Marginalia

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.

Marginalia

Elizabeth Oakes Smith may have been a successful poet, magazinist, lecturer and essayist, but where Edgar Allan Poe was concerned, she is best known as an irresponsible fantasist. (Although, God knows, she was hardly unusual in that respect.) She was fond of publishing colorful and subtly malicious reminiscences about her literary brethren. Unfortunately for her quest for "copy," she did not know Poe well--if she actually knew him personally at all. Undeterred, she spread stories about him anyway, mixing together stray scraps of gossip, putting her own finishing touches on them, and generally coming up with a very strange brew indeed. (Poe's biographer John H. Ingram wound up contemptuously dismissing her as "imaginative.")

Her most notorious Poe anecdote was her lunatic claim that the poet died in 1849 as a result of a beating commissioned by a woman (Elizabeth F. Ellet, although Smith never named her publicly) whose letters Poe had refused to return. In other words, she gave a version of the 1846 dispute between Poe and Ellet, as narrated by Rod Serling.

A lesser-known tale of Smith's is equally unbelievable, but very interesting in its broader implications. It is told to us by a man named J.C. Derby, in his 1884 memoir, "Fifty Years Among Authors and Publishers." (Derby, it must be said, is not the world's most reliable source himself. Elsewhere in this same book, when discussing the Griswold edition of Poe's collected works, he made the astonishing statement that "The copyright was paid at first to Mr. Poe, and after his death to his mother-in-law, Mrs. Clemm...")

According to Derby, Smith told him an anecdote concerning Poe and a unnamed woman, who was obviously Elizabeth F. Ellet. He quoted Smith as saying:

"A certain lady of my acquaintance fell in love with Poe and wrote a love-letter to him. Every letter he received he showed to his little wife." [Note: This intriguing detail about Virginia reading all his correspondence was actually confirmed elsewhere by Mrs. Clemm.]

"This lady went to his house one day; she heard Fanny Osgood and Mrs. Poe having a hearty laugh, they were fairly shouting, as they read over a letter. The lady listened, and found it was hers, when she walked into the room and snatched it from their hands. There would have been a scene with any other woman, but they were both very sweet and gentle, and there the matter ended."

Now, this is a patently absurd little fable. Not only do we not have any other source--including Smith herself--that confirms Derby's story, but it flatly contradicts the little we do know. All the evidence we have indicates that the feud involving the three women started when Virginia Poe confronted Mrs. Ellet with a letter written by Mrs. Osgood. In any case, it seems far too conveniently coincidental that, after sending Poe this mash note, Ellet should just happen to enter the Poe house (unannounced, presumably,) at the precise time that the other two ladies are reading her effusions aloud. As the old saying goes, the story doesn't pass the smell test.

What is significant about this anecdote is what it does not say. It is an indirect piece of evidence that, contrary to what is assumed by modern-day Poe biographers, there were no salacious contemporary rumors involving Poe and Osgood's relationship. If there had been, surely the gossipy Mrs. Smith would have incorporated them in her various Poe stories. She never--publicly or privately--hinted at any improper or scandalous allegations about the pair. In fact, her one recorded comment on the Poe/Osgood relationship suggested just the opposite. She once told Sarah H. Whitman that certain of Poe's female admirers--obviously, Mrs. Osgood and Mrs. Ellet--got into a jealous catfight with each other, and Poe wound up being caught in the crossfire. Smith emphasized, however, that she believed him to have been blameless in the matter. Mrs. Smith once wrote that many people had had some very ugly things to say about Mrs. Osgood, but she never connected these calumnies to Osgood's dealings with Poe. In fact, despite whatever negative remarks Smith made about the late poet--and, in her rather condescending way, she made plenty--she described him as a faithful and loving husband. (According to Smith's close friend Mrs. Whitman, Smith and Osgood disliked each other, so she would hardly have a motive to protect the other woman's name.)

Instead of describing any sort of scandal involving the Poe/Osgood relationship, Smith depicted Mrs. Osgood and Poe's wife laughing together about another woman's advances to him. All the recorded contemporary commentary on Poe's controversial dealings with women in 1845-46 focused on the dispute involving Elizabeth Ellet and her reputed letters to him--Osgood is practically ignored. In fact, we have statements (from Hiram Fuller and Horace Greeley in particular) suggesting that relations between Poe and Osgood were believed to have turned hostile. In early 1849, Greeley even saw Mrs. Osgood as someone who could be sent to advise Sarah Helen Whitman not to have anything to do with Poe!

Poe's Weird Women (Part Four) - Eliza White

With the sole exception of his marriage to Virginia Clemm, all of Edgar Allan Poe's many reputed romantic relationships with women have a strangely unreal, undocumented, unconvincing, and ephemeral quality. One of the most notable examples is his supposed flirtation with Elizabeth "Eliza" or "Lizzie" White. Poe met her in 1835, when he went to work on the "Southern Literary Messenger," the Richmond publication owned by her father, Thomas W. White. We know nothing certain about what--if any--relationship he had then with the fifteen-year-old Eliza. (Poe scholar J.H. Whitty claimed she was 23 when she met Poe, but records prove she was born in 1820.) It has been suggested that a poem Poe published in the September 1835 "Messenger," "Lines Written in an Album," which is addressed to an "Eliza," was written for Miss White, but that is highly unlikely. The poem appeared in print after Poe had been in Richmond only a few weeks, so it's almost certain the innocuous little verse was composed while he was still in Baltimore. (It has also been claimed--and generally accepted--that Poe originally wrote the poem for his cousin Elizabeth Herring, and Whitty had a notion that it was written with Virginia Eliza Clemm in mind, but both these statements are based on dubious or nonexistent evidence. Chances are Poe simply plucked the name, "Eliza" from thin air.)

Nearly everything we are told about their relationship originated with Elizabeth Oakes Smith (it's strange how the same few names keep popping up in Poe legend again and again,) who claimed to be a friend of the White family. After Poe died, she evidently told any number of people--including John Ingram and her friend Sarah Helen Whitman--that if Poe had lived, he would have married Eliza. (Or, as Smith called her, "Lizzie.") She did not explain where this left Whitman and Sarah Elmira Shelton. Smith also told Ingram that Maria Clemm had pressured Poe to marry Virginia in order to "save" him from "Lizzie," who was, according to Mrs. Smith, willful, capricious, and addicted to morphine. (After all, what interest could Poe have had in marrying Virginia Clemm, who was, according to everyone who knew her, lovely, intelligent, sweet-natured, and who adored him? Good Lord, fate worse than being broken on the wheel.) It is notable, however, that despite Smith's fondness for publishing "autobiographic" articles that consisted of whatever stray dirt she could rake up about her contemporaries, she never dared to put any of this in print. It is also notable that she simultaneously expressed her belief that after Virginia's death, Poe had an antipathy towards the idea of remarriage. She seemed not to notice the obvious incongruity.

Smith's stories have more holes than a sieve factory. She was known as an irrepressible and irresponsible gossipmonger (she was also responsible for disseminating a garbled and extremely lurid version of the "Ellet letters" incident, where Poe supposedly died as the result of a beating administered in New York by thugs hired by a woman with whom he had quarreled and whose letters he had refused to return.) Mrs. Whitman--herself no stranger to mythomania--told Ingram frankly that Smith scarcely knew the first thing about Poe, and simply invented virtually everything she ever wrote about him. Smith herself conceded to Ingram that while "Lizzie" was in love with Poe, and hoped to eventually marry him, she had never seen the poet treat Miss White with anything other than his habitual dignified courtesy. Small wonder that Ingram quickly found himself irritably dismissing Smith as a completely worthless source.

The fable that Poe may have wanted to marry Eliza, rather than Virginia, is demolished by the famous letter he wrote to Mrs. Clemm in August 1835, where he expressed his deep love for Virginia, and indicated that he already saw himself as virtually engaged to her. (And, of course, if he and Virginia were, as many believe, privately married after they took out a marriage license on September 22, 1835, that settles the issue altogether.)

The indefatigable Susan Talley Weiss later picked up Smith's extravaganzas about Eliza and Poe and put her own deranged spin on them. She reiterated the notion that Poe had intended to marry Miss White, rather than Virginia, but as was usual with her, she never managed to get her stories straight. At one point, she indicated that it was Maria Clemm's insistence that Poe wed her daughter that ended his budding romance with Eliza. Elsewhere, she claimed that Poe had actually been engaged to Miss White, but Poe's "dissipation" forced her to break off the match.

One seeks in vain for evidence proving any of this. Poe's only recorded references to Eliza are two brief, casual asides in letters written to Mrs. Clemm during his 1849 Richmond visit. They do nothing to indicate he was romantically interested in her, or ever had been. We have a number of Thomas White's letters which mention both Eliza and Poe. They contain no hint of any sort of personal relationship between his young daughter and his assistant. In the late 1850s, Sarah Helen Whitman wrote Mrs. Clemm asking if there had ever been a romance between Eliza and Edgar. Poe's aunt responded that Eliza had visited them at Fordham before and after Virginia's death. She said they had all esteemed Miss White as a family friend, but Poe's feelings for her had never gone further than that. (Eliza's visits to them while his wife was still alive, as well as the fact that she attended Poe's Richmond marriage to Virginia substantiates this statement.) J.H. Whitty wrote that Eliza's sister, Sarah Bernard, and John Fergusson, a "Messenger" employee intimate with the White family, both told him that there had never been anything romantic between Poe and Eliza. Whitty can never be trusted as a source, but his testimony is at least consistent with all available reliable evidence.

Most striking of all is the fact that we do not have one word about Poe from Miss White herself. This is particularly curious, as in the 1850s White, in an effort to escape her poorly-paying job as a music teacher (which she bitterly described as "drudgery,") tried launching a career giving public readings from Shakespeare and other poets (not Poe, however.) She publicized herself as the daughter of the founder of the "Southern Literary Messenger." If she had any interesting anecdotes or reminiscences of the "SLM's" most famous employee, Edgar Allan Poe, surely she would have made use of them by incorporating them in her readings, or by giving newspaper interviews, in her effort to attract audiences.

Her hopes of establishing herself as a professional "reader" came to nothing (one contemporary review gently hinted that her ambitions outstripped her abilities,) and she was forced to return to her hated "drudgery." She was teaching music in Richmond until at least 1880. Whitty claimed White died in 1888, but as he misstated her birth year, I'm doubtful he got the time of her death right. I have yet to uncover any valid record of when she died, or where she is buried. (Whitty stated she was buried in Richmond's Shockoe Hill Cemetery, but records of that burial place do not list her name.) Sadly, the death of an impoverished elderly spinster, who was virtually alone in the world, would have received little notice.

Other than Mrs. Smith's questionable--and extremely unflattering--descriptions, we have little or no information about what sort of person Eliza White was. Her one extant letter (written as an application for a clerking job in Richmond during the Civil War,) her attempted career as a "reader," and the dreadful poetry she wrote for the "Messenger" all suggest a theatrical, rather affected personality, but there is too little evidence to know for sure. We do not even know what she looked like. No picture of her exists, and there is no reliable description of her appearance. A cousin of White's once stated that her chief claim to beauty was her light-blonde hair, which implied that she was otherwise not particularly attractive. (This same relative, significantly, could not offer any insight about Eliza's friendship with Poe, explaining that her cousin never mentioned the poet's name.)

Elizabeth W. White--whether or not she was infatuated with Poe, or was a drug addict, or indulged in "capricious" behavior--was definitely one of the most obscure, as well as among the most tenuous, of Poe's many Weird Women.