Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 005: John H. Ingram to Sarah Helen Whitman, Feb. 3, 1874,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 15-16 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 15, continued:]

5. John H. Ingram to Sarah Helen Whitman

Dear Mrs. Whitman,

I am going to trouble you with another letter. I have seen Mr. Stoddard's paper in the Harper's Monthly: I saw it at the British Museum Library, but I cannot purchase, or even order a copy here, because it contains copyright English works & must not be imported by publishers: if you can procure me a copy I shall be glad. The paper furnishes fresh information about Poe's family &c., but it is very incorrect in some particulars, as I can prove. You allude to Longfellow's remarks on Poe in the S.L. Messenger, but I cannot find them.(1) The British Museum copy only comes down to the middle of 1851. I have seen Mr. Pabodie's letter to the Tribune, of June 1852, but could not find the further correspondence you allude to. I have a proof copy of my paper on “Edgar Poe” for Temple Bar Maga., and if you can dispose of it for me, & will do so, to some respectable monthly, I will gladly forward it: you can get it in advance of its publication — and the money received for it — we do not get less, ever, than 16 guineas the sheet — you could credit me with & expend it in obtaining me books & papers relative to Poe: that is, if you do not mind the trouble. I’ll forward proof in a few days but rely upon your honour not to let it become public, or known, save in the manner I have suggested, until the middle of March. Can you find out Mr. Clarke's address? I am presuming always that you will not object to aid my endeavours towards clearing the fame of our hero. Perhaps Mr. Clarke would not mind letting you know what he would take for his collection of Poe papers & would give you some idea as to what they consisted of — whether letters, MSS., facts, or unreprinted writings. Copies of any unprinted letters of Poe's I should value: perhaps you have some you would not mind furnishing me with: I would always acknowledge my authority. I enclose you copy of “To Isadore”: do you know it? The poem “To Helen” which you include in E.P. & His Critics is a great favourite in England. What became of all the letters & papers of Poe's Redfield, the publisher, or Griswold, obtained, do you know? I’ll write to Mr. Gill. E.P. & His Critics has become one of my best friends: I read, & reread it continually. I have nearly all the books mentioned in [page 16:] the “Usher” library. Do you know Gresset's “Ver Vert”?(2) ’Tis very good. I fancy Poe believed firmly in the sentience of all things, including that of the globe itself. His Eureka has not been published in England: I hope to edit it: it influenced me when I read it (as a boy) immensely, but my views have so grown of late years that I fancy a reperusal would not have the same effect. Can you get me the Graham Magazines, or copies of Poe's papers therein, on Autography, Cryptology, &c. Strictly entre nous, I want to edit all his works not reprinted in England and prefix the life: the collection, need I remark, shall be inscribed to you — it is necessary to be before Mr. Stoddard & Messrs. Routledge, to be sure of success. Can you lend me an autograph of Poe's to get a facsimile made? A daguerreotype, or photo. copy of a portrait cannot be procured I suppose. Time you see is an object. If Routledges’ bring out a collection with Mr. Stoddard's information, I fear that I shall not succeed in getting another publisher to take my edition out unless I have something very different to say & give. My real wish is to clear Poe's fame but to succeed I must, as you well know, come before the world with something fresh, clear, and attractive. Tomorrow, I will forward you another Mirror with some information that you may not know of. My mother knows the Irish Powers by name: her father assisted one of them out of a convent in Portugal, during the Peninsula War. I shall be glad to see your poems: “The Sleeping Beauty” & “Cinderella” I have heard of.(3) I shall send “The Portrait” to the Mirror. Hoping to hear from you soon, I remain, believe me, yours in sympathy.

[Written above the salutation on page 1:] I’ll return the cuttings in my next.

 

1. Mrs. Whitman had written in her book Edgar Poe and His Critics, p. 25, “Mr. Longfellow has very generously said, in a letter to the editor of the Literary Messenger: ‘The harshness of his criticisms I have always attributed to the irritation of a sensitive nature chafed by some indefinite sense of wrong.’ ” The letter referred to had been addressed to John Reuben Thompson, ca. Oct. 1849, and the remarks were printed by Thompson in the Messenger in Nov. 1849.

2. Poe had placed Jean Baptiste Louis Gresset's poem “Ver-Vert,” written in 1734, in Roderick Usher's library in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, Sept. 1839.

3. These poems by Mrs. Whitman and her sister, Susan Anna Power, were first printed in the Union Magazine, Oct. 1848.