Marginalia

This post is designed to provide a home for a few stray bits of Poeana I've encountered here and there.

1. The Case of the Postponed Pym

"The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" was issued by Harper's in July of 1838. However, the firm applied for copyright and had a title page prepared over a year earlier, in June 1837. (A month before, the "Knickerbocker" announced that the novel was "nearly ready for publication.") Why the long delay? We have no idea. Poe researcher Kenneth Rede suggested "they withheld the volume from the public to give Poe, desperately in need of funds, and without employment at the time, a reasonable opportunity to find a periodical willing to continue the serialization of the tale...and that when he failed in this quest, they then brought out the book as originally planned." It has also been theorized that Harper's held off releasing the book because of the uncertain economic climate of the times. (May 1837 saw a financial panic which inaugurated a severe depression that lasted until 1843.)


These theories, though plausible, fail to completely convince me. Admittedly, however, I cannot think of any better explanations. It is a curious coincidence that we know almost nothing of Poe's personal and professional activities between his move to New York City early in 1837 and his relocation to Philadelphia about a year later. Could this strange gap in his timeline have any connection to the simultaneous pause in the life of "Pym?"



2. Bayard Taylor's Poe Parody

In October of 1845, Poe became the sole proprietor of the "Broadway Journal." He bought out his partner, John Bisco, with the help of a promissory note for fifty dollars, which was endorsed by Horace Greeley. When it came due, Bisco evidently collected it from the endorser. ("As was to be anticipated," snorted Poe biographer George Woodberry.) Greeley, rather tastelessly, dined out on the episode for years to come, even proclaiming in his autobiography that he offered the note to someone seeking Poe's autograph "for half that amount."

The episode itself, thanks to Greeley, is relatively famous. What is less well-known is the fact that Greeley's friend Bayard Taylor was, for reasons known only to himself, inspired to commemorate it in a poem, "The Promissory Note." The result is one of the weirder Poe spoofs:

In the lonesome latter years,
(Fatal years!)
To the dropping of my tears
Danced the mad and mystic spheres
In a rounded, reeling rune,
'Neath the moon,
To the dripping and the dropping of my tears

Ah my soul is swathed in gloom,
(Ulalume!)
In a dim Titanic tomb,
For my gaunt and gloomy soul
Ponders o'er the penal scroll
O'er the parchment (not a rhyme,)
Out of place out of time,
I am shredded, shorn, unshifty,
(O, the fifty!)
And the days have passed, the three,
Over me!
And the debit and the credit are as one to him and me!

'Twas the random runes I wrote
At the bottom of the note
(Wrote and freely,
Gave to Greeley,)
In the middle of the night
On the yellow, moonless night,
When the stars were out of sight,
When my pulses, like a knell,
(Israfel!)
Danced with dim and dying fays
O'er the ruins of my days,
O'er the dimeless, timeless days,
When the fifty, drawn at thirty,
Seeming thrifty, yet the dirty
Lucre of the market, was the most that I could raise!

Fiends controlled it,
(Let him hold it!)
Devils held for me the inkstand and the pen;
Now the days of grace are o'er,
(Ah, Lenore!)
I am but as other men;
What is time, time, time,
To my rare and runic rhyme,
To my random, reeling rhyme,
By the sands along the shore,
Where the tempest whispers, "Pay him!" and I answer "Never more!"

Many poems made money, but this is the only case I know where money made poems.

3. Rufus W. Griswold, Poetic Muse

Another example of bizarre verses from the World of Poe comes to us courtesy of Frances S. Osgood. It is well known that in 1846 Poe wrote her an acrostic Valentine poem containing her name. His more frivolous biographers have tried to twist this innocuous--and probably commissioned--contribution to a Valentine party into evidence that they had some sort of close relationship (overlooking the fact that the poem misspelled her middle name and called her a dunce.) Left largely ignored is the fact that in 1850, Mrs. Osgood wrote a similar, but far more intimate poem to none other than everyone's favorite fraud, Rufus Wilmot Griswold. This poem, which George Woodberry dryly called "an illustrative document in regard to the literary group," rarely has appeared in print. I propose to do my part in correcting that omission. Fanny and the Reverend won't live this one down--in a manner of speaking--if I can help it. (Note: By reading the italicized letters, their names can be found--hers, left to right, his, right to left.)

For one, whose being is to mine a star,
Trembling I weave in lines of love and fun
What Fame before has echoed near and far.
A sonnet if you like--I'll give you one
To be cross-questioned ere it's truth is solv'd.
Here veiled and hidden in a rhyming wreath
A name is turned with mine in cunning sheath,
And unless by some marvel rare evolved,
Forever folded from all idler eyes
Silent and secret still it treasured lies,
Whilst mine goes winding onward, as a rill
Thro' a deep wood in unseen joyance dances,
Calling in melody's bewildering thrill
Whilst thro' dim leaves its partner dreams and glances.

Even more embarrassing evidence of her partiality (however self-serving) for Griswold can be found in her 1850 collection of poems, which "his attached friend" dedicated to him "As a souvenir of admiration for his genius, of regard for his generous character, and of gratitude for his valuable literary counsels."

4. In Which I Give John Evangelist Walsh the Plot of His Next Book

On a related note, an Edward A. Oldman wrote a peculiar letter to the New York Times which appeared in the August 11, 1929 issue. He claimed to know "the real reason" behind Griswold's enmity for Poe, information he gathered from "reminiscences at first-hand" he acquired from Poe's old classmates at the University of Virginia. (It was not explained how these youthful acquaintances would have the slightest "first-hand" knowledge about the relations between the two men, but never mind that.)

"From this material," wrote Oldham, "one important statement is recalled. It was in the effect that Rufus Wilmot Griswold was smitten with the flower-like charms of the poet's wife, and had on at least one occasion been rebuffed by her, the incident very nearly causing a permanent rupture between Poe and Griswold. The latter never forgot the circumstance and was known to have harbored a feeling of rancor against the poet."

This is nearly as silly a tale as the old cliché that Poe and Griswold were rivals for the dubious charms of Mrs. Osgood, but far more delightful. As long as the world is going to be plagued by badly-written, ahistorical Poe novels, I wish somebody would write one featuring a scene where the lustful Reverend makes impassioned advances to Virginia, only to have flowery Mrs. Poe "rebuff" him with a well-aimed knee to the groin. And perhaps a karate chop to the neck.

I may have to write it myself.

Poe scholars, showing a distressing lack of humor, have ignored Mr. Oldham's revelations, with the exception of Thomas O. Mabbott. He wrote the Times a week later, saying that he had never heard the story, "but it is one of those things that may very well be true." Thus proving a point I have made several times on this blog: There were no, I repeat, no Poe myths too nutty for Mr. Mabbott to embrace.

5. A "Lost" Portrait of Virginia Poe?

Mrs. W. H. Jackson, a self-described "admirer of Poe," wrote an article for the May 7, 1899 issue of the Detroit Free Press describing a visit she paid "many years ago" to Maria Clemm when Poe's aunt/mother-in-law was living in the Church Home in Baltimore. The article is brief and says nothing new or interesting, except for one brief statement that caught my eye. Mrs. Jackson said that on the wall of Mrs. Clemm's room hung "a colored lithograph" of Virginia holding "her favorite cat." She added, "Mrs. Clemm looked with a mother's tenderness upon this shadow of her frail child, whose nature 'touched to finer issues' was an inspiration to her gifted husband, sitting at his feet while many of the fantastic though purely rhythmic lines were dictated."

This does not fit the description of any known picture of Virginia, either accepted or apocryphal, and I have yet to find any other reference to this alleged portrait. There are several possibilities: This lithograph was lost or destroyed at some early date. Mrs. Jackson saw a generic portrait of a young woman and mistakenly assumed it was of Mrs. Clemm's daughter. Possibly, the portrait is still extant and simply has yet to be identified as Virginia. Finally, and most probably, Mrs. Jackson simply made that detail up. (That would be entirely typical of the newspaper stories of the day.)

6. A Glimpse of Poe in 1845

The May 1, 1895 issue of the Boston Globe carried a letter from a George Barron, who claimed to have been a fellow-boarder with the Poe family ("on Greenwich St., near the Battery") in the early half of 1845. I have never seen his brief reminiscences reprinted, so I quote them here. Barron described Poe as "particularly kind and attentive" to Virginia and Mrs. Clemm, "and they all seemed much devoted to each other."

"From what I saw of this remarkable man at that time, his kind attentions to his wife and mother-in-law, and his natural politeness to his fellow-boarders sitting near him at the table, I was sure he was at heart a true gentleman, notwithstanding what his detractors may have then or since said of him. While he was not a communicative man, but rather reticent and reserved in his manner, yet he was always courteous in responding to those who addressed him. He was always neatly and well dressed when I saw him, although I had the impression he was suffering somewhat from poverty at that time."

Barron's only specific anecdote regarding Poe was about the poet giving him and some of the other boarders complimentary passes to a lecture he was giving, only to have it cancelled due to bad weather, "to the great disappointment of those of us who were present." (The April 18, 1845 issue of the New York Evening Mirror noted that Poe was scheduled to lecture the previous evening, but was forced to postpone "in consequence of the inclemency of the weather.")

7. All You Need to Know About Sarah Helen Whitman

In 1874, she wrote John H. Ingram that she had never seen a ghost, "though I once saw a beautiful luminous hand that wrote for me three initial letters, which I still preserve & look upon with awe & wonder!"

8. Stop the Internet, I Want to Get Off

Finally, let me address a few of the utterly idiotic and equally indestructible Poe Myths I've seen floating around online:

A. No, Poe was not kicked out of West Point for showing up for drill stark naked. Sorry, flashers.

B. No, Poe was not an atheist. A widely-circulated quote attributed to him, that "all religion is simply evolved out of chicanery, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry," is apocryphal. It originated from a justifiably obscure 1901 biography by a noisy crackpot named John Alexander Joyce, which is full of outlandish and clearly fictional statements. (Of especial note is his chapter claiming that "The Raven" was stolen from an 1809 poem called "The Parrot"--a work which never actually existed outside of Mr. Joyce's fevered mind.) Joyce claimed to have received this quote from a "Mr. William Barton, who was a typo and foreman on the 'Broadway Journal' when Poe was editor of the paper." I have not found any other indication this Barton even existed, and there is absolutely no reason to take this as evidence of Poe's spiritual beliefs. His views were unquestionably unorthodox, but I dare anyone to read "Eureka," "The Island of the Fay," "Mesmeric Revelation," "The Poetic Principle"--to make it short, just about anything he ever wrote--and still say he was an atheist.

C. No, as far as we know, Poe did not have any sort of connection to "Barnaby's Castle" in Providence, Rhode Island. However, judging by the keyword searches used to find this blog, a puzzling number of people seem to think he did, which makes me suspect that an overimaginative tour guide is lurking somewhere in the background.

D. No, Poe did not die of poison on a park bench, he never had a pet raccoon, he never wore a goatee, and Sarah Elmira Shelton was no Alice Eve. Thanks a bunch, Cusack.

E. I shall close with one sentence I never thought I'd ever have to write: No, Elizabeth Poe was not pecked to death by crows. Please, people. You're beginning to depress me.

My Interview With Edgar

"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 we can only speculate what, exactly, Poe was telling us. 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 a case where Poe--in Eveleth's words--"defied 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?

Marginalia

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.)

The Name of Annabel Lee (Part Two)

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.

(Images courtesy New York Public Library, Wikipedia.)

Quote of the Day

"Do you know Sarah Helen Whitman? Of course, you have heard it rumored that she is to marry Poe. Well, she has seemed to me a good girl, and--you know what Poe is. Now I know a widow of doubtful age will marry almost any sort of a white man, but this seems to me a terrible conjunction. Has Mrs. Whitman no friend within your knowledge that can faithfully explain Poe to her? I never attempted this sort of thing but once, and the net product was two enemies and a hastening of the marriage; but I do think she must be deceived. Mrs. Osgood must know her..."
-letter of Horace Greeley to Rufus W. Griswold, Jan. 21, 1849

This is one of those quotations which, even though it has appeared in print since 1898, has been almost completely ignored by Poe scholars, likely because it does not, as the saying goes, "fit the narrative." Kenneth Silverman, in fact, repeats this quote in his biography of Poe--but omits that crucial last sentence.

This letter of Greeley's--someone who did not know Poe well, but was close to both Griswold and Frances S. Osgood--is proof that at least some of Poe's contemporaries did not regard his relationship with Mrs. Osgood as a "flirtation," a "romantic friendship," a "sentimental friendship," or even any sort of friendship at all! Greeley's testimony suggests that at least after the uproar centered around Poe and Elizabeth F. Ellet, a period when Greeley, in another letter, described Poe as having "scandalized"--in other words, antagonized or offended--both Ellet and Osgood, Poe and Frances were known to be on the outs. Why else would Greeley name Mrs. Osgood as a suitable agent to poison Mrs. Whitman's mind against Poe? (I have written a great deal about the Poe/Osgood relationship on this blog--normal people would probably say way too much--but I have dealt specifically with this unreported aspect of their history here and here.)

How, with letters like this in existence, along with all the other hints suggesting a very real enmity between Poe and Frances Osgood, can his biographers continue to assert without qualification that there was a warm affection between them that lasted until his death?


(Image: NYPL Digital Gallery)

In Which Undine Actually Has a Good Word For Someone

"History is full of calumnies, of calumnies that can never be effaced."
-Henry Hallam

S.S. Osgood self-portrait

Frances S. Osgood's husband has been as unfairly slandered as she has been unjustly championed. Samuel Stillman Osgood has, in recent years, acquired a reputation as a philanderer whose affairs with other women and careless neglect of his wife drove the couple into estrangement, and Frances herself into the waiting arms of Edgar Allan Poe.

There is not a word of truth to any of it. Sam's unpleasant reputation all stems from "scholar" Thomas O. Mabbott, a man who, throughout his long and influential academic career, was to Poe studies what the Black Plague was to the 14th century. It is largely thanks to Mabbott and his ilk--and those biographers who blindly repeat everything they wrote--that so much of what passes for Poe "scholarship" is, in fact, unfounded gossip-mongering. According to Mabbott, Mr. Osgood had a fling of some sort in 1842 with a Providence, RI woman named Elizabeth Newcomb. The ever-creative "scholar" built upon that claim to imagine that Sam continued his womanizing ways, and pointed to an 1844 poem Frances published, "Lower to the Level"--which Mabbott misquoted--as proof that she was then separated from her husband. (Even though the poem did not even imply anything of the sort, Mabbott imagined this gave him the right to picture the worst about her relationship with Poe, which commenced soon afterwards.) John Evangelist Walsh later took the wheel from Mabbott's fantasy vehicle and ran it straight into a roadside ditch with his infamous 1980 "book," "Plumes In the Dust," where he made the astounding (and completely undocumented) claim that since the Osgoods were, as Walsh's friend Mabbott claimed, estranged during 1845, who else but Poe could have fathered the child Mrs. Osgood conceived in the autumn of that year?



History is full of fallacies, but one seldom sees a case where so much has been built upon such a completely nonexistent foundation. In fact, when closely studied, the entire process of how the modern-day Poe/Osgood legend was built takes on an air of deliberate misrepresentation that looks positively sinister. To begin with, Samuel Osgood was no philanderer. The Elizabeth Newcomb story--which is the sole basis for the claim--rests upon an 1842 letter written by her mother to the girl's brother, Charles King Newcomb. In this letter, Mrs. Newcomb mentions that Mr. Osgood, who (along with his wife) was then living in Providence, was frequently visiting her daughter. As Elizabeth Newcomb was then a tubercular invalid, these calls could hardly have been of an amorous nature. And Mrs. Newcomb's letter makes it clear that her reference to her daughter's married "gentleman callers" was of a casually facetious nature. That is the first and last we hear of Mr. Osgood and Miss Newcomb. No one has uncovered any valid hint that during his marriage, Sam Osgood took the slightest interest in any woman other than his wife.

To put it simply, no evidence exists to show the Osgoods were ever estranged, during 1845 or any other time. Sam's work as a painter caused him to travel frequently to execute commissions, but "separation," does not automatically translate into "marital trouble." In fact, his wife and children occasionally accompanied him on his travels, (it is documented that he was with his wife in Connecticut during May 1845 and probably in Providence in the summer and fall of that year,) and he and Frances kept up (from the examples we have) an extremely affectionate correspondence during his absences.

Samuel Osgood may have been a bit dim (and a truly awful poet,) but all the evidence we have shows him to have been a decent and likable person who was a devoted husband and father.

A further note about the Osgood's marriage: Nearly all of the poetry Frances supposedly wrote "to" or "about" Poe has gained that attribution purely through modern-day unsupported guesswork. (It is grimly amusing how Frances Osgood's biographer Mary De Jong can calmly write that Osgood's poetry "appropriated conventions from literary annuals and magazines," describe her "skill in creating personae," comment that "even some of the writings presented as non-fiction incorporate fictive elements and veils," and note how many of her later poems followed "the central story of nineteenth-century literature, the affinity of lovers who cannot share their lives on earth but whose souls will be forever united in heaven," and then--urge us to see Osgood's late-1840s poems as a way of gaining insights to her relationship with Poe!)

Seen clearly and objectively, Osgood's writings tell us nothing about Poe. However, if we wish to interpret all of Frances' verses and short stories as expressions of her private life, as Mabbott, Walsh, De Jong, et al, are so anxious to do, the following poem should be noted. Unlike her alleged "Poe poems," this is open autobiography, a clear statement of her true feelings, and it tells a story that is, as the lawyers say, dispositive. It demolishes the commonly-held belief that she was deeply emotionally involved with the famous poet.

Early in 1849, Samuel Osgood, like so many people, traveled to California hoping to bolster his shaky fortunes by striking it rich in the Gold Rush. His absence, coupled with Frances' close personal and professional relationship with Rufus W. Griswold, unsurprisingly fostered some very ugly gossip. Soon after Samuel's homecoming a year later, his wife published a poem titled "The Return":

"No summer came while he was gone; but sooner than I thought,
The blissful balm and bloom of Spring, his sunny presence brought.
Worn, weary, wasted with long grief--the Faith that never died
Through all that suffering, glows again, now he is by my side.
My brave, beloved wanderer! he came to make me light,
And with a sudden morn of joy, flushed all the fearful night.
Ah! Pain, Misfortune, Care, no more your flying steps I fear;
His love has drawn a magic ring--ye cannot enter here!

Mean Envy! while your serpent speech winds hissing from those lips.
The pearls and flowers, Affection speaks, your keenest words eclipse;
Wild Hate, the child of Love disdained, yet mourned with pitying tears,
You cannot harm or fright me now--go rave to other ears;
False Slander, turn and sting yourself!--ours is a charmed sphere;
His love has drawn the magic ring--ye dare not enter here!

Sweet friends! beloved and loving ones--the gifted, pure, and true!
To heart and hearth a welcome warm!--we still have room for you,
When, scared by evil eyes--too frail to cope with coarser foes--
Your cherished one shrank mutely back, in Truth's unreached repose,
Ye did not shrink--but shamed them down to coward Falsehood's fear;
Come, enter Love's enchanted ring--you're always welcome here!"

These touching, pitiful lines--which have a realism and sincerity absent from any of her so-called "Poe poems"--singlehandedly destroy the idea that she ever had any serious extramarital entanglement, with Poe or anyone else. Aside from this poem's demonstration of her deep love and emotional need for her husband, it shows how sensitive Frances Osgood was to public opinion. She was by all accounts an immature, fragile, deeply insecure, and dependent personality who could not bear being the target of gossip or criticism. (It is a curious thing that some modern writers, such as De Jong and John May in his contemptible novel "Poe & Fanny," have tried to portray Frances as a bold proto-feminist heroine, when in truth, the poor woman was a high-strung bundle of neuroses.) Such a person, especially one who was a literary celebrity, would never purposefully risk getting the worst possible censure for a woman of her time and position--the accusation of being a morally "loose" female.

In "The Literati of New York City," Poe said of Mrs. Osgood that "Her character is daguerreotyped in her works--reading the one we know the other." If that was the case, Frances Sargent Locke Osgood was superficial, with some sprightly charm that was merely skin-deep, histrionic, childishly careless, clever rather than truly intelligent, fanciful rather than imaginative, mawkishly sentimental, intensely conventional, concerned with building a beautiful private fantasy world rather than dealing with ugly reality, and pathetically anxious to favorably impress. All those qualities undoubtedly sometimes led her into situations that, to the outside world, could appear suspicious or incriminating. They were also qualities that made her the last woman in the world to be deliberately disloyal to a loved and loving husband.

The Facts in the Case of Mrs. Osgood and Mrs. Ellet

"'The fact is, we have all been a good deal puzzled because the affair is so simple, and yet baffles us altogether.'
'Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing which put you at fault,' said my friend."
-"The Purloined Letter"

As I have noted before, all of Poe's biographers accept as fact Sarah Helen Whitman's story (which she only began relating in the 1870s,) that a great scandal erupted when, while visiting the Poe household, Elizabeth Ellet happened to see--Whitman was never clear how--a letter written by Frances S. Osgood. Whitman never claimed to know, even in general terms, what this letter said, but she said it inspired Ellet to persuade Osgood to allow other ladies--Whitman thought they were Margaret Fuller and Anne Lynch--to call on Poe and insist that all Osgood's letters to him be placed in their hands.

It is deeply frustrating how no one questions this illogical and completely undocumented story. If this absurd scenario had actually happened, why would Osgood, in her "Reminiscences of Poe," make such a point of informing her readers that she and Poe kept up a correspondence during the year of their acquaintance? Wouldn't she be anxious that this correspondence--which, according to Whitman, had such embarrassing and scandalous consequences--be utterly forgotten? Osgood's eagerness to convince the world that she and Poe had at least written contact (she admitted that she was away from New York during most of the period that Poe lived there,) proves there was no contemporary scandal involving their letters--or anything else about their relationship.

And why would Osgood agree to make a public spectacle out of the issue of her private correspondence? If her letters to Poe were innocent, why make herself look guilty by demanding their return? If she did write something indiscreet, why would she agree to involve outside parties in the matter--parties who would undoubtedly spread the degrading details all over town?

What little evidence we have directly contradicts Whitman's account, and certainly none of the women supposedly involved ever hinted such a confrontation took place. Arthur Quinn and John Carl Miller have noted that when Lynch herself (whom Whitman cited as her source for the story) was asked about the scandal in the 1870s, she denied ever even having heard of such an episode. Lynch also wrote George W. Eveleth that aside from "a wide difference of opinion between us in reference to his treatment of another lady"--it is not clear if this was Mrs. Osgood or Mrs. Ellet--she knew nothing of Poe "that was discreditable or unworthy of his remarkable genius."

It is all too reminiscent of the Anna Blackwell saga. Whitman somehow learned some of the truth--that trouble ensued from Ellet seeing a particular letter written by Osgood, and that this somehow led to Poe revealing to the world that he possessed some sort of incriminating letters from Mrs. E--and, in her usual eccentric fashion, she built upon these facts to present the world with a completely erroneous scenario.

Our major clue to what really happened is a letter (now in the Boston Public Library's Griswold collection) Ellet wrote in July of 1846, in response to a (now lost) communication from Osgood. As it describes a version of events that renders Whitman's story an impossibility, it is worth scrutinizing in detail--a task Poe's biographers have yet to attempt. They tend to mention this letter only briefly--when they mention it at all--and it is invariably misinterpreted.

The letter indicated that Osgood had written to Ellet complaining of being "misrepresented and traduced." She apparently denied having even written the letter that had started the whole controversy, as Ellet responded to her self-defense by eagerly agreeing that "The letter shown me by Mrs. Poe must have been a forgery, and any man capable of offering to show notes he never possessed, would not, I think, hesitate at such a crime." In other words, Osgood was now claiming that the letter Virginia Poe had shown Ellet, and which had caused Ellet to express hostility towards Osgood, was a fraud devised by the Poes themselves. Fanny Osgood, as even her partisan biographer Mary De Jong admitted, was a woman who "generally set about having her own way." She was certainly having it now--at the direct expense of Edgar Poe and his wife.

It is amazing how the significance of this has been completely ignored. Osgood, after both the Poes were dead, portrayed herself as their devoted friend. While they lived, however, she deliberately led a mutual enemy to pretend they were forgers in an effort to disengage from a dispute she herself had instigated. That alone says all one needs to know about the real Frances Sargent Osgood--and her true feelings for the Poes. It also proves that the letter Ellet was deliberately shown--not, as Whitman claimed, "just happened" to see lying about the Poe house--was no love-letter. If it had been, Virginia would have been the last person in the world to display it to anyone. And Ellet, a sophisticated married woman whose own morals were hardly irreproachable, would not describe a mere love-letter as containing "fearful paragraphs" that "haunted me day and night like a terrifying spectre." She could only be describing a letter that was some sort of attack or exposure--one which Virginia used to confront her. (Incidentally, considering that Virginia Poe was the one to reveal the contents of this letter, Osgood may well have addressed it to her. There is nothing in Ellet's letter that reveals whether this troublesome document was sent to Mr. or Mrs. Poe.)

Ellet would not have been so ready to go along with Osgood's witless efforts to disown the letter if it had not affected her personally. Also, she would certainly not be in a position to agree that the letter's contents were false unless they directly concerned herself. And, of course, in regard to Whitman's version of events, Osgood could hardly have agreed to request the return of letters she was now claiming never to have written.

Ellet assured Osgood that Poe would not now "dare to work further mischief with the letter," and that he was so personally disgraced that any "verbal calumnies" he made against either of them would be discredited. That statement is further proof that Osgood's letter was an assault upon Ellet. The reference to "verbal calumnies" clearly implies that this letter consisted of "written calumnies" of some sort. (Ellet's letter also contradicts another element of Whitman's story by indicating that whatever letter or letters Osgood had written were still in the possession of the Poes.)

It is also interesting that Ellet referred to Poe as speaking disparagingly not just of herself, but of Osgood as well. Whatever the exact content may have been of the vicious stories Ellet was circulating against Osgood and Poe, if she had helped spread gossip about a romance, she would hardly describe Poe as uttering "calumnies" against both of them. (And here, for once, she was speaking the truth. Two months before Ellet wrote this letter, Horace Greeley commented, in an obvious reference to these two women, that Poe had recently "scandalized"--i.e. insulted--a pair of well-known literary ladies.)

Ellet wrote that she will "preserve utter silence in future on the subject"--she avoided saying precisely what "the subject" was--only saying, should others mention Osgood's name "in connection with it" that Osgood had been "traduced, wrongfully." This, again, disproves the idea that some sexual scandal involving Osgood and Poe was making the rounds. Ellet assumed that discussion of "the subject"--obviously, Ellet's feud with Poe, which broke into open warfare when he declared that she had written him some sort of compromising letters--would not necessarily involve references to Osgood. Ellet went on to decry "the falsehoods told by the Poes" about her--again, she is clearly not describing any love letters written by another woman. (And if Poe had possessed any embarrassing letters from Ellet, would she, as Whitman alleged, seek to make an issue about another lady's correspondence?)

Ellet assured Osgood that she had "no unkind feeling toward Mr. Osgood for what he said under mistaken impressions against me. Some of the things that reached me were too terrible to repeat, but even at the time I felt sure he was not willfully wronging me, and I rest in your assurance that he will not do so, now that he knows the truth."

This is another key statement. Samuel Osgood had clearly been repeating his wife's denunciations of Ellet, and she presumed now that "he knows the truth"--that the letter Virginia Poe displayed was a "forgery"--he will hold his peace. Surely, if the letter Mrs. Poe revealed was a mere indiscreet note from Mrs. Osgood, Frances' husband would hardly have cause for denouncing Ellet in the matter. He would be angry at his wife--or Poe--or Poe's wife and her bizarre desire to publicize her husband's flirtations--not some innocent bystander.

Ellet sighed that it was "most unfortunate both for you and me that we ever had any acquaintance with such people as the Poes--but I trust the evil is now at an end. Heaven sends such trials as merciful warnings--let us accept and profit by them." (This statement showed that Osgood obviously shared her anger towards Poe and his wife.) She closed in this same somewhat menacing vein with the pious hope that God will guard Osgood from future "danger."

Their collusion in blaming Mr. and Mrs. Poe for all their difficulties produced only a temporary truce. In January of 1849, Rufus Griswold wrote a friend that Ellet had quarrelled with, and been "cut" by many people in New York, including Mrs. Osgood. What caused the resumption of hostilities is not clear, but the New York literati--a crowd that would have made the Borgias blush--needed little reason to slash at each other. As Poe was long out of both those women's lives by that point, it seems unlikely that he was a factor in their later disputes. Be that as it may, in a sense, it was a great pity that the friendship between Mesdames Ellet and Osgood failed to last. The two certainly deserved each other.

***A footnote: Among Rufus Griswold's papers in the Boston Public Library is a very curious memorandum he wrote sometime in the 1850s, detailing his own ongoing war with Elizabeth Ellet. It is unknown to whom this memo was written, and his purpose in writing it is also unclear. This memo described a showdown he allegedly had with Ellet either in 1849 or 1850--his dating of the meeting is inconsistent--about "calumnies" (unspecified, but evidently concerning the 1846 fracas involving Poe) she was spreading about Frances Osgood. (This claim, incidentally, smacks of "cover story." An 1849 letter of Osgood's to her mother proves that in actuality, damaging gossip was then circulating about Osgood and Griswold himself--not Poe. Not even Elizabeth Ellet would bother to recycle old tittle-tattle everyone had already heard featuring a man Osgood had not even seen for years.) According to Griswold, he threatened to publish Ellet's letter to Osgood if she did not cease her smear campaign.

Although many of Poe's biographers repeat his account without question, there are--as usual with Griswold--problems with his story. First of all, he characterized Ellet's letter as one of "apology" and "confession," that she wrote only after Samuel Osgood threatened to sue her on his wife's behalf. Ellet's letter itself indicated that she only wrote in response to an olive branch from Mrs. Osgood, where she repudiated the letter shown to Ellet by Virginia Poe. Ellet's tone is self-justifying, not apologetic, (she even wrote that if Frances herself could have seen the letter Virginia displayed, "you would not wonder I regarded you as I did.") There would be no reason for Ellet to fear the publication of a letter where she painted herself as innocent victim of the scheming, evil Mr. and Mrs. Poe. There is no other indication that Mr. Osgood threatened any lawsuit, and it is impossible to believe that he would compound scandal and do incalculable additional damage to his wife's reputation by dragging everyone's dirty laundry out into a public court. Ellet's letter itself showed that Samuel was indeed saying "terrible" things about her, but it also revealed that Ellet assumed that Frances' husband now felt he had "wronged" her. (And, in any case, as Sidney P. Moss noted in another context, the mores of the time forbade a gentleman from suing a lady--even as equivocal a lady as Elizabeth Ellet.)

As I say, we do not know Griswold's reason for recording this story (which he never made public,) unless it was simply the fact that at the time he wrote this memo, he and Ellet were in a lively competition to see who could make the most venomous accusations against the other. (Their feud always reminds me of Henry Kissinger's famous remark about the 1980s Iran/Iraq war: "It's a pity they can't both lose.") Whatever his motivation, this anecdote involving the Ellet letter can only be taken as yet another example of his strange and nebulous relationship with reality.



(Images: New York Public Library.)

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!

Marginalia

When examining the relationship between Frances S. Osgood and Poe, one crucial detail that is always overlooked is the simple fact that after they met in March of 1845, she spent most of that year away from New York City. So far as her movements can be traced, (largely through her extant correspondence,) she was far from New York--and Poe--at least during May, July, August, September, October, probably June, and possibly November as well, spending much of that time in the company of her husband. She may have made flying visits to NYC during the year, but considering the rigors of travel in that era (just going from New York to Providence R.I. took a minimum of ten hours,) and Osgood's frail health, these visits must have been rare.

When Osgood admitted in her "Reminiscences of Poe" that her year-long acquaintance with him was largely through correspondence, for once she was not dallying with the truth. There must have been some sort of exchange of letters between them, as she was a regular contributor to the "Broadway Journal," but on his part, at least, they were all likely as bland and impersonal as this. If we trust the testimony of Sarah Helen Whitman (granted, always a dangerous thing to do,) Osgood herself admitted that Poe's correspondence to her consisted of mere notes exactly in the mode of that one surviving letter--cordial and polite, but extremely brief and lacking in interest. (Incidentally, Osgood's stupefyingly brazen claim that she and Poe wrote to each other only because of the urgings of his wife, who hoped that Osgood could use her "influence" to keep him sober, should be treated with the contempt and derision it deserves.)

And yet, Osgood's peripatetic ways are studiously ignored, with sloppy biographers and cheap novelists all insisting on portraying the two as being in each other's society virtually nonstop during the year 1845. Amazing.

A footnote: John Ward Ostrom, who edited Poe's published letters, gave the undated letter linked to above a speculative date of "late October 1845." Ostrom had no hard evidence for suggesting this date, and as Osgood was in Providence throughout that entire month, Poe's note to her--which indicated that Osgood was then in New York--must have been written at another time. All we can say is that this note--the only extant item of correspondence between them--was written sometime in 1845 or early January 1846.

The Devil's Law-Case (Part Two)

"A poltroon charges his foe, by instinct, with precisely that vice or meanness which the pricking of his (the poltroon's) conscience assures him would furnish the most stable and therefore the most terrible ground of accusation against himself."
-Edgar Allan Poe, "Reply to Mr. English and Others"

"I'm the innocent bystander
But somehow I got stuck
Between a rock and a hard place
And I'm down on my luck."
-Warren Zevon, "Lawyers, Guns, and Money"

*"Mirror" editor Hiram Fuller, some months after the lawsuit ended, referred to the incident in his paper with the words, "There have been actors behind the scenes in all this business, whom we may yet have to call before the footlights. When a man has robbed you he will kill you also if he can, for the reason that 'dead men tell no tales.'" What in the world did he mean by that? A letter Sarah Helen Whitman claimed Poe wrote her in 1848 described Fuller and English--in frustratingly vague terms--as being merely Elizabeth Ellet's "tools" in the publication of libels against him. But who else could have been secretly involved? Surely, Ellet alone was not powerful enough to use such prominent literary figures for her own petty personal grudges. And, in any case, Fuller clearly had men--or one particular man--in mind. The last sentence quoted, incidentally, is particularly chilling in its implications. Could Fuller really have been suggesting someone "behind the scenes" might actually kill--or, at least, use very drastic means--in order to prevent the true history of the lawsuit from being told?

*In December 1846, Fuller published an editorial commenting on the widespread reports of Poe's destitution. Without mentioning his enemy by name, Fuller said that "we cannot now call to mind a single instance of a man of real literary ability suffering from poverty, who has always lived an industrious, honest, and honorable life; while of the other class of indigents, we know of numerous melancholy specimens, of both sexes." [My italics.] Now, this cheap jab was clearly meant, not just for Poe, but for someone else--a female someone. But what literary woman was Fuller insulting?

In the early 1840s, he and Frances Osgood had a close, coyly flirtatious relationship, but by this time they were estranged, for reasons unknown to us. Perhaps Fuller had become aware of the fact that Osgood passed his more overheated letters to her around to other of her friends for their entertainment, turning him into something of a laughingstock within her circle. He also had professional reasons to resent the poetess. Her friend Edward Thomas' sworn testimony that Poe was not a forger--an refutation she may well have encouraged him to make, if only to keep both her and Thomas out of trouble--effectively lost the lawsuit for the "Mirror." Fuller later published blind items suggesting that Poe would sue certain "literary ladies" who figured in the trial. That was obviously a taunt aimed at least partly at Osgood, who, so far as is known, was the only woman whose name surfaced in the lawsuit. Were Fuller's remarks about destitute literary figures who led disreputable lives also directed to Osgood, who was suffering from financial problems during this period?

*In an open letter to Nathaniel P. Willis that was published in Willis' "Home Journal" in January 1847, Poe, among other things, stated that his wife's illness had been "heightened and precipitated" by the receipt of two anonymous letters (evidently from Elizabeth Ellet)--one containing a newspaper report of the Poe family's degrading poverty, the other enclosing the violent columns Fuller and English wrote against Poe.



This persecution of the dying Virginia--seemingly an innocent bystander if ever there was one--raises several questions. What had Virginia done to inspire such venomous and vengeful hatred in Poe's enemies? It suggests that she played a larger role in his literary and personal battles than has been presumed. And why send her previously published attacks, of which she must already have been aware? Receiving in the mail attacks that were already public hardly seems enough to "heighten and precipitate" a fatal illness. Did these letters contain, not merely abuse against her beloved husband, but actual covert threats? (The newspaper paragraphs describing their destitution claimed that not only Virginia, but Poe as well, was soon to die.)

*In July 1846, Fuller, again carefully avoiding Poe's name but making his target plain, published a truly ugly column attacking the poet as "a poor wretch" whose personal misbehavior had "reduced his mind and person to a condition where indignation for his vices, and revenge for his insults, are changed into compassion for the poor victim of himself," that he was now "the most pitiful of all pitiable objects," and "in a condition of sad, wretched imbecility." (This piece of abuse probably was among the items included in the poison-pen letters sent to Virginia.)

Intriguingly, in this column Fuller momentarily veered from his assault on Poe to address someone else. In an obvious reference to Poe's "The Literati of New York City," Fuller remarked that "It would be unreasonable to look to such a person for a just appreciation of the works of an upright intellect. But the only harm that such men can do is by praise, and we might well suspect the merits of those who are lauded by such persons, if we did not know that their seemingly good words were as sinister as their abuse."

In short, Fuller claimed that Poe's praises of certain writers included in "The Literati" were, in reality, veiled insults. Was this another of Fuller's sly attempts to derogate his erstwhile friend Frances Osgood? Poe's "Literati" sketch of her, as well as his other published reviews of her work, certainly were full of "seemingly good words"--words which, Fuller now stated unequivocally, were actually attacks. Whether Fuller had Osgood specifically in mind or not, his remark bears keeping in mind when considering any "praise" Poe ever made of her. In this regard, of particular note is Poe's review of Osgood's poems that was published in March of 1846. When discussing her verse drama "Elfrida," (a play he strongly panned, incidentally,) Poe commented, "In depicting the impassioned ambition of Elfrida, the authoress seems especially at home, and upon this character she has evidently put forth her strength."

The title character Poe referred to was a heartless, deceitful, scheming woman who plotted the murder of her innocent husband because he stood in the way of her "impassioned ambition" of marrying a king. Could Poe's identification of Osgood with such a creature be called anything but "sinister?"

The Devil's Law-Case (Part One)

"The touchstone by which falsehood is detected is inconsistency. In a true narrative, inconsistencies are impossible."
-Jeremy Bentham, "Rationale of Judicial Evidence"

The chain of events surrounding the libel suit Poe filed against the "New York Mirror" in 1846 comprise some of the most peculiar unanswered questions in his entire career. These are among the many mysteries clouding the story:

*It is a puzzle why "Mirror" editor Hiram Fuller bothered to involve himself and his newspaper in the attacks against Poe at all. His prior dealings with Poe had been scant, and evidently not unfriendly. Then suddenly, when "The Literati of New York City" appeared in print, Fuller began using his paper as a forum to heap abuse on the sketches and their author, a campaign that culminated with his publication of English's libelous column. We know of no reason for his abrupt, venomous attitude change towards the poet.

Poe himself offered what may be a clue to the cause of Fuller's hostility. In his "Reply to Mr. English and Others," Poe referred to Fuller having "prostituted his filthy sheet" by publishing English's column--a column, he declared, that Fuller had known was full of lies.

"Prostituted" is an interesting choice of words. It implies that Fuller was merely a hired gun, that he was "bought off" in some way to join the efforts to defame Poe. But how? English did not pay Fuller to print his column, and he was not wealthy enough to "buy" the editor in other ways. Was there someone else--one of the people "behind the scenes," to use Fuller's own words--who secretly used money or the promise of some other favors in order to enlist him into the Poe Wars?

*One of the actionable charges Thomas Dunn English made in the "Mirror" column that inspired the suit was that Poe was guilty of forgery. English never said what Poe supposedly forged, and so far as we know, the issue was never clarified during the trial.This makes no sense. One cannot simply call someone "a forger" without giving some sort of specifics about what the person supposedly forged. Yet this most central and obvious information was left unstated. Why?

*In English's deposition, he claimed that Poe told him that an ironworks merchant named Edward Thomas had told Frances S. Osgood that Poe was a forger. English said Poe asserted that Thomas wished to seduce Osgood, was jealous of Poe's influence with her, and so told her this slander in order to alienate her from someone he assumed was a rival.

There are many problems with this story. At the time in question, Thomas and Poe were complete strangers. As Thomas did not even know Poe, how could he see him as potential competition for Osgood's bed? As Poe did not know Thomas, how could he know what his defamer's motives may have been? He could not have heard the tale from Mrs. Osgood herself. Frances was never known for her discretion, but it is still highly improbable that she would tell Poe a story that not only disparaged her ally, Thomas, but portrayed herself as a woman whose acquaintances saw her as immoral enough to be capable of adultery. If Thomas felt jealousy for anyone, would not his obvious target be Mr. Osgood? At this date, Thomas had been friends with the Osgood family for at least a few years. If he ever had had amorous intentions towards Frances, would they not have surfaced a long time before this?

The little we know about Thomas indicates that he was a friend--nothing more--to both the Osgoods. (Samuel Osgood even sought to borrow money from him around that time.) Thomas' two extant letters to Frances are full of cordiality towards both her and Samuel, but are hardly romantic. In his letter to her from March 1847, Thomas discussed the aftermath of the lawsuit. He referred to Poe in a condescending, but not unsympathetic manner: "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 made an oblique reference to his relief that Frances' actual name had been redacted during trial testimony, as he had feared it "would come out under English's affidavit in a way I would not like." His comments appeared to blame English--not Poe--for the unflattering story English told about him. His letter assumed that Frances herself was unaware of this story of his alleged immoral intentions towards her, and, rather oddly, Thomas appeared to think having it related in court would reflect poorly on her, rather than himself. (Most curiously, Thomas also commented that he was unsurprised about the outcome of the suit, as he had always believed the forgery charges were untrue.) The letter made it clear that he never, at any time, saw Poe as a romantic rival--in fact, its tone conveyed a belief that Mrs. Osgood was never any closer to the poet than Thomas himself had been.

English's deposition, as the trial would show, contained many lies, and all the evidence indicates this story was merely one more of them. It was his way of insulting not only Poe, but Osgood (whom he disliked,) and Thomas (the chief witness against his side,) as well. The fact that Thomas knew before the trial had even begun that English was likely to include this tale in his deposition indicates that English had, in his dealings with Thomas, already threatened to relate this highly embarrassing anecdote if he took the stand. Likely, this was part of some sort of intimidation tactic he was using. (Poe himself described English as behaving like a "bully" towards the merchant.) Why? What was the true story that English was trying to hide?

*That leads to another puzzle--why did English involve himself in Thomas' forgery scandal in the first place? Poe indicated that English, for unknown reasons, volunteered to act as Poe's envoy in his dealings with the merchant. So far as we know, English did not know Thomas, and these vague and seemingly trivial allegations against Poe were certainly no concern of his. What was his motivation for inserting himself in the middle of the dispute? English was positively eager for Poe to sue Thomas. According to Poe, when Thomas wrote him a letter retracting the forgery charge, English advised him to pretend this apology was never sent, and to take the merchant to court anyway. Why was it so important to him that this lawsuit take place?

*Thomas claimed to have heard the "forgery" tale from someone else--a someone who, when Thomas later asked him about the matter, denied ever having made such a statement. This person was never named. Why? Did he even exist? But why would Thomas invent from whole cloth a tale of forgery to discredit a man he did not know, and that--assuming he invented the charge--could be so easily disproved?

*Why do we not have a transcript of the trial--or even any sort of comprehensive description of what both sides said?

*When English wrote his libelous attack on Poe, he knew that Thomas had retracted the forgery allegation. Why, then, did he revive the charge, considering that its original source would no longer support the story? English had to assume that Poe might very well sue him for insisting that Poe was a forger--after all, Poe would have sued Thomas if the merchant had not apologized. Why risk making an allegation he could not prove? Did English believe at the time that he could get--or manufacture--other evidence incriminating Poe? Or was he just a hot-headed imbecile?

In Part Two: Hiram Fuller steps before the footlights...In the role of Cassandra.

(Image of TD English via NYPL Digital Gallery.)

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.