Text: John H. Ingram and John Watson Dalby, “Edgar Allan Poe: a Vindication,” St. James' Magazine and United Empire (London, UK, MA), vol. 37, ns. vol. 2, no. 3, December 1875, pp. 331-333

[page 331:]

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ST. JAMES'S MAGAZINE.

SIR, — After the handsome manner in which Mr. John Watson Dalby, in your August number, has alluded to my efforts to vindicate the memory of Edgar Allan Poe, it is to be hoped that he will not deem me wanting in gratitude if I solicit a small portion of your space in which to animadvert upon some portions of his critique. To furnish replies to such queries as Mr. Dalby has himself raised is, however, my chief wish.

(1.) As regards the place and date of Poe's birth, he must not be surprised at finding James Hannay and all other European biographers of the poet agreeing to differ from me, as they all, without exception, have derived their information from Griswold's soi disant “Memoir,” a work now utterly ignored in the United States. My statement that Poe was born in Boston, on the 19th of January, 1809, is derived from the poet's own words, supported, however, by irrefutable evidence.

(2.) Mrs. Stannard was not a widow, as Mr. Dalby surmises, her husband, Judge Stannard, having survived her; nor do I find any statement to such an effect in my Memoir.

(3.) The remark that Poe's affection for her was “the one idolatrous “and purely ideal love” of his boyhood, was the poet's own, and not mine.

(4.) The history of Poe's adventures in Europe is no longer a blank to me, I am glad to say; but the tale cannot, necessarily, be told here.

(5.) The story of my hero's dismissal from the West Point Military Academy has not yet been fully told: absence from church and other drill was his only crime.

(6.) As regards the noble art of puffing, your critic does seem most strangely to misread my remark referring to Poe's reviewals; most decidedly I never attributed the “mean artifice” to the poet.

(7.) “Contradicting Griswold,” remarks Mr. Dalby, Mr. Ingram says “Arthur Gordon Pym was several times reprinted in England; and that I did not say so without authority, reference to the publishers’ directories will prove; whilst reference to the Southern Literary Messenger, Brooks’ Museum, and Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, proves [page 332:] that when “Mr. Ingram asserts” Poe's “Haunted Palace” was published long previous to Longfellow's “Beleagured City,” he had positive proof of the correctness of his assertion.

(8.) That Poe left Mr. Graham in order to publish on his own account, I have now positive proof, as also that he did start a magazine at the time referred to.

(9.) My Memoir terms Mrs. Whitman “the finest female poet New England” — not New York, as stated by Mr. Dalby — “has produced;” and it may, perhaps, somewhat strengthen that gentleman's belief in the veracity of Mr. Pabodie to know that Mrs. Whitman has so far braved painful memories as to indite the very letter he deems she should have written, and in that letter — already several times reprinted in England — remarks, “No such scene as that described by Dr. Griswold ever transpired in my presence.” She adds that “no one acquainted with Edgar Poe could have given Dr. Griswold's scandalous anecdote a moment's credence.” Four persons were present at the final interview of Edgar Poe with Mrs. Whitman; the cause of the separation was known to them; it has be enconfided to me, and I feel assured that all unprejudiced parties acquainted with the facts of the case must acknowledge with me that the unfortunate author of “The Raven” was more to be pitied than blamed.

(10.) With reference to Hannay's account of Poe's death, Mr. Dalby must be reminded that Griswold was this biographer's sole authority; as regards my own history of the event, I am able to greatly amplify the details, and knowing what I now know, cannot but regard the poet as other than barbarously murdered.

(11.) Mr. Dalby asks “from what American edition issued during Poe's lifetime did I reprint” certain “Poems written in Youth”? To which I reply, the rare edition of 1831.

(12.) Other queries which he moots need not be adverted to here; and it is only necessary for me to add that the second edition of the book which he kindly hopes the public will soon call for has already long since been issued, and that I trust speedily, in a third edition, to correct those errors which he, and my reviewers generally, have so leniently dealt with.

JOHN H. INGRAM.

——————

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ST. JAMES'S MAGAZINE.

SIR, — Mr. Ingram, in replying to what he considers certain misapprehensions of mine, seems himself to have somewhat misapprehended me, as in a very few words I may be permitted to point out.

(1.) I was not “surprised” at finding that the date of Poe's birth had [page 333:] been erroneously fixed; and I accepted without question Mr. Ingram's correction, made as that was by himself with a pen in the volume before me.

(2.) On referring to the Memoir I find that there certainly is no statement that Mrs. Stannard was a widow. Neither is there any statement to the contrary. My inference was drawn from the fact that she and her son alone are mentioned in connection with Poe's visits to her house.

(3.) If Mr. Ingram notices the double marks of quotation in this passage, he will find that the remark is not attributed to him.

(4.) Mr. Ingram says the history of Poe's adventures in England is no longer a blank to him; that history, if told in the third edition of his Memoir, which I am very glad to hear is forthcoming, will greatly enhance its interest and value. But it is obvious that a book can only be noticed upon the facts it contains; not upon those which, though known to the writer, are withheld from his readers. The same remark will apply to paragraphs 5, 9, and 10. One cannot accept as a satisfactory refutation of elaborate representations the mere announcement that Mr. Ingram knows better, though I do not for a moment doubt he may do so.

(9.) Mrs. Whitman's letter is not referred to in Mr. Ingram's Memoir; it may have been reprinted in England; but I have not met with it — and by Mr. Ingram's own showing it must be a mere contradiction of Griswold, not containing “the facts of the case,” for Mr. Ingram himself writes in his Memoir: “The real cause of the rupture between the poet and his betrothed has never been published, although it is to be hoped that, for the sake of the much slandered dead, the seal of silence will some day be broken.”

(10.) Griswold, however, was not Hannay's “sole authority,” since Hannay also cites other “men who knew” Poe; instancing particularly Buchanan Read, the friend of both Poe and himself.

(6.) If the following passage (in Mr. Ingram's own words) does not accuse Poe of the “mean artifice” in question, what is its purport? “Why could he [Poe] not have left the task of crushing or puffing the works of his Lilliputian contemporaries to the ordinary ‘disappointed authors’?”

(7 and 8.) In mentioning that Mr. Ingram had made these corrections I had no intention of challenging their accuracy. Mr. Ingram seems to think the word “asserts” equivalent to a contradiction, whereas it is really only used in the sense of “states.” These points seem almost too trival for rejoinder, yet as Mr. Ingram has thought them of sufficient importance to call for the “retort courteous” under the serious title “a Vindication,” I may be allowed the “quip modest.”

JOHN WATSON DALBY.