Text: J. W. Ostrom, B. R. Pollin, and J. A. Savoye, “Chapter 11,” The Collected Letters of Edgar Allan Poe — Vol. II: 1846-1849 (2008), pp. 763-842 (This material is protected by copyright)

Note: Frederick Gleason (1816-1896) was the editor of the Flag of Our Union, a Boston weekly of the mammoth newspaper size. Despite Poe's low opinion of the Flag he contributed a number of articles to it over the next few months. (See LTR-303, where Poe describes it as “not a very respectable journal,” and LTR-307b, where he calls it “vulgar and trashy.”) Poe had probably not been absent from New York since he returned from Providence or Lowell sometime between December 23-24 and December 28. (See the second and third sentences of LTR-303, LTR-294 and note, LTR-295, and LTR-302. LTR-302a is postmarked from New York on February 1.) The promised “tale or sketch” seems to have been “Hop-Frog,” first printed in the Flag for March 17, 1849 (see LTR-303 and TOM [T&S], 3:1344). The poem referred to was most likely “A Valentine,” which appeared in the Flag for March 3, 1849; it was addressed to Mrs. Osgood, and had been written three years earlier (see TOM [Poems], 1:386-388). Mr. French was probably Gleason's agent in New York. Issues of the Flag for 1849 regularly list as among its “wholesale agents” the name of “S. French” at 293 Broadway, NY. (See also LTR-308, where Poe indicates that he is accustomed to sending Gleason material through “his [Gleason's] agent here.”) Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood, a New York poetess, was a friend of the Poe family. [page 766:] Park Benjamin (1809-1864) was a New York writer and editor about whom Poe had conflicting opinions at various times. (See Poe's November 1841 Graham's article on “Autography,” including an entry on Mr. Benjamin, collected in H [Works], 15:183-184. Interestingly, the article was reprinted in full in Benjamin's New World, November 6, 1841. For a less favorable assessment, see Poe's review of Benjamin's poem “Infatuation” in BJ, March 15, 1845; reprinted in Writings, 3:36-37.)

Source: transcript, noted as a “literal copy,” of the original MS (1 p.) loaned to the Columbia University library by Dodd, Mead & Company, which in 1897 cited the letter as an a.l.s. of 1 page (catalog 46, item 76). The original MS is unlocated. The verso of the copy bears the notation: “Copy of Letter of E. A Poe referring to P. B. [Park Benjamin (?)].” The present letter has been renumbered from LTR-302a to LTR-302b to allow for the correct placement of new LTR-302a, to J. R. Thompson.

Note: The Flag of Our Union was established in 1846 by Frederick Gleason, and by 1850 it had an estimated circulation of 100,000, netting Gleason $25,000 yearly (see American Magazines, 1:10 and 35). Poe relied upon the low-class periodical as an outlet for four tales and five poems from March through July 1849, but always with great reluctance and some embarrassment (see LTR-302b, LTR-307b, LTR-308, and LTR-310). Concerning Poe's letter to her, Mrs. Whitman wrote Griswold, December 12, 1849: “With a heavy heart, & after the most dispassionate reflection, I resolved, for his sake rather than my own, not to reply to this letter, but to defer all painful reminiscences & explanations to a future day” (Quinn, p. 650; see also the note to LTR-302). “The Bells” was not published in the American Review, but did eventually appear in Sartain's Magazine, November 1849 (Quinn, p. 563). Poe's suspicions about Mrs. [page 768:] Whitman's mother were not unfounded (see LTR-302, and note). “Mr. R.” is Charles Richmond, Annie's husband. “Sarah” is Sarah Heywood, Annie's sister (see LTR-289). “Muddy,” of course, was Mrs. Clemm. In the last paragraph, Poe borrows a phrase from Byron's Sardanapalus, 4, i, 330-331: “I am the very slave of circumstance / And impulse — borne away with every breath!”

Source: photocopy of fragment of the original MS (fragment of 2 pp.) in the Morgan Library. The missing portion of the letter, given in brackets, is taken from J. H. Ingram's printing in Appleton's Journal, May 1878, p. 426. (Although reprinted, somewhat more fully, in Ingram, 2:205-207, the Appleton text includes words not in the Life and appears to be more accurate in what it does print.) The letter is printed in its fullest known form, though a portion is still clearly lacking and probably lost. The original MS was certainly no longer than two pages, a recto and verso of one leaf. Although the salutation is missing, identification of the addressee is established by the last three lines of the letter. The publication of “Hop-Frog” in the Flag of Our Union, March 17, 1849 (Wyllie, Poe's Tales, p. 327 and TOM [T&S], 3:1344) suggests the correct dating of the present letter as February 8, 1849, which, incidentally, was on Thursday. This dating is further supported by Poe's statement that he “... returned from Providence — six weeks ago” (by December 28, 1848 — see LTR-296).

Note: John Sartain (1808-1897) was an engraver, chiefly of popular and sentimental subjects, who became a publisher. Poe's poem “The Bells” was published in Sartain's Magazine for November 1849 (5:304, issued about October 15). In spite of Poe's preferences, the poem was printed in two columns, with the perpendicular rule in the middle. The typesetters did take pains to follow Poe's line breaks, though they did not precisely adhere to his pattern of indentation. A substantially shorter version of the poem was printed in the same magazine in December 1849, with a brief explanation of its history. Although the present letter suggests that Poe is offering the poem for the first time, he had apparently sold this earlier version to the Union Magazine, which became Sartain's.

Source: original MS (1 p.) in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Southern Historical Collection, Maurice Family Papers. On the verso of the leaf, the letter is addressed to: “Mess. J. Sartain & co. / Phil^a.” The envelope bears no postmark.

Note: Poe seems to have moved to Fordham about May or June 1846 (see Quinn, p. 506). In the “last three months” Poe had been in and out of Providence, Lowell, and Boston. Thomas was apparently drawn to Louisville to organize as co-editor, with Benjamin Casseday (ca. 1824-1878), a new weekly magazine called the Chronicle of Western Literature (not to be confused with the Chronicle, a newspaper published in the same city beginning in January 1849). Poe calls it a “paper” in the present letter, but this was loose usage for Poe, who also speaks of its orientation as that of a magazine, having a unified viewpoint, engaging in satires, and avoiding the dangers of “namby-pamby-ism.” (Weekly journals were a popular genre beginning about 1830, although generally considered “cheap” and “ephemeral,” see American Magazines, 1:354-358.) Thomas’ journal, begun on December 2, 1848, continued only through no. 22, on April 4, 1849; his editorship ended February 17, 1849. The Poe Log (pp. 772, 792) speaks of its “write-up” in the New York Home Journal of January 20, 1849 (p. 2, col. 7), a mere three-sentence puff bearing the name of the journal and its primary editor as an “able man and a delightful writer” whose “paper” we “read with pleasure.” The January 20, 1849 Chronicle (on p. 2) cites Duyckinck's Literary World's praise of itself as a “spirited literary and miscellaneous newspaper ... wide awake to the movement of the day...  .” Neither this journal nor the Home Journal, however, mentions its demise in April. Only one library in the country, that of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, reports having a file (which is on microfilm). The journal's variable width of five or six columns and long-column format resembled that of earlier weeklies, such as Horace Greeley's New-Yorker of the 1830s and George Pope Morris’ New-York Mirror, but it was devoid of illustrations, originality, and managerial skill. The two columns at each side of the paper consist largely of advertisements for local booksellers and other merchants, or “filler” marginalia. The initiatory co-editor declares in the issue of February 17, 1849: “The ‘Chronicle ... ’ will hereafter be under the sole charge of Ben Casseday.” Each of the succeeding issues shows this new directorship. Apparently Poe had no inkling when writing and sending the present letter that Thomas had dissociated himself from the journal, closing with a request for editorial inclusion of an exaggerated bit of praise for Mrs. Sarah Anna Lewis’ supposed literary accomplishments. The notice suggests commendations by several critics, including Poe, as though named by editor Thomas. A pencilled note on the MS, probably by Thomas, states: “This notice was never published.” The notice itself was first printed in H [Works], 13:225-226. For more on Mrs. Lewis, [page 773:] and Poe's extended campaign on her behalf, see the note to LTR-257. Poe's review of Lowell's A Fable for Critics (1848) appeared in the SLM, March 1849, anonymously, under “Notices of New Works” (reprinted in H [Works], 13:165-175, and Writings, 5:-375-377). Poe refers to the plight of “poor-devil authors” in an 1840 review and three widely-spaced sketches and essays, the last two of which are reprinted in TOM [T&S], 3:1206-1209, n. 4 and also 3:1140, and 1148, n. 38, and 1379; see also LTR-316 for another instance. Striking is his contrast of the lives of “wealthy gentlemen of elegant leisure” and of these authors, the latter now aided by the advent of inexpensive, widespread “anastatic printing” discussed in his essay on the subject (see BJ, 1:231; Writings, 3:86). See also Bruce I. Weiner's long article on this issue so central to Poe's literary career: “The Most Noble of Professions: Poe and the Poverty of Authorship.” A few other income sources are given in the note to LTR-259. The theme of gold-hunting in California is major in Poe's poem “Eldorado,” and the tale “Von Kempelen and His Discovery,” both being written about this time, and published respectively in the April 21 and April 14, 1849 issues of the Flag of Our Union (see TOM [T&S], 3:1357 and TOM [Poems], l:462-464). Shakespeare's Julius Caesar makes nine appearances in Poe's works, the phrase “like Brutus” also being used in “Loss of Breath” (all instances are listed in Pollin, “Shakespeare in the Works of EAP,” SAR 1985, pp. 157-182, specifically, p. 172). The phrase “Solomon is right” is from Ecclesiastes 1:9. Poe's tirade against Margaret Fuller, “that old maid,” echoes similar comments in LTR-259. Charles Eames (1812-1867) had briefly edited the New World, reprinting several of Poe's works. By the time of the present letter, Eames had moved to Washington, DC, where he accepted a position in the Department of the Navy and also met F. W. Thomas.

While retaining the mute “e” for a suffix today is discountenanced, the OED shows “unpurchaseable” as accepted in Poe's period. See the word “namby-pamby-ism” in the note to LTR-185, discussed as a type of frivolous, popular magazine appeal (see also LTR-134 and LTR-329). Although the OED gives an 1847 instance of “yea-nay” as the first, Poe's use in the 1844 “Thingum Bob” has actual priority (H [Works], 6:18, and TOM [T&S], 3:1139).

Source: photocopy of the original MS (2 pp.) in the Boston Public Library. The envelope is covered with addresses and postmarks, which seem to indicate: first, Poe directed the letter to F. W. Thomas, Louisville, KY, from which it was returned to New York, February 27; then Poe [page 774:] directed it to the Editor of “The Chronicle,” 47 Wall St.; next it was sent to Frankfort, KY, from which it was ultimately redirected, April 5, to Washington, DC, the last address having no line drawn through it. Thomas noted on the envelope: “Recd April 10, 1849.” Page 3 of the holograph contains the short review of Mrs. S. Anna Lewis’ Child of the Sea and Other Poems (see Thomas’ comment and reprint information as part of the note, above). The bracketed restorations on pages 1 and 2 of the present letter appear in the MS over Poe's lines crossed out; the restorations were certainly not made by Thomas. Since Poe's last letter, May 14, 1845, Thomas wrote at least five, but Poe does not seem to have replied until the present letter, though such a long silence toward Thomas seems incredible. Thomas’ letters were as follows: July 10, 1845 (CL-550), September 29, 1845 (CL-569), August 14, 1846 (CL-655), August 24, 1846 (CL-656), and November 27, 1848 (CL-748). This is Poe's last known letter to Thomas, and no further letters from Thomas have been identified.

Note: “Ulalume,” first published in the American Review, December 1847 (6:599-600), was reprinted in the Providence Daily Journal, November 22, 1848, and in Duyckinck's Literary World, March 3, 1849. Duyckinck did not follow the prefatory remarks of the Providence Journal, but supplied his own puff. The poem had originally appeared [page 775:] anonymously in the American Review, but seeing that Poe's identity was already publically revealed as the author in the Daily Journal, Duyckinck did the same. For a publication history of the poem, see TOM [Poems], 1:412-415, and Savoye, “An Unnoticed Printing of ‘Ulalume’,” EAP Review, 1:34-44.

Source: photocopy of the original MS (1 p.) in the New York Public Library, Manuscript Division. The MS letter is an extra illustration in Duyckinck's own copy of his Cyclopedia.

Note: For Poe's comments concerning the Lockes, see LTR-309. See also Mrs. Richmond's letter to Ingram, after March 13, 1877, where she states that after receiving the present letter, Mr. Richmond “wrote them (the Lockes) denouncing them in the strongest terms, & the acquaintance ended then & there ... ” (Miller, BPB, p. 168). For a month Mr. Richmond had remained “abused” in his suspicions (see LTR-301, end of the first paragraph), but as the patient, eventually understanding husband and financial mainstay, he entered Such Friends, as no. 104 (p. 35). For Poe's earlier indebtedness to Mrs. Locke, see LTR-251. As for his statement about Mrs. Ellet, that “she revolted me,” see his numerous and apparently incongruous earlier affirmations of respect and even high praise for her learning and poetic gifts in the BJ, especially November 1845, where he says in a short notice about the Columbian Magazine for November: “‘The Maiden's Leap’ by Mrs. Ellet, is in her best manner. Her style is noted for accuracy, purity, and freedom from superfluity. She is one of the most accomplished of our countrywomen” (BJ, 2:258; Writings, 3:296). See also DP, pp. 59-62, especially pp. 61-62. His subsequent shift of attitude was most evident in his diatribes against her in his letters to Mrs. Whitman (see LTR-280, pages 4-5, and LTR-290). His charge about Fuller, Clason, and English being used by Mrs. Ellet as “tools” in the “libel” may seem too strong, although Sidney Moss thinks otherwise (Poe's Major Crisis, p. 155). For Poe's “two solemn promises,” see LTR-298 and LTR-301, and notes. Although clearly unconventional, Poe's personal views on religion are otherwise uncertain, and it is impossible to determine whether his occasional invocations of God, or in the present letter of Heaven, are genuine reflections or merely adaptations of common expressions. More correct than Poe's reference, William Congreve's Mourning Bride reads: “Heav’n has no rage, like love to hatred turn’d, / Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d” (III, viii), although the form in which Poe gives it reflects popular usage of the idea.

Source: transcript by Mrs. Annie L. Richmond from the original MS, made for J. H. Ingram (Ingram Collection, University of Virginia). The [page 779:] location of the original MS is unknown. The accepted dating has been “February 19, 1849” despite the fact that the 19th fell on Monday, and the letter is headed “Sunday.” Poe seems more likely to have erred in the date than the day, and the correct dating of the letter, therefore, is probably “Feb. 18. Sunday 1849.” Though Poe is known to have written four letters to Mrs. Richmond between his of November 16, 1848, and the present one, the number of her letters to him is less certain (see APXA-Richmond).

Note: Sarah Heywood was the sister of Annie Richmond (see the note to LTR-289). Carrie was the Richmonds’ daughter (see the note to LTR-298). In the present letter, Poe is concerned about the campaign by the Lockes to turn the Richmonds against him, a situation further detailed in LTR-306 and LTR-309. Though Sarah's home was in Westford, MA, she frequently visited her sister in Lowell.

Source: original MS (1 p.), formerly in the collection of J. K. Lilly, Jr., and now in the Lilly Library, Indiana University. On the verso of the MS appears: “The handwriting of Edgar Allan Poe.” The letter carries neither postmark nor address, and its content, especially its salutation, suggests it may have been enclosed in a letter to Mrs. Annie Richmond (LTR-307a). Originally Poe seems to have written “kiss dear Annie for me”; but “Ca” appears written over “An” by someone in such a way that the second “n” of Annie would be read as the “rr” of Carrie. The change may or may not have been Poe's. [page 780:]

Note: The “Valentine,” an anagrammatic poem to Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood, was first published three years earlier, and reprinted in the Flag of Our Union for March 3, 1849. It is interesting to note that the present letter indicates that the issue was on the stands by February 24. Poe's correspondent, however, has apparently seen the poem earlier than even this date, suggesting that the more likely source was Sartain's, which printed the poem in the March issue (available on February 15, see TOM [Poems], 1:387). “Hop-Frog” was published in the Flag, March 17, 1849 (TOM [T&S], 3:1344). Poe's “X-ing a Paragrab” appeared in the Flag, May 12, 1849 (TOM [T&S], 3:1368), and “The Bells” in Sartain's, November, 1849 (TOM [Poems], 1:433).

Source: photocopy of the original MS fragment (1 p.) in the University of Virginia Library, Clifton Waller Barrett Collection. The fragment is composed of two parts: the first eight lines on a single cutting, and a ninth line (“May God forever bless you!/ E.A.P.”) on a cutting attached to it. The close, which seems to have been written with a finer pen point, may not belong with the larger section. Both the name of the addressee and the date of this fragment must remain conjectural on the basis of present evidence. The tone and content of the fragment suggest at least two possible correspondents: George W. Eveleth and Annie L. Richmond. Poe's letter to Eveleth, June 26, 1849, speaks of answering his “last letter [page 781:] — the one from Brunswick,” February 17, 1849. In that letter, Poe makes no reference to the “Valentine” and merely answers topics brought up by Eveleth; Eveleth, therefore, would seem to be eliminated. Also, the final line “May God forever bless you” is more typical of Poe's style when writing to close female friends. Assuming that this line and signature belong with the rest of the fragment, it seems highly likely that Poe was writing to Mrs. Annie L. Richmond. Since Poe's note to Sarah (see LTR-307) appears to be an extra message included in another letter, that letter may have accompanied the text of the present fragment. Moreover, the date, March 1, 1849, at the end of the note to Sarah may be the dating for the combined items. This dating would fit the range of references in the fragment, between February 24 (the availability of “A Valentine” in the Flag) and March 10 (the probable availability of “Hop-Frog” in the Flag). Poe is apparently answering two or more letters from Mrs. Richmond, one of which may be dated as about February 18, 1849 (CL-776).

Note: Poe and Thomas Dunn English had been friends and associates in 1845, but by early 1846 were unusually bitter enemies over his role in the Ellet case and the “libel” published in the Mirror by Hiram Fuller. More recently, as an editor of the short-lived John-Donkey (January 1, 1848-July 15, 1848), English had printed many sallies against Poe as a [page 782:] ponderous, derivative, and easily imitated author. The Poe Log reprints two examples (pp. 736-737 and 752); see also B. F. Fisher's thorough presentation in “Poe and the John-Donkey” (Essays in Arts and Sciences, 10:17-41). The title itself occasioned much by-play upon “stupidity” as its innate quality (American Magazines, 1:656). Poe commented on English's “ignorance” and stated that he edited the Aristidean “with the aid of numerous collaborators” in “The Literati of New York City” in Godey's Lady's Book for July 1846. Poe was even harsher in the revised version of this article, which appeared in Griswold's edition of Poe's works in 1850, slyly noting English's excuses for frequent faults, such as a poor “proof-reader” or “printer's devil” (H [Works], 15:266-269). Implying “somebody behind the curtain,” Poe also echoes the pretentious phrase “conductor of a magazine” that English used to describe himself as editor of the short-lived Aristidean and John-Donkey. The “Milliner's book” is probably Godey's Lady's Book, which was tailored to a largely female audience and featured fashion plates. The extremely popular, long-running magazine (1830-1898) was a strong rival of Graham's and a model of the “namby-pamby” type, which Poe repeatedly ridiculed. Poe's last contribution to that magazine was “Mellonta Tauta” (February 1849). Poe once referred to a similar publication, the Lady's Companion, with the derogatory comment: “Who but a milliner's apprentice would even let into the house such a thing ... ?” (the Columbia Spy, Letter IV, June 8, 1844; Doings of Gotham, p. 52). The Lady's Companion, however, ceased after the issue for October 1844. Although it might be a suitable description for either periodical, Poe's use of the phrase “Milliner's book” cannot refer to Graham's Magazine or Sartain's Magazine since his April 28-May 23, 1849 letter to Annie Richmond notes, “I am reduced to Sartain and Graham.” Henry Theodore Tuckerman (1813-1871) rejected the tale “The Tell-Tale Heart,” which Poe had submitted to the Boston Miscellany in 1842, a slight Poe seems never to have forgotten. As noted in the review of Poe's Tales from the Aristidean (October 1845), Tuckerman commented that “If Mr. Poe would condescend to furnish more quiet articles, he would be a most desirable correspondent.” The article continues, “Poe rejoined, that Tuckerman was the King of the Quietists, and in three months would give a quietus to the ‘Miscellany.’ The author was mistaken in time — it only took two months to finish the work.” (For Poe's general disparagement of Tuckerman see Pollin, “The Living Writers of America,” SAR 1991, pp. 172 and 193, n. 109; also Writings, 2:123; 4:171; and his “Enigma” [page 783:] sonnet, including “... a Naples bonnet / Trash of all trash! — how can a lady don it?” and “The general tuckermanities are arrant,” TOM [Poems], 1:424-426.) About the time of the present letter, Tuckerman was a prized writer for Godey's (American Magazines, 1:587, n. 17). The Literary World and newly reinstalled co-editor Evert Duyckinck seem the most plausible names to fill in the remaining blanks. Duyckinck, an influential reader and adviser for Wiley & Putnam, had helped place into print Poe's tales, poems, and finally Eureka. At Poe's request he had reprinted “Ulalume” and identified its author. In LTR-308 Poe thanked him and offered his “Von Kempelen” hoax-satire, about lead-gold transmutation, on the current “Gold-Rush.” He admitted to having “prepared” it for “‘The Flag’ — where it will be quite thrown away,” and so it was, in the Flag of April 14. That lowly journal on March 4 called him a “regular contributor” (see note to LTR-303, and The Poe Log, p. 796). Poe is possibly echoing Lowell's prospectus for the Pioneer, which had aimed at a “rational substitute for the ... thrice-diluted trash ... [of] popular magazines” (see LTR-147 and note). He made similar statements about the Flag of Our Union to N. P. Willis in a letter of April 20, 1849 (LTR-310), asking Willis to reprint “For Annie.” Although Poe, with some cause, denigrates the “vulgar and trashy” Boston weekly in several letters of about the same time, much of his income then came from works issued in the Flag (see the note to LTR-303).

Source: text of the fragment as printed by Griswold in his “Memoir” Works, 3:xxxix [1850]. Names given only as dashes by Griswold have been provided editorially in brackets. Griswold's judicious use of blanks reveals his ulterior motives. He fully obscures the name of the “good fellow,” probably Duyckinck, but gives a suggestive first and final letter for the insulting slight directed toward Tuckerman. Griswold seems to be calculating to ensure adverse post-mortem commentaries on Poe, or at least to discourage any inconvenient defense of Poe which might call into question the veracity of Griswold's account. This goal was one which Griswold was willing to promote by such extravagant means as forgery (see SPR-4, SPR-5, SPR-6, SPR-7, SPR-8, SPR-9, SPR-11, SPR-21, and SPR-23) and even blackmail. William J. Pabodie wrote a mild reply to Griswold's comments about Poe's engagement to Mrs. Whitman, and received a terse letter in response from Griswold: “... I cannot permit any statement in my memoir of Poe to be contradicted by a reputable person, unless it is shown to be wrong. The statement in question I can easily prove, on the most unquestionable authority, to be true; and unless you [page 784:] explain your letter to ‘The Tribune’ in another for publication there, you will compel me to place before the public such documents as will be infinitely painful to Mrs. Whitman and all others concerned” (H [Works], 17:411). (Pabodie's letter was published in the New York Tribune, for June 7, 1852; reprinted in H [Works], 17:409-410.) TOM [Iowa] records his opinion of the present letter as “New; Oct. 9, 1962” but apparently never discussed it with Ostrom, who omitted it from The Letters. TOM dates it as follows: “Between March 17 and April 28, probably, or if ‘piece’ be right [,] Between March 3 & 17 [1849].” Griswold violates chronology in printing this paragraph, of 1849, before the directly sequential reference to the semi-engagement (of 1848) to Sarah Helen Whitman. Surely this item is temporally misplaced. The “friend” to whom Griswold alludes as the correspondent seems most plausibly assigned as F. W. Thomas, to whom Poe had written on February 14, 1849 (LTR-304), after an interim of four years. For Thomas’ determined but ultimately failed attempts to secure a government post for Poe, in 1842-1843, see LTR-134 and note. TOM correctly ascribes the letter to Poe; indeed, save for the omission of names, there is little reason for his supposition of “doctored” sentences. TOM's dating of this letter, however, needs reconsideration. Each issue of the Flag appeared at least a week before the Saturday date. Poe's earliest published “piece” was “A Valentine” of twenty-one lines in the March 3, 1849 issue, available in late February, followed by “A Dream Within a Dream” of March 31, “Eldorado” of April 21, the long poem “For Annie” of April 28, and “To My Mother” of July 7, 1849 (with four tales intervening). He received “$5 a piece” — a price that Ostrom assigns to a sonnet, for the Flag, and $7 for an equivalent “Graham's page” of prose (see “EAP: His Income as Literary Entrepreneur,” PS, 15:7). A short poem may best qualify as an item on the page, the rest of which Poe was “cutting away” to prevent revealing “the company” in which he is “forced to appear” in this “mammoth” weekly of eight columns. The two short poems — “A Dream Within a Dream” or “Eldorado” — might both qualify. TOM probably proposed his dates of March 3-17 in terms of Poe's need for more publicity, especially in this new “Western” territory, opening up through Thomas’ editorship; Poe was unaware of Thomas’ February 1849 dissociation from it (see the end of the note to LTR-304). For reprinting, his poem might be more acceptable than his laudation of Mrs. Lewis, suggested in his February 14, 1849 letter. This may reflect the ambiguity of TOM's conjectural dating — throughout both March and April. In [page 785:] particular, Poe's poem “Eldorado” appears in the Flag of Our Union surrounded by companion pieces which Poe might have considered inappropriate and therefore requiring excision: “The Negro Who Did Not Believe in Ghosts” by “Pete,” “Uncle Toby's” sketch entitled “Wrong End Foremost,” and Horace Judson's “The Wanderer's Return.” In a missing letter of November 27, 1848 (CL-748), Thomas, editor of an inchoate Louisville weekly Chronicle of Western Literature (see LTR-304 and note), may have inquired about English and Poe's present activities, and Poe's letter may be a partial reply.

Note: Evert Augustus Duyckinck and his brother George Long Duyckinck edited the Literary World (see the note to LTR-201). The Duyckincks apparently did not wish to “take the responsibility” for printing Poe's tale and refused it. In fulfillment of his concerns, “Von Kempelen and His Discovery” was ultimately published in the Flag of Our Union on April 14, 1849 (see Wyllie, Poe's Tales, p. 337). The present letter is included, along with pertinent remarks by TOM [T&S], 3:1355-1357. (Another ample treatment of “Von Kempelen” is in Pollin, “Sources and Significance,” first in Etudes Anglaises, January 1967, revised for DP, pp. 166-189.) The agent for the Flag was probably the Mr. French mentioned in LTR-302b. The “story of Mrs Veal” is Daniel Defoe's pamphlet A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal (1706). Poe admiringly reviewed Defoe's Robinson Crusoe in the SLM, January 1836 (2:127-128; reprinted in H [Works], 8:169-173, and Writings, 5:98-99). Sir Edward Seaward's diary was “edited” by Jane Porter and published in London, 1831 (see Allibone's Dictionary of Authors, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1890, 2:1646). In a later review of J. F. Cooper's Ned Myers (Graham's, January 1844), Poe mentions “The Narrative of Sir Edward Seaward” and discusses Mrs. Porter's “editorship” of Seaward's diary in relation to his own “editing” of Pym [page 787:] (see Pollin, “Poe and Defoe,” pp. 3-22, specifically, pp. 19-20, and DP, pp. 136-137). For the “Valdemar Case,” see LTR-245 and note. Poe's poem “Ulalume” had been reprinted in the Literary World of April 3, 1849 (4:202), with a brief introductory comment of praise (see LTR-305 and note).

Source: photocopy of the original MS (3 pp.) in the New York Public Library, Manuscript Division. The year date is established by Duyckinck's printing of “Ulalume” in the Literary World, March 3, 1849. On the envelope, which was not mailed, appears: “Evert A. Duyckinck Esqr.” In upper left corner of page 1 is the entry: “1849.” This is Poe's last known letter to Duyckinck, and no subsequent letter from Duyckinck is known.

Note: For Westford, see the note to LTR-282. “Mr. R[ichmond]” was Annie's husband. “Mr. and Mrs. L[ocke]” were Jane Ermina Locke and her husband, John, who lived very near the Richmonds in Lowell. Mrs. Locke seems to have written several letters to Poe, but only one is even partially extant, a MS of her poem “Ermina's Tale” (sometimes misread, amusingly, as “Ermina's Gale”) in the Ingram Collection (University of Virginia). It was presumably sent by her to Poe, though there is no such identification other than its appearance in the Ingram Collection, and carrying, in part, the note: “I hope you will acknowledge the receipt of this immediately, tho’ more than this I shall not entreat of you .... ” and the signature, “Yours as ever, Jane E. Locke.” The only possible dating is that heading the poem: “August / 48.” “Mr. C[udworth]” was the Reverend Warren H. Cudworth, of Lowell. Perhaps the verses concerning Poe, alluded to by Mrs. Locke, were from Mrs. Osgood's poem, “Love's [page 789:] Reply” (see Phillips, 2:1410; see also LTR-319, for further identification). Annie's brother was A. Bardwell Heywood (see LTR-298 and note). In connection with Poe's remarks about Mrs. Locke, see LTR-306 (and also the note to LTR-251 for J. E. Reilly's important article on Poe's difficult admirer). See also Quinn, pp. 564-566, citing portions of this letter and declaring Poe's unpleasant role here to be “a man parrying the sentimental advances of a woman and yet encouraging her by the expression of an assumed interest.” The “relation in Providence” is a reference to Mr. Richmond's parents. “For Annie” appeared in the Flag of Our Union, April 28, 1849 (see LTR-310 and note). “Hop-Frog” appeared in the Flag of Our Union, March 17, 1849. According to Mrs. Whitman's letters to Ingram, February 20, 1874 and April 2, 1874, Poe had a regular engagement with the Metropolitan, which ran for only two issues (see the note to LTR-292). “Landor's Cottage” was first printed, with five typographical errors, in the Flag of Our Union, June 9, 1849 (Wyllie, Poe's Tales, p. 329 and TOM [T&S], 3:1328). Several of these errors found their way into the text printed by Griswold in The Works of the Late EAP (1850, 1:404-416) and were repeated in derivative editions.

Source: The present text is a composite of that portion of the letter printed by Ingram in Appleton's Journal, May 1878, pp. 427-428, and that printed in Ingram, 2:210-212. Neither printing is complete, with Ingram stating in Appleton's (p. 427) that the letter is “too lengthy to quote in full.” A search of the items in the Ingram Collection (University of Virginia) failed to reveal Ingram's source for these printings, though it was probably a transcript of the original MS made and sent to him by Mrs. Richmond. The Appleton's fragment was used as the basic text. Brackets enclose readings supplemented from the Life text, in a few cases merely a single character. Brackets have also been used for ellipses, which obviously are not part of the original letter, and for the names of individuals, all of which are given with first initials and dashes in Life and in Appleton's (except for the Lockes, who are given only with dashes in Appleton's, and Westford, which is given in full in Life). The town of Lowell is presumed for the dashes that appear in both of Ingram's printings. The Appleton's printing gives “inclose” for “enclose,” with the later spelling from Life adopted here as more standard. Poe seems to be answering a letter from Mrs. Richmond (CL-780), for he apparently quotes portions of it and implies queries put by her. A conjectural date for her letter would be before March 23, 1849 (the same date as for LTR-306, Poe's last to her). [page 790:]

Note: Anson Gleason Chester was a young Presbyterian minister, living in Saratoga Springs in New York. Poe generously provided several full MS copies of poems as autographs in reply to requests from various people (see LTR-278a and LTR-331). A textual study of the poem, including this MS, was done by Robbins, “A New Manuscript of Poe's ‘For Annie’,” Studies in Bibliography, pp. 261-265.

Source: photograph of the original MS (4 pp.) in the Lilly Library, University of Indiana. The address reads: “A. G. Chester Esqre / Saratoga Springs, N. Y.,” with Poe's initials in the lower left corner. The postmark is “NEW YORK / 2 / APR / 5 cnts.”

Note: In accordance with Poe's request, “For Annie” appeared in the Home Journal, April 28, 1849. It also appeared in the Flag of Our Union (Boston), April 28, 1849, vol. 4, no. 17, p. 2, col. 6, with the heading: “For Annie [Written for The Flag of Our Union].” As noted in LTR-307a, the Flag typically appeared in advance of the issue date, a procedure characteristic especially of weeklies of those days. In sending the poem to the Home Journal, Poe was essentially pirating his own work, concomitantly with its legal printing. To name the Flag of Our Union would draw attention not only to a possible awareness of the questionable printing but also to Poe's involvement with the Flag, a low class journal which always embarrassed him. The self-exculpation in his next letter, to Annie (LTR-312a), about the poem's being “misprinted,” is regarded as weak and probably untrue by TOM [Poems, 1:455], who does not point out that collating the two texts reveals only one minor variant: “Stars of the heaven” becoming “Stars of the sky” (see the variants noted by Floyd Stovall in his edition of the Poems, 1965, p. 285). The May 5 issue of the Flag apparently went to press too late for it to carry a comment rebuking the printing of the poem in the Home Journal, the complaint appearing in the May 12 issue (see Campbell, Poems, note on “For Annie,” pp. 288). For Willis’ remark concerning “The Raven,” see the note to LTR-317. For Willis’ prefatory comment on “Ulalume,” in the Home Journal of January 1, 1848 (“... a poem ... full of beauty and oddity in sentiment and versification, but a curiosity ... in philologic flavor. Who is the author?”), see Phillips, 2:1247 and The Poe Log, p. 715. Willis did indeed [page 792:] “say something” about “For Annie” in the Home Journal, calling it, in part, an “exquisite specimen of private property” (see Phillips, 2:1396, and The Poe Log, p. 800). Poe's reference to the plot gone awry in the last act of Romeo and Juliet is a humorous token of his love of Shakespeare's plays, with six citations from this popular tragedy in Poe's works, and seven short excerpts in his list recorded during his 1829 army stay, one being “I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault” (V, 1, 20) (see Pollin, “Shakespeare in the Works of EAP,” SAR 1985, pp. 181 and 186).

Source: transcript of the letter as printed by Willis in his article, “Death of Edgar A. Poe,” first printed in the Home Journal, October 20, 1849 (p. 2). The original MS is probably lost.

Note: Letter re-dated, and renumbered as LTR-312a.

Note: E. H. N. Patterson (1828-1880) was the editor of the Oquawka Spectator (Oquawka, IL), having come of age on January 27, 1849 and inheriting control of the newspaper from his father. Patterson's full name has been the cause of much confusion, with no certain resolution. In printing these letters in 1898, Field gives it as Edward Howard Norton Patterson (p. 10), as does the Library of Congress, while The Poe Log (p. xxxv) substitutes an improbable “Horton Norton” as the middle names. The obituary from the Oquawka Spectator prints his first name as Edwin, unhelpfully neglecting to expand the other initials. A passage from the extant memoranda of Patterson's May 7 letter to Poe (CL-787) serves to show his reasons for writing Poe: “... my principal object being to enlist your sympathies and interests in a periodical (to be published by me), [page 795:] the literary contents of which should be exclusively under your control, believing that such an enterprise would prove successful, not doubting that even a cheap Magazine, under your editorial control, could be made to pay well, and at the same time exert a beneficial influence upon American Literature.” Poe's comments on “originality” in the present letter should be compared with those in his review of Hawthorne (Godey's Lady's Book, November 1847), where he says, “In one sense, and in great measure, to be peculiar is to be original, and than the true originality there is no higher literary virtue,” also “it is clear that the element of literary originality is novelty.” Poe's difficulties with receiving letters addressed to Fordham, misdirected to West-Farms, is mentioned also on page 6 of LTR-278. As became a habit for Poe, his claims for the number of subscribers for various magazines on which he worked, and for the amount of profit that could be achieved by his own magazine, are often wildly inaccurate. For Poe's estimates for the proposed Stylus, see his parallel figures in LTR-186. For similar exaggerations about subscribers, and Whalen's observations on them, see the note to LTR-139. Certainly Poe's “old College & West Point acquaintances” were not nearly as numerous nor as useful to his plans as he implies, although he did have various persons in mind who had signified their approval of his magazine goals and who had promised their aid. The list of names, as it now survives, slightly tops the number stated in the letter, but with various duplications. The “pledges” noted therein are surely “hopeful.” For Poe's references to his carefully compiled lists (published as Such Friends, 1985) and his uses of them, see the texts and notes for the following: LTR-106a, LTR-146, LTR-222, and LTR-259. Poe was frequently supremely confident in the success of his magazine scheme, at least publically, but his plans were consistently frustrated.

There seems to be no local usage-warrant for Poe's spelling of “Harlam” for Harlem which derives from the Dutch creation in 1658 of the village of New Haarlem, after the city in Holland. In the tale “Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” Poe eccentrically spells the place name “Harlaem” (TOM [T&S], 3:1234).

Source: color photograph of the original MS (3 pp.) in the Chicago Historical Society. There is no address or postmark on the fourth page of the letter, a separate cover apparently having been used and since lost. Patterson's May 7, 1849 (CL-787), letter to Poe was answered May 23 (LTR-316), after a week's delay; thus up to a week or ten days can be allowed for the transit of a letter between New York and Oquawka. Since [page 796:] Patterson introduced his May 7 letter with “I hasten to reply ... ” Poe's letter must have been written at least a week before, but in April.

Note: Concerning Poe's illness, see Mrs. Clemm's note appended to the present letter: “... he has been very ill ... I thought he would die several times. God knows I wish we were both in our graves — it would, I am sure, be far better” (Ingram, 2:215). The Columbian Magazine, more fully the Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine, was a monthly first issued in January 1844, and ceasing after its last of February 1849 (see American Magazines, 1:743-744). Post's Union was first issued July 1847, and following the issue for December 1848 was bought by Sartain to become Sartain's Union (American Magazines, 1:769). For the Whig Review, see the note to LTR-300. The United States Magazine and Democratic Review was first issued for October 1837, and was known by that title through 1851 (American Magazine, 1:677), after which followed a series of name changes which were variations of the original one. The person with whom Poe quarreled was probably Louis A. Godey. TOM [T&S], 3:1290 reasonably speculates that the basis for the disagreement concerned Poe's reuse in Eureka of material from “Mellonta Tauta,” a tale Poe had sold to Godey but which had not yet been published in the Lady's Book. (The two men were apparently reconciled by July 1849, when Godey was among those who gave Poe $5 at the request of George Lippard; see The Poe Log, p. 817.) The magazine with which Poe had made a “regular engagement” was most likely the Gentlemen's Magazine of Cincinnati (see LTR-301 and note). The Poe Log (p. 801) suggests the [page 798:] Flag of Our Union for the missing name, but Ingram prints two dashes, with the number of dashes typically fitting the number of words omitted, and he specifically names the Flag in the final few sentences in the reprint of the letter in his two-volume Life of Poe (1880), while still omitting this other name. The SLM owed Poe money for several installments of his ongoing “Marginalia” series (appearing in the SLM April-September 1849, see Writings, 2:335-423). Mrs. Locke seems to have written her “romance” (see LTR-319), but whether she published it or visited Poe at Fordham is not known. The “lines” sent to the Home Journal by “the friend who loves you [Annie] best” were “For Annie,” a poem which was by no means so badly printed as Poe suggests (see the note to LTR-310). Poe's sonnet “To My Mother” appeared in the Flag, July 7, 1849 (Quinn, p. 605), and “Landor's Cottage” in the same magazine, June 9, 1849 (Quinn, p. 597). “Annabel Lee” appeared posthumously in the New York Tribune, October 9, 1849 (Quinn, p. 606). By invoking the phrase “Abandon all hope,” Poe may be penning a wry joke on Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno, iii, 9: “Abandon all hope, you who enter here.” PD (p. 25) gives sixteen references or short allusions to Dante in Poe's writings.

Source: text of the letter as printed by Ingram in Appleton's Journal, May 1878, p. 428. Given in brackets are all ellipses, which obviously are not part of the original MS, as well as names omitted from the Appleton's printing. Two names given only as dashes in Appleton's are provided more directly in the Life (Ingram, 2:213-215), these being the Flag and Mrs. Locke (although still obscured as “Mrs. L — ”). The names of Godey and the Gentleman's Magazine (Cincinnati) have been added editorially. A dash at the end of the final sentence has been omitted, as was done in the Life. No printing is complete, and both of Ingram's versions neglect to provide a signature. A search of the items in the Ingram Collection (University of Virginia) failed to reveal Ingram's source for his printings, though it was probably a transcript of the original MS made by Mrs. Richmond. Definite dating of the letter seems impossible. Ingram, Harrison, and Phillips leave it undated. Woodberry [1909, 2:417] dates it “May, 1849.” Allen (2:804-805 [1926], and pp. 640-641 [1934]) quotes part and dates it “March, 1849.” Quinn (pp. 603-605) suggests “the spring of 1849” and after April 21, 1849. Mabbott dates it both as not “earlier than May 5 or later than May 23, 1849” (Poems, 1:469 n 6) and “before June 9” (Poems, 1:466). The best point of reference is Poe's comment that “the [Flag] has two of my articles,” naming them as “Sonnet to My Mother” and “Landor's Cottage.” Since his tale “X-ing a Paragrab” is not [page 799:] mentioned, it must already have been published. That tale appeared in the Flag for May 12, 1849, but was apparently available a week early (see The Poe Log, p. 802). With Poe's “Sonnet” appearing in the Flag for July 7, a date as late as the end of June is not impossible, but a date closer to the printing of “For Annie” in the Home Journal (April 28, 1849) seems preferable. Poe is answering a letter from Mrs. Richmond (CL-786b); for which a conjectural dating is before May 5, 1849.

Note: In January 1849, Poe arranged for the new series of “Marginalia” to be published in the SLM (see LTR-299 and LTR-302a), with the first installment appearing in the issue for April. The “eleven pages” of MS Poe sent in January would approximately match what was printed in the SLM for April and May, perhaps justifying the additional material at this point for June and July. (A long gap then occurs before the next and final installment, which did not appear until September.) The phrase “obedience to the flattering request” may seem much too deferential for their present relationship, but Poe repeatedly used this phrase — “flattering request” — for autograph requests, sometimes from total strangers (see LTR-89, LTR-103, LTR-141b, LTR-160, LTR-223b, LTR-227, and LTR-265a). In keeping with this description, the “Marginalia” items beginning in June are indeed shorter and more pointed. Poe did not visit Richmond until July, matching a similar intention and delay in 1848 (see LTR-263). In writing E. H. N. Patterson on May 23, 1849 (LTR-316), Poe states: “To-day I am going to Boston & Lowell, to remain a week; and immediately afterwards I will start for [page 800:] Richmond,” and asks Patterson to send money there. By June 9, however, Poe wrote to Thompson that his plans had changed: “It was my design to be in Richmond about the first of this month — but now it will be the 18^th or 20th before I can leave New-York ... ” (LTR-318).

Source: photocopy of the original MS (1 p.) in the Huntington Library. The letter, measuring 8 inches by 6 1/2 inches, bears no address, presumably because it was being sent as part of a larger package. There has been some question about the authenticity of the present letter. In The Letters [1948], it is printed as genuine, but in the 1974 supplement, Ostrom declares it a forgery, based on the assertion that it has been so identified by its owner, the Huntington Library. Indeed, the library does keep the MS in a folder marked “forgery,” but without any explanation. The attribution may be based on the authority of TOM, who had privately stated his own suspicion, repeated in TOM [Poems, 1:364], but also without giving supporting details. He was probably concerned about the eye-catching reference to a MS of “The Raven,” when Thompson is not known to have owned such a treasure. The Huntington purchased the present letter from the collection of John L. Clawson in 1920, along with LTR-299, LTR-177, and a MS of “Eulalie,” all of which are considered authentic. Clawson appears to have acquired the MS in 1914, inserted in an 1885 edition of The Raven (with an introduction by Ingram). One concern is the nature of the paper, which appears to be of the appropriate age but is off-white rather than the pale blue Poe seems to have preferred at this period. The MSS for LTR-299 and LTR-302a to Thompson, as well as the fragments of “Marginalia” M-253-255, are on the blue paper. Judging from Poe's letters to Patterson of April-August 1849, however, Poe was using both blue and buff paper, in a variety of sizes. The handwriting closely matches authentic examples written about the same time, and its contents do not disqualify it. If it is a forgery, it is one made with extraordinary skill.

Note: The “other matter” suggests two interpretations. On May 18, 1849, Poe wrote to George Putnam (LTR-315), suggesting that he publish a new edition of Mrs. Lewis’ Child of the Sea and Other Poems. Later, on June 28, 1849, Poe wrote to Griswold (LTR-321) and suggested that he use for a second edition of Female Poets a longer critical notice of Mrs. Lewis to be prepared by Poe. If Mrs. Lewis replied to the present letter without delay, the first note may have concerned a second edition of her poems; if she answered after May 18, she probably sought a more flattering critical notice. For Poe's services to Mrs. Lewis in such matters, see the note to LTR-321.

Source: photocopy of the original MS (1 p.), formerly in the collection of William H. Koester, and now in the Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin. A presumed separate leaf for the address is lost. The year date of “49” is noted by Moldenhauer in his Descriptive Catalog as “erased but still legible” (p. 72). It is further established by the reference to “For Annie” (see LTR-309 and note). “Edgar Poe” is written in the upper left corner of the MS, perhaps by Mrs. Lewis. TOM [Iowa] says: “Probably a forgery”; likewise in his copy of The Letters [1948]. In his headnote to “For Annie,” TOM repeats his doubts about the authenticity of this letter, noting that it “has no history prior to 1935 ... It is hard to believe we should have no earlier trace of so important a manuscript if the Brooklyn poetess ever had it” (TOM [Poems], 1:455, n. 8). TOM's concerns may be partially allayed by a record of an earlier sale of the present letter in 1904 (see CL-791), a sale which given his comment about its history was clearly unknown to him. The MS of “For Annie,” assuming that Poe eventually fulfilled his promise, has not been located. In spite of TOM's concerns about such an important MS, one must also remember that Poe's letter to A. G. Chester (LTR-309a) includes a full copy of the same poem, yet was entirely unknown until 1985. Poe is apparently replying to a letter from Mrs. Lewis, before May 17, 1849 (CL-790); and a further note is implied from Mrs. Lewis, after May 17, 1849 (CL-791a). [page 802:]

Note: Mrs. Lewis’ Child of the Sea and Other Poems was first published in 1848. Poe reviewed the book in the SLM, September 1848, with a few biographical facts about the author (14:569-571; reprinted in H [Works], 13:155-165, and Writings, 5:371-374). His present attempt to have Putnam publish a second edition failed. Few readers in Poe's day seem to have shared his public views on her writings, and even fewer modern readers are likely to do so. It is difficult, therefore, to accept at face value that Poe's “object, in this note” was genuinely the result of a belief in Mrs. Lewis’ “very extensive literary influence.” More likely, his motivation was due to a sense of obligation in certain personal matters affecting him and Mrs. Clemm. For Poe's long professional association with Felix O. C. Darley, a popular nineteenth century illustrator, see LTR-153 and note. [page 803:]

Source: photocopy of the original MS (2 pp.), formerly in the collection of William H. Koester, and now in the Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin. The address leaf is lost and the MS is torn along upper left margin, but no words are missing. TOM [Iowa] in his copy of The Letters [1948] writes: “Is this OK?,” possibly in conjunction with his concerns about LTR-314, both being sold in the spring of 1935 and related to Mrs. Lewis. There seems nothing in content to cause doubt, and a 1907 sale of the letter argues somewhat in its favor (see CL-792). In the upper left corner of the MS is the notation “ans^d May 20,” which indicates that Putnam replied promptly to Poe's letter (CL-793). In the original MS, Poe breaks “Holidays” across pages 1 and 2 as “Holi-days.”

Note: Poe went to visit Annie Richmond, but just when he returned to New York is not certain (see LTR-317a). Concerning Poe's plan to get the $50 “at Richmond,” see LTR-318. Patterson sent the money as promised (see LTR-329). Poe's poem was “For Annie,” which Willis had printed in the Home Journal, April 28, 1849 (see LTR-310). Patterson reprinted the poem in the Oquawka Spectator (May 16, 1849). For other [page 805:] instances of Poe's oft-repeated phrase “poor-devil author” see the note to LTR-304. The title page sent by Poe was his own contemplated design for the cover of the Stylus, made with black ink on pink paper, with a small piece of white paper bearing the image of a hand writing the Greek word for “truth.” The page is faithfully reproduced in facsimile in SLP, facing p. 16. The actual drawing of the hand has been the subject of some discussion, having been variously attributed to Poe himself (The Letters [1948], p. 444, and DP, frontispiece) and F. O. C. Darley (Pollin, Writings, notes for M-256, 2:394 and “The Living Writers of America,” SAR 1991, p. 154 n15), whose services Poe had secured in 1843 for the Stylus (see The Poe Log, pp. 395-396 for the contract between Poe and Darley). The drawing is more-or-less competently composed, so that it is not too far beneath the professional Darley, but also somewhat crude, so that it might not have been beyond Poe's own artistic abilities. In any case, the hand is clearly based on, and perhaps traced from, one of several hands used in an advertisement for improved penmanship in “Writing Books” in the Philadelphia Saturday Museum, issue of March 4, 1843. The resemblance is unmistakable. The idea for the image and the motto comes from an anecdote about Paulus Jovius and two pens, conveniently recorded in “Marginalia” M-256 (SLM, June 1849; see Writings, 2:394). Another confusion is whether or not the image of the hand appeared as part of a printed prospectus for the Stylus. This error may be laid at the door of William Fearing Gill, who in his biography of Poe printed a new woodcut version of the hand, without clear attribution, directly above the text of a Stylus Prospectus taken from the Saturday Museum of 1843 (Life of EAP, 1877 and 1878).This juxtaposition of material, and the scarcity of the periodical, has unintentionally misled some to suspect a missing issue of the Saturday Museum with a prospectus beginning with the image. An earlier article by Gill, however, clarifies the matter. In “Some New Facts about Edgar Allan Poe” (Laurel Leaves, pp. 359-388) Gill uses the identical woodcut of the “writing hand,” along with the Prospectus text, although not in proximity.

Poe's misspelling of “Okquawka” is at odds with the repetition of the name further on in the present letter, and in LTR-312. One wonders if this is, perhaps, a deliberate error on Poe's part to underscore the manifest difficulties in the name.

Source: color photograph of the original MS (2 pp.) in the Chicago Historical Society. The cover of the letter was postmarked May 25 at New York. Poe is answering Patterson's letter of May 7, 1849 (CL-787). [page 806:]

Note: Poe's three poems (“For Annie,” “Annabel Lee,” and “Lenore”) were printed by Griswold in the tenth edition of his Poets and Poetry of America, which was noticed in the New York Tribune, December 15, 1849 (see J. L. Neu, “Rufus Wilmot Griswold,” p. 122). Griswold ignored Poe's requested revision (see TOM [Poems], 1:334). Willis’ praise of “The Raven” was probably that prefacing the poem in the Evening Mirror, January 29, 1845: “... it is the most effective single example of ‘fugitive poetry’ ever published in this country, and unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification, and consistent sustaining of imaginative lift and ‘pokerishness.’.” Poe's [page 807:] chief literary interests at this time were in establishing a magazine with the aid of E. H. N. Patterson (see Poe's letters to him). Poe often misremembered dates, especially in published statements, as suited his purposes. He had previously misinformed Griswold, in a short “memorandum” (see LTR-112), that he was born in 1811, an error which remained prominent in biographical articles long after Poe's death. The present statement that he was born in 1813 is especially egregious since Poe's mother had died in December of 1811, as Poe certainly knew. The correct birth date of January 19, 1809 was first published by Gill, based on records at the University of Virginia. (Gill's article appeared in Lotos Leaves, copyrighted in 1875, but available in late 1874. Ingram, in his 1874 memoir to Poe's collected works, follows the same records, providing the correct year but erroneously giving the month as February; see J. H. Ingram to Mrs. S. H. Whitman, December 28, 1874; printed in Miller, Poe's Helen Remembers, pp. 238-241 — in particular see p. 240.) Ironically coincident is the nativity of the title character of Poe's “William Wilson” (see TOM [T&S], 2:432 and 2:450, n. 9).

Source: photocopy of the original MS (1 p.) in the Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin. The MS is undated, but has been assigned by various editors to March or June. The leaf is pasted to a sheet of cardboard, precluding examination for an address. The MS has been docketed “about ‘45,” in a strange hand, but this date is clearly wrong. In his letter to Annie Richmond, March 23, 1849 (LTR-309), Poe speaks of “For Annie” as of recent composition, and to her, after May 5, 1849 (LTR-312a), he mentions “Annabel Lee” for the first time. Since Poe sent “For Annie” to the Home Journal, where it was printed, April 28, 1849, and since Griswold says he knew of “Annabel Lee” in June 1849 (see Campbell, Poems, p. 293), the most probable date for the above letter to Griswold seems to be between April 28 and June, 1849; therefore, May (?), 1849 will serve as a satisfactory guess. For a forged postscript to the present letter, see SPR-23.

Notes: Poe further explained his travel plans, which would again be delayed, in LTR-318. He sent Mrs. Richmond more notices of Eureka in LTR-319. The familiar names of Sarah (Annie's sister), Bardwell (Annie's brother), Mr. Richmond (Annie's husband), as well as Mr. Cudworth and his daughter appear regularly in Poe's letters to Annie.

Source: text of fragment of the original MS (1 p.) as printed in the Collector, 1988, offered for sale by Walter R. Benjamin Autographs, Inc. as item V-843. The description gives the measurements as 2 inches by 7 1/2 inches, seven lines, unsigned. The date, written in another hand, is noted as “June 4, 1849,” presumably by Mrs. Richmond. The seller, misled by the reference to Eureka, disputes this date, erroneously stating that “it was almost certainly written in July of 1848.” The June dating on the letter is correct, however, as established by the context continued in LTR-319, clearly written in 1849. Accompanying material, bearing the initials “A. L. R.,” suggests that Mrs. Richmond cut the fragment and sent it to a friend to comply with a request for a sample of Poe's handwriting.

Note: For Poe's actual departure for Richmond, see the note to LTR-326. Another installment of Poe's “Marginalia” was printed in the June 1849 issue of the SLM (reprinted in H [Works], 17:160-168, and Writings, 2:376-394); that contribution, however, was scarcely enough at $2 a page to support the sum requested in the present letter. Thompson may have owed him for previous installments of the “Marginalia,” which had been running since April 1849, and Poe was trying to collect the debt. Poe had suggested to E. H. N. Patterson (see LTR-316) to write him in Richmond care of Thompson.

Source: photocopy of the original MS (1 p.) in the Morgan Library. If Thompson answered Poe, no MS or printing of his letter is known. This is the last known letter from Poe to John R. Thompson. Inexplicable is Poe's minor inconsistency in raising the “th” of “18^th” to a superscript, and underlining it, but not for the “20th.” In all other respects, the letter is very carefully and neatly written.

Note: Concerning Poe's actual departure for Richmond, see the note to LTR-324. Poe had written John R. Thompson, June 9, 1849 (LTR-318). Concerning E. H. N. Patterson's “letter from Oquawka,” see LTR-316. The reference to Graham's indicates an exchange of letters (CL-800 and CL-801) between Poe and the Samuel D. Patterson & Company, publishers of the magazine after George R. Graham lost control of it in July 1848, and prior to his regaining control in April 1850 (see American Magazines, 1:544). Poe had contributed “Fifty Suggestions,” divided between the May and June issues of Graham's. Although this is Poe's last known contribution to that periodical, the MS of “A Reviewer Reviewed” shows that he planned at least one more. For the references to Mrs. Locke, see LTR-309 and LTR-312a. The “Lynn Bard” was Alonzo Lewis (Phillips, 2:1411); he wrote “To Edgar A. Poe,” which appeared in Godey's (April 1847, 34:192). For Mrs. Osgood's lines, see Phillips, 2:1410, or Mrs. Clemm's letter to Mrs. Richmond, January 11, 1849 (Ingram, 2:202; reprinted in H [Works], 17:392-393, misleadingly indicated as from the Griswold Collection). “Mrs. L's long MS. poem” was “Ermina's Tale” (see LTR-309). John E. Tuel wrote, in verse, a 48-page book curiously titled: The Moral for Authors: as Contained in the Autobiography of Eureka; a Manuscript Novel, and discovered by J. E. Tuel, published by Stringer and Townsend, New York, 1849. It was also reviewed by the Literary World, June 2, 1849 (see The Poe Log, p. 809). [page 812:] For two stanzas of Tuel's parody, “Plutonian Shore,” see The Poe Log, pp. 805, and 807. The identity of Dr. Locke is unknown. Since the name is scratched out, it could be Mr. Locke, but would make little sense as a reference to John Locke (Mrs. Jane E. Locke's husband), with whom Poe already had a substantial history of bad dealings. “Abby” and “Caddy” refer to Mrs. Richmond's daughter. As in other letters to Mrs. Richmond, “Mr. and Miss C” refers to the Rev. Warren H. Cudworth and his daughter, of Lowell (see the note to LTR-301). “Mr. R.” was Mr. Richmond; Sarah was Mrs. Richmond's sister; and Bardwell was Mrs. Richmond's brother. Nathaniel P. Willis was an author, poet, and editor of the Home Journal. “Muddy,” of course, was Mrs. Clemm. Miss Eliza Butterfield, aged 21, was “Miss B,” a teacher in Franklin Grammar School, Lowell, MA (see Fred B. Freeman, Jr., “A Note on Poe's ‘Miss B,’ ” American Literature, 43:115). The item promised to Bardwell may have been a MS copy of “The Bells” (see F. W. Coburn, “Poe as Seen by the Brother of ‘Annie’,” New England Quarterly, 16:476). The phrase “she loves & is loved” is perhaps a trace of the first stanza of “Annabel Lee” (l. 6): “Than to love and be loved by me.” TOM [Poems], 1:475 (plus n. 19) notes that Caroline Ticknor proposed Mrs. Richmond as Poe's original for Annabel Lee (Poe's Helen, p. 133). There is some justification for this idea, based on the fantasy plan of their future together in Lowell and the “purity” of their love. Poe promised to show her the poem in his letter of after May 5, 1849 (LTR-312a, near the end), the earliest written reference to it. According to Annie Richmond's letter of May 27, 1877 to J. H. Ingram, however, Mrs. Clemm was adamant that Annabel Lee was Virginia (Miller, BPB, p. 170). See also the note to LTR-333. The controversy demonstrates the impracticality of attempting to identify the title character of “Annabel Lee” with any real person.

Source: photocopy of the original MS (2 pp.), formerly in the collection of William H. Koester, and now in the Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin. The address leaf appears to have been removed, and is lost. References to Oquawka, IL, the home of E. H. N. Patterson, and to Tuel place the present letter in 1849. The first few lines of the present letter suggest an exchange of correspondence between Poe and Mrs. Richmond, following his visit with her during the last week in May (see the note to LTR-312a, probably including LTR-317a). In the second paragraph of page 2, the bracketed emendation restores a name heavily scratched out in the MS, probably by Annie. This is the last known letter from Poe to Annie Richmond. [page 813:]

Note: Most of Eveleth's letters were sent from his home in Phillips, ME; Brunswick was the location of the Maine Medical School, where Eveleth was a student (see PE, p. 23). In his previous letter to Poe (CL-775), Eveleth had said: “I have just arisen from a somewhat hasty perusal of ‘Eureka.’ I will not be so impious as to offer an opinion of it, founded on such a perusal. I shall read it again, and with care.” Wilson (PE, p. 23) cites Mabbott's identification of John W. Draper as a professor in New York University. Poe knew Draper's work from pieces by him early in the SLM and later small items in the Mirror's clipped “paragraphs.” In the SLM of August 1836, Poe praised briefly but highly the scientific fame and expertise of Professor Draper, possibly because the lecture item was published by T. W. White (see the review, chiefly a long quoted excerpt, in Writings, 5:262-263 and 271). Draper's frank depreciation of Poe's [page 815:] chances for a publishing success with his new magazine was divulged to Poe by Eveleth, who had responded to reading Eureka by sending his comments on the cosmology and also on the “forthcoming” Stylus magazine to the scientist Draper (see DP, pp. 180-184). For the “Hog-ites” on the “Baconian road” in Eureka see H [Works], 16:189-191. In Holden's Dollar Magazine for December 1848 (2:714-720) appeared an installment of “The Autobiography of a Monomaniac; or the Veritable History and Surprising Adventures of James Toddlebar,” edited by “Joe Bottom, ESQ.” The real author was Poe's friend John Tomlin. Among the letters reprinted in the article is one from Poe (2:718-719), dated October 5, 1842 (see LTR-146). In his letter of February 17, 1849 (CL-775), Eveleth wrote: “I think you are the Autobiographer of Holden's Dollar Magazine — and I guess this same wobegone [sic] personage could now look in the glass and point out one Joe Bottom, Editor of his posthumous papers. Have not you some proprietary right in Holden's?” The Holden's series continues both the format and the hoaxing tone of Poe's own “Autography” articles, with each letter bearing a facsimile signature, including Poe's (which Eveleth surely recognized as authentic). Given these similarities, Eveleth's all-too-ready presumption of Poe's authorship of this recent article is understandable. The misprint of “Ullahannà” for “Ulalume” appears in an “editorial” note to the letter (2:719): “I should like to have seen his [James Toddlebar's] opinions of the ‘Raven’ and ‘Ullahana,’ the two most remarkable poems ever published on this continent” (see TOM [Poems], 1:510-511). Poe's failure to recollect this error might suggest that he had not actually seen the article, although it is difficult to believe that he was not aware of the public use of his 1842 correspondence with Tomlin several months after the fact. The review of A Fable for Critics was sent to Thompson for the SLM in time for the February issue, but appeared in the subsequent number. Poe's expression to Eveleth that Lowell “might have done better” is considerably milder than his five full columns of thorough condemnation of all aspects of Lowell's satire in the March 1849 SLM (see Writings, 5:375-377). Poe took great personal umbrage from the humorous jab at being “three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge,” but borrowed Lowell's “Runic rhyme” phrase for his own “The Bells” (see Writings, 5:390, note q). Poe enclosed his poem “For Annie,” which had appeared in the Home Journal, April 28, 1849 (see LTR-310). In 1849, the Literary World was owned and edited by Evert A. and George L. Duyckinck; it was the “first important American weekly to be devoted chiefly to the discussion of [page 816:] current books” (see American Magazines, 1:766). Poe's comment that he is waiting “patiently” even “until the day of judgment” for the ideal opportunity to launch the Stylus may reveal a latent resentment at Eveleth's seeming goads about the incipient journal in all of his epistles. Poe left New York for Richmond, June 29 (see the note to LTR-326).

Poe's verb “prophecied,” with a “c,” is not given in the numerous late instances for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in the OED. Poe himself makes the modern distinction in his February 1842 article in Graham's on Barnaby Rudge (20:124-129): “... if we did not rightly prophesy, yet, at least, our prophecy should have been right.” Therefore it is Poe's mistake in the present letter.

Source: photocopy of the original MS (2 pp.) in the New York Public Library, Berg Collection. Poe is replying to Eveleth's letter of February 17, 1849 (CL-775). Eveleth had written Poe on March 9 (CL-702) and July 9, 1848 (CL-717), but Poe had not answered. The present letter is Poe's last to Eveleth, but Eveleth appears to have written one more to Poe (CL-807a), cited by Eveleth from an undated letter to him from Mrs. Clemm, while she was visiting Annie Richmond in Lowell. In that letter, Mrs. Clemm wrote, “Your last letter to him was sent to me from Richmond after he had gone to dwell with the angels” (see PE, p. 3).

Note: Griswold's Female Poets of America was “off the press” by December 30, 1848, according to a notice in the Literary World of that date, and the second edition appeared in 1854 (see J. L. Neu, “Rufus Wilmot Griswold,” Studies in English, pp. 144-145). Costs for furthering Mrs. Lewis’ literary reputation were customarily defrayed by the Lewises, directly or indirectly. Mrs. Louise Shew-Houghton wrote J. H. Ingram, April 3, 1875: “Mr. Poe was indebted to her [Mrs. Lewis], that is, she paid Mrs. Clemm in advance when they were needy and poor Poe had to notice her writings” (original MS in Ingram Collection, University of Virginia). For Poe's detestation of her as a “literary bore,” expressed to Mrs. Shew, with references to other confirmations, see The Poe Log, p. 711. It has been suggested that Poe wrote the sketch of Mrs. Lewis in Griswold's 1849 edition of Female Poets of America, but the present letter and the facts of publication of that edition argue against such a contention. The existence of several MS pages of selections from Mrs. Lewis’ poems (in the Huntington Library), with a few words to categorize each, has confused some commentators. The printed form of 1849 seems to incorporate these fragments, but Poe can hardly be responsible for the sarcastic reference to his praise of “The Forsaken” nor for casting the shadow of plagiarism on her poem by quoting a similar poem by William Motherwell. (According to a note by TOM [Iowa], Griswold edited an American edition of Motherwell's poems sometime in the 1840s.) The most plausible explanation is that Poe initially assisted Mrs. Lewis in preparing some notes, submitted to Griswold much as he had his autobiographical “memorandum” in 1841. Griswold based his article on these items, but essentially wrote the text as it appeared, hence Poe's appropriate designation of the notice as Griswold's. Poe wrote the longer notice of Mrs. Lewis and Griswold called for it, as indicated by Mrs. Clemm's letter to Griswold, September 4, 1849: “I understand from Mrs. Lewis you received the package Mr. Poe left at her house for you” (see H [Works], 17:395). Since the book was stereo-plated, however, it was impractical to make more than minor corrections, and Griswold did not use Poe's subsequent package of material as intended. Instead, Griswold [page 818:] published what was most likely this suggested article in the Works, 3:242-249 [1850], as “Estelle Anna Lewis.”

Source: photocopy of the original MS (1 p.) in the Boston Public Library. For a forgery of the present letter, by Griswold, see SPR-21. The present letter is probably the last one between Poe and Griswold; certainly it is the last known to have been written, but see APXA-Griswold.

Note: Poe included Dr. Pliny Earle (1809-1892) in “A Chapter on Autography” (Graham's, December 1841; reprinted in H [Works], 15:230), stating that Dr. Earle “has become well known to the literary world, of late, by a volume of very fine poems ... ” (see LTR-102). The volume of “very beautiful poetry” to which Poe refers was Marathon, and Other Poems (Philadelphia: H. Perkins, 1841). Although Poe admires Pliny Earle as a poet, such a pursuit was merely a sideline for the famous alienist, who ran a well-known asylum in Frankford, PA. (Alienism was an early form of psychiatry which proposed the mind and body as separate and distinct entities.) See TOM [T&S], 3:1001, in the headnote to “The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether,” for a brief mention of the present letter, and the assertion that Poe and Dr. Earle never actually met. For strong doubts expressed by Griswold and Whipple about Poe's [page 819:] objectivity in his praise of Earle, see The Poe Log, pp. 327 and 355. H. S. Root is unidentified, except that he lived in Saratoga Springs, NY at the time of the present letter. See The Poe Log for a speculation that Poe might have visited this popular resort about 1843 (p. 435). The nature of the content of this letter and of that in LTR-228a is similar and the surnames of the correspondents, both unidentified, are the same, but unless Poe made a mistake in the initials of one of them, they do not seem to be the same person.

Source: original MS (1 p.) in the Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin. The address appears on a separate leaf. Poe is replying to Root's letter of before June 28, 1849 (CL-804).

Note: According to Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830-1886), these comments were made in a section of a letter where Poe was speaking about his male friends. Poe's emotional attachment to women is well documented, and for several examples see his letters to Mrs. Shew and especially to Annie Richmond. Not all of his women friends, however, turned out to be “angels of mercy” to him (particularly Mrs. Ellet). The reference to “heart instincts” suggests the same Poe who, as noted in his preface, wrote Eureka for “those who feel rather than to those who think” (1848).

Source: fragment of text as quoted by Esther B. Cheesborough (1826-1887) in her manuscript “Recollections of Paul H. Hayne.” Although undated, her document is thought to have been written in 1886, following Hayne's death. It can certainly date no later than 1887. Miss [page 820:] Cheesborough is quoting from a letter written to her by Hayne which describes visiting “the office of my old friend John R. Thompson, of Richmond” at an unspecified period of “many years ago,” where he was shown “certain literary curiosities” including “a number of M.S.S. and some private letters of Edgar Poe.” Hayne had submitted “The Christian Martyr” to the SLM in 1848 (published in the November issue), and with Thompson's encouragement became a reliable contributor of poetry. He and Thompson were still regular correspondents as late as 1870. Hayne's visit to Richmond was presumably before 1860, after which time Thompson had left the SLM and moved to Augusta, GA, where he edited Southern Field and Fireside. Hayne published “Poe's Method of Writing” in Appleton's Journal (May 4, 1872, 7:490-491), in which he refers to Poe as a “wonderful genius” (7:490), although he criticizes Poe's poem “The Valley of Nis” as being “full of verbal trickery rather than of genuine art” (7:491). The Ingram Collection at the University of Virginia contains a number of items which show that Hayne, beginning about 1873, was actively involved in raising money to erect a suitable monument over Poe's remains in Baltimore. Hayne also contributed an interesting, if somewhat overwrought, poem on Poe to S. S. Rice's EAP: A Memorial Volume (pp. 94-95). Being related third hand, there is no way to verify the text of Poe's letter, nor is it clear whether Hayne is quoting from a transcript or memory.

Note: Eureka had been published in the summer of 1848, probably about July 15 (see the note to LTR-269). For Poe's reference to prison, see W [1909, 2:313], and John Sartain (Reminiscences of a Very Old Man, p. 206 ff.), the former (relying on LTR-327) suggesting that the “imprisonment” was a “lingering hallucination,” and the latter reconstructing the prison scene. Although a first hand witness to Poe's distressed condition in Philadelphia, Sartain's knowledge about Poe's possible arrest is less reliable. About the prison experience, Sartain quotes Poe as saying: “I was confined in a cell ... and through my grated window was visible the battlemented granite tower. On the topmost stone of the parapet, between the embrasures, stood perched against the dark sky a young female brightly radiant, like silver dipped in light ... ” (p. 209). This female, “addressed to me a series of questions in words not loud but distinct, and I dared not fail to hear and make apt response” (p. 209). See also Quinn, p. 617, where a note indicates that a search of the records of Moyamensing Prison yielded no evidence that Poe had been detained there. Poe enclosed the above letter to Mrs. Clemm in a brief note to Estelle Anna Lewis, dated July 7, 1849 (LTR-324). The four sentences, beginning with “We can but die together” and ending with “nothing more,” should be compared with the last two of the “Preface” to Eureka (1848, p. 5): “What I here propound is true: — therefore it cannot die: — or if by any means it be now trodden down so that it die, it will ‘rise again to the Life Everlasting.’ Nevertheless it is as a Poem only that I wish this work to be judged after I am dead.”

Source: text of the letter as printed by C. Chauncey Burr in “Character of EAP,” the Nineteenth Century (February 1852), 5:29. Burr prints the extracts from the original MS, with Mrs. Clemm's permission. He begins each paragraph with quotation marks; where he uses end quotation the present text uses ellipses to indicate an obvious omission from the MS. The letter was written in Philadelphia, not New York (see John Sartain, as noted above, and also LTR-326, LTR-327, and LTR-328), an error which may partially evince Poe's distraught condition. [page 822:]

Note: Poe's concerns about “wrong hands” is typical of his letters of this period. He is probably worried about the admission of being arrested. Poe left New York on June 29, 1849 (see the note to LTR-326). Phillips (2:1414) quotes from a letter Mrs. Clemm wrote on August 4, 1849 to a friend (probably Annie Richmond); in it Mrs. Clemm states that she heard nothing from Mrs. Lewis for a fortnight after leaving “Stella” (the day following Poe's departure for Richmond — see Clemm to Annie Richmond, July 9, 1849, in H [Works], 17:393). When at last she went to see Mrs. Lewis, a letter from Poe awaited her. That letter (LTR-323) had been enclosed in the present “two” line note to Mrs. Lewis. “If I had received it,” said Mrs. Clemm, “I should have gone on to Philadelphia.” Poe's July 7 letter had begged her to come to him at once. Thus the present three-line note to Mrs. Lewis is undoubtedly the two-line note referred to by Mrs. Clemm. Poe was under the incorrect impression that his “mother” was still a guest of Mrs. Lewis in New York.

Source: photocopy of the original MS (1 p.), formerly in the collection of William H. Koester, and now in the Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin. The presumed address leaf is lost. Quinn, p. 633, prints the present letter without date, but implies that it was written about September of 1849, along with LTR-332 and LTR-333.

Note: Many of Poe's letters reveal his deep emotional dependence on Mrs. Clemm, but few do so as directly as here. Given the contents of LTR-326, it is curious that Poe does not mention the valise with his lectures in the present letter. It may have been checked along with his baggage and therefore not readily available for examination.

Source: text of the letter as by C. Chauncey Burr in “Character of EAP,” the Nineteenth Century (February 1852), 5:29. Burr printed the extracts with Mrs. Clemm's permission, from the original MS, which is now lost. The present letter may be complete in itself, it may be a fragment of a letter dated “Near Richmond,” or it may be a portion of the Saturday night letter (LTR-326) but printed separately by Burr. Without the MSS, we must accept the internal evidence, dating the letter “Saturday, July 14,” since Poe left Philadelphia by train on Friday and probably caught the night boat from Baltimore to Richmond (see LTR-326 and LTR-327). Presuming that Poe would have had no opportunity to mail the present letter while travelling, he may have written one on the boat and another after arriving, ultimately mailing both together.

Note: Poe's “three weeks” is wrong; it should be “two weeks.” Poe left New York on Friday afternoon, June 29, 1849, at 5 o’clock. (See Mrs. Lewis’ letter to G. W. Eveleth, February 11, 1854, Ingram Collection, University of Virginia: “Edgar Poe dined with me at 3 o’clock, P.M. on the 29th of June, 1849, and left at 5, the same afternoon, for Richmond, Virginia. He never returned to New York again.” Mrs. Lewis’ testimony conflicts with that given by Ingram, 2:220-222, and subsequent biographers. The information she gave to Eveleth antedates that given to Ingram by some twenty years. Ingram, on the other hand, may have misconstrued the dating.) Poe was therefore in Philadelphia from late that night or early Saturday morning, June 30, until Friday, July 13. (LTR-324, of Saturday, July 7, was written in Philadelphia, and LTR-327, of July 19, speaks of having been put on the cars for Baltimore “Friday last,” indicating July 13.) His next letter (“Near Richmond,” LTR-325), together with the present one, places him in Richmond on Saturday, July 14, after an overnight passage from Baltimore. Though he is “so ill” as he writes the present letter, he is “much better in health and spirits” by the time of his next letter (Thursday, July 19, LTR-327). Moreover, the [page 825:] admonition to Mrs. Clemm to “write instantly” (in the final sentence of the present letter) was complied with by the time Poe wrote his letter of July 19. C. Chauncey Burr saw Poe off on the cars, not to Richmond but to Baltimore, although Richmond was his ultimate destination (see LTR-327). Burr bought Poe's ticket from Philadelphia to Baltimore and the boat passage cost Poe seven dollars of the ten with which he set out from Philadelphia, leaving him the above-mentioned “two dollars,” after certain necessary expenses en route to Richmond. For Burr's aid to Poe and, after his death, repeated articles defending his character, see D. Thomas, Poe in Philadelphia, pp. 723-724.

Source: text of the letter as printed by C. Chauncey Burr in “Character of EAP,” the Nineteenth Century (February 1852), 5:30. Burr printed the letter, with Mrs. Clemm's permission, from the original MS, which is now lost. The absence of end quotation marks and the presence of the signature may suggest that the present letter is recorded in full. Though not fully dated, the letter certainly belongs to July 14, 1849, since its content generally and tone in particular belong prior to the letter of July 19. Enclosed in the present letter may have been that of “Near Richmond,” same date (LTR-325). With typical Victorian modesty, Burr gives his own name only as “B —,” expanded in the present printing in brackets.

Note: Poe's “more than ten days” is hardly exact, for he was able to write to Mrs. Clemm on July 7, that is, on the eighth day after leaving her in New York (see LTR-323 and the note to LTR-326). “Mania à potu” is a medical term for delirium tremens and is known to induce torments much like those Poe describes. (For a far more grisly hallucination about Mrs. Clemm, see Sartain, Reminiscences of a Very Old Man, p. 210.) The individuals named are fully identified in Lippard to R. W. Griswold, November 22, 1849 (original MS in Boston Public Library) — they are George Lippard, Chauncey Burr, John Sartain, Louis A. Godey, and Samuel D. Patterson. The present letter is one of Poe's most overt testimonials to his difficulty in abstaining from alcoholic drink, and its extreme effects upon his system. Much has been written about Poe as a drunkard. Evidence from his own letters and from those of his friends indicates that on occasion he did drink, but the evidence points consistently to wine and that in small quantities, with long periods of abstinence. LTR-109 should be read in this connection, but the present letter seems the more sincere explanation of his problem. Poe's willingness to admit the use of Port wine suggests that he is claiming it as having medicinal value. (In 1832, Dr. J. E. DeKay recommended Port [page 827:] wine as remedy for Cholera.) Poe's visit to Richmond was in the interest of establishing his own magazine with the aid of E. H. N. Patterson, of Oquawka, IL. Poe planned to solicit subscribers in certain cities and towns and to lecture as he went in order to pay his traveling expenses (see LTR-312). That Poe did “write something” is proved by his delivery of the lecture on “The Poetic Principle” on August 17 (see Quinn, p. 624), which was almost surely a rewritten version of the lecture of the same title given in Providence, December 20, 1848 (see Quinn, p. 583), and lost in the station in Philadelphia (see LTR-326). This later form was published after Poe's death (Home Journal, August 31, 1850 and Sartain's, October 1850, issued about September 16, 1850). “Mrs. L.” was Mrs. Sarah Anna Lewis, who, according to a letter from Mrs. Clemm to a friend, had agreed to look after “Muddy” during Poe's absence (see Phillips, 2:1414). The phrase “the darkest hour is just before daylight” is Poe's free and probably “popular” redaction of Thomas Fuller's 1650 adage, “It is always darkest just before the day dawneth” (Pisgah Sights, ii, 11).

The OED notes the past participle form of “not drank” as “intruded” from the past tense, from seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, and as used to avoid “the inebriate associations” with the word “drunk”; certainly the context of the present letter implies as much. See also LTR-174. However, lines 37-38 of “For Annie” read: “I have drank of a water / That quenches all thirst” with only a biblical implication. TOM [Poems], 1:460 merely remarks upon the participle's “unusual form.”

Source: text of the letter as printed by C. Chauncey Burr in “Character of EAP,” the Nineteenth Century (February 1852), 5:30-31. Burr printed the extracts, with Mrs. Clemm's permission, from the original MS, which is now lost. The letter belongs unquestionably to 1849 (see LTR-326 and note), and according to Burr's pointing and omission of signature is certainly incomplete. The names given only by Burr as an initial letter and a dash have been supplied here, in brackets. Poe is answering Mrs. Clemm's letter of July 14-19, 1849 (CL-812), which was in reply to his request of July 14, Saturday Night (LTR-326).

Note: For Poe's departure from New York, visit in Philadelphia, and arrival in Richmond, see the note to LTR-326. For “the enclosures,” see Poe's requests in LTR-316. Cholera began in the United States in 1832, and tended to hit the major coastal cities during the summer months. Poe's own diagnosis of Cholera is unprovable, but the disease was not well understood and Poe may easily have mistaken symptoms of another illness. Poe's comment about being “arrested in Philadelphia by the Cholera” serves as a surely unintended pun (see LTR-323).

Source: color photograph of the original MS (1 p.) in the Chicago Historical Society. The letter, postmarked July 21 from Richmond, belongs unquestionably to 1849 (see LTR-316). It is written on page 1 of a folded leaf, pages 2-3 are blank, and page 4 carries the address. Poe is replying to Patterson's two letters, written between May 23-June 7 (CL-797 and CL-798).

Note: For a prior reference by Poe to Cholera, see LTR-328. Calomel, Mercurous Chloride [Hg2 Cl2], was considered a standard treatment, as recorded in medical texts of the period. Germ theory was not widely known at this time, and the cause of Cholera was erroneously thought to be tainted or poorly digested food. As a purgative, Calomel not only failed to combat Cholera, but actually accentuated the diarrhea and vomiting, the very characteristics that so often made the ailment fatal. In his reply (CL-819) to the present letter, Patterson agreed to publish “a $5 magazine, of 96 pp., monthly.” Patterson printed a note on Poe's death [page 830:] in his Oquawka Spectator, October 24, 1849, and a defense, on November 7 (see SLP, pp. 28-29). Poe gives to F. W. Thomas the word “namby-pamby-ism” of the magazine as reason for resigning from Graham's, May 25, 1842 (see LTR-134). See also his intended section of The Living Writers of America, against the “puff-advertisements — fashion-plates [, or —] anomalous character” of such popular journals, in his late (1848?) notes for a large work, first presented by Pollin in SAR 1991, pp. 151-211, specifically, pp. 169 and 190. Note also the same derogation of this superficial quality in the “Prospectus” by Lowell and Robert Carter for the Pioneer of early 1843 (see note to LTR-147). Poe probably wishes to adhere to the publication schedule of most monthly magazines, which were designed so that two volumes of six issues each ran January-June and July-December.

Source: color photograph of the original MS (2 pp.) in the Chicago Historical Society. The letter was written on a folded leaf, occupying pages 1-2, with page 3 blank and on page 4 the address. It is postmarked from Richmond, August 1[?]; thus it was mailed not before August 10 and perhaps as late as August 16, since Patterson's reply is dated August 21 and states: “... I hasten to reply” (CL-819). As also for LTR-328, Poe is replying, more fully, to two unlocated letters from Patterson, written between May 23-June 7, 1849 (CL-797 and CL-798).

Note: On August 17, 1849, Poe lectured in Richmond on “The Poetic Principle”; the price of admission was twenty-five cents (Quinn, p. 624). John Moncure Daniel (1825-1865), editor of the Richmond Examiner, in his August 21 report of the lecture disparaged especially Poe's “recitations” (see Phillips, 2:1444-1445). Quinn (p. 571), after weighing certain evidence regarding Poe's possible visit to Richmond in 1848, quotes Poe's sentence in the present letter (“the man whom I challenged when I was here last year”) as “the only evidence ... that seems authentic”; but Poe wrote Chivers, July 14, 1848 (LTR-274), that he proposed going to Richmond on “Monday” (July 17); and wrote Mrs. Whitman (LTR-280, October 18, 1848) that her verses had reached him in Richmond. Rose was Poe's sister. As a youth, Poe had been romantically interested in Elmira Royster, but her marriage in 1828 to Mr. Shelton ended any plans Poe may have had. Now in 1849, Elmira Royster Shelton, as a widow, was available again. The Poitiaux, Strobia, Lambert, and Mackenzie families had been acquaintances of Poe's earlier Richmond days (see Phillips, 2:1478-1479, and Quinn, p. 627). Poe's review of Mrs. Lewis’ poems (The Child of the Sea and Other Poems) appeared anonymously in the Western Quarterly Review (April 1849, 1:404-408), and was a recasting of his review in the SLM, September 1848, 14:569-571 (see Writings, 5:371-374). For the reminiscences of Catherine Poitiaux, see The Poe Log, pp. 829-830, and Whitty, pp. lxxxi-lxxxii. Peter D. Bernard was Thomas W. White's son-in-law (see LTR-157); Eliza was White's daughter. Poe repeated his lecture on “The Poetic Principle” in Richmond, September 24 (Quinn, p. 635), but it was after [page 833:] his lecture in Norfolk, September 14, not before (Quinn, p. 629 and The Poe Log, pp. 840-841). For information on Mrs. Loud, see LTR-334 and note. Mr. Taverner is probably Professor J. W. Taverner, a New York educator whose essay on “The Respective Styles of Shakespeare and Bacon, Judged by the Laws of Elocutionary Analysis and Melody of Speech,” for which the didactic title probably allows for a pretty fair estimate of the style of its contents, appeared in George Wilkes’ Shakespeare from an American Point of View (New York: D. Appleton and company, 1877). Amusingly, in searching for the pencil sketch, Poe has followed the custom of the Paris police in searching for the “purloined letter” (see TOM [T&S], 3:981, line 1). The Poe Foundation, in Richmond, VA, has what is purportedly a copy of this sketch, although a rather crude one. The letter from Thomas H. Chivers to Poe (CL-820) is lost. The references to Annie and Mr. R., of course, are to Annie Richmond and her husband.

Source: photocopy of the MS fragment (4 pp.) in the Boston Public Library. The missing portions of the manuscript are unlocated, and are undoubtedly lost. The MS fragment of four pages probably begins with the text of page 3, for the suggested pagination of the fragment is based on pages 3 and 4 being recto and verso of one leaf, and pages 5 and 6 being recto and verso of another leaf. Some eight lines are missing from the bottom portion of page 3, above; the tearing off of these lines destroyed most of the wording of the first line of the “Wednesday Night” message. Only “dear Muddy” is clear; suggested emendations are highly conjectural, and asterisks have been used, as accurately as possible, to represent missing letters. Biographers and editors have given various datings to the present letter, actuated partly by the docketing in a strange hand at the head of the MS.: “Sept. 1849.” (W [1909], 2:326, gives “Sept. [5]”; H [Works], 17:368, “Sept”; Phillips, 2:1462, “September early”; and Quinn, p. 626, n., points out that Wednesday, September 5, would be correct for the “Wednesday Night” portion of the letter, but that the first portion would have been earlier.) Poe seems to have written Mrs. Clemm a letter that can be dated only tentatively as August 2-14 (CL-816), and that arrived in New York after she mailed her letter to Annie Richmond, August 4 (MS in the Ingram Collection, University of Virginia; reprinted in Miller, BPB, pp. 27-30). Mrs. Clemm told Annie that she had received no word from Poe for two weeks, probably referring to Poe's letter of July 19, 1849 (LTR-327); also, she is undoubtedly alluding to this July 19 letter in her communication to R. W. Griswold, August 27 (H [Works], [page 834:] 17:394-395) wherein she says that Poe “is getting better and hopes he will soon be able to attend to business.” Another letter from Poe to Mrs. Clemm, the present one, can be dated ca. August 28-29, 1849; either through Poe's delay in mailing it or through Mrs. Clemm's in calling for it at the post office, this letter must have reached her after she wrote to Mrs. Richmond, September 3 (MS in Ingram Collection; reprinted, in Miller, BPB, pp. 31-32), and before she wrote to Griswold, September 4 (H [Works], 17:395), for she told Annie that she had received no letter for three weeks, but told Griswold, “I have just heard from him, he writes in fine spirits and says his prospects are excellent.” In Mrs. Clemm's letter to Mrs. Richmond, September 15 (MS in Ingram Collection; reprinted in Miller, BPB, pp. 32-33), she says she is enclosing “the only one I received for nearly four weeks”; that is, the only one since the letter of August 2-14. In the same letter to Mrs. Richmond, Mrs. Clemm mentions a “note” received “yesterday.” Thus, the letter enclosed would be the present letter, and the “note” would be still another communication from Poe, almost surely LTR-331a, dated September 10. The next letter in the series, and his final one to Mrs. Clemm, is that of Tuesday, September 18, 1849 (LTR-332), which mentions the only two letters known to have been written by Mrs. Clemm to Poe between July 19 and September 18 (both of her letters recorded as CL-824).

Note: Poe delivered his lecture, “The Poetic Principle,” at the Academy in Norfolk, VA, on September 14, 1849 (see Quinn, p. 629); the lecture was well received by the audience, and enthusiastically reviewed in the local press. The American Beacon, for example, gave Poe a glowing stream of praise: “The main proposition of the lecture, which was discussed with great ingenuity, was that there could not be a long poem .... Mr. Poe concluded the lecture by reciting by request, his brilliant fantasy, ‘The Raven’ ” (see The Poe Log, p. 836). Prior to the lecture, Poe stayed at the Hygeia Hotel, in Old Point Comfort, VA. At the hotel, he met Miss Susan V. C. Ingram and a group of her friends, who asked him to recite some of his poems, a request which he graciously satisfied. For Miss Ingram's recollections of this evening, see The Poe Log, pp. 832-833, and W [1909], 2:329-333. The two remarks attributed by Poe to Dr. Johnson are Poe's own clever adaptation of one passage from Johnson's “Plan to an English Dictionary” (see Pollin, “Letter to the Editor,” EAP Review, 1:95). There, Johnson discusses basic lexicography, or the presentation of meaningful and useful definitions: “It seems of no great use to set down the words horse, dog, cat, willow, alder, daisy, rose, and a thousand others, of which it will be hard to give an explanation, not more obscure than the word itself” (11:201; “Miscellaneous Pieces,” in the 1903 Lamb edition of Johnson's Works). Poe had referred to Johnson's “well-conceived” Plan many years before, in his review of Charles Richardson's New Dictionary (SLM, August 1836, 2:583-584; see Writings, 5:249-250).

Source: photocopy of the original MS (3 pp.) in the Morgan Library. The envelope carries no postmark and is addressed merely “Miss Susan Ingram.” The dating of the letter seems established by Miss Ingram's statement that Poe read “Ulalume” to a group of people at the Hygeia Hotel at Old Point Comfort on Sunday evening, September 9, 1849, and that she received a MS copy of the poem the next day, which would have been Monday, September 10 (see Quinn, pp. 629-631). Phillips states that “Miss Ingram told Miss Thurston, at Mr. Morgan's Library, that Poe had this note with the autographed ‘Ulalume’ placed under her door”(2:1472). [page 836:]

Note: The “great deal of news” to which Poe refers is detailed in his letter to Maria Clemm of ca. August 28-29, 1849 (LTR-330). James Strange French was a student at the University of Virginia in 1826 (Kent, p. 89) and afterwards remained in the area. Poe unfavorably reviewed his novel Elkswatawa in the SLM (August 1836, 2:589-592; Writings, 5:256-258). French is also mentioned in “A Chapter on Autography,” where Poe notes that this “denunciatory review ... deterred him from further literary attempts” (Graham's, December 1841, 19:275). His name appears on Poe's address list as no. 166: “Jas. S. French, Old Point Comfort, Va. See letter” (Such Friends, p. 25).

Source: photocopy of the original MS (1 p.) in the Fales Library of the New York University, Robins Collection. The bracketed portion given here at the end of the letter is a separate fragment, noted from an auction [page 837:] in England, November 12, 1986, item 974. The fragment, quoted in ABC (1986), reasonably belongs with the present letter as the signature has been excised from the MS, and the close of Poe's other letters to Mrs. Clemm about the same time are very similar. Mrs. Clemm is known to have cut and distributed Poe's signature, often in exchange for personal or financial assistance.

Note: For Mrs. Lewis’ letter, see LTR-333. When Elmira Shelton was asked, in 1875, about her arrangements with Poe, she stated that “I was not engaged to Poe when he left here, but there was a partial understanding, but I do not think I should have married him under any circumstances” (see Quinn, p. 629). This cautious and somewhat confusing reply may have been tempered by knowledge that her family strenuously disapproved of the idea of a marriage to Poe, and it is difficult to imagine a “partial understanding” which was not an official engagement. Yet, Mrs. Whitman wrote J. H. Ingram, January 4, 1874 (Ingram Collection): “Poe, in the last of the two letters ... to Mrs. Clemm in the month before his death, said his engagement to Mrs. Shelton was fixed.” Unless Mrs. Whitman is referring to the lost note of September 12-13, there is no evidence to corroborate her statement beyond the fact that Poe's letters to Mrs. Clemm strongly imply that while he has some hesitation about the impending marriage, he is acting under the presumption that it will occur. The source of Mrs. Whitman's information was undoubtedly Mrs. Clemm. Concerning Mrs. St. Leon Loud's poems, see LTR-330. That Poe showed Muddy's letter to Elmira is confirmed in Mrs. Shelton's letter to Mrs. Clemm, September 22, 1849 (Quinn, p. 634). The identity of John Beatty is unknown, but he is listed as no. 181 in Such Friends (p. 19) with a note: “Balt. see let.” He is unlikely to be the man of some eminence listed in the DAB as being from Ohio, and too youthful then. The Literary World was a prominent New York weekly magazine started in 1847 by Charles Fenno Hoffman, and later edited by E. A. and G. L. Duyckinck. It reviewed Poe's Eureka in the issue for July 29, 1848, [page 839:] but, later, those editors declined to publish Poe's tale “Von Kempelen and His Discovery” (see LTR-308). The present letter is the last he is known to have written to Mrs. Clemm. “E. S. T. Grey” was used by Poe as a pseudonym on various occasions (see LTR-276 and note). The reasonable presumption that Mrs. Clemm would undoubtedly do as Poe requested and write to him at Philadelphia is confirmed by research kindly sent to the present editors by Matthew Pearl in advance of an article intended for publication in the EAP Review. Mr. Pearl solves the mystery of Poe's request that Ms. Clemm send the letter using his pseudonym. Before the Civil War, letters were typically sent to individuals, often with little addressing information beyond the name and city. Poe had lived in Philadelphia prior to moving to New York in 1844, and a letter sent to him there under his own name stood a very good chance of being automatically forwarded back to New York. By not signing a name, the letter could not be returned, and would have to be held, at least long enough for Poe to reach Philadelphia. Searching through the lists of unclaimed letters publicized in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, Mr. Pearl also found proof that Mrs. Clemm did indeed write to her Eddy as requested. In the Public Ledger for October 3, 1849, under the “List of Letters Remaining in the Philadelphia Post Office” for gentlemen appears one for “Grey, E. S. F.” (the “F” being an obvious error for “T”). This list includes letters which were not picked up by September 29, and is repeated in the issue for October 4, 1849. Sadly, there would be no one to pick up Mrs. Clemm's letter (CL-827e), and the MS is almost certainly lost.

Source: photocopy of the original MS fragment in Poe's hand, and of a transcript of the whole letter in Maria Clemm's hand (probably), both items being in the Enoch Pratt Free Library; the original Poe letter was undoubtedly two pages in length. The two letters from Mrs. Clemm that Poe is answering are probably her replies (CL-824) to his letter of ca. August 28-29 (LTR-330) and his note of September 10 (LTR-331a). Poe lectured on “The Poetic Principle” in Norfolk, not on “Monday” as he says, but on Friday, September 14 (see Quinn, p. 629). If Susan V. C. Ingram's account of her being with Poe in Old Point Comfort, September 9, is true (see Quinn, pp. 629-631), and also her statement that Poe later called on her family near Norfolk, he may have left Richmond shortly after mailing LTR-330, probably wrote the “note” from Old Point Comfort or Norfolk, delivered his lecture, and returned to Richmond, as he says, “last night from Norfolk,” on September 17. [page 840:]

Note: For data concerning Mrs. Lewis, see the note to LTR-257. Poe, in Richmond, was planning soon to leave for Philadelphia and New York (see LTR-332 and note). This is Poe's last known letter to Mrs. Lewis, and among the very last letters he wrote to anyone. TOM [Poems, 1:473-474] recounts the present letter as the basis for Mrs. Clemm's diplomatic suggestion to Mrs. Lewis, in Mary Hewitt's presence, that she was the source or prototype of “Annabel Lee”; Mrs. Hewitt promptly reported it to Fanny Osgood, who tellingly and informatively responded that Annabel Lee had to be someone no longer living, and therefore Virginia Poe was the subject of the poem. She expresses this point directly in her “Reminiscences of EAP,” stating: “There seems a strange and almost profane disregard of the sacred purity and spiritual tenderness of this delicious ballad, in thus overlooking the allusion to the kindred angels and the heavenly Father of the lost and loved and unforgotten wife.” (See Pollin, “F. S. Osgood and Saroni's Musical Times,” PS, 23:32. For a different identification of Annabel Lee, see the note to LTR-319.)

Source: photocopy of the original MS (1 p.), formerly in the collection of William H. Koester, and now in the Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin. The address appears on the verso of the leaf. Someone, probably Mrs. Lewis, entered the date of “Tuesday 18^th Sept. 1849” at the head of the letter. Although the date may indicate the day received, it may just as easily be the date written, for Poe wrote a letter to Mrs. Clemm on Tuesday, September 18, 1849 (LTR-332), in [page 841:] which he says he has just returned to Richmond and found letters from her (CL-824) and a letter from Mrs. Lewis (CL-825). Poe is replying to two letters from Mrs. Lewis, written sometime between June 30 and September 18, 1849 (CL-807 and CL-825).

Note: Mrs. Marguerite St. Leon Loud (ca. 1800-1889) was a Philadelphia poetess who contributed to the local magazines of the period [page 842:] and in 1851 published a volume of poems titled Wayside Flowers (see Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 4:33). Her husband, John Loud, a piano manufacturer in Philadelphia, was impressed by Poe's extravagant praise of his wife's poetry in the “Autography” article in Graham's, December 1841, where Poe had written: “Mrs. M. St. Leon Loud is one of the finest poets in this country” (see H [Works], 15:230). About the time of the present letter, Mr. Loud had offered Poe $100 to edit her collection of periodical poems, gathered for a projected volume. (See The Poe Log, pp. xxxii, 828-929, and 842.) Poe probably obtained the goodly space for four of her pieces in the new edition of Griswold's Female Poets of America (1848-1849), pp. 141-142. The headnote there included some of Poe's “Autography” laudation — she “has imagination of no common order” and while able in “decorous proprieties ... in fashion” she often “ventures ... into a more ethereal region.” Based on several of his final letters, Poe's apparent plan was to stop by Philadelphia on his trip from Richmond to New York (see LTR-330 and LTR-332). That he did not make it to Philadelphia to see her is supported by a short notice of Wayside Flowers: “The late Mr. Poe was accustomed to praise her works very highly, and was to have edited this edition of them” (the International, A Miscellany of Literature, Science and Art, Boston, September 1, 1850, p. 265). The fact that he did not pick up the letter from Mrs. Clemm is further evidence (see the note to LTR-332).

Source: photocopy of the original MS (1 p.) on deposit in the collection of the Poe Foundation now in the Virginia State Library, Richmond. On the verso the letter is addressed to: “Mrs. M. S^t Leon Loud / Care of John Loud, / Philadelphia / Pa.” It is postmarked: “Richmond, Va., Sep 19.” Beneath the address appears, presumably by Mrs. Loud: “Marguerite St. Leon Loud / Philadelphia [some doodling] ‘I slept & dreamed that life was beauty — / I woke and found that life was duty’ [more doodling].” This short quotation is taken from a poem by the Transcendentalist Mrs. Ellen Sturgis Hooper (1812-1848), first printed in the Dial (July 1840, 1:123) as the first two of six lines. No reply from Mrs. Loud is known.