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Dinwiddie County
March 25, 1827.
Dear Sir:
When I saw you in Richmond a few days ago I should have mentioned the difference between us if there had not been so many persons present[[.]] I must of course, as you did not mention it to me, enquire of you if you ever intend to pay it. If you have not the money write me word that you have not, but do not be perfectly silent. I should be glad if you would write to me even as a friend, there can certainly be no harm in your avowing candidly that you have no money, if you have none, but you can say when you can pay me if you cannot now. I heard when I was in Richmond that Mr. Allen [[Allan]] would probably discharge all your debts. If mine was a gambling debt I should not think much of it. But under the present circumstances I think very strangely of it. Write to me upon the receipt of this letter and tell me candidly what is the matter.
Your friend
Edward G. Crump.
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Notes:
Poe seems never to have received Crump’s letter since he had already left John Allan’s household a week earlier. On the back of the letter, John Allan wrote the note: “Edw’d G. Crump, Mar. 25 1827 [[/]] to E. A. Poe, alias Henri Le Rennet.” The letter was first printed by Killis Campbell in “Unpublished Documents Relating to Poe’s Early Years,” Sewanee Review, April 1912, XX, pp. 201-212 (with this letter appearing on p. 209). It was subsequently reprinted by Mary Newton Stanard, Edgar Allan Poe Letters Till Now Unpublished in the Valentine Museum, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1925, pp. 52-53. The original manuscript is in the Ellis & Allan Papers in the Library of Congress. Mabbott made a small transcript about 1921.
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[S:0 - MS, 18xx] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Misc - Letters - E. G. Crump to Poe (RCL015)