Text: Landon C. Bell, “A Defense of Edgar Allan Poe [part 01],” The Kit-Kat (Columbus, OH), vol. V, no. 1, April 1916, pp. 1-12

[page 1:]

Griswold's Calumnies Examined

Part I

THE LITERARY world, while according to Edgar Allan Poe the highest honors as a poet and short story writer, has generally held an erroneous view of his career, and has been totally misinformed upon the facts of his history. This has been due to the fact that his biography was written by Rufus W. Griswold to gratify the malice he bore to Poe; and the biography, instead of being a narration of facts, is nothing more nor less than a tissue of glaring falsehoods.

Prefatory to an examination of some of Griswold's false statements in his “Memoir of Poe,” a few words will be said of Poe's position and ability as a literary critic. This seems appropriate for two reasons. The first is that the transcendent abilities of Poe as a critic have not been heretofore, and [page 2:] even now are not, fully appreciated. It was not until 1902 (1) that his critical works were collected and published. These constitute nearly half the volume of his entire works. The second reason is, that it was because of his vigorous and adverse criticism of Griswold's works that Griswold conceived the animosity toward Poe, which led him to desire to “ravenously devour” his reputation.

It is not remarkable that Poe as a critic became eclipsed by Poe as a short story writer and as a poet. He had the misfortune to be obscured by a small group of his writings. He was so much in advance of his age that publishers could not be induced in his lifetime to publish a complete edition of his works; he over and over protested that the small group of his works which appeared and reappeared, consisting of his poems, and a few of his tales, chiefly those of mystery and imagination, did not do him justice. Certainly they did not even in small degree represent the diversity of his accomplishments and the catholicity of his taste.

When Poe was in his prime, his praise was more desired by writers than that of any other critic. He was, in this field, the autocrat of his day, incapable of being swayed by friendship, wealth, adulation or fear; he was almost fanatical in his devotion to the purity of literary art. To him literature was a precious if not a sacred thing. He was a purist in literature in the extreme sense of the word.

A writer(2) in the “United States Magazine” for March, 1857, says: [page 3:]

“His critiques were read with avidity, not that he convinced the judgment, but because people felt their ability and their courage, he took public idols so by the beard and knocked them right and left, till people saw they were not gods at all but miserable shams. . . . These critiques of Edgar A. Poe were live productions, he did not play with his pen, but wielded it. Right or wrong, all was real at the time. He was terribly in earnest. He was carried away as by an avalanche of words and emotions. Men and women with their books under their arms marched in grand procession before him, and he discovered the rich goods of one, the theft of an- other, the divine art, the heavenly beauty, the profound meaning of others.

“He was in the highest degree original and unique, hence he could not abide either twattle or plagiarism; some of his strictures upon these grounds will be long remembered, and by and by, when the accounts of certain authors are made up, it will be seen that he was more than three-quarters right. We need now in this day of mawkish adulation, a critic with a trenchant pen like that of Edgar A. Poe. We need an eagle to swoop down upon the noisy brood of geese and crows and jackdaws to set their feathers fluttering.”

Another anonymous writer, the author of a “Memoir of Edgar Allan Poe,”(3) says:

“He was painfully alive to all imperfections of art; and a false rhyme, an ambiguous sentence, or even a typographical error threw him into an ecstasy of passion. It was this sensitiveness to all artistic imperfections, rather than any malignity of feelings [page 4:] which made his criticisms so severe, and procured him a host of enemies among persons toward whom he never entertained any personal ill-will.” James Russell Lowell (4) writing in 1845, says of Poe: “Perhaps there is no task more difficult than the just criticism of contemporary literature. It is even more grateful to give praise when it is needed than when it is deserved, and friendship so often reduces the iron stylus of justice into a vague flourish, that she writes what seems rather like an epitaph than a criticism. Yet if praise be given as an alms, we could not drop so poisonous a one into any man's hat. The critic's ink may suffer equally from too large an infusion of nutgalls or of sugar. But it is easier to be generous than to be just, though there are some who find it equally hard to be either, and we might readily put faith in the fabulous direction to the hiding-place of truth, did we judge from the amount of water which we usually find mixed with it.

“We were very naturally led into some remarks on American criticism by the subject of the present sketch. Mr. Poe is at once the most discriminating, philosophical, and fearless critic upon imaginative works who has written in America. It may be that we should qualify our remark a little and say that he might be, rather than that he always is, for he seems sometimes to mistake his phial of prussic acid for his inkstand. If we do not always agree with him in his premises, we are, at least, satisfied that his deductions are logical, and that we are reading the thoughts of a man who thinks for himself, [page 5:] and says what he thinks, and knows well what he is talking about. His analytic powers would furnish forth bravely some score of ordinary critics. Had Mr. Poe had the control of a magazine of his own, in which to display his critical abilities, he would have been as autocratic, ere this, in America, as Professor Wilson has been in England; and his criticisms, we are sure, would have been far more profound and philosophical than those of the Scotsman. As it is, he has squared out blocks enough to build an enduring pyramid, but has left them lying carelessly and unclaimed in many different quarries.”(5)

In the Southern Literary Messenger, its editor the talented John R. Thompson, wrote(6):

“Mr. Poe became connected with the Messenger during the first year of its existence. . . . . under his editorial management the work soon became known everywhere. Perhaps no similar enterprise ever prospered so largely in its inception, and we doubt if any, in the same length of time. . . ever published so many shining articles from the same pen. Those who will turn to the first two volumes of the Messenger will be struck with the number and variety of his contributions. On one page may be found some lyric cadence, plaintive and inexpressibly sweet, the earliest vibrations of those chords which have since thrilled with so many wild and wondrous harmonies; on another some strange story of the German school, akin to the most fanciful legends of the Rhine, fascinates and astonishes the [page 6:] reader with the verisimilitude of its improbabilities. But it was in the editorial department of the magazine that his power was most conspicuously displayed. There he appeared as the critic, not always impartial, it may be, in the distribution of his praises, or correct in the positions he assumed, but ever merciless to the unlucky author who offended by a dull book. A blunder in this respect he considered worse than a crime, and visited it with corresponding vigor.

“Among the nascent novelists and newly fledged poetasters of fifteen years ago he came down ‘like a Visigoth marching on Rome.’ No elegant imbecile or conceited pedant, no matter whether he made his avatar under the auspices of a society, or with the prestige of a degree, but felt the lash of his severity. Baccalurei baculo portius quam laureo digni was the principle of his action in such cases, and to the last he continued to castigate impudent aspirants for the bays. Now that he is gone, the vast multitude of blockheads may breathe again, and we can imagine that we hear the shade of the departed crying out to them in the epitaph designed for Robespierre,

“It will readily occur to the reader that such a course while it gained subscribers to the review, was not well calculated to gain friends for the reviewer. And so Mr. Poe found it, for during the two years of his connection with the Messenger he contrived [page 7:] to attach to himself animosities of the most enduring kind.”

The statement contained in Mr. Thompson's last sentence was lamentably true. As a critic Poe made many enemies. The files of the New York Mirror will show that while Poe edited Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, it was never mentioned in the Mirror, though other magazines, much inferior to Burton's, were greatly praised. This was because Poe had so severely criticised “Normon [[Norman]] Leslie,” a novel by Theodore S. Fay, one of the editors of the Mirror. This instance is typical, others in various quarters had the same attitude toward Poe.

Poe regarded his duties as a critic as professional matters. On one occasion he said: “ When we attend less to ‘authority’ and more to principles, when we look less at merits and more at demerit ( instead of the converse, as some persons suggest), we shall then be better critics than we are. We must neglect our models and study our capabilities. The mad eulogies on what occasionally has, in letters, been well done, spring from our imperfect comprehension of what it is possible for us to do better.”

On another occasion, (8) in his criticism of the poetry of Rufus Dawes, a man at the time of great popularity, of many friends and wide influence, Poe after demolishing the poetry as of any appreciable worth, wrote:

“We have already spoken of the numerous friends of the poet; and we shall not here insist upon the fact that we bear him no personal ill-will. With those who know us such a declaration would appear supererogatory, and by those who know us not, it [page 8:] would doubtless be received with incredulity. What we have said, however, is not in opposition to Mr. Dawes, nor even so much in opposition to the poems of Mr. Dawes, as in defense of the many true souls which, in Mr. Dawes’ apotheosis, are aggrieved. The laudation of the unworthy is to the worthy the most bitter of all wrongs.”

The foregoing will give some idea of Poe's position as a critic.

The Rev. Rufus Wilmot Griswold aspired to be a literary character. He was not a poet, nor was he a writer of imaginative works. His field was, therefore, largely confined to compilation, reviewing and criticism . He was a man of mediocre ability, and envious of the true genius of Poe, and aspired to rival Poe.(9)

Poe died Sunday morning, October 7, 1849; two days later, October 9, Griswold under the nom de plume of “Ludwig” wrote a scurrillous article about Poe, by which George R. Graham declared he earned an immortal infamy, and had it printed in the New York Tribune.(10) This he greatly amplified in the “Memoir” printed in the last volume of the works of Poe as collected by Griswold.(11)

No other literary character ever suffered at the hands of his biographer as Edgar Allan Poe suffered at the hands of Rufus Wilmot Griswold. No other biographer of any man has been capable of the misrepresentation and calumniation to which Griswold stooped. And as Griswold's memoir of Poe, published as a part of the first collected edition of [page 9:] his works, after his death, was for twenty-five years the chief source of information concerning, and the representative biography of Poe, little is the wonder that the general estimate of him, based on this, was entirely wrong. Griswold's consuming aim was, as Dr. Harrison has put it, to “ravenously devour” the reputation of Poe.(12) [page 10:]

This was Dr. Harrison's verdict after fully investigating the facts preparatory to writing his biography, and Mr. W. Fearing Gill(13) reached the same conclusion after fully investigating the facts preparatory to writing his biography, and he says :

“Some years since, the attention of the writer of the memoir was called to numerous inconsistencies apparent in Dr. Rufus W. Griswold's memoir of Edgar Allan Poe, and was induced to make inquiries that evidenced that the memoir, which for twenty-five years has been permitted to stand as the representative biography of the poet, was, to all intents and purposes, a tissue of the most glaring falsehoods ever combined in a similar work.” [page 11:]

This statement of Mr. Gill's has been abundantly justified not only by his own researches, published in his “ Life of Poe,” but also by the researches of the several biographers of Poe who have written since the date of Giil's work. And years before Mr. Gill's investigations, Mrs. Whitman(14) wrote as the preface to her volume:

It is to be regretted that Mrs. Whitman did not undertake to deal specifically and in detail with Griswold's misrepresentation of Poe. Such, however, was not her purpose as she explains (15)

“It is not our purpose at present specially to review Dr. Griswold's numerous misrepresentations, and misstatements. Some of the more injurious of these anecdotes were disproved during the life of Dr. Griswold, in the New York Tribune, and other leading journals, without eliciting from him any public statement in explanation or apology. * * * [page 12:]

“We have authority for stating that many of the disgraceful anecdotes, so industriously collected by Dr. Griswold, are utterly fabulous, while others are perversions of the truth, more injurious in their effect than unmitigated fiction.”

It will be our purpose in the succeeding parts of this paper to mention some of Griswold's statements and then refer to the pertinent testimony of those who had a better opportunity than he had to know the truth, and not the same reasons or any motive to misrepresent it.

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 2:]

1 The complete works of Edgar Allan Poe, edited by James A. Harrison, New York, Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.

2 This writer was probably Seba Smith,-possibly his wife, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, the poet.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 3:]

3 Prefixed to edition of his poems published 1865, W. J. Widdleton, New York.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 4:]

4 “Graham's Magazine,” Philadelphia, February 1845, reproduced in Harrison's Biography of Poe, New York, Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. (page 367).

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 5:]

5 As mentioned above they were not collected and made into the “enduring pyramid” until Professor Harrison did it in 1902.

6 In the number for November 1849.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 6:]

7 We translate it freely:

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 7:]

8 Graham's Magazine, October 1842.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 8:]

9 Harrison's Biography of Poe. (251 )

10 Issue of October 9, 1849, Evening Edition.

11 The edition issued by J. S. Redfield, New York, 1850

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 9, running to the bottom of page 10:]

12 Notwithstanding Griswold's repeated endeavors to make it appear that he had no ill will toward Poe, the fact is now well established that he bore toward Poe an unquenchable hatred. In a letter to Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman he said: “I wrote, as you suppose the notice of Poe in ‘The Tribune,’ but very hastily. I was not his friend, nor was he mine, as I remember to have told you . . . Pray destroy this note, and at least act cautiously till I may justify it in conversation with you.” See this letter reproduced in full in Gill's Life of Poe, pages 228-9.

In his efforts to malign Poe's memory while posing as his friend, Griswold seemed to know no bounds. He included Mrs. Clemm, the mother of Poe's wife, Poe's “Poor Virginia.” In order to get possession of Poe's manuscripts and papers he pretended to be Mrs. Clemm's friend, and averred that he undertook the business of editing Poe's works in order to oblige her and help her financially. When Mrs. Clemm, upon the appearance of the last volume of the Griswold edition, which contained the “Memoir,” discovered Griswold's perfidy, she was never able to refer to him otherwise than as “That villain.” In order to keep Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Clemm apart, that Griswold's double dealings might not be discovered, he wrote Mrs. Whitman, in 1849 (while he was editing Poe's works):

“I cannot refrain from begging you to be very careful what you say or write to Mrs. Clemm, who is not your friend, nor anybody's friend, and who has no element of goodness or kindness in her nature, but whose heart and understanding are full of malice and wickedness. I confide in you these sentences for your own sake only, for Mrs. C. appears to be a very warm friend to me.” (Gill's Life of Poe, page 229.) Griswold is the only person of whom we have any knowledge who ever said a disparaging or unkind word of Mrs. Clemm. Of her Nathaniel P. Willis wrote:

“Our first knowledge of Mr. Poe's removal to the city was by a call which we received from a lady who introduced herself to us as the mother of his wife. She was in search of employment for him, and she excused her errand by mentioning that he was ill, that her daughter was a confirmed invalid, and that their circumstances were such as compelled her taking it upon herself. The countenance of this lady, made beautiful and saintly with an evidently complete giving up of her life to privation and sorrowful tenderness, her gentle and mournful voice urging its plea, her long-forgotten but habitually and unconsciously refined manners, and her appealing and yet appreciative mention of the claims and abilities of her son, disclosed [page 10:] at once the presence of one of those angels upon earth that women in adversity can be. It was a hard fate that she was watching over. Mr. Poe wrote with fastidious difficulty, and in a style too much above the popular level to be well paid. He was always in pecuniary difficulty, and, with his sick wife, frequently in want of the merest necessities of life. Winter after winter, for years, the most touching sight to us, in this whole city, has been that tireless minister to genius, thinly and insufficiently clad, going from office to office with a poem, or an article on some literary subject, to sell — sometimes simply pleading in a broken voice that he was ill, and begging for him — mentioning nothing but that ‘he was ill,’ whatever might be the reason for his writing nothing — and never, amid all her tears and recitals of distress, suffering one syllable to escape her lips that could convey a doubt of him, or a complaint, or a lessening of pride in his genius and good intentions. Her daughter died, a year and a half since, but she did not desert him. She continued his ministering angel — living with him caring for him — guarding him against exposure, and, when he was carried away by temptation, amid grief and the loneliness of feelings unreplied to, awoke from his self-abandonment prostrated in destitution and suffering, begging for him still. If woman's devotion, born with a first love, and fed with human passion, hallows its object, as it is allowed to do, what does not a devotion like this — pure, disinterested and holy as the watch of the invisible spirit — say for him who inspired it?” (N. P. Willis on the “Death of Edgar A. Poe,” in the “Home Journal” on the Saturday following Mr. Poe's death. Reproduced in “The Works of Edgar Allan Poe,” W. J. Widdleton, New York, 1881, Volume 1, pages xix to cxv.) And this is the woman Griswold slandered in the letter he asked Mrs. Whitman to destroy.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 10:]

13 Preface to Gill's Life of Poe, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, 1877.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 11:]

14 Edgar Poe and His Critics, by Sarah Helen Whitman, New York, Rudd & Carleton, 1860.

15 Edgar Poe and his Critics, page 15-16.