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.)

In Which Undine Actually Has a Good Word For Someone

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

S.S. Osgood self-portrait

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Problematic "Chivers' Life of Poe" (Part Three)

The "Life of Poe" is virtually worthless as a historical source. The biographical portion we have is a mere rehash of Griswold's error-plagued memoir. The portion that quotes Poe discussing with Chivers the merits of various authors often contradicts what Poe himself said about them in his published writings, and it contains ludicrous misinterpretations and misrepresentations of previously published material. The author of this manuscript--whether it truly was Chivers or someone else--makes it clear that he did not really know or understand Poe in the slightest degree. When the "Life" was released in book form in 1952, Poe biographer Arthur Quinn openly wondered why anyone even bothered publishing such a useless work.

The only portion of the "Life" that has interested anyone--probably the sole reason why it was published at all--is one anecdote, of which the first part--the section most savoring of scandalum magnatum--did not appear in the 1903 publication and was previously unknown. The incident described allegedly happened when Chivers visited New York in the summer of 1845. The story goes that while walking on the street, Chivers encountered Poe, who was drunk out of his mind and looking for trouble. After doing his best to get into a public brawl with an old nemesis, "Knickerbocker" editor Lewis Gaylord Clark, Poe blearily announced to Chivers that he will reveal to him--a man he scarcely knew--the "secrets of my heart." He bragged about being involved in "the damnedest amour" with the unnamed wife of a painter, who was out of town often because of his work. Poe claimed the lady was currently in Providence, and she had written asking him to go there that afternoon. He added that his "noble" wife must not hear anything about this, as he would not hurt her for all the world. A strange concern, considering that he was disseminating all the juicy details not only to Chivers, but any other bystanders on the crowded city street within earshot. (Incidentally, it is also hard to believe that Chivers--who certainly would have no reason at the time to keep a precise record of his chats with Poe--could reproduce these conversations in such precise and profuse detail years later.)

When Chivers next saw Poe, two days later, he teased his companion about his "love-scrape" with the anonymous Providence lady. Poe, now sober, was taken much aback and frostily denied being involved in an "amour" with a woman in Providence or anywhere else in the world. Bizarrely, however, he soon afterwards volunteered to Chivers the information that "some body" (the 1903 printing read, "some lady") had written asking him to come to Providence, and he felt obligated to go. He then borrowed money from Chivers for his journey, and departed, again begging Chivers not to say anything to Virginia Poe or Maria Clemm about his plans. (One wonders what Poe himself could conceivably have told those ladies to explain his absence.)

While acknowledging that this squalid little tale has a mighty strange ring to it, few Poe biographers have dared to deeply question it, although it has serious flaws, even aside from the dubious authenticity of the manuscript itself:

First, the chronology makes no sense. Supposedly, Poe, in his drunken fit, tells Chivers that the Providence siren asked him to visit her that afternoon. Several days later, Poe again tells Chivers (whom he had evidently decided to make his sole confidante on the matter) that "some body" had written, asking him to go to Providence.

Second, according to this story, Poe, cold sober, learns from Chivers that he had been drunkenly drivelling to him about a "love-scrape" with a woman in Providence--a claim he indignantly denied. But then, the next time he sees Chivers, he goes out of his way to tell him that someone had summoned him to that very city--a summons, he made it clear, (obviously thinking he had hitherto failed to sufficiently incriminate himself to Chivers,) that needed to be kept secret from his wife and mother-in-law. I grant you that Poe often had his own strange way of doing things. Even so, does it make any sense whatsoever that the man would --particularly when he was sober and already aware that he had, while intoxicated, told Chivers way too much--voluntarily confide all this to him? Particularly since he kept stressing his anxiety to keep it all from his family? And that, as chatty and self-destructively revealing as Poe was to Chivers about all this, nobody else in the world--including people who knew Poe much better than Chivers did--gave any sign of knowing anything about this "amour?"

Third, Frances S. Osgood, who is assumed to be the painter's wife in question, was, in truth, in Providence around this time. (She knew many people there, and spent much time in the city.) However, Poe biographer Mary E. Phillips stated that her husband Samuel was there as well, executing portrait commissions. I do not know Phillips' source for this claim, but it is certainly credible. Be that as it may, a letter written to Frances by her friend Hiram Fuller indicates that during this Providence visit of hers, she was staying with her friends Mr. and Mrs. Henry Anthony. That alone makes it unlikely that she was conducting any sort of extramarital dalliance there.

Fourth, Poe himself, in his published "Reply to Thomas Dunn English," stated that he briefly left New York in the beginning of July, in order to "procure evidence" regarding charges of forgery that had been repeated against him by an ironworks merchant named Edward Thomas. (These forgery charges are themselves a strange, cloudy story that will be dealt with later.) Frances Osgood was the one who told Poe about these forgery charges (Thomas was a stranger to Poe, but a long-time friend of Osgood and her husband.) When he heard what Thomas had said, Poe intended to sue him, so it was logical that he needed to interview Osgood in person about the slander. At the time in question, Poe was absorbed in dreams of litigation, not love. (In an August 1845 issue of the "Broadway Journal," Poe mentioned a "recent" trip to Boston. It is not clear if this was the journey to "procure evidence," or if he traveled there for another, unknown reason. If he did travel to Boston, not Providence, early in July, that would obviously do critical damage to the credibility of the "Life of Poe" anecdote.)

In short, if Poe said anything resembling the now-famous "amour" quip, it actually reads more like drunken, rather cruel (to the Providence lady in particular,) humor--the kind that humiliates the jokester once the alcohol wears off--than a case of in vino veritas. It is noteworthy that Poe's most vicious calumniators--such as Thomas Dunn English, Charles F. Briggs, and Rufus Griswold--never questioned Poe's fidelity to his wife. Truly, they called him every foul thing under the sun except an adulterer. (English and Briggs even went out of their way to state that Poe's relations with the women who surrounded him were platonic.) However, the history of the "Chivers' Life of Poe" is so sketchy and suspicious that the strong possibility that it is simply a fraud, based on a few facts that were already easily available, cannot be ignored. Even if it is not--if it truly is the fragmentary remainder of a lost manuscript written by an mentally unstable man with a grudge against Poe for having supposedly plagiarized from him, a manuscript that mysteriously came to light only many years after the author's death--this work has gotten far more attention and credibility than it deserves.

And on that note...have a great Labor Day weekend, kids. Next week, we delve into the saga of Elizabeth Ellet and Frances Osgood, the Pen Pals From Hell.