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Monday —
My dear Sir,
I am anxious to see you for many reasons — not the least of which is that I have not seen you for so long a time — but among other things, I wish to ascertain if the poem which, at your suggestion, I have written, is of the lenth [[length]], the character &c. you desire: — if not, I will write another and dispose of this one to Mrs Kirkland. Cannot Miss Bronson and yourself, [[erasure]], pay us a visit at Fordham — say this afternoon or tomorrow?
Truly your friend
Poe
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Notes:
The poem referred to is “Ulalume.”
Full text first given in the Home Journal for July 21, 1860 in an article titled “Recollections of Edgar A. Poe” (p. 3.) This article was reprinted by Carrol D. Laverty in American Literature, XX, May 1948 (p. 167). A portion of the letter is quoted as item 269 in the catalogue of Dodd, Mead and Company for March of 1901. William Koester purchased it in 1962. It now resides in the Humanities Research Center Library of the University of Texas at Austin. Ostrom prints only the excerpt from the Dodd, Mead and Company catalogue in the 1948 edition of the letters. He supplemented this with additional text in the supplement for the 1966 edition, but with a number of minor errors in the reading. These errors are noted by Joseph Moldenhauer in his Descriptive Catalogue of Edgar Allan Poe Manuscripts in the Humanities Research Center Library, The University of Texas, 1973, p. 67. The letter is quoted in Mabbott, Poems, 1969, p. 412.
Dating the letter is somewhat problematic. The only date that appears on the letter itself is “June 1847,” but is not in Poe's hand. A note of November 1888 by Bronson's daughter, Mrs. M. E. Le Duc, also gives June 1847 as the date. The Home Journal article of 1860, however, suggests later in 1847. As that article is many years closer to the source, its dating is probably more reliable.
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[S:0 - MS, 18xx] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Letters - Poe to C. P. Bronson (LTR256a/RCL688a)