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?

Yet Another Libel Against Poe

In 1898, Rufus Griswold's son William published what he claimed was the text of a letter Frances S. Osgood wrote to William's father in 1850. The letter reads:

"I trust you will write that life of Poe. I will do as you wished:- I will write, as far as is proper, in a letter to you, my reminiscences of that year, and try to make it interesting and dignified, and you in introducing it by one single sentence can put down at once my envious calumniators. You have the proof in Mrs. Poe's letter to me, and in his to Mrs. Ellet, either of which would fully establish my innocence in a court of justice-certainly hers would. Neither of them, as you know, were persons likely to take much trouble to prove a woman's innocence, and it was only because she felt that I had been cruelly and shamefully wronged by her mother and Mrs. E[llet] that she impulsively rendered me that justice. She, Mrs. Poe, felt grieved that she herself had drawn me into the snare by imploring me to be kind to Edgar-to grant him my society and to write to him, because, she said, I was the only woman he knew who influenced him for his good, or, indeed, who had any lasting influence over him. I wish the simple truth to be known,-that he sought me, not I him. It is too cruel that I, the only one of those literary women who did not seek his acquaintance-for Mrs. Ellet asked an introduction to him and followed him everywhere, Miss Lynch begged me to bring him there and called upon him at his lodgings. Mrs. Whitman besieged him with valentines and letters long before he wrote or took any notice of her, and all the others wrote poetry and letters to him,- It is too cruel that I should be singled out after his death as the only victim to suffer from the slanders of his mother. I never thought of him till he sent me his Raven and asked Willis to introduce him to me, and immediately after I went to Albany, and afterwards to Boston and Providence to avoid him, and he followed me to each of those places and wrote to me, imploring me to love him, many a letter which I did not reply to until bis wife added her entreaties to his and said that I might save him from infamy, and her from death, by showing an affectionate interest in him."

For many years, this astonishing letter was accepted by Edgar Allan Poe's biographers--even the well-respected "The Poe Log" fell for it--despite the fact that there were, from the start, obvious reasons for doubting its authenticity. For one, there is the highly suspicious fact that we only have what William Griswold published. The actual manuscript of this letter--or even any sort of copy-text--has never surfaced. The text does not read as any sort of genuine letter--rather, it is all heavy-handed exposition, blatantly designed to put a particular story "on the record." And, of course, this letter of apology Virginia Poe supposedly wrote Osgood was never seen, or even mentioned anywhere else, by anyone--including Osgood and Rufus Griswold.

Despite all these indications that the letter was a clumsy hoax, its ridiculous assertions went unchallenged for nearly a century. Then, in 1990, Burton R. Pollin, in the December issue of the journal "Poe Studies" ("'Saroni's Musical Times': Documents Linking Poe, Osgood, and Griswold") revealed that Osgood's "Poe reminiscences," which Griswold incorporated in his "Life of Poe," were not written in 1850 for Griswold's use, as this letter (and Griswold's "Life of Poe") indicated. Rather, Osgood's "reminiscences" first appeared in an obscure periodical called "Saroni's Musical Times" in December 1849. Thus, this "Osgood to Griswold" letter was shown to be, as Pollin rather reluctantly had to concede, "a fabrication." (Considering that Pollin himself had previously used this same bogus letter as source material, one presumes he felt embarrassed for having been hoaxed.)

We do not know who truly wrote this letter--this cheap scam that has caused such damage not only to Poe's reputation, but Virginia's as well. (The image it paints of Poe's cringing ninny of a wife writing Osgood letters seeking forgiveness for having begged her "to be kind to Edgar," has a peculiarly nauseating air.) The most likely culprit, however, is the person who revealed this letter to the world, William Griswold himself. Griswold the Younger was obsessed--I do not think this is too strong a word--with trying to rehabilitate his father's seedy reputation, which he appears to have seen as a black mark against himself. His way of doing this was to promote not only the myth that Griswold the Elder had been entirely truthful about Poe, but that the late poet had been even worse than his literary executor had let on. What better way of doing this than by having Frances Osgood--whom everyone considered Poe's admirer--reveal her true disdain for him? Also, I don't believe Rufus Griswold could have written this letter, because it had always been part of his agenda to depict Osgood as Poe's close friend and defender, not his defamer. All in all, I think it probable that William inherited his dad's predilection for forgery.

Blatant lie though it is, this letter still has its interesting aspects. The document depicts Osgood as anxious to counter a widespread belief that she conducted a disgraceful pursuit of Poe--a claim that, according to the letter, was propagated by Elizabeth Ellet and Maria Clemm.

It would be good to know for certain if Mrs. Clemm had joined Ellet in making this accusation against Osgood. If Osgood had truly been Poe's friend, Mrs. Clemm would hardly have "slandered" her, and if there had been anything improper between Frances and Poe, his mother-in-law would hardly want to spread stories about their relationship that would denigrate his marriage to her daughter. According to Sarah Helen Whitman, Clemm and Osgood disliked each other, although she unfortunately failed to say why. If Mrs. Clemm had accused Osgood of causing trouble for Poe by making a shameless pest of herself over him, that would certainly explain the otherwise inexplicable enmity Osgood and Griswold had towards her.

The animosity shown towards Virginia Poe in this letter--strangely reminiscent of the attitude regarding her found in Elizabeth Ellet's 1846 letter to Osgood--is also significant. Surely, William Griswold--or whoever forged this letter--would not have expressed such a negative attitude towards Poe's wife unless they knew Osgood and/or Rufus Griswold had had some reason to resent her.

The question of who forged this letter is not as important as the question of why it was done. Certainly, the writer of this letter did so in order to counter something they knew had been widely known. One would particularly like to know why Osgood is made to say that this mythical letter from Virginia would "fully establish my innocence in a court of justice." It brings to mind Hiram Fuller's 1847 claim that Poe was contemplating legal action against certain "literary ladies." I am also reminded of an odd statement made by Rufus Griswold's friend Charles Briggs in 1877. Briggs claimed that Griswold suppressed certain "startling" evidence he possessed proving the "utter contempt" Poe really felt towards certain ladies who had been under the delusion that he had admired them. Was Mrs. Osgood among these ladies? Certainly, she was the only woman acquainted with Poe whom Griswold would have motive to protect.

From the tone of this spurious "Osgood to Griswold" letter, it seems logical that the "something" it was intended to refute was the fact that Maria Clemm and other "envious calumniators" had "singled out" Osgood for her intrusive and offensive behavior regarding Poe. If this was the case, it would completely demolish the conventional wisdom regarding the Osgood/Poe relationship.