Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 071: Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram, Nov. 6, 1874,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 221-222 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 221, continued:]

71. Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram. Item 179

My dear Mr. Ingram,

Your long & interesting letter of Oct. 13th made my heart glad, even though it recorded an event which brought you so much sorrow. I found it last Friday morning lying in the letter box side by side with a letter from Rose — dear Rose, to whom I hoped long ago to have written! Her letter was mailed from Paris on the 15th, & yours from London on the 16th. I should like to send you a long quotation from her letter, which I know would gratify you, but perhaps this would be a breach of confidence, so I virtuously withstand the temptation, & will only tell you that I was delighted with it.

Under the head of “Foreign Literature & Notes on English Publications,” a correspondent of last Saturday's Tribune, G.W.S. (Stedman, I think), introduced Messrs. Black's announcement of a new & complete edition of Poe's works, including his hitherto unknown writings, edited with a “Memoir,” by John H. Ingram.(1) Then followed a description of the manner in which the books were to be brought out, etc.

Thus will be brought together, says Messrs. Black, for the first time, the whole of Poe's known writings. If this be accurate, & if no similar American edition is to appear contemporaneously, the fact is a remarkable one. It is no ordinary tribute to Poe's genius that his writings should thus first be collected completely in a foreign country. In his genius there was no doubt something alien to that of his own land, & even to that of any land where English is spoken. He has always been popular with the French, who take delight in many poems of the grotesque, & who have borrowed many a conte fantastique from the Rhineland and elsewhere. Whether there be a German edition of Poe, I don’t recollect. His English publishers, aptly enough, announce the present edition as uniform with De Quincey's works.

Perhaps I am too suspicious, but I seem to detect, under this Tribune notice, the crafty hand under the velvet glove. After the treatment which Poe has received from American reviewers & litterateurs, who can help doubting the sincerity of their cold & qualified praises?

Mr. Harris feels sure that there was an edition of the early poems published in 1827 — that he shall be able to find that edition — a copy of it — & that it will be found that the Wiley & Putnam edition is a verbatim copy of it. This I doubt. But I am glad to see him so zealously interested in getting at the truth. He did, in fact, give me some cogent reasons for thinking that the article in the Aldine was a conscious misrepresentation of the truth, & that it was written with malign intent. I asked him to write out his argument for you, & this he said he would [page 222:] endeavor to do, after he had thoroughly investigated the subject & made further search for the missing edition. This, strictly entre nous.

Have you read Spielhagen's essay on the genius & writings of Poe? I saw it mentioned in a note to the translator's preface to his novel, Problematic Characters, but his essays are not to be found in our libraries.(2) The “Mr. Lyman,” to whose note about the balloon matter you refer, is the Col. Lyman Dwight who told me of the interest felt by the German students in the writings of Poe. He told me that even those who were very imperfectly acquainted with the English language would pore over his stories with patient & exhaustless interest.

I had many things to say, but must wait for another mail.

If you should chance to be consulting the files of the New York Tribune in any further researches, you may find in the Daily for Nov. 14, 1853, a notice by Ripley of the lost volume of poems I sent you last spring & of which I will soon send you another copy. It was very well done. I sent you a copy of it in the book that was lost. The only remaining one is pasted in a volume of printed notices.

If you write to Rose, tell her that I have a thousand things to say to her & will try to get well enough to write to her soon.

I have not yet seen the copy of the Academy which has a paragraph about your book. It will arrive here next week, probably — it is always late.

And now, goodbye for tonight. I trust all will go well with you & your work. A dio.

 

1. This correspondent to the Tribune could not have been the Stedman who later became a Poe scholar and editor, for his name was Edmund Clarence.

2. Friedrich Spielhagen (1829-1911), Problematic Characters, from the German, by Professor Schele DeVere (New York: Leypoldt & Holt, 1869). Spielhagen's essay must have been his “Amerikanische Lyriker: W. C. Bryant, E. A. Poe ... ,” Vermischte Schriften, I (Berlin: n. p., 1864), 259-320.