Text: Killis Campbell, “Poe Documents in the Library of Congress,” Modern Language Notes (Baltimore, MD), vol. XXV, April 1910, pp. 127-128

[page 126:]

POE DOCUMENTS IN THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.

To the Editors of Mod. Lang. Notes.

SIRS: — None of the biographers of Poe have taken account of some interesting documents bearing on the early life of the poet that are [column 2:] preserved in the Library of Congress. These are, first, a letter of Poe's to George Watterston, Esq., of Washington, D. C., and, second, a number of letters and bills that came to the Library with the purchase of the Ellis-Allan collection of papers.

The Watterston letter — the only one of the documents that was written by Poe — is dated “New York, Nov. 1845,” and bears the postmark “New York, Dec. 5.” It was written for the purpose of soliciting a subscription for the Broadway Journal, which Poe was then editing, and which was in straits. The letter begins with a gracious mention of Mr. Watterston's support of the Southern Literary Messenger while Poe was its editor, proceeds with a complimentary allusion to Mr. Watterston as one whose judgment Poe held in high esteem, and ends with the request that he subscribe for the Journal. A notation in the lower left-hand corner of this document has it that the manuscript is a facsimile, but the postmark proves it to be an original.

The letters in the Ellis-Allan collection are four in number. Of these the earliest and the most interesting is the letter of Eliza Poe, an aunt of the poet, to Mrs. John Allan, the poet's foster-mother, who is obsequiously addressed as the “Kind Benefactress of the infant Orphan Edgar Allen Poe.” The letter was written from Baltimore on February 8, 1813, or when the poet was but four years old. It deals, first, with the failure of Poe's Baltimore grandparents to receive an answer to a letter addressed to Mrs. Allan in July of the preceding year (an omission which the writer suggests was probably due to the miscarriage of the letter); then dwells upon the magnanimity of the Allans in adopting the infant Poe; and concludes with greetings and affectionate messages from Poe's brother, William Henry, his senior by two years. Incidentally reference is made to a meeting of a Mr. Douglas with the Allans at some watering-place, and to Mr. Douglas's report that the boy Edgar Allan was a most handsome and obedient child. The writer of this letter, Eliza Poe, subsequently married Henry Herring, of Baltimore, and her daughter, Elizabeth, was one of the Baltimore cousins whom Poe fell in love with in the early thirties.

The next of the letters in the order of time is [page 127:] one written by John Allan to Poe's brother, William Henry. This bears the date November 1, 1824. In it Mr. Allan deprecates young Edgar Allan's neglect to answer a letter received from William Henry a short time before, complains of his ward's sulkiness and general ill-temper and his lack of affection for his benefactors, boasts that he had given Poe a better education than he had himself received, compares the two brothers to the disadvantage of the younger, and winds up sanctimoniously with a prayer that God may protect and prosper young William Henry — in order that his sister Rosalie may not suffer. This letter is not an original, but is the copy kept by Mr. Allan.

The two remaining letters have to do with Poe's life at the University of Virginia. One of them is from a school-fellow there, Edward G. Crump, of Dinwiddie Co., Va. It is addressed to Poe, and remonstrates with him for delaying to pay a debt that he owed him — a debt which the writer insists it is all the more his duty to pay since it is not a gambling debt. This letter is dated March 25, 1827, — three months after Poe had left the University. The other letter is from George Spotswood, of Charlottesville, to John Allan, asking that he reimburse him for the services of one of his slaves whom Poe had employed while at the University of Virginia. The date of this letter is May 1, 1827.

The bills in the Ellis-Allan papers are five in all. Four of these are for Poe's tuition at the academy kept by the Clarkes in Richmond — three of them being made payable to J. H. Clarke, and one to J. W. Clarke, apparently a predecessor of J. H. Clarke. The period covered by the first of these bills is June 11 to September 11, 1821; by the second, September 11, 1821, to March 11, 1822; by the third, June 11 to September 11, 1822; by the fourth, September 11 to December 11, 1822. In three of these bills, the item of “Pens, Ink, and Paper” appears, and in one of them charge is made for a Horace and for a Cicero's De Officiis. The remaining bill is not against Mr. Allan, but against Poe (spelled Powe twice in the document), and for tailor's articles to the amount of $68.46. Among items included are one “cut velvet vest,” one “pair Drab Pantaloons and Trimmings,” one “Set Best Gilt Buttons,” and three yards of “Linin,” with a like amount of “Super Blue Cloth.” The bill is not dated, but probably belongs to Poe's college period.

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

The University of Texas.