Amanda M. Edmond

(Born: October 24, 1824 - Died: May 30, 1862)

Amanda Maria Corey was born in Brookline, MA, to Elijah Corey, Jr. and Mary Richards. Through both family lines, she was descended from New England puritans, and as a life-long Baptist, her poems are generally of a deeply religious nature. She married James Edmond, a Boston merchant, in May of 1844. It may be presumed that he paid for the rather sumptuous publication of her poetry in book form. She generally signed her poems as they appeared in periodicals with her initials “A. M. E.” They had six children, two sons and four daughters, two of whom (Amy and Jenny) died in infancy. She died from consumption, and was buried in the Walnut Street Cemetery, in Brookline, MA, in Lot 80. Her husband, who died in 1881, is buried in lot 81.

Poe’s 1845 review of her poems shows that although he tended to be more gentle in his comments on the literary works of women, he usually did so by exaggerating their merits and diminishing their faults. Where he saw no merits, he could be just as cutting in his remarks as he might be to a male author.