitted Bisco to demand payments from his partners within three days, Poe, having replaced Briggs as the putative partner, made attempts to acquire personal loans for the magazine. The relatively small sums he acquired in this manner were hardly enough to keep the "Journal" afloat. His efforts saddled him with additional debts and gave his enemies the opportunity to brand him as a shameless borrower and sponger. By October, Bisco suddenly announced his decision to abandon the magazine altogether. Through what Poe dryly described as "a series of maneuvers almost incomprehensible to myself," he thus became sole editor and owner of the "Journal." He had finally achieved his long-cherished dream of owning his own magazine, but with the tragic irony that characterized his entire life, it was hopelessly dysfunctional financially and--he privately believed--contemptible artistically. Adding to his difficulties was the fact that, when Briggs left the "Journal," he was allowed to simply abandon his moiety, but when Bisco jumped ship, he insisted that Poe pay him off.

Although Poe wrote in the "Journal" that he was counting on the aid of "friends" to sustain the magazine, whatever promises he had been given for financial assistance failed to materialize. Early in December, Poe threw up his hands. He transferred half his interest in the "Journal" to Thomas H. Lane, who handled the magazine's liquidation. (Poe later characterized Lane to George Eveleth as "the person to whom I transferred the Journal and in whose hands it perished.")

The true and complete history of the "Broadway Journal" can never be known, because everyone involved, including Poe, had his own individual reasons for not wishing it to be known. However, enough evidence remains on record to show the "objects" for which the "Broadway Journal" was established. That "series of almost incomprehensible maneuvers" which left Poe as sole editor and owner was all part of a complex legal scheme which wound up entrapping and neutralizing Poe as a force in the literary world. (The fact that this crisis in his professional affairs was practically simultaneous with the equally disastrous personal crisis involving Elizabeth Ellet's letters may or may not be coincidental.) When Poe was lured into the magazine, he felt justified in believing that his name and the quality of his contributions would increase circulation and advertising, and thus put the "Journal" on firm footing. In fact, an honest endeavor would undoubtedly have proved successful. The joint venture was set up in a way that ensured failure for the last man standing, and Poe was designated as that man. The "Boston Transcript," a newspaper which had close ties to Poe's worst enemies, commemorated their common opponent's downfall with a mocking elegy referring gleefully to the empty promises from Poe's "friends" which had lured him into the whole disaster. It revealed as much of the truth as they dared:

"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."

The Strange Life and Death of the "Broadway Journal" (Part Two)

"For indeed strange things shall happen, and secret things be known..."
-"Shadow--A Parable"

The means of blowing away at least some of the fog that shrouds the history of the "Broadway Journal" lies in the succession of very curious business contracts made amongst its proprietors, which reveal a series of maneuvers that would have embarrassed Bernie Madoff. Key to the whole strange story is the original contract between the founders of the "Broadway Journal," Briggs and a shadowy real estate dealer named John Bisco. If one believes their story, the planned publication lacked even a minimal amount of capital, utilizing instead a Rube Goldberg-like joint-stock improvisation, where all the partners worked for little or no hard cash. The paper originally had seven partners; later, its only way of staying afloat at all was supposedly by luring in additional "shareholders" (i.e. "suckers.")

Now, if Quinn saw the difficulty of believing that Poe could imagine that the magazine could survive without initial capital, surely Bisco and Briggs knew such an enterprise was untenable, as well. The two founders of the "Journal" liked to keep their personal business affairs shrouded in mystery, but they must have had a private source of funds from somewhere, or their magazine could not have been initiated at all.

Briggs and Bisco's original agreement had them sharing equally in both ownership and profits, with Briggs taking control of the magazine's editorial department and Bisco acting as publisher. Either partner's expenditures would be paid only in cash, and were to be partly reimbursed by the other partner. It was also agreed that "Neither partner shall dispose of his interest in the publication without the consent of the other." While all this protected the pair from any serious financial loss, it also eliminated any possibility for the "Journal" to be reorganized or recapitalized. Bizarrely, Briggs and Bisco seemed to be guaranteeing the ultimate collapse of their magazine.

Briggs had to hire professional writers for a publication that was incapable of paying them. In February 1845, he offered Poe, who was then, thanks to "The Raven" at the apex of his celebrity, a "work and share" contract. In return for providing the cachet of his name, and a certain amount of written contributions, Bisco promised Poe one-third of the profits. Briggs, as Poe himself later noted somewhat resentfully, kept sole editorial control of the paper until his departure that July.

How Bisco and Briggs actually defined and divided profits was and still is their own secret. Doubtless, that is exactly what Bisco intended. However, as the original contract between Bisco and Briggs was never annulled, it seems most likely that the pair each took half of the profits, and left subsequent so-called "partners" holding the bag.

Very soon, Poe realized he was putting in an enormous amount of work on the paper with little or no reward, either financial or artistic. By June, he was hoping to quit New York City altogether, "as the sole means of recruiting my health and spirits." He hoped to find someone willing to buy his "interest" in the "Journal," but, of course, he found it impossible to sell the unsaleable. He could not leave the "Journal" without buying out his partners, which was a practical impossibility. He was, in a word, trapped.

By this time, Briggs also claimed he wanted to be free of the essentially unworkable foundations of the "Journal." He told Lowell that without any capital on hand, his only option was to jettison both Poe and Bisco and start fresh with a different partner to act as publisher/financial angel. He claimed that a publisher and book dealer named J. Smith Homans had agreed to buy out Bisco and, for the first time, bring conventional capital to the increasingly shaky publication. Poe, whose personal relations with Briggs had by then hopelessly deteriorated, would be cast aside. Bisco, however, according to Briggs, derailed his plan (on the advice of unnamed "evil advisers,") by insisting on selling his share of the "Journal" for more than was called for in their original agreement.

This claim of Briggs', like practically everything he said about the "Journal," makes little sense. If the magazine was as badly off as he said, why wouldn't Bisco be eager to unload his worthless share of it for whatever he could get? And why would a successful, and presumably savvy, businessman like Homans want to invest his money in a failing literary weekly, particularly if Briggs truly aimed to rid it of Poe, the magazine's only real asset?

In September of that year, William Fairman, a traveling representative for the "Journal," wrote Bisco that "Mr. Poe has a great many friends and is held in the highest estimation both by those who know him as a man and as a writer. My only hopes is [sic] among his friends." Fairman also informed Bisco of the strange distribution problems plaguing the "Journal"--in many cities it either came too late or never came at all. Fairman thought the "Journal's" prospects were good, thanks to Poe, but that Bisco's method of individually canvassing for subscribers was outdated. "I do not think any person can make it for his interest to travel and solicit subscribers." Now, the person responsible for the "Journal's" distribution and subscription methods was Bisco himself, and he apparently ignored Fairman's warnings--which only gave advice that Bisco, who had acted as publisher for other periodicals, should have already known. It gives the impression that Bisco was strangely unconcerned with making the "Journal" a success.

In Part Three: The man that was used up.


(Image: NYPL Digital Gallery)

The Strange Life and Death of the "Broadway Journal" (Part One)

"There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told."
-"The Man of the Crowd"

January 3, 1846 marked the final issue of the "Broadway Journal," a small literary weekly that had been alive for only a year. The magazine carried a farewell message from its owner/editor, Edgar Allan Poe:

"Unexpected arrangements demanding my whole attention, and the objects being fulfilled, so far as regards myself personally, for which 'The Broadway Journal' was established, I now, as its Editor, bid farewell--as cordially to foes as to friends."

This enigmatic obituary notice has puzzled Poe's biographers ever since. What "unexpected arrangements" did he have? What were these fulfilled "objects" for which the "Journal" was established? So far as anyone has been able to tell, the magazine brought Poe less than nothing. As George Woodberry grumbled, "What other objects Poe achieved, except the republication of much that he had previously written in prose and verse, it is hard to see." As for his business investment in the magazine, Heyward Erlich commented, "nowhere is his role on the 'Broadway Journal' elevated above mystery and even obscurity."

It seems to have escaped all notice that Poe's valedictory becomes intelligible only when interpreted as an example of his characteristic sardonic humor. Poe's year-long involvement with the "Broadway Journal" left him in debt, physically worn from overwork, mentally exhausted from nervous tension, dogged by controversy, and surrounded by enemies, old and new. He never found steady magazine work again. He was, in short, publicly presented to the world as someone now depleted and isolated.

And that was precisely the intention.

Any attempts to fully chronicle the dark and complicated life story of the "Broadway Journal" are fatally hampered by the fact that the bulk of our information about the magazine and Poe's role in it come from its co-founder, Charles F. Briggs--largely through letters to his close friend James Russell Lowell. Briggs was a secretive, deliberately enigmatic sort--in "The Literati of New York City," published after the "Journal's" demise, Poe characterized him as someone who had "a passion for being mysterious. His most intimate friends seem to know nothing of his movements, and it is folly to expect from him a direct answer about anything." (In a later revision of his sketch of Briggs, Poe described Briggs' pseudonym " "Ferdinand Mendoza Pinto"--the name of a Renaissance-era adventurer who gained a legendary reputation as a liar--simply as "apt.") This view is borne out by Briggs' letters to Lowell, where his references to Poe and the "Journal" come off as self-serving, self-defensive, and illogical. This was not a man to rely upon as a witness.

Poe's own recorded remarks about the "Broadway Journal" are scant and somewhat contradictory, when they aren't simply mysterious. When addressing potential investors in the magazine, he unsurprisingly attempted a sanguine air about its prospects. To other correspondents, however, he sounded increasingly disgusted with the "Journal" and everyone connected with it. After an involvement of only weeks, he began writing longingly of his desire to bury himself in the remote countryside and devote his energies to writing books--if he could only find someone to take his share of the "Journal" off his hands. Later in the year, his attitude becomes increasingly dissatisfied, then caustic. By December, he was telling Fitz-Greene Halleck: "On the part of one or two persons who are much imbittered against me, there is a deliberate attempt now being made to involve me in ruin, by destroying 'The Broadway Journal.' I could easily frustrate them, but for my total want of money, and of the necessary time in which to procure it: the knowledge of this has given my enemies the opportunities desired."

Poe biographer Arthur Quinn, writing about the demise of the "Journal," commented bemusedly, "...the main cause of the failure was the lack of capital. The advertisements in the 'Journal" seem to be ample, and in fact increased from two to four pages after Poe had complete possession of the paper. No satisfactory figures concerning its circulation are available, but there were agents in twenty-three cities according to the last issue. Then as now, a magazine must lose money at first, if it is to win eventually, and Poe could not afford to lose even for a few months. That he did not know this seems inexplicable."

"Inexplicable?" It was impossible! Clearly, something more than the usual birth struggles of a new publication were being carried out behind the scenes. But what?

In Part Two: A descent into the maelstrom.

The "Broadway Journal" Poems

One of the more irritating traits found among Poe's biographers is their tendency to repeat the same statements over and over without even pausing to consider if there is any truth behind them.

A prominent example is the subject of the poems Frances S. Osgood and Poe published in the "Broadway Journal" during 1845. As we have very little solid evidence regarding their acquaintance, (probably because there was very little of an actual acquaintance at all) these poems have been transmogrified into the status of vital source material that supposedly provides the key to their entire relationship. Volumes of overheated prose have been written about how their public exchange of so-called "love poems" became a "literary courtship" which, it is assumed, became the talk of New York, feeding scandalous gossip about the pair. (This flight of fancy also ignores the fact that in those times, it was a "fad" for the literati to publish poems of praise to each other that often got far more extravagant than anything written by Osgood or Poe.)

The truth is far more prosaic. Their poems in the "Journal" were either utterly inapplicable to whatever personal relationship they had or quite innocuous. There is also not one whit of contemporary evidence suggesting that anyone at the time saw any suggestive significance to their writings--or, indeed, to their whole relationship at all.

And they would have been fools if they had. As John E. Reilly noted ("Mrs. Osgood and 'The Broadway Journal,'" Duquesne Review, Fall 1967) the "identity of Mrs. Osgood's contributions to the series [the alleged "literary courtship"] is uncertain largely because her poetry is often so conventional that it is difficult to determine if it was written with any specific person in mind and because the center of focus in most of her poems is not the person addressed but upon the personae she assumes...Even among the several poems which can definitely be assigned to the series, it is apparent that Mrs. Osgood has distorted her relationship with Poe in the interest of exploiting its melodramatic potentialities..." (In fact, "I Cannot Forget Him," a poem that appeared in her last book of verse, has often been pointed to as clearly being a lament for her sundered relationship with Poe. These commentators were unaware that this poem--which even depicts her lost love as a "genius" writer--was first published the year before they met. This mistake should serve as a warning of the dangers of interpreting Osgood's writings as autobiography.)

Poe's contributions to the "series," consisted of only two poems--neither of which was even originally written for Osgood. The first, "To F---," appeared on April 26. Previously published as "To Mary," and "To One Departed," it is (as the second title implies) addressed to someone who is in the writer's past, someone who is dead, or at least permanently estranged from him. It is an extremely strange poem to rededicate to a person with whom he presumably had a current personal relationship. It is as if Poe was announcing that Osgood--whom he had met only a month before--was no longer a factor in his life.

The second poem, published on September 13, is also simply designated as "To F---." (It is also known as "To F--s S. O--d.") Here, we enter the realm of farce. It consists of the first four lines of mild verses he published a decade earlier to an "Eliza." In the "Journal," it appeared at the bottom of a reprint of one of his stories--as column filler! It is impossible to believe this was not done as deliberate--and not very kindly--mockery at Osgood's expense. Rather amusingly, Osgood biographer Mary De Jong desperately tried to palliate this none-too-subtle insult by arguing that, after all, Poe could have used other writings as "filler." To this, one can only reply: "Yes, exactly."

There is one more oddity concerning these two poems. Years later, Sarah Helen Whitman told Poe's biographer John H. Ingram that Poe told her that he had "allowed" those verses to be rededicated to Osgood--at that lady's own request. If Whitman's memory was correct, it casts a curious light, not only on the "literary courtship," but on Poe's whole relationship with Osgood.Osgood's contributions to the "Journal" began with two poems which appeared in the issue for April 5 (when, it should be noted, Poe had no editorial control over the magazine,) under the pseudonyms, "Kate Carol" and "Violet Vane." "The Rivulet's Dream" is Osgood at her most childishly ethereal, a vague allegory about "stars" and "rills" that says nothing, and certainly had no possible connections to Poe. "So Let It Be" is always interpreted as Osgood pleading for his affection:

"The fair, fond girl, who at your side,
Within your soul's dear light, doth live,
Could hardly have the heart to chide,
The ray that Friendship well might give."

Even this attribution is questionable, considering the poem's narrator is addressing an old flame, someone she describes as having turned "from every memory of the past"--a statement that could hardly apply to Poe, whom she had just met a matter of days before this poem was published. Even if one wants to apply this poem to the "literary courtship," the theme is Osgood's complaint that the addressee is cold and indifferent to her, engrossed instead in his love for "the fair fond girl" he has married. It hardly suggests a budding illicit romance.

The next issue of the "Journal" carried another pair of Osgood's poems, "Spring" and "Love's Reply." They are both conventional, unrevealing verses that, it is universally conceded, could not apply to Poe. (Reilly believed they must have been written before Osgood even met him.)

The April 26 issue contained Osgood's "Impromptu to Kate Carol," (which is often erroneously attributed to Poe.) This cutesy, punning poem expresses admiration, not of Poe, but for her own literary alter ego!

Osgood's next "Journal" poem, "To Lenore," appeared on May 31. Although the titular name is the same as an earlier poem of Poe's, it otherwise has no relation to him. Like "Love's Reply," it is believed to have been written before she made Poe's acquaintance.

"Slander," published on August 30, is assumed to be Osgood's commentary on the gossip supposedly circulating about her and Poe. We have no evidence that any such scandal existed. (Note well how Poe's biographers endlessly assert there was "talk" about the pair during this period--without ever quoting one contemporary word of it. Also ignored is the fact that the niece of Mrs. Osgood's husband later told Poe biographer Mary E. Phillips that her family had never heard any rumors whatsoever about Frances and Poe--and the niece was certain they would have known about it if such rumors had existed. She added the obvious observation that her uncle would never have painted Poe's portrait if he thought there was anything funny going on between the poet and Osgood's beloved wife.) "Slander," a lament for a "fragile girl" destroyed by venomous rumor, is so generic that it could apply to anyone--or no one.

"Echo-Song," which appeared the following week, quotes from Poe's "Israfel." This has led biographers to assume that the poem, which announces that:

"I know a noble heart that beats
For one it loves how 'wildly well!'"

was written as a tribute to him, and as a coy hint about his fondness for Osgood. That is insufficient evidence on which to base this claim, as Osgood often quoted other poets in her own work without actually addressing the poems to them. Even if she meant to dedicate "Echo-Song" to Poe, the arch and rather vague lines say little. For all we know, the "little name" the "noble heart" loved was a reference to Virginia Poe. Or someone else Osgood knew who had nothing to do with Poe. Or no one in particular at all. (The fact that "Echo-Song" was soon set to music and peddled as a contemporary pop song tends to rob the poem of any personal significance.)

On November 22, the "Journal" published her next contribution. "To ---" defends someone against accusations of "flirtation":

"Smile on then undimmed in your beauty and grace,
Too well e'er to doubt, love, we know you;--
And shed, from your heaven, the light of your face,
Where the waves chase each other below you;
For none can e'er deem it your shame or your sin,
That each wave holds your star image smiling within."

Again, the assumption that she is addressing Poe is built on mere fancy. There is nothing to show whom Osgood had in mind when she wrote the poem--if she had a specific person in mind at all. If it was penned for anyone in particular, the reference to her subject's "beauty and grace" seem to indicate she was writing to a female friend, not a man. (Indeed, this poem was later republished under the title, "To Sarah.")

Another "To ---" appeared in the November 29 issue. Of all her submissions to the "Journal," this is the one that is most plausibly identified as a message to Poe. It opens with another quote from "Israfel," and rhapsodizes:

"I cannot tell the world how thrills my heart
To every touch that flies thy lyre along;
How the wild Nature and the wondrous Art,
Blend into Beauty in thy passionate song--"

If Osgood indeed wrote this to Poe, it is nothing more than an expression of admiration for his poetry. A fan letter, in other words. (Osgood's attitude towards Poe was always reminiscent of a schoolgirl swooning over the teen idol of the moment.) In no way does it indicate any close personal relationship between the pair.

Her next "Journal" poem, "A Shipwreck," (December 13,) showed Osgood in her favorite role, that of self-pitying Drama Queen. This trite poem of rejected love has no obvious connection to Poe. Interestingly, however, if it did, it would (like the earlier "So Let It Be,") indicate that he wanted nothing to do with her.

A week later, Osgood's final "Broadway Journal" poem appeared in print. It is the most intriguing, and possibly the most significant, of the whole lot. "To 'The Lady Geraldine'" tells a story of betrayal. Osgood's narrator reproaches a woman she had thought was a friend, someone she trusted who turned others--presumably, if you wish to take these lines as based on fact, Poe--against her, even making her an object of ridicule.

"Though friends had warned me all the while,
And blamed my willing blindness,
I did not once mistrust your smile,
Or doubt your tones of kindness.

I sought you not--you came to me--
With words of friendly greeting:
Alas! how different now I see
That ill-starred moment's meeting.

When others lightly named your name,
My cordial praise I yielded;
While you would wound with woe and shame,
The soul you should have shielded.

Was it so blest--my life's estate--
That you with envy viewed me?
Ah, false one! could you dream my fate,
You had not thus pursued me.

Perhaps when those who loved me once,
Beguiled by you, have left me,
You'll grieve for all the hopes of which,
Your whispered words bereft me.

You'll think, perhaps, the laugh you raised,
Was hardly worth the anguish,
With which it caused a deep, true heart,
In silent pride to languish.

You'll think, perchance, the idle jest--
The joy--will scarce reward you,
For all the blame another's breast
Must now, in scorn, accord you.

Yet go! 'tis but a darker cloud,
O'er one fore-doomed to sadness;
I would not change my grief so proud,
For all your guilty gladness."

It is usually argued that Osgood was addressing Elizabeth Ellet, who is pictured as a rival for Poe's favor. This is not impossible, as Osgood did afterwards accuse Ellet of some unspecified dirty dealings against her. (Years later, Elizabeth Oakes Smith told Sarah Helen Whitman how feuds and jealousies had erupted among certain of Poe's female admirers, leaving him caught in the middle of the crossfire.) Soon after this poem was published, open warfare broke out when Virginia Poe confronted Ellet with a letter Osgood had written--a letter which (judging from Ellet's subsequent fury against Osgood--and both the Poes) likely elaborated on Osgood's charges against her enemy. "Lady Geraldine" may have been a harbinger of trouble to come. If so, it is worth noting that in this poem, Osgood yet again depicts Poe as rejecting her, even regarding her with amused contempt. However, as we have no way of proving what--if anything--Osgood wished to communicate in this characteristically affected and histrionic poem, it would be wrong to depend upon it as historical evidence. (It is also impossible to know for certain the meaning of the "Lady Geraldine" reference--that was a surprisingly common name in the literature of the day.)

In short, the poems of Poe and Osgood hardly justify the legend of scandalous literary flirtation that has filled the fantasies of far too many biographers.

**A footnote: The May 24 issue of the "Broadway Journal" included a poem entitled "To ----." It ran:

I would not lord it o'er thy heart,
Alas! I cannot rule my own,
Nor would I rob one loyal thought,
From him who there should reign alone;
We both have found a life-long love;
Wherein our weary souls may rest,
Yet may we not, my gentle friend
Be each to each the second best?

A love which shall be passion-free,
Fondness as pure as it is sweet,
A bond where all the dearest ties
Of brother, friend and cousin meet,--
Such is the union I would frame,
That thus we might be doubly blest,
With Love to rule our hearts supreme
And friendship to be second best.

In recent years, it has been suggested that these verses, written by someone identified only as "M," were composed by Poe as a response to Osgood's "So Let It Be." There is no evidence whatsoever to support this attribution. Poe himself certainly never claimed these lines as his own. In 1848, when he gave Sarah Helen Whitman bound volumes of the "Broadway Journal," he marked all his anonymous writings for the magazine. This poem was ignored. Also, these rhymes are even less like Poe's style than "Impromptu To Kate Carol," but they are typical of Osgood's poetry. The poem could very well have been written by some minor and unimportant contributor, but it is also quite possible that Osgood herself penned a rejoinder to "Violet Vane." (There are other known examples of her writing "responses" to her own work.)

If Poe did write this poem, however, it is notable as a gentle, but definite declaration of both his devotion to his wife and his insistence to Osgood that there could never be anything between them but innocent "passion-free" friendship.

Broadway Journal, R.I.P.

On January 2, 1846, Cornelia Walter, editor of the "Boston Transcript" (who had been conducting a public feud with Poe for several months,) published an odd little poem celebrating the recent demise of Poe's publication, the "Broadway Journal":

"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."

This poem, which seems to gleefully hint at dirty work having been played against her antagonist, makes an interesting partner to a letter Poe himself wrote to Fitz-Greene Halleck on December 1, 1845:

"On the part of one or two persons who are much imbittered [sic] against me, there is a deliberate attempt now being made to involve me in ruin, by destroying the "Broadway Journal." I could easily frustrate them, but for my total want of money, and of the necessary time in which to procure it: the knowledge of this has given my enemies the opportunities desired."

I've long suspected that if we had a complete and accurate account of the machinations that took place behind the scenes of the "Broadway Journal," it would tell quite a tale. This is just idle speculation on my part, but I have also wondered if these machinations had any link to the famous feud/scandal involving the Poes with Elizabeth Ellet, Frances S. Osgood, and Thomas Dunn English (who had his own link to the "Broadway Journal through his business partner, Thomas Lane.) The fact that this scandal--and we still do not know for sure exactly what it was--had its nuclear explosion in late January of 1846, just days after the "Broadway Journal" folded, seems a bit too coincidental.