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B. — Poe in New York Society, 1845-1846
Not long after “The Raven” had brought Poe to the apex of his contemporary fame, he began to take part in the social activities of the predominantly feminine groups of tale-writers [page 10:] and poetasters which constituted much of New York literary society. This experience was prerequisite to the writing of the “Literati” papers; it gave Poe acquaintance with many of his subjects and supplied much of the detailed data that went into the candid sketches of appearance and personality.
Descriptions of social affairs of the sort Poe attended survive in the writings of several of his contemporaries. The most detailed accounts are those which depict the soirees of Anne C. Lynch, at whose receptions Poe was a frequent guest. Catharine M. Sedgwick described one of these gatherings —
... when I entered, I found two fair sized drawing-rooms filled with guests, in a high state of social enjoyment. There was music, dancing, recitation and conversation. There were artists in every department — painting, poetry, sculpture and music. There I saw for the first time that impersonation of genius, Ole Bull. Even the histrionic art asserted its right to social equality there in the person of one of its honorable professors....
[The hostess] does not open her house as a temple to worshippers of whom she is the divinity, but apparently simply to afford her acquaintances the hospitality of a place of social meeting. She retires behind her guests, and seems to desire to be the least observed of all observers I was so charmed with her and with the animated social life about her that I found myself outstaying all her guests, and at half past ten reluctantly took my leave — noting for the first time that the hours had passed away without the usual appliances of an evening party. I had supposed that war might as well be carried on without its munitions as a party to go off without its material entertainment. But here was the song without the supper, not even those poor shadows of refreshments cakes and lemonade.(1) [page 11:]
Further details of the company and the activities one might expect at such gatherings are supplied by Bayard Taylor in a letter to Mary Agnew, January 2, 1848. Though Poe was no longer a guest at such functions, something of the same atmosphere probably had prevailed during the period of his attendance:
Willis invited me to supper at his house, and I went with T. B. and Mary Read. We found there Anne Lynch, Grace Greenwood, Mrs. E, F. Ellet, Healy, the artist, and Joseph Clarke, Grace's brother. Afterwards came General Morris, Parke Godwin and his wife, who is Bryant's daughter, and the veritable Sam Lover. And such a night as we have passed!’ — a feast of reason and flow of soul, so full of songs, stories, and sparkling conversation that we have each and all (I make no doubt) laid by its memory to be preserved among the choicest events of our lives. Last night I attended Anne Lynch's conversazione, and met Grace, Willis, Morris, Read, Healy, Griswold, Mrs. Ellet, Mr. Gillespie, and Kate and Mary Sedgwick. We had a dance and most delightful conversation, together with recitals. Grace repeated her “Ariadne,” Read his “Bards,” and Kate Sedgwick Miss Barrett's “Bertha in the Lane.” On Thursday I went to a fancy ball in the character of Goethe's Faust, Read as a Tyrolese minstrel, and his wife as Titania. Mrs. Anne [sic] S. Stephens was there as Hedge Wildfire, Lieutenant May as Ivanhoe, and Saroni, the composer, as an Italian cavalier.(2)
By those who provided such entertainment, Poe, in 1845 and early in 1846, must have been considered a highly desirable guest. “The Raven” had brought him some celebrity, and his qualifications were further enhanced by the conspicuous grace with which he conducted himself at social gatherings and by an intriguing and not easily fathomed personality. Charles F. Briggs, who was not inclined to flatter his former partner in [page 12:] the Broadway Journal enterprise in 1845, wrote late in life a description of Poe as he appeared during the term of his popularity in the salons of the literati:
In personal appearance Poe was extremely interesting, and it was hardly possible to meet him in his sober moments and converse with him without being strongly impressed in his favor. His remarkably shaped head, high and broad forehead, his pale complexion, large gray eyes, which always had a sad and tearful look, and his finely-formed mouth — all indicated delicacy and refinement of thought and tenderness of feeling. He never laughed and rarely smiled; but when he did smile there was always a partially-suppressed expression of sadness, which might be easily interpreted as a sardonic reproach for his levity. He spoke with great precision, as though he were dictating to an amanuensis, and never for a moment gave utterance to what might be thought a spontaneous or unconsidered idea. His dress was always scrupulously neat and free from anything bizarre or eccentric. He never wore an ornament of any description and wholly avoided colors. His manners were free from affectation, and, although they were graceful and unrestrained, yet he was perfectly respectful and deferential, and made every one feel as if he considered himself under a personal obligation to those who had the patience to listen to him.(3)
Several glimpses of Poe mingling on social evenings with the authors of the city, a number of whom became “Literati” subjects, are found in letters and reminiscences of contemporaries who were present on such occasions. Sarah Helen Whitman furnished reports from the letters of friends who kept her informed of social activities in New York —
... I have a very definite and decided knowledge as to the fact that during the whole of the winter 1845-6, he was residing [page 13:] in the city of New York — I think in Amity Street. He was, at that time, a frequent visitor and ever-welcome guest at the houses of many persons with whom I have long been intimately acquainted-among others, the Hon. John R. Bartlett, then of the firm of Bartlett & Welford, and Miss Anne C. Lynch, now Hrs. Botta-who were accustomed to receive informally at their houses, on stated evenings, the best intellectual society of the city. To reinforce my memory on the subject, I have just referred to letters received from various correspondents in New York, during the winters of 1845 and 1846, in all of which the name of the poet frequently occurs.
In one of these letters, dated January 20, 1846, the writer says: “Speaking of our receptions, I must tell you what a pleasant one we had on Saturday evening, in Waverly Place [where Miss Lynch lived]; or rather I will tell you the names of some of the company, and you will know, among others, that of Cassius Clay; Mr. Hart, the sculptor, who is doing Henry Clay in marble; Halleck; Locke (the Man in the Moon); Hunt, of the Merchant's [sic] Magazine; Hudson; Mr. Bellows; Poe; Headley; Miss Sedgwick; Mrs. Kirkland; Mrs. Osgood; Mrs. Seba Smith; Mrs. Ellet; and many others, more or less distinguished.” ...
In another letter, dated January 7, 1846, I find the following: “I meet Mr. Poe very often at the receptions. He is the observed of all observers. His stories are thought wonderful, and to hear him repeat the Raven, which he does very quietly, is an event in one's life. People seem to think there is something uncanny about him, and the strangest stories are told, and, what is more, believed, about his mesmeric experiences, at the mention of which he always smiles. His smile is captivating! ... Everybody wants to know him; but only a few people seem to get well acquainted with him.”(4)
Thomas Dunn English recalled a pleasant evening at Miss Lynch's, where Poe, now “a lion with a coterie of literary ladies,” charmed those present by conversing on literary matters:
So strongly was the scene impressed upon my memory that I can close my eyes and ... behold it in all its colors. In the plainly furnished room at one corner stands Miss Lynch [page 14:] with, her round, cheery face, and Mrs. Ellet, decorous and lady-like who had ceased their conversation when Poe broke into his lecture. On a sofa on the side of the room I sit with Miss Fuller, afterward the Countess Ossoli, on my right side, and Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith on my left. At my feet little Mrs. Osgood, doing the infantile act, is seated on a footstool, her fact upturned to Poe, as it had been previously to Miss Fuller and myself. In the center stands Poe, giving his opinions in a judicial tone and occasionally reciting passages with telling effect. Were I an artist I should like to put on canvas one of the best episodes of Poe's varied life.(5)
Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith, another hostess to the literati, valued Poe's presence at her entertainments for his gentlemanly demeanor and his aptness at turning a compliment.(6) On one occasion at her home, following an impressive recitation of “The Raven” by its author, there was “hand clapping galore for the great Poe.”(7) Poe's military bearing, wrote Mrs. Smith, his “slender form, pale, intellectual face, and weird expression of eye” never failed to arrest attention.
Always [she continued], everywhere he seemed out of place — a Hamlet amid the toils of fashion; and there was an unmistakable, cynical something about him ... a suppressed egotism, a scarcely endured tolerance, a self-involved abstraction — native, not artificial. He spoke in a low voice, without any sympathetic vibration; yet it was one you listened to hear again. He did not affect the society of men, choosing rather that of highly intellectual women, with whom he liked to fall into a sort of [page 15:] eloquent monologue, half dream, half poetry. Men were intolerant of all this, but women fell under its fascination and listened in silence. I have seen the childlike face of Fannie Osgood suffused with tears under this wizard spell.(8)
Poe's participation in social affairs of this sort appears to have been quite extensive, though it cannot, of course, be determined with precision. Contemporary accounts place him most often at the receptions of Miss Lynch. As has been noted, he was entertained by Mrs. Smith; he was also, according to Mrs. Smith, “an accepted and honored guest” at the houses of the Reverend Orville Dewey, Marcus Spring, James Lawson, and others.(9) There is an account of his presence at the home of Dr. John W. Francis at an evening party(10) and another of his attending a gathering of the literati at the home of Mrs. Caroline M. Kirkland.(11) His friendly relations with Evert A. Duyckinck might have resulted in invitations to 20 Clinton Place,(12) a favorite resort of authors. Others are said to have entertained groups which included Poe, but concerning these events there is less [page 16:] certainty.(13)
Poe, in attending social gatherings such as those provided by Miss Lynch, was still far removed from the most fashionable and exclusive sphere of New York society.(14) Yet the rapidity and apparent ease with which Miss Lynch had acquired fame as a hostess are remarkable. A short time after her removal to New York in 1843, her home had become a favorite meeting place for writers, painters, musicians, statesmen, and distinguished foreign visitors. Miss Sedgwick marveled at the social triumph of her friend, whom she described as “without fortune or fashion ... without any relations to the fashionable world.”(15) Though she had not yet been abroad, her receptions, according to Parke Godwin, “came nearer to forming a salon such as we read of in French and English memoirs than any we previously had, or perhaps have had since.(16) From the frequency with which Poe seems to have attended Miss Lynch's “evenings,” one judges that he found the [page 17:] company there agreeable and interesting.
The period of Poe's presence in the salons of the literati appears to have both begun and ended several months earlier than is generally believed. A better understanding of Poe's qualifications for writing the “Literati” papers and of the sensation their publication caused is aided by an examination of evidence relevant to the dates in question.
The winter of 1845-1846 is widely accepted as the time at which Poe began to participate in the social activities of his fellow authors.(17) This dating implies that Poe had at best only a superficial acquaintance with many of the writers whom he so vividly depicted in the “words of personality” of the “Literati” sketches, the bulk of which were probably written no later than January or February of 1846.(18) Poe was certainly present at gatherings of the literati in the winter of 1845-1846, but some drawing rooms were open to him in the spring and summer of 1845. Charles F. Briggs described Poe's introduction into the social circles of New York writers. The time was early in 1845, for [page 18:] “The Raven” appeared in the February number of the American Whig Review:
When he made his first entrance into a literary circle in New York he created at once a most favorable impression. It was at a reception at the house of Mrs. Kirkland, where there were a good many of the New York literati, not one of whom had ever before seen him, and only a few had ever read anything of his writings except “The Raven,” which had just been published in Colton's Whig Review. He had not been long in New York, and s there was great curiosity to see the writer of that wonderful poem.(19)
A letter from Miss Lynch to Poe, written on June 27, 1845, shows that the two were on very friendly terms by this time and were probably exchanging visits. It also reveals that Poe was in demand this early as a reader of poetry; one surmises that the great popularity of “The Raven” had resulted in requests for recitations before literary groups.
I thank you [Miss Lynch wrote] for your very kind notice of my poems, no less than for your kind and friendly note .... But I am exceedingly pained at the desponding tone in which you write .... Exorcise that devil, I beg of you, as speedily as possible .... At all events come over and see me tomorrow evening (Saturday) & we will talk the matter over Give my very kindest regards to Mrs. Poe. I intended to have seen her before this time, but I have some friends staying with me from the country & next week I am going to leave town for a few days, so I must defer it till my return. — I hope she will be able to come with you to-morrow night ....
I am sorry I shall not be in town to hear your poem, on Tuesday evening. Can't you bring [it] over & read a few passages — If you do not come tomorrow eve. I shall be at home on Sunday evening & happy to see you then. — I shall take the Tales with [page 19:] me & read them in the country. Many thanks for them.(20)
Even earlier two of Miss Lynch's very close friends, Mrs. Frances S. Osgood and Mrs. Mary E. Hewitt, had made acquaintance with the Poe family.(21) It seems likely that Miss Lynch was introduced to Poe through Mrs. Osgood, who wrote later that “Miss Lynch begged me to bring him [Poe] there [presumably Miss Lynch's home] and called upon him at his lodgings.”(22) By the date of Miss Lynch's letter to Poe each of the three ladies had begun to contribute verses to the Broadway Journal.
Poe withdrew from the salons of his literary acquaintances earlier than is usually supposed. In January, 1846, Poe was frequently seen in literary society; during the same month he wrote in Miss Lynch's name invitations to receptions at her; home.(23) However, despite Mrs. Whitman's assertion that “in the [page 20:] spring of 1846 ... Poe was at the very acme of his literary and social success among the literati of New York,”(24) several facts prompt the conclusion that these January appearances were among Poe's last in those circles. Many of Poe's letters of 1846 refer to a serious Illness, which had begun early in the year.(25) In October, 1848, he wrote to Mrs. Whitman that for “nearly three years” he had been “ill, poor, living out of the world.(26) A letter from Mary E. Hewitt to Poe, dated April 15, 1846, attests that he had not appeared in the salons for some time. Poe, she had heard, had been ill in Baltimore, and she welcomed his return to New York, “though it were to play hide-and-seek with your friends.” “All Bluedom,” she continued, “misses you from its charmed circle, and we often ask when we shall have Mr. Poe back among us.”(27)
Mrs. Hewitt probably knew very well why Poe had been avoiding his former acquaintances. An affair that had occurred early [page 21:] in 1846 seems to have been the chief cause of the rapid decline of Poe's popularity with the literati, especially with the ladies whose company he had frequently enjoyed. Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith noted that, in issuing invitations to her receptions, Miss Lynch “was strict in drawing the moral as well as the intellectual lines”;(28) and Poe's social standing had been seriously impaired by a chain of events which, justly or not, compromised his reputation.
The affair grew out of Poe's friendship with Mrs. Osgood, which had involved exchanges of letters and visits. According to English, the relationship “became the town talk, at least among literary people.” Some of the coterie thought it should be stopped and “suggested to Mrs. Ellet that she say something to Poe about it.”(29) Mrs. Elizabeth Pries Ellet, the wife of a South Carolina College professor of chemistry and a prolific contributor to the periodicals, had frequently been seen in the drawing rooms of the literati during the preceding months, and Poe had found some praise for her works. Whether prompted by the circle of which she was a member, or whether, as Poe believed, Motivated by jealousy,(30) she took a hand in the matter. Mrs. Whitman, who had heard the story from Miss Lynch, wrote that Mrs. [page 22:] Osgood, at the insistence of Mrs. Ellet, consented that a delegation be sent to recover her letters:
Margaret Fuller was one of the two ladies to whom this embassy was intrusted; from the other I received this account .... Irritated by what he regarded as an unwarrantable interference on the part of Mrs. Ellet, Poe indignantly replied to the demand by saying, that “Mrs. Ellet had better look to her own letters” .... (31) [page 23:]
Apparently Mrs. Osgood's letters were returned to her. The interest then shifted to the letters of Mrs. Ellet to which Poe had referred. Poe, writing to Mrs. Whitman in 1848, gave his account of what ensued —
... I had no sooner uttered the words, than I felt their dishonor. I felt, too, that, although she [Mrs. Ellet] must be damningly conscious of her own baseness, she would still have a right to reproach me for having betrayed, under any circumstances, her confidence.
Full of these thoughts, and terrified almost to death lest I should again, in a moment of madness, be similarly tempted, I went immediately to my secretary — (when these two ladies went away — ) made a package of her letters, addressed them to her, and with my own hands left them at her door. Now, Helen, you cannot be prepared for the diabolical malignity which followed. Instead of feeling that I had done all I could to repair an unpremeditated wrong — instead of feeling that almost any other person would have retained the letters to make good (if occasion required) the assertion that I possessed them-instead of this, she urged her brothers & brother in law to demand of me the letters.(32)
Following these events, according to English, Poe appeared at English's rooms to request the loan of a pistol because Colonel Lummis, Mrs. Ellet's brother, “had threatened his life, unless he showed him Mrs. Ellet's imprudent letters.” Poe stated that the letters were in his possession, but that he would not surrender them under compulsion. “1 told him plainly that he had no such letters,” English wrote. This remark provoked a fight, in which, according to his opponent, Poe was severely [page 24:] beaten.(33) A few days later Poe appears to have sent an apology to Lummis by Dr. John W. Francis.(34)
Whether or not Poe had possessed the letters he claimed Mrs. Ellet had written to him,(35) his reputation had been dealt a very damaging blow. The general opinion seems to have been that no such correspondence had ever existed and that Poe had [page 25:] treacherously impeached, the integrity of an innocent woman.(36) He appears to have found no defenders in the matter. Apparently the scandal effected Poe's virtual banishment from literary society. After Poe's death Miss Lynch wrote that she had seen little of Poe in his last years “in consequence of a wide difference of opinion between us in reference to his treatment of another lady.”(37) Mrs. Osgood told Mrs. Whitman in 1848 that her personal association with Poe had ended with the demand for the return of her letters.(38)
Some of the calumny stirred up by the tempest of gossip resulting from this affair fell upon Mrs. Osgood, as is shown by Mrs. Ellet's letter of apology to her, which also indicates the level to which Poe's reputation had declined:
I have this moment — on my arrival in the city-received your letter dated June 19th and deeply has it wrung my heart in convincing me how grossly you have been misrepresented and traduced. I cannot now in the least blame you for the impressions you received [page 26:] against me ....
The letter shown me by Mrs Poe must have been a forgery, and any man capable of offering to show notes he never possessed, would not, I think, hesitate at such a crime. Had you seen the fearful paragraphs which Mrs Poe first repeated and afterwards pointed out — which haunted me night and day like a terrifying spectre — you would not wonder I regarded you as I did. But her husband will not dare to work further mischief with the letter; nor have either of us anything to apprehend from the verbal calumnies of a wretch as steeped in infamy as he is now.! What is past, I truly hope and trust — can be productive of no lasting injury to you. Nothing definite can be known — and vague rumors will soon be forgotten. Be assured I shall preserve utter silence in future on the subject — and so will my friends; only saying — should others mention your name in connection with it — that you have been traduced [w]rongfully.
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
It is most unfortunate both for you & me that we ever had any acquaintance with such people as the Poes — but I trust the evil is now at an end. Heaven sends such trials as merciful warnings — let us accept and profit by them[.](39)
The controversy concerning the letters occurred early in the year, probably late in January, not in June, the generally accepted date.(40) English, writing in June, 1846, described [page 27:] Poe's call upon him for aid in the affair as one of “a series of events [which] occurred in January last.”(41) By March Evert A. Duyckinck had written something of the scandal to William Gilmore Simms, who wrote in reply on March 27:
Your hints with regard to Poe, the Ladies, Billet doux &c quite provoke my curiosity. What is the mischief — who the victims &c. Entre nous, I half suspected that mischief would grow out of all those fine critical discriminations &c. It is dangerous to the poetess when the critic teaches her the use of spondees, and trochaics, dactyls, trimeters & dimeters. But I wait tidings and will hush conjecture.(42)
An additional bit of evidence for an early 1846 dating of the affair is found in Mrs. Ellet's letter to Mrs. Osgood, dated July 8 (presumably 1846). In apologizing for her part in the derogatory gossip which had circulated about Mrs. Osgood during the controversy, Mrs. Ellet expressed regret that her explanation had not been made sooner. “It was written,” she added, “months ago — but I feared you would not receive it in a candid spi[rit] and therefore destroyed it.”(43)
The “Literati” sketches appeared after the scandal about the letters, not before, as has been believed. The papers were written by an exile who had departed from the circles of the [page 28:] literati in disgrace. These facts undoubtedly account for much of the curiosity and the anxiety which the series provoked.
Another factor at this period adversely affected Poe's reputation and his personal relationships with certain of the literati. Unfortunately he was not always the well-mannered person he appeared in the drawing rooms. A long period of abstinence apparently ended in the spring or summer of 1845,(44) and in the ensuing months Poe's intoxication led to a number of unpleasant scenes in which his conduct contrasted strikingly with his customary deportment. In some of these he is seen “tottering from side to side, as drunk as an Indian,” aggressively accosting Lewis Gaylord Clark on Nassau Street, offering physical retaliation for an uncomplimentary paragraph in the Knickerbocker;(45) and, again, “lost in the inebriate,” rushing into Thomas H. Lane's rooms on Broadway and exclaiming, “Where is English? I want to kill him”;(46) and, on another occasion, wreaking verbal vengeance upon his enemies in the Mirror office, “accompanied by an aged female relative, who was going a weary round in the hot streets, following his steps to prevent his indulging in a [page 29:] love of drink .... ”(47)
English, whose personal association with Poe continued for seven years and who certainly was not disposed to speak well of him. without due cause, wrote that Poe drank only infrequently and that a small amount of liquor was sufficient to intoxicate him.(48) Nevertheless, Poe when intoxicated seems to have been belligerent in conduct and abusive in language; undoubtedly he was at such times a trial to his friends and an irritant to his enemies. Lambert A. Wilmer recalled that during periods of alcoholic excess Poe was apt to reproach his employer in insulting terms.(49) Thomas Holley Chivers, who met Poe in New York in the summer of 1845, reported incidents which show the contrast in Poe's manner when he was intoxicated and when sober:
“By Heavens!” said he [Poe], as we were going down Chatham Street, “I am now going to reveal to you the very secrets of my heart — I am in the d—dst amour you ever knew a fellow to be in in all your life; and I make no hesitation in telling you all about it — as though you were my own brother. But, by God! don't say any thing about it to my wife — for she is a noble creature, whom I would not hurt for all the world.” “Well, what is it, Poe” ask [sic] I. “I am anxious to hear it. But, where is the lady with whom you are so in love?” “In Providence,” [sic] by G—d! I have just received a letter from her, in which she requests me to come on there this afternoon on the four o’clock Boat.” [sic] Her husband is a Painter — always from home — and a d—d fool at that!” [page 30:]
Two days later Chivers hired a carriage and took Poe, then sober, for a drive:
As we were going along, looking him full in the face and laughing, I requested him to let me know what lady it was with whom he was so in love? When, walling up his eyes under the narrow brim of his hat, and looking as much abashed as any boy would on being teased about his sweetheart, [he] denied, in the most peremptory manner, his ever having been involved in any love-scrape with any woman either in Providence or any other part of the world.(50)
Poe's intemperance figured heavily in his quarrels with English, Clark, and Briggs and was a major source of the notoriety which colored his career in New York.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 10:]
1 “Varieties of Social Life in New York,” Columbian Magazine, July, 1846). Miss Lynch appears in the sketch as “Miss Evertson.”
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 11:]
2 Marie Hansen-Taylor and Horace E. Scudder, eds., Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor, 3rd ed., Boston, 1885, I, 110.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 12:]
3 “The Personality of Poe.” Independent, XXIX, 1 (December 13, 1877).
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 13:]
4. Mrs. Whitman's introductory letter in Eugene L. Didier, The Life and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, revised edition, New York, 1882, pp. 11-13.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 14:]
5 “Reminiscences of Poe.” Independent, XLVIII, 1448 (October 29, 1896).
6 J. C. Derby, Fifty Years Among Authors, Books and Publishers, New York, 1884, p 547.
7 Mary Alice Wyman, ed., Selections from the Autobiography of Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Lewiston, Maine, [1924], p. l26n.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 15:]
8 “Reminiscences,” Baldwin's Monthly, IX, 1 (September, 1874). Perhaps Mrs. Smith's account was colored by Poe's low reputation in the 1870's.
9. Wyman, Selections from the Autobiography of Elizabeth Oakes Smith, p.121.
10 Julia Ward Howe, Reminiscences, 1819-1899, New York, 1900, p. 39.
11 Charles F. Briggs, “The Personality of Poe,” Independent, XIX, 1-2 (December 13, 1877).
12 Arthur H. Quinn, Edgar Allan Poe; A Critical Biography, New York, 1942, p.476.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 16:]
13 Hervey Allen, Israfel; The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe, New York, 1934, p. 541. Willis, who is said to have been host to Poe (ibid., p. 546; N. B. Fagin, The Histrionic Mr. Poe, Baltimore, 1949, p. 43), later wrote that he never met the poet “in hours of leisure” (“Death of Edgar Poe,” Home Journal, October 20, 1849). Willis, a social favorite, was in Europe from the summer of 1845 until March, 1846.
14 Allen, op. cit., p.540n.; Dixon Wecter, The Saga of American Society; A Record of Social Aspirations, 1607-1937, New York, 1937, p.322.
15 “Varieties of Social Life in New York,” Columbian Magazine, 15 (July, 1846).
16 Memoirs of Anne C. L. Botta; Written by Her Friends, New York, 1894, p.56.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 17:]
17 Quinn, op. cit., p. 475; Harrison in Works, I, 245; Allen, op. cit., p. 540; John H. Ingram, Edgar Allan Poe; His Life, Letters, and Opinions, new edition, London, 1886, p. 280; Eugene Didier, The Poe Cult and Other Poe Papers, New York, 1909, p. 245. Most of the inferences concerning the period of Poe's Popularity among the literati seem to be based on evidence supplied by Sarah H. Whitman, which, though probably accurate, is incomplete; see above, pp. 12-13. Mrs. ‘Whitman lived in Providence, Rhode Island, and learned, about Poe's activities through letters from friends, but had no first-hand knowledge of affairs in New York.
18 Below, pp. 30-31.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 18:]
19 “The Personality of Poe,” Independent, XXIX, 1-2 (December 13, 1877).
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 19:]
20 Works, XVII, 258-259. Miss Lynch dated the letter simply “Friday morning — 27.” It is printed undated in Works, but Harrison apparently assumed that it was written in 1846, for he placed it among letters of that year, an error in which Poe's later biographers seem to have acquiesced. Ostrom, op. cit., II, 520, dates the letter June 27, 1845, noting that Poe's complimentary remarks about Miss Lynch's poems had appeared in the Broadway Journal for June 21, 1845, and that Poe's volume of Tales had been issued just prior to the date he assigns to the letter. This, with the additional fact that in 1845 the twenty-seventh day of June fell on Friday, appears conclusive.
21 See below, pp.151-152, 175.
22 W. M. Griswold, ed., Passages from the Correspondence and Other Papers of Rufus W. Griswold, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1898, p. 256.
23 Ostrom, op. cit., II, 310.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 20:]
24 Eugene L. Didier, The Life and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, p.13. Her statement has been accepted by some of Poe's biographers; see Allen, op. cit., p.541, and Harrison, Works, I, 246. Some of the misunderstanding in this matter has been caused by the fact that Miss Lynch's only known letter to Poe has been thought to belong to 1846, instead of to 1845; see above, p. 19.
25 Ostrom, op., cit., II, 313, 316, 320, 321, 325, and 331.
26 Ibid., II, 393.
27 Thomas O. Mabbott, “Letters from. Mary E. Hewitt to Poe,” in Blanche Colton Williams, ed., A Christmas Book, Brooklyn, 1937, p 120. In a letter dated October 29, 1899, Dr. R. D’Unger, who had worked for the Baltimore Patriot in 1846, told of meeting Poe in Baltimore in that year (James A. Harrison, “A Poe Miscellany,” Independent, LXI, 1049-1050; November 1, 1906).
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 21:]
28 Wyman, Selections from the Autobiography of Elizabeth Oakes Smith, p. 88.
29 “Reminiscences of Poe.” Independent, XLVIII, 1448 (October 29, 1896).
30 Poe to Mrs. Whitman, November 24, 1848; Ostrom, op. cit., II, 407.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 22:]
31 William F. Gill, The Life of Edgar Allan Poe, New York, 1880, p.322. That the person who accompanied Miss Fuller to Poe's house and who told Mrs. Whitman of the affair was Miss Lynch is shown by Mrs. Whitman's letter to Mrs. Hewitt, October 10, 1850, where she wrote that she “had heard the story of that unfortunate affair from Miss Lynch before my acquaintance with Mr. Poe” (Stanley T. Williams, ed., “New Letters about Poe,” Yale Review, XIV, 771; July, 1925). Also, in the margin of a letter from Poe to Mrs. Whitman in which he referred to the “two ladles” in question, Mrs. Whitman identified them as “Miss L & Margaret F” (Ostrom, op. cit., II, 407-409).
Quinn's statement, op. cit., p.498n., that there is some question concerning the identity of the person who accompanied Miss Fuller because “Gill states that Miss Lynch told him she never heard of the episode,” is apparently the result of a misunderstanding of Gill's meaning. Gill, op. cit., pp. 321-322, refutes a charge made by Griswold that the affair began with Poe's borrowing fifty dollars from Mrs. Ellet, “promising to return it in a few days, and when, failing to do so, he was asked for a written acknowledgment of the debt ... he denied all knowledge of it, and threatened to exhibit a correspondence that would make her infamous if she said more on the subject.” As part of his proof, not that the affair of the letters never occurred-for he admits it did-but that it did not originate in ‘the manner Griswold had described, Gill states that Miss Lynch, “who knew Poe, certainly as intimately as any one in New York, writes me that she never heard a word of the scandal during the Poet's life.” Though his statement is misleading, Gill apparently intended to convey that Miss Lynch told him that, until “the appearance of Griswold's “Memoir,” she had not heard of Poe's borrowing the fifty dollars from Mrs. Ellet and of his refusal to repay the loan. It does not appear likely that Miss Lynch would deny hearing about the “scandal” in general, aware as she must have been that no credence could be placed in such a statement.
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32 Poe to Mrs. Whitman, November 24, 1848; Ostrom, op. cit., II, 407-408.
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33 “Reminiscences of Poe,” Independent, XLVIII, 1448 (October 29, 1896). English's reminiscences in the Independent were endorsed as substantially correct by Thomas H. Lane, who remembered Poe with less bitterness than English (ibid., XLVIII, 1481; November 5, 1896). Lane had for a short time been Poe's business partner in the Broadway Journal, and at the time of the affair of the letters was sharing rooms with English at 304 Broadway.
34 English's reply to Poe, New York Mirror, June 23, 1846; reprinted in Works, XVII, 237; Rufus W. Griswold's “Memoir” in his edition of The Literati; Some Honest Opinions about Autorial Merits and Demerits, with Occasional Words of Personality ... New York, 1850 (hereinafter cited as Literati, 1850), p. xxiv. Mrs. Ellet wrote to Mrs. R. W. Griswold (in 1853?) that she possessed “Mr. Poe's retraction of ... a slander ... once uttered by him, as he alleged, in a fit of lunacy” (MS in the Griswold Collection in the Boston Public Library).
35 The Griswold Collection contains two notes which Mrs. Ellet sent to Poe at the Broadway Journal office. No other correspondence between them is known. Of course, if Poe's account of his s disposal of the correspondence is true, Mrs. Ellet would certainly see to it that the letters never came to light. The first of the notes mentioned above gives information about the dismissal of the president of South Carolina College. On the reverse Mrs. Ellet wrote: “Ich habe einen Brief für Sie — wollen Sie gefälligst heute Abend nach acht Uhr den selben bei mir entnehmen oder abholen lessen.” The second, postmarked December 16, [1845], reads, “Do not use in any way the memorandum about the So. Ca. College. Excuse the repeated injunction — but as you would not decipher my German manuscript — I am fearful of some other mistake.” It is interesting to note that Griswold, who in the “Memoir” had written, “Of course there had never been any such correspondence,” (Literati, 1850, p. xxiv) was later accused by Mrs. Ellet of having “told several persons that I wrote letters to the late E. A. Poe” (Mrs. Ellet to Mrs. R. W. Griswold, [1853?]; MS in the Griswold Collection).
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36 Even Mrs. Whitman seems eventually to have arrived at this conclusion, with reservations. She wrote to Mrs. Hewitt on October 10, 1850: “He [Poe] afterwards wrote me a full and apparently a very candid and consistent account of the whole matter — I was but too willing to believe his statement — and I still rethink there were many extenuating circumstances which if fairly represented would do much to remove the odium that attaches to him on account of this transaction” (Stanley T. Williams, “New Letters about Poe,” The Yale Review, XIV, 771; July, 1925).
37 Miss Lynch to George W. Eveleth, March 8, 1854; quoted by Eveleth in his letter to John H. Ingram, October 11, 1878; (MS in the Poe-Ingram Papers, Alderman Library, University of Virginia).
38 Mrs. Whitman to Ingram, May 11, 1874; MS in the Poe-Ingram Papers, Alderman Library, University of Virginia.
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39 Mrs. Ellet to Mrs. Osgood, July 8, [1846?]; MS in the Griswold Collection in the Boston Public Library.
40 Allen, op. cit., pp. 560-561, states that the affair took place in June; Quinn says that Poe was living at Fordham when it occurred, and elsewhere says that Poe moved to Fordham in May or June (op. cit., pp.497, 506). Harrison does not date the event, but says that Poe was living at Fordham at the time (Works, I, 296-297). Woodberry, op. cit., II, 183, pieces the event during Poe's Fordham residence and says it took place “when the cherry trees blossomed in 1846.” Leonard B. Hurley, “A New Note in the War of the Literati,” American Literature, VII, 378 (January, 1936), gives the date as June. Poe very likely was still living in the city when the event occurred; he lived at 85 Amity Street st least until January 30 (Ostrom, op. cit., II, 313-315). The earlier dating for the event clears up Allen's astonishment that “Poe, as he thought, called upon English for assistance in the latter after the derogatory “Literati” sketch of the latter had appeared (op. cit., p.562); Poe's appeal for help came approximately five months before the appearance of the sketch, and English's treatment of Poe undoubtedly had its effect on the sketch.
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41 Works, XVII, 236; reprinted from the Mirror for June 23, 1846.
42 Mary C. Simms Oliphant, Alfred T. Odell, and T. C. Duncan Eaves, eds., The Letters of William Gilmore Simms, Columbia, South Carolina, 1952- , II, 159.
43 MS in the Griswold Collection in the Boston Public Library.
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44 Charles F. Briggs wrote to James Russell Lowell on July 16, 1845, that he thought Poe “had not drunk anything for more than eighteen months until within the past three months” (Woodberry, op. cit., II, 143).
45 Richard B. Davis, ed., Chivers' Life of Poe, New York, 1952. pp. 57-59.
46. “Reminiscences of Poe,” Independent, XLVIII, 5 (November 5, 1896).
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47 Mirror, weekly edition, July 25, 1846.
48 “Reminiscences of Poe,” Independent, XLVIII, 1416 (October 22, 1896).
49. Thomas O. Mabbott, ed., Merlin, Baltimore, 1827; Together with Recollections of Edgar A. Poe by Lambert A. Wilmer, New York, 1941, p. 34.
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50 Davis, op. cit., pp.59-61. The woman very probably was Frances S. Osgood, whose husband was a painter (ibid., p. 18).
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - PNYL, 1954] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Bookshelf - Poe and the New York Literati (Reece)