Text: Edgar Allan Poe (?), “F. W. Thomas,” Daily Chronicle (Philadelphia, PA), May 19, 1840, vol. I, no. 14, p. 2, col. 3

[page 2, column 3:]

MR. THOMAS. — This gentleman, so well and so favorably known as the author of “East and West,” “The Adventures of a Lawyer,” “Clinton Bradshaw,” and other minor productions of high merit, has now in the hands of Messieurs Lea and Blanchard a new novel called “Howard Pinckney,” of which, from some loose pages which we had the pleasure of glancing at in MS, we entertain a high opinion. “Howard Pinckney,” if we are not much mistaken, will place Mr. Thomas in a position which he should have occupied long ago — a position in the van of our literature. He has only to do himself justice (as he has here done) in his subject, and there is no better writer in America. Let him eschew “Pelham,” and throw all mannerism to the dogs, and he will do honor to his country and to himself. He has the true soul of genius. We here wish to record a prophecy that in ten years from this date his works will be more extensively popular than those of any of our native writers. We would say even more than this — but we have a horror of being suspected of puffery.