Text: George Birdley, “Poe's First Book,” Richmond Dispatch (Richmond, VA), vol. LXV, no. 144, June 15, 1884, p. 8, col. 4

[page 8, column 4:]

Edgar A. Poe has been dead for over thirty years, but his name still seems to attract more interest than that this of country any other and American author, both in abroad. His character as a man and his ability as a writer have experienced the extremes of admiration and detraction. Several memoirs of have appeared, from the vituperative works of Rufus W. Griswold to the vindicatory labors of Mr. Gill and Mrs. Whitman, in this country, and his life has been published in England, France, and Germany. Besides, there have been many magazine essays and critiques, laudatory otherwise, notably those of Francis Gerry His works Fairfield and Edmund C. Stedman. have been translated in Bandelaire [[Baudelaire]], and in Germany by Freiligrath, and have been received in both countries with all the enthusiasm accorded to a native In England there has scarcely been a collection of notable poems published since “The Raven” first appeared and created such a literary sensation but what has contained one or more selections from the pen of Poe, and oftentimes he was the only American poet represented.

But to praise or blame Poe, either as a man or as an author, is not the object of this brief paper, but to introduce him as the youthful aspirant for poetic fame and honors.

Imagine him, then, the poet of nineteen, sending his contributions to magazines far and wide, waiting in fever-heat for the verdict of the editors; and, when returned to him endorsed with the legend, “declined with thanks,” imagine again his amazement at their woful lack of appreciation. Ah! many before and since his day have gone through that fiery furnace of discipline; for some, with results how brilliant, for others how disastrous!

I have before me a bound volume of The Yankee, a short-lived literary magazine, published in Boston. It is for the year 1829, and in it are most interesting traces of Poe's first ambitious efforts for recognition that seem to have escaped the researches of the many who have made him the theme of their pens. In this I may possibly be mistaken; but having always taken a great pleasure reading, everything written by Poe, this appeared to me to be entirely new, even though over half a century old.

In this volume, among the “Answers to Correspondents,” wherein the is meted out to contributors hope and despair, under the respective headings of “Accepted” and “Declined,” this appears:

One can readily imagine young Poe's feelings when he read that. And yet be seemed to see a bright side to it for, in a confident, gushing, egotistical letter (which will appear further on), he considers it the tirst word of encouragement he ever remembers to have received.

Some months later, in the same volume of The Yankee for 1829, is an article entitled “Unpublished Poetry,” which reters to Poe's first book, “Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems,” published in the latter part of the same year by Hatch Dunning, Baltimore, and thus it reads:

“The following passages are from the MS. works of a young author, about to be published in Baltimore. He is entirely a stranger to us, but with all their faults, if the remainder of Al Aaraaf’ and are as good as the body of the extracts here given, to say nothing of the more extraordinary parts, he will deserve to stand high, very high, in the estimation of the shining brotherbood. Whether he will do so, bowever, must depend not so much upon his worth now in mere poetry as upon his worth hereafter in something lofty and more generous. We allude to the stronger properties of the mind, to the magnanimous determination that enables a youth to endure the present, whatever the present may be, in the hope, or rather in the tixed, unwavering belief that in the future may find his reward. he says, in a letter to one who has laid it on our table for a good purpose, I am young, not yet twenty, am a poet, if deep worship of all beauty can make me one, and wish to be so in the more common meaning of the word. I would give the world to embody one half the ideas afloat in my imagination. (By the way, do you remember, or did you ever read the exclamation of Shelley about Shakespeare What a number of ideas must have been afloat before such an author could I appeal to you as a man, the same beauty which — the beauty of the natural blue sky and the sunshiny earth — there can be no tie more strong than that of brother for brother. It is not so much that they love one another as that they both love the same parent. Their affections are always running in same direction — the same channel — and cannot help mingling. I and have been from my childhood, an idler. It cannot therefore be said that

for I have no father, no mother. I am about to publish a volume of POEMS, the greater part written before I was fifteen. Speaking about Heaven” to the Answer to Correspondents,” before the editor of The Yankee says: “He might write a beautiful, if not a magnificent, poem,” (the very first words of encouragement Lever remember to have heard). I am very certain that as yet I have not written either, but that I can I will take oath, if they will give me time. The poems to be published are “Al Aaraaf” and “Tamerlane,” one about four and the other about three hundred lines, with smaller pieces. “Al Aaraaf” has some good poetry and much time to throw away. extravagance, which I have, not had is a tale of another world — the star discovered by Tycho Brahe, which appeared and disappeared so suddenly — or, rather, it is no tale at all. I will insert an extract about the palace of its presiding Deity, in which you will see that I have supposed many of the lost sculptures of our world to have flown, in spirit, to the star Al Aaraaf, a delicate place, more suited to their divinity.’”

Then follow long extracts from the principal poems, and this short passage from the minor poems, which, as it does not appear in the collected edition of Poe's works, will doubtless be read with some interest:

The editor of The Yankee then goes on to say: Having allowed our youthful writer to be heard in his own bebalf, what more can we do for the lovers of genuine poetry! Nothing. They who are judges will not need more, and they who are not, why waste words upon them? We shall not.”

The peculiar literary style of this Boston editor's well-meant twaddle might lead [column 3:] one to suppose him a Harvard freshman, writing in his college magazine.

Of the youthful Poe's wonderful letter, what can be said? Was ever seen in boy such enviable earnestness, such or man pardonable egotism, such astounding well self-confidence? His after career is now known to all readers. For any criticism on his works or his genius this is no place, and would be but presumption on my part.

In this same volume for 1829 are two poems contributed by Poe to that magazine. These do not appear in his collected writings. One is The Skeleton Hand,” a wild story of a murderer brought to a stand by the fleshless hand of his victim stretched toward him from the spot where he had buried him after committing the deed, the sands having been washed away, partly uncovering the remains. The other is “The Magician.”