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4. Richard Adams Locke
Richard Adams Locke (1800-1871) was born in East Brent, Somersetshire, England, not in New York, as the authors of some of the sketches of him have stated. It is said that Locke and his friends tried to conceal his foreign birth in order to shield him from American prejudice against the English. Locke's mother, with assistance from private tutors, had charge of his early education, and at nineteen he entered Cambridge. While at college he began to contribute to magazines, and after leaving Cambridge he established and conducted for brief periods two unsuccessful periodicals.
Locke. married, probably in 1826, and in 1832 brought his family to New York, where he found employment as a reporter for James Watson Webb's Courier and Enquirer. In 1835 Webb, upon discovering that Locke had written a series of articles for Benjamin Day's penny newspaper, the Sun, discharged him. Locke became a reporter for the Sun, and a few months later he produced [page 113:] one of the most celebrated hoaxes in American newspaper history. During the last week of August, 1835, the Sun published a series of five articles under the title “Great Astronomical Discoveries Lately Made by Sir John Herschel ...” purportedly a description of the moon as viewed by a group of distinguished scientists through an extremely powerful telescope. The climax of the hoax was a description of the “man-bats,” a winged race of apparently rational lunarians. The sensational series, which for a time was generally accepted as a factual account, created great interest in America and Europe. It was widely copied into other periodicals and republished in pamphlet form. Locke soon became known as the author of the “Moon Hoax,” and chiefly as such he is remembered.
In the autumn of 1836 Locke left the Sun to become a partner in another penny daily, the New Era, and after this venture failed he accepted an editorial position with the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Ill health soon forced his retirement from journalism, and by 1846 Locke had found work in the custom house in New York, where he was employed at the time of his death.(1)
When the “Moon Hoax” appeared in August, 1835, Poe was in Richmond, employed on the Southern Literary Messenger. Though there is no evidence that at this time Poe knew Locke even by [page 114:] reputation, there was a reason for the more than casual interest he took in the fake scientific report. Two months earlier, in June, all that was ever published of his own story about the moon, “Hans Phaall — A Tae,” had appeared in the Messenger. Shortly after the publication of the “Moon Hoax” Poe wrote to John P. Kennedy:
Have you seen the “Discoveries in the Moon”? Do you not think it altogether suggested by Hans Phaa1? It is very singular, — but when I first purposed writing a Tale concerning the Moon, the idea of Telescopic discoveries suggested itself to me — but I afterwards abandoned it. I had however spoken of it freely, & from many little incidents & apparently trivial remarks in those Discoveries I am convinced that the idea was stolen from myself.(2)
Kennedy replied that others had noted the similarity and stated that “Hans Phaall” was being republished in New York in order that it might be compared with the “Moon Hoax.”(3)
Upon republishing “Hans Phaall” in Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840), Poe appended to it a lengthy note in which he attributed much of the success of the “Moon Hoax” to the ignorance of the public in astronomical matters and called attention to a number of blunders in the piece which clearly revealed its true nature. He republished the substance, of this note as an editorial in the Columbia Spy in June, 1844.(4) Perhaps Poe's rather severe criticism of the “Moon Hoax” was due to the fact [page 115:] that he believed the piece had interfered with some of his own publication plans. In the “Literati” sketch he stated that he had not completed “Hans Phaall” because he found that he could add very little to Locke's minute account of lunar scenery.(5) Poe thought, too, that the “Moon Hoax” had marred the success of his “Balloon Hoax,” which appeared as an extra edition of the Sun on April 13, 1844. In writing for the Spy an account of the excitement produced by this piece, he also made it clear that, in point of scientific accuracy, he considered his hoax superior to Locke's:
Talking of “expresses” — the “Balloon-Hoax” made a far more intense sensation than anything of that character since the “Moon-Story” of Locke.... Of course there was great discrepancy of opinion as regards the authenticity of the story .... The only grounds, in this instance, for doubt, with those who knew anything of Natural Philosophy, were the publication of the marvel in the suspected “Sun” (the organ of the Moon-Hoax) and the great difficulty of running an Express from Charleston, in advance of the mail. As for internal evidence of falsehood, there is, positively, none — while the more generally accredited fable of Locke would not bear even momentary examination by the scientific.(6)
Whether Poe made the acquaintance of Locke during the time the Poe family lived in New York in 1837-1838 is not known. Concerning Poe's interest in the “Moon Hoax,” it appears likely that he would have welcomed an opportunity to meet its author, and perhaps he found such an opportunity when both he and Locke [page 116:] attended the bookseller's dinner at the City Hotel on March 30, 1837.(7) At any rate, Poe apparently had met Locke by January, 1842, when the flattering “Autography” sketch of Locke appeared in Graham's. Here, in support of his statement that Locke is a poet of high order,” Poe wrote that he had “seen — nay more — we have heard him read — verses of his which would make the fortune of two-thirds of our poetasters.”(8) In this sketch Poe also complimented his subject on other grounds; Locke, he wrote, was a man of “unquestionable genius” and as both editor and author had scarcely a superior in America.” One surmises that they personal association of Poe and Locke had been pleasant.
Perhaps there was a renewal of the personal relationship after Poe began his second period of residence in New York in 1844. Of this, however, it is known only that on at least one occasion both Poe and Locke were present at a gathering at Miss Lynch's.(9) Because of the sparsity of positive knowledge concerning the Poe-Locke relationship during this period, it seems worth while to offer, for what it may be worth a sidelight on the association from a questionable source. In 1846 English included caricatures of several well-known New Yorkers in his political novel, 1844; or The Power of the S. F., which appeared serially in the Mirror. In the passage from the novel which follows, Poe appears as “Hammerhead” and Locke as “Boltenbar”; [page 117:] the speaker is “Satisfaction Sawdust” (Horace Greeley):
“Did you hear of the trick he [Hammerhead] served Boltanbar, the author of the ‘Moon Hoax’? ... Some days since Hammerhead called on Boltanbar, who is in the custom-house, and insisted on his accompanying him to a tavern and taking some liquid fire in the shape of a whiskey-punch. Boltanbar, to get rid of him, peaceably consented. He took him to a house where the latter was unacquainted, and while there insisted on treating the company — supplying whiskey punch to everyone in the room. This he did. When he came to settling-up time, Hammerhead had no money, and. the bar-keeper after a torrent of abuse, which his victim stood without flinching, seized the hat of the debtor. Boltanbar, not expecting this catastrophe, was not provided with money, but went home immediately, obtained it and relieved Hammerhead's hat .... Boltanbar insisted that Hammerhead should go home. The latter promised he would, if Boltanbar would accompany him. The latter agreed to this; and the two were passing the Carlton House, when Hammerhead insisted on going in. As his companion had provided himself with money, he thought the best way of getting him safely housed was to humor him, and yielded. Hammerhead called for something to drink, and drew out a roll of bank-bills to pay for it, to the utter astonishment of his companion.”(10)
English had been on good terms with Poe until the end of 1845 and was in a position to know of his activities. It is not unreasonable to suppose that he might offer, under the mask of fiction, a prejudiced account of an actual incident which reflected to Poe's discredit.
In the “Literati” sketch of Locke Poe exposed for the third time the transparency of the “Moon Hoax” and, concerning the relationship of the piece to “Hans Phaall,” wrote that he felt “bound to do Mr. Locke the justice to say that he denies having [page 118:] seen my article prior to the publication of his own; I am bound to add, also, that I believe him.” He referred to Locke as a man of “true imagination” and praised his prose style. His opinion of Locke's verse had altered: “He has written some poetry, which, through certain radical misapprehensions, is not very good.”(11)
The manuscript “Literary America:(12) contains approximately one half of the “Literati” sketch of Locke in slightly revised form. The revisions show no significant changes in opinion or attitude.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 113:]
1 Frank M. O’Brien's sketch of Locke in the Dictionary of biography and his The Story of the Sun, New York, 1918, pp. 66, 116-118, and passim; Appletons' Cyclopaedia; and the
National Cyclopaedia, XIII, 151-152. The “Moon Hoax” is reprinted in Augustus Maverick, Henry J. Raymond and the New York Press, for Thirty Years, Hartford, 1870, pp.274-317.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 114:]
2 Poe to Kennedy, September 11, 1835; Ostrom, op. cit., I, 74.
3 Woodberry, op. cit., I, 142.
4 Spannuth and Mabbott, op. cit., pp. 52-55.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 115:]
5 Godey's, XXXIII, 161 (October, 1846); Works, XV, 135.
6 Spannuth and Mabbott, op. cit., pp. 33-34.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 116:]
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 117:]
10 Leonard B. Hurley, “A New Note in the War of the Literati,” American Literature, VII, 388-389 (January, 1936).
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 118:]
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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)