Happy 204th, Edgar!

“Aye, aye, but my dear Mr. Phillegrim, this same Edgar A. Poe is--is--rather a bitter fellow, and has a way of his own of using up all humbugs. He carries a Tomahawk--does Poe. A very bad Tomahawk, a very nasty Tomahawk.”
--George Lippard, “The Spermaceti Papers,” “The Citizen Soldier,” July 26, 1843

Although it is now almost automatic to laud Poe as a critic, storyteller, poet, and philosopher, it is still largely overlooked that he was a pretty funny guy, as well, with a mordant wit and a gleeful genius for sarcasm. (I am also certain that most, if not all of his “serious” writings have a satirical or hoaxing element that he probably expected would go unnoticed by his audience.) If he came back to earth today, I don’t know if he’d be much richer—he just strikes me as one of those people who's fated to never accumulate money--but he would be right at home on the Internet. Greatest. Troll. Ever.

Poe's humor is usually difficult to isolate into quotation-length snippets--one usually has to read the entire piece of writing to get the full flavor of his gift for mockery.  (Which, it must be said, includes a good amount of self-mockery.)  Nevertheless, to celebrate his birthday, I have made the effort to present some of my favorite Poe quips, put-downs, and assorted snark. Take it away, Edgar:

As you may have guessed by the card, Catterina's throwing the party this year.

“Now my objection, in this case, is not to the larceny per se. I have always told Mr Hirst that, provided he stole my poetry in a reputable manner, he might steal just as much of it as he thought proper — and, so far, he has behaved very well, in largely availing himself of the privilege. But what I do object to, is the being robbed in bad grammar. It is not that Mr. Hirst did this thing — but that he has went and done did it.”
--“Marginalia” MS. circa March 1848

“He has much warmth of feeling, and is not a person to be disliked, although very apt to irritate and annoy.”
--“Charles F. Briggs,” “The Literati of New York City,” “Godey’s Lady’s Book,” May 1846

“[H]e was not, I say, laughed at so much for his excusable deficiencies in English grammar (although an editor should certainly be able to write his own name) as that, in the hope of disguising such deficiency, he was perpetually lamenting the ‘typographical blunders’ that ‘in the most unaccountable manner’ would creep into his work…I make these remarks in no spirit of unkindness. Mr. E. is yet young…and might…readily improve himself at points where he is most defective. No one of any generosity would think the worse of him for getting private instruction.”
--“Thomas Dunn English,” “The Literati of New York City,” “Godey’s Lady’s Book,” July 1846

“Mr. Clark once did me the honor to review my poems, and—I forgive him.”

"[Clark] is noticeable for nothing in the world except for the markedness by which he is noticeable for nothing."
--“Lewis Gaylord Clark,” “The Literati of New York City,” “Godey’s Lady’s Book,” September 1846

“The word ‘Personality,’ used in the heading of the series, has of course led astray the quartette of dunderheads [Charles Briggs, Hiram Fuller, Thomas Dunn English, and Lewis Gaylord Clark] who have talked and scribbled themselves into convulsions about this matter—but no one else, I presume, has distorted the legitimate meaning of my expression into that of private scandal or personal offense. In sketching individuals, every candid reader will admit that, while my general aim has been accuracy, I have yielded to delicacy even a little too much of verisimilitude. Indeed, on this score should I not have credit for running my pen through certain sentences referring, for example, to the brandy-nose of Mr. Briggs (since Mr. Briggs is only one third described when this nose is omitted) and to the family resemblance between the whole visage of Mr. English and that of the best-looking but most unprincipled of Mr. Barnum’s baboons?”
--Poe discussing “The Literati” in “Mr. Poe’s Reply to Mr. English and Others,” “Spirit of the Times,” July 10, 1846

“The most remarkable feature in this production is the bad paper on which it is printed, and the typographical ingenuity with which matter barely enough for one volume has been spread over the pages of two…The author avers upon his word of honor that in commencing the work he loads a pistol, and places it upon the table. He farther states that, upon coming to a conclusion, it is his intention to blow out what he supposes to be his brains. Now this is excellent. But, even with so rapid a writer as the poet must undoubtedly be there would be some little difficulty in completing the book under thirty days or thereabouts. The best of powder is apt to sustain injury by lying so long ‘in the load.’ We sincerely hope the gentleman took the precaution to examine his priming before attempting the rash act. A flash in the pan — and in such a case — were a thing to be lamented. Indeed there would be no answering for the consequences. We might even have a second series of the Confessions.”
--Review of Laughton Osborn’s “Confessions of a Poet,” “Southern Literary Messenger,” April 1835

“Again, it cannot be gainsaid that the greater number of those who hold high places in our poetical literature are absolute nincompoops.”
--Review of Lambert A. Wilmer’s “The Quacks of Helicon,” “Graham’s Magazine,” August 1841

“His book contains about sixty-three things, which he calls poems, and which he no doubt seriously supposes so to be. They are full of all kinds of mistakes, of which the most important is that of their having been printed at all.”
--Review of William Ellery Channing, “Graham’s Magazine,” August 1843

“We were saying—were we not?—that Mr. Headley is by no means to be sneered at as a quack. This might be justifiable, indeed, were he only a quack in a small way—a quack doing business by retail. But the wholesale dealer is entitled to respect. Besides, the Reverend author of ‘Napoleon and his Marshals’ was a quack to some purpose. He knows what he is about. We like perfection wherever we see it. We readily forgive a man for being a fool if he only be a perfect fool—and this is a particular in which we cannot put our hands upon our hearts and say that Mr. Headley is deficient. He acts upon the principle that if a thing is worth doing at all it is worth doing well:--and the thing that he ‘does’ especially well is the public.”
--Review of Joel T. Headley’s “The Sacred Mountains,” “Southern Literary Messenger,” October 1850

“Well! -- here we have it! This is the book -- the book par excellence -- the book bepuffed, beplastered, and be-Mirrored: the book 'attributed to' Mr. Blank, and 'said to be from the pen' of Mr. Asterisk: the book which has been 'about to appear' -- 'in press' -- 'in progress' -- 'in preparation' -- and 'forthcoming:' the book 'graphic' in anticipation -- 'talented' a priori -- and God knows what in prospectu…

...For a page or two we are entertained with a prospect of a conspiracy, and have great hopes that the principal characters in the plot will so far oblige us as to cut one another's throats…

...Thus ends the Tale of the Present Times, and thus ends the most inestimable piece of balderdash with which the common sense of the good people of America was ever so openly or so villainously insulted.”
--Review of Theodore S. Fay’s “Norman Leslie,” Southern Literary Messenger, December 1835

“The Swiss Heiress should be read by all who have nothing better to do.”

“Hereupon Mr. Theodore Montelieu calls Mr. Frederic Mortimer a liar, a big liar, or something to that effect, and challenges him to a fight, with a view of either blowing out his already small modicum of brains, or having the exceedingly few blown out, which he himself (Mr. Theodore Montelieu) possesses. Mr. Mortimer, however, being a hero declines fighting, and contents himself, for the present, with looking mysterious…everybody concerned in the business is not precisely what he is, and is precisely what he is not. After this horrible development, if we recollect, all the dramatis personae faint outright, one after the other.”
--Review of Susan Morgan’s “The Swiss Heiress,” Southern Literary Messenger, October 1836

“There are various other tones of equal celebrity, but I shall mention only two more — the tone transcendental and the tone heterogeneous. In the former the merit consists in seeing into the nature of affairs a very great deal farther than anybody else. This second sight is very efficient when properly managed. A little reading of the ‘Dial’ will carry you a great way. Eschew, in this case, big words; get them as small as possible, and write them upside down. Look over Channing’s poems and quote what he says about a ‘fat little man with a delusive show of Can.’ Put in something about the Supernal Oneness. Don’t say a syllable about the Infernal Twoness. Above all, study innuendo. Hint every thing — assert nothing. If you feel inclined to say ‘bread and butter’ do not by any means say it outright. You may say anything and every thing approaching to ‘bread and butter.’ You may hint at buckwheat cake, or you may even go so far as to insinuate oat-meal porridge, but if bread and butter be your real meaning, be cautious, my dear Miss Psyche, not on any account to say ‘bread and butter!’ ”
--“How to Write a Blackwood Article”

[Note: In 1845, the Rev. Arthur Coxe’s “Saul: A Mystery” was published. As it failed to endear itself to the critics, an anonymous partisan sent the following to the “Hartford Columbian”:]

“An entertaining history,
Entitled ‘Saul, A Mystery,’
Has recently been published by the Reverend Arthur Coxe.
The poem is dramatic,
And the wit of it is attic,
And its teachings are emphatic of the doctrines orthodox.
But Mr. Poe, the poet,
Declares he cannot go it —
That the book is very stupid, or something of that sort:
And Green, of the Empori
Um, tells a kindred story,
And swears like any tory that it is’nt worth a groat.
But maugre all the croaking
Of the Raven and the joking
Of the verdant little fellow of the used to be review,
The People, in derision
Of their impudent decision,
Have declared, without division, that the Mystery will do.”

[Poe reprinted the rhyme, adding:]

“The truth, of course, rather injures an epigram than otherwise; and nobody will think the worse of the one above, when I say that, at the date of its first appearance, I had expressed no opinion whatever of the poem to which it refers. “Give a dog a bad name,” &c. Whenever a book is abused, people take it for granted that it is I who have been abusing it.

Latterly I have read ‘Saul,’ and agree with the epigrammatist, that it ‘will do’ — whoever attempts to wade through it. It will do, also, for trunk-paper. The author is right in calling it ‘A Mystery:’ — for a most unfathomable mystery it is. When I got to the end of it I found it more mysterious than ever — and it was really a mystery how I ever did get to the end — which I half fancied that somebody had cut off, in a fit of ill-will to the critics.”
--"Marginalia," "Southern Literary Messenger," May 1849

"'Not altogether a fool,' said G., 'but then he's a poet, which I take to be only one remove from a fool.'"
--“The Purloined Letter”

"’Enough,’ he said; ‘the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough.’

‘True--true,’ I replied.”
--“The Cask of Amontillado”

“Of that species of composition which comes most appropriately under the head, Drivel, we should have no trouble in selecting as many specimens as our readers could desire.”
--Review of “Poems,” by William W. Lord, “Broadway Journal,” May 24, 1845

“This book is a public imposition.”
--Review of “Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman,” by William Leete Stone, “Southern Literary Messenger,” June 1836

"We like Boston--and perhaps it is just as well not to mention that we are heartily ashamed of the fact."
--"Broadway Journal," November 1, 1845

"Insanity is a word that the Brook Farm Phalanx should never be brought to mention under any circumstances whatsoever."
--Responding to innuendos about his mental state, "Broadway Journal," December 13, 1845

"In fact, we fancy that we can trace the gradations of his wrath in the number and impressiveness of his underscoring. The SIRS!! for example, are exceedingly bitter, and in THE RAVEN, which has five black lines beneath it, each one blacker than the preceding, we can only consider ourselves as devoted to the Infernal Gods...

...We told him that we meant to do him justice--and we did it."
-Responding to a theater manager who was unwise enough to take issue with Poe's review of his play, "Broadway Journal," April 19, 1845

[Poe did not think much of the feminine fashion item known as bustles:]

“One of the evil genii who are perpetually upon the watch to inflict ill, has put it into the heads of these accomplished ladies that the thing which we describe as personal beauty, consists altogether in the protuberance of the region which lies not very far below the small of the back. Perfection of loveliness, they say, is in the direct ratio of the extent of this hump. Having been long possessed of this idea, and bolsters being cheap in that country, the days have long gone by since it was possible to distinguish a woman from a dromedary—“
--“The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade”

“I thought upon other subjects than Death. I discarded my medical books. ‘Buchan’ I burned. I read no ‘Night Thoughts’--no fustian about church-yards--no bugaboo tales--such as this.”
--"The Premature Burial"

“Mr. P[oe] has been so often complimented for his powers of sarcasm that he thinks it incumbent upon him to keep up his reputation in that line by sneers upon all occasions and downright abuse.”
--Unfinished MS., “A Reviewer Reviewed,” circa 1849. As the old saying goes, read the whole thing. You'll never see anything else quite like it.

[A footnote:  A fine article on Poe's humor can be found here.]

Moonlighting

This is just to alert (warn?) all of you that I'm doing a guest post at ghost story writer/blogger Andrea Janes' Bourbon and Tea. I'm taking a look at one of the most poorly-documented periods of Poe's adult life--his brief, ill-fated residence in New York City from 1837-38.

Hope you find it of some interest.  Whatever you think of my post, while you're over there, do pick up a copy of her collection of stories, "Boroughs of the Dead."  It makes for wonderfully spooky reading.

A Parody of "Annabel Lee"

Subtitle:  "Yes, I Waste My Life and Probably Rot My Brain Hunting Down Stuff Like This."

"Deborah Lee," written by William H. Burleigh, first appeared in 1859, and for reasons I don't even pretend to know, became extremely popular in the magazines and newspapers of the day. As I have published several "Raven" parodies here over the years, I thought it only fair to give this equal time.  Have no fear, it is of the same wretched quality as all the other Poe parodies we have seen. Enjoy!

'Tis a dozen or so of years ago,
Somewhere in the West countree,
That a nice girl lived, as ye Hoosiers know,
By the name of Deborah Lee.
Her sister was loved by Edgar Poe,
But Deborah by me.

Now I was green and she was green
As a summer's squash might be,
And we loved as warmly as other folks,
I and my Deborah Lee;
With a love that the lasses of Hoosierdom
Coveted her and me.

But somehow it happened long ago,
In the agueish West countree,
That a chill March morning gave the shakes
To my beautiful Deborah Lee;
And the grim steam-doctor (hang him!) came
And bore her away from me;--
The doctor and death, old partners they,
In the agueish West countree.


The angels wanted her up in heaven,
But they never asked for me,
And that is the reason, I rather guess,
In the agueish West countree,
That the cold March wind and the doctor and death,
Took off my Deborah Lee
From the warm sunshine and the opening flowers,
And took her away from me.

Our love was as strong as a six-horse team,
Or the love of folks older than we,
And possibly wiser than we,
But death, with the aid of doctor and steam,
Was rather too many for me;
He closed the peepers, and silenced the breath
Of my sweetheart, Deborah Lee;
And her form lies cold in the deep, dark mold,
Silent and cold--ah me!

The foot of the hunter shall press the grave,
And the prairie's sweet wild flowers,
In their odorous beauty, around it wave
Through all the sunny hours;
And the birds shall sing in the tufted grass,
And the nectar laden bee,
With his dreamy hum, on his gauze wings pass--
She wakes no more to me,
Oh!  never more to me;
Though the wild birds sing and the wild flowers spring,
She awakes no more to me.

Yet oft in the hush of the dim, still night,
A vision of beauty I see;
Gliding soft to my bedside,--a phantom of light,--
Dear, beautiful Deborah Lee,
My bride that was to be.
And I wake to mourn that the doctor and death,
And the cold March wind should stop the breath
Of my darling Deborah Lee,
Adorable Deborah Lee;
That angels should want her up in heaven
Before they wanted me.

There are those moments when I think we Edgar fans have a lot to answer for.

A Poe New Year's Eve. Hear the Bloggers With the Bells!

No fireworks--this is a pretty low-budget blog--but we can still ring in the New Year at World of Poe.  I present Sergei Rachmaninov's choral symphony "The Bells":









A brief, but quite festive choral version:



And just for something completely different:  The same poem as interpreted by...Phil Ochs.  It works pretty darn well:

Bonus for you musicians:  Here's the sheet music for an early 20th-century version by Hugh S. Roberton.

See you all in 2013.  Unless, of course, the Mayans finally decide to kick it up a notch.

A Poe-Themed Christmas Tale. Bah, Gold-Bug.

A little holiday reading:  Here is George Ade's 1903 story “The Set of Poe."  I grant you, it's no “A Christmas Carol," but this short tale is a sweetly goofy salute to the subject of this blog: The dream of the protagonist’s life is to own a fine edition of the works of Poe. A noble goal, indeed.

And here’s hoping all of you have a holiday season with as happy an ending.

Waterby remarked to his wife: “I’m still tempted by that set of Poe. I saw it in the window today, marked down to fifteen dollars.”

"Yes?” said Mrs. Waterby, with a sudden gasp of emotion, it seemed to him.

"Yes--I believe I'll have to get it.”

"I wouldn't if I were you, Alfred." she said. "You have so many books now."

"I know I have, my dear, but I haven't any set of Poe; and that's what I’ve been wanting for a long time. This edition I was telling you about is beautifully gotten up."

"Oh, I wouldn't buy it, Alfred," she repeated, and there was a note of pleading earnestness in her voice. "It's so much money to spend for a few books."

"Well, I know, but--" and then he paused for the lack of words to express his mortified surprise.

Mr. Waterby had tried to be an indulgent husband. He took a selfish pleasure in giving, and found it more blessed than receiving. Every salary day he turned over to Mrs. Waterby a fixed sum for household expenses. He added to this an allowance for her spending money. He set aside a small amount for his personal expenses and deposited the remainder in the bank. He flattered himself that he approximated the model husband.

Mr. Waterby had no costly habits and no prevailing appetite for anything expensive. Like every other man, he had one or two hobbies, and one of his particular hobbies was Edgar Allan Poe. He believed that Poe, of all American writers, was the one unmistakable "genius." The word "genius" has been bandied around the country until it has come to be applied to a long-haired man out of work or a stout lady who writes poetry. In the case of Poe, Mr. Waterby maintained that "genius" meant one who was not governed by the common mental processes, but "who spoke from inspiration, his mind involuntarily taking superhuman flight into the realm of pure imagination"--or something of that sort. At any rate, Mr. Waterby liked Poe, and he wanted a set of Poe. He allowed himself not more than one luxury a year and he determined that this year the luxury should be a set of Poe.

Therefore, imagine the hurt to his feelings when his wife objected to his expending fifteen dollars for that which he coveted above anything else in the world.

As he went to work that day he reflected on Mrs. Waterby's conduct. Did she not have her allowance of spending money? Did he ever find fault with her extravagance? Was he an unreasonable husband in asking that he be allowed to spend this small sum for that which would give him many hours of pleasure and which would belong to Mrs. Waterby as much to him?

He told himself that many a husband would have bought the books without consulting his wife. But he (Waterby) had deferred to his wife in all matters touching family finances, and he said to himself, with a tincture of bitterness in his thoughts, that probably he had put himself into the attitude of a mere dependent.

For had she not forbidden him to buy a few books for himself? Well, no, she had not forbidden him, but it amounted to the same thing. She had declared that she was firmly opposed to the purchase of Poe. Mr. Waterby wondered if it were possible that he was just beginning to know his wife. Was she a selfish woman at heart? Was she complacent and good-natured only while she was having her own way? Wouldn't she prove to be an entirely different sort of woman if he should do as many husbands do—spend his income on clubs and cigars and private amusements; and give her the pickings of small change?

Nothing in Mr. Waterby's experience as a married man had so wrenched his sensibilities and disturbed his faith as Mrs. Waterby's objection to the purchase of a set of Poe. There was but one way to account for it. She wanted all the money for herself or else she wanted him to put it into the bank so that she could come into it after he--but this was too monstrous.

However, Mrs. Waterby's conduct helped to give strength to Mr. Waterby's meanest suspicions.  Two or three days after the first conversation she asked: "You didn't buy that set of Poe, did you Alfred?"

"No, I didn't buy it," he answered as coldly and with as much hauteur as possible

He hoped to hear her say: "Well, why don't you go and get it? I'm sure that you want it, and I’d like to see you buy something for yourself once in a while."

That would have shown the spirit of a loving and unselfish wife.

But she merely said: "That's right; don't buy it," and he was utterly unhappy, for he realized that he had married a woman who did not love him and who simply desired to use him as a pack horse for all household burdens.

As soon as Mr. Waterby had learned the horrible truth about his wife he began to recall little episodes dating back years, and now he pieced them together to convince himself that he was a deeply wronged person.

Small at the time and almost unnoticed, they were now accumulating to prove that Mrs. Waterby had no real anxiety for her husband's happiness. Also, Mr. Waterby began to observe her closely, and he believed that he found new evidences of her unworthiness. For one thing, while he was in gloom over his discovery and harassed by doubts of what the future might reveal to him, she was content and even-tempered.

The holiday season approached and Mr. Waterby had made a resolution. He decided that if she would not permit him to spend a little money on himself he would not buy the customary Christmas present for her.

"Selfishness is a game at which two can play," he said.

Furthermore, he determined that if she asked him for any extra money for Christmas he would say: "I'm sorry, my dear, but I can't spare any. I am so hard up that I can't even afford to buy a few books that I’ve been wanting a long time. Don't you remember that you told me that I couldn't afford to buy that set of Poe?"

Could anything be more biting as to sarcasm or more crushing as to logic?

He rehearsed this speech and had it all ready for her, as he pictured to himself her humiliation and surprise at discovering that he had some spirit after all and a considerable say-so whenever money was involved.

Unfortunately for his plan, she did not ask for any extra spending money and so he had to rely on the other mode of punishment. He would withhold the expected Christmas present. In order that she might fully understand his purpose, he would give presents to both of the children.

It was a harsh measure, he admitted, but perhaps it would teach her to have some consideration for the wishes of others.

It must be said that Mr. Waterby was not wholly proud of his revenge when he arose on Christmas morning. He felt that he had accomplished his purpose and he told himself that his motives had been good and pure, but still he was not satisfied with himself.

He went to the dining room and there on the table in front of his plate was a long paper box containing ten books each marked "Poe." It was the edition he had coveted.

"What's this?" he asked, winking slowly, for his mind could not grasp in one moment the fact of his awful shame.

"I should think you ought to know, Alfred," said Mrs. Waterby, flushed and giggling like a school girl.

"Oh, it was you—"

"My goodness, you’ve had me so frightened. That day when you spoke of buying them and I told you not to, I was just sure that you suspected something. I bought them a week before that."

"Yes--yes," said Mr. Waterby, feeling the salt water in his eyes. At that moment he had the soul of a wretch being whipped at the stake.

“I was determined not to ask you for any money to pay for your own presents," Mrs. Waterby continued. “Do you know I had to save for you and the children out of my regular allowance. Why, last week I nearly starved you and you never noticed it as I was afraid you would."

"No, I didn't notice it," said Mr. Waterby brokenly, for he was confused and giddy. This self-sacrificing angel--and he had bought no Christmas present for her! It was a fearful situation, and he lied his way out of it.

"How did you like your present?" he asked.

“Why, I haven't seen it yet," she responded, looking across at him in surprise.

“You haven't? I told them to send it up yesterday."

The children were shouting and laughing over their gifts in the next room and he felt it his duty to lie for their sake.

"Well, don't tell me what it is," interrupted Mrs. Waterby. "Wait until it comes."

"I'll go after it."

He did go after it, although he had to drag a jeweler away from his home on Christmas Day and have him open his great safe. The ring which he selected was beyond his means, it is true, but when a man has to buy back his self-respect the price is never too high.

Marginalia: Some Horrible, Terrible, No Good Very Bad Poe Anecdotes

…In other words, perfect Undine Blog Fodder!

These two shaggy dog stories appeared in the “Cosmopolitan Art Journal” for December 1858. They are as fictitious as they are silly, but I thought they deserved notice as examples of how, less than a decade after his death, Poe had already become a figure in pop culture. I doubt even the magazine’s editors expected their readers to believe these anecdotes, (although 20th century Poe researcher Thomas O. Mabbott would, characteristically, treat them with an unsettling seriousness.)  However, it is significant that the "Art Journal" assumed anything, no matter how trivial, about the man was “good copy."  It is also interesting to see how two of the main factors in the modern-day "Poe Legend"--poverty and scandals involving literary women--were already firmly established in the public mind:

“A friend told us, the other day, of one of Edgar A. Poe’s sarcasms, which is worth repeating. Poe had been told that certain ladies in the literary world had resolved to expose him, for some of his misdemeanors. He answered: ‘they are very good at exposures!’ Those who have frequented some literary soirees, will especially appreciate the significance of the sarcasm.”

“Poe once was dunned savagely for a grocer’s bill, long overdue. He immediately sat down, penned one of his most savage onslaughts upon one of ‘the literati,’ and upon the strength of it borrowed the amount needed to free him from the grocer. ‘There, sir!’ said he, ‘grow, sir, you grocer puppy, into a dog, sir, and may you then be dogged, sir, as you have dogged Poe, sir. Now, go sir, and be -------- to you.’ This, properly expressed, would look very like a Poe-stanza. It goes to show that some of his conceptions may have originated in moments of high-feeling, instead of having all been coolly ‘coined,’ with great labor, as he intimates they were.”

Another Poe fable, published in the "Hawaiian (Oahu) Star" on April 28, 1893, has a goofily surreal quality that rather appealed to me:

"During the brief period in which Edgar Allan Poe was engaged to be married he was discovered by her whom, despite his frailty, he held in such sacred tenderness, lying intoxicated in the street. Lest others should recognize him--so runs the story--she threw her hankerchief over his face.  Futile effort to hide one of that multitude of sins which Charity's cloak alone can cover!  When he was capable of realizing his situation he recognized the hankerchief and became a prey to that torture and despair during which he wrote:

'And my soul from out the shadow
That lies floating on the floor, shall be lifted
     Nevermore!'"

And, of course, there were those times when Poe's left hand didn't know what his right hand was doing. Or something. Behold an anecdote of his University of Virginia days, from the "Home Magazine" in 1909:

"Poe was very proud of his penmanship. One day, so the story goes, a friend entered the room to find Poe writing busily with both hands.

'What are you doing?' asked the friend.

'Writing with both hands," said Poe.

'Both hands!' exclaimed the friend. 'But how on earth can you make any progress in that way?'

'Easy enough. It is a theory of mine that it is a waste of time not to be able to use both hands at the same time. Both hands and brain can be trained, with care and attention, so that each hand may do its full share of work--each hand being employed on a separate task. It is not really an affair of the hands at all, in the last analysis, but an affair of the intellect. I am training my hands and brain now so that I can do twice as much work as the ordinary person in a given period of time. At the present moment I am writing a poem with my right hand; one that I confidently believe will startle the world. And with my left hand I am blocking out a wonderful story, a story which should capture thousands of readers.

'It will only be a short time before I will be able to take my examinations in this manner and dispose of two subjects simultaneously. It will save time and will give hands and brain their full duty.'"

Meanwhile, the "St. Johns (AZ) Herald" for December 1, 1921 presented their readers with a strangely disturbing bit of information:

I Am Now Officially a Lovely Blogger. Stop Giggling.

As additional proof that it is indeed a strange ol’ world, Susan Ardelie of the terrific 18th-century-oriented blog Life Takes Lemons, has been kind enough to name me (yes, me!) as one of her choices for the Lovely Blog Award. (I told you. Stop giggling. And give those derisive snorts a rest, too.)

It seems the LBA is quite similar to the Very Inspiring Blogger honor, in that I must now:

1. Thank the person who gave you the honor. (Thank you, Susan! This nomination should make you a shoo-in for the Very Tolerant Blogger Award. If there is no such thing, I’m inventing one and giving it to you here and now.)

2. Add the “One Lovely Blog Award” image to your post. Here ya go:

3. Share seven things about you.

4. Pass the award on to seven nominees.

5. Include this set of rules.

6. Inform your nominees by posting a comment on their blogs.

The first two are a snap, but No. 3 begins to get a bit complicated. I don’t know if I can find seven things worth saying about myself. At least, until I’m sure the statute of limitations has run out. After much thought, a few prayers to St. Olga—a woman who sure knew how to get the job done—and a very dry martini, I managed to come up with the following slices of autobiography:

1. I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.

2. I very nearly drowned in a lake when I was eight years old. The strange thing is, the result of this experience is that I now have absolutely no fear of the water. In fact, I’m never happier than when I’m around it. (I didn't give myself the screen name of a water spirit for nothing.) I remember very distinctly that after the initial panic, when I started to go under, a feeling of utter peace came over me, like going very gently to sleep. It was actually rather an unpleasant shock when I got fished out. It convinced me that while there are very many nasty ways to go, drowning is not among them.

3. In the words of a friend of mine, I am a “Cat Magnet.” I have owned cats since I was two years old (I have four at the moment,) and the peculiar thing about this is that, of all the many cats who have shared my life, I did not set out to acquire any of them. I never come to them—they come to me. My first cat was a gift from a neighbor. Since then, I've had strays who have literally shown up on my doorstep and refused to leave. Or there were neighbors who moved and couldn’t take their cat, so I felt I had to provide the poor dispossessed feline a home. Or an elderly friend of the family died and left no one else willing to take in his cat. The oddest thing is, this has only happened once with a dog—when I was a child, my then-stepfather gave me a puppy (only good thing the guy ever did in his life, BTW.) I love dogs (I’m no bigot!) and would love to have another someday, but for whatever reason, the gods just pointed to me and said, “You! Toxoplasmosis City!”

4. I dropped out of school when I was fourteen (this will come as no surprise to anyone who's noticed the quality of the grammar found on this blog.) I did later get an AA degree at Santa Monica College, I suppose just for appearance’s sake.

5. I’m a Sagittarius with Virgo rising, just like Jane Austen. And yes, I fully realize the resemblance ends right there.

6. I’m a non-smoking vegetarian who generally avoids processed foods and runs five miles every morning, rain or shine. I also can drink a battalion of Marines under the table and back again, which I suppose balances things out.

7. One of my relatives was a writer on “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.” This undoubtedly explains a lot.

Now for the most painful part: The nominations. Painful because I could easily give this award to dozens of terrific blogs who deserve it a heck of a lot more than my poor muddling self. However, I had to narrow it down somehow, so here they are, with my apologies to everyone I had to omit:

1. Pauline of Pirates and Privateers/HoodooQ: Visit these two blogs to get a great education on Naval history and, well, Hoodoo. Plus recipes!

2. Bourbon and Tea: Andrea Janes not only writes excellent ghost stories, she has a wonderfully eclectic blog covering everything from the supernatural to literature to, God bless her, beer.

3. Edward II: William Wallace was not the father of Edward III, damn it!

4. Embarrassing Treasures: A blog I only recently discovered that is a delightful Blast From the Past.

5. Mary Miley’s Roaring Twenties: Fun site to read about one of my favorite eras in American history.

6. Murder by Gaslight: Because who doesn’t love a bit of historical bloodshed?

7. Jeri Walker-Bickett’s What Do I Know: For being a darn good sport.

And we're done!  Undine over and out.

Poe and John Allan

The most crucial element of Poe’s life is the fact that at a very early age his life was placed in the hands of a double-barreled bastard. Even admitting that raising someone of Poe’s unusual and complex personality would be a challenge for many people, and that young Edgar possessed a singular knack for bringing out the worst in his guardian—it still remains that John Allan was a largely unsympathetic human being, and the most unfortunate choice imaginable for taking charge of Poe’s upbringing.

Allan was born on September 10, 1779 in Ayrshire, Scotland. Early in 1795 he emigrated to Richmond, Virginia to work for his uncle William Galt, who had established himself there as a prosperous merchant. The next year, Allan formed a mercantile firm with Charles Ellis. By 1803, he was successful enough to marry a beautiful young socialite, Frances Valentine. The couple remained childless. In 1811, Frances Allan was among the charitable Richmond matrons to take an interest in the ailing and indigent actress Eliza Poe, and after Mrs. Poe’s death in December, Mrs. Allan—who was said to have been taken by the unusual charm and precocity of the dying thespian’s middle child—persuaded her husband to give the nearly-three-year-old Edgar a home. Edgar’s elder brother William Henry was sent to live with his paternal grandparents in Baltimore, while baby Rosalie became the ward of another Richmond family, the Mackenzies.

Little Edgar received a decidedly mixed blessing in his foster-parents. By all accounts, Frances Allan and her new “son” genuinely loved each other, but the little we know of her gives the impression of a sickly, querulous, and rather shallow woman who was simply an inadequate substitute for the strong maternal figure the boy desperately needed. A letter John Allan wrote in 1816 referred to his wife “complaining as usual.” Four years later, Charles Ellis commented that Mrs. Allan had of late been unusually “even-tempered and accommodating,” and that if she could manage to maintain her attitude, “she would make the path through life much more even to herself.”

Although the Allans evidently maintained a surface harmony, their marriage obviously had its troubles. John Allan fathered at least three illegitimate children, and it is reasonable to guess he was guilty of other affairs that left no such obvious evidences. We do not know for certain that his wife believed him unfaithful, but it is a tenable theory, and such an awareness could alone account for her lack of “even-temper.” We know even less about Edgar’s attitude. It has been speculated that by the time he reached his teens, Poe became aware of his foster-father’s darker side, and this explained the remarkably hostile turn in their relations, but that belongs more to legend and assumptions than to established evidence. There is a particularly ugly Richmond rumor that when Poe was in college, he wrote Allan a bitter letter accusing him of having given Frances Allan a venereal disease which left her sterile. However, I find this story hard to believe. For one thing, Allan’s second wife had no fertility problems, and lived to a vigorous old age. For another, as troubled as the relations between ward and guardian later became, Poe's extant correspondence to Allan during that period show him still hoping for Allan's love, or at least respect. It is impossible to picture such a letter causing anything but an immediate and permanent estrangement. On the whole, I’m inclined to classify such lurid stories as among the many wild myths which cling to Poe like lint.

Although by all accounts Allan had been reluctant to give little Edgar a home, from what little we know of Poe’s childhood relationship with his “Pa,” it appears to have been stable, and even somewhat affectionate.  (It must be noted here that Susan Talley Weiss--allegedly quoting one of the Mackenzie sons--wrote that when Allan would become annoyed with the child, he would "threaten to turn him adrift, and that he never allowed him to lose sight of his dependence on his charity."  This dreadful story has some plausibility, considering Allan's later attitude, and has frequently been repeated as fact.  On the other hand, Weiss was, as I have often said, an unmitigated and utterly shameless liar, leaving me to assume--and, for Edgar's sake, earnestly hope--it was yet another product of her startlingly active and consistently diseased imagination.)

Allan was said to have shared his wife’s pride in their little foster-son—although one sometimes gets the impression they saw him as a pleasing household pet to show off before guests—and his surviving letters from Edgar’s childhood, while they do reveal a rather dispassionate attitude, still speak of his ward approvingly as a "fine Boy."  (One of the most touching bits of Poeana is a letter Allan wrote in 1815, soon after the family had arrived in England for what would prove to be a five-year sojourn. In the midst of a list of family news he was giving Charles Ellis, he mentioned that the six-year-old Edgar had asked him to pass on a message: “Pa say something for me, say I was not afraid coming across the Sea.”)

Sadly, Poe’s relations with Allan took a mysteriously nasty turn as the beguiling child became a troubled adolescent increasingly conscious of his outsider status in the Allan household. One of the earliest pieces of evidence for Allan’s increasing disgust with his ward comes from a bizarre letter he wrote to Edgar’s seventeen-year-old brother William Henry in 1824.

Allan expressed a creepily extravagant, fawning attitude towards Poe’s brother, expressing his “desire to Stand as I ought to do in your Estimation.” He compared “Henry,” “my Brave & excellent boy,” with the “miserable, sulky & ill-tempered” fifteen-year-old Edgar. “The boy possesses not a Spark of affection for us nor a particle of gratitude for all my care and kindness towards him.” (Considering the image of Allan himself that one gets from his own letter, this is not difficult to understand.) For good measure, Allan referred to Rosalie Poe as “half your Sister,” raising questions about her paternity that will probably never be answered.

The beginning of the end for Allan and Edgar came when the young man was sent to the University of Virginia in February 1826. For reasons which remain a complete mystery, Allan—who was, thanks to a legacy from his uncle, now a very wealthy man—sent Edgar to a highly expensive school with funds that were far short of what was needed for even basic living expenses. Poe—never known for his financial luck—desperately tried to make up the deficit by gambling. The almost-inevitable result was that, in addition to his school bills, he now was burdened with humiliating “debts of honor." Allan evidently refused to pay any of the money Poe owed. The older man’s solution to the problem was to simply force Edgar to withdraw from the university after only one semester—a break that Poe would forever resent.

After Poe returned to Richmond, tensions between the two increased until, like an active volcano finally finding release, they had what was probably their worst quarrel to date in March of 1827. Poe angrily fled the Allan home—essentially for good, as it would turn out—and, obviously still fuming, wrote his foster-father a letter the same day, announcing his determination “to find some place in this wide world, where I will be treated--not as you have treated me.” He went on to list reasons for his departure—reasons that were obviously a rehash of their earlier fight:

“Since I have been able to think on any subject, my thoughts have aspired, and they have been taught by you to aspire, to eminence in public life — this cannot be attained without a good Education, such a one I cannot obtain at a Primary school — A collegiate Education therefore was what I most ardently desired, and I had been led to expect that it would at some future time be granted — but in a moment of caprice — you have blasted my hope because forsooth I disagreed with you in an opinion, which opinion I was forced to express —

Again, I have heard you say (when you little thought I was listening and therefore must have said it in earnest) that you had no affection for me —

You have moreover ordered me to quit your house, and are continually upbraiding me with eating the bread of Idleness, when you yourself were the only person to remedy the evil by placing me to some business —

You take delight in exposing me before those whom you think likely to advance my interest in this world…”

Whatever Poe’s original plans may have been, by May he had enlisted in the Army. After Frances Allan—who had evidently stayed devoted to her foster son to the last—died in February 1829, Poe got a brief leave of absence and returned to Richmond, where he and Allan patched up a truce. The two agreed that Allan would help Poe obtain an appointment to West Point—an agreement Allan eventually fulfilled, but with remarkably bad grace. In his letter to Secretary of War John Eaton, Allan essentially washed his hands of the young man who still thought of him as “Pa,” writing that Poe “is no relation to me whatever; that I have many whom I have taken an active Interest to promote thiers [sp] with no other feeling than that; every Man is my care, if he be in distress.”

The uneasy peace between Poe and Allan was irrevocably shattered by the beginning of 1831. When Poe had sought his cadetship, he hired a “substitute,” a Sergeant Graves, to take his place in the Army. Although he evidently gave Graves his $75 fee, he owed the man other debts. When Graves wrote him on the subject, Poe sent an apologetic reply, attributing his financial confusion to the fact that “Mr. A is not very often sober.” Graves forwarded this unbelievably ill-judged letter to Allan himself, with predictable results. We do not know exactly what Allan wrote to Poe after hearing from Graves, but the general import can be gauged from the reply Poe wrote from the Military Academy on January 3. As it proved to essentially be the epitaph of their relationship, it deserves quoting in full:

I suppose (altho’ you desire no further communication with yourself on my part,) that your restriction does not extend to my answering your final letter.

Did I, when an infant, sollicit [sic] your charity and protection, or was it of your own free will, that you volunteered your services in my behalf? It is well known to respectable individuals in Baltimore, and elsewhere, that my Grandfather (my natural protector at the time you interposed) was wealthy, and that I was his favourite grand-child — But the promises of adoption, and liberal education which you held forth to him in a letter which is now in possession of my family, induced him to resign all care of me into your hands. Under such circumstances, can it be said that I have no right to expect any thing at your hands? You may probably urge that you have given me a liberal education. I will leave the decision of that question to those who know how far liberal educations can be obtained in 8 months at the University of Va. Here you will say that it was my own fault that I did not return — You would not let me return because bills were presented you for payment which I never wished nor desired you to pay. Had you let me return, my reformation had been sure — as my conduct the last 3 months gave every reason to believe — and you would never have heard more of my extravagances. But I am not about to proclaim myself guilty of all that has been alleged against me, and which I have hitherto endured, simply because I was too proud to reply. I will boldly say that it was wholly and entirely your own mistaken parsimony that caused all the difficulties in which I was involved while at Charlottsville [sic]. The expenses of the institution at the lowest estimate were $350 per annum. You sent me there with $110. Of this $50 were to be paid immediately for board — $60 for attendance upon 2 professors — and you even then did not miss the opportunity of abusing me because I did not attend 3. Then $15 more were to be paid for room-rent — remember that all this was to be paid in advance, with $110. — $12 more for a bed — and $12 more for room furniture. I had, of course, the mortification of running in debt for public property — against the known rules of the institution, and was immediately regarded in the light of a beggar. You will remember that in a week after my arrival, I wrote to you for some more money, and for books — You replied in terms of the utmost abuse — if I had been the vilest wretch on earth you could not have been more abusive than you were because I could not contrive to pay $150 with $110. I had enclosed to you in my letter (according to your express commands) an account of the expenses incurred amounting to $149 — the balance to be paid was $39 — You enclosed me $40, leaving me one dollar in pocket. In a short time afterwards I received a packet of books consisting of, Gil Blas, and the Cambridge Mathematics in 2 vols: books which I had no earthly use since I had no means of attending the mathematical lectures. But books must be had, If I intended to remain at the institution — and they were bought accordingly upon credit. In this manner debts were accumulated, and money borrowed of Jews in Charlottesville at extravagant interest — for I was obliged to hire a servant, to pay for wood, for washing, and a thousand other necessaries. It was then that I became dissolute, for how could it be otherwise? I could associate with no students, except those who were in a similar situation with myself — altho’ from different causes — They from drunkenness, and extravagance — I, because it was my crime to have no one on Earth who cared for me, or loved me. I call God to witness that I have never loved dissipation — Those who know me know that my pursuits and habits are very far from any thing of the kind. But I was drawn into it by my companions. Even their professions of friendship — hollow as they were — were a relief. Towards the close of the session you sent me $100 — but it was too late — to be of any service in extricating me from my difficulties — I kept it for some time — thinking that if I could obtain more I could yet retrieve my character — I applied to James Galt — but he, I believe, from the best of motives refused to lend me any — I then became desperate, and gambled — until I finally i[n]volved myself irretrievably. If I have been to blame in all this — place yourself in my situation, and tell me if you would not have been equally so. But these circumstances were all unknown to my friends when I returned home — They knew that I had been extravagant — but that was all — I had no hope of returning to Charlottesville, and I waited in vain in expectation that you would, at least, obtain me some employment. I saw no prospect of this — and I could endure it no longer. — Every day threatened with a warrant &c. I left home — and after nearly 2 years conduct with which no fault could be found — in the army, as a common soldier — I earned, myself, by the most humiliating privations — a Cadets’ warrant which you could have obtained at any time for asking. It was then that I thought I might venture to sollicit [sic] your assistance in giving me an outfit — I came home, you will remember, the night after the burial — If she had not have died while I was away there would have been nothing for me to regret — Your love I never valued — but she I believed loved me as her own child. You promised me to forgive all — but you soon forgot your promise. You sent me to W. Point like a beggar. The same difficulties are threatening me as before at Charlottesville — and I must resign.

As to your injunction not to trouble you with farther communication rest assured, Sir, that I will most religiously observe it. When I parted from you — at the steam-boat, I knew that I should nev[er] see you again.

As regards Sergt. Graves — I did write him that letter. As to the truth of its contents, I leave it to God, and your own conscience. — The time in which I wrote it was within a half hour after you had embittered every feeling of my heart against you by your abuse of my family, and myself, under your own roof — and at a time when you knew that my heart was almost breaking.

I have no more to say — except that my future life (which thank God will not endure long) must be passed in indigence and sickness. I have no energy left, nor health. If it was possible, to put up with the fatigues of this place, and the inconveniences which my absolute want of necessaries subject me to, and as I mentioned before it is my intention to resign. For this end it will be necessary that you (as my nominal guardian) enclose me your written permission. It will be useless to refuse me this last request — for I can leave the place without any permission — your refusal would only deprive me of the little pay which is now due as mileage.

From the time of writing this I shall neglect my studies and duties at the institution — if I do not receive your answer in 10 days — I will leave the point without — for otherwise I should subject myself to dismission.”

Allan does not appear to have directly answered this letter, merely endorsing it with the cold comment: “I do not think the Boy has one good quality. He may do or act as he pleases, tho’ I wd have saved him but on his own terms & conditions since I cannot believe a word he writes. His letter is the most barefaced one sided statement.” (It should be noted that many historians believe Poe was mostly stating the facts.)

Poe, of course, did leave West Point, and there’s no reason to think Allan felt the least concern about where he went or what he did. The attentions of Poe’s erstwhile “Pa” were occupied by Louisa Patterson, whom he married in October 1830. The couple soon had three sons, and this new family made Allan all the more determined to cut his only remaining tie with the old. Although there would be a sporadic correspondence between them over the next several years, Allan made it all too clear that he felt no further sense of responsibility for Poe.

Poe’s letters to Allan during these last years have not endeared him to his biographers. They are often an uncomfortable mixture of self-pity and bombast, where he alternately scorns Allan and grovels to him. This swing between anger and desperate need for love is very typical of the attitude many abused children feel for their adult tormentors--which suggests Poe's ostensibly contented childhood was far bleaker than we assume.

As exasperating as Poe can sound in these letters, it is also impossible not to feel for him when he wrote lines like: “I am sorry that it is so seldom that I hear from you or even of you — for all communication seems to be at an end; and when I think of the long twenty one years that I have called you father, and you have called me son, I could cry like a child to think that it should all end in this. ..I write merely because I am by myself and have been thinking over old times, and my only friends, until my heart is full — At such a time the conversation of new acquaintance is like ice, and I prefer writing to you altho’ I know that you care nothing about me, and perhaps will not even read my letter.”

Poe was probably not without some blame in their relationship, but whatever his errors may have been, it is chilling to see the ease and thoroughness with which Allan was able to sever all ties with an obviously suffering youth who had spent virtually all his life thinking of Allan as a father. Even at his worst, Poe still comes off as human. John Allan does not.

On March 27, 1834, Allan died of a lingering illness of unknown origin, utterly ignorant that he would only be remembered because of the cast-off ward he had despised. Charles Ellis’ son Thomas (citing Louisa Allan as his source) wrote in 1881 that shortly before Allan’s death, Poe had suddenly appeared at the Allan family home, demanding to see his former guardian. Thomas Ellis claimed Mrs. Allan tried to turn him away, but Poe desperately barged his way into Allan’s sickroom, only to have the ailing but still unforgiving man chase the unwelcome visitor out with his cane. The story cannot be confirmed, but it would be depressingly in character for both men to end their relationship with such a mixture of melodrama and farce.

As is well-known, Allan did not bother even mentioning Poe in his will, leaving the young poet nothing but largely painful memories he carried the rest of his life.  A biographical sketch of Poe from 1843, which he undoubtedly contributed information to, if he did not actually write it, is openly contemptuous of his guardian, stating that “Mr. Allan’s principal recommendation was his wealth…He treated his young protege with as much kindness as his gross nature admitted…” In an 1839 letter to his cousin George Washington Poe, Edgar was even blunter, stating that when Allan inherited his uncle’s fortune, it “nearly turned his brain, and, worse, confirmed him in habits of habitual drunkenness…[he] gave loose to all the baseness of his nature.” Sarah Helen Whitman gave a similar story. In 1874, she wrote John Ingram that Poe had described Allan as “a man of a gross & brutal temperament, though indulgent to him & at times profusely lavish in the matter of money—at others, penurious & parsimonious.” Annie Richmond informed Ingram that Mrs. Clemm “always spoke in the strongest terms of denunciation” of the Allans and their treatment of Poe, although she added her opinion--one startlingly hostile to both Poe and Mrs. Clemm--that she refused to believe the Allans could have been guilty of any injustice towards him. (As if she could know!)

Allan was undoubtedly the most influential person in Poe’s life, and unfortunately the influence was entirely negative. It goes without saying that if he had continued to treat Poe as his ward, or at least left him some amount of money, the poet’s life would have been radically different. Even more importantly, however, he obviously failed to ever give Poe the emotional grounding such a sensitive and acute boy required. It is small wonder that Poe was later to cling to his aunt Maria Clemm so desperately. With her combination of unconditional love and practical support, she was both the mother and father he never really had. One wonders what his life would have become if she had been the principal figure of his childhood, rather than the materially rich but spiritually deficient Allan.

[A footnote: In 1875 Marie Shew Houghton wrote Ingram that shortly before Virginia Poe’s death, Edgar’s wife had shown her a letter Louisa Allan had written shortly after John Allan’s death. In this letter, Mrs. Allan expressed her desire to see Poe to make amends for having been the sole cause of his estrangement from his guardian. According to Mrs. Houghton, Louisa Allan was jealous of Edgar for being a true blood relative to her husband. Supposedly, he had written a scornful reply, to which she answered pleadingly, “You were always a gentleman to me, always, until now—can you not forgive a fault so humbly acknowledged?”

This soap operatic anecdote has troubled Poe’s biographers ever since. Everyone who knew Louisa Allan stated that she went to her grave with an unremitting antipathy towards the very subject of Poe—a man she could only have personally known from that very brief and unpleasant occasion described by Thomas Ellis. It is virtually impossible that there were any sort of ties of kinship between Allan and Poe. There is no other first-hand account of anyone else even seeing these letters Mrs. Houghton described. Faced with a claim that directly contradicts all known history—not to mention simple common sense—they have shown a strange reluctance to simply classify Mrs. Houghton as a demonstrably deranged fantasist, and have instead retreated into confusion. Arthur Quinn even made efforts to suggest that the first Mrs. Allan had at some point written a conciliatory letter, even while he seemed to sense the feebleness of his own argument.

Even though the idea that one or other of the Mrs. Allans wrote some sort of pleading letters to Poe has become one of the many enshrined fables of his biography, it is long past time to throw the story into history’s garbage disposal where it belongs. The other gossip involving John Allan’s second marriage—that his estrangement from Poe occurred when his ward attempted to seduce the new Mrs. A—is, fortunately, too stupid for even his worst modern biographers to tolerate, but it still stands as a good example of the depths to which Poe Mythology can sink.]