[page 484, continued:]

[1845] EARLY 1845? NEW YORK. Miss Anne C. Lynch, a schoolteacher and poetess, begins to invite Poe to the literary soirees she conducts at her home, 116 Waverley Place: “During the time that he [Poe] habitually visited me, a period of two or three years, I saw him almost always on my reception evenings, when many other guests were present. ... In society, so far as my observation went, Poe had always the bearing and manners of a gentleman — interesting in conversation, but not monopolising; polite and engaging, and never, when I saw him, abstracted or dreamy. He was always elegant in his toilet, quiet and unaffected, unpretentious, in his manner; and he would not have attracted any particular attention from a stranger, except from his strikingly intellectual head and features, which bore the unmistakable character of genius” (Lynch to G. W. Eveleth, 8 and 19 March 1854, Miller [1977], pp. 202-05).

[1845] JANUARY OR BEFORE. Poe sells “The Raven” to the American Review.

[On 7 April the young editor George H. Colton wrote James Russell Lowell: “I paid Mr. Poe for the Raven not over $20” (Colton, p. 325). Donald Grant Mitchell remembered hearing Colton, a college friend at Yale, read the poem aloud “in his ramshackle Nassau Street office ... before yet it had gone into type; and as he closed with oratorical effect the last refrain, [he] declared with an emphasis that shook the whole mass of his flaxen locks — ‘that is amazing — amazing!’ ” (Mitchell, 2:387).]

[1845] JANUARY. The Columbian Magazine lists Poe's “Some Words with a Mummy” among the articles it has accepted for publication.

[The story did not appear in the Columbian, but in the American Review for April: Poe presumably retrieved it and sold it to the Review, which may have paid better.]

[1845] BEFORE MID-JANUARY. Poe and Rufus W. Griswold encounter each other in the office of the Daily Tribune (Poe to Griswold, 16 January). [page 485:]

[1845] CA. 1 JANUARY. James Russell Lowell and his wife Maria visit New York on their way to Philadelphia, where they intend to spend the winter. Charles F. Briggs is unable to see his friends (Briggs to Lowell, 6 January).

[1845] 4 JANUARY. SATURDAY. Briggs's Broadway Journal, 153 Broadway, issues its opening number, which contains the first half of Poe's lengthy review of Elizabeth Barrett Barrett's The Drama of Exile, and Other Poems. In a “Prospectus” the publisher John Bisco promises that the Journal “will be made up entirely of original matter”; it will be published every Saturday, “TERMS $3.00 per annum — Single numbers 6 1/4 cts.”

[1845] 4 JANUARY. Poe replies to Frederick William Thomas’ letters of 10 October and 10 December 1844. He has received Thomas’ poem The Beechen Tree, forwarded with the 10 October letter; but he has not reviewed it: “I could find no good opportunity of putting in a word anywhere that would have done you service. You know I do not live in town — very seldom visit it — and, of course, am not in the way of matters and things as I used to be. ... In about three weeks, I shall move into the City, and recommence a life of activity under better auspices, I hope, than ever before. Then I may be able to do something.” Virginia and Mrs. Clemm are “about as usual”; Poe is “truly glad to hear of Dow's well-doing” (L, 1:274-75).

[Poe's explanation of his failure to review The Beechen Tree is unconvincing. At the time he was connected with the Evening Mirror; he wrote the unsigned notice of Thomas’ poem in the 19 November 1844 issue.]

[1845] 4 JANUARY. Poe writes George Bush, Professor of Hebrew at the New York University. He encloses his tale “Mesmeric Revelation,” reprinted in the New York Dollar Weekly from its original publication in the Columbian Magazine for August 1844: “I have ventured to send you the article because there are many points in it which bear upon the subject matter of your late admirable work on the Future Condition of Man — and therefore I am induced to hope that you will do me the honor to look over what I have said.” Although “the article is purely a fiction,” Poe believes it contains “some thoughts which are original”; he is “exceedingly anxious to learn if they have claim to absolute originality” (L, 1:273-74, 2:709; Moldenhauer [1973], p. 59; Mabbott [1978], 3:1029).

[1845] 4 JANUARY. LONDON. Lloyd's Entertaining Journal, a penny publication, reprints Poe's “Raising the Wind; or, Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences” (Moldenhauer [1977], p. 188).

[1845] AFTER 4 JANUARY. NEW YORK. George Bush replies to Poe's 4 January [page 486:] letter, giving a favorable opinion of “Mesmeric Revelation” (implied in the Aristidean for October; see BEFORE 8 NOVEMBER).

[1845] 6 JANUARY. Briggs writes Lowell in Philadelphia. He plans to feature a series on “American prose writers” in the Broadway Journal: “Cannot you give me a paper on Hawthorn[e], or Emerson, or somebody else whose writings you are familiar with? You have done up Poe so thoroughly in Graham [the forthcoming Graham's Magazine for February] that I suppose you do not feel like saying anything further on his style. ... Poe is going to assist Willis in the Mirror. I like Poe exceedingly well; Mr Griswold had told me shocking bad stories about him, which his whole demeanor contradicts” (MiDAAA-P).

[1845] 9 JANUARY. The Evening Mirror contains Poe's “Does the Drama of the Day Deserve Support?”; the editorial is reprinted in the Weekly Mirror for 18 January.

[1845] 11 JANUARY. The Broadway Journal contains the conclusion of Poe's review of Miss Barrett.

[1845] 11 JANUARY. The Evening Mirror contains Poe's satiric notice of the Alphadelphia Tocsin, “the title of a new journal published at Alphadelphia, Michigan,” and his review of James Russell Lowell's Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. Although Poe praises Lowell's “fine taste and critical power,” he objects to his suggestion that the clever stratagems used by writers generally fail to capture the reader's heart: “In all cases, if the practice fail, it is because theory is imperfect. If Mr. Lowell's heart is not caught in the pitfall or trap, then the pitfall is ill-concealed, and the trap is not properly baited and set.” Both contributions are reprinted in the Weekly Mirror for 18 January.

[1845] 13-14 JANUARY. The Evening Mirror contains Poe's unfavorable review of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Waif, an anthology of little-known poetry. In the 13 January installment Poe attributes the anonymous poems in The Waif to Longfellow himself, suggesting “that Mr. Longfellow's real design has been to make a book of his ‘waifs,’ and his own late compositions conjointly; since these late compositions are not enough in number to make a book of themselves.” Poe concludes the 14 January installment by observing that “this exquisite little volume” reveals “a very careful avoidance of all American poets who may be supposed especially to interfere with the claims of Mr. Longfellow. These men Mr. Longfellow can continuously imitate (is that the word?) and yet never even incidentally commend.” The review is reprinted in the Weekly Mirror for 25 January. [page 487:]

[1845] 14 JANUARY. In the Morning News Evert A. Duyckinck notices the Broadway Journal, which “holds out the promise of a very bright, spirited affair. ... Miss Barrett (rather painfully to us) is put to the question by Mr. Poe, with his usual critical acumen and force of style” (attribution in Duyckinck to Poe, 17 or 18 January).

[1845] 14 JANUARY. In the Evening Mirror Poe discusses his most recent story, published anonymously: “A broadly satirical article, oddly entitled ‘The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq., late Editor of the Goosetherumfoodle, and which appeared originally in the ‘Southern Literary Messenger’ for December, has been the subject of much comment, lately, in the Southern and Western papers, and the query is put to us especially, here in the North, — ‘who wrote it?’ Who did? — can any one tell?”

[1845] 14 JANUARY. Rufus W. Griswold writes Poe: “Although I have some cause of personal quarrel with you, which you will easily enough remember, I do not under any circumstances permit, as you have repeatedly charged, my private griefs to influence my judgment as a critic, or its expression.” Griswold therefore retains his “early formed and well founded favorable opinions” of Poe's writings; and he hopes to render Poe “very perfect justice” in his new anthology The Prose Writers of America, which will be published by Carey & Hart of Philadelphia. “I shall feel myself yr debtor if there being any writings of yours with wh. I may be unacquainted, you will advise of their titles, and where they may be purchased; and if, in the brief biography of you in my Poets &c. of America, there are any inaccuracies, you will point them out to me” (W, 17:197-98).

[1845] 15 JANUARY. BOSTON. A correspondent who signs himself “H.” [George S. Hillard] writes the Evening Mirror, protesting Poe's unsigned review of The Waif in the 13-14 January issues. The reviewer's assertion that Longfellow composed the anonymous poems in the collection is unwarranted:

[1845] 15 JANUARY. NEW YORK. A commentator in the Daily Tribune, possibly Margaret Fuller, objects to Poe's review of Lowell in the 11 January Mirror: “Mr. Lowell's idea plainly is, that simplicity and nature are more successful than pit falls and traps. ... We do not believe that traps of any kind, bait them as you may, can ever succeed in the long run, or impose on the heart. Tricks in literature are no better than tricks in morals” (unverified attribution in Briggs to Lowell, 17 January).

[1845] 16 JANUARY. Poe replies to Griswold's 14 January letter, which gave him both pain and pleasure: “pain because it gave me to see that I had lost, through my own folly, an honorable friend: — pleasure, because I saw in it a hope of reconciliation.” Since Poe believed Griswold to have been “irreparably offended” by his strictures on The Poets and Poetry of America, he “could make no advances” when they “met at the Tribune Office.” Poe asks Griswold to accept his apologies: “If you can do this and forget the past, let me know where I shall call on you — or come and see me at the Mirror Office, any morning about 10. We can then talk over the other matters, which, to me at least, are far less important than your good will” (L, 1:275-76).

[1845] 16 JANUARY. PHILADELPHIA. Lowell writes Briggs: “I received this morning the two numbers of your ‘Broadway Journal,’ & am in haste to tell you how much I like it. ... The article upon Miss Barrett is extremely well written, I suppose by Poe. It is a good telling article, though I do not agree with it in its conclusion. From a paragraph I saw yesterday in the ‘Tribune’ I find that Poe has been at me in the ‘Mirror.’ He has at least the chief element of a critic — a disregard of persons. He will be a very valuable contributor to you” (Woodberry, 2:368-69).

[1845] AFTER 16 JANUARY. NEW YORK. Poe and Griswold meet. Griswold invites Poe to furnish selections from his poetry for a revised edition of The Poets and Poetry of America, as well as excerpts from his prose for the forthcoming Prose Writers of America (Poe to Griswold, 16 January and 24 February; Briggs to Lowell, 6 February).

[1845] 17 JANUARY. Briggs replies to Lowell: “Poe's criticism about your Conversations was extremely laudatory and discriminating; it was the female ass of the Tribune [Margaret Fuller] that misunderstood him. ... Poe writes for me, at the rate of one dollar a column. If you will do so, I shall esteem it a capital barg[a]in” (MiDAAA-P). [page 489:]

[1845] 17 JANUARY. The Evening Mirror contains Poe's editorial “Nature and Art,” a reply to the Daily Tribune of 15 January:

In a briefer article headed “Criticism,” Poe replies to Evert A. Duyckinck's notice of the Broadway Journal in “The Tribune” [Morning News] of 14 January: “Mr. D. ... speaks of a Review of Miss Barrett's Poems as if it were condemnatory. We should be sorry indeed, if any general disparagement were intended of the most extraordinary woman of her age — perhaps of any age. Our impression, however, is that the critic of the Broadway Journal meant only, by a few unimportant objections, to place her preeminent merits in the best light.” The Weekly Mirror for 25 January reprints “Nature and Art.”

[1845] 17 OR 18 JANUARY. Duyckinck writes Poe:

[1845] BEFORE 18 JANUARY. BOSTON. Littell's Living Age for 18 January contains an abridgment of Poe's “The Purloined Letter,” reprinted from Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal of 30 November 1844 with this magazine's introduction.

[1845] 18 JANUARY. NEW YORK. The Broadway Journal contains Poe's “American Prose Writers, No. 2: N. P Willis.”

[1845] 18 JANUARY. The Morning News comments: “LITTELL’S LIVING AGE, for this week, contains a story by Edgar A. Poe, copied from an English paper and accompanied by a complimentary criticism, English also, entitled ‘The Purloined Letter.’ It originally appeared in the Gift for 1845, and has [page 490:] attracted far less attention at home than abroad. We shall give our readers an early opportunity of reading it for themselves.”

[1845] 18 JANUARY. The Evening Mirror carries a paragraph headed “A Mistake,” in which Poe complies with Duyckinck's request: “Through inadvertence ... yesterday ... we wrote ‘Tribune,’ when we should have written ‘Morning News.’ ”

[1845] BEFORE 20 JANUARY. PHILADELPHIA. Graham's Magazine for February contains Lowell's “Our Contributors, No. XVII. Edgar Allan Poe,” accompanied by a portrait of Poe by the Philadelphia artist A. C. Smith. Lowell observes:

Lowell outlines Poe's early life, following the inaccurate biography published in the Saturday Museum of 25 February and 4 March 1843. “Mr. Poe has that indescribable something which men have agreed to call genius. No man could ever tell us precisely what it is, and yet there is none who is not inevitably aware of its presence and its power.” Lowell reprints Poe's poems “To Helen,” “Ligeia” (from “Al Aaraaf,” lines 100-11), “The Haunted Palace,” and “Lenore”; the first of these was “written when the author was only fourteen!” In fiction the “analyzing tendency” of Poe's mind “balances the poetical, and, by giving him the patience to be minute, enables him to throw a wonderful reality into his most unreal fancies.” Lowell lists the thirty stories Poe has written since his Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, identifying him as the author of the anonymously published “Balloon-Hoax” and “Literary Life of Thingum Bob.”

[1845] 20-21 JANUARY. NEW YORK. The Evening Mirror reprints Lowell's sketch in two installments, both on its front page. On the second page of the 20 January issue, Nathaniel P. Willis comments:

[1845] 20 JANUARY. In the Evening Mirror Willis discusses the papers 13-14 January review of Longfellow's The Waif. “The criticisms ... were written in our office by an able though very critical hand [Poe] .... We judge the poet [Longfellow] by ourself when we presume that he prefers rubbing to rust — sure of being more brightened than fretted.” Willis prints the 15 January letter protesting the review from “H.” [George S. Hillard] in Boston. In “Post-Notes by the Critic,” appended to the letter, Poe replies to Hillard's objections, commenting: “If ever a man had cause to ejaculate, ‘Heaven preserve me from my friends!’ it is Mr. Longfellow.” Willis’ remarks, the letter, and Poe's reply are reprinted in the Weekly Mirror for 25 January.

[1845] 20 JANUARY. Poe signs a receipt: “Recd of Mr John Bisco eighteen dollars, in full for two articles in Broadway Journal” (L, 2:520-21).

[1845] 20, 22 JANUARY. PHILADELPHIA. The Spirit of the Times reprints the abridgment of “The Purloined Letter” in two installments, from Littell's for 18 January (Mabbott [1978], 3:974).

[1845] 21, 24 JANUARY. NEW YORK. The Morning News reprints “The Purloined Letter” in two installments, “From Chambers’ Journal, via Littell's Living Age.” The abridgment appears in the Weekly News for 25 January.

[1845] 22 JANUARY. The Evening Mirror contains Poe's essay “American Diffuseness — Objectionable Concision.”

[1845] 24 JANUARY. In the Daily Tribune Margaret Fuller notices Lowell's sketch of Poe in Graham's Magazine for February: “This article is frank, earnest, and contains many just thoughts, expressed with force and point. ... Among the poems quoted from Mr. Poe, before unknown to ourselves, two please us so much, that they must be inserted here.” Fuller reprints “The Haunted Palace” and “To Helen”; the latter poem, “written at the age of fourteen,” is “of such distinguished beauty in thought, feeling, and expression, that we might expect the life unfolded from such a bud to have the sweetness and soft lustre of a rose.” She relates the portrait in Graham's to [page 492:] Poe's writings: “A person of fine perceptions, and unacquainted with the writings of Mr. Poe, observed, on looking at this head of him, that the lower part of the face is that of the critic, cold, hard, and self-sufficient; while the upper part, especially the brows, expresses great feeling, and tenderness of feeling. We wish the ‘Psyche’ had taken him far enough in that ‘Nicéan bark,’ to give the expression of the upper part of the face a larger preponderance than we find in his reviews of the poets.” The notice is reprinted in the Weekly Tribune for 1 February.

[1845] 24, 25, 27, 31 JANUARY. The Evening Mirror publishes Poe's “Pay of American Authors” in four installments. This editorial calling for an international copyright law is reprinted in the Weekly Mirror for I and 8 February.

[1845] BEFORE 25 JANUARY. PHILADELPHIA. Godey's Lady's Book for February contains Poe's “The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade.”

[1845] 25 JANUARY. NEW YORK. In the Broadway Journal Briggs reviews the February numbers of Godey's and Graham's. Godey's features “ten ladies and six gentlemen, besides the editors,” as contributors:

Graham's contains “a something which is called a portrait of Edgar A. Poe. ... It bears no more resemblance to that gentleman than to any other of Mr. Graham's contributors. But if it were much worse than it is, which is hardly conceivable, it would be amply compensated by the fine sketch of Mr. Poe's genius, by Lowell, which accompanies it.”

[1845] 25 JANUARY. In the Morning News Evert A. Duyckinck notices the portrait and sketch in Graham's:

The notice is reprinted in the Weekly News for 1 February (attribution implied in W. G. Simms to Duyckinck, 15 March).

[1845] 25 JANUARY. PHILADELPHIA. The Saturday Courier reports that Graham's features “a striking likeness of Edgar A. Poe.”

[1845] 25 JANUARY. BALTIMORE. In the Saturday Visiter Joseph Evans Snodgrass evaluates the portrait in Graham's: “The likeness is good, though rather wanting in that nervousness of expression so peculiar to Mr. Poe.”

[1845] 25 JANUARY. NEW YORK. Poe writes Richard Henry Horne in London. He encloses the Broadway Journal for 4 and 11 January, containing his review of Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, and a copy of “The Raven.” He solicits Horne's opinion of this yet unpublished poem, also asking him to obtain opinions on it from Miss Barrett and Alfred Tennyson. Poe expresses his admiration for Miss Barrett: his review should be forwarded to her. Answering Horne's query in his 27 April 1844 letter, Poe states that an American publisher might be willing to reprint his correspondent's epic Orion (Horne to Poe, 17 May; Barrett to Horne, 12 May).

[1845] 25 JANUARY OR LATER? The Poe family leaves the farmhouse of Patrick Brennan in upper Manhattan and moves into New York City proper, taking lodgings at 154 Greenwich Street (Poe to Thomas, 4 January; Poe to Mrs. Mowatt, 20 March).

[1845] 27 JANUARY. Briggs writes Lowell in Philadelphia:

[1845] BEFORE 28 JANUARY. PHILADELPHIA. William Duane, Jr., writes Poe. He has recovered the volume of the Southern Literary Messenger he lent Poe last year; it was found in Richmond (Poe's reply).

[1845] 28 JANUARY. NEW YORK. Poe writes Duane:

[Duane wrote this explanation on Poe's letter: “The volume ... was lent by me to E. A. Poe, through Henry B. Hirst, Esq., and was sold by the said Poe [actually Mrs. Clemm] among a lot of books belonging to himself to William A. Leary, a bookseller on North Seventh Street [in Philadelphia]. Mr. Leary sold it to a bookseller in Richmond, Va., who sold it to the publishers of the ‘Messenger, who sold it to a friend of mine who was visiting Richmond, and whom I had commissioned to purchase me a copy. My name was on the title-page during all these sales” (Woodberry, 2:367-68).)

[1845] BEFORE 29 JANUARY. Poe encounters his friend William Ross Wallace, to whom he has been in the habit of reading his “not yet published poetical work.” He solicits Wallace's opinion of “The Raven”:

[1845] 29 JANUARY. The Evening Mirror publishes “The Raven” with this introduction by Nathaniel P. Willis:

Both poem and introduction are reprinted in the Weekly Mirror for 8 February.

[1845] FEBRUARY. The American Review contains “THE RAVEN, BY —— QUARLES,” with this preface by George H. Colton:

[The first publication of “The Raven” probably occurred in the Evening Mirror of 29 January, which seems to have appeared on the streets of New York a day or two before the American Review for February. The first printing almost certainly occurred in the Review: this number was set in type before the end of January, since it was published on or before 1 [page 497:] February (Daily Tribune, 1 February). Poe's use of the pseudonym “—— Quarles” was in keeping with the practice of the Review, which was “to publish poems either unsigned or with pseudonyms” (Colton, p. 324).]

[1845] FEBRUARY. RICHMOND. The Southern Literary Messenger favorably notices the Broadway Journal. As a sample of the new weekly's literary criticism, the Messenger quotes the reviews of Godey's and Graham's from the Journal for 25 January; the excerpts contain Briggs's praise of Poe's “The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade” and his condemnation of the Poe portrait accompanying Lowell's biography.

[1845] EARLY FEBRUARY. NEW YORK. Poe writes Benjamin Blake Minor, editor and proprietor of the Southern Literary Messenger, enclosing a revised copy of “The Raven.” Poe asks Minor to relax his magazine's rule against reprints and to publish this poem “in the beautiful typography of the Messenger” (Minor, p. 138).

[1845] EARLY FEBRUARY. Elizabeth Oakes Smith, a popular poetess, recalls:

[1845] EARLY? FEBRUARY. Poe makes “a most favorable impression” at a reception at the home of Mrs. Caroline M. Kirkland: “there were a good many of the New York literati [present], not one of whom had ever before seen him, and only a few had ever read anything of his writings except ‘The Raven,’ which had just been published .... there was great curiosity to see the writer of that wonderful poem” (Briggs, pp. 1-2).

[1845] FEBRUARY OR LATER. Henry T. Tuckerman recalls a social gathering at the home of Dr. John W. Francis, a prominent New York physician: [page 498:]

[1845] 1 FEBRUARY. The Daily Tribune comments: “THE AMERICAN JOURNAL AND WHIG REVIEW [American Review] for February is published. We shall notice its contents when we have had time to read them:”

[1845] 1 FEBRUARY. The New World reprints “The Haunted Palace” with this introduction by the editor Charles Eames: “The following exquisite Poem, from the pen of Edgar A. Poe, is new to us. We can hardly call to mind in the whole compass of American Poetry, a picture of more intense and glowing Ideality. It portrays with admirable power and pathos, a noble mind given over to wreck and desolation.”

[1845] 1 FEBRUARY. The Broadway Journal contains a passage from the French historian Froissart describing a fatal fire at a costume ball in the court of Charles VI; it prints a letter from the New York physician Dr. A. Sidney Doane, who describes a surgical operation performed while the patient was “in a magnetic sleep” (or mesmerized). The Froissart is a source for Poe's tale “Hop-Frog”; the letter, a source for his hoax “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar.”

[1845] 3 FEBRUARY. A writer in the Daily Tribune, probably Horace Greeley, notices the American Review: “ ‘The Raven’ is a poem which would have enriched Blackwood.” The Morning News reprints the poem from the Evening Mirror, along with Willis’ introduction identifying Poe as its author. It appears in the Weekly News for 8 February.

[1845] 3 FEBRUARY. The Evening Mirror contains Poe's “Increase of the Poetical Heresy — Didacticism”; the article is reprinted in the Weekly Mirror for 8 February. [page 499:]

[1845] 3 FEBRUARY. Poe writes his friend J. Augustus Shea, a journalist and poet connected with the Daily Tribune, describing two alterations he wishes to make in “The Raven” (L, 1:279).

[1845] 4 FEBRUARY. The Daily Tribune reprints “The Raven” from the American Review. This printing omits George H. Colton's introduction, identifies “Edgar A. Poe” as the author, and incorporates the revisions Poe indicated to Shea. The poem appears in the Weekly Tribune for 8 February.

[1845] 5 FEBRUARY. In the Morning Express James Brooks notices the American Review: “There is a poem in this book which may well defy competition in its way from the whole circle of cotemporary verse writers; though Alfred Tennyson might, perhaps, enter for the prize, — but to be excelled out of measure. We allude to ‘The Raven,’ in which deep settled grief, bordering on sullen despair, is personified, in the chance visitor of the poet, perching over his door, to leave his presence ‘Nevermore.’ As a piece of versification it is as curious as it is, psychologically, a wonder. We think we are right in our guess that ‘Quarles’ means Edgar Poe.”

[1845] 5 FEBRUARY. In the Evening Mirror Willis defends his decision to publish Poe's unfavorable review of Longfellow's The Waif. He quotes Poe's closing paragraph from the 14 January Mirror, which questions Longfellow's motives for omitting extracts from other American poets; and he observes: “It was a literary charge, by a pen that never records an opinion without some supposed good reason, and only injurious to Longfellow, (to our belief) while circulating, un-replied-to, in conversation-dom.” Since the Boston newspapers have not replied to this accusation, Willis prints the following defense of The Waif from a letter “a friend” [Charles Sumner] has sent him:

Willis’ article is reprinted in the Weekly Mirror for 8 February (Sumner identified in Longfellow to Lowell, 15 March).

[1845] 6 FEBRUARY. Briggs writes Lowell in Philadelphia: “You will see in this week's [Broadway] Journal a grand poem by Poe [‘The Raven’], which I think you will like. You will see that it is framed according to his notions of poetry. A mere beautiful something entirely free from didacticism and [page 500:] sentiment. ... Griswold is going to give a life and character of Poe in his prose writers with a portrait, which Poe is desirous that [William] Page should paint” (MIDAAA-P).

[1845] 6 FEBRUARY. Briggs writes the portrait painter William Page in Boston, discussing his correspondent's essay on the use of color in painting: “I have put the whole of it into my Journal. ... Edgar A. Poe, whom Lowell has glorified, and whose fine verses in my Journal [‘The Raven’] you will like better than anything in Tennyson, says it is exceedingly fine, and the only true piece of writing which he has ever seen upon the subject. He knows something about color, and his opinion is worth a vast deal more than mine. He had no sooner read it, than he said he wanted you to paint his portrait. ... He is as good a fellow as yourself but very different, and I know that you would like him highly” (MIDAAA-P).

[1845] 6 FEBRUARY. The Evening Mirror contains Poe's “Literary Intelligence.” He complains that Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales are out of print: “Why will no one give us a new impression, and the modest author a couple of thousands?”

[1845] 7 FEBRUARY. In the Mirror Poe favorably notices the American Review for February, praising Evert A. Duyckinck's article on the nation's “Literary Prospects.” He reports: “Mr. J. S. Redfield, of this city, has in press ... the Poetical Writings of Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith, (better known, perhaps, as Mrs. Seba Smith).”

[1845] BEFORE 8 FEBRUARY. Alexander T. Crane, the office boy of the Broadway Journal, hears James E. Murdoch recite “The Raven”:

[1845] 8 FEBRUARY. The Broadway Journal publishes a corrected version of “The Raven,” identifying Poe as its author. Briggs observes: “It will have been [page 501:] read by many of our city subscribers, we have no doubt, before it reaches them in our columns, but there are others to whom it will be as welcome as it is new.” The Journal contains Poe's unfavorable reviews of Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Poems and Joseph Rocchietti's Why a National Literature Cannot Flourish in the United States.

[1845] 8 FEBRUARY. The Evening Mirror contains Poe's editorial “Why Not Try a Mineralized Pavement?” (cf. his discussion of street pavements in the Columbia Spy, 15 June 1844).

[1845] BEFORE 12 FEBRUARY. The Aristidean commences publication: this new monthly is edited by Thomas Dunn English and published by T. H. Lane & Co., 304 Broadway. The first number, dated March, contains Poe's satiric review of George Jones's Ancient America, a book which attempts “to demonstrate the identity of our Aborigines with the Tyrians and Israelites, and the introduction of Christianity into the Western Hemisphere by one of the twelve Apostles in person.”

[1845] 12 FEBRUARY. The Evening Mirror contains Poe's “Magazine Literature,” in which he notices English's Aristidean. With tongue in cheek he lauds the contents of the opening number, which include an essay and a poem expressing opposition to capital punishment: “Much is done in small compass. ‘Whom shall we hang?’ is a vigorous paper of just the right length, on a topic of precisely the right kind. ‘The Ropemaker’ [by English] is in verse, just such a paper as ‘Whom shall we hang?’ is in prose, and by this we intend a compliment, beyond doubt.” Poe's editorial is reprinted in the Weekly Mirror for 15 February.

[1845] 13 FEBRUARY. CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS. Longfellow's wife, Fanny Appleton Longfellow, writes his brother Samuel Longfellow, alluding to Nathaniel P. Willis’ 5 February defense of Poe's review of The Waif: “If you see the Mirror, you know how shabbily Willis tries to excuse Poe's insolence. Have you seen a curious poem by the latter entitled ‘The Raven,’ most artistically rhythmical but ‘nothing more,’ to quote its burden?” (Mrs. Longfellow, p. 116).

[1845] 14 FEBRUARY OR BEFORE. NEW YORK. George R. Graham asks Willis to publish a retraction of Poe's criticisms of Longfellow (Graham to Longfellow, 11 March).

[1845] 14 FEBRUARY. The Evening Mirror contains Willis’ flippant retraction:

In another column Willis notices Graham's presence “in town.” The retraction is reprinted in the Weekly Mirror for 22 February.

[1845] 15 FEBRUARY. The Broadway Journal contains Poe's sketch “Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison-House,” which relates the history of a “poor-devil author” who starves to death while waiting for a magazine publisher to pay him for his contribution. In an editorial headed “Thefts of American Authors,” Briggs objects to an accusation of plagiarism Poe brought against the American poet James Aldrich when reviewing Longfellow's The Waif. There is no similarity “sufficient to warrant the charge” between Aldrich's “A Death-Bed” and Thomas Hood's “The Death-Bed,” except “the measure and the subject, which are certainly not peculiar to Hood; the thoughts are by no means identical.”

[1845] 15 FEBRUARY. The Evening Mirror publishes Poe's “Imitation — Plagiarism.” He explains his abhorrence of plagiarism, a “sin” which “involves the quintessence of meanness,” especially if committed by an established author. The article is reprinted in the Weekly Mirror for 22 February.

[1845] 15 FEBRUARY. The Town, a weekly magazine devoted to satirizing the New York literati, reports: “Mr. EDGAR A. POE, has it in contemplation to publish a new five dollar Magazine. If a wide celebrity, as the most interesting and original of Magazine writers, and a fearless critic be of any avail, it may succeed — unless prevented by the overshadowing popularity of the Aristidean, by ‘Doctor Thomas DUNN ENGLISH, M.D.’ as he whilom wrote his name.”

[1845] 15 FEBRUARY. The New World publishes Poe's revised tale “Ligeia;” which now incorporates for the first time his poem “The Conqueror Worm.” The weekly's editor Charles Eames comments:

In this issue Eames also notices the American Review for February: “Edgar A. Poe, we believe under the ‘nom de plume’ of Quarles, gives a wild and shivery poem, which he calls the Raven. It is written in a Stanza unknown before to gods, men, and booksellers, but it fills and delights the ear strangely with its wild and clashing music. Everybody reads the Poem and praises it — justly we think, for it seems to us full of originality and power.”

[1845] 15 FEBRUARY. PHILADELPHIA. Robert Morris’ Pennsylvania Inquirer reprints “The Raven” from the Broadway Journal of 8 February, under the heading “A BEAUTIFUL POEM.”

[1845] 15 FEBRUARY. ELLICOTT CITY, MARYLAND. The Howard District Press, a weekly newspaper, reprints “The Raven” and Willis’ introduction from the Evening Mirror.

[1845] BEFORE 16 FEBRUARY. SOUTH ATTLEBOROUGH, MASSACHUSETTS. The young poet Abijah M. Ide, Jr., sends his “Bunker's Hill” to Poe, soliciting his opinion (Ide to Poe, 16 February).

[1845] 16 FEBRUARY. Ide replies to a letter from Poe:

Since Ide's last letter to Poe, he has seen Graham's Magazine for February: “tho’ my praise may be little worth to you, I cannot refrain from saying that I have been exceedingly pleased with the ‘Haunted Palace,’ quoted in Mr. Lowell's article” (MB-G).

[1845] 17 FEBRUARY. NEW YORK. The Evening Mirror publishes Poe's “Plagiarism,” [page 504:] a reply to Briggs's editorial in the Broadway Journal of 15 February. Poe prints both Aldrich's poem and Hood's, pointing out ten similarities between them. He repeats his accusation: “somebody is a thief.” The Mirror also contains “The Owl: A Capital Parody on Mr. Poe's Raven” by “Sarles.” In this eighteen-stanza poem the narrator is disturbed “upon a midnight dreary” by “a flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping” outside his chamber door. He opens his shutter: “In there stepped a staring owl, one of the saintly days of yore.” The owl perches “upon a bursted band-box” above the chamber door and utters a single word “nevermore”:

Poe's article and the parody are reprinted in the Weekly Mirror for 22 February.

[1845] 19 FEBRUARY. PHILADELPHIA. The Sun protests that Poe's “Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison-House,” published in the Broadway Journal of 15 February, is unfair to magazine publishers, citing the liberal payments given authors by George R. Graham and Louis A. Godey (Mabbott [1978], 3:1205).

[1845] 21 FEBRUARY. NEW YORK. Poe and John Bisco sign a contract. “Edgar A. Poe agrees to assist C. F. Briggs in the editorship of the ‘Broadway Journal’ published by John Bisco, to allow his name to be published as one of the Editors of said paper, to furnish each and every week original matter to the amount of, at least, one page of said paper, and to give his faithful [page 505:] superintendence to the general conduct of the same.” Bisco agrees to pay Poe “one-third of the profits arising from the said ‘Broadway Journal’ and to allow him to inspect the Books of the same whenever he may wish to do so” (Quinn, p. 751; Moldenhauer [1973], pp. 79-80).

[1845] 22 FEBRUARY. The Broadway Journal announces “that hereafter, EDGAR A. POE and HENRY C. WATSON, will be associated with the Editorial department .... MR. WATSON will have entire control of the Musical department.” Poe replies to the Philadelphia Sun of 19 February: “We are extremely happy to learn that GRAHAM paid COOPER fifteen hundred dollars in seventeen months, and that GODEY keeps almost as many ladies in his pay as the Grand Turk; but we have heard of writers, whose articles are certainly equal to any thing of COOPER’S that we have seen in Graham, to whom that munificent publisher pays nothing.”

[1845] 22 FEBRUARY. The Town reports:

On another page the Town scoffs at Poe's review of Bulwer-Lytton's Poems: “A YOUNG MAN in the Broadway Journal of last week [actually 8 February issue], solemnly declares that BULWER is not a man of genius, but rather a clever little fellow, as a general thing. This young man in the Broadway Journal ought to hurry express haste to Washington and get out a patent right for his Discovery.”

[1845] 22 FEBRUARY. The New World reprints “THE RAVEN: By Quarles” from the American Review. In an adjoining column it publishes “THE VETO: By Snarles” a satire on municipal politicians; each of the eighteen stanzas parodies the adjacent stanza in Poe's poem:

[1845] 22 FEBRUARY. BUFFALO, NEW YORK. The Western Literary Messenger reprints “The Raven” with this introduction: “The following remarkable and powerful poem, by EDGAR A. POE, is from the second number of the American Review. It is a bold and original conception, sustained and wrought out with most admirable skill. The versification is new and ‘fills the ear with a wild and delightful music.’ ”

[1845] 24 FEBRUARY NEW YORK. Poe writes Rufus W. Griswold in Philadelphia. Shortly after his meeting with Griswold, Poe sent him all his poems “worth re-publishing” for possible inclusion in a revised edition of The Poets and Poetry of America. He is forwarding with this letter his “Mesmeric Revelation” and an excerpt from “Marginalia” for Griswold's forthcoming Prose Writers of America. He does not have ready access to samples of his literary criticism, but Griswold will find his reviews of “Flaccus” (Thomas Ward) and of Dickens’ novel Barnaby Rudge in Graham's Magazine. “In the tale line I send you ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ and ‘The Man that was used up’ — far more than enough, you will say — but you can select to suit yourself. I would prefer having in the ‘Gold Bug’ ... but have not a copy just now. If there is no immediate hurry for it, however, I will get one & send it you corrected” (L, 1:279-80).

[1845] 25 FEBRUARY. PHILADELPHIA. Lowell writes Briggs, commenting on the announcement in the Broadway Journal for 22 February: “I do not know whether to be glad or sorry that you have associated Poe and [Henry C.] Watson with you as editors. I do not know the last; the first is certainly able, but I think that there should never be more than one editor with any proprietary control over the paper. Its individuality is not generally so well preserved” (Lowell, 1:85).

[1845] 27 FEBRUARY. NEW YORK. The Daily Tribune reports:

In the Evening Mirror Willis observes: “The decapitation of the criminal [page 507:] who did not know his head was off till it fell into his hand ... conveys an idea of the Damascene slicing of the critical blade of Mr. Poe. On Friday night we are to have his ‘Lecture on the Poets of America,’ and those who would witness fine carving will probably be there.”

[1845] BEFORE 28 FEBRUARY. In the New World for 1 March Charles Eames announces Poe's lecture: “We shall listen with great pleasure, and, we doubt not, with profit to Mr. Poe's views of the efforts of his brethren in an art, the theory and practice of which he knows so well.”

[1845] 28 FEBRUARY. In the Morning News Evert A. Duyckinck comments:

The Daily Tribune reminds its readers: “Those who love to see the blade of criticism wielded by a competent hand, will go and hear Mr. POE's Lecture.” The New York Herald predicts that the lecture “will doubtless be a great literary treat.”

[1845] 28 FEBRUARY. In the evening “some three hundred” persons attend Poe's lecture at the Society Library, corner of Broadway and Leonard Street (Daily Tribune, 1 March).

[1845] MARCH. In the “Editor's Table” of the Knickerbocker Magazine, Lewis Gaylord Clark notices the American Review for February: “The very best thing in its pages is an unique, singularly imaginative, and most musical effusion, entitled ‘The Raven.’ We have never before, to our knowledge, met the author, Mr. EDGAR A. POE, as a poet; but if the poem to which we allude be a specimen of his powers in this kind, we shall always be glad to welcome him in his new department.”

[1845] MARCH. RICHMOND. The Southern Literary Messenger reprints “The Raven” with an introduction by Benjamin Blake Minor: “The following poem first appeared, we think, in the Evening Mirror; though intended for the American Review. It has since been frequently republished with the highest approbation. Still we take pleasure in presenting it to our readers, who must remember with delight many of the contributions of Mr. Poe to the Messenger.” Minor quotes the praise James Brooks accorded “The Raven” in the New York Morning Express of 5 February.

[1845] CA. MARCH. Minor writes Poe, inviting him to contribute a critical article to the Messenger each month, at “$3 a printed page” (implied by Minor's announcement in the April Messenger and by his letter to J. A. Harrison, W, 1:220-21).

[1845] 1 MARCH. NEW YORK. A reviewer in the Daily Tribune, probably Horace Greeley, comments:

The review is reprinted in the Weekly Tribune for 8 March.

In the Morning News Evert A. Duyckinck comments:

In speaking of the sisters Lucretia and Margaret Davidson, two sentimental poetesses who died before reaching adulthood, Poe observed that the “remarkable mental powers” they displayed in childhood “afforded no promise of their maturing to such splendid genius,” because “precocity is more apt to be followed by mediocrity than otherwise.” He evaluated the several anthologies of American poetry, pronouncing “Griswold's to be the best” and selecting “some ten or twelve” poets from it for further discussion. Poe's recitations displayed “force and pathos” and gave “undissembled pleasure” to the audience. “It would be difficult to exaggerate the merit of his closing disquisition on the general purposes and construction of poetical composition. Competent persons who heard it, will perhaps not decline to rank the author with a Hazlitt or a Coleridge.”

In the Evening Mirror Nathaniel P. Willis reviews the lecture: [page 510:]

Poe's audience numbered “between two and three hundred” and consisted “of critics and poets,” who heard him “with breathless attention.” Willis describes Poe's manner on the rostrum: “He becomes a desk, — his beautiful head showing like a statuary embodiment of Discrimination; his accent drops like a knife through water, and his style is so much purer and clearer than the pulpit commonly gets or requires, that the effect of what he says, besides other things, pampers the ear.” The review is reprinted in the Weekly Mirror for 8 March.

[1845] 1 MARCH. In the Evening Mirror Willis publishes a long letter from a correspondent who signs himself “Outis,” the Greek word for “Nobody.” Outis strenuously objects to Poe's efforts “to convict Longfellow of imitation, and Aldrich and others, of plagiarism. ... Did no two men ever think alike, without stealing one from the other? or, thinking alike, did no two men ever use the same, or similar words, to convey the thoughts, and that, without any communication with each other?” Outis sees no evidence of plagiarism either in James Aldrich's “A Death-Bed” or Thomas [page 511:] Hood's “The Death-Bed”; he disputes Poe's demonstration of similarities in the 17 February Mirror. Parodying the procedure in Poe's article, Outis quotes “The Bird of the Dream,” an anonymous poem written years before; and he then enumerates fifteen “identities” between it and “The Raven,” showing how Poe himself might be convicted of plagiarism. “Now I shall not charge Mr. Poe with plagiarism .... Such criticisms only make the author of them contemptible, without soiling a plume in the cap of his victim. I have selected this poem of Mr. Poe's, for illustrating my remarks, because it is recent, and must be familiar to all the lovers of true poetry hereabouts.” The letter is reprinted in the Weekly Mirror for 8 March.

[1845] 1 MARCH. The Rover notices the controversy about Aldrich's reputed plagiarism from Hood, as debated in Briggs's editorial in the 15 February Broadway Journal and in Poe's reply in the 17 February Evening Mirror. The Rover observes that Hood's poem was published in 1831, nine years before Aldrich's: “We do not put our fingers in the charge against Mr. Aldrich, further than to remove suspicion of stain from the reputation of Mr. Hood; and, furthermore, we do not approve the Mirror's standard of criticism, for it leaves not a foundation stone on which to rest the reputation of most modern poets.”

[1845] 1 MARCH. The Broadway Journal contains Poe's review of Graham's Magazine for March.

[1845] 1 MARCH. William M. Gillespie, a minor author, writes Poe, discussing his lecture on the “Poets and Poetry of America”:

[1845] AFTER 1 MARCH. Mrs. Frances S. Osgood, an attractive poetess of thirty-three, meets Poe. She recalls:

[1845] 2 MARCH. The New York Herald comments:

[1845] 3 MARCH. BOSTON. The Daily Atlas reports:

[1845] 5 MARCH. The Evening Transcript reprints the report of Poe's lecture from the “Atlas of Monday.” Miss Cornelia Wells Walter, the editor of the Transcript, adds:

[1845] 6 MARCH OR LATER. NEW YORK. Poe writes William M. Gillespie that he will be unable to keep his appointment with Mrs. Osgood:

[1845] BEFORE 8 MARCH. The publishers Wiley and Putnam agree to issue a new edition of Poe's tales in their forthcoming “Library of American Books” (Briggs to Lowell, 8 March). [page 514:]

[1845] 8 MARCH. The Town evaluates Poe's lecture: “It was worthy of its author — keen, cutting and withering, when it touched on the mountebanks of American literature; and full of faith and hope, when it spoke of the future. Among the mountebanks, a man named GRISWOLD, who is a Reverend and who is not a Reverend, received his proper share of castigation.” In the New World Charles Eames comments: “We were unable to hear Mr. Poe's lecture ... but it has been universally spoken of as a strong and spirited performance. Mr. Poe has been urged to repeat it, and we trust he will comply with the request.”

[1845] 8 MARCH. The Broadway Journal now identifies its staff on its masthead: “C. F. BRIGGS, EDGAR A. POE, H. C. WATSON, EDITORS.” The journal publishes the first of five installments of “IMITATION — PLAGIARISM — MR. POE's REPLY TO THE LETTER OF OUTIS — A LARGE ACCOUNT OF A SMALL MATTER — A VOLUMINOUS HISTORY OF THE LITTLE LONGFELLOW WAR.” Poe reprints the letter of “Outis” from the Evening Mirror of 1 March, asking: “Is it altogether impossible that a critic be instigated to the exposure of a plagiarism, or still better, of plagiarism generally wherever he meets it, by a strictly honorable and even charitable motive?” The Journal also carries a letter “to the Editor” from Poe, who discusses his 28 February lecture. On this occasion he told “an audience made up chiefly of editors and their connexions” an unpleasant truth: “I told these gentlemen to their teeth that, with a very few noble exceptions, they had been engaged for many years in a system of indiscriminate laudation of American books — a system which, more than any other one thing in the world, had tended to the depression of that ‘American Literature’ whose elevation it was designed to effect. ... Could I, at the moment, have invented any terms more explicit, wherewith to express my contempt of our general editorial course of corruption and puffery, I should have employed them.”

[1845] 8 MARCH. Briggs writes Lowell in Philadelphia:

[1845] 8 MARCH. PHILADELPHIA. Lowell writes Longfellow in Cambridge, Massachusetts: “Somebody has been mixing me up with the foolish controversy about the ‘Waif.’ “Lowell never dreamed of attributing his omission from Longfellow's anthology to the cause implied by Poe in his review for the Evening Mirror: “But as I had written a life of Mr. Poe I thought some of your friends might imagine I jogged Mr. Poe's elbow in the criticism. I have had no communication with him, ... since nearly two months before the appearance of the ‘Waif.’ I say frankly your copying any verse of mine into that pleasant little volume never occurred to me” (Phillips, 2:972-73).

[1845] 10 MARCH. NEW YORK. Poe writes George R. Graham in Philadelphia:

[1845] 11 MARCH. PHILADELPHIA. Graham writes Longfellow in Cambridge, Massachusetts: “What has ‘broke loose’ in Poe? I see he is down on you in New York papers and has written demanding return of Review I mentioned he had written for me. If he sends money or another article I shall be obliged to let him have it. ... Mr. Willis made a disclaimer of being an endorser of Poe's views, at my request. I cannot see what Poe says now, can hurt you” (Phillips, 2:978).

[1845] 13 MARCH. ITHACA, NEW YORK. Jedediah Hunt, Jr., the editor of the National Archives, reviews the Broadway Journal for 8 March in his weekly newspaper. Hunt praises the Journal as “a prize” among periodicals:

[1845] 15 MARCH. NEW YORK. The Rover announces that it will publish “an original poem by the lamented and highly gifted Margaret Davidson” in its next number: “By-the-bye — was it not rather uncalled for — the manner in which Mr. Poe spoke of these talented girls [Lucretia and Margaret Davidson] in his late Lecture? We think so. They did not write for criticism — at least such criticism as his; and it is a pity that a lamb shall not stray beyond its fold without being pounced upon by an undiscriminating wolf. Mr. Poe must not be too ravenous, lest he provoke the judgment of the gods.”

[1845] 15 MARCH. The Broadway Journal contains the second installment of Poe's reply to “Outis.” He agrees with Outis’ position that two persons can “think alike” without one or the other being guilty of plagiarism. As an example, Poe observes that Outis no doubt considers him “a fool” and that this same idea is independently “entertained by Mr. Aldrich, and by Mr. Longfellow — and by Mrs. Outis and her seven children — and by Mrs. [page 517:] Aldrich and hers — and by Mrs. Longfellow and hers.” In an article on “Satirical Poems,” Poe condemns such crude American satires as John Trumbull's M’Fingal and Laughton Osborn's The Vision of Rubeta, which manifest the colonial tendency to imitate the mother country. The former is “a faint echo from ‘Hudibras’ ”; the latter, “an illimitable gilded swill-trough overflowing with Dunciad and water.” The Journal reprints Poe's revised tale “Lionizing” (under the heading “Some Passages in the Life of a Lion”) and Philip Pendleton Cooke's “Florence Vane,” a poem “recited by Mr. Poe in his late Lecture.”

[1845] 15 MARCH. The poetess Mary E. Hewitt writes Poe from her quarters at the Athenaeum Hotel: “Mr. [William M.] Gillespie tells me that he has mentioned to you the singular coincidence that I related to him, of the simultaneous appearance of your admirable poem, ‘The Raven,’ and the receipt of a letter by myself from a very dear brother resident in Manilla, containing a marvelous history of a ‘white bird,’ the which, although the very opposite of the ‘raven,’ struck me as being so singularly like it in groundwork as to constitute a ‘remarkable coincidence.’ ” Mrs. Hewitt has composed a verse “paraphrase” of this fable, entitled “A Tale of Luzon,” which she encloses. She is also forwarding her brother's letter, thinking that Poe might like “to see the story as told in the original prose” (Mabbott [1937], pp. 116-17).

[1845] 15 MARCH. WOODLANDS, SOUTH CAROLINA. William Gilmore Simms writes Evert A. Duyckinck in New York:

[1845] 15 MARCH. CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS. Longfellow replies to Lowell's 8 March letter:

[1845] 16 MARCH. STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK. Briggs writes Lowell in Philadelphia:

[1845] 16 MARCH. NEW YORK. Mrs. Frances S. Osgood writes a friend, possibly Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman of Providence, Rhode Island:

[1845] 17 MARCH. Poe writes Jedediah Hunt, Jr., in Ithaca, New York: “There is something in the tone of your article on ‘The Broadway Journal’ (contained in the ‘Archives’ of the 13th.) which induces me to trouble you with this letter.” Poe recognizes the author of this article as “an educated, an honest, a chivalrous, but ... a somewhat over-hasty man.” He explains his conduct as a critic in order that Hunt may be his friend without reservations: “Let me put it to you as to a frank man of honor — Can you suppose it possible that any human being could pursue a strictly impartial course of criticism for 10 years (as I have done in the S. L. Messenger and in Graham's Magazine) without offending irreparably a host of authors and their connexions? — but because these were offended, and gave vent at every [page 519:] opportunity to their spleen, would you consider my course an iota the less honorable on that account?” (L, 1:282-84).

[1845] 19 MARCH. STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK. Briggs replies to a letter from Lowell in Philadelphia, who has objected to Poe's reference to “Mrs. Longfellow” in the 15 March Broadway Journal:

[1845] 20 MARCH. NEW YORK. Poe acknowledges Mrs. Hewitt's letter and “little package” of 15 March:

[1845] 20 MARCH. Poe apparently writes the actress Anna Cora Mowatt, identifying himself as the drama critic of the Broadway Journal and asking to see the manuscript of her forthcoming comedy Fashion. Her reply should be addressed to 154 Greenwich Street (Ostrom [1974], pp. 524-25).

[1845] 20 MARCH. In the evening Mrs. Mowatt sends Poe a copy of Fashion: “I have not a more legible manuscript of the Comedy to submit to your perusal, or even one containing all the corrections made at the suggestion of critical advisers. The only fair copy is in the hands of the managers, and that I could not procure. Your criticisms will be prized — I am sorry that they could not have been made before preparations for the performance of the Comedy had progressed so far” (W, 17:207-08; also in E. W. Barnes, pp. 104-05). [page 520:]

[1845] 21 MARCH. PHILADELPHIA. Lowell replies to Briggs's letter of 19 March:

[1845] 21 MARCH. NEW YORK. Mrs. Hewitt replies to Poe's letter of 20 March: “I certainly intended to place the ‘Tale of Luzon’ quite at your disposal — and beg you to believe that I appreciate highly the kindness that has prompted your favorable notice of my lines. After the ‘RAVEN,’ my verse seemed to me but a broken chime — and since sending it to you, I have wondered at my own temerity. I shall be proud to see it published in the columns of the ‘Broadway Journal’ ” (Mabbott [1937], pp. 117-18).

[1845] 22 MARCH. The Broadway Journal contains the third installment of Poe's reply to “Outis,” as well as his notice of the Southern Literary Messenger:

On another page the Journal carries an advertisement for the Messenger.

[1845] 22 MARCH. The Weekly News reports: “Wiley & Putnam have in press a volume of ‘Tales by Edgar A. Poe’ ” (Tanselle [1962], p. 252).

[1845] 24 MARCH. Briggs writes Lowell in Philadelphia: “Poe's Longfellow war, which, by the way, is all on one side, has annoyed a good deal, but since I allowed him to begin it, without any expectation of his making more than one article on it, I could not cut it off until he had made a finish of it in his own way. ... I presume it will in some quarters do us an injury, but I hope that Longfellow is too good a fellow to take it much to heart. ... I had supposed from what I have heard you say about the Longfellow clique that you were entirely out of the reach of its circles and cared not the snap of your finger about any of them” (MiDAAA-P). [page 521:]

[1845] 25 MARCH. The Evening Mirror contains “The Craven: BY POH!” — an advertisement:

Dr. F. FELIX GOURAUD, of 67 Walker street, again deems it necessary to caution the public against purchasing any imitations of his matchless Italian Medicated Soap, incomparable Poudres Subtiles and marvellous Grecian Hair Dye.

[1845] 26 MARCH. Mrs. Mowatt's comedy Fashion opens at the Park Theatre; Poe attends the first performance as well as several successive repetitions (E. W. Barnes, pp. 96-115; Poe in Broadway Journal, 5 April).

[1845] 28 MARCH. BOSTON. The Liberator, a weekly newspaper devoted to the cause of abolition, publishes a letter from Robert Carter, Lowell's friend and former partner. Carter denounces the Broadway Journal for favorably noticing the Southern Literary Messenger in its 22 March issue:

[1845] 28 MARCH. NEW YORK. Briggs writes the painter William Page in Boston:

[1845] 29 MARCH. The Broadway Journal contains Poe's lengthy review of Mrs. Mowatt's Fashion, as well as the fourth installment of his reply to “Outis.” Poe defends himself against Outis’ accusation that he has been given to the “wholesale mangling” of authors: “no man can point to a single critique, among the very numerous ones which I have written during the last ten years, which is either wholly fault-finding or wholly in approbation; nor is there an instance to be discovered, among all that I have published, of my having set forth, either in praise or censure, a single opinion upon any critical topic of moment, without attempting, at least, to give it authority by something that wore the semblance of a reason.” In a notice “To Correspondents,” the editors of the Journal acknowledge the poems contributed by “Kate Carol” and “Violet Vane” (pseudonyms used by Mrs. Osgood).

[1845] APRIL. The American Review contains Poe's tale “Some Words with a Mummy” and his two revised poems “The Valley of Unrest” and “The City in the Sea.”

[1845] APRIL. In the Democratic Review Evert A. Duyckinck comments: “There were some things in Mr. Poe's Lecture on the American Poets at the Society Library which appeared out of harmony with the general tone of his remarks, but they were slight, unworthy of being mentioned alongside of the devoted spirit in which he advocated the claims and urged the responsibilities of literature.” In another article Duyckinck notices the discussion of plagiarism Poe has been conducting “for some weeks past” in the Broadway Journal: “While it is necessary that something should be said on this point, there is also great danger that the thing may be carried too far. There is no literary question which requires more discrimination, greater nicety of apprehension and occasionally more courage. We appreciate the latter quality in Mr. Poe.”

[1845] APRIL. In his Merchants’ Magazine Freeman Hunt praises the Broadway Journal: “Its criticisms are discriminating and just, and impress the reader with the conviction that they are made in all fairness, sincerity, and [page 523:] candor. We admire its elevated tone, and independent and manly bearing, and are gratified to learn that it is in ‘the full tide of successful experiment.’ It is the nearest approach to our beau ideal of what a literary Journal should be.”

[1845] APRIL. In the “Editor's Table” of the Knickerbocker Magazine, Lewis Gaylord Clark comments: “We have already encountered one or two parodies upon Mr. POE's ‘Raven,’ but have seen nothing so faithful to the original ... as one which has been sent us, entitled ‘The Black Cat.’ ” This parody features “a huge Black Cat, ... between ‘whom’ and the writer there ensues a colloquy, which is quite like the conversation carried on between Mr. POE and ‘The Raven.’ ” Clark excerpts six stanzas from “The Black Cat.”

[1845] APRIL. RICHMOND. The Southern Literary Messenger carries an announcement by its editor Benjamin Blake Minor: “we have engaged the services of Mr. Poe; who will contribute monthly a critique raisonnée of the most important forthcoming works in this Country and in Europe.”

[Poe did not become a regular contributor at this time, although he forwarded two reviews published in the May Messenger.]

[1845] 2 APRIL. NEW YORK. Duyckinck writes William Gilmore Simms in Woodlands, South Carolina. He has become the literary editor of the Democratic Review; Simms will see his “initial efforts” in the April number. “The articles on ... Poe's Lecture, Longfellow's Plagiarism &c are mine” (NNC).

[1845] 2 APRIL. Poe writes W. Dinneford, manager of Palmo's Theatre, requesting the customary free admission accorded representatives of the press. As the drama critic of the Broadway Journal, Poe is anxious “to do Justice” to Palmo's forthcoming production of Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone (Dinneford to Poe, 15 April).

[1845] 5 APRIL. The Broadway Journal contains the fifth and final installment of Poe's reply to “Outis,” as well as his revised tale “Berenice” and his favorable review of W. Newnham's Human Magnetism, a treatise on mesmerism. He modifies the opinion he expressed of Mrs. Mowatt's Fashion in last week's Journal, based only on the manuscript of this comedy and its first performance. Having “been to see it every night since,” Poe now believes its thesis to be original: “We can call to mind no drama, just now, in which the design can be properly stated as the satirizing of fashion as fashion.” In “So Let It Be” by “Violet Vane,” Mrs. Osgood addresses Poe, alluding to his happy marriage with Virginia: [page 524:]

[1845] 5 APRIL. BALTIMORE. In the Saturday Visiter Joseph Evans Snodgrass notices this month's Southern Literary Messenger: “We observe with approbation, that the powerful pen of Edgar A. Poe has been engaged for the critical department.”

[1845] 7 APRIL. NEW YORK. Poe signs a receipt: “Received of John Bisco ten dollars, on account of the Southern Literary Messenger” (L, 2:521).

[1845] 10 APRIL. Briggs writes William Page in Boston. He has just read Robert Carter's attack on the Broadway Journal in the Liberator of 28 March: “The poor fellow [Carter] is certainly crazy .... I never had the most remote idea of making the B.J. an abolition paper .... I cannot afford to publish a radical reform paper, for I could get no readers if I did. ... I engaged Poe's services almost entirely on the score of Lowell's and Carter's recommendations .... It was he who wrote the notice about the Southern Magazine which Carter objects to” (MiDAAA-P).

[1845] 11 APRIL. PHILADELPHIA. The Spirit of the Times reprints Poe's “Berenice” from the Broadway Journal of 5 April (Mabbott [1978], 2:208).

[1845] BEFORE 12 APRIL. NEW YORK. C. Shepard, Publisher, 191 Broadway, issues the second edition of George Vandenhoffs A Plain System of Elocution, which contains compositions in prose and verse suitable for “Practice in Oratorical, Poetical, and Dramatic Reading and Recitation.” Among the works selected is “The Raven,” now printed in a book for the first time.

[1845] 12 APRIL. The Morning News notices Vandenhoffs Elocution: “We are pleased to see Mr. Poe's ‘Raven’ thus early domesticated as a classic production in a work of this kind.” The review is reprinted in the Weekly News for 19 April.

[1845] 12 APRIL. The Broadway Journal contains Poe's essay “Anastatic Printing,” as well as his favorable reviews of Charles Anthon's A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Francis Fauvel-Gouraud's Phreno-Mnemotechny; Or, [page 525:] The Art of Memory, and Vandenhoffs Elocution. In noticing the Southern Literary Messenger for April, he objects to its unperceptive critique of Elizabeth Barrett Barrett: “The critic merely shows that her poetry is no poetry to him. She is unquestionably, in spite of her numerous faults, the most glorious woman of her age — the queen of all female poets.” Poe condemns the contemporary version of Sophocles’ Antigone being performed at Palmo's Theatre: “The idea of reproducing a Greek play before a modern audience is the idea of a pedant and nothing beyond .... Many persons will be curious to understand the mode in which the Greeks wrote dramas and performed them — but, alas! no person should go to Palmo's for such understanding.” The Journal prints two poems by Mrs. Osgood, “Love's Reply” under her own name and “Spring” under the pseudonym “Violet Vane.”

[1845] 12 APRIL. Briggs writes Lowell in Philadelphia:

[1845] AFTER 12? APRIL. Poe forwards reviews of Anthon's Dictionary and Fauvel-Gouraud's Phreno-Mnemotechny to the Southern Literary Messenger. In these notices he enlarges upon his favorable comments on the two books in the Broadway Journal of 12 and 19 April.

[Benjamin Blake Minor later wrote J. A. Harrison: “He [Poe] sent me two or three articles entirely unworthy of him, and the magazine. Still, they were published and paid for” (W, 1:220-21).]

[1845] 15 APRIL. W. Dinneford, the manager of Palmo's Theatre, writes Poe:

[1845] 16 APRIL. Poe signs a receipt: “Received of John Bisco three dollars on a/c of Southern L. Messenger” (L, 2:521).

[1845] 16 APRIL. The Evening Mirror comments: “Those who would like to hear a fine specimen of unsparing critical analysis and good delivery, have the opportunity in Mr. Poe's repetition of his famous Lecture to-morrow evening at the Society Library.”

[1845] 17 APRIL. The Daily Tribune, the New York Herald, and the Evening Mirror carry this advertisement:

In a brief editorial the Tribune describes the lecture as “pungent and amusing although perhaps not in all respects judicious.”

[1845] 17 APRIL. Alexander T. Crane, the office boy of the Broadway Journal, witnesses the cancellation of Poe's lecture:

[1845] 18 APRIL. The New York Herald reports: “POSTPONED. — Mr. Poe did not deliver his lecture on Shakspeare [sic] last night — there not being more than between thirty and forty persons present at the appointed hour, which was probably owing to the state of the weather.” The Evening Mirror comments: “Mr. Poe postponed his lecture ... in consequence of the inclemency of the weather.”

[The Daily Tribune, 19 April, complained that New Yorkers had been subjected to “sour, spitting North-East weather” for the past “two or three days.”]

[1845] 19 APRIL. The Broadway Journal contains Poe's essay “Street-Paving” and his revised tale “Bon-Bon.” He concludes his review of Fauvel-Gouraud's Phreno-Mnemotechny, begun in last week's issue. Under the heading “Achilles’ Wrath,” he prints W. Dinneford's 15 April letter with a pungent commentary: “We told him [Dinneford] that we meant to do him [page 527:] justice — and we did it.” Poe wishes to call public attention “to the peculiar character of the conditions which managers such as this have the impudence to avow, as attached to the privilege of the free list. No puff no privilege, is the contract.”

[1845] 19 APRIL. The New World publishes “A Vision” by “Snarles,” a parody of “The Raven” satirizing “all the City's Press,” in which “Each paper seemed personified, by goblins strange and tall.” The narrator's description of the Broadway Journal refers to Poe's fearless criticism:

[1845] 19 APRIL. The Evening Mirror publishes an anonymous satire entitled “Criticism on Poe's ‘Raven,’ ” preceded by Nathaniel P. Willis’ note: “The following contemplative and droll criticism of this poem that has made a mark, will amuse our friend Poe quite as much as our other readers — perhaps more.” The satire is reprinted in the Weekly Mirror for 26 April.

[1845] 19 APRIL. Poe writes Rufus W. Griswold in Philadelphia, returning proof sheets: “The poems look quite as well in the short metre as in the long, and I am quite content as it is.” Four lines in “The Raven” have been divided “at the wrong place”; Poe copies them in the short metre, indicating the correct divisions. In “The Sleeper” the line “Forever with uncloséd eye” should be changed to read “Forever with unopen’d eye.” Poe adds a conciliatory postscript: “I presume you understand that in the repetition of my Lecture on the Poets (in N. Y) I left out all that was offensive to yourself?” (L, 1:284-86). [page 528:]

[This letter seems to indicate that Griswold hoped to insert “The Raven” in the sixth edition of The Poets and Poetry of America (1845); but the poem was not included until the enlarged eighth edition, published shortly before 29 May 1847. The reviews of Poe's 28 February lecture in the New York Herald, 2 March, and the Town, 8 March, suggest that it still contained much that Griswold would have found “offensive.”]

[1845] 26 APRIL. The Broadway Journal carries Poe's revised tale “The Oval Portrait,’ formerly entitled “Life in Death.” Under the heading “A Gentle Puff,” Poe reprints the stanzas on the Journal from the New World of 19 April. He addresses Frances S. Osgood in a short poem “To F——,” originally published as “To Mary” in the Southern Literary Messenger for July 1835. The Journal's editorial “Miscellany” contains a new stanza by Poe, playfully addressing Mrs. Osgood by one of her pseudonyms:

[1845] 26 APRIL. The Town obliquely alludes to Poe's drinking in a fictitious list of forthcoming books: “A treatise on ‘Aqua Pura,’ its uses and abuses, by Edgar A. Poe, is to be issued at the Broadway Journal office.”

[1845] 26 APRIL. BALTIMORE. In the Saturday Visiter Joseph Evans Snodgrass notices the Broadway Journal: “Its peculiar feature is the boldness of its book-criticisms, for which it is, doubtless, mainly indebted to Mr. Poe, who seems to revel in a work which he knows so well how to perform. It strikes us, that it would be more significant to call this ‘The Broad-axe Journal’!”

[1845] AFTER 26 APRIL. NEW YORK. Mrs. Osgood transcribes Poe's “Impromptu” from the Broadway Journal of 26 April; she later presents her manuscript copy to her friend Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith, giving it the title “To the Sinless Child,” in allusion to Mrs. Smith's poem “The Sinless Child” (Mabbott [1969], 1:380n; Smith, pp. 87, 99-100, 124-26).

[1845] 29 APRIL. The Evening Mirror publishes “The Gazelle (After the Manner of Poe's ‘Raven’)” by C. C. Cooke. This parody is preceded by an editorial note identifying its author as a “new-found boy-poet of fifteen”; it is reprinted in the Weekly Mirror for 3 May. [page 529:]

[1845] 29 APRIL. BAINBRIDGE, NEW YORK. Jedediah Hunt, Jr., the former editor of the Ithaca, New York, National Archives, commences a new weekly paper, the Bainbridge Eagle. In the first number he publishes Poe's 17 March letter to him. Hunt rejects Poe's suggestion that he is “a somewhat over-hasty man”; he has been instead “a somewhat over-tardy man,” who is “still obliged to insist that Mr. POE is a too severe critic.” Hunt's objections to Poe's criticism have not been made out of malice or envy; on the contrary, he admires “his untiring energy; his discriminating genius; his well improved intellect.” Poe is “a star in the literary galaxy of our country, whose light no other ‘twinkling world’ in the least diminishes. There are those whose beam is more dazzling — but none which bids fairer to be ultimately, more lasting.”

[1845] 30 APRIL. Hunt writes Longfellow in Cambridge, Massachusetts: “I send you my paper this week in which I have answered Mr. Edgar A. Poe touching severity of his strictures on productions of others” (Phillips, 2:979).

[1845] 30 APRIL. NEW YORK. Poe signs a receipt: “Received of John Bisco five dollars account of the Southern Literary Messenger” (L, 2:521).

[1845] LATE APRIL. The Aristidean for April contains an abusive article on “Longfellow's Poems,” unsigned but written by the editor Thomas Dunn English, apparently after some consultation with Poe. English describes Poe in “Notes About Men of Note,” a sketch characterizing seven New York editors:

[1845] CA. MAY. The Poe family moves to a boardinghouse at 195 East Broadway, renting several rooms on the second floor (Quinn, p. 463; Chivers [1952], pp. 58, 60, 108).

[1845] CA. MAY. Poe, who has abstained from alcohol for over eighteen months, resumes drinking and frequently becomes incapacitated. Briggs is dismayed by his partner's conduct (Briggs to Lowell, 27 June and 16 July).

[1845] MAY. RICHMOND. The Southern Literary Messenger publishes Poe's reviews of Anthon's Dictionary and Fauvel-Gouraud's Phreno-Mnemotechny.

[1845] 1 MAY. NEW YORK. The Morning News reprints “The Oval Portrait” from the Broadway Journal of 26 April. Poe's tale appears in the Weekly News for 10 May.

[1845] 1 MAY. Alexander T. Crane's “Water;” a poem revised by Poe, is published in the Youth's Cabinet (Mabbott [1969], 1:491-92).

[1845] 3 MAY. The Broadway Journal announces that its office “has been removed from 153 Broadway to 135 Nassau Street, Clinton Hall Buildings.” The Journal contains Poe's poem “The Sleeper” (reprint) and his revised sketch “House Furniture,” formerly entitled “The Philosophy of Furniture.” Poe favorably reviews the Aristidean for April, discussing the article on Longfellow: “It is, perhaps, a little coarse, but we are not disposed to call it unjust; although there are in it some opinions which, by implication, are attributed to ourselves individually, and with which we cannot altogether coincide.”

[1845] 3 MAY. LONDON. Lloyd's Entertaining Journal reprints Poe's tale “The Spectacles” from the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper for 27 March 1844 (Moldenhauer [1977], p. 188).

[1845] 4 MAY. NEW YORK. Poe writes Frederick William Thomas in Washington, apologizing for his tardiness in answering Thomas’ last two letters: “For the last three or four months I have been working 14 or 15 hours a day — hard at it all the time — and so, whenever I took pen in hand to write, I found that I was neglecting something that would be attended to.” In spite of his industry, Poe has made no money: “I am as poor now as ever I was in my life — except in hope, which is by no means bankable.” Since he has “a 3d pecuniary interest” in the Broadway Journal, everything he has written for it has been “so much out of pocket.” He is forwarding “The Raven,” contained in the Journal for 8 February: “It was copied by Briggs, my associate, before I joined the paper. ‘The Raven’ has had a great ‘run, [page 531:] Thomas — but I wrote it for the express purpose of running — just as I did the ‘Gold-Bug’, you know. The bird beat the bug, though, all hollow” (L, 1:286-87).

[1845] 7 MAY. The Evening Mirror reprints Poe's “House Furniture” with a preface: “The following Essay on a subject of that, in New York, at least, has more of May-day in it than dog-wood blossoms, birds or willow buds, is well worth copying entire from our excellent contemporary, the Broadway Journal.” The sketch appears in the Weekly Mirror for 17 May.

[1845] 10 MAY. The Broadway Journal contains Poe's poem “To One in Paradise,” formerly entitled “To Ianthe in Heaven,” and his revised tale “Three Sundays in a Week,” formerly entitled “A Succession of Sundays.” Poe notices “The Gazelle,” published in the Evening Mirror of 29 April: “It is the composition of a mere boy of fifteen, C. C. Cooke, and, although professedly an imitation of ‘The Raven,’ has a very great deal of original power.”

[1845] BEFORE 12 MAY. LONDON. Richard Henry Horne writes Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, enclosing “The Raven,” Poe's review of her poems in the Broadway Journal for 4 and 11 January, and Poe's 25 January letter to him (Barrett to Horne, 12 May; Horne to Poe, 17 May).

[1845] 12 MAY. Miss Barrett writes Horne:

[1845] 12 MAY. Later in the day Miss Barrett sends a second letter to Horne: “I am uncomfortable about my message to Mr. Poe, lest it should not be grateful enough in the sound of it. Will you tell him, what is quite the truth, — that, in my own opinion, he has dealt with me most generously, and that I thank him for his candour as for a part of his kindness. ... Also, the review is very ably written, — and the reviewer has so obviously & thoroughly read my poems, as to be a wonder among critics” (W, 17:387). [page 533:]

[1845] 12 MAY. WASHINGTON. Thomas writes Poe: “Your letter of May 4th gave me great pleasure. ... I am glad you have embarked in the editorial way again and I thank you for the journal and the ‘Raven.’ ... Do you ever see Willis? Make my kindest regards to him.” Thomas’ letter is written on a sheet of paper containing a cryptogram and this note by his friend Charles S. Frailey: “The subjoined piece of secret writing was received at the Genl Land Office in connection with a letter having relation to a claim for bounty land due a soldier, which letter was without address on its face, but from other evidence appeared designed for a person out of office.” Thomas explains that Frailey asked him to send the cipher to Poe for a translation: “At your earliest leisure (as it may be a matter of importance) will you do me the favor to let me know what it means” (MB-G).

[1845] 14 MAY. NEW YORK. Poe writes Thomas, giving this translation of Frailey's cryptogram: “In September 1843, our respected friend Colonel T. C. Gardner, auditor of the Post office Department, applied at the Land office with his warrant. His patent did not render it necessary to reside at the place. Richard Douglas.” Poe complains that the cipher was composed “by some barbarously ignorant person” who wrote “neseserri” for “necessary,” “puwst ofis” for “post office,” and “tuw” for “to.” Nathaniel P. Willis is “going to England next month” (L, 1:288-89; Moldenhauer [1973], pp. 59-60).

[1845] 14 MAY. PHILADELPHIA. The Spirit of the Times reprints Poe's “Three Sundays in a Week” from the Broadway Journal of 10 May (Mabbott [1978], 2:649).

[1845] 14 MAY. FRUIT HILLS, OHIO. The Regenerator reprints Poe's “Mesmeric Revelation” (Mabbott [1978], 3:1026).

[1845] 17 MAY. NEW YORK. The Broadway Journal contains Poe's revised tale “The Pit and the Pendulum” and his revised criticism of S. C. Hall's The Book of Gems, an anthology of English poetry he reviewed in the Southern Literary Messenger for August 1836. Poe notices Graham's Magazine for June, criticizing its portrait of Rufus W. Griswold, who “has a much finer face in every respect. The biography attached is written, we fancy, by Mr. C. F. Hoffman, and does Mr. G. no more than justice, either in regard to his acquirements or character as a man.”

[1845] 17 MAY. The Town satirizes Poe's literary criticism in a mock review, “Astray from the office of the Broadway Journal,” of The Adventures, Life and Opinions of John Smith. The review describes this fictitious title as “a mass of insufferable trash, without one redeeming quality,” which is nonethless [page 534:] “one of the most delightful books ... printed in a beautiful arabesque style by Wiley & Putnam.”

[1845] 17 MAY. LONDON. The Critic notices the Broadway Journal, which exhibits “excellent taste and high principle.” The Journal is “the best procurable record of American literature and art”; its criticisms “are distinguished for the largeness and liberality of their views.”

[1845] 17 MAY. Richard Henry Horne replies to Poe's 25 January letter, which he did not receive until “the latter end of April.” He encloses a portion of the second letter that Miss Barrett sent him on 12 May, in order that Poe “may see in what a good and noble spirit she receives the critique.” She has said that “The Raven” has “a fine lyrical melody.” Horne believes that Poe “intends to represent a very painful condition of mind, as of an imagination that was liable to topple over into some delirium or an abyss of melancholy, from the continuity of one unvaried emotion.” He has not been able to obtain Tennyson's opinion of the poem: “It is curious that you should ask me for opinions of the only two poets with whom I am especially intimate. Most of the others I am acquainted with, but am not upon such terms of intellectual sympathy and friendship as with Miss Barrett and Tennyson. But I do not at this moment know where Tennyson is.” Since Poe has mentioned that an American publisher might be willing to reprint Orion, Horne is forwarding a copy of his epic for this purpose: “I also send a copy, in which I have written your name” (W, 17:208-10).

[1845] BEFORE 24 MAY. NEW YORK. John Keese, who has edited The Poetical Writings of Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith, sends this book and several others to Poe (Poe to Keese, 26 May).

[1845] BEFORE 24 MAY. D. Appleton & Co., 200 Broadway, publish the Poems of William Wilberforce Lord, a student at the Princeton Theological Seminary. The volume includes “The New Castalia,” which parodies “The Raven” and other poems by Poe.

[1845] 24 MAY. The Broadway Journal contains Poe's revised tale “Eleonora” and his poem “The Conqueror Worm” (reprint). Reviewing Lord's Poems, Poe objects to the publisher's description of the volume as “very remarkable.” He finds that “the only remarkable things about Mr. Lord's compositions, are their remarkable conceit, ignorance, impudence, platitude, stupidity and bombast.” The Journal prints a sixteen-line poem “To ——;” by “M.,” which may be Poe's reply to Mrs. Osgood's “So Let It Be” in the 5 April issue: [page 535:]

[The poem was attributed to Poe by Mabbott (1969), 1:380-82.)

[1845] 24 MAY. John Keese, who is editing the Opal for 1846, writes Poe, apparently to solicit a contribution for this forthcoming annual (Poe's reply).

[1845] 26 MAY. Poe writes Keese: “Permit me to thank you for the many expressions of good will in your letter of the 24th — also for the books you were so kind as to send me a few days before — very especially for Mrs Smith's beautiful Poems.” He will give Keese “a brief article” for the Opal “in the course of this week” (L, 1:289).

[1845] 29 MAY. Mrs. Mary E. Hewitt writes Poe, enclosing a translation “from the old French edition (1716) of Madame Dacier” for the Broadway Journal. She asks him to present her “compliments to Mrs. Poe,” whose acquaintance she is “happy to have made” (Mabbott [1937], p. 118).

[1845] 30 MAY. The Evening Mirror publishes “The Whippoorwill: A Parody on Mr. Poe's ‘Raven.’ ” The poem appears in the Weekly Mirror for 7 June.

[1845] 31 MAY. The Town notices Poe's review of Lord's Poems: “The last Broadway Journal contains one of Poe's most destructive attacks upon the poetical defences of a Mr. W. W. Lord, who, it seems, has been guilty of all sorts of enormities in rhyme. We pitied the man at first, and were disposed to defend him; but as a finishing stroke Mr. Poe proves that Mr. Lord has stolen from Edgar A. Poe. This is too much — and we abandon him to his fate!”

[1845] 31 MAY. The Alleghanian, a new weekly, objects to Poe's review of Lord in an article on “The Poe-dom of Poetry” (Lord, p. ix).

[1845] 31 MAY. The Broadway Journal contains Poe's revised tale “Shadow — A Parable,” formerly entitled “Shadow: A Fable,” and his revised criticism of Mrs. Lydia Maria Child's romance Philothea, originally reviewed in the Southern Literary Messenger for September 1836.

[1845] 31 MAY. CINCINNATI, OHIO. The Western Luminary reprints Poe's “Mesmeric Revelation” (Mabbott [1978], 3:1026). [page 536:]

[1845] LATE MAY. NEW YORK. James Russell Lowell and his wife Maria spend several days in New York, on their return from Philadelphia to Elmwood, the Lowell family home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Lowell has a single interview with Poe:

[On 9 March 1850 Mrs. Clemm wrote Lowell: “I wish ... I could remove your wrong impression of my darling Eddie. The day you saw him in New York he was not himself. Do you not remember that I never left the room. Oh if you only knew his bitter sorrow when I told him how unlike himself he was” (Quinn, pp. 461-62). See also Poe's remark to T. H. Chivers, after 15? June, and Briggs to Lowell, 16 July.)

[1845] JUNE OR BEFORE. Thomas Dunn English listens to Poe's remarks on the Broadway Journal: “It [the Journal] did not achieve success; and Poe, who had frequently given me glowing prophecies as to its future circulation, told me one day that its comparative failure was owing to the fact that he had it not all in his own hands. ‘Give me,’ said he, ‘the entire control, and it will be the great literary journal of the future.’ During this time he reiterated this expression of discontent on his visits to my rooms” (English, p. 1416).

[1845] JUNE OR BEFORE. Charles F. Briggs decides to obtain sole control of the Broadway Journal. He informs John Bisco of his intention to find a new publisher; he tells Poe that he “should drop his [Poe's] name from the journal’ ” (Briggs to Lowell, 1 August).

[1845] JUNE OR BEFORE. Anne C. Lynch describes the poetess Sarah Helen Whitman to Poe.

[On 1 October 1848 Poe wrote Mrs. Whitman: “some few casual words spoken of you — not very kindly — by Miss Lynch, were the first in which I had ever heard your name mentioned. ... She alluded to what she called your ‘eccentricities’ and hinted at your sorrows. Her description of the former strangely arrested — her half sneers at the latter enchained and [page 537:] riveted, my attention. She had referred to thoughts, sentiments, traits, moods which I knew to be my own, but which, until that moment, I had believed to be my own solely — unshared by any human being. A profound sympathy took immediate possession of my soul.” Cf. Poe to Anna Blackwell, 14 June 1848.]

[1845] JUNE. The Democratic Review publishes Poe's philosophic tale “The Power of Words.”

[1845] JUNE. Henry B. Hirst, the Philadelphia poet, gives Poe a presentation copy of The Coming of the Mammoth, his newly published volume of verse (Mabbott [1969], 1:348).

[1845] 1 JUNE. SOUTH ATTLEBOROUGH, MASSACHUSETTS. Abijah M. Ide, Jr., writes Poe, submitting a poem for the Broadway Journal (MB-G).

[1845] 7 JUNE. NEW YORK. The Town praises the article “The Poe-dom of Poetry” in the Alleghanian for 31 May as “a slashing affair — very much in Poe's way .... Let us be always understood, however, as yielding and recording our great admiration of Poe's genius — his great critical acumen, and the perfect aquafortis of his satire. We will say, however, that his censure is too indiscriminate and his egotism sometimes uncalled for.”

[1845] 7 JUNE. The Broadway Journal contains Poe's revised tale “The Assignation,” formerly entitled “The Visionary.” In his revised essay “Magazine-Writing — Peter Snook,” originally published in the Southern Literary Messenger for October 1836, he complains that the articles in American magazines are decidedly inferior to those in British and French periodicals; he gives a detailed summary of an English tale, “Peter Snook” by James Forbes Dalton, which presents “many striking points for the consideration of the Magazinist.”

[1845] 7 JUNE. LOWELL, MASSACHUSETTS. The Star of Bethlehem reprints Poe's “Three Sundays in a Week” from the Broadway Journal of 10 May (Mabbott [1978], 2:649).

[1845] 9 JUNE. NEW YORK. Poe writes John Keese: “With this note I have the honor to send you a brief sketch for ‘The Opal’ — and hope that I am not too late” (L, 1:289-90).

[Poe's article did not appear in the Opal for 1846.]

[1845] 13 JUNE. Wiley and Putnam register Poe's forthcoming Tales in the Clerk's [page 538:] Office of the United States District Court, Southern District of New York State (Heartman and Canny, p. 94).

[1845] 14 JUNE. LONDON. The Critic copies “The Raven” from the American Review, “on account of its unusual beauty.” This reprinting is prefaced by Willis’ introduction, from the Evening Mirror of 29 January.

[1845] 14 JUNE. NEW YORK. The Broadway Journal contains Poe's tale “The Premature Burial” (corrected reprint).

[1845] BEFORE 15? JUNE. The Georgia poet Thomas Holley Chivers arrives in New York to oversee the publication of his forthcoming volume of poetry, The Lost Pleiad. He writes Poe that he would like to make his acquaintance (Chivers [1952], p. 11, and [1957], pp. 37-38).

[1845] 15? JUNE. Poe writes Chivers: “I have just received your very polite letter informing me that you are in the city. How could you have remained here so long without calling to see me? Call upon me immediately .... You will find me at 195, East Broadway” (Chivers [1957], pp. 37-38).

[1845] AFTER 15? JUNE. Chivers visits Poe at home; they have an extensive conversation on current literature. Poe displays two copies of Horne's Orion, which the British poet recently sent him: “I have taken this book to every respectable Publisher in this City, and not one of them is willing to take upon himself the responsibility of the publication. Here is a work which is, at best, five hundred years in advance of the Age ... if it were a book of romance, full of absurd improbabilities, bad grammar, and wanting in every other thing necessary to make it a book at all, I could find a Publisher at every corner.” Turning to American poets, Poe observes that Lowell “has written some fine things,” especially the poem “Rosaline.” “He [Lowell] called to see me, the other day ... I was very much disappointed in his appearance as an intellectual man. He was not half the noble-looking person that I expected to see.” Poe introduces Chivers to his wife Virginia and Mrs. Clemm. Observing Virginia “attacked with a terrible paroxysm of coughing,” Chivers asks Mrs. Clemm whether she has “caught cold” or suffers from “a consumption.” Mrs. Clemm replies: “No — it is not a cold — Dr. [John Kearsley] Mitchell, of Philadelphia, says that she has the Bronchitis. She ruptured a blood vessel while singing, in Philadelphia, and has never been well since” (Chivers [1952], pp. 39-52).

[1845] BEFORE 20 JUNE. Charles E. West, Principal of the Rutgers Female Institute, sends two letters to Poe, asking him to serve on a committee to judge the literary compositions of the girls at this secondary school. The [page 539:] winning compositions are to be read at the Annual Commencement on 11 July (Poe to West, 20 June; see also 11 JULY).

[1845] 20 JUNE. Poe writes West:

[1845] 20 JUNE. The “University of the City of New-York” issues an engraved invitation: “The honor of your company is respectfully requested at the University-Place Church, (Dr. Potts’) on Tuesday Evening, July 1st, at half-past seven o’clock, when the Annual Oration before the Philomathean and Eucleian Societies, will be delivered by the Hon. Daniel D. Barnard, and the Annual Poem by Edgar A. Poe, Esq.” (PP-G).

[According to the New York Herald, 2 July, these Societies were “composed of the young students of the New York University” who wished to “promote their literary education.”]

[1845] 20 JUNE. Wiley and Putnam deposit a copy of the title page of Poe's Tales in the Clerk's Office of the United States District Court (Heartman and Canny, p. 94).

[1845] 20-21 JUNE. The Daily Tribune carries a Wiley and Putnam advertisement: “TALES BY EDGAR A. POE: Will appear on WEDNESDAY next.”

[1845] AFTER 20? JUNE. Edward J. Thomas, a New York merchant who is enamored of Frances S. Osgood, hears a rumor that Poe has been guilty of forgery. Apparently viewing Poe as a rival for Mrs. Osgood's affection and hoping to discredit him, Thomas repeats the rumor to her. She, in turn, repeats it to Poe, who calls upon Thomas at his business office in Broad Street, denies the rumor, and asks him to retract it. Thomas promises to trace the rumor to its source. Poe describes the situation to Thomas Dunn English, who counsels him to sue Thomas for libel. Poe writes Thomas: “As I have not had the pleasure of hearing from you since our interview at your office, may I ask of you to state to me distinctly, whether I am to consider the charge of forgery urged by you against myself, in the presence of a common friend [Mrs. Osgood], as originating with yourself or Mr. [Park] Benjamin?” Poe's letter is personally delivered by English, who brings him a “verbal and somewhat vague” reply. Poe now considers [page 540:] commencing a suit against Thomas (“Mr. Poe's Reply to Mr. English,” 10 July 1846; see documents in Moss [1970], pp. 36, 57-59, 167-68, 177, 181-82).

[1845] 21 JUNE. The Broadway Journal contains Poe's revised tale “Morella” and his review of Plato Contra Atheos — Plato Against the Atheists. The Journal reprints two poems by Miss Anne C. Lynch, preceded by Poe's note: “We have no excuse to offer for copying them ... except that we have been profoundly impressed with their excellence.” In a notice “To Correspondents” Poe expresses indebtedness “to J. T. of Jackson” (John Tomlin) and “to T. H. C.” (Thomas Holley Chivers).

[1845] CA. 24 JUNE. Thomas Dunn English recalls: “Mr. Poe accepted an invitation to deliver a poem before a society [Philomathean and Eucleian Societies] of the New York University. About a week before the time when this poem was to be pronounced, he called on me, appearing to be much troubled — said he could not write the poem, and begged me to help him out with some idea of the course to pursue. I suggested that he had better write a note to the society, and frankly state his inability to compose a poem on a stated subject. He did not do this, but — as he always does when troubled — drank until intoxicated; and remained in a state of intoxication during the week” (English in Morning Telegraph, 23 June 1846).

[1845] 25 JUNE. Wiley and Putnam publish Poe's Tales, the second volume in their “Library of American Books” (Daily Tribune, 20-21, 26 June).

[Twelve stories appear in the Tales, in this order: “The Gold-Bug,” “The Black Cat,” “Mesmeric Revelation,” “Lionizing,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “A Descent into the Maelström,” “The Colloquy of Monos and Una,” “The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,” “The Purloined Letter,” and “The Man of the Crowd.”]

[1845] 25 JUNE. PHILADELPHIA. Alexander's Weekly Messenger reprints “The Turkey,” a parody of “The Raven,” from the Boston Jester (Mabbott [1969], 1:352).

[1845] 25 JUNE OR LATER. NEW YORK. Poe gives a presentation copy of his Tales to John Bisco (copy in NN-B).

[1845] 26 JUNE. The Daily Tribune carries an advertisement for Wm. Taylor, Bookseller, No. 2 Astor House, who offers for sale “Tales by Edgar A. Poe. 1 vol. beautifully printed in large clear type, on fine paper — 50 cents.” [page 542:]

[1845] 26 JUNE. Poe writes Evert A. Duyckinck, Wiley and Putnam's editor: “I am still dreadfully unwell, and fear that I shall be very seriously ill. ... I have resolved to give up the B. Journal and retire to the country for six months, or perhaps a year, as the sole means of recruiting my health and spirits. Is it not possible that yourself or Mr Matthews [Cornelius Mathews] might give me a trifle for my interest in the paper? Or, if this cannot be effected, might I venture to ask you for an advance of $50 on the faith of the ‘American Parnassus’? — which I will finish as soon as possible” (L, 1:290).

[“American Parnassus” was Poe's long-contemplated but never completed work on American authors, partially realized in “The Literati of New York City.” In his 13 November letter to Duyckinck, he acknowledged receipt of $50 “on account of the ‘Parnassus.’ ”]

[1845] 26 JUNE. The Evening Mirror reprints English's “Notes About Men of Note,” with its characterization of Poe, from the Aristidean for April. The article appears in the Weekly Mirror for 5 July.

[1845] BEFORE 27 JUNE. Poe sends Anne C. Lynch a copy of his Tales and a despondent letter (Lynch to Poe, 27 June).

[1845] 27 JUNE. Miss Lynch writes Poe, thanking him for his “very kind notice” of her poems in the Broadway Journal of 21 June, as well as for his “kind and friendly” letter: “But I am exceedingly pained at the despondeng tone in which you write. Life is too short & there is too much to be done in it, to give one time to despair. Exorcise that devil, I beg of you, as speedily as possible. ... At all events come over and see me to-morrow evening (Saturday) & we will talk the matter over.” Since Miss Lynch will not be in town to hear Poe's poem before the Philomathean and Eucleian Societies “on Tuesday evening,” she hopes he will bring it and “read a few passages.” She thanks him for his Tales (W, 17:258-59; dating established by Reece [1954], p. 19).

[1845] 27 JUNE. Briggs writes Lowell in Cambridge, Massachusetts:

[Briggs hoped to replace John Bisco, the original publisher, with J. Smith Homans, a bookseller who advertised in the Journal (cf. Homans to Bisco, 12 July; Briggs to Lowell, 16 July).]

[1845] 28 JUNE. The Broadway Journal reprints Poe's poem “Dream-Land.” His Tales are listed in a Wiley and Putnam advertisement: this “excellent collection” contains “the most characteristic of the peculiar series of Tales written by Mr. Poe.”

[1845] 28 JUNE. In the Morning News Evert A. Duyckinck reviews the Tales:

The review appears in the Weekly News for 5 July.

[Duyckinck was probably indebted to Poe himself for the information on European reprintings (cf. Poe to Duyckinck, 30 December 1846). The earliest known French translation of the “Rue Morgue” was not published until 11-13 June 1846.]

[1845] 28 JUNE. The Rover carries a review by its editor Lawrence Labree: “TALES ... Mr. Poe has acquired the reputation of a powerful and vigorous writer, though occasionally delighting in biting sarcasm and highly-strained and unreasonable criticism. But in this instance he has given the public a pleasant volume of tales rather above the medium of that style of writing, each one of which possesses the power of holding the reader to the end — tales of absorbing interest.” [page 544:]

[1845] 28 JUNE. BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND. The Birmingham Journal reprints “The Raven” (Phillips, 2:1079).

[1845] BEFORE 29? JUNE. PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND. Mrs. Osgood, who is visiting Providence, writes Poe, asking him to come to this city (Poe's remark to Chivers, 29? June).

[1845] BEFORE 29? JUNE. NEW YORK. In the “Editor's Table” of the Knickerbocker Magazine for July, Lewis Gaylord Clark condemns Poe's essay “Magazine-Writing — Peter Snook,” published in the Broadway Journal of 7 June without the author's name. “Some sage correspondent of the ‘Broadway Journal’ has temporarily resuscitated from oblivion an article from an old English magazine, entitled ‘Mr. Peter Snook,’ which it [he] lauds without stint, but the very ‘plums’ of which we defy any person of taste to swallow with pleasure.” Had it not been for “an indiscrim[in]ate fling at American periodicals,” Clark would not have denounced “the nil-admirari critic” of the Journal. “Judging from the taste exhibited by the critic in his ‘foreign’ selection, we should say that the less he was struck with an American magazine article, the more credit would it reflect upon the periodical which contained it.”

[1845] 29? JUNE. Thomas Holley Chivers recalls:

Chivers takes Poe by the arm. As he is leading him home, they encounter Lewis Gaylord Clark in the street: “The moment Poe saw him — maddened by the remembrance of something that he had said in a recent Number of the [Knickerbocker] Magazine touching one of his own articles which had appeared in the Broadway Journal — he swore, while attempting to rush away from my hold, that he would attack him.” Chivers restrains Poe, who then introduces him to Clark. Poe asks Clark belligerently, “What business had you to abuse me in the last Number of your Magazine?” Clark protests, “how did I know the Article referred to, was yours? You had always attached your name to all your articles before, and how, in H—l, did I know it was yours?” After Clark departs Poe tells Chivers that he is involved “in the d—dst amour,” asking him not to mention it to Virginia Poe. Chivers asks, “where is the lady [Mrs. Osgood] with whom you are so [page 545:] in love?” Poe replies, “In Providence, by G—d! I have just received a letter from her, in which she requests me to come on there this afternoon on the four o’clock Boat. Her husband [Samuel S. Osgood] is a Painter — always from home” (Chivers [1952], pp. 57-61).

[1845] 30? JUNE. On the “next day” Chivers calls at Poe's boardinghouse, 195 East Broadway; but Poe is “not to be found” (Chivers [1952], p. 61).

[1845] 30? JUNE. Chivers writes Clark, apologizing for Poe's conduct on the day before, “while he was laboring under such an ‘excitement’ ” (letter quoted by Clark in October 1846 Knickerbocker) .