Text: James B. Reece, “Conclusions,” Poe's Poe and the New York Literati Story, dissertation, 1954 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 336:]

The study of Poe's literary and personal relationships with the subjects of his “Literati” sketches has prompted new conclusions in regard to the effect of the sketches on his personal reputation, and, in addition to presenting some new information concerning his association with his fellow authors, has suggested corrections of what appear to be misapprehensions on that score. The examination of the sketches against their biographical and literary background has brought to light new facts concerning Poe's activities in New York society, helped to clarify some of the circumstances surrounding the publication of the articles, and pointed out the relationship of the sketches to Poe's “Autography” papers and to the projected “Literary America.”

In his second series of “Autography” papers, which appeared in Graham's, November - January, 1841-1842, Poe had approached the formula that he was to employ four years later in the “Literati” sketches. Confining himself to the literati as subjects, [page 337:] he, in many of these studies of handwriting, summarized the literary accomplishments of the authors under consideration and offered brief critical appraisals. In writing the “Literati” sketches he modified the pattern of the “Autography” papers only by substituting for the observations on chirography his impressions of personality and appearance. The exclusion of purely biographical data and the emphasis on “words of personality” make the “Literati” sketches unique.

The “Literati” sketches are also related to another of Poe's works — an unpublished series of sketches of American authors upon which he expended a considerable amount of effort between 1843 and 1848. This work was apparently well underway before Poe wrote the “Literati” papers, but its effect upon the sketches, if it had any, cannot be determined. However, it is clear that in 1848 Poe was contemplating a volume of sketches of the “Literati” type on American writers generally. The precise relationship of the projected work to the “Literati” sketches is uncertain, since only a few scraps of Poe's manuscript are known to have survived, all of which were written after the “Literati” sketches were published. After Poe's death the manuscript of “Literary America” — the last of the titles which he assigned to the work — presumably came into the possession of Griswold. Perhaps it was among the papers which Charles G. Leland admitted taking from Griswold's desk and burning.(1) [page 338:]

Instead of commencing in the winter of 1845-1846, as has been supposed, Poe's participation in the social activities of New York authors began early in 1845, soon after the publication of “The Raven.” When, therefore, he wrote the “Literati” papers in January and February of 1846, he had been longer acquainted with most of his subjects than is generally assumed; no longer was he a newcomer in the circles of the literati. This fact increases the likelihood that the details of character, personality, and appearance in the sketches are authentic.

Prior to the publication of “The Raven” late in January, 1845, Poe appears to have been personally known to no more than five of the “Literati” subjects — English, Locke, Halleck, Willis, and Briggs. The celebrity which the poem won for him made him a welcome guest at the entertainments which Miss Lynch, Mrs. Kirkland, Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith and others provided for the literati. At these receptions or in his professional dealings he presumably met most of the writers who were portrayed in the series; however, there is no positive evidence of meetings between Poe and eighteen of his subjects before the papers were written. In most of these cases the personal data of the sketches themselves provide the best evidence that Poe was acquainted with his subjects.

But it would be hazardous to infer the extent of Poe's personal acquaintance with any particular writer from the detail with which he is described, since all or part of such data may have come through other channels. Poe's note of January 30, 1846, probably to Duyckinck, asked that the recipient provide him with [page 339:] personal information about a large number of authors, some of whom were included in the “Literati” series.(2) From some such source apparently came the personal data on Mrs. Stephens, whom Poe described in detail though he later admitted that he had not made her acquaintance.(3) On the other hand, personal information is lacking in the sketch of English, whom Poe had known since 1839. He disclaimed acquaintance with English, explaining later to Horace Greeley that in so doing he wished “to decline his acquaintance for the future.”(4) The personal data do not appear in the papers on Cary and Aldrich, whom Poe probably had not met.(5) He had not claimed acquaintance with all his subjects; in the introduction to the sketches he had written that with “one or two exceptions” he was “well acquainted with every author to be introduced.”(6)

The chief cause of Poe's withdrawal from literary society seems to have been the scandal which resulted from the controversy over the letters of Mrs. Osgood and Mrs. Ellet, which occurred early in 1846, probably in January, not in June as has been believed. The accurate dating of these events helps to [page 340:] clarify sons of the circumstances attending the publication of the sketches — the press notices which predicted the sensation the sketches were to create, the anxiety felt in New York literary circles, the protests to the proprietor of the magazine in which the papers appeared, and the great demand for the early installments of the sketches. The literati were being treated, in articles which contained both criticism and intimate personal data, by one who recently had been ostracized from their society by a scandal in which his honor had been impugned. Moreover, he had a reputation for slashing. Undoubtedly there were fearful guesses concerning who would be chosen as subjects and what Poe's attitude would be. Not without cause were the literati apprehensive.

Among Poe's potential subjects there must have been a decided feeling of relief when, after the sketches began to appear, it became apparent that the papers, in general, were distinctly complimentary. Of the thirty-eight sketches only three — those of English, Briggs, and Clark — were written in Poe's slashing manner. Only an additional three — those of Aldrich, Cary, and Cheever — were unfavorable. The reading public undoubtedly found the sketches anticlimactic. It was expected, Briggs wrote, that there would be “a furious unbottling of carboy's [sic of vitriol, torrents of aqua fortis, and demi-john's sic of prussic acid”; readers were astonished to find “only a few slender streams of sugar house molasses and Godfrey's cordial, trickling [page 341:] through the soft pages of Mr. Godey's lady's Book.”(7)

The sketch of English probably owed much of its severity to his role in the scandal of the letters, but otherwise the affair had little discernible effect on the series. Other principals in the matter, Mrs. Osgood, Miss Fuller, and Miss Lynch, received chivalrous treatment. Poe's single allusion to the affair occurs in the sketch of Miss Lynch, whom he described as possessed of “a very indefinite idea of ‘duty’” and, consequently, “readily imposed upon by any artful person who perceives and takes advantage of this most amiable failing.”(8) No paper on Mrs. Ellet appeared in Godey's; a brief sketch of her in the “Literati” manner, found among Poe's papers after his death, was published by Griswold in 1850. Here, by implication, Poe characterized his subject as a writer of imitative hack work. “In person,” he concluded, Mrs. Ellet is ‘'short and much inclined to embonpoint.”(9)

In its effects, Poe's association with the literati of New York was one of the most unfortunate experiences of his career. It gave rise to events which were the chief source of the shadow of obloquy under which he lived during the brief remainder of his life. From it sprang the gossip concerning his relationship with Mrs. Osgood, which, in turn, resulted in the moral stigma [page 342:] that was fastened upon him by the scandal over the letters of Mrs. Ellet. His social intercourse with his fellow authors made possible the production of the “Literati” papers, in which, injudiciously, he ridiculed his enemies. The belligerent reprisals of his victims, especially frequent in 1846 and 1847 but continuing for many years after Poe's death, enveloped him in a wave of adverse publicity which did vital injury to his personal reputation. It was English, Clark, and Briggs who initiated the conception of Poe as a man of base conduct and depraved moral sense which Griswold adopted and to which he gave wider circulation in the “Memoir” of 1850.

Since his unsigned writings on Poe have hitherto gone unnoticed or have been attributed to other pens, Briggs's share in effecting the decline of Poe's personal reputation has not received its due notice. In the public condemnation of Poe Briggs was earlier in the field than Griswold, later to leave, as ready to give currency to those episodes of the poet's career which reflect to his discredit and to invent others, and more reluctant to admit his merits. He helped to spread the idea that Griswold had dealt generously with Poe in the “Memoir” and that the most shocking facts about Poe had been withheld. His attack upon Poe in the Mirror, his caricature in The Trippings of Tom Pepper, his “Memoir” in the 1858 edition of Poe's poems, and his reminiscences in the Independent make it clear that Briggs, instead of belonging — as George Cary Eggleston thought(10) — to the limited [page 343:] circle of Poe's contemporary defenders, earned for himself a secure place in the more numerous group of his detractors.

The investigation of Poe's relationships with his “Literati” subjects has, wherever possible, made use of unpublished manuscripts and unreprinted items in periodicals and newspapers. These studies have revealed new information of both a negative and a positive nature. They have questioned certain assumptions of Poe's biographers and commentators — that Willis rejected “The Oblong Box” for the Mirror(11) and that he was host to Poe,(12) that Poe's quarrel with Clark began with the publication of “Our Magazine Literature” in the New World,(13) that English used his influence to thwart Poe's ambitions for a political appointment,(14) and that Mrs. Osgood warned Mrs. Whitman against an alliance with Poe.(15) On the positive side, the studies have suggested that Poe is the author of a poem heretofore unattributed to him,(16) that Hunt's procedure in establishing the Merchants’ Magazine provided Poe with a plan for founding the Stylus,(17) that Griswold forged a passage in the revised “Literati” sketch of Briggs,(18) and that the Poe-Osgood relationship was more than a mere Platonic friendship.(19) They have proposed new datings for two letters from Willis to Poe,(20) indicated that the Poe-Anthon correspondence [page 344:] was more extensive than has been supposed,(21) shown that Miss Lynch was one of the delegation which demanded the return of Mrs. Osgood's letters,(22) and established the approximate date of the termination of the Poe-Osgood association.(23)

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