My Interview With Edgar

"The mysteries of his [Poe's] life were never revealed to anyone, but his intimates well understood that to mystify his hearer was a strong element of his mind."
-George Rex Graham

Studying Poe's life is not recommended for anyone who likes their history uncomplicated. The man is, quite simply, one long exercise in frustration. From his birth until his death, we are confronted with what seems to be one unanswerable mystery after another. If I could somehow interview Poe personally, my list of questions would probably take days to discuss, but these are some of the top items I'd wish to have him truthfully explain. I think I know the answers to a few of these riddles; with others I'm completely in the dark. In either case, I'd certainly like his side of these stories:

1. The obvious one: After he left Richmond late in September 1849, where was he during those five days or so before he turned up in Baltimore, what was he doing, and what led to his death?

2. In a letter Poe allegedly wrote Sarah Helen Whitman, dated Nov. 24, 1848, there is the statement that "You will now comprehend what I mean in saying that the only thing for which I found it impossible to forgive Mrs. O[sgood] was her reception of Mrs. E[llet.]"

What did that mean, "her reception of Mrs. Ellet?" Why did he find that made it "impossible to forgive Mrs. Osgood?" What, exactly, were these two women up to? Were they somehow in collusion? By stating that it was "the only thing" she did that he could not overlook, does that mean she committed other offenses of some sort? If Mrs. Osgood did do something Poe found unforgivable--and the fact that he refused to have any contact with her for the last few years of his life appears to confirm this--how can all his biographers assume he retained a friendly affection for her?

3. Would he truly, in the end, have been willing to marry Sarah Helen Whitman or Sarah Elmira Shelton? If so, why? (You won't convince me for a moment that love had anything to do with it.)

4. "Ulalume" is his one work that truly gives me the shivers each time I read it, all the more so because we can only speculate what, exactly, Poe was telling us. Sarah Helen Whitman's interpretation of the poem--that Poe is depicting his struggle between memories of the dead Virginia and his longing to find new love--is generally accepted. Although I think it is possible that Virginia is represented by Psyche, the "sweet sister"--Sissy?--who tries in vain to save the narrator from doom, I feel that Whitman gave an overly simplistic explanation for such an esoteric and menacing creation. (And the inimitable John Evangelist Walsh's typically lunatic idea that the poem is an elegy for little Fanny Fay Osgood simply makes me ill.) This poem generates a sense of true evil that simply does not appear in his other works (even his most Grand Guignol tales, such as "The Black Cat," or "Hop-Frog," have a strong element of dark humor or satire that is utterly missing here.) I'd very much like to have Poe's own explanation of his most peculiar and ominous piece of writing.5. Did he really want Rufus W. Griswold to be his literary executor? If so, did that mean he anticipated that he would die soon? If not, what, if any, plans had he made for his literary estate?

6. We know that a great uproar was touched off in January 1846 when Virginia Poe--evidently on her own initiative--confronted Elizabeth F. Ellet with a letter written by Frances S. Osgood. What was in this letter, why did Virginia show it to Mrs. Ellet, and to whom was Osgood's letter addressed--Edgar or Virginia?

7. Did Virginia write any poems besides her 1846 Valentine to her husband? Did she--as I have speculated--have anything to do with the Valentine poem addressed to Frances Osgood?

8. While we're on the subject of Mrs. Osgood, what did Edgar and Virginia really think of that lady? And was my interpretation of Osgood's Poe reminiscences accurate?

9. Did he and Virginia secretly marry in 1835? If so, why was it a secret? If not, why did they take out a marriage license on September 22 of that year and not use it?

10. Which of the "lost" or anonymous writings that have been "attributed" to Poe were actually written by him?

11. Which of the extant letters written by Poe are genuine, and which are forgeries?

12. Was he--as both George W. Eveleth and I believe--"Outis?" (Cf. his surreal, hilarious unpublished essay, "A Reviewer Reviewed.")

If "Outis" truly was a case where Poe--in Eveleth's words--"defied himself," that would prove he did not take his infamous "Longfellow War" half as seriously as many of his biographers do--although his charges were indisputably accurate. As sincere as his outrage may have been, Poe likely saw his whole noisy public campaign to expose Henry Wadsworth's misdeeds as a playful and instructive stunt. (That is, actually, a crucial point to understanding many of Poe's actions--he loved to, as he would put it, "kick up a bobbery" almost as much as he loved hoaxes.)

13. Did he regret the fact that he never had children? Did Virginia?

14. Did he really regret his final estrangement from John Allan? Or did he feel that, despite all the struggles he endured afterwards, he was still better off away from a guardian he had obviously come to despise? Whatever miseries he endured in his adult life, did he think he would have been any happier leading a staid businessman's life as the heir to John Allan and the husband of Sarah Elmira Royster or some similar dull, ultra-conventional Richmond girl?

15. Did he really--as he wrote to Eveleth--have "inside information" about the Mary Rogers murder? Is the story related here about him and John Anderson at all accurate?

16. Was he engaged to Miss Royster in 1826?

17. What was the truth about Rosalie Poe's parentage?

18. In the 1846 newspaper column that inspired Poe's libel suit, Thomas Dunn English wrote of Poe that "...the 'Tombs' of New York, has probably a dim remembrance of his person..." implying that he once did a stint in prison. (English did not indicate the crime Poe allegedly committed.) Poe never addressed that specific charge, which, so far as I know, was never referred to again by anybody. Was English--for once--telling the truth, or was this just among his more outrageous libels? I find it hard to believe there was any basis to the story, (or that, if there was, English would be the only one of Poe's enemies to mention it.) However, if there was anything to English's strange statement, could that help explain the "blank period" in Poe's history when he lived in New York from 1837-38?

19. Of all his many, many reputed romantic interests, was he genuinely emotionally attached to any of these women, other than his wife? Did he even know all of them?

20. Did he, as Dr. Moran once claimed, repeatedly cry out, "Reynolds!" soon before his death? If so, what did it mean?

21. We only have one letter of Poe's written to Virginia alone, which is dated June 1846. Unfortunately, it exists only in the form of a copy made by Marie Shew Houghton, which she sent to John H. Ingram. We have no record of the original manuscript of this letter having been seen by anyone other than Mrs. Houghton. (She claimed that she found the letter hidden inside the frame of a miniature portrait of Poe Virginia gave her. This alleged portrait--which Mrs. Houghton, in her typically addled fashion, alternately described as a painting or as a daguerreotype--has also disappeared without a trace.) Is this letter genuine?

22. What were the answers to the questions I raised here and here regarding Poe's libel suit?

23. Did he really attempt suicide in 1848?

24. Just how frequent, and how serious, were his drinking bouts?

25. I'd like to know how deep was his interest/involvement with alchemy and its related mystical arts--an interest evident in such stories as "The Fall of the House of Usher," "Ligeia," "Von Kempelen," and arguably poems such as "Ulalume" and "For Annie." I'd also have a possibly related question--what exactly were those "odd chromatic experiments" he mentioned undertaking in 1835?

26. And finally, who, in his opinion, was the more deranged forger--Rufus Griswold or his son William?

I'm sure anyone reading this has their own list of questions for Poe. Séance, anyone?

Two Prototypical Poe Novels

Poe has appeared (either as a primary or secondary character) is an astonishing number of novels. Unfortunately, nearly all of these novels are abysmally bad. Worse, these authors often seem to have the attitude that, just because their work is labeled "fiction," that gives them license to play whatever games with history they please. Perhaps worst of all, their historical distortions are inevitably to Poe's great discredit. Depending on which Poe novel you are unfortunate enough to read, he has been depicted as an adulterer (a serial one in some cases--when he isn't portrayed as impotent,) a drug addict, a necrophiliac, a sociopath, a blackmailer, a literary hack and thief, a murderer, a con man, a counterfeiter, and, of course, a nonstop alcoholic who scarcely, if ever, knew what it was to draw a sober breath. The relatively few novels that purport to "defend" him are no improvement. Not only are they as mind-numbingly stupid and poorly written as anything I have ever seen, they inevitably paint Poe as so puerile, weak, and lame-brained that it is impossible to picture him as being capable of reading "The Raven," much less writing it. (And, I swear to Heaven, if I come across one more novel depicting Virginia as a childlike dishrag...)

Libeling the dead may be legal, but that doesn't make it ethical.

One of the main reasons so many Poe novels have failed is that so much of what we think we "know" about him is based on lies and myths--and mostly insanely improbable ones at that. A successful historical novel requires believable characterizations and plausible motives and actions, and if an author follows the "accepted" history of Poe's life, it becomes simply impossible to achieve those goals. In short, if you believe everything that has been written about Poe, there is no way to write a biographical novel about him without coming up with an utterly unconvincing mess. And when writers try to avoid this obvious problem by resorting to sheer fantasy, the results are inevitably even worse.

In a saner world, all this would not be so important. However, most readers presume historical fiction is based on some sort of...history. It is troubling to think of people who know nothing about Poe picking up bizarreries like "The Blackest Bird," and "Poe and Fanny," or soggy claptrap like Barbara Moore's "The Fever Called Living," and taking them to be some sort of accurate representation of the man.

Such books have a long tradition, dating back to his own lifetime. In the early 1840s, Thomas Dunn English wrote a novel titled "Walter Woolfe, or, the Doom of the Drinker" featuring a brilliant but dissolute writer, a character that is believed to be a covert attack on Poe. In 1846-47, both English and Charles F. Briggs published serialized novels that included blatant and quite vicious depictions of their common enemy.

Briggs' "The Trippings of Tom Pepper," an otherwise mild satire of the contemporary literary scene, included a passage where a fatuous bluestocking, "Lizzy" (who was evidently meant as a composite of Elizabeth Ellet and Fanny Osgood,) presides over a "salon" attended by New York's leading artistic figures. Disaster soon appears in the person of Austin Wicks, a well-known poet and critic, "author of the 'Castle of Duntriewell,' a metaphysical romance, and a psychological essay on the sensations of shadows."

Briggs writes of this character: "He was a small man, with a very pale, small face, which terminated at a narrow point in the place of a chin; the shape of the lower part of his face gave to his head the appearance of a balloon, and as he had but little hair, his forehead had an intellectual appearance, but in that part of it which phrenologists appropriate for the home of the moral sentiments, it was quite flat; Pauline said, if he had any moral sentiments, they must be somewhere else, for it was very evident that there was no room for them there. He was small in person, his eyes were heavy and watery, his hands small and wiry, and his motions were like those of an automaton. He was dressed primly, and seemed to be conscious of having on a clean shirt, as though it were a novelty to him...Mr. Wicks was the American Jeffrey, a singularly unfortunate name to apply to the poor creature, as he had neither the learning, the wit, the respectability, the honesty, the independence, nor a tithe part of the talent of the great Scotch critic."

At the "salon," this unappetizing creature immediately got blind drunk on one glass of wine, and proceeded to shower crude abuse on everyone in sight. As a result, said the novel's narrator, "the company now broke up in great disorder, and we took the drunken critic home to his boarding-house, and delivered him into the hands of his wife, who thanked us meekly for the care we had taken of her poor husband."

Briggs then included a parody of the current scandal involving Poe and Mrs. Ellet. Lizzy, who saw Wicks' reprehensible behavior as merely an "eccentricity of genius," published a poem in his honor. Whereupon, "Mr. Wicks sent her a letter, lamenting his destiny, praising her poetical abilities, and asking for the loan of five dollars." Lizzy generously took up a collection among her friends, and sent him fifty dollars, along with a letter full of praise. Then:

"...with a baseness that only those can believe possible who have known him, he [Wicks] exhibited Lizzy's note to some of her acquaintances, as an evidence that she had made improper advances to him. The scandal had been very widely circulated, before some candid friend brought it to Lizzy, who, on hearing it, was thrown into an agony of grief and shame, which nearly deprived her of reason. She could not call upon her father to avenge the wrong that had been done her, but one of her married sisters having heard of it, told it to her husband, who sought for the cowardly slanderer, with the intention of chastising him for his villainy. But he had become alarmed for the consequences of his slanders, and had persuaded a good natured physician to give him a certificate to the effect that he was of unsound mind, and not responsible for his actions. Having showed this to Lizzy's brother-in-law, and signed another paper acknowledging that he had slandered her and was sorry for it, he was allowed to escape without a personal chastisement. But shortly after, being employed to write for a fashionable magazine, he took an occasion, in a series of pretended biographical sketches of literary men and women who had been so unfortunate as to become known to him, to hold poor Lizzy up to ridicule, by imputing to her actions of which she was never guilty, and by misquoting from her verses. Lizzy had the good sense to laugh at such imbecile spite, and when the poor wretch had brought himself and his family into a starving condition by his irregularities, she had the goodness to contribute her quarterly allowance of pocket-money to the gatherings of some benevolent ladies who had exerted themselves in his behalf."

This said, Briggs had no further use for his character, and disposed of him quickly: "The poor creature, Wicks, having tried a great variety of literary employments, and growing too dishonest for anything respectable, at last fell into the congenial occupation of writing authentic accounts of marvellous cures for quack physicians, and having had the imprudence to swallow some of the medicine whose virtues he had been extolling, fell a victim to his own arts, and was buried at the expense of the public."

English's "1844; or, The Power of the 'S.F.'" parodied Poe even more brutally. Here, the poet is "Marmaduke Hammerhead," author of "The Black Crow," a character who makes Austin Wicks look like a model of probity and sobriety: "...he never gets drunk more than five days out of the seven, tells the truth sometimes by mistake; has moral courage sufficient to flog his wife, when he thinks she deserves it, and occasionally without any thought upon the subject, merely to keep his hand in; and has never, that I know of, been convicted of petit larceny...There is an immense deal of charlatanry, however, in all his productions. He affects ignorance in general of the author's real name, and seems to think that sarcasm and scurrility are identical...He has a knowledge of no language except his own, and that to a very limited extent; and of course interlards his works with an abundance of quotations, obtained from the works of other authors. As he does not understand the meaning of these, he occasionally commits some rather ludicrous errors."

Hammerhead plays no real part in "1844" (a silly and convoluted tale of political intrigue)--he just makes occasional appearances throughout in order to give English a vehicle for savaging Poe as a drunken, crude, egomaniacal, uneducated sponger. Like Wicks, the character is a belligerent goon who does little except drink, insult people, and cadge money. By the end of the story, Hammerhead's alcoholism leads him into a state of "decay and degradation," with a "drivelling smile," constantly uttering "meaningless nonsense." "The bloated face--blood-shotten eyes--trembling figure, and attenuated frame, showed how rapidly he was sinking into a drunkard's grave..." Hammerhead soon collapses into "confirmed insanity." "He deemed himself the object of persecution on the part of the combined literati of the country, and commenced writing criticisms upon their character, as writers, and their peculiarities, as men." He is last seen in a madhouse, happily engaged in writing attacks on Thomas Carlyle and the Transcendentalists.

English poured bile on other literary figures in his novel. After giving a brief compliment to his friend Elizabeth Ellet, who was portrayed as "Mrs. Grodenap," a "pretty" author possessing "much ability, and is quite a linguist withal," he parodied his (and Ellet's) enemy Frances S. Osgood:

"But who is that languishing would-be-juvenile lady, who is now approaching the two? By Jove! what laughable affectation of manner!"

"That is Mrs. Flighty, one of our poetesses and all that sort of thing, and the best imitator of Mother Goose. Her poetry is remarkable for its simplicity. As a general rule, the verses of most female writers may be described by the words--'milk and water;' but hers resemble a large quantity of water, with a homeopathical addition of milk." English also satirized Margaret Fuller and Horace Greeley, but such depictions were brief and considerably milder than his portrayal of Poe.

The most notable thing about these two otherwise eminently forgettable novels is the nearly pathological hatred of Poe demonstrated by both authors. The passages featuring "Hammerhead" and "Wicks" are all written in such a spirit of naked fury that the reader is left cringing in discomfort, rather than laughing. Unbridled rage is seldom amusing.

It is also striking that although Briggs and English depicted Poe as a character guilty of many sins, neither even hinted at the inclusion of sexual ones. (Note that Briggs depicted "Austin Wicks" as being noisily outraged by "Lizzy's" alleged advances.) If, as all of Poe's modern-day biographers assume, there had been at the time these novels were published salacious gossip circulating about him and Mrs. Osgood, would not his two attackers have made full use of these rumors? English, as noted above, even included Osgood among his satiric targets, but failed to suggest any sort of relationship at all between her and the loathsome "Hammerhead." These novels serve as further indirect evidence that whatever allegations Poe's enemies were then spreading, charges of an improper association between him and Flighty Fanny were not among them.

Poe's own reaction to "Marmaduke Hammerhead" is unknown. Some literary critics have tried to depict "The Cask of Amontillado" as his subtle retaliation to English's crude parody--that, in short, he saw himself as "Montresor" finally getting the better of English/Fortunato. Unfortunately, their attempts to create a direct link between "1844" and Poe's masterpiece of revenge are not entirely convincing, however appealing it may be to picture Poe crafting such an exquisite literary comeuppance. We do know that in a revised version of his "Literati" sketch of Briggs (unpublished during his lifetime,) he turned a rather lofty eye to "Tom Pepper." While disdaining to mention the book's personal attack on himself, Poe commented that, "As a novel, it really has not the slightest pretensions. To a genuine artist in literature, he is as Plumbe to Sully. Plumbe’s daguerreotypes have more fidelity than any portrait ever put on canvass, but so Briggs’ sketches of E. A. Duyckinck (Tibbings) and the author of 'Puffer Hopkins' (Ferocious) are as lifelike as any portraits in words that have ever been drawn. But the subjects are little and mean, pretending and vulgar." He added dryly that "Mr. Briggs would not succeed in delineating a gentleman."

There is little else to say about these two works, other than the observation that, unlike most modern-day novels featuring Poe, Briggs and English deliberately caricatured him.

The Devil's Law-Case (Part One)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Image of TD English via NYPL Digital Gallery.)

The Silence of the Lummis

...or, The Case of the Brother Who Didn't Bark.

When Edgar Allan Poe sued the "New York Mirror" for libel in 1846, one of the listed witnesses for the defense was Elizabeth Ellet's brother William Lummis. (Ellet and Lummis figured in a particularly strange and complicated story I chronicled here, here, and here.) According to Thomas Dunn English (who wrote the column that inspired Poe's lawsuit,) after Poe made his fatal declaration that Mrs. Ellet had sent him some sort of compromising letters, Lummis sought to defend his sister's honor--with a gun. English claimed Poe was so terrified by this pistol-packing brother's wrath that he cravenly sent Lummis a letter retracting his claim and took to his bed, pleading an attack of insanity. Although Ellet claimed years later that she still had Poe's apologia in her possession, it was never produced by her or anyone else--which is very strange, if she did indeed own a letter so helpful to herself, and so damming to her antagonist, Poe.When Poe filed suit, English not only failed to present any proof for his published allegations, he fled town, leaving the "Mirror" team to fend for themselves. Thus, their only available line of defense was to attempt to blacken Poe's character as much as possible--the idea, evidently, was to show that it was impossible to libel such a wretch. Presumably, as part of this tactic, the defendants hoped to have Lummis substantiate English's version of the Ellet scandal.

The curious thing is that we have no evidence that Lummis actually testified. We know there were transcripts made of the trial--"Mirror" editor Hiram Fuller afterwards stated he owned one, and the lawyers involved surely had copies--but no one ever revealed their contents in any detail, and no complete record of the trial has ever surfaced. The failure of Poe's enemies to make use of the court testimony strongly indicates it only favored him. So far as we know, the worst specific charge that was allowed to stand against Poe during the trial was that he sometimes drank--hardly an earth-shattering revelation. After the trial, Poe himself crowed to George Eveleth that the defense "could not get a single witness to testify one word against my character..." If Lummis had sworn to the truth of English's libels--especially if he could produce a self-incriminating letter directly from Poe--it is impossible to believe that Poe's multitude of enemies would not have trumpeted this to the world. It all implies that Lummis would not--or could not--back up English's story under oath. In other words, Lummis' silence provides additional evidence that English's version of the Ellet dispute--which most of Poe's biographers accept as fact--was indeed a pack of malicious lies.

Poe and Thomas Dunn English

It is well-known among students of Edgar Allan Poe that he and Thomas Dunn English became the most bitter of enemies in 1846, a feud which culminated in Poe's successful lawsuit against the newspaper which published English's libels against him. The ostensible initial cause of their dispute was English's accusation that Poe lied when he said Elizabeth Ellet had written him some sort of incriminating letters. (I would very much like to know why English so involved himself in an issue where he could not have had any personal knowledge, and which was none of his business to boot. It suggests some sort of sinister alliance between him and Ellet.)

What is less well understood is that Poe and English had been at odds since at least the early 1840s. It has been suggested that during Poe's disastrous visit to Washington D.C. in 1843, he managed to offend the proud and touchy English. English, in turn, may have tried to use his political connections to help sabotage Poe's efforts to obtain a minor governmental appointment. English's enmity did not stop there. Many years later, his business partner, Thomas H. Lane, recalled how English always "had the capacity of being a perfect irritant" to Poe.

In 1843, English published a pro-temperance novel, "The Doom of the Drinkers," which featured a character named "Walter Woolfe." He described Woolfe as a brilliant writer, but also a drunk who "was the very incarnation of treachery and falsehood." The character was intended as a cruel Poe caricature. The following year, English published--under Poe's name--"The Ghost of a Grey Tadpole," a crudely obvious parody of Poe's Gothic prose style. For his part, Poe, in an 1844 letter, contemptuously dismissed English as "a bullet-headed and malicious villain." (This excellent character summation was, however, eclipsed by Poe's later description of his antagonist as "the animalcula with moustaches for antenna.") Anne Clarke, the daughter of Poe's friend Thomas C. Clarke, recalled that during the time Poe lived in Philadelphia, he and his fellow poet Henry Hirst were on such bad terms with English that on one occasion when all three men called simultaneously at the Clarke residence, they had to be escorted to separate sections of the house "lest they come to deadly strife."

Clearly, the two men were never soul mates. The curious thing is that in 1896, when English published his "Reminiscences of Poe," he was careful to hide this fact. He depicted Poe as a drunken, deceitful jerk (who, English suggested, was virtually run out of Philadelphia in 1844 for reasons left unsaid because--he slyly suggested--they were far too scandalous for a gentleman such as himself to reveal. This claim, incidentally, is evidently as false as the rest of English's testimony.) Contradictorily, however, he also described himself as a near-constant companion and confidante of this disreputable creature. If you believe English, he was the chief advisor to the entire Poe household. Poe went to him for help (or "kindness and counsel," in the immortal words of Frances S. Osgood) when he was accused of forgery. Poe went to him for help when he could not come up with an original poem for a recital. Poe went to him for help when the "Broadway Journal" hit the skids. Poe went to him for help when Elizabeth Ellet's brother went gunning for him.

In these "Reminiscences," English gave a distorted version of the Ellet/Osgood letters scandal that first appeared in John Ingram's 1880 biography. (It is notable that English, in all of his previous published accounts of Poe, never said a word about him and Mrs. Osgood until after Ingram's book came out, inspiring English with the need to put his own spin on the Poe/Ellet/Osgood fracas that Ingram publicized.) In English's retelling of the story, Ellet is whitewashed to look as an innocent victim of Poe's insults, with only Osgood--whom English had strongly disliked--and Poe depicted in a negative manner. He is also, interestingly, careful to avoid any mention of any letter written by Osgood as figuring in the dispute--which just bolsters the belief that the "Osgood letter" which instigated the scandal was not a love note, but a tell-all to the Poes dishing the dirt on her enemy Ellet. Just to add that final touch of deceitful sleaze to his report, he claimed that Mrs. Clemm went to him, their dear family friend and councilor, about concerns Virginia had about Poe's friendship with Mrs. Osgood. English claimed that as he had "more influence" with Poe than anyone else in the world, Mrs. Clemm wished him to talk to Edgar about the matter. English said he soothingly assured her Poe and Osgood's relationship was entirely platonic. (Why the ladies Clemm did not go to Poe himself with these alleged worries is not explained.) If his tales--which, let us keep in mind, were published over fifty years after the events in question--are to be believed, no one in the Poe family was capable of so much as buying a pair of shoes without the advice and support of Thomas Dunn English. (Poe specialist Benjamin F. Fisher once neatly summarized English's recollections as "back-stabbing reminiscences which long sustained the guise of plausible biographical information." Indeed, English's own prefatory remarks to these "reminiscences" acknowledge they were written to counter the negative way in which he himself was described in recent Poe biographies by John Ingram and George Woodberry.)

Everything English said was, of course, all rot. It is assumed that for most of 1845, Poe and English had, for reasons of mutual self-interest, maintained a relatively quiet relationship. (Although even that presumption hardly squares with Thomas Lane's memories of Poe storming into their offices during this period announcing "Where is English? I want to kill him.") However, the notion that Poe--or anyone in his family--could have seen the bullet-headed villain who had lampooned him as any sort of confidante is simply impossible. English's efforts to suggest they ever had a close relationship were intended to lend plausibility and objectivity to his assaults on Poe's character (he was saying, in effect, "look, I was such close friends with the guy, you can trust every rotten thing I say about him.") Instead, this fundamental falsehood robs everything he wrote of the slightest credibility. Another reason to ignore English's statements is the oft-ignored fact that, as a result of Poe's libel suit, a New York City courthouse officially ruled that he was an unmitigated liar. Even more: English's later publication, the "John-Donkey," lasted less than a year before collapsing under the weight of the multiple libel suits brought against the publication. The man hardly made an ideal character witness.

English's "Reminiscences" is yet another part of Poe lore that, in a saner world, the poet's biographers would have thrown straight to the dogs.

Marginalia

A few random thoughts:

Am I the only one slightly spooked by the fact that Thomas Dunn English named his youngest son--born years after his enemy Poe's death--"Edgar?"

*****

When describing Poe's nightmarish visit to Philadelphia in July of 1849, John Sartain claimed that Poe was on his way to New York. Poe, of course, was traveling from that city, en route to Richmond. This could be just a memory lapse in Sartain's extremely strange--and probably overdramatized--account of his dealings with Poe at this time. However, in 1875, a writer named Francis Fairfield quoted a friend of Poe's named C.C. Burr (who also saw Poe in Philadelphia.) Fairfield said Burr told him that, during what was evidently this same visit, Poe told him of his upcoming marriage to an unnamed wealthy woman. Poe confided that he abhorred the idea of another woman taking Virginia's place, but he was anxious to provide Mrs. Clemm, his "more than mother," with a comfortable home in her old age, and marriage to a lady of means was his only way to do so. Fairfield assumed the woman in question was Sarah Helen Whitman, but this seems impossible. Poe's involvement with Whitman was long over by then. The anecdote could only refer to Sarah Elmira Shelton (particularly since Whitman claimed that after Poe's death, Mrs. Clemm showed her letters from Poe indicating that he was only marrying Shelton for the sake of his former mother-in-law's future security.) The obvious difficulty with this story is the fact that, in July of 1849, he had yet to reach Richmond to launch any sort of courtship of Shelton, much less successfully conclude one.

Is it possible that Sartain and Burr were describing a Philadelphia visit Poe made when returning from Richmond late in September, and that their accounts became confused regarding dates? Such a visit has been hypothesized, but no trustworthy evidence he made it as far as Philadelphia has been found. Sartain and Burr's stories, however, at least hint at the possibility that part of Poe's "lost period"--the five or so untraceable days between his departure from Richmond and his reappearance in a Baltimore tavern--was spent in Philadelphia.

*****

Whatever happened to Virginia Clemm's older brother Henry? The last record we have of him is a letter Poe wrote in January 1836, where his future in-law is described tersely as being "absent (at sea.)" After that, it is as though young Henry had never existed. Many years later, one of their Baltimore relatives told a Poe biographer that Henry Clemm became a sailor and died young and unmarried, but provided no further details.

The most curious part of Henry's brief life is the fact that I have yet to discover any reference to him from his own mother. In the years after Poe's death, Maria Clemm's main topics of conversation were of her loved and lost children--that is to say, Edgar and Virginia. Not one word about her only biological son. Very strange.

*****

I find it odd that we have no letters written by Virginia Clemm Poe. The lack of correspondence between her and her husband is understandable. Mrs. Clemm once explained that there never really were any letters between Edgar and Virginia because they were nearly always together--Virginia often accompanied her husband when he left town for any extended period. (A comment on the brief note Poe supposedly wrote Virginia in June 1846: As much as I would like to have some sort of letters between them, we have only a copy of this note that Marie Shew Houghton claimed to have acquired. In the absence of any original manuscript, and keeping in mind Houghton's utter unreliability, I have to be wary about its authenticity.)

However, Virginia must have written letters of some kind to her friends and relatives (we have Poe documents and letters written on stationary embossed with her initials, as well as some decidedly feminine floral paper that must also have been hers,) and it seems unlikely that not one of them has survived.

I wonder if it is possible that somewhere, among some hoard of old family papers, there are letters written by Virginia that have yet to be recognized as such? Few people now would recognize her handwriting on sight, and if the letter was merely signed with her first name, and said nothing explicitly identifying the writer as the wife of Edgar Allan Poe, it could be easily dismissed as being written by an unimportant "unidentified correspondent."

Something for archivists and Poe researchers to keep in mind.

*****

Has anyone else read this letter and found it difficult to imagine (among all its other incomprehensible elements) that Poe--no matter what his mental state may have been--could write "exasperated by ether," instead of what would be the correct, "exacerbated by ether?"

Poe may have had his sins, but they would never have included crimes against the English language.

Mrs. Ellet's Letters (Part Two)

The little evidence left to us does indicate that, sometime late in January of 1846, there was a dispute involving Edgar Allan Poe and letters he claimed Elizabeth Ellet had written. Ellet's friend Thomas Dunn English took her part, echoing her hysterical denials of writing Poe so much as a line. (As if English could know one way or another.) This caused Poe's relations with English--never exactly affectionate even in the best of times--to blossom into open, bloody warfare, which culminated in Poe suing a newspaper that had published a libelous column English wrote about him.

English claimed--although proof was never produced--that Poe had "vilified a certain well-known and esteemed authoress of the South, then on a visit to New York; that he had accused her of having written letters to him which compromised her reputation..." Ellet then allegedly sent her brother, William Lummis, to demand that Poe produce these letters--letters Poe (depending on which story you prefer) either refused to produce, or had already returned to her. According to Ellet and English, Poe--fearing Lummis would kill him--then extricated himself by writing Ellet a letter retracting his claim about her letters. This Poe letter, incidentally, was never made public, then or ever, which is odd if his worst enemies had a statement so damaging to him in their hands.

Griswold, of course, later gave his own version of the event in his Poe memoir, claiming that Poe had borrowed money from this "distinguished literary woman of South Carolina," and, in order to get out of repaying the debt, "denied all knowledge of it, and threatened to exhibit a correspondence which he said would make the woman infamous, if she said any more on the subject. Of course there had never been any such correspondence..." How Poe thought he could carry off an effective blackmail with letters his victim knew never existed is not explained. Also "infamous" seems too strong a word to use in reference to mere love letters. And, of course, in private, Griswold evidently insisted to various people that Ellet had written Poe letters of some unspecified, but scandalous variety. Interestingly, he hinted they were anonymous.

Osgood's exact role in all this is never made clear, only that her actions caused Poe to never speak or write to her again. And the literati rose as one to go after Poe with bell, book, and candle. The bulk of the literary world set out to destroy him personally and professionally, and destroy him they did, in a manner that would disgrace the most savage pack of piranhas. As Sidney P. Moss wrote, "Poe as a person was reduced to ruin by the New York literati and their sponsors, who used the occasion while he was defenseless to work out old grudges or new ones. What the record fails to show clearly enough is that Poe, up to the time he had written 'The Literati' sketches, had achieved an unparalleled national reputation as a critic, whatever notoriety he earned in gaining that reputation; that on the strength of 'The Raven,' he became famous as a poet...his narratives, widely, if not invariably accepted as brilliant at home, were beginning to be acclaimed in England and France...His encounters with English, Fuller, and company, however, brought his career to a grinding halt, for his personal reputation, smeared beyond recovery by his enemies, soured his literary reputation, so that his manuscripts often went begging for publication..."

Here is what we know of the situation:

In a letter of May of 1846, Horace Greeley made a vague reference to Poe having "scandalized two eminent literary ladies" (presumably Mrs. Ellet and--interesting to note--Mrs. Osgood.)

In January 1848, Anne Lynch, in response to Sarah Helen Whitman's inquiries about Poe, wrote her an equally vague letter describing "a great war in bluestockingdom some time ago and Poe did not behave very honorably in it."

In 1875, Elizabeth Oakes Smith commented to Whitman that "Mr. Poe was the last person to whom I should ever have attributed any grossness...I saw women jealous in their admiration of him. I think he often found himself entangled by their plots and rivalries. I do not for a moment think he was false in his relations to them."

Shortly after Poe's death, Margaret Fuller wrote these words about him to Elizabeth Barrett Browning: "...several women loved him, but it seemed more with passionate illusion which he amused himself by inducing than with sympathy; I think he really had no friend."

Greeley, in a January 1849 letter to Rufus W. Griswold discussing rumors of Poe's engagement to Mrs. Whitman, thought Mrs. Osgood would make a good envoy to dissuade the widow from having anything to do with the author of "The Raven."

In the wake of Poe's successful libel suit against the "Mirror," the paper that had published English's actionable column, sinister anonymous items began appearing in that newspaper, predicting that Poe would now turn his attention to hauling certain literary ladies (note the plural) into the dock as well.

At the end of 1845, just before matters came to a head, Osgood sent the "Broadway Journal" a bitter, angry poem entitled "To the Lady Geraldine," which describes how a woman who posed as her friend had caused certain other people to turn against her. (A February 1846 letter to Osgood from another friend indicates that Frances had made similar complaints to her.)

In March 1847, Edward Thomas, a friend of the Osgood family, wrote Frances a letter discussing Poe's recent lawsuit. Thomas had testified on Poe's behalf, recanting accusations he had helped spread that Poe was a forger. (Incidentally, English claimed that Poe told him that Thomas--a man Poe had never even met--spread these charges in the hopes of eclipsing Poe in Mrs. Osgood's affections. This claim seems hardly supported by the known facts, including Thomas' own letters to her. In any case, considering that English had just been established in a New York courthouse as a libeler--not the last time he would face such charges--one should be wary of accepting his word on anything--most particularly his word on people he hated. Besides, if Thomas was jealous of anyone around Osgood, surely it would have been her husband.) In Thomas' letter to Mrs. Osgood, he noted that he was not surprised that Poe won his suit, as he himself had always thought English's column "a libel in reality," apologized to her for being unable to give "Sam" the loan Mr. Osgood had recently sought from him, and then commented: "Poor Poe--he has lost his wife--his home--may the folly of the past make him contrite for the future--may he live to be what he can be if he has but the will. He is now alone and his good or evil will not so much afflict others." Thomas' words indicate not only that he never regarded Poe as a romantic rival, but that he assumed his friend Mrs. Osgood did not know--or approve of--the troubled writer any more than he himself did.

Finally, there is a most curious quote from Poe himself. In 1846, he published a review of Osgood's poetry, where he discusses at length a verse drama of hers called "Elfrida." Referring to the title character--a heartless, treacherous woman who cold-bloodedly plots the murder of her innocent husband so that she may marry a king--he notes, "In the depicting the impassioned ambition of Elfrida, the authoress seems especially at home, and upon this character she has evidently put forth her strength." What in the world was he trying to insinuate about Mrs. Osgood?

What do all these fragmentary clues tell us? That certain "literary ladies"--obviously Ellet and Osgood, as theirs are the only names to surface--got into a jealous catfight over their mutual admiration of Poe. Ellet did or said something to Poe that caused him to think badly of Osgood. That "bluestocking," in revenge, fed Poe some even more damaging information about Ellet. (The proof that she did so will be described later.) Poe, now weary of both these ladies--or, to be more accurate, "women"--invited them both to go straight to the devil, and left town to bury himself in the country at Fordham, leaving no forwarding address, and telling no one--particularly his erstwhile female fan club--where he had gone. Which brings us to the most detailed and revealing piece of hard evidence we have regarding the whole deranged business: A letter Mrs. Ellet wrote Mrs. Osgood in July, 1846.

To be continued...

Broadway Journal, R.I.P.

On January 2, 1846, Cornelia Walter, editor of the "Boston Transcript" (who had been conducting a public feud with Poe for several months,) published an odd little poem celebrating the recent demise of Poe's publication, the "Broadway Journal":

"To trust in friends is but so so,
Especially when cash is low;
The Broadway Journal's proved 'no go'--
Friends would not pay the pen of Poe."

This poem, which seems to gleefully hint at dirty work having been played against her antagonist, makes an interesting partner to a letter Poe himself wrote to Fitz-Greene Halleck on December 1, 1845:

"On the part of one or two persons who are much imbittered [sic] against me, there is a deliberate attempt now being made to involve me in ruin, by destroying the "Broadway Journal." I could easily frustrate them, but for my total want of money, and of the necessary time in which to procure it: the knowledge of this has given my enemies the opportunities desired."

I've long suspected that if we had a complete and accurate account of the machinations that took place behind the scenes of the "Broadway Journal," it would tell quite a tale. This is just idle speculation on my part, but I have also wondered if these machinations had any link to the famous feud/scandal involving the Poes with Elizabeth Ellet, Frances S. Osgood, and Thomas Dunn English (who had his own link to the "Broadway Journal through his business partner, Thomas Lane.) The fact that this scandal--and we still do not know for sure exactly what it was--had its nuclear explosion in late January of 1846, just days after the "Broadway Journal" folded, seems a bit too coincidental.