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.)

On the Dangers of Corresponding With Mrs. Ellet

"What chance--what one event brought this evil thing to pass, bear with me while I relate."
-"William Wilson"

It is well known that a particularly lively section of Hell was stirred up early in 1846 when Poe accused Elizabeth F. Ellet of having written to him certain never-described but evidently highly discreditable letters. Unfortunately, we know virtually nothing of their acquaintance before that fateful moment when Virginia Poe--for reasons hidden from us--displayed to Ellet a letter (contents also unknown) written by Frances S. Osgood. Whatever happened during this meeting, it left Ellet with a vengeful hatred of Poe, Osgood, and--a highly pertinent fact that is universally ignored--Virginia herself.

Our lack of knowledge makes it highly difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain the truth about Ellet's prior dealings with Poe. We know he had published some of her poems in the "Broadway Journal," along with effusive words of praise about her work (praise he naturally bestowed upon all the contributors to the "Journal," whether their writings were good, bad, or indifferent.) There are hints from Charles F. Briggs, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, and Poe himself that the attractive young Mrs. Ellet had made some sort of unreciprocated amorous advances towards him. Otherwise, we are left groping in the dark--not an unusual position when studying the World of Poe.

We do not even know exactly what Ellet did to prompt Poe to make this inflammatory revelation about her letters. Rufus W. Griswold's "Memoir" claimed Poe borrowed money from Ellet, and then "threatened to exhibit a correspondence" which "would make the woman infamous" if she did not drop the matter. (Griswold, in order to make Poe look as black as possible, claimed that, "of course" these letters never existed. He never bothered to explain how Poe could blackmail Ellet with letters she would have known were nonexistent.) Sarah Helen Whitman said that Poe, indignant that Ellet had instigated a demand that he return Frances S. Osgood's letters, impulsively blurted that Ellet had better look out for her own correspondence. (It must be noted that she is the only source to give anything like this version of the brouhaha.) Charles F. Briggs, who satirized the scandal in his novel "The Trippings of Tom Pepper," depicted Poe as actually displaying Ellet's letters to his acquaintances, as proof that she had tried to seduce him. Elizabeth Oakes Smith wrote Whitman a letter in the mid-1870s saying nothing about immodest correspondence, but suggesting that certain ladies who had greatly admired Poe fell into a jealous feud as a result. Smith was said to have spread another story indicating that Ellet's ire was aroused when she caught Virginia Poe and Mrs. Osgood laughing together over a love letter Ellet had written Virginia's husband. Margaret Fuller, in a letter written to Elizabeth Barrett Browning soon after Poe's death, indicated that several women imagined themselves infatuated with him, but their emotions were no more than a "romantic illusion" which merely amused him. (It should be emphasized that none of these nosy little chatterboxes depicted Poe as returning the affections of these ladies, who were obviously Ellet and Osgood.)

In regard to the fate of these letters, we again are given multiple conflicting accounts. A letter Poe allegedly wrote Whitman in 1848 claimed that he returned Ellet's letters to her--whereupon she sent her brother to demand he produce these missives. Thomas Dunn English described Poe as telling him that he still had Ellet's letters in his possession, but that he refused to produce them under duress. (English, anxious to whitewash his friend Mrs. Ellet, claimed that Poe simply lied about possessing any letters from her--as if he would know.) Rufus Griswold, despite what he wrote in his Poe memoir, stated privately that he obtained these legendary documents after Poe's death--letters which he said were indeed highly indecent--and returned them to that indiscreet lady. It is anyone's guess what the truth may have been.

Ellet herself, naturally, asserted that no such letters ever existed. In fact, she claimed Poe had written her a note of apology acknowledging that he had lied about receiving letters from her. There is no record of anyone else having actually seen this alleged note, and Poe himself certainly never admitted making such a humiliating confession. Despite the absence of any confirmation for Ellet's claims, many of Poe's biographers accept them. Largely ignored, however, is the fact that two brief notes of hers to him survive, and one of them is strange enough to suggest that Poe's accusations against her were all too true.

The notes--which came into the hands of Griswold after Poe's death--were written in mid-December of 1845. The first one (which is signed simply, "E,") is largely businesslike, even curt, dealing with some article about a certain college that was to be published in the "Broadway Journal." Then, on the second page, she writes in German that she had a letter for him, and that he should send for it or pick it up himself after seven o'clock that evening. Under that--still in German--is a quotation from Schiller which translates as:

"O, what a rent you have made in my heart
The senses are still in your bonds
Though the bleeding soul has freed itself."

The second note, evidently written a day or two later, is unaddressed and unsigned, and says only: "Do not use in any way the memorandum about the So. Ca. College. Excuse the repeated injunction--but as you would not decipher my German manuscript--I am fearful of some other mistake."

These notes raise some intriguing questions. The message about the letter she asked him to pick up was obviously something she wanted kept a secret between them, as she wrote it out in a foreign language. She also obviously did not trust this mysterious letter to the postal service, as she was so specific about how he should obtain it. Whether she herself was the author of that letter or not, it was clearly something she wanted kept very private. The rather startling lines from Schiller hint that she may indeed have been guilty of some impropriety. And what did Ellet mean by her complaint that Poe "would not"--as opposed to "could not"--pay heed to what she had previously written? Did that mean he had chosen to ignore her message?

Most unfortunately, we know nothing more about their correspondence. These two notes, however, possibly hint at why Mrs. Ellet was later so desperate to convince the world that this correspondence never existed.

A footnote: It is universally assumed that Mrs. Ellet spent the rest of her life (which came to an end in 1877) spreading vicious reports about Poe. However, aside from Ellet's assertion that Poe admitted he had lied about her letters, I know of only one other extant first-hand comment from her about the poet. It is a letter she wrote George W. Eveleth in 1856, in response to what was evidently his request that she give her opinion about her old antagonist. (Eveleth was in the habit of writing interrogatory letters about Poe to complete strangers--and oddly enough, they generally answered him.)

Ellet disclaimed any real personal knowledge about Poe, saying only that "I always understood that Mr. E.A. Poe, though a man of genius, was intemperate, and subject to attacks of lunacy. He was frequently in the asylum..."

There is a little epilogue to their acquaintance which is even more curious. In the 1850s and '60s, Mrs. Ellet frequently raised money for various charities by giving public readings of poems and other dramatic works. She often closed these performances with a well-regarded recitation of..."The Bells."

Make of that what you will.

(Image courtesy New York Public Library.)

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.)

The Name of Annabel Lee (Part One of Two)

"It was many and many a year ago
In a kingdom by the sea
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee..."

The debate over which woman--or women--inspired what is arguably Poe's most beautiful poem has raged with remarkable vigor practically from the moment "Annabel Lee" first appeared in print, only days after the author's death.

It is a tribute to the unique emotional resonance of the poem that such a controversy even exists, considering that it is so overtly allegorical, rather than autobiographical, and there is certainly no valid evidence that Poe himself gave clues about any personal significance it may have had for him. (Poe was never one to offer explanations for any of his writings--in fact, he seemed to rather enjoy mystifying his readers with an air of, "It's none of my concern if you're too dull-witted to know what I mean.") However, this has not stopped Poe fans from linking his fable of the "kingdom by the sea" with virtually every woman he ever knew--something that, I suspect, would have both amused and disgusted him.

The leading actresses who have auditioned for the role of "Annabel Lee" are, roughly in order of popularity:

1. Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe

Poe's wife, is, by far, the woman most identified with the poem, and, while one Poe scholar perhaps became overly partisan when he said it was "sacrilege" to associate any other name with "Annabel Lee," she is the only logical choice if one wishes to read the lines as having any basis in fact.

The first to publicly state that the poem was a tribute to Virginia was Frances S. Osgood, in the "Reminiscences of Edgar A. Poe" she published in "Saroni's Musical Times" in December 1849. (Rufus W. Griswold later reprinted her account in his "Poe memoir.") Osgood's stated aim was to counter a current rumor that the poem was written in memory of a "late love affair" of the poet's. (It is not known if she was referring to Sarah Helen Whitman, Sarah Elmira Shelton, Sarah Anna Lewis, or some other lady--who hopefully was not named "Sarah.") Osgood commented disdainfully that "There seems a strange and almost profane disregard of the sacred purity and spiritual tenderness of this delicious ballad, in thus overlooking the allusion to the kindred angels and the heavenly Father of the lost and loved and unforgotten wife."

Whatever Osgood's motives may have been in making this assertion--whether it was out of spite against one of these other women, a desire to show intimate knowledge of the love between Poe and his wife, or simply a wish to give Virginia her due--she may have, for once, told the truth. Aside from the probability that Virginia was, as Mrs. Osgood conceded, his one genuine love, of all the women Poe knew, she was the only one who had "no other thought than to love and be loved by me," she alone was his "bride," and, of course, unlike the other leading candidates, she was dead when he wrote the poem. (The "wind" that "came out of the cloud, chilling/And killing my Annabel Lee" could be interpreted as a reference to Virginia's tuberculosis.) "Annabel Lee" is very possibly simply a lovely piece of imagery with no specific personal implications, but if Poe did intend it as autobiography, applying it to anyone other than his late wife is pure absurdity.

Not that this has stopped many people from trying.

2. Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton

Mrs. Shelton is the only other "Annabel" whose candidacy has developed any sort of following, in spite of the fact that her sole claim to the role rests upon a 1901 article by Edward Alfriend, "Unpublished Recollections of Edgar Allan Poe." Alfriend, who claimed to have been a friend of Shelton's (even though he gave her first name as "Elizabeth,") stated that she told him that Poe had assured her that she was his inspiration for the poem (and that she was the "lost Lenore," to boot!) Alfriend's piece is among the most easily-ridiculed Poe articles--it is packed from beginning to end with statements that are both easily disproved and manifestly ludicrous. It is impossible to read his "recollections" without coming to the conclusion that he didn't know the first thing about either Poe or Mrs. Shelton.

There is absolutely no other valid reason to link La Royster to "Annabel Lee," (and it should be noted that in the interview Mrs. Shelton allegedly gave Edward V. Valentine in 1875, she stated that Poe never addressed any poems to her.) Nevertheless, she still has her champions, most notably Thomas O. Mabbott.

Mabbott, as was often his habit in many other matters, gave varied and uncertain opinions about the poem's origins, but he was fondest of naming Mrs. Shelton as the poem's inspiration--largely, it seems, because of his strange antipathy towards Virginia Poe. For whatever reason, he swallowed whole all of Susan Archer Talley Weiss' unfounded slurs against Virginia and her marriage, making it impossible for him to accept the possibility that Poe had loved his wife enough to immortalize her memory in verse. (Mabbott was also under the impression that Poe wrote the poem during the brief period of his 1849 reacquaintance with Mrs. Shelton. He seemed oblivious to the fact that "Annabel Lee" was completed by the early spring of that year--months before Poe reconnected with his old neighbor.)

Here I must pause for an admittedly off-topic rant: What made all of Mabbott's pronouncements regarding Virginia all the more exasperating is the fact that--like other Poe biographers, most notably Hervey Allen, George Woodberry, and Frances Winwar--he seldom directly named Weiss as his source. He would instead write statements along the lines of, "Rosalie Poe's foster-brother John Mackenzie said..." or "Rosalie said..." or simply relate anecdotes without giving any source at all. (He often did this trickery with other sources as well.)

This was completely misleading Mabbott's readers. What he quoted was, rather, what Mrs. Weiss--a chronicler who made King Rufus himself seem a model of probity--alleged these people said to her. (Susan Weiss is also, lest we forget, the same person who asserted that Elmira Shelton instigated Poe's murder.) The fact is, we have no statements about Poe that come directly from any of the Mackenzies--I suspect they had only a formal social acquaintance with him--and nothing of any interest or importance from Rosalie, who made it clear to John H. Ingram that she had virtually no personal knowledge about her famous brother--she did not even know she had siblings until she was "a good size girl." In short, Mabbott, Allen, Winwar, Woodberry, et al, relied on uncorroborated and easily discredited hearsay. Mabbott's boast that, unlike others who wrote about Virginia, he was relying on the words of people who were close to Poe, while dismissing first-hand testimony from those who actually did know both the Poes, all of whom lauded Virginia and testified to the couple's devotion to each other, witnesses such as Maria Clemm, Lambert A. Wilmer, George Lippard, Mayne Reid, George R. Graham, Thomas C. Clarke and his daughter Anne, Mary Brennan, William Gowans--even Rufus W. Griswold and Frances S. Osgood, for crying out loud--makes one wonder if Mabbott wasn't permanently possessed by the Imp of the Perverse.

Mabbott's copious and incredibly influential writings (the question of how he obtained this influence is a mystery I will likely never solve) were usually not even bad scholarship--they were bad historical fiction.

3. Sarah Helen Power Whitman

What makes Mrs. Whitman stand out among the parade of Annabel wannabes is that she herself was the sole promoter for her connection to the poem. Sometime after Poe's death, she conceived the notion that "Annabel Lee" was written to her as a "peace offering." She insisted the poem disproved the common belief that Poe went to his grave harboring negative feelings towards her. (Although, in a letter to Rufus W. Griswold written two months after Poe's death, Mrs. Whitman evinced no personal knowledge about the origins of "Annabel Lee"--in fact, she even asked Griswold if he had any idea who had inspired the poem. He offered no opinion on the subject.) To the end of her life, Mrs. Whitman tried, with increasing desperation, to convince the world of her link to "Annabel Lee," and how it proved she had a special place in Poe's heart--despite the fact that she must have been aware that few people, if any, believed her. Of all the parade of possible Annabels, Mrs. Whitman's exercise in self-delusion is undoubtedly the saddest and most pitiful of the lot.



Next post: The Annabel Also-Rans.

The Grotesque and Arabesque Stella Lewis (Part Two)

The Lewis divorce was also notable for a cameo appearance by none other than Elizabeth F. Ellet, in the role of espionage agent. According to Mrs. Lewis, while her divorce was in progress, Ellet paid a friendly call on her. Mrs. Lewis left to order them lunch, and wound up being absent for about half an hour. After the two women dined and Mrs. Ellet had left, Mrs. Lewis discovered that her desk had been ransacked and that a publisher's letter which "would have been worth $600" to her had vanished. Mrs. Lewis claimed that Mrs. Ellet, who was "in the pay" of Stella's estranged husband, stole it on his behalf. (When recounting the story to John H. Ingram, she snarled, "I blame myself only, for having received such a viper after all the things I had heard of her!") Mrs. Lewis never explained exactly what this letter was, why it was so valuable, or how and why Mrs. Ellet was enlisted for this bit of burglary, so this episode's exact implications are unknown. However, the combination of Stella Lewis, Elizabeth Ellet, divorce intrigue, and Purloined Letters in the same anecdote presents a sort of Poean Perfect Storm of sleaze that practically takes one's breath away.

Mrs. Lewis may have figured in another story involving letters. Maria Clemm once stated that soon after Poe's death, Rufus W. Griswold offered her a large sum of money for letters a certain literary lady had written Poe. She claimed she destroyed them instead. Most Poe biographers assume--on absolutely no evidence--that the "lady" in question was Frances S. Osgood, (even though that would contradict Sarah Helen Whitman's story--which they also blindly accept--that in 1846 a delegation of ladies obtained Osgood's letters from Poe.) Ingram, however, thought otherwise. He confided to Whitman that, judging by what he heard from others, the letters were not Osgood's, but those of Mrs. Lewis. Ingram hinted that Griswold had hoped to obtain them in order to subject the wealthy woman to a little casual blackmail. A remarkable sidelight on the literary society of the time. (A footnote: Ingram may have been correct, but my own suspicion is that what Griswold sought were the mysterious, scandal-igniting letters Poe claimed Elizabeth F. Ellet had written him. At that time, Ellet and Griswold were locked in a remarkably vicious personal war--which the lady was winning handily--and he undoubtedly felt her letters, whatever they contained, would be life-saving ammunition.)

After her divorce, Mrs. Lewis lived a solitary life, mostly in England and the Continent. By all accounts, she had a genius for inspiring loathing, and Ingram, who saw much of her when she lived in London, described her as a very lonely and pathetic--and dreadful--woman whom he both pitied and detested. (He also occasionally implied that she was not entirely sane.) Before she died in 1880, Mrs. Lewis spent most of her last years writing Ingram over a hundred letters desperately trying to convince him of her importance in Poe's life. (He came to the conclusion that she did not "evince much real knowledge of the man.") Ingram later rewarded her efforts at self-glorification by writing a cruelly hilarious article for the July 1907 "Albany Review" entitled "Edgar Allan Poe and 'Stella'" where he dismissed her as one of the many "harpies" who helped make Poe's last years a misery.

Mrs. Lewis ranks among the worst of the many bizarre figures in Poe's history. (And considering that includes a cast of characters such as Sarah Helen Whitman, Frances S. Osgood, Annie Richmond, Rufus W. Griswold, Thomas Dunn English, Marie Louise Houghton, Thomas Holley Chivers, et al, that is a fairly frightening thought.) Poe was never truly close to anyone other than his wife and his mother-in-law, but there is a grim insincerity to his "friendship" with Mrs. Lewis that is quite depressing. In print and to others, his attitude towards Stella was warm, even effusive, and he was sincerely grateful for what he naively believed was her "kindness" to Mrs. Clemm. In truth, however, the sight of her evidently made him ill, and (according to Mrs. Clemm) she knew it. (Considering his similar encomiums to Frances Osgood, one is reminded of Hiram Fuller's cryptic remark that Poe's praise was as sinister as his abuse.)

As for Mrs. Lewis' feelings, it is quite clear that she never had any, for Poe or anyone else. When Poe was alive, she determinedly pried what she could out of him, for the sake of her literary ambitions. Immediately after his death, when Griswold's star was in the ascendant, she unblushingly transferred her loyalties to him. In 1853, she wrote that august biographer, "Nothing has ever given me so much insight into Mr. Poe's real character as his letters to you, which are published in this third volume. They will not fail to convince the public of the injustice of [George R.] Graham's and [John] Neal's articles." (It is doubtful she would have written any differently if she had known these letters were forgeries.) She continued, "I have ceased to correspond with Mrs. Clemm on account of her finding so much fault, and those articles of Graham's and Neal's. I cannot endure ingratitude. I have felt and do feel that you have performed a noble and disinterested part towards Mr. Poe in the editing of his works."

In later years, after Griswold was dead and his slanders of Poe discredited, she again did a 180-degree-spin any Olympic figure skater would envy. Eager to claim her share of Poe's burgeoning legend, she published a series of quite nauseating sonnets commemorating their "friendship," instructed everyone within earshot about the many kind services she had done him, and earnestly told Ingram that the late poet was "an angel," who had been cruelly defamed. (Unfortunately for her, Ingram lived long enough to see her correspondence with Griswold in print.)

Probably the clearest view of Mrs. Lewis' character and "friendship" with Poe comes through a letter of hers to an acquaintance in 1858. In the course of again asserting that Poe had asked her to write his life story, she managed, fittingly, to out-Griswold Griswold. She wrote:

"If anyone else should write it [Poe's life] do not permit the name of that old woman who calls herself his mother-in-law to appear in it. I have heard that she is not his mother-in-law. That she was something else to him. Anyhow, I believe that she was the black cat of his life. And that she at last strangled him to death."

After quoting this passage, Poe's biographer Edward Wagenknecht wrote with telling terseness: "And what the woman writes about herself in the same letter is almost equally repulsive."

At the end, when Poe lay slowly dying in that pitiful hospital bed in Baltimore, it can be hoped that he consoled himself with the thought that at least he had finally seen the last of Stella Lewis.

The Grotesque and Arabesque Stella Lewis (Part One of Two)

In an earlier post, I touched briefly on the odd and rather slimy role Sarah Anna Lewis played in the last two years of Poe's life. I realized that this woman was just deranged, destructive, and creepy enough to earn her very own post. Happy reading.

We do not know exactly how and when Lewis made Poe's acquaintance, but it was possibly during the period he lived in New York City in 1845. However, her real involvement in his history did not commence until late in 1846. The twenty-two year old woman was the wife of a wealthy lawyer named Sylvanus D. Lewis. Mrs. Lewis (who made several increasingly colorful changes to her Christian name until she finally settled on "Stella,") had, like so many members of the 19th century literati, both the money and leisure to pursue an interest in poetry. The question of whether or not they had the talent for it was considered irrelevant. She was a theatrical, narcissistic, flashily-dressed woman who imagined herself to be not only a profound artist, but a fascinating siren and muse. (Alas, no one else seemed to concur in this.) Mrs. Lewis was, in short, a living, breathing embodiment of the worst caricatures of the female literary dilettante, with a touch of a Hogarth engraving thrown in.

She insinuated herself into Poe's life when he was at the lowest point he would see until he turned up at that Baltimore tavern in October 1849. His wife Virginia was dying, and he himself was sick, persecuted, increasingly broken in spirit, and virtually penniless. His misery was widely--and, by his enemies, gleefully--advertised in the press. Although we--probably mercifully--do not know the details, the Lewises took full advantage of his public vulnerability, and provided the Poe family with money and other assistance. In exchange, there was said to be an unabashed extortion that Poe would do what polishing he could to Stella's clumsy verses and write laudatory notices of her for the magazines.

As I have said before, if this latter tale is true (and it mostly relies upon the ever-questionable testimony of Marie Louise Shew Houghton, who was infuriated about Mrs. Lewis' desire to present herself as the official Poe Family Protector--a role Houghton herself coveted--and thus wished to demean the woman's role in Poe's life as much as possible,) one must feel sadness and pity, rather than the scorn Poe and Mrs. Clemm have garnered. At that time, the Poes were virtually helpless, and if Stella Lewis took the opportunity to exploit this helplessness for her own ends, the odium belongs entirely on her own head. As later events would show, it was an odium she thoroughly deserved for more reason than one.

As it happened, it was not until after Poe died that Mrs. Lewis' talents for crude self-aggrandizement reached their full flower. At some point, she reputedly began circulating the story that she was the model for "Annabel Lee." When this reached the ears of Poe's erstwhile quasi-fiancee Sarah Helen Whitman, she was indignant. How dare this woman poach on her own claims to have inspired Poe's most romantic poem? Mrs. Whitman informed everyone within earshot that Mary Hewitt (another gossipy "literary lady") had written her that Mrs. Clemm told Mrs. Lewis that she was Poe's heroine as mere flattery, a way of paying back favors granted--the implication being that there was not a word of truth to Lewis' boasts. Quite cleverly, Whitman added that Hewitt also told her that Frances S. Osgood had written that the poem was a tribute to Virginia Poe only to spite Mrs. Lewis. Thus, her account achieved a neat double play, by simultaneously discrediting Whitman's two rival "claimants" to "Annabel Lee," Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Poe. (Not to mention discrediting Osgood's declaration that Virginia had been Poe's one true love, a statement Whitman took as a deliberate insult to herself.) Sarah H. Whitman was an absurd woman in many ways, but stupid she was not.

We have no other evidence Hewitt actually made this statement about the poem, (Whitman, quite suspiciously, did not preserve these letters she allegedly received from her,) and it seems like an implausible thing for Mrs. Clemm to have done, no matter how indebted to Mrs. Lewis she may have felt. (For what it's worth, Annie Richmond wrote Poe's biographer John H. Ingram that Mrs. Clemm maintained that "Annabel Lee" was about Virginia, and was always somewhat affronted whenever anyone did not seem to grasp that fact on their own. If Mrs. Richmond spoke accurately--which, admittedly, would be something of a novelty for her--that would settle the "who was Annabel Lee" debate once and for all.) It seems most likely that Mrs. Lewis herself, always eager for publicity and indifferent about how she got it, simply invented her connection to Poe's poem.Mrs. Lewis--when she was not asserting that Poe had asked her to write his biography--also played a key, if still-mysterious role in Rufus W. Griswold obtaining the job of acting as Poe's literary executor. From what both she and Griswold said afterwards, it appears that she was the one to actually enlist him for the task. She claimed this is what Poe had instructed her to do, but she never offered any proof of this. Why she would so interest herself in the matter is also unclear, but her involvement only adds to the dark, unfragrant cloud that hangs around the whole issue of Griswold's appointment.

The Lewises divorced in 1858. The breakup of their marriage seems to have also permanently estranged her from Mrs. Clemm--reputedly, Poe's aunt took Mr. Lewis' side in their dispute. However, there was never any real friendship between the two women--all that ever bound them was hunger on one side, and hunger for glory on the other. In any case, thereafter Maria Clemm became one of Mrs. Lewis' favorite targets for vilification.

In Part Two: The return of Elizabeth Ellet!

Marginalia

In his recent book, "Poe in His Own Time," Benjamin F. Fisher made reference to Elizabeth Oakes Smith's copious writings about Poe by commenting that Smith "knew well the American literary milieu of Poe's own day, even if she hadn't known Poe himself." Strangely, Fisher either overlooked or deliberately disregarded the significance of his own observation. If Fisher is correct that Smith never actually knew Poe at all, then everything she wrote about him--most particularly her detailed, and highly implausible, accounts of her meetings and conversations with the poet, which his biographers have extensively used for source material--were massive and flagrant fictions.

Evidence that Fisher's statement was accurate comes from Smith's close friend Sarah Helen Whitman. When writing to John H. Ingram in the 1870s, Whitman expressed her contempt for a recent article Smith had published about Poe. In particular, she pointed to Smith's description of an intimate talk she claimed to have had with Poe about his relationship with Mrs. Whitman. Whitman, who described Smith as "constitutionally inaccurate," stated flatly that she was certain no such conversation had ever taken place. How could Whitman know Poe had never expressed the sentiments in question unless she was aware that Smith had never had any conversations with Poe at all?

Whitman made an even more intriguing remark on the subject. She wrote Ingram a strangely cryptic reference to Smith's Poe reminiscences. She stated they "did not spring so much from genuine friendliness & regard as from other motives which are betrayed in some of the--but I will not carp or criticize."

Maddeningly, Whitman never explained what these "other motives" may have been. I'd certainly like to know.

*****

One of the innumerable overlooked little oddities in Poe's history is that Maria Clemm's handwriting bore a distinct resemblance to her nephew's. In fact, it was said that she could copy his manuscripts so exactly that no one could guess it was not his writing. (A copy, presumed to have been made by Mrs. Clemm, of a letter Poe sent her on September 18, 1849 has sometimes been mistaken for an actual Poe MS. Incidentally, for whatever mysterious reason, we have only a fragment of the original letter.) Richard Henry Stoddard even quoted her as saying to him that after Poe's death, she received so many requests for his autograph that she would simply forge samples of his writing and send them on to his admirers.

All of this puts a curious question mark over many of our extant "Poe" letters and manuscripts.

*****

The only full transcript we have of the last letter Poe sent to Sarah Helen Whitman comes to us from Annie Richmond, of all people. (Whitman herself, in her typically strange fashion, preserved only an meaningless eight-line fragment of the original letter. She always aimed to shape the historical record by carefully copying, destroying, and mutilating her Poe-related correspondence in an effort to display the story she wanted told.) Mrs. Richmond told John Ingram that before Poe sent Mrs. Whitman this letter discussing the end of their relationship and the ugly gossip surrounding that event, he sent it to her so that she could read it over and then forward it (anonymously, I presume) to Whitman in Providence. Mrs. Richmond claimed to have made a copy of this letter, which she sent to Ingram.

Now, can I possibly be the only one who finds her story to be exceedingly suspicious? First of all, I find it odd that Poe would send Mrs. Richmond the actual letter to forward to the other woman. Aside from the unseemliness in sharing his private relations with Mrs. Whitman with a third party, if he wished to defend his actions in the Whitman episode to Annie (she told Ingram that the stories she had heard about his disgraceful behavior in Providence led her to contemplate ending her friendship with Poe--which says a lot about her "devotion" to him,) it would have been sufficient for Poe to tell her "I wrote Mrs. Whitman this-and-this..." Secondly, why in the world would Mrs. Richmond have bothered to write out and keep a copy of this letter--particularly since the contents were certainly none of her business? Surely, in January of 1849 she could have had no idea that, nearly thirty years later, her transcript of this letter might be useful biographical source material.

The final oddity about this story is that Mrs. Whitman--a fragile and cowardly woman who shrank from even the mildest confrontation--never worked up the nerve to even answer this letter. (Which confirms my suspicion that she was hardly blameless in whatever went on between her and Poe.) Mrs. Richmond, however, told Ingram that Whitman had responded, with a letter exonerating Poe's behavior. What makes Annie's statement even more peculiar is the fact that among the copies of Poe's letters to her that she gave Ingram is one where he commented on Whitman's failure to answer his letter!

Annie Richmond, like so many other figures in Poe's history, made a very unsatisfactory witness. Nearly everything she ever said about him inevitably took on an air of shenanigans.

The Reticent Mrs. Shelton (Part Two)

"The more meticulously we scrutinize the documents, the more painfully do we become aware how dubious is the authenticity of historical evidence, and how untrustworthy therefore the conclusions of historians. For no matter how incontestably genuine an ancient document may be, this genuineness does not provide any guarantee as to the human validity of its contents."
-Stefan Zweig, "Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles." Pity he never tackled writing a biography of Poe.

Clearly, there is something deeply wrong with this entire picture. During the forty years that she survived Poe, Sarah Shelton was completely mute about him, even to relatives, only breaking her silence to state that she had no important recollections of him. Then, if Valentine is to be believed, she somehow decided to honor him--and only him--with these strange, illogical revelations that were unknown to her own kin. (Another peculiarity of these "notes" is their garbled, disconnected quality--they read like confused scraps of conversation Valentine happened to eavesdrop upon. This impression is heightened when, immediately following a description of Poe's childhood friend Ebenezer Burling, Shelton is quoted as saying, "Spoke of the first Mrs. Allan in the most affectionate manner." Valentine added the parenthetical note, "This last remark I think refers to Poe." If Valentine was truly talking to her, wouldn't he know to whom she referred? And if he was unsure, why not ask her at the time?) After supposedly pouring her secret history out to him, she maintained her previous Sphinx-like silence the rest of her life, failing to either confirm or deny Valentine's account of their conversation. (Her newspaper obituaries even made a point of noting that no one ever heard her so much as speak Poe's name.)None of this fits. If it was true that she had little to say about Poe, where did Valentine's story come from, except his own desperate imagination, cobbling together bits of local gossip? (It is one of the many peculiarities of this incident that Valentine wrote out at least two versions of his Shelton interview, which contain some substantial textual differences between them.) If she wished to draw a discreet veil over her love life, why not simply say so from the beginning? If she truly granted him this interview--an interview which raises more questions than it answers--why bother maintaining her silence after it appeared in print? And if she had decided the time had come to bare her soul, why not deal directly with Ingram himself, to ensure that her relationship with Poe would be described the way she wished it to be told, instead of trusting her long-hidden confidences to be transmitted by an unreliable third-party? And if she gave this interview, either her previous declaration that she knew virtually nothing about Poe or the interview itself was a brazen lie. Either way, what does that say about Shelton's credibility? And if--as nearly everyone assumes--she lied when she denied being engaged to Poe in 1849, again, why should we trust anything in these "notes?" As the lawyers would say, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus--"false in one, false in all."

In short, the "Valentine notes"--however you choose to look at them--are impossible to reconcile with reality.

**A footnote: "The Poe Log" described the reunion between Poe and Mrs. Shelton as having taken place in the summer of 1848. (Kenneth Silverman, taking his information from TPL, repeated this statement.) This is simply wrong. The Valentine notes make it clear that Poe's sudden reappearance in her life was in the summer of 1849. "The Poe Log" evidently made this change in chronology in order to make the Valentine/Shelton account fit in with Sarah Helen Whitman's claim that Poe told her he had considered marrying Shelton during his (very brief) visit to Richmond in 1848, but on finding that his old neighbor had become uncongenial to him, resolved to woo Whitman instead. As with so many of the stories related by "Poe's Helen," we have only her word that Poe made this odd and rather ungallant remark, and what little evidence we have directly contradicts the idea that he and Shelton had any renewal of their acquaintance before 1849. (As an aside, Maria Clemm stated years later that Poe was never in Richmond at all in 1848, and the evidence for this visit is so generally unsatisfactory that his biographer Arthur H. Quinn was tempted to agree with her!)

"The Poe Log," incidentally, did a similar juggling of dates with Mary Gove Nichols' description of a visit to Fordham late in 1846. In order to reconcile her account of Poe offering for sale a poem that is presumed to be "Ulalume" with that work's publication at the end of 1847, they give her visit a date of c. November '47. This ignores Nichols' statement that Virginia Poe was still alive at the time described. Of course, Nichols' account also conflicts with Poe's own description to George W. Eveleth of how and when he sold "Ulalume," making her story worthless as a historical source in any case.

***Another footnote: Among the items that were published in the "Century" magazine in 1903 as part of the "Poe/Chivers Papers" is the text of a hysterical letter Mrs. Shelton supposedly wrote Maria Clemm immediately after hearing of Poe's death. (The assumption is that Mrs. Clemm sent it to Chivers for his edification.) It is universally accepted as genuine by historians. However, there are reasons for doubting the authenticity of the "Chivers letter."

For one, we only have a copy among the "Chivers papers" in the Huntington Library--made allegedly by Chivers himself--of the letter. No original manuscript has ever been seen. (Although Maria Clemm told Annie Richmond that Shelton had written her about the tragedy in Baltimore, she gave no details about the letter, and as the manuscript is not extant, it is impossible to verify if the text of the letter in the "Chivers papers" matches the one sent to Mrs. Clemm.)

Even taking the view that Mrs. Shelton would have been greatly distressed at the time of writing this letter, the writing style simply does not sound like any other known letter of hers. In addition, the little evidence we have indicates that after Poe's death Mrs. Shelton immediately tried to distance herself from Mrs. Clemm, as well as anything else concerning Poe. (A few years afterward, Mrs. Clemm told Sarah Helen Whitman that she knew nothing of Mrs. Shelton's life, and even suggested that she and Poe's putative final fiancee were on hostile terms. Unfortunately, she did not say why.) Also, the description in this letter of Mrs. Shelton's final meeting with Poe, and his physical condition when they parted, directly contradicts the Valentine notes, as well as all other accounts we have of Poe's departure from Richmond. Finally, the whole history surrounding the "Poe/Chivers Papers"--as I have said before--is enough to embarrass Joseph Cosey.

The Reticent Mrs. Shelton (Part One of Two)

"In biography the truth is everything, and in auto-biography it is especially so."
-"The Business Man"

In 1874, a Richmond, VA Poe admirer named Edward V. Valentine made efforts, on behalf of biographer John Ingram, to persuade Sarah Elmira Shelton to clarify her relationship with Edgar Allan Poe. For many years, it was rumored that she had had a youthful romance with him, and that, shortly before his death, they had rekindled their old relationship and planned to marry. However, no one seemed to have any definite knowledge about this story, and Mrs. Shelton herself had yet to speak a word on the subject.

She answered Valentine's pleas for information with the simple and seemingly sincere statement (in a letter now in Richmond's Valentine Museum,) that "I am not prepared to give any information in regard to Mr. Poe's early life--we were both very young when I did know him, and the slight recollection I have of his history (at that time) will not justify any attempt that I might make, to undertake it. The meridian and latter part of his life, there are many others, who profess to know much more than I do."

That, one would think, would be that. The lady herself declared--in writing--that she barely remembered Poe in his youth, and knew scarcely anything of his adult life. However, according to Valentine, just a year after penning him these unequivocal words, Shelton granted him an exclusive interview about Poe where, in modern parlance, she sang like a canary. The notes he made of this alleged interview (now also in the Valentine Museum,) tell a disjointed, fragmentary, but quite intimate history, revealing her precocious engagement to Poe (the "notes" have her say she was "15 or 16" at the time, but in truth she would have been 14. Also, the "notes" seem to indicate that at the time of their supposed engagement, their "acquaintance" must have been only a few months old, which makes the idea of a betrothal between a sixteen-year-old boy and a girl barely into her teens seem all the more implausible.)

The "notes" say that when Poe departed for the University of Virginia, her father, objecting to the pair corresponding because of their youth, secretly intercepted Poe's letters to her. (It is not explained how she and Poe both--without so much as exchanging a word--apparently took this mutual failure to receive correspondence as a sign that their relationship was irrevocably over, why her father resorted to such cruel and unnecessary measures, or how she eventually came to discover the truth.) Then, in the summer of 1849, by which time the pair had lost both their spouses, Poe--a stranger to her for some twenty-three years--suddenly appeared in her parlor, and after barely saying more than "hello," pressed for an immediate marriage. However, the "notes" have Mrs. Shelton declaring that this marriage never would have actually transpired.

This last statement, at least, could very well have been the truth. Poe scholars take a letter Shelton wrote Maria Clemm in late September 1849 as proof she had consented to marry Poe. However, while this letter certainly expressed fondness towards him and a desire to ingratiate herself with his aunt--a complete stranger to Shelton--she said nothing to indicate she and Poe were betrothed. Actually, Shelton's references to her jealousy when she happened to see Poe and "his lovely wife" together soon after their marriage, and her descriptions of how often and lovingly Poe talked to her of "his Virginia" seem, if anything, to argue against the idea that Poe was ardently and successfully wooing her! Poe's own letters to Mrs. Clemm during this period, if authentic, confirm Shelton's infatuation with him, but they also betray a positive distaste at the thought of wedlock with his childhood neighbor. His penultimate letter to "Muddy" even warned her not to count on getting an addition to their family, as "my heart sinks at the idea of this marriage..." (This is oddly reminiscent of his earlier recorded comment about his reputed engagement to Mrs. Whitman: "That marriage will never take place.")

In short, if you accept the testimony of the "Valentine interview," Poe was desperate to wed Mrs. Shelton as soon as possible, but she, for unspecified reasons, had strong reservations against the idea. On the other hand, the letters to Maria Clemm from both Poe and Mrs. Shelton paint Elmira as deeply enamored of her childhood friend and the assertive one in the relationship, while he is depicted as haunted by grave doubts about marrying a woman he knew he did not really love. (His qualms would not be surprising, as the little we know about Mrs. Shelton suggests a Victorian Hilda Rumpole.)

This was, after all, the man who wrote that "the mere death of a beloved wife does not imply a final separation so complete as to justify a union with another."

After these "notes"--upon which the entire history of the Poe/Shelton relationship is based--were published by Ingram, Shelton continued to maintain her old blank silence. All her family members agreed that they never heard her so much as mention Poe's name. Her granddaughter--who lived under the same roof with her--later stated that she grew up having no idea the family matriarch even knew Poe. And Mrs. Shelton failed to provide her--or anyone else--with additional details. Biographers, like nature, abhor a vacuum. As a result of this paucity of information, no relationship in Poe's life has been more exaggerated or mythologized than the "romance" with Sarah Royster Shelton, his so-called "first and last love."

J.J. Moran, the doctor who claimed to have attended Poe on his deathbed--although even that has been disputed--published an account of a call he supposedly paid to Shelton sometime before her death in 1888. According to him, he and Shelton shared an emotional and highly theatrical-sounding conversation about Poe. Unfortunately, Moran's anecdotes about his most famous patient grew increasingly colorful and fictional over the years, particularly once he hit the lecture circuit. Like so many others, he found Poe to be an irresistible cash cow. These alleged confidences of Shelton's are believed to be just one more of his fables. The same holds true for a widely-circulated 1901 article about Poe and Shelton written by a Richmond journalist named Edward Alfriend, as well as legends about the Poe/Shelton relationship promulgated by fellow Richmond folklorists Charles Marshall Graves and the ineffable, ubiquitous, reality-challenged J.H. Whitty. All these men depict Mrs. Shelton as doing little over the years except endlessly chattering about Poe to anyone who would listen--which would surely have come as a surprise to her own family. Furthermore, the stories they related (which not only contradict each other, but the Valentine notes as well,) are all so unrealistic, when they're not demonstrably untrue, (Alfriend, who claimed to know Mrs. Shelton well, even gave her first name as "Elizabeth!") that even most Poe scholars--a lot normally willing to swallow virtually anything--have treated them gingerly, relying instead on the Valentine interview.

In Part Two: More on the Shelton/Valentine interview, plus a note on why you can't blindly trust "The Poe Log."

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)

Poe, Providence, and the Second "To Helen"

"Hardly anybody behaves normally in this history...In other words, if there ever was a life to illustrate the truth that there are many more questions in the world than answers, this is that life."
-Edward Wagenknecht, trying and failing to make sense of it all in "Edgar Allan Poe: The Man Behind the Legend"

Edgar Allan Poe traveled to or through Providence RI on at least one, and quite possibly two occasions in 1845. Both these visits have engendered controversy, and unfortunately many of the details surrounding these trips are engulfed in fog, thanks largely, as usual, to Sarah Helen Whitman.

In November of 1848, Poe published a poem titled simply "To ---," which opened with the lines, "I saw thee once--once only..." After his death, Rufus Griswold republished these verses under the title "To Helen," with the explanation that Poe addressed these lines to Mrs. Whitman, and that the sighting described in the poem was based on a true incident. According to Griswold, when Poe stayed overnight in Providence while returning to New York after his appearance at the Boston Lyceum in October 1845, he took a midnight walk through the town. During this stroll, he chanced to see Mrs. Whitman standing in front of her house, and supposedly the sight so inspired him that, three years later, he wrote this poem. (Although the "enchanted" garden in Poe's verses bore no resemblance to Whitman's actual residence.)Whitman, on the other hand, claimed this "sighting" of her (of which she had at the time been unaware--which is odd, considering that it must have happened on a small, otherwise deserted street,) took place in 1845, but, as the poem said, in July.

Perhaps the most curious part of her story is that we have no proof she ever heard of this poetic and momentous incident from Poe himself.***

The letters he allegedly wrote to Whitman indicate that the first time he ever actually saw her was when he visited Providence in September 1848. Whitman said she learned details of Poe's little Peeping Tom episode from Frances S. Osgood, of all people. Decades later, Whitman described a visit Osgood made to her in the fall of 1848, apparently with the aim of gleaning information about Whitman's rumored engagement to Poe. Whitman claimed Osgood told her that in mid-1845 (presumably in July,) he was passing through Providence on his way from Boston to New York, and stopped overnight at the same hotel where Osgood was staying. The next day, he informed her that he had spent most of the night walking in and around the town, and happened to pass Mrs. Whitman's home (he had "previously ascertained" its location from Osgood.) There, he observed the lady of the house herself walking up and down the sidewalk (he made the identification through Osgood's description of Whitman--and the question of why Frances would bother giving Poe a minute physical description of another woman, let alone directions to her home, was never explained.)

One of the letters Poe supposedly sent Whitman late in 1848 described an occasion when, while he was passing through Providence, Mrs. Osgood tried to persuade him to join her on a call to Mrs. Whitman, but he refused. A date is not given for this incident, although Whitman herself annotated the letter to indicate it was in July '45. We are not told why he rejected the opportunity to actually meet this woman he supposedly already adored from afar, other than the vague assertion that he "dared not" risk laying eyes upon her. This letter seems to contradict the scenario given in "I saw thee once..."

Incidentally, these Poe/Whitman letters also contradict another bit of known history. One of these letters stated that until Mrs.Whitman sent to him some Valentine verses she had written in his honor in February 1848, he had been unaware she even knew of his existence. Aside from the fact that it would be absurd for him to assume that a fellow member of the literati was ignorant of the writer of "The Raven," we know for a fact that in late 1845 or early 1846, Whitman requested her friend, New York socialite Anne Lynch, to ask Poe on her behalf for a copy of his critique of Elizabeth Barrett's poetry. Whitman--who had been intensely interested in Poe and his writings for some time--undoubtedly hoped he would write her personally. Instead, he merely gave Lynch a copy of the article to forward to Whitman. In other words, unless Poe had so little interest in Whitman that he immediately forgot about this incident, that letter simply makes no sense.

There is much uncertainty in what we're told about Poe's Providence visits. In late June/early July 1845, he was embroiled in an accusation of forgery that had been made against him by a New York merchant named Edward Isaiah Thomas. Poe and Thomas were strangers, but Thomas was a friend of the Osgood family, and passed on to Frances gossip he had heard about Poe. She, in turn, informed the poet of the accusations. Osgood was making an extended stay in Providence and Boston during this period--according to at least one Poe biographer, in the company of her husband--so all this rumor-mongering and tattle-taleing between the three principals was evidently being carried on through the post. According to his published "Reply to Thomas Dunn English," Poe briefly left New York in early July 1845 to "procure evidence" for his planned lawsuit against Mr. Thomas. The inference is that he wished to interview Osgood, and possibly others as well, to get details of these slanders being promulgated against him, and probably to persuade Osgood to provide a deposition. (In a later issue of the "Broadway Journal," Poe mentioned a visit he made to Boston around this time. It is unknown whether Osgood was then in that city, or if he merely questioned her in Providence en route to a visit made to Boston for other reasons.)

Now, contrary to what Whitman later said, Poe and Osgood could not have stayed at the same hotel in July of 1845, as Osgood's correspondence shows that when she was in Providence during that month, she was staying with friends, the family of Henry Bowen Anthony. When Poe traveled through Providence on his way to Boston in October, Osgood was living in Providence's City Hotel (with, her correspondence suggests, her husband, and presumably her young children!) The ineffable John Evangelist Walsh assumed that Poe stopped overnight at that same hotel, but, as usual with him, had no evidence this was the case. At that time, the City Hotel was the most prominent of Providence's many hostelries, an unlikely place for Poe to stay, even for one day. Even when he was in funds, he had little liking for ostentatious surroundings (he hated New York's lavish Astor House.) It is more likely that he spent the night at a more modest establishment. There is actually no indication that Poe so much as saw Mrs. Osgood during his overnight stop-over in Providence, or was even aware she was in the city. In short, whichever way you look at it, Whitman's account of what she claimed Osgood told her has problems. (Although in regards to her story, it should be noted that Mrs. Whitman not only knew both Poe and Osgood, but she had many contacts among New York's gossipy and cruel literary circles. Thus, she would know as well as anyone the true nature of their relationship. Particularly when she was in her self-appointed role of Poe's personal defender/love interest, her guileless openness about depicting Poe and Osgood in each other's society indicates her knowledge that their relations had been wholly innocent.)It is very curious how much of what we're told about the Poe/Whitman relationship originated from the Reverend Doctor Rufus Wilmot Griswold. He was the first to state publicly that the poem Poe published in November 1848 to an unknown addressee was written for Sarah Helen Whitman. She afterwards endorsed this tale, of course, stating that she received this poem as an anonymous manuscript in the spring of that year. Unfortunately, we have no proof this was the case, as this reputed manuscript disappeared. Whitman claimed she sent it to a psychic for a "reading," in whose hands it vanished without a trace. (Corroborating evidence for Mrs. W's stories had a way of doing that.)

Many months before they met, Poe supposedly sent Whitman a copy of his first "To Helen," torn out of one of his books. The mailing gave no indication that he was the sender, but, according to Whitman, a male New York acquaintance of his who happened to be visiting Providence identified Poe's handwriting on the envelope. This "acquaintance" may very well have been Griswold.

Similarly, the romantic tale of Whitman unknowingly captivating Poe's attention during this midnight walk of his was also first recorded by the good Doctor. Whitman herself claimed not to know how Griswold heard the story. She vaguely assumed he learned about it from Mrs. Osgood, but it taxes one's brain to come up with a motive for Osgood--who had had a falling-out with Whitman--to give Griswold this information. And if such a dramatic incident truly happened, why did Poe himself never write to Whitman about it? And if, as Griswold claimed, "I saw thee once..." referred to that encounter, why did he describe it as happening in October, when the poem describes a "July midnight?"It is undoubtedly impossible for anyone this side of the grave to find definitive answers to all these conundrums, but these are nevertheless questions that Poe scholars must ask themselves.


***A footnote: Mrs. Whitman possessed a bound set of the "Broadway Journal," which she said Poe gave her in October 1848. Among the handwritten annotations is the comment, "N. B.--The poem which I sent you contained all the events of a dream which occurred to me soon after I knew you. Ligeia was also suggested by a dream. Observe the eyes in both tale & poem."

Years later, after George W. Eveleth learned of this annotation, he pointed out to Mrs. Whitman the obvious discrepancy: She claimed that the "I saw thee once..." poem was sent to her long before she and Poe met. So how to explain Poe's reference to writing the poem "after I knew you?"

Mrs. Whitman always had an explanation for everything. She--rather too stridently--wrote Eveleth that what Poe had actually written was that this poem, and the dream which inspired it, occurred to him "soon after I knew you through Mrs. Osgood's description." She said she had cut out those last four words and sent it to someone wanting a sample of Poe's handwriting. (This alleged scrap of writing--who'd have dreamed it?--vanished.) She offered this same alibi to John H. Ingram, who appears to have politely ignored it.

Whatever else one might have to say about Sarah Helen Power Whitman, one certainly has to give the lady high credit for ingenuity. Or perhaps it was all simply thanks to the ether she was constantly inhaling.


(Poe & Griswold images: 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.