Text: James H. Whitty, “Poeana,” The Step Ladder (Chicago, IL), vol. XIII, no. 8, October 1927, pp. 225-243

[page 225:]

Edgar Allan Poe has been dead seventy-eight years. He sleeps beside his beloved “Virginia” and dear “Muddy,” and among others of his kin, in the Westminster churchyard at Baltimore, Maryland. In life he wrote: “I and my cousin and her mother dwelt together beneath a tropical sun in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass.” Fate, it seems, cruel in his lifetime, was less austere to him in death in allowing those two dear ones to abide with him unto eternity. Poe sometimes quoted:

Who knows but that the spirit of his Virginia may be permitted to return to his own, visibly in the watches of the night; that if this is really beyond the power of souls in Paradise she at least gives indications of her presence, sighing in the evening winds or filling the atmosphere with perfume [page 225:] from the censers of angels. The grave of Poe is truly a literary shrine of America, visited with reverence and awe. Pilgrims come and go, day in and day out, from every clime. This writer was present at the unveiling of the monument now standing over Poe's grave. It bears some resemblance to that erected over the grave of Wordsworth at Grasmere, England.

Walt Whitman believed that there was an indescribable magnetism around Poe and in reminiscences of him. The interest which he awakens in both readers and literary collectors is surely not surpassed by any other of the world's greatest men.

POE'S MARY DEVEREAUX

Poe research students have been looking these many years for poetic lines supposed to have been written by Poe in the album of his early Baltimore sweetheart, Mary Devereaux. I have found the following among other well known and fully authenticated poems of Poe in an almost forgotten volume issued by one of his earliest publishers, a copy of which is now in my collection of Poeana at Richmond, Virginia.

Mary

The poem is made up of eight lines, of which the above are the first four. It seems to have been hitherto unknown to all the later Poe writers and biographers. These may be the long-lost lines.

POE'S BYRONIC SWIM

Among well-known incidents in the life of Poe is that of his Byronic swim, when but fifteen years old, in the James River, below Richmond. He swam six miles against a strong tide and in a hot June sun, afterwards walking back to the city without apparent fatigue. A companion and witness [page 227:] was Robert G. Cabell. There was in Richmond at that period a Robert H. Cabell. A Poe writer has so badly mixed up the identity of these two people that I asked Mr. James Branch Cabell, the Richmond author, to straighten out the record. He says: “There is the quite natural confusion between, or rather the blending into one person of Robert G. Cabell and Robert H. Cabell. The first, my grandfather, was, I have always heard, the boy who took part in the swimming incident. The other, his first cousin, who married Julia Mayo who ‘wrote,’ with the result that I am nowaday's constantly accredited with ‘taking after’ this literarily-inclined grand- mother who was not my grandmother.”

THE POET ALLINGHAM AND POE

I recently purchased from the library of the late well-known Irish poet, William Allingham, several volumes with his auto- graphs and notations in them. These show that Allingham took much interest in Poe's writings. One very curious volume is called, Improvisations From the Spirit, and is written by Dr. J. J. Garth Wilkinson. There is a poem of seventeen stanzas on Edgar Allan Poe, which is marked up by Allingham. These Improvisations were published at London, England, in 1857. It is claimed that many of the poems were written by correspondence, as Swedenborg terms the relations which natural objects bear to the spiritual life, or to the varieties of love, which is the grand object of all. They were said to be written without premeditation or preconception. From Allingham's markings it would appear that some of the poems were read and commented on at a meeting of a group of London literary lights.

POE'S DARK DAYS IN NEW YORK

There have come to light in recent years some interesting articles written by Poe in the Columbia (Pa.) Spy. These show how a part of Poe's time was spent in New York City about the period of 1844. It has never been found out, however, with what newspaper in New York Poe had an editorial connection prior to his association with the Mirror. This [page 228:] connection is definitely established by a statement made by the owner of the paper, whose identity I have not as yet been able to discover. He said: “Poe has been more shamefully maligned and slandered than any other writer that can be named. I say this from personal knowledge of Mr. Poe, who was associated with myself in the editorial conduct of my own paper before his introduction into the office of Messrs. Willis and Morris. I have some singular revelations which throw strong light on the causes that darkened the life and made unhappy the death of one of the most remarkable of all our literary men.”

POE'S HUMOR

The first separate republication of Poe's humorous tale, X-ing a Paragrab, has just been made at London. The humor of this story is difficult to appreciate fully unless one is aware of the crudities of early printing offices, especially those connected with country newspapers. I have been inside, and vividly recall, the obsolete printing establishment at Baltimore where the Visiter was set up and printed. From this paper Poe received a prize in 1833. The paper was first edited by Poe's friend Wilmer and afterwards by Hewitt, America's well known early song writer. Although it lacks only six years of being a century since Hewitt edited the Visiter, I recently had a letter from his wife, now a very old lady, telling me that she contemplates publishing her husband's writ- ings. She wrote me also of an early concert at Baltimore, gotten up by her husband for the benefit of a Poe monument.

POE'S MAGAZINE HOBBY

Some Poe biographers have dwelt largely upon Poe's hobby of owning a magazine of his own. His correspondence on that subject was mostly conducted when he lived at Philadelphia. A characteristic Poe letter which does not appear in any of the biographies, written to Lewis J. Cist from Philadelphia, September 1841, concerning the proposed Penn magazine, gives new light on the subject. It has never been stated hitherto that Poe had this magazine ownership hobby as early as [page 229:] the year 1835 at Baltimore, and that a unique prospectus by Poe of that early date exists.

POE AND THE AUTOGRAPH HUNTERS

The autograph hunter flourished in Poe's day, and one of them was a later biographer, Richard Henry Stoddard. An- other correspondent wrote to Poe asking for autographs of his father and grandfather, to which Poe responded that through peculiar circumstances he had never owned autographs of either his father or grandfather. The writer has the only known autograph of David Poe, the father of Poe, written on the title of a little stage book of Cinderella, played in Boston, in the cast of which both Poe's parents appeared. A letter dated Baltimore, Maryland, December 24, 1784, in reference to army matters, from David Poe, the poet's grandfather, was recently sold at auction at Philadelphia.

HOUSE WHERE POE'S MOTHER DIED

The Raven Society of the University of Virginia and the Actors’ Equity Association of New York have been arranging for several years to place a small monument over the site of Poe's mother's grave in old St. John's cemetery at Richmond. This is the cemetery of the church in which Patrick Henry delivered his famous “Give me liberty or give me death!” speech.

A landmark of great interest to Poe devotees, and possibly the only one of its kind left complete and still standing, is the little house at Richmond in which Poe's mother died in 1811. It is located in the rear of St. John's cemetery on Main street. I had searched for this exact house for many years. Through a fortunate find in the early Richmond records, and conversations with the original owners of the property and a very old resident, I finally succeeded in fully authenticating this house. This was Poe's first and earliest Richmond home. Here he played when a small boy and he is known to have frequented the house in his youth. How sad it must have been to the proud, handsome, sensitive boy to have to leave this and other familiar scenes of his boyhood and go away on his fateful trip [page 230:] of 1827! I seldom visit this house but I come away in a sort of day-dream, with a pathetic figure appealing to me out of the past.

UNPUBLISHED POE POEMS

After so many years and such close research as has been given to Poe it may seem a bit odd to find that there are in existence poems of Poe not yet gathered into his collected verse. Much of Poe's own literary material as well as Mrs. Osgood's became sadly scattered after Griswold's death. I have diligently searched for as much of this as it is possible to find at auction sales and in the book shops.

I have had one volume under investigation for over ten years. It seems once to have been in the possession both of Poe and Mrs. Osgood, and it came from Griswold, who I am of the opinion had some intention of making a further edition of Poe's works before death overtook him.

The poems, written under an assumed name by Poe, were evidently inspired by Mrs. Osgood. In The Complete Poems of Poe I called attention to and made the first publication of Poe's lines to Mrs. Osgood in the Broadway Journal entitled, Impromptu — To Kate Carol. One of the new poems is possibly a later revision and ascribed To Kate Karol, a pen name used by Mrs. Osgood. Another of them might have been Poe's answer to Mrs. Osgood's The Rivulet's Dream, which she sent to Poe in April 1845. Those who are competent to judge of Poe's style are of the opinion that he is the author of these poems. Here are some of the lines which bring to mind the well known

They are taken from a poem of three stanzas, written somewhat on the order of, or with such thoughts in mind as, what Poe wrote to Mrs. Whitman in the Union Magazine of November 1848 — It was a July midnight; and from out a full orbed moon, that like thine own soul, soaring, sought a precipitant pathway up through heaven — [page 231:]

A Poe writer of long ago (Irwin Pounds McCurdy) who took great pains to make an exhaustive examination into the language used by Poe in his poetry, has written: “Poets who forget the native wealth of the English tongue and delight in the use of words derived from languages of less power and beauty can find no excuse from the poetry of Poe. His poems were not written to meet the approbation of the men of science or learned divines, but for the common people, those who use and understand the Anglo-Saxon element. They were not filled with the scientific speculations and metaphysical investigations which characterize many of his prose productions. They were not written to engage the minds of the deep thinkers of the world; they were written for the people — they were written to reach their hearts and affections. They were meant to appeal to their sensibilities, not their intellects.” [page 232:]

THE ORIGIN AND FAMILY OF POE

I have never gone far into the genealogical problems of the Poe family, although my collection of Poe books contains everything that I could find on that subject. Among these is The Origin and Early History of the Family of Poe, by Sir Edmund Thomas Bewley; one of two hundred copies, privately printed, and a presentation copy. I have also a copy of the Poe Family Genealogy, made up by the late Amelia Poe of Baltimore, for her relatives. There seems nothing very convincing about the Poe family connections prior to Poe's grandfather, David Poe, and his brothers. I believe, however, that a find of mine will now clear this up and show with certainty who were Poe's forebears. A token left by Poe's mother to his brother Henry is an artistic affair and has on it the full coat of arms of the Poe family and other valuable information.

I have also come across some books from the library of Poe's uncle, George Poe, Jr. Bewley has a trace of him at Dublin in 1772 in some family documents, but his identity is better shown in Poe the Man, by Mary E. Phillips, where he is definitely located about Fells Point, at Baltimore, in 1775. As books from his library are to be found in that city, it is to be presumed that he was a man of both refinement and culture. Among his books is the Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon, Lord High Chancellor of England, written by himself and published in three volumes at the Clarendon Printing House, Oxford, MDCCLIX. He differed from his illustrious nephew in the respect that he was fond of scribbling his name in his books. On the above he had written on the title, “George Poe Jr.”, with some flourish. On others he simply wrote in large letters, not unlike Poe's own autograph, “Poe.” Some of these volumes have been found by booksellers who believed them to have belonged to the poet and have advertised them as such. One was sent to me for my opinion and it gave me the idea of investigating the matter, with successful results. The fact that he signed himself “Junior” shows that there must have been another of the same name of whom there seems to be no trace. Poe's father signed himself “David Poe, Junior.” [page 233:]

POE MUSIC

Little has been written about Poe sheet music. There are only three collections of any size known to me. One is in the British Museum, another with the Library of Congress and the largest with the present writer at Richmond. There appears some difficulty in finding Poe sheet music. It is seldom seen with the booksellers, and rarely turns up at the auction sales. In the past ten years I do not recall half a dozen titles appearing in the auction catalogues.

The earliest American Poe music title known to me is that of The Raven, illustrated with wood engravings by D. Scattergood and done at Philadelphia in 1865. M. W. Balfe made a setting of The Bells, the same year at London. There were a number of earlier Poe musical settings made at London, including one of Annabel Lee by R. E. Best in 1858.

Poe musical settings appear to have had most attention from the British and German composers. In late years Joseph Holbrooke of England has made and published the greatest number of them and shows much enthusiasm in his work. He criticised America to me not long since for not having more of his Poe musical pieces, and I surprised him by demonstrating that there were more of them on this side of the ocean than in the British Museum.

There are few, if any, of Poe's poems that have not been set to music, and some of his prose has also been done into music. The two poems which have appealed most to musicians are Annabel Lee, often called Many A Year Ago, and Eldorado.

Edward Lord Bulwer Lytton wrote a letter to an unnamed correspondent, which has recently come to light, in which, referring to Poe's Raven, he said: “The Raven is indeed a most remarkable poem and could only have been written by a thoroughly true poet, both in thought and form. With The Bells the poems should have been set to music by some great composer and become national songs with America.”

COLLECTING POEANA

The collector of Poeana should not be of faint heart. While [page 234:] the number of those making a specialty of collecting Poe grows daily and some of the scarcer pieces bring prohibitive prices, many nuggets can be found in out-of-the-way places.

A Southern collector who recently started has found a copy of the 1830 Poems; two copies of the Baltimore American Museum, the Flag of Our Union, and numerous other good things. A desirable Poe item is Kennedy's Autograph Leaves of Our Country's Authors, published at Baltimore in 1864. It has a part of a criticism of Mrs. Osgood's, signed with Poe's autograph. A letter of Mrs. Clemm, Poe's mother-in-law, exists, in which she tells how difficult it was for her to procure this matter for Mr. Kennedy. I do not know of over half a dozen copies of this book, including one in the Kennedy collection in the Peabody Institute at Baltimore. I missed several copies in the hands of booksellers here and abroad. Recently, however, I was put on the track of the only known presentation copy given by Kennedy to Lord Houghton. This is now in my collection, and a fine copy. I also recently picked up duplicate copies of both the English and American issues of Poe's Tales, 1845. A New England collector not long ago found the Raven and Other Poems, and the Tales, 1845, on a book stall for ten cents.

Copies of the London edition of Arthur Gordon Pym, 1841, found now are usually copies taken from a bound volume. It has been the supposition of Poe collectors and American book- dealers that this edition came from a loose newspaper, as it had for a running head title, The Novel Newspaper. I have the only copy known in the original binding. It is bound in tree calf and has in gold on the back strip, “Arthur Gordon Pym.” The title of the volume is Tales by American Authors, London, published by John Cunningham, 1841, and there are included tales by Cooper, Simms and others.

I have in my collection, first editions of both the American and English Poe's Tales, 1845, that show variations, also the Conchologist's First Book, 1839, and Eureka, 1848. There are also two issues of the first English edition of Pym. [page 235:]

GEORGE MOORE'S PURE POETRY

The inclusion of so much Poe poetry in An Anthology of Pure Poetry, by George Moore, was a high compliment to Poe and showed the compiler's good taste and judgment. In the matter of the text of the poem Ulalume, however, an inaccurate and unauthorized version was used.

PETRONELLA O'DONNELL

Among the happy band of the “English Poetry Society” I found Petronella O’Donnell, living at Somerset, England. She has presented me with a copy of her Little Songs of the West. She has a brother, whose writings are thought to recall some things of Poe's. She is also under the impression that her family has a close connection with Poe and that an early rel- ative was associated with the Poe family long years ago at Baltimore. The name O’Donnell is one to be found in the an- nals of Baltimore and her surmise as to the Poe family connection may be correct.

POETRY BY W. H. L. POE

Some of the writings of W. H. L. Poe, brother to Edgar, have been reprinted from the Baltimore North American of 1827. But an interesting piece of his poetry was missed. I am indebted to Mr. Kenneth Rede for this extract from the Baltimore No Name magazine of August, 1890. “The following lines were composed by W. H. Poe, the elder brother of Edgar Allan Poe, and copied by the latter at his brother's request in the album of a Baltimore lady where they were discovered, and are now published for the first time.” It was W. H. Poe who went on the quixotic expedition in aid of the Greeks which Griswold and other ignorant biographers of Edgar A. Poe have assigned to the author of the Raven. He was said to possess a greater genius than his famous brother, but these lines do not warrant such a supposition. They are interesting, however, as the only verse extant of one who was regarded by his friends as gifted with talents which promised a brilliant future.

POETRY BY ROSE POE

The sister of Edgar Poe is shown by most Poe biographers as without talent and by some as degenerate. In her prime she showed talent and was a close student of the early English writers. Like her brother, Edgar, she had an unfortunate love affair with a Philadelphia author which seemed to change her nature, and she afterwards lived to the end, a sorrowful life. She wrote selections from Scott from memory, which are in existence. She also wrote and recited poetry of her own. She was an accomplished musician on the piano and fond of accompanying Edgar, who played on the flute. The following two poems in facsimile of her autograph, signed, and written about the years 1827-30, are in my collection of Poeana.

In her later years Rose Poe was without any real home, but most of the accounts of her destitute circumstances are without foundation of fact.

POE'S POEM Alone

The poem Alone, written in the album of Mrs. Balderstone of Baltimore by Poe, was first published in Scribner's Magazine for September, 1875. It was discovered and sent to that magazine by the late Eugene Didier, a biographer of Poe. The original correspondence of Scribner's, Didier, and the late J. H. Ingram, Poe's English biographer, in the matter of this poem I hold. There is also a first and direct photograph from the poetry, as written in the album, which is not well reproduced in the magazine. An effort to enlarge the writing of Poe detracts from the original.

Ingram was skeptical about the originality of this poem and caused the magazine editors to send to Baltimore and secure the album and make a careful examination and comparison with known specimens of Poe's writings; with the result that they and the experts pronounced the poem genuine. [page 238:]

WOMEN WHO KNEW POE

Poe met a variety of women during his lifetime and in his intercourse with some of them he let out the stronger side of his sentimental nature. Away down in his heart he possessed a loving disposition and from youth had always found in the tenderness of women a sympathy that appealed to him. This is exemplified by his own story, told in later life, of his ideal- ized love for the mother of a school companion who touched the chords of his keen sensibilities by a few kind words. He wished her as the inspiration for one of his poems that is des- tined to last in literature, perhaps, longer than The Raven.

There was little of the cave man in Poe, because a cultivated mind had convinced him that “love is indisputably that one of the human sentiments which most nearly realizes our dream of the chastened voluptuousness of heaven.” His love and loyalty for his wife and her mother seems beyond question. His relations with some other women are confusing and need close study. Most of these friends or professed friends of his were “women of letters” who merely used him as a popular writer to advance their own thirst for fame. They played with his sentimental nature as a cat plays with a mouse, and when they allowed him to get away and were unable to fasten onto him again they were deeply grieved. This seemed the clearer case with Mrs. Whitman who, however, showed great loyalty for his memory after his death. Mrs. Osgood and Mrs. Lewis, the latter better known as “Stella,” might appear to have shown intrigue in their intercourse with Poe. The former claimed that Poe's wife had suggested to her an acquaintance with him, but facts, I have discovered, tend to disprove this. She wrote and sent poetry for Poe to the Broadway Journal prior to ever meeting his wife. There is no disguising the fact, however, that Poe entertained a platonic sentimental regard for Mrs. Osgood until near the end; even while his letters to Mrs. Whitman and “Annie” were being written.

Mrs. Osgood wrote the following pen picture of Poe during his lifetime, which he surely saw. It may have influenced [page 239:] him to write some later lines for her eyes, which are given elsewhere in this magazine. I have never seen this in any late reference to Poe. It is far more interesting to me than some Freud-like theories and imaginative portraits of Poe to be found in a few recent biographies of the poet:

“He deals principally in antithesis, and he himself is an antithesis personified. The wildest concepts — the sharpest satire — the bitterest, maddest vituperation — the most exquis- ite talker — the most subtle appreciation of the most delicate and beautiful in his subject — the most radiant wit — the most dainty and Ariel-like fancy — with a manner and a mien the most quaint, abrupt and uncouth imaginable — it is like nothing in nature, or rather it is so exceedingly natural that it seems almost supernatural. His discourse is all thunder or lightning — every play of his impish eye-brow is an epigram, every smile a jeu d’esprit. At one time affectionate, confiding, careless, buoyant, almost boyish in mood; at another irritable, ferocious, seemingly ready for a tiger-spring upon a foe, and again calm, cold, haughty and uncomeatable as an Indian of the olden time.

“Here is a stranger original than any favorite the author ever drew.”

Mrs. Osgood has also made mention of the beautiful letters that Poe wrote to her, but with others made sure that they were destroyed with her own. There remain mere fragments of Poe's letters to both Mrs. Osgood and Mrs. Richmond. The former was among those few women who “whenever he met them, however restless or unhappy he might have been the moment before, they exercised over him a magnetic attraction and influence which he never cared to analyze or to resist, because it soothed and satisfied him.’ “

Here is something from one of Poe's letters to Mrs. Osgood which she afterwards used to good purpose: “You remind me of a cathedral with a simple unpretending portal, which gives no idea of the rare revelations within, and through which you pass to wonders that you did not dream of before. Once within, you are overwhelmed with the grandeur, the [page 240:] beauty, the mystery, the majesty around you — the lofty and magnificent arches, the dim, far-reaching aisles, the clustered columns, the vaulted roof lost to the eye from its wondrous height the glorious pictures by the master hand — the iris colored light from the painted windows pouring softly over all — the silence, the religious calm prevailing the place all combine to awe and elevate any who rashly and unthinkingly enter that sanctuary of the soul.”

A book of poems by Mrs. Lewis, called Records of the Heart, had a circulation in this country and England. In it she has three sonnets to “Edgar Allan Poe,” none of which I can recall seeing reprinted. One is the First Meeting; another, Beneath The Elm, relating to “Fordham Cottage,” and

TO HIS ENEMIES

The three women who thought that they understood Poe best in life seemed to show after his death that they were left in a quandary. Mrs. Shelton, the former Elmira Royster, Mrs. Richmond, Poe's “Annie,” and Mrs. Whitman, after reading the sentimental letters written by Poe prior to his death, were all greatly confused, as each one had an idea that she had been the one true love of the poet. None of them understood the true situation and all, while greatly piqued, still remained loyal and true to his memory. [page 241:]

Mrs. Whitman gave out Poe's letters, with some deletion, it is true, but she saw that her own letters were destroyed and nothing from them published. That seemed unfair. The case of Mrs. Richmond is a bit of a parallel in her sending to Ingram, Poe's English biographer, copies of Poe's letters without her own. It seems most natural that both Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Richmond should want the world to take their biased construction of such sentimental matters. And in any consideration of these letters due allowances should be made. The letters and other matters of Ingram that remained after his death came to this country and are now with the University of Virginia. In the consideration of these remaining papers it might also be well to remember that before they were sold they were censored by a relative and many matters destroyed.

ANDREW LANG'S POEMS OF POE

My collection of Poeana is unique in some volumes of the first edition of Poe's Poems, With an Essay, by Andrew Lang, London, 1881. There are several with Lang's autograph and notations; still another is a presentation copy from J. H. Ingram to W. M. Rossetti. This copy has the markings of Rossetti, who took the liberty of making a correction in a verbal slip made by Lang in his essay. It has hitherto been the impression that the letter to Poe in Lang's Letters to Dead Authors was the same in both the first and second editions. I have made a comparison and find that Lang has corrected several of his early errors in the second edition. The late American editions of this book erroneously follow the first edition.

FIRST ISSUE OF The Purloined Letter

There are doubts about the publication of The Purloined Letter in the Philadelphia Gift for 1845 being a first issue. There is another publication in Chambers’ Edinboro Journal, dated November 30, 1844. I have discovered among the remaining Poe manuscripts, with the Griswold family, a manuscript copy of this Edinboro version in Poe's autograph. [page 242:]

SHOCKOE CEMETERY

Poe has related, perhaps with some poetic license, how he kept vigils in his youth at the grave of his idealized love, “Helen,” the mother of his school companion, at Richmond.

The earliest cemetery Poe possibly knew was St. John's, at Richmond, where his mother is buried. Poe is known to have been often about Shockoe cemetery, and was there when his foster mother, Mrs. Allan, was laid to rest. I have often stood at this Allan plot, beside the grave of Mrs. Allan, and wondered if there is not to be found there the real inspiration of Poe's poem, The Sleeper.

There is much about this old graveyard at Richmond associated with the memory of Poe. The tomb of “Helen” is but a short distance away from the Allan plot. We can be pretty sure that Poe knew these two spots. Another mound nearby is that of Mrs. Shelton, the Elmira Royster, sweetheart of his youth, to whom he was betrothed prior to his death. He has told that she was the inspiration for his poem Lenore. This cemetery also has the remains of Eliza White and other close Richmond friends of Poe.

POE AND EBENEZER BURLING

The grave of Ebenezer Burling, who was Poe's companion when he left Richmond in 1827, is not far from the plot where Poe's mother is buried, in St. John's cemetery at Richmond. I have talked with old residents who knew Burling personally. John Allan Galt had a slight acquaintance with him but had never talked upon the subject of his ocean trip with Poe. There was, however, a pencil note written by Poe to Mrs. Allan from about Norfolk, Virginia, and given to Burling to deliver to Poe's foster mother at Richmond. This commission Burling fulfilled. This note John Allan Galt had in his possession, and it is still in existence. Other letters of Poe to Mrs. Allan, with a copy of his first book of Tamerlane, were lost among the effects of the Galt family in the disastrous Baltimore fire.

THE LONDON Bookman SYMPOSIUM

The June London Bookman gave leading and large space to a thesis on Poe by Mr. Alfred Noyes, which attracted much [page 243:] attention. This was followed in the August issue by opinions on Poe by Sir Edmund Gosse, C.B., Hugh Walpole, May Sinclair, Ernest Raymond, Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, H. De Vere Stacpoole, A. G. Gardner and Robert Graves. While some of the above mentioned were a bit equivocal, like Mr. Walpole, who “considered Poe overrated as a poet, but certainly not as a prose writer,” others seemed more direct in their expressions, such as May Sinclair, who said, “I consider Edgar Allan Poe in every way worthy of his great reputation,” and Edmund Gosse, who replied, “Nothing will alter my conviction that Poe was one of the greatest proficients in pure poetry who have ever existed, or that as a short story teller it would be difficult to match his arresting attention,’ and Mrs. Lowndes, “to whose mind Poe was a genius, and it was difficult to decide whether to give him the palm as a poet or as a prose writer.”

This is to be followed up in the coming September number of the Bookman with other opinions of Robert Lynd, Michael Sadleir, J. Middleton Murry, Mrs. Storm Jameson, Alfred Tresidder Sheppard, Dr. Edward Thompson, Miss Marjorie Bowen and Stacey Aumonier. A letter to the Editor of the Bookman from J. H. Whitty, of Richmond, Virginia, pointing out an error of fact in the original thesis is expected to be answered by Mr. Noyes, and to close the subject for the present.