Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 158: John H. Ingram to Sarah Helen Whitman, Aug. 3, 1876,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 448-449 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 448, continued:]

158. John H. Ingram to Sarah Helen Whitman

My dear Providence,

I was so thankful to get yours dated 11th & 28th Ultimo, as it seemed ages since I had heard from you.

With respect to the Marginal note I alluded to, perhaps I overestimated its value, but I feared it might be used as a handle to countenance cruel slanders, besides that it is quite contrary to my ideas. You will find it on page 368, Vol. iii, of my edition — called “Cowardice,” & numbered xxxviii. Had I not known it was by Poe I would have omitted it, but he published it and I could not safely cancel it, without chance of it reappearing some day.

When the “Uneda” v. J. H. Ingram correspondence is concluded I will send you full copies. I mean the Notes & Queries affair. “Uneda” has written to me accusing Poe of all kinds of filthy crimes, but my letter (of which you shall have eventually have copy) will be a “shutter up” I fancy.(1)

You will have got my paper on “The Bibliography of Poe” in Athenaeum, I trust, before this. I’ll send another copy as soon as I can get one. They sold out, the newsvender tells me.

I return Miss Peckham's note with many thanks. I wrote to her at once, & asked her where she is to be found. I expect to leave for France on Saturday. I am quite knocked up, but must not get beyond two days’ post of London just now.

I will look out & send you a copy of Mrs. Weiss's letter. I thought you sent me one copy. I send it in my next.

My earliest dates of the tales (as to the publication) are nearly complete — only a few (most of which appeared or reappeared) in the Broadway J[ournal] are not yet certain.

I am not surprised that the lyric “To Helen” did not appear in the [page 449:] 1827 volume. It is my firm opinion that Poe did not know Mrs. S[tanard] so early in life as we thought — more of this some day.

I have been waiting for a letter from Mrs. Richmond, who promised a mutual friend to write, but no news yet.

W. Ross Wallace has not answered yet.

Pray do not be reluctant to give Mr. Didier any information on my account. I should be glad to help him myself, if I were sure he were on our side. Pray publish your letter.

I should be glad if you could find time to write a short note to Editor (Dr. Doran) of Notes & Queries (asking for information, say, as to when & where “Imogene” was published) & alluding to the allegation that no American spoke well of Poe.

I am quite exhausted. I shall try & [write] a more connected letter from Normandy.

Meanwhile & ever, I am, pray believe me, yours most faithfully,

 

1. Although Uneda's personal letter to Ingram has not survived, the “shutter up” letter to Uneda was printed in Notes and Queries, 5th ser., 6 (July 22, 1876), 78: “I agree with UNEDA that the columns of ‘N. & Q.’ are not the proper place for discussing a man's character, even though that man be celebrated, and regret that the discussion has been forced upon me by the imputation cast upon POE. UNEDA will scarcely expect me to recount the long list of Americans who have not only expressed verbally, but even in print, an opinion respecting Poe's character different from that he entertains, and I content myself with referring to John P. Kennedy, John Neal, Frances S. Osgood, Mrs. Whitman, N. P. Willis, Mrs. Gove Nichols, W. J. Pabodie, Thomas C. Clarke, L. A. Godey, and George R. Graham, all American authors, and four of them from Philadelphia. Of Miss Georgiana Sherburne or of Imogene; or, the Pirate's Treasure, I cannot find any trace in Duyckinck's Cyclopaedia of American Literature, in Allibone's Dictionary, or in Trubner's Guide. This last omission is almost conclusive that Miss Sherburne's tale was not published in book form; I am, therefore, again compelled to ask 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.”

More than a year passed before Uneda replied, and by that time relations between Ingram and Mrs. Whitman were so strained there is no way of knowing whether she ever saw Uneda's abject surrender. Notes and Queries, 5th ser., 8 (Aug. 11, 1877), 115-16: