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A Question of Authorship.
The following letter from Mr. JOHN H. INGRAM, the well-known English author, explains itself.
To the Editor of the Dispatch:
Under the title of “Poe's First Book,” the Richmond Dispatch of June 15th gave, from The Current, an account of Poe's contributions to The Yankee for 1829. With one exception, all the data given by Mr. George Birdley will be found in my Life, Letters, and Opinions of Edgar Poe.” The editor of The Yankee in 1829 was John Neal, to whom I was indebted for my knowledge of this matter. Poe received Neal's criticism with gratitude and dedicated “Tamerlane” to him. The one exception to the data made use of by me is contained in the last paragraph of the Current article. On what ground does Mr. Birdley ascribe the authorship of “The Skeleton Hand” and “The Magician” to Poe? John Neal knew nothing of these poems being by Poe; none of his friends, relations. or biographers, knew of this authorship, and, I fancy, it will scarcely be going too far to say that Poe knew nothing of them himself. In face of these circumstances I trust Mr. Birdley will explain upon what he founds his positive assertion that they are by Poe.
I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
JOHN H. INGRAM.
London, England, July 3, 1884.
Mr. INGRAM has probably made a more exhaustive study of POE than any of his other biographers. It is within our personal knowledge that he has spared no labor in endeavoring to get at every fact connected with POE'S life and writings. He therefore speaks with authority. However, we would remark that when we republished Mr. BIRDLEY'S article we mentally challenged his statement in regard to “The Skeleton Hand” and “The Magician.” We have a very distinct impression as to who was the author of “The Skeleton Hand,” but to this writing have not been able to verify it. Yet if Mr. BIRDLEY and ourselves allude te the same poem, we can understand how he fell into error. He is not the first man who has been led to attribute to POE poems by the author we have in our mind. In the mesa time it any of our readers can throw any light on the authorship of “The Skeleton Hand,” we should be glad to hear from them. We may be as much mistaken as Mr. BIRDLEY appears to us to be, as it has been long time since we saw the poem which we suppose he credits to POE.
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Notes:
While the letter is by Ingram, the additional commentary is obvious from the editors of the Richmond Dispatch. As stated, the poems in question are not by Poe. The editor may have been James Howard Whitty, who started working at the newspaper at the age of 16 and was himself, an avid researcher and collector of Poe-related material. Whitty issued his own collection of Poe's poems in 1911.
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[S:0 - RD, 1884] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - A Poe Bookshelf - A Question of Authorship (John H. Ingram, 1884)