Yet Another Cautionary Tale

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

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

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

Quote of the Day

"I will add here, and now (Oct. 1st, 1878,) the opinion; formed long ago and still held by me, that Poe was willing--yes, that he coolly planned--to leave behind him the impression (for such as might be glad to receive it) of his having been almost anything or everything that was bad--a malign, unhealthful product of the soil of the evil latter times."***
-George W. Eveleth (writing under the nom de plume of "H.B.W.")

This statement is a postcript to a letter Eveleth wrote to the editor of "Scribner's Monthly" in 1877. As "Scribner's"--perhaps unsurprisingly--apparently failed to publish it, Eveleth sent a copy to Poe's biographer John H. Ingram, with this additional comment. What Ingram made of it is, unfortunately, unknown. Eveleth never completely explained why he was so certain that Poe deliberately orchestrated the legend of his disgraceful personal reputation, but he made similar assertions to other correspondents, including Rufus Griswold (who must have had a lively reaction to the idea.)

Say what you will about Eveleth, he could always be relied upon to give an interesting take on things.

Perhaps I need to follow his lead: Whenever I encounter horrors such as Kenneth Silverman's "Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance," or Hervey Allen's "Israfel," or, God help us, John Evangelist Walsh's "Plumes In the Dust," I'll simply say, "It's all right, Edgar wanted it this way!"

It would certainly play merry hell with this blog's entire raison d'être, wouldn't it?


***A footnote: The phrase "evil latter times" comes from a 1519 work by Martin Luther, where he declared that the rampant immorality of his era was a sign the Second Coming was near. As strange as Eveleth was, he was far from mad, and all his writings were definitely done for good reasons, albeit ones often known only to himself. I believe he quoted those words quite deliberately. If this is the case, perhaps it's best to not even speculate about what he meant to imply.

Rufus Griswold Gets a Pen Pal

"Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence - whether much that is glorious - whether all that is profound - does not spring from disease of thought - from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect."
-"Eleonora"

George W. Eveleth, that most curious and fascinating character who exchanged some remarkable letters with Poe in the last few years of the latter's life, made something of a career of writing unsolicited--and undoubtedly unwelcomed--letters to many other people connected to "my favorite one," as Eveleth called the dead poet. His most prolific surviving correspondence was with Sarah Helen Whitman (where she was comically oblivious to his scarcely-disguised mockery,) but fortunately many other of his Poe-related letters still exist.

Of particular interest are the two extant letters he wrote to Rufus W. Griswold. (Currently in the Boston Public Library.) The first, dated April 3, 1852, is evidently not his earliest letter to "My dear Doctor," as Eveleth cheerily opened by saying, "I have reckoned it a part of my (pleasurable) duty to keep you posted up in certain of the Bits from my Note-Book." (Eveleth always assumed an immediate breezy familiarity with his correspondents--all of them complete strangers--as well as an air of scornful authority and omniscience which must have been deeply unsettling to the recipients.)

Eveleth continued with a quote from Poe's "Fifty Suggestions": "The ingenuity of critical malice would often be laughable but for the disgust which, even in the most perverted spirits, injustice never fails to excite. A common trick is that of decrying, impliedly, the higher, by insisting upon the lower, merits of an author. Macaulay, for example, deeply feeling how much critical acumen is enforced by cautious attention to the mere 'rhetoric' which is its vehicle, has at length become the best of modern rhetoricians. His brother reviewers extol 'the acumen of Carlyle, the analysis of Schlegel, and the style of Macaulay.' Bancroft is a philosophical historian; but no amount of philosophy has yet taught him to despise a minute accuracy in point of fact. His brother historians talk of 'the grace of Prescott, the erudition of Gibbon, and the pains-taking precision of Bancroft!'"

Eveleth then directly addressed James Russell Lowell, quoting from Lowell's laudatory 1845 review of Poe's work, contrasting it with the altered, and far harsher, version of this same review that Griswold published in 1850. Eveleth enquired, "Did Poe leave you (as well as Griswold) an annuity to induce you thus to belie yourself for the purpose of denying his higher, by insisting upon his lower, merits?"

Eveleth went on to muse about how no one knew better than Poe how to guide public perception and opinion. "He led the populace by the nose in his 'Valdemar case,' in his 'Balloon Hoax,' in his Quarrel with Thomas Dunn English, in his drunken habits, in his Death, and in his 'Memoir by Griswold'; and he hasn't let go even yet, but is managing it at his pleasure, through the medium of the Spirit Telegraph with Mrs. Whitman at t'other end of the wire."

Eveleth informed Griswold that the "above Bits" had been forwarded to Lowell and to Mrs. Whitman, for her to pass on to Poe's spirit (during this period, Whitman had a medium living with her, through whom she made efforts to contact the late poet--who, alas, was discouragingly uncommunicative.) Eveleth closed his singular missive with, "Yours in all manner of cordiality." The letter is addressed to "Rev. Dr. Griswold or Edgar A. Poe Esq.--either."

The second letter, dated September 7 of that same year, had no salutation. Eveleth, without preamble, launched into a long disquisition on the solar system that reads like "Eureka"'s more peculiar little brother. He then suggested that Poe might be interested in what he had written, and suggested that Griswold forward it to him through "one of the mediums." Eveleth added that he had already sent some comments about "Eureka" to Mrs. Whitman for her to pass on to Poe through "the Spirit Telegraph."

We do not know Eveleth's purpose in sending Poe's notorious biographer these blithely menacing notes--although there was always a definite method to his ostensible madness. We also have no idea why Griswold kept these two communications, or what, if any, reply he sent. It probably does not matter. What would be well worth knowing, however, is this: What was going through Griswold's mind as he read these letters--one of which nonchalantly lists Poe's death and Griswold's own memoir among the poet's hoaxes and manipulations--all penned in a handwriting startlingly like that of the man Griswold had so recently defamed?

The Amazing Mr. Eveleth

In December of 1845, a Maine medical student named George W. Eveleth wrote to Edgar Allan Poe requesting a subscription to the "Broadway Journal." This proved to be the beginning of the strangest and most interesting correspondence of Poe's life. For reasons known best to himself, Poe allowed, even encouraged, this weird, highly inquisitive, blunt young man (Eveleth was probably born in February 1819,) to interest himself in every aspect of Poe's life. Eveleth did not so much correspond with Poe as interview him, peppering the writer with increasingly pointed and intimate questions. Poe--normally the most secretive and standoffish of men--responded with a most unusual willingness, seeming to rather enjoy his eccentric admirer's insatiable curiosity, even his occasional rudeness, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the fact that the pair never met, or even expressed any concrete plans to do so.

After Poe's death in 1849, Eveleth's involvement in his story only intensified. He sent numerous letters to Poe's friends, enemies, relatives, and biographers, all written--in handwriting eerily like that of his "especial favorite"--with the same unnervingly omniscient, mocking, commanding, and intrusive tone.

He initiated a lengthy correspondence with Poe's quasi-fiancee, Sarah Helen Whitman, by accusing her of being aware that Poe faked his own death, and continued it by casually discoursing to her about various esoteric and scientific matters, in a way that left her both impressed and deeply baffled. He wrote to Rufus W. Griswold in the same strangely familiar way, referring to Poe's alleged demise as merely the last and greatest of his hoaxes. Before and after John H. Ingram's biography of Poe was published, Eveleth spent years sending him letters and postcards explaining in detail all the errors and misconceptions he found in Ingram's work. While preparing his own book about Poe, George Woodberry was also treated to unsolicited lectures from Eveleth, who conducted a fruitless campaign to persuade him that Griswold had been a shameless liar and forger. Eveleth's comments about Poe all followed the same curious theme: While aggressively defending Poe's character against all comers (including on the issue of Poe's drinking, which Eveleth felt was greatly exaggerated,) he simultaneously seemed to believe not only that Poe knew that he would be slandered after his death, but that--for unstated reasons--he had planned it that way. In the years following Poe's death, Eveleth seemed to be everywhere...and nowhere. There is no record of anyone ever meeting this highly peculiar, self-appointed champion of Poe's in person.

Sometimes under his own name or initials, but most often using pseudonyms or no name at all, Eveleth wrote numerous articles and letters to the editor that appeared in various periodicals. (Eveleth commented to Ingram on his desire for anonymity, stating, "I have my reasons," without deigning to explain what these reasons were.) Some of his published writings dealt with various scientific topics (he had a particular fascination with Poe's "Eureka,") others with Poe the man. (A good example of Eveleth's enigmatic, abrasive style can be found here.) Perhaps the strangest of them all was a brief, unsigned article entitled "Familiar Letters to My Relations" that appeared in the "United States Magazine" in 1856. In it, he addressed Mrs. Whitman (whom he called "Neleh,") about her fanciful belief that she and Poe had a distant blood relationship with these words:

"Well, taking these tracings into connection with my strong literary affinity with Poe (herein I have reference, not to any ability of my own; but to the fact simply that the natural tendency of my mind is into trains of thinking similar to Poe's) saying nothing of the resemblances of my chirography and style to his chirography and style, have I not made out my case--namely, the case that there is some blood relationship between the family of Poe, therefore between you and myself?"

We know very little about Eveleth's life apart from his written words. He is said to have been trained as a homeopath. He served a stint in the Union army during the Civil War. (His military service was notable mostly for the hilariously rude letters he was constantly writing to his superiors.) By the 1880s, Eveleth had relocated to Denver, Colorado, where records show he married a woman named Rosannan Davies (or Davis) who died in 1898. This would be his only known marriage. Eveleth died in Denver on September 29, 1908.

George Washington Eveleth has long held a special place in my esteem, as the one person I have ever encountered who could out-weird Poe himself.