Text: Edgar Allan Poe and Thomas Ollive Mabbott, “Ann S. Stephens” The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Vol. IV: The Literati of New York City (2026), pp. 65-67 (This material is protected by copyright)

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ANN S. STEPHENS.(1)

Mrs. Stephens has made no collection of her works, but has written much for the magazines, and well.(2) Her compositions have been brief tales with occasional poems.(3) She made her first “sensation” in obtaining a premium of four hundred dollars, offered for “the best prose story” by some one of our journals, her “Mary Derwent”(4) proving the successful article. The amount of the prize, however — a much larger one than it has been the custom to offer — had more to do with the éclât of the success than had the positive merit of the tale, although this is very consider able. She has subsequently written several better things — “Malina Gray,”(5) for example, “Alice Copley,” and “The Two Dukes.” These are on serious subjects. In comic ones she has comparatively failed. She is fond of the bold, striking, trenchant — in a word, of the melo-dramatic; has a quick appreciation of the picturesque, and is not unskillful in delineations of character. She seizes adroitly on salient incidents and presents them with vividness to the eye, but in their combinations or adaptations she is by no means so thoroughly at home — that is to say, her plots are not so good as are their individual items. Her style is what the critics usually term “powerful,” but lacks real power through its verboseness and floridity. It is, in fact, generally turgid — even bombastic — involved, needlessly parenthetical, and superabundant in epithets, although these latter are frequently well chosen. Her sentences are, also, for the most part too long; we forget their commencements ere we get at their terminations. Her faults, nevertheless, both in matter and manner, belong to the effervescence of high talent, if not exactly of genius.

Of Mrs. Stephens’ poetry I have seen so very little that I feel myself scarcely in condition to speak of it.

She began her literary life, I believe, by editing “The Portland Magazine,”(6) and has since been announced as editress of “The Ladies’ Companion,” a monthly journal published some years ago in New York, and also, at a later period, of “Graham's Magazine,” and subsequently, again, of “Peterson's National Magazine.” These announcements were announcements and no more; the lady had nothing to do with the editorial control of either of the three last-named works.(7)

The portrait of Mrs. Stephens which appeared in “Graham's Magazine” for November, 1844, cannot fairly be considered a likeness at all.(8) She is tall and slightly inclined to embonpoint(9) — an English figure. Her forehead is somewhat low, but broad; the features generally massive, but full of life and intellectuality. The eyes are blue and brilliant; the hair blonde and very luxuriant.

[[Notes]]

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1. Ann Maria Winterbotham, born March 30, 1810, was married to Edward Stephens in 1831, and died August 20, 1886; and there is a good sketch of her by Madeline B. Stern, assisted by James A. Eastman, in the Bulletin of the New York Public Library, June 1960.

2. An almost incredibly productive writer, she would now be completely forgotten, where she not the author of Malaeska, published originally in Snowden's Ladies’ Companion, New York, for February through April, 1839, but selected in 1860 to be the first of Beadle's Dime Novels. Mrs. Stephans was in society, a friend of the Vanderbilts as well as of many Congressmen and other politicians.

3. Obviously Poe took little interest in her, and used as his almost sole source an article about her by her good friend, Charles J. Peterson in Graham's for November 1844. There Poe found mention of all her works he names, and at least one error of fact.

4. “Mary Derwent” ran in the Ladies’ Companion, May through October 1838; the prize was really only $200, but Peterson gave the wrong sum. It is fair to say she had no connection with the magazine when she submitted her story pseudonymously to it.

5. “Malina Gray” was in Graham's for October to December, 1842. “Alice Copley” was in the Ladies’ Companion [page 67:] for May to October, 1841; and was reprinted as a pamphlet, Boston, 1844. The Two Dukes was in Graham's for January to June, 1842

6. The Portland Magazine was begun October 1, 1834.

7. Poe's discussion of the editorships may be understood as meaning the lady was not in charge of contents, either in accepting contributions, or as responsible editor of reviews. She apparently was a contributing editor, from whom anything submitted would be accepted; but Poe forebore to use the title editor of the Saturday Museum, where he could insert what he liked. Notice “either of the three,” an unexpected slip.

8. Mrs. Stephens joined Snowden in 1838; her editorship” of Graham's was announced in the number for December, 1841; she was on Peterson's National from 1843. [[The magazine published by Charles J. Peterson began as the Lady's World of Fashion in January 1842, with no editor named. No editor is also named in advertisements published at that time. It became the Lady's World of Literature and Fashion with volume III in 1843. At this point, the name of Mrs. Ann S. Stephens appeared as editor on the title page. An announcement that she was editor appeared in the New-York Tribune for February 14, 1843, p. 2, col. 3 — JAS.]]

9. The phrase “slightly inclined to embonpoint” is used also of Mrs. Ellet.