Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 186: ‘Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman,’ Obituary Notice by John H. Ingram, July 20, 1877,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), p. 506 (This material is protected by copyright)

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186. “Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman,” Obituary Notice by John H. Ingram, London Athenaeum, July 20, 1878, p. 88

Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman

Information of the death of Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, the American author and the heroine of Edgar Poe's lines “To Helen,” has just reached me. She died on the 27th ultimo, at her native city of Providence, wherein the greater portion of her seventy-five years of life had been spent, and where her ancestors, the Powers, had resided for two centuries or more. To the world at large she is merely known as an author of considerable talent and rich and varied reading, but, to those acquainted with the secret of her inner life, she will always be remembered as a brave-hearted woman, who for many years endured unrepiningly a condition of continuous self-sacrifice and anxiety, only paralled by the intermittent martyrdom of Charles Lamb. It could not have failed to comfort her in her last hours to know that the near and dear one for whom she had suffered so much had preceded her by some months in her journey to the grave.

A large portion of Mrs. Whitman's literary labour, consisting chiefly of critical articles and fugitive verse, is unedited, and she steadfastly refused to have republished during her lifetime the two volumes by which she is best known in the world of letters. In 1853 she collected and published at Providence a thick volume of verse, entitled Hours of Life and Other Poems, which not only attracted much attention on account of its melancholy beauty, but because many of the pieces were devoted to the memory of Edgar Poe. In 1860 Mrs. Whitman drew much more marked attention to her admiration for the author of “The Raven” by the publication of Edgar Poe and His Critics. This impassioned defence of her celebrated countryman created a profound impression in American coteries. The reputation which her little book so materially helped to clear from slander and misrepresentation was consistently and devotedly cherished by her to the last, and this is no improper moment for me to acknowledge that to Mrs. Whitman's unwearying kindness and cooperation is due a considerable portion of the data upon which my vindicatory Memoir of Poe is based. Towards affording a clearer impression of her great countryman's character she furnished me with the whole of the romantic history of her engagement with Edgar Poe, the cause of the rupture of that engagement, and the poet's correspondence with her, only stipulating that the latter should not be published during her lifetime [....]

The spontaneous and affecting scene at Mrs. Whitman's funeral [...]proved the strong affection she had inspired the hearts of many with.