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PLAGIARISM. — Rather an interesting literary discussion is now going on in New York upon the sin of plagiarism. The organs employed are the Broadway Journal and the Evening Mirror; the disputants are Mr. Poe and some friend of Longfellow. Some sound truth is elicited by the controversy. The meanness of the vice is held up to scorn by each party. Mr. Poe, however, attacks the magnates of literature, and roundly, but truly we think, asserts that “of the class of wilful plagiarists nine out of ten are authors of established reputation, who plunder recondite, or forgotten books.” Entertaining this opinion, Mr. Poe exposes with just indignation the criminality of the offence in the following style:
Now then the plagiarist has not merely committed a wrong in itself — a wrong whose ‘incomparable meanness would deserve exposure on absolute grounds — but he, the guilty, the successful, the eminent, has fastened the degradation of his crime — the retribution which should have overtaken it in his own person — upon the guiltless, the toiling, the unfriended struggler up the mountainous path of Fame.
On the other side, Mr. Longfellow's friend charitably argues that instances of plagiarism are not only rare, but that they are committed only by the obscure upon writers of established reputation. We think Mr. Poe has the best argument, and he promises to pursue it.
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Notes:
The “friend of Longfellow” was “Outis.” The identity of “Outis” is still debated.
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[S:0 - NODP, 1845] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Bookshelf - Mr. Plagiarism (Anonymous, 1845)