Text: Anonymous, “The Poe Revival,” Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, GA), vol. XXVIII, August 5, 1895, p. 4, cols. 2-3

[page 4, column 2, continued:]

The Poe Revival.

With the recent publication of a new and complete edition of the works of Edgar Allan Poe there seems to be a disposition on the part of the critics to vindicate his memory.

In his lifetime Poe made many enemies among the literary men of New England. He ridiculed them unmercifully, charged some of them with plagiarism, and picked out the faults in their work. A host of enraged writers barked at his heels, and whenever it was possible to injure this brilliant but unpopular genius there were always any number of his angry competitors who were eager to do it.

In England and France Poe's superiority was at once recognized, and some of the best literature that comes from those countries today is modeled upon his prose and verse. The marvelous criminal analysis exhibited in his detective stories and the combination of imagination with scientific knowledge displayed in such stories as “A Descent Into the Mailstrom [[Maelstrom]],” and “Hans Pfall” have undoubtedly inspired such writers as Conan Doyle and Jules Verne. His short tales and his literary reviews stand alone in our literature, while no poet has ever been able to grasp the secret which enabled him to make, his verse such a wonderful medley of mystery and music.

Inferior writers, despairing of ever equaling Poe's matchless work, revenged themselves by assailing his character, For a generation they seem to have concentrated their attention upon the schemes which they had devised tor the [column 3:] the destruction of this master spirit of the literary world. Failing to find a flaw in his perfect work, they scrutinized his private life, and rushed into print with the charge that he WAS an idle voluptuary and a drunkard. The student of his writings will naturally wonder how an idle, dissolute sot could turn out so many volumes of reviews, stories and poems, all requiring the utmost concentration of the highest faculties. But they wonder no longer, because have ceased to believe his lying traducers. It Poe drank he merely followed the custom of gentlemen of his day, and the quantity and quality of his work show that he could not have wasted much time in his cups.

The next charge of his enemies is that he was irregular in financial matters. We believe that this is true to a certain extent. The man who produced the finest literature of the century on a salary of $40 a month, out of which he had to support himself, a sick wife and a mother-in-law, could not very well be regular at all times in his finances. It is very easy to believe this charge. One thing has always worried the poet's enemies, and that is the devotion of his mother-in-law to- him.

It is not reasonable to suppose that she would have loved him so if he had neglected her daughter and given himself up to debauchery. Slowly but steadily the tide is turning, and now people who talked against Poe are retracting or modifying their statements: The later biographers present the man in a better, brighter light, and the revived interest in him promises to completely vindicate him. The verdict of the present generation is that the poet is not guilty of the more serious charges against him, and that he was very largely. the victim of a malicious persecution.