Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 003: John H. Ingram to Sarah Helen Whitman, Jan. 26, 1874,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 9-12 (This material is protected by copyright)

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3. John H. Ingram to Sarah Helen Whitman

My dear Mrs. Whitman,

By the same post I received today both your beautiful little book, and your most interesting letter [Jan. 13], and, instead of waiting to reflect & comment fully upon either, hasten to acknowledge them, and by the same post forward you two copies of the Mirror, containing an introductory paper on Edgar Poe.(1) The Mirror, though only a weekly, is written for by some of our best known writers, & has a large circulation so that the series of papers which I am about to publish in it — and which I will forward you as they appear — will go before some thousands of readers. The Feby. no. of Temple Bar magazine will be out in a few days, & I will forward a copy to you directly it appears: it circulates in the U. States &, indeed, wherever the English language is spoken. Feby. no. contains a paper on “Edgar Poe” by myself, shewing the falsity, or improbability, of Griswold's statements. Do not be disappointed with it. Future papers in the Mirror &c. will disprove nearly every accusation of Griswold's. I believe that I have much information, derived from old American papers, that you do not know of. The anecdotes that I wish most to disprove now are about the “Conchology” book by Brown — of this I think I have a clue to, & the borrowing money, of a lady & then refusing to pay &c. &c. till forced by fear of chastisement from lady's brother to acknowledge the debt.(2) Dr. Francis, of New York, recently dead, was said to have conveyed Poe's apologies to the injured family — vide “Memoir.”(3) This much said I will proceed to a running commentary upon your letter, & reserve other things till later. First as to difficulty of information — for me, in England, ’tis difficult to get at the truth but I’ll leave no stone unturned to do my best. I’m not wealthy & my time is officially engaged, or I would take a trip to the States. I may someday — as I have already seen a good deal of the finest European scenery. I see a great many American papers &c. in the British Museum Library — what I want most, that they have not got, is Graham's Magazine from its commencement about Nov. 1840 to end of 1842. Harper's Monthly for Sep. 1872 I have not seen but will try & get. Mr. Stoddard, after what you say, I shall not much rely on. I did not know that Routledge projected a new edition. One, pretending to be complete, was published by the late J. Hotten, known for his reprinting American books & works on which he had no copyright to pay: it contained about one third of Griswold's collection & yet is our most complete edition.(4) But the poems & selections from the tales are being continually reprinted & Poe is deemed by our first critics the finest poet America has produced — vide Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Chambers's Encyclopaedia &c. His fame is far higher here, & in France, than in his [page 10:] native country, but everywhere is Griswold's beastly story accepted as gospel. In England we bury a man's misdeeds with him & remember only the good, whilst during his life — why! we literati are far too lenient — are a regular mutual admiration society & would scorn to publish a personal line about anyone — however disliked. The slightest departure from this rule would be severely criticised. But I am straying. Reverting to Hotten's collection, it gave some new information about Poe's school in England — ’tis but ten minutes from where I live — & a translation from the French of Baudelaire — of essays on Poe's life & genius. Nothing new in them but they — whilst accepting Griswold's story as true — consign the Doctor to “immortal infamy.” Your book I will review separately for the Mirror & your poems too, if you will kindly send them. I enclose you two of my juvenile poems inspired by Poe, written & published soon after I had entered my teens & reprinted in a little vol. published under my boyhood's nom de plume of “Dalton Stone.”(5) They are very boyish & I suppressed the book after it had received several favorable notices from the press — but I send these verses to show you how long I have been under the weird influence of Poe. I will forward you a book of mine on flowers — not as a specimen of my literary skill, but as a proof that I have made a good-sized book: it will follow in course of a day or so.(6) I must get a copy from the publisher. Is there any chance of getting a copy of the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd editions of Poe's poems, do you think? Or even written copies of variorum readings? I’d pay anything in reason for them. Next week the Mirror will contain a poem from Poe's Broadway Journal, which I believe he wrote — “To Isadore.”(7) Do you know it? Do you know real date of his early poems’ publication? You will see that I have doubted date of birth, in Temple Bar &c. Information about the school is valuable to me. I will return all the printed slips as soon as I copy what I require. As regards “The Fire Fiend,” it was Mrs. Macready, the reader, & not Macready (whose family we know well), who sent it to the Star, where I read it. I have the whole of it (sent to me by the same literary friend who now edits the Mirror & who is an intense admirer of Poe) & know that in America Macready is always given for Mrs. Macready — ’tis rather a strange affair — she said Mrs. Clemm gave it to her — or rather, hinted so — whereas it was written by a Mr. C. Gardette — an American who has since acknowledged the circumstance & published it in a vol. of verse as his own.

As regards Mr. Clarke — if I can arrange with him I should be glad, for purchase of the Poe papers; but I must be certain that they are what I do not possess & then must rely upon a publisher, as I am not, as before stated, wealthy. I was born in luxury, but unfortunate [page 11:] circumstances, which I need not trouble you with, have brought us from “our high estate,” & I only have — for my mother, sisters, & self, what my official position & literary labours produce. But for this, my Poe papers would have been produced earlier. The New York Tribune I will see for denial of the anecdote you speak of. I have not yet heard from Miss Poe. Thomas Powell, in his Living Authors of America, says she was also adopted by Mr. Allan, who was, says a German encyclopedia, Poe's godfather? I know several foreign languages &, as you perceive, have not rested satisfied with native accounts. I was but a child when I first read an account of Poe in Chambers's Journal (Edinburgh & London), & have ever since adored him & have longed to write his life.(8) No sooner did I get the “Memoir” than I began to see its unaccountable differences, & it is by putting one against the other that I shall show many of Griswold's audacious fabrications. Why! Even in his life of Mrs. Osgood — his dear friend — he cannot quote a date accurately.(9) Had Poe been an Englishman, a thousand pens, ere this, would have worked in his defense. Had he been all that Griswold has painted, we would have deemed his genius & his troubles a cloak as inclusive as charity to hide his faults. Let me have your poems, if you can spare a copy. It was in Allibone's immense dictionary of English & American literature that I saw you spoken of as an admirer & defender of Poe &, fancied from the wording, in other works than Edgar Poe & His Critics. I have left much for future correspondence, but wished to at once acknowledge your letter, books, &c. In England, where Griswold's title of Dr. (whence obtained, I wonder?) & his evident assumption of knowing Poe & being his friend, have always caused his story to be accepted as a record of facts (save in Mr. Moy Thomas's letter), & I have often been laughed at by friends — literary & otherwise — for doubting the “Memoir.”(10) English people do not comprehend the amenities of American literati. Forgive my saying this but, although no warmer admirer of America & her institutions lives than myself, her press, I must persist, affords license for much that the most rotten old despotism of Europe would blush to acknowledge. Pardon this — help me in my endeavours — trust to my honour — anything which you merely lend, believe me, I will return as quickly as possible. I may keep this book though — may I not? You have not autographed it. I could not get a copy anywhere in England — saw it only in British Museum under heading of Poe. Many well-known, distinguished English literati are anxious to learn results of my researches. Must catch today's post, but fear that I have said much that I need not have said, & have omitted much that I would have said. En passant, how did Poe pronounce his name? ’Tis fashionable here to say Poë: is that correct? And now, respite from worrying you, but believe [page 12:] ever, my dear madam, henceforth your name will be coupled with the name of Edgar Poe in the memory of your ever faithful friend —

A portrait of Poe, different from the collections, cannot, I suppose, be obtained. Would you mind lending me any scrap of his [writing] to get copied for facsimile? It should be religiously guarded & returned. Flora Symbolica, my book on flowers, will follow in a day or so.

 

1. This article, “New Facts about Edgar Poe,” was published in the London Mirror, Jan. 24, 1874; no known copy survives.

2. For an acceptable but inconclusive account of Poe's part in the composition of The Conchologist's First Book and the portions contributed by Captain Brown and Professor Wyatt, see Quinn, pp. 275-77, 528-29.

3. Dr. John Francis Ward (1789-1861) was a popular New York physician and a very close friend of Rufus Griswold's. Ward died Feb. 8, 1861. The New York Times printed a long obituary for him on the eleventh.

4. John Camden Hotten (1832-1873) was a London publisher who had issued in 1872 a selection of Poe's writings called The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, with a Study of His Life and Writings, from the French of Baudelaire.

5. Poems by Dalton Stone. Ingram had this little book published in 1863, and, imitating Poe in this, as he did in many other ways, later claimed he had suppressed it, as Poe claimed he had suppressed Tamerlane. Ingram's book is listed in Lippincott's Pronouncing Biographical Dictionary (Philadelphia: Joseph Thomas, 1930).

6. John H. Ingram, Flora Symbolica; or the Language and Sentiment of Flowers, Including Floral Poetry, Original and Selected (London: F. W. Warne & Co.; New York: Scribner, Welford & Co., 1869).

7. “To Isadore” was written by A. M. Ide, Jr., a seventeen-year-old would-be poet from South Attleboro, Mass., who sent it to Poe for possible publication in the Broadway Journal. Poe probably retouched the lines before printing them on Oct. 25, 1845. Albert Pike, an American poet of sorts, also wrote a poem named “Isadore.”

8. This article was first printed in Chambers's Journal, 19 (1853), and reprinted in Littell's Living Age, 38 (Apr. 16, 1853), 157-61, as “The Life and Poetry of Edgar Poe.”

9. Griswold's essay “Frances Sargent Osgood” appeared in The Memorial, a souvenir volume of poems and articles in honor of Mrs. Osgood, edited by Mrs. Mary E. Hewitt (New York: George P. Putnam, 1851), pp. 13-30.

10. W. Moy Thomas had published an article, “Edgar Allen [sic] Poe,” in the Train, 3 (Apr. 1857), 193-98, in which he defended Poe's character and suggested that perhaps Griswold had tampered with Poe's letters and papers. See Item 523 in the Ingram Poe Collection.