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[page 61, column 2, continued:]
EDGAR A. POE AND “THE FIRE FIEND.”
(3rd S. vi. 223, 224.)
Unless another correspondent shall, in the mean- time, have better performed the task, I ask you, injustice to the memory of Mr. Poe, to insert the following account of the “Fire Fiend,” which I condense chiefly from a small pamphlet lately [page 62:]
In the course of a discussion upon Poe's genius which took place in November, 1859, Mr. Gardette was challenged to produce a successful imitation of the style and rhythm of “The Raven.” “Under this challenge, Mr. Gardette composed the ‘Fire Fiend,’ and its public success being part of the bargain, he sent it to the editor of Harper's Magazine for publication. He, however, while admitting its resemblance to Poe in manner and treatment, considered the magazine an unsuitable medium for its publication, and politely declined it. But, he added, that he had shown it to a literary acquaintance, the editor of the New York Saturday Press,” who, after communication with the author, published it in that paper on the 19th of November, 1859. It was accompanied with the following letter: —
“Philadelphia, November 6th, 1859.
(“To the Editor of the Saturday Press.)
“Dear Sir, — The following fantastic poem was written by Mr. Poe, while experimenting towards the production of that wondrous mechanism, ‘THE RAVEN;’ but considering it incomplete, he threw it aside. Some time afterwards, finding it among his papers, he enclosed it in a letter to a particular friend, labelled facetiously — ‘To be read by firelight, at midnight, after thirty drops of laudanum.’ How it finally came into the possession of the undersigned, he is not at present at liberty to tell. The poem is copied verbatim, literatim, et punctuatim from the original MS.”
Yours, &c.
“C. D. GARDETTE.”
This was the first time that the “Fire Fiend” ever appeared in print. It was prefaced on that occasion with the following editorial note in brackets: —
“[We postpone several articles this week to make place for the following communication, which we print with the single remark, that we ‘don't see it.’]”
”The ‘Fire Fiend’ then,” says the pamphlet, “was written as a hoax, published as a hoax, with an editorial remark sufficiently indicating the fact to any reader of fair perspicacity; and as no money was asked nor received for or by its publication, and no efforts whatever made to disseminate or perpetuate the hoax, either by its publisher or author, I feel no hesitation in pronouncing it, and in believing that my readers will pronounce it, to have been a venial and harmless literary joke.”
As it was probably more owing to the direct assertions of the letter above quoted, than to the quality of the piece itself, that the latter has deceived anybody, some readers may be pardoned for not seeing the “joke.”
That part of the letter signed M. McCready in the Morning Star of Sept. 1 (quoted by T. B. in (“N. & Q.”), which relates to the “Fire Fiend” ii so obviously taken from Mr. Gardette's note to the Saturday Press, that it is remarkable that the doubt expressed by the editor of that paper is not also referred to. It may be further observed, that the rest of M. McCready's letter, which relates to her conversations with Mrs. Clem, says nothing (unless by implication) about the [column 2:] “Fire Fiend,” or any other poem than “The Raven.” I agree with T. B. that “honour compels us to do justice to a man who had little but his genius to recommend him; “ and it is, I believe, as certain that Poe did write “The Raven” as it is that he did not write the rather feeble and unpleasant imitation which has called forth these remarks.
St. T.
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - NQ, 1865] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - A Poe Bookshelf - Edgar A. Poe and The Fire Fiend (St. T., 1865)