Two Obituary Notices of Rufus Griswold

Rufus Wilmot Griswold is dead. He died in New York City on this day in 1857. This announcement startled many, but few were grieved by it. The anthologist was known, personally or by reputation, in all this country; he had readers in England, and in several of the states of Continental Europe; but he had few or no friends; and the regrets for his death were suggested principally by the consideration that in him literary art lost one its most erratic stars.

By way of commemorating the Reverend’s sad fate (he had an end arguably more dismal--and certainly more painfully prolonged--than his most famous adversary,) I have reprinted passages from two contemporary obituaries. The first appeared in "Emerson's Magazine and Putnam’s Monthly" for October 1857. This biographical article is anonymous, but it was evidently written by Elizabeth Oakes Smith, as it echoes her known writings about Griswold. The article also has the same teeth-grittingly irritating tone of condescension that pervades virtually everything Mrs. Smith ever wrote. As I have noted several times before, Smith was a highly unreliable Poe source, but she knew Griswold much better and longer than she knew Poe, so her description of the former probably holds more weight. It certainly meshes with some of my own conclusions about the man. (I've come to see his more notorious actions, such as his Poe memoir and his strange marriages, as the pitiful fruits of poorly-thought-out impulses rather than calculated, cool-headed villainy. Frankly, the man strikes me as rather a goofball.) In any rate, this is one of the more balanced and intriguing depictions of Griswold’s complicated character that I’ve seen:

“The earthly career of this man has terminated, and, as public journalists, it is needful that we should have something to say of one who has been more widely associated with the literature of the country, and with literary persons, than any one left to us. We shall say little of the experience of Mr. Griswold, painful as it was,, and as full of sorrow to himself as to others. ‘Tread lightly upon the ashes of the dead,’ is a humane and Christian-like proverb. Creatures of harmony are not often born into the world…No one is evil without knowing pain; no one is weak without the pangs of weakness.

That Rufus W. Griswold was a weak and ill-judging man, no one will deny. As a man, there was much in him to regret; but those who knew something of his last lonely years, his bed of solitary and uncheered suffering, will feel for him only pity, as one who was made to atone deeply for all the mistakes of his life. He left three children, and we much doubt if either of them were with him in his last moments. [Ed. note: They were not with him, and not one of his children, or either of his two living wives--or, rather, "wives"--were mentioned in his will.]

…We have reason to be grateful to him, as Americans, for what he did for literature. He was untiring in his researches…That his judgment was not always to be trusted, is not much to say of one who did so much that was trustworthy. That he was capricious, and allowed his personal predilections and prejudices to sway him, is most true, for he had the whims of a woman coupled with a certain spleen which he took no pains to conceal; yet was he weakly placable, and could be diverted from some piece of mischief or malice by an appeal to his generosity--by some expression of wit or outbreak of indignation…

…He had the laugh of a child, and was strangely unable to see the world as an arena for forms, ceremonies and proprieties; hence his freakishness, and mistakes and errors had always something incomplete and childish about them. He should have been shut in a library, with some protective spirit to direct him, for he could not understand the world, nor how it should be met; hence, some few loved this man with a deep and abiding love, which tells of much that was noble and beautiful within him--others pursued him with hatred and malice, which shows that his sphere was one of power in some way; and in all this, the man was utterly ignorant of himself, and of what the world had a right to demand of him.”

Alas, an editorial writer in the “New Orleans Delta” was not nearly as benevolent. Soon after Griswold’s death, the newspaper published the following column:

“The recent death of Dr. Rufus W. Griswold has excited not a little comment in Northern newspaperdom. Some of the papers speak in no very complimentary terms of his abilities and honesty as a litterateur, while others with a disregard of one of the most beautiful traits in human nature, that of forgiving the mere frailties of man, do not refrain from alluding to the fact that, prior to his exit from the feverish stage of life, his unfortunate matrimonial relations produced considerable scandal of the literary and fashionable world.

No man in this country did greater harm to American literature than the subject of this article...

Deficient in all the elements of a sound and discerning critic, and destitute of that learning essential in a literary editor, Dr. Griswold, nevertheless, set himself up as an American Gifford, and passed judgment upon the ‘builders of the lofty rhyme’ with the air and audacity of that distinguished individual...Few persons can read his ‘Poets and Poetry of America’ without being struck with the truth. Verse writers of mediocre abilities are introduced into the sublime company of our masters of the lyre, and their feeble efforts ridiculously extolled.

But the crowning literary sin of Dr. Griswold was his assassination of the reputation of the brilliant but erratic Edgar A. Poe. Claiming to be his literary executor by the last words of this child of genius, he nevertheless took the earliest occasion after Poe’s death to indite a malignant and disgraceful article calculated to do much injury to the deceased poet...while we have much charity for his frailties as a man, we have none for errors and sins as a litterateur."

I would be the first to say I hope Griswold is resting in peace, but I know full well that’s impossible. You see, the Reverend is expiating his sins in an earthly Hell. He’s on Twitter.

Happy Anniversary to Me

…Or, to World of Poe, at least. Yes, this strange little blog started three years ago today. Let’s all pause to offer a toast to Edgar:



While raising my glass, I would like to offer as a salute (via The Poe Society of Baltimore) Lambert A. Wilmer’s poem “To Edgar A. Poe,” which he published (under the pseudonym “Horace in Philadelphia”) in the “Saturday Evening Post” on August 11, 1838. The ode was written at a particularly low period in Poe’s professional career, but these oddly prescient words of encouragement seem equally relevant today:

What object has the poet’s prayer?
(If poets have the grace to pray;)
Petitions he for sumptuous fare,
For gold--for garments rich and rare,
(For which the owners oft forget to pay;)
Asks he for houses or extended lands,
Rich harvests, ripening in the fervid ray
Of August suns;--or credit that commands
Another’s purse, (if back’d by good security
And fair financial prospects in futurity.)
Say do the poet’s ardent wishes seize
On objects such as these?

No:--if the genuine spark is there,
A careless mortal you shall see,
Unfetter’d by the world and free--
Unlike what C[lark]e and W[illi]s are.

A sordid mind was never blent
With genius;--such accompaniment
Would be like brazen cow-bells rung
While heavenly Caradori sung.
Praise is the subject of the poet’s sighs;
Neglect, the atmosphere in which he dies.

And yet, true genius, (like the sun
With bats and owls,) is little noted;
But when his glorious course is run,
His griefs forgot, his labors done,
Then is he prais’d, admired, and quoted!

Dull mediocrity, meanwhile
Along his level turnpike speeds,
And fame and fortune are his meeds;
While merit wants one cheering smile,
How bless’d stupidity succeeds!

But let the heavenly gifted mind
Not hopeless mourn, if men are blind,
And imbecility prevails;
Time, sternly frowning on the base
Shall sweep the poor ephemeral race
To where oblivion tells no tales.
As autumn’s rapid breezes sweep
Ten thousand insects to the deep.

But the same wind whose angry tones
Sends small dull craft to Davy Jones,
Is but an impulse to convey
The nobler vessel o’er the sea;--
So thou dear friend, shalt haply ride
Triumphant through the swelling tide
With fame thy cynosure and guide.

So may it be.--tho’ fortune now
Averts her face, and heedless crowds
To blocks, like senseless Pagans, bow;--
Yet time shall dissipate the clouds,
Dissolve the mist which merit shrouds,
And fix the laurel on thy brow.

There let it grow; and there ‘twould be
If justice rul’d and men could see.
But reptiles are allow’d to sport
Their scaly limbs in great Apollo’s court.
Thou once did whip some rascals from the fane
O let thy vengeful arm be felt again.

No one is more surprised than I am that this project has lasted so long. I never had any particular desire to blog about anything. World of Poe basically arose out of a fit of temper. I found a number of remarkably weird statements on a few Wikipedia pages relating to Poe (“Edgar T.S. Grey,” anyone? And I'll bet you didn't know his famous "I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity" letter was written to "his friend, John H. Ingram.") Finding myself unable to do anything about it, in a moment of impotent irritation, I thought, “All right, I’ll have my say on a blog. Let’s see them try to edit that.”

At first I was only expecting to do this for a few weeks or so, but the blog somehow took on a life of its own. And I’ll always be glad it did. World of Poe itself may not be much, but because of it, I’ve discovered much more about Poe and “met” terrific people who would otherwise be unknown to me. I also want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has said kind words about this site. (Believe it or not, there have been a few.) I’m always startled to realize anyone reads this blog at all, let alone when they find anything positive to say about it. I’m truly grateful for their generosity.

I assumed the blog had ceased for good some months ago, but I found myself bringing it back from the self-imposed slumber in order to comment on the unexpected revival of the, ahem, "issues" surrounding Lenore Hart's "The Raven's Bride." I hoped to be able to report on some sort of resolution to a frustratingly inconclusive story.

Well, although the imbroglio was covered by the Associated Press, the Guardian, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and numerous other places across the interwebs, that resolution never materialized. Hart herself simply issued frazzled and very curious attacks/defenses that were longer and duller than the Manhattan phone book but only a fraction as coherent and readable. St. Martin's Press, after issuing a statement that translated into "Shut up, they explained," was content to look blind, deaf, and...well, you finish the sentence. I can only assume that well-founded charges of shenanigans involving the product they offer the public means nothing to them--even as a platoon of online bibliosleuths have uncovered an ever-growing list of other books by other "writers" that are obviously plagiarized. Something to keep in mind next time you hit the bookstores. Caveat emptor.

The Norman Mailer Center, as I mentioned before, was responsible enough to suspend Lenore Hart from her teaching position there while the charges against her are being "investigated." However, Pennsylvania's Wilkes University, which also boasts La Hart as a faculty member, has, to date, paid no public notice of the issue. Yes, my friends, you still have the opportunity to let her work the same magic on your manuscript that she brought to hers!

It was a real shock to me to realize that the "Raven's Bride"/"Very Young Mrs. Poe" situation is not, as I had assumed, a bizarre anomaly. In fact, it is increasingly looking like "business as usual." If nothing else is accomplished, at least Jeremy Duns, Steve Mosby, Archie Valparaiso, Elizabeth Chadwick, the posters at DearAuthor.com, and many many others have done us all a great service by discovering and publicizing many examples of the widespread contagion of Literary Bad Behavior. (The latest fad? Sockpuppets!)

If I can get autobiographical for a moment: Back in the Paleolithic Era, when I was an inmate in a wretched penal colony masquerading as a junior high school, a girl in my English class approached me one morning before school wanting to see what I had written for a book report that was due that day. She said she hadn't had time to read the book, and just wanted to glance at my paper to get some idea of what it was about. Dupe that I am, I let her borrow it for a while.

The next day, the teacher told us both to stay behind after class for a little chat. I was dumbfounded to learn that the girl had copied my essay word for word and submitted it under her own name. Fortunately, the teacher was a pretty nice guy with a sense of humor (unusual for that school.) He was familiar with my writing style (with a little chuckle I wasn't sure I liked, he commented it was "very distinctive") and he had already surmised what happened. He let me off with some friendly advice about the wisdom of keeping my homework classified material. I've wondered ever since what becomes of people like my classmate.

She's probably a best-selling author today.

True justice may never really be found in the cases that have been uncovered, but justice is a rare and precious commodity in this strange and often appalling world of ours--our "Hell of the planetary souls." And, of course, there are far worse examples of injustice every minute than ones involving the shortcomings of otherwise unimportant and forgettable hacks. We can only hope all the miscreants involved at least learned a lesson for the future. Besides, they're already condemned to living with themselves, which is a hard punishment indeed.

I'm uncertain how many blog posts I have left in me--after all, Edgar’s not doing too much these days--but I’ve developed a taste for writing boring, long-winded, and addled 2,000 word rants on arcane literary issues, so I hope to still pop up now and then, whenever any Poe-related lunacy happens to catch my eye. (I’m starting to feel like a character from one of John Mortimer’s Rumpole novels: “He’ll always be bobbing back like a bloody opera singer, making his ‘positively last appearance.’”) In the meantime, if anyone wants to chat about Poe with me on Twitter, feel free. I promise to try and be pithy, informative, and only moderately obnoxious.

I’ll close with the late, great Sandy Denny performing what is probably my favorite song. Who knows where the blogging time goes, indeed.

As that valued Friend of Poe Pauline would say, bonne chance.

Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe, Born August 15, 1822

"She was an excellent linguist, and a perfect musician, and she was so very beautiful. How often has Eddie said: I see no one so dignified and so beautiful as my sweet little wife. And oh! how pure and beautiful she was even to the last."
-Maria Clemm, 1860

"Little Virginia I have a clear recollection of when she visited us in Exeter St., as well as of the fact that the fascinating little brunette awakened in me the first tender emotion I ever felt--calf love, I believe you call it."
-Henry Starr, a childhood neighbor of the Poe/Clemm household in Baltimore

“…Perhaps you knew him best of all,
Loving him best, the whole of him,
Listening with him to the fall
Of the soft-footed seraphim
Or other guests more grim--
And growing steadily strangely more
Like one implacable image, till
The footfalls on the tufted floor
Tinkled and stopped--and Death stood still--
And listened--as Death will.”
-Joseph Auslander, “Letter to Virginia Clemm”

D.H. Lawrence’s “Birthday” was not addressed to either of the Poes. However, for some reason, the 1914 poem has always so reminded me of Virginia that I couldn’t resist repeating it today. Hopefully, Edgar and Virginia will forgive me for quoting a man who wrote some of the worst attempts to analyze Poe I’ve ever read. (“His grand attempt and achievement was with his wife; his cousin, a girl with a singing voice. With her he went in for the intensest flow, the heightening, the prismayic shades of ecstasy. It was the intensest nervous vibration of unison, pressed higher and higher in pitch, till the blood-vessels of the girl broke, and the blood began to flow out loose. It was love. If you call it love.” Calm down, Dave.)

“If I were well-to-do
I would put roses on roses, and cover your grave
With multitude of white roses, and just a few
Red ones, a bloody-white flag over you.

So people passing under
The ash-trees of the valley road, should raise
Their eyes to your bright place, and then in wonder
Should climb the hill, and put the flowers asunder.

And seeing it is your birthday,
They would say, seeing each mouth of white rose praise
You highly, every blood-red rose display
Your triumph of anguish above you, they would say:

''Tis strange, we never knew
While she was here and walking in our ways
That she was as the wine-jar whence we drew
Our draught of faith that sent us on anew.’

And so I’d raise
A rose-bush unto you in all their hearts
A rose of memory with a scent of praise
Wafting like solace down their length of days.”

Happy birthday, Sissy!

Why Poe Blogging Makes You Old Before Your Time

To quote Maria, “Edgar has a new daddy!”

Open Letters Monthly, a normally eminently sane (and quite good) publication, recently published an article suggesting that—wait for it!—actor/writer John Howard “Home Sweet Home” Payne fathered both Edgar and Rosalie Poe. Yes, this appeared in August, not, as you would assume, in their April 1 issue. The many gaps in historical records always require a certain amount of “what-if” speculation, but this piece may top even John Evangelist Walsh in piling fantasy upon fantasy. The article is so lightweight I’m surprised it didn’t just float off my computer screen. You’ve heard of “bricks without straw?” I failed to see even one slab of brickwork in this piece.

I posted my (probably overlong and overheated) rebuttal in the comments, so I won’t go into the details of why I found this article such a waste of space. Suffice to say that I could not see that the author found one speck of proof for what is a very serious allegation, but he went ahead and presented it to the public anyway. I’m drawing attention to this otherwise insignificant piece because it is only a small part of an increasingly widespread plague of allowing idle (and usually horribly defamatory) speculation to grow and flourish with few or no facts to support them, to the point where they often replace the actual historical record in people’s minds. Never underestimate the persuasive power of seeing a statement in print, no matter how ludicrous it may be. As my eloquent blog colleague Kathryn Warner said with succinct perfection: “Don’t Defame the Dead.”

In Which I Am All At Sea. As Usual.

Pauline, popular proprietor of the peerless "Pauline’s Pirates and Privateers" potpourri, has done yours truly the undeserved honor of having me guest-post at her site. I discuss the mysterious and fatal voyage of the good ship Glendower a century ago. The story has nothing to do with Poe, but I’m sure the old boy would have found it a wonderful piece of work for M. Dupin.

I hope you like the essay, but, in any case, stop wasting your time around here and go read the archives of Pauline’s site, if you haven’t already. You’ll learn more than you ever will hanging around this disreputable online neighborhood of mine.

(A footnote: In a curious coincidence, it was on this date in 1838 that "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" was published. What better time for strange sea stories?)

Lawyers, Gold-Bugs, and Money (Part Two)

“No doubt you will think me fanciful--but I had already established a kind of connexion.”
-“The Gold-Bug”

In 1876, the magazine "Notes & Queries" carried a letter from a regular contributor known only as “Uneda,” claiming Francis H. Duffee had proven that Poe ("a most unprincipled man") plagiarized from George Ann Sherburne’s “Imogine.”

“Uneda’s” accusations caught the attention of John H. Ingram, an ardent Poe defender who was then engaged in researching his biography of the poet. Ingram sent a reply challenging the pseudonymous writer's statement. "Uneda" retorted he had good reason for the "very decided opinion that I entertain upon Poe's moral character." (He added "I never heard any one in this country express any other opinion than that which I entertain respecting the character of Poe"--an assertion absurd enough to disqualify anything he had to say on the topic.) He quoted a letter from Duffee giving his (demonstrably and remarkably inaccurate) side of the story: "I did accuse Edgar A. Poe of plagiarism, a charge which was never disproved...Miss Sherburne...informed me, in the first place, of the plagiarism, and I exposed Poe in an article in one of our daily papers, for which he commenced a libel suit." Duffee claimed that after Poe received a letter from him, the author "soon dismissed the matter, for very good reasons."

Ingram responded by sending "Notes & Queries" what he described as a "shutter up" letter. He pointed out a long list of people who had expressed an admiring view of Poe's character, and asked “Uneda” “in justice to the dead, and for the satisfaction of the living, to state how, when, and where this charge of literary theft was proved against Edgar A. Poe. Mr. Duffee's letter gives no particulars as to the necessary data.”

“Uneda” took over a year to respond. He commented sniffily that Ingram’s query should have been addressed to Duffee, "and ought to have been answered by him." However, as that gentleman failed to respond, “Uneda” “after much trouble and a considerable expenditure of time” found a copy of “Imogine,” a story he had never before read. In a rather startling about-face, “Uneda” stated matter-of-factly, “It is a very extraordinary work for a girl of thirteen to produce, but it does not bear the slightest resemblance to Poe's story of the Gold Bug, either in its incidents or its style. I cannot imagine why my friend Mr. Duffee was made the victim of so silly a hoax.”

Yes, “Uneda” repeated in print long-discredited, long-forgotten accusations that Poe was a plagiarist without ever bothering to discover for himself whether or not the charges had merit. And he admitted it without even a shadow of visible embarrassment. Truly, if Dr. Griswold had been unable to take on the job as Poe’s official biographer, “Uneda” would have made a worthy substitute. (“Uneda” also sent Ingram a private letter accusing Poe of what the biographer described as “all kinds of filthy crimes,” but this letter, perhaps fortunately, is not extant and its exact contents unknown.)

Ingram did not record the identity of this adversary who bore such a stubborn, irrational grudge against Poe, but we now know he was William Duane, Jr. Duane, whom a contemporary once described as “a strange, solitary, unsociable man,” was of distinguished ancestry (his father had been Secretary of the Treasury, and his mother boasted Benjamin Franklin as a grandfather.) However, in Poe biography he is known solely for figuring in another odd, and seemingly embarrassingly trivial scandal. In 1844, Poe, with Henry B. Hirst acting as self-appointed go-between, borrowed a volume of the “Southern Literary Messenger” from Duane. When Poe was engaged in moving from Philadelphia to New York City in April of that year, Mrs. Clemm was given the task of returning the book. According to her, she left it in Hirst’s office, with one of his brothers.

Duane and Hirst, however, insisted otherwise. According to them, Mrs. Clemm--either accidentally or deliberately--sold the book, after which it wound up with a Richmond bookseller, thus forcing Duane to rebuy his own property. Angry letters were exchanged between Poe--who defended his mother-in-law’s integrity--and Duane over the incident. Duane claimed that Poe later realized his error, and suffered a good deal of mortification for his rudeness, but we have only Duane’s word for this, and the “Uneda” episode hardly inspires faith in his credibility.

As so often happened elsewhere in Poe’s history, there is in this saga a curious pattern of seemingly unrelated incidents having obscure links. In this case, the link between the Duffee scandal, the attempt to revive it by Duane, and the curiously overblown incident involving a misplaced book is Henry B. Hirst.

Duffee, it will be remembered, blamed Hirst for the dispute with Poe that nearly got Duffee sued. Hirst was also central in the later problems between Poe and Duane. According to Poe, Hirst “seemed to make a point” of personally obtaining the desired “Messenger” volume from Duane. (He later put it even more strongly, describing Hirst as the person “who insisted upon forcing” the book on him.) If we believe Mrs. Clemm’s story--and, unlike virtually all of Poe’s biographers, I see nothing that disproves it--the book was returned to Hirst, after which it mysteriously wound up in the hands of an out-of-town book dealer. As Duane and Poe apparently had no personal acquaintance, it is probably thanks to Hirst that Duane acquired such a vehement, oddly personal loathing of the late poet.

It all suggests that Hirst (who was once described by a woman who knew him well as "the most accomplished liar of his day") made a habit of fomenting what Duffee would call “mischief” all throughout Poe’s Philadelphia years--and beyond. Over the years, Hirst made other, equally irrational, charges of plagiarism against Poe, and it seems not improbable that he spread other unflattering gossip against his soi-disant friend. (In 1867, Elizabeth Oakes Smith quoted Hirst as telling her that "the real contempt which Poe felt for his contemporaries came out at once under the influence of the wine-cup, and he ridiculed, satirized, imitated and abused them right and left without mercy." In a column published two weeks after Poe's death, Hirst stated he "never heard [Poe] express one single word of personal ill-feeling against any man...")

Thomas O. Mabbott wrote casually that Hirst eventually went “harmlessly insane.” Hirst’s so-called madness reads more like a method that was “business as usual” in the World of Poe. And it was far from harmless.

Lawyers, Gold-Bugs, and Money (Part One of Two)

“Circumstances, and a certain bias of mind, have led me to take interest in such riddles…”
-“The Gold-Bug”

Poe scholars are familiar with his 1846-47 libel suit against the "New York Evening Mirror." What is less well-known is that this was not his first effort at bringing his defamers into court. Like his later suit, this earlier legal battle has a certain air of mystery around it.

The trouble involved Poe’s most popular story, “The Gold-Bug.” In June 1843, the tale won a short-story prize offered by Philadelphia’s “Dollar Newspaper,” and the yarn about codes and hidden treasure became an immediate sensation. Soon afterwards, however, a rival publication, the “Daily Forum,” printed a very curious attack on Poe’s work. Under the headline “The ‘Gold Bug’—A Decided Humbug” came the following:

“We have no hesitation in stating the fact, that humbug beyond all question is at last the ‘Philosopher’s stone,’ in the discovery of which so many geniuses have heretofore been bewildered. In this opinion we are more fully confirmed by the recent literary production entitled the ‘Gold Bug,’ which has been paraded in flourishing capitals by the publishers of the ‘Dollar Magazine,’ [sic] and pronounced by them as the most entertaining and superbly written ‘prize tale’ of modern times! That ‘one hundred dollars’ was paid for this signal abortion we believe to be an arrant falsehood, and in this sentiment we are not singular, for several of our friends who have read the portion which has already appeared, pronounce upon it the verdict of unmitigated trash! We are inclined to think that ten or fifteen dollars satisfied ‘the talented Edgar A. Poe, Esq.’ for this excruciating effort in the tale line.”

“In the publication of this unique affair, the proprietors of the ‘Dollar Magazine’ know how to give the public ‘two bites of a cherry’; but they will find it a very difficult task to point out hereafter even ‘the man in a claret coat’ who has read the second part of the ‘Gold Bug:’ The writer threw away three cents in the purchase of the commencement of the tale, but will be exceedingly careful in not getting blistered by the ensuing dose of cantharides, which is usually made out of Gold Bugs. The public are little aware of the humbug heretofore practised in this ‘prize tale’ business. We are indebted to a friend who obtained several of these kind [sic] of prizes, for the method in which it is accomplished. It is to this effect: the publisher announces with a grand flourish the literary tournament, and after having pranced about a while on his pegasus, induces a number of really meritorious writers to enter the lists and compete for the nominal prize, which has all the appearance at first of a 'Gold Bug,' but is certain to eventuate in a humbug! The period at length arrives for the distribution, when sure enough some 'youth unknown to fame' is knighted and bears off the palm of victory, merely 'to save expense' and because his name is well known to the reading community as 'a talented man.' This is not an overwrought picture, for let it be distinctly understood that the writer of this has never had 'a kink in his tale,' and consequently can feel no jealousy, but merely vents his indignation in relation to as great a literary humbug as was ever placed before the reading community. 'Having cast the first stone,' mark our prediction if this 'Gold Bug' is not generally pronounced unworthy of existence in literature."

This anonymous and decidedly overheated “communication” was the work of Francis H. Duffee, an unimportant, if noisy, local stockbroker, dramatist and journalist. Poe, never one to ignore slights on his personal dignity, did not waste any time fighting back. Two days later, another Philadelphia paper, “Spirit of the Times,” reported that Poe had filed an action for damages against his attacker. Two days after this notice appeared, the same paper published a letter to the editor from Duffee, nervously trying to walk back his charges, saying that his communication had been “stated merely as an opinion, the contradiction of which publicly given by the publishers, sets the matter at rest, and merely goes to show that I, in my criticism, have committed an error.”

The matter might have ended there, if the paper's editor John Du Solle had not made the mistake of trying to get cute. As an addendum to Duffee’s apology, Du Solle puckishly suggested that “The Gold-Bug” plagiarized “Imogine, or the Pirate’s Treasure,” an obscure 1839 tale written by a thirteen-year-old girl named George Ann Sherburne.

Historians believe Du Solle was merely exercising his idea of wit, but the allegation was repeated, as a serious charge, in the “New York Herald.”

Meanwhile, the other Philadelphia newspapers, always in search of a good fight, did their best to fan the flames. Poe’s friend George Lippard wrote in the “Citizen Soldier” that “The Gold-Bug” was “one of the best stories Poe ever wrote” and dismissed Duffee’s attempts to tarnish it as “a humbug--a transparent, gauze-lace, cobweb-tissue humbug.” Lippard freely conceded that “name and not merit” commonly prevail among judges and other “secret critics.” “In such a system, the man of notoriety has all the chances--the man of genius none.” However, in Poe’s case, there could be no question that “the story is worth the ‘Prize money,’ ten times told.”

The “Public Ledger” also weighed in on Duffee’s allegations, stating that “Mr. P will, of course, allow the gentleman every opportunity he may desire to substantiate his charges, or any portion of them, and as he will necessarily fail in every particular to do so, or to show the least shadow or particle of the appearance of anything to justify the charges he has made, he will hold himself ready to bear the consequences of an act which must have been prompted solely and entirely by his own mere suspicions.” Duffee’s apology, they snorted, was “nothing more than an exposure of his own attempted injustice to the parties concerned.” For good measure, the “Ledger” sharply criticized the “Daily Forum” for publishing Duffee’s “foul slander” in the first place.

The “Forum” publishers defended themselves by washing their hands of Duffee. They carried an editorial stating, “the character of the gentlemen composing the committee to award the premiums, precluded the possibility of any collusion between the editors of the Dollar Weekly and Mr. Poe, and as we were of this opinion, we rejected one communication from the same source, and even cut out sentences from the published one. The correspondent spoke with certainty, and having a responsible name, we felt it a duty to lend our colemns [sic] to expose what was characterized as a humbug. Upon the first application made to us, we gave the name of our correspondent.”

This same issue of the paper carried another letter from Duffee, which was even more peevish and rambling than his last. He claimed that he had yet to receive notice that he was being sued. “If, however, to receive a polite note from a highly talented and amiable member of the bar--if to be waited upon by Mr. Edgar A. Poe, accompanied by two gentlemen with big sticks--if to meet them boldly and candidly acknowledge myself the author of the critique--if to be again waited on by the said Poe, accompanied by another gentleman with a big stick, and presented with a paper for me to sign calculated to make me acknowledge myself a liar and a scoundrel in the face of the public--if this is the commencement of legal proceedings, it is a way so outre, so 'grotesque and arabesque;’ that it could only emanate from the clique, and not from the proper tribunal, the law!” If Poe was so “excrutiating [sic] sensitive,” Duffee sputtered, why has he ignored innuendoes aimed at him by others? Poe was a man famed for his “severe and scorching criticisms” which have “driven from the field of poetry the timid and aspiring son of genius.” He had never “shown mercy to others,” so what right had he to suddenly be so “'demm’d' sensitive?” He closed by repeating as fact Du Solle’s fantasy about Poe plagiarizing from the youthful Miss Sherburne.

Du Solle soon realized his little “joke” had gone too far. Haunted, no doubt, by visions of Poe pursuing him with a pack of hungry lawyers, he quickly published a retraction, stating that the "exceedingly well written and ingenious" “Gold-Bug” bore "no further resemblance to Miss Sherburne’s tale, than it must necessarily bear from the fact of touching upon the same general grounds. Mr. Poe well deserved the prize of $100.”

The “Ledger,” meanwhile, rubbed a little salt into the self-inflicted wounds of their rivals by commenting that the “New York Herald” plagiarized a recent editorial from “Blackwood’s Magazine.” “This same paper charged Mr. Poe with having committed plagiarism in writing the prize story for the Dollar Newspaper, the Gold-Bug, by stealing the plot from a tale by Miss Sherbourne [sic]. Even this idea of the Herald was stolen from another paper, which has since retracted the charge in a handsome manner; but the Herald holds on to the stolen idea as if it was its own and honestly come by, even after the owner himself has repudiated it as unjust to Mr. Poe. For shame!”

The “Dollar Newspaper” also returned to the fray, giving an analysis of the Poe and Sherburne stories, and concluding there were no similarities between the two works other than “the finding of money--a subject which has been handled not only by Miss Sherburne, but by some fifty, if not by some five hundred talewriters.” They also reprinted Du Solle’s “magnanimously made” retraction. The "Saturday Museum" shrugged that the "supposed resemblance" was "altogether imaginary." Similarly, the "Daily Forum" "reperused" the stories in question, and could assure readers,"They are no more alike than the Gold Bug is like the 'Man that was used up.'" (Just to add to the general fun, the “Forum” also gleefully announced that Duffee was bringing a libel suit against the “Public Ledger” “for maliciously dragging his business relations before the public and throwing out intimations that he was connected with fraudulent institutions.”)

Meanwhile, the publisher of George Ann Sherburne's "Tales," which featured "Imogine," wasted no time rushing the small volume back into print, complete with notices inviting all who "like the Gold Bug" to "judge of the resemblance between the two." It's truly an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

By the end of July, Poe and Duffee had a personal meeting where they resolved their differences. Duffee evidently claimed his original column had merely been “misconstrued.” He repudiated any suggestion of collusion between Poe and the prize committee. In return, Poe dropped his suit. Duffee afterwards published a cryptic, vengeful column in the “New York Cynosure.” He made bitter reference to a certain "Petty-fogger" who "has been at the bottom of all the mischief between the belligerents in the matter of the 'Gold Bug.'" The "creature" whom Duffee accused of engineering his “mischief” was evidently a mutual acquaintance, the poet Henry B. Hirst. (Hirst, who was also a lawyer, probably represented Poe in his aborted legal action against Duffee.)

This ended the “Gold-Bug” controversy, at least during Poe’s lifetime. However, it had a brief, strange revival nearly thirty years after his death, in the magazine “Notes & Queries.” I shall relate that episode--and explore its connection to another Poe scandal--in my next post.

Quote of the Day

On this day in 1836, the publishing house Harper & Brothers sent Poe a letter declining to publish a collection of his stories. Along with the fact that most of the stories had already appeared in print, their “long experience” taught them that novels sold better than short tales. Worse still: “The papers are too learned and mystical. They would be understood and relished only by a very few--not by the multitude. The number of readers in this country capable of appreciating and enjoying such writings as those you submitted to us is very small indeed. We were therefore inclined to believe that it was for your own interest not to publish them.”

Considering that Poe is simultaneously one of the most widely read and most commonly misinterpreted authors in our history, this rejection slip could be seen either as ironically unperceptive or sadly prophetic.