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Category: The Poe Museum Blog

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Poe Has “Some Words With A Mummy”

Close up view of young mummy wrapped in gauze and displayed on table in the darkness

An excerpt from Murray Ellison’s 2015 MA Thesis from Virginia Commonwealth University on Poe and 19th-Century Science ©

Poe’s tale, “Some Words with a Mummy” (1845) provides one of the most revealing views about the low value he places in nineteenth-century science. Although the unnamed narrator of this short story, who also speaks in the voice of Mr. Poe, does not go anywhere special, he imagines that an ancient Egyptian Mummy is revived by an electro-voltaic shock to reflect on the relative values of ancient and nineteenth-century technologies, and is brought to his house in New York. This literary device allows the mummy to provide a view of nineteenth-century science that was significantly different from the one that was widely understood by professional scientists. Mabbott notes that the public, at that time, was fascinated with “Modern Egyptology.” The 1799 discovery of the Rosetta Stone revealed much previously unknown information about Egyptian civilizations and several major museums in Poe’s lifetime offered exhibits of Egyptian artifacts and entombed mummies (1175).

The narrator invites nineteenth-century “gentlemen” friends to his house to “unwrap” and examine a mummy that they have borrowed from the “Directors of the City Museum” in New York (1178). They invigorate “Count Allamistakeo” with a voltaic shock. His name is satiric because he begins to count many of the mistakes of nineteenth-century science. As soon as he wakes up, the gentlemen boast about nineteenth-century advances in phrenology, mesmerism, transportation, steam engines, and metaphysics.

After listening to their claims, the mummy is unconvinced that there has not been much scientific advancement in the nineteenth century when compared to the innovations of Egyptian civilizations. He informs the “gentlemen” that ancient Egyptians lived for thousands of years and could exist in a state of hibernation for as long as they wished. It is evident that he has accepted the idea of being awoken and discoursing with them. He boasts that his civilization practiced an extremely advanced system of Phrenology. He suggests that the “gentlemen” look at Egyptian architecture and notice that it is far superior to the best examples of the nineteenth century (1192). The nineteenth-century railroads, he adds, are “rather ill-conceived” in comparison to the “grooved causeways” built by the Egyptians.

The Count argues that the Egyptians determined that what the nineteenth-century gentlemen referred to as “Progress was quite a nuisance” (1193). He discounts the high value placed by the scientists regarding the developments of the nineteenth century and western civilization. In his criticisms, he is suggesting that culture and the quality of life are more important than scientific progress when attempting to determine whether a particular civilization is advanced.

It is ironic that the only triumph of the nineteenth century that the mummy concedes to the “gentlemen” is its development of blood-purifying laxatives and cough lozenges. This humorous observation of the sole progress obtained in his lifetime demonstrates that Poe lacked faith that science could cure the ailments of humanity, and that he wanted to get as far away from the assumptions of the nineteenth century as he could imagine.

The narrator is profoundly congested by the mummy’s revelations, commenting, “The truth is I am heartily sick of this life and the nineteenth century in general. I am convinced that everything is going wrong.” He despairs that he would like to “get embalmed for a couple of hundred years” (1195). Perhaps he also wished that he could hibernate for two thousand years and wake up to enjoy the glorious future he imagined. We can only wonder if Poe would have been even more dismayed about the progress of twenty-first-century science if he woke up today.

Sources

Poe, Edgar Allan. Tales and Sketches, 1831-1849. Ed. Thomas O. Mabbott. Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 1978.

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A Look at Poe’s “MS. Found in a Bottle”

Excerpt from Murray Ellison’s 2015 VCU M.A.Thesis on Poe and 19th-Century Science ©

“The captain’s gray hairs are records of the past, and his grayer eyes are Sybils of the future. The cabin floor was thickly strewn with strange, iron clasped folios, moldering instruments of science and obsolete long-forgotten charts”

– “MS. Found in a Bottle” by Edgar Allan Poe (1833)

 

Several researchers have proposed that late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Gothic writers (a sub-genre of the “Romantic” writers) inform Poe’s views of the horrors and uncertainties of science (Gewirtz, Tresch, Willis). German and English writers were among the first who attempted to examine the ways that new technologies impacted society. Although they were well-schooled in Enlightenment Age science, they also were notable for introducing elements of uncertainty and chilling reactions to nineteenth-century readers. The “Enlightenment’s assumption that truth is the product of an unmediated encounter between the eye and its subject got sidelined when the novel acquired atmosphere, mood-creating tone and texts” (47). The Gothic writers blurred lines between reality and illusion. They illustrated that the most compelling tales may be derived with believable scenarios from ordinary life, that then spin out of control into fantastic imaginative tales.

The earliest examples of these influential German Gothic writers are Frederich Schiller and E.T.A. Hoffman, whose works were translated from German into English, and the British writer, Mary Shelley. The 1795 English translation of Frederich von Schiller’s “The Ghost-Seer” inaugurated British reader’s interest for German tales of terror. Readers of these types of narratives are never quite certain how to distinguish what is real from what is illusion. Martin Willis writes that Hoffman is important because his stories generated “heated debates on the relationship between the new empirical science and the older methods of natural philosophy” (28). Perhaps Hoffman’s most notable work is “The Nutcracker and the Mouse” (1816) because it confounds the lines between illusion and reality without explaining to his readers when those lines are crossed. Hoffman’s “The Sandman” offers connections between science, magic, and mesmerism.” Willis argues, “Hoffman’s balancing of these previously considered distinct categories “reflect the difficulty in categorizing scientific knowledge in the nineteenth century” (29). Gothic writers made significant contributions to our present-day understanding of how the public learned about science in the early nineteenth century. They also defined the relationships between magic and science, and between illusion and reality. Martin Willis asserts that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, published in France in 1824 is important because it is a “condemnation of the overreaching scientist.” He describes it as a “cautionary tale of scientific hubris,” and argues that the novel “critiques the role of science in the early nineteenth century” (63). It is also important because it is one of the first important Gothic book widely published in English, and thus accessible to Poe when he started writing fiction in the 1830s.

The Gothic writers also were important because they incorporated the public’s uncertain reactions against the dehumanizing effects of the expansion of nineteenth-century industrialization and the rise of the power of machines and mechanistic processes. Poe and the “Romantic” period writers felt this mechanistic view detracted from natural human tendencies, such as emotion, reason, and creativity. These writers criticized rational and empirical scientists as being detached from emotion and artistic creativity. They also blurred the boundaries between scientific disciplines; and between science and pseudo-science. Poe was inspired by several of their approaches and established Gothic tones of uncertainty and terror in several of his science fiction narratives. He also extended Gothic themes and created new forms of fiction that he based on his reactions to the themes of Industrial Age science. The next series of columns will explore Poe’s Gothic and other styles of fiction which expressed his interest and views of nineteenth-century science.

Selected Sources

Gewirtz, Isaac. Edgar Allan Poe: Terror of the Soul, Ed. New York: New York Public Library, 2013.

Tresch, John. “The Potent Magic of Verisimilitude: Edgar Allan Poe and the Mechanical Age.” The British Journal of Science 3.3 (1997): 275-90. Web. 15 Mar. 2014

Willis, Martin. Mesmerists, Monsters, and Machines: Science Fiction and the Cultures of Science in the Nineteenth Century. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2006.

Thomas, Dwight and David Jackson, Ed. The Poe Log- A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849. Boston: G.B. Hall and Company, 1987.

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Poe’s Balloon Hoax – Part II

Written by Murray Ellison, 2015

As noted in Part I of this column, J. Harris was one of the many researchers who connected Locke’s “Moon Hoax” with Poe’s April 1844 New York Sun columns on the “Balloon Hoax.” As Eric Carlson comments, “In the considerable rush for copies” for the “Balloon Hoax,” they “were sold for as much as fifty cents each” (260). This would be equal to at least $15 a newspaper today-even more than charged at most airports!  Poe’s anonymous story “was written in the style of a journalistic flash, since the Sun extra edition gave all of the signs of being a real newspaper scoop,”  as he used details provided by Mason Monck’s actual 1843 balloon trip. Poe added “realism to his description of the construction of the Victoria,” by providing details of the landscapes that the passengers viewed while they were transported in the balloon (261).

The Victoria Balloon – “New York Sun”

However, it was not until January 20, 1845 (about nine months after its publication and the public had lost interest in that topic), that Poe was first publicly credited with writing the story. James Lowell inserted this revelation near the end of a review of Poe’s literary career, simply concluding that Poe is “the author of the anonymously published Balloon Hoax” (Poe Log 490).  

In a preview copy of Naomi Miyazawa’s Doctor of Philosophy dissertation, she noted that Poe first conceded that he was the author when wrote a follow-up story about his hoax in his column, “Doings in Gotham.” His article was first published in the Columbia Spy (Pennsylvania) on April 25, 1844. In that columns, Poe even bragged that the “Balloon Hoax” was his story. He comments, “The crowd outside of the Sun was lined up and chaotic in hopes to purchase the Extra article on the balloon voyage,” marveling that that “the whole square surrounding the Sun was literally besieged. I never witnessed more intense excitement to get possession of a newspaper” (3). Miyazawa contends that Poe’s account “was another fraud,” arguing that “The story was not as sensational as Poe believed it was, and his hoax probably fooled fewer people than he thought it did” (4).

Poe’s reporting of the balloon hoax story in The Columbia Spy re-confirms that he planted the original Sun article anonymously in the news section of the newspaper in an attempt to build credibility for his hoax. He may not have expected that he could have ever published a fictional story about a trans-Atlantic balloon crossing that would have received anything close to the notoriety of his anonymously written news story. Although his “Balloon Hoax” sold many newspapers, it also significantly reduced his credibility as a technical report writer, and thus limited his ability to write additional serious science journalism reports. His final journalistic style report also began to take on a more skeptical tone than his previous works.

Gerald Kennedy concludes: “Finally, when neither fact nor fiction would do, Poe exploited “the art—or perhaps the science of the literary hoax” (64).  Thus he casts the hoax as more of a success than a setback for Poe. As Kennedy considers Poe’s long-term reputation as an artist, he contends that his “desire to exploit or control the mass market” is one of his greatest literary innovations.” He adds that “An attentiveness to the emerging mass market informs Poe’s aesthetic writings, for he is perpetually investigating the possibility of creating a single literary text capable of satisfying both the popular and the critical taste” (67).

Perhaps, though, Poe also realized that the emerging popular topics of science also offered him the opportunity to engage in a journalistic career and to find the “jewels of the sky” that he first considered in his 1829 poem, “Sonnet—to Science.”

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!

Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.

Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,

Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?

How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,

Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering

To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,

Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?

Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car,

And driven the Hamadryad from the wood

To seek a shelter in some happier star?

Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,

The Elfin from the green grass, and from me

The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

Poe’s interest in science was sparked by the public’s excitement about the emerging popular technological trends of the nineteenth century. Though his non-fiction science narratives demonstrated that though he was lacking in professional science credentials, they also revealed that he had a keen interest in science and a highly focused ability to investigate complex scientific questions. Those stories also reveal that he had the insight to ask the important questions about the possible future direction of science: What will the future be like if machines could think? How will the public be affected if machines could record visual images of their every activity?

Writing about Poe’s science through journalism, as I have focused on in my last several columns on the automated chess machine, seashells, and the Daguerreotype required Poe to explore several of the important scientific issues of the nineteenth century and to write about them in a relatively objective style. As we have seen, though, in the “Balloon Hoax,” he was also having a hard time sticking with that restrictive format. Perhaps, he considered that writing about these topics through the lens of fiction relieved him of the need to be objective.

Writing through fiction allowed him to be more imaginative in the topics, themes, characters, and time periods he selected than would be possible in journalism. It also permitted him to introduce some of his metaphysical thinking and unique theories about the Universe. Poe’s fiction stories focusing on nineteenth-century science themes will be discussed in future columns.

Selected Sources

Carlson, Eric W. Ed. A Companion to Poe Studies. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996.

Harris, Neil. Humbug: The Art of P.T. Barnum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973.

Kennedy, Gerald. A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Miyazawa, Naomi. Edgar Allan Poe and Popular Culture in the Age of Journalism: Balloon Hoaxes, Mesmerism, and Phrenology.  Preview copy of Doctoral Dissertation. State University of New Work-Buffalo, Ann Arbor, MI: UMI, 2010.

Poe, Edgar A. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume VII: Poetry. Ed. Harrison, James A. New York: T. Crowell, 1902.

Thomas, Dwight and David Jackson, Ed. The Poe Log- A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849. Boston: G.B. Hall and Company, 1987.

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Poe’s Great Balloon Hoax – Part 1

This article is an excerpt from Murray Ellison’s VCU MA Thesis on Poe and Nineteenth-Century Science, ©2015

Near the end of his journalistic career, Poe was likely running out of actual science reports to write about that would excite the public’s interest in science as spectacularly as his fictional stories did. Perhaps, by that time, his imagination far exceeded science’s ability to create new inventions. His 1843 “Balloon Hoax” story demonstrated that sensational quasi-scientific newspaper reports could command the public’s attention in ways that even he could have never imagined. By presenting a fictional narrative as if it was an actual front-page news story, Poe captured the attention of a larger segment of nineteenth-century readers than he did in any of his previous journalistic reports. However, this move also seriously damaged his credibility as a serious science reporter. Poe, in this account, also introduced a more skeptical attitude concerning nineteenth-century science than he displayed in his previous journalistic outputs. Therefore, his “Hoax” is a transitional story linking his earlier journalistic writing to his later fictional science narratives.

The extraordinary story of a Transatlantic Balloon crossing was first written by Poe under the pseudonym of John Wise, and was first published in the June 15, 1843, issue of the newspaper, Spirit of the Times, which reported that a “well-known balloonist plans to take a trip across the Atlantic Ocean in the summer of 1844” (Thomas and Jackson 414). A year after, The New York Sun ran a follow-up news report on the balloon trip without mentioning ‘Wise.’ The newspaper’s April 13, 1844 headline read:

The article further reported on this spectacular adventure:

“We stop the press at a late hour, to announce that, by a Private Express from Charleston, S.C., we are just put in possession of full details of the most extraordinary adventure ever accomplished by man.” The “Atlantic Ocean has been actually traversed in a balloon, and in the incredibly brief period of Three Days! Eight persons have crossed in the machine. (457).

The Sun also printed a special edition, the Extra Sun, adding that the crossing was a triumph of Mr. Monck’s flying machine. The Extra also included the names of the passengers along with an illustration (below) of the hot air balloon, the Victoria (458):

New York Times Illustration of the Victoria

On the same day as the Extra Sun’s report, the New York Herald countered that the hoax was “blunderously got up,” and “ridiculously put together” (Thomas and Jackson 460). It added: “About 50,000 of the Extras were sold…We think every intelligent reader will regard this attempt to hoax as not even possessing the character of pleasantry. They added that the celebrated ‘Moon Hoax,’ issued from the New York Sun, many years ago was an ingenious essay; but that is more than can be said of the “Balloon Hoax” (461). The Herald was the first newspaper to give this story the presently used title, but still did not connect it with Poe.

The Sun had previously published a presumed news story by Robert Locke 1835 about British astronomer, John Herschel, stating that he had gone to Cape Hope, South Africa to test his new powerful telescope. Neil Harris writes that the Sun reported that, “Herschel’s success had been beyond his wildest dreams, for the telescope had penetrated the secrets of the Moon, claiming that it had trees, oceans, pelicans, and winged men (69).  Locke’s story sold more than 20,000 copies. A newspaper commentator later boasted that many people “absolutely believed the story” (69). Harris is also one of the many researchers who connected Locke’s “Moon Hoax” with Poe’s “Balloon Hoax.”

The next Poe and Science Blog discusses how Poe and “The Balloon Hoax” were exposed and the effect it had on his writing and reputation.

Selected Sources

Harris, Neil. Humbug: The Art of P.T. Barnum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973.

Thomas, Dwight and David Jackson, Ed. The Poe Log- A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849. Boston: G.B. Hall and Company, 1987.

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The Poetic Principle: A Rich Intellectual Treat

Written by Rob Velella, August 17, 2009, as part of “The Edgar A. Poe Calendar: 365 Days of the Master of the Macabre and the Mystery“

Edgar Poe presented an evening lecture on August 17, 1849, in Richmond titled “The Poetic Principle.” The lecture, which adapted a similar one presented in Providence, Rhode Island in December 1848, was held at the Exchange Hotel. It began at 8:00 p.m. and admission was 25 cents. Poe spoke to a room filled to capacity.

Poe’s appearance was a highly-anticipated event in the city which embraced him as one of their own. One newspaper proudly hailed him as “a native of this city [who] was reared in our midst.” Another hyped up the lecture in advance, advising its readers: “Those who desire to enjoy a real treat, should hear this effort of Mr. Poe’s.” The Richmond Whig newspaper teased that Poe would conclude by reciting “The Raven.”

His audience was not disappointed.

The Whig, despite looking forward to hearing “The Raven,” had apparently not expected much from Poe. After the lecture, they reported: “We attended the Lecture of Mr. Poe… with the expectation of hearing nothing more than the common dissertation upon the poetic faculty… We must say we were never more delighted in our lives.” The Daily Republican reported it was “one of the richest intellectual treats… The clearness and melody of his voice and the harmonious accentuation of his words were soul inspiring.” Novelist John Esten Cooke recalled that Poe “stood in a graceful attitude, leaning one hand on a small table beside him, and his wonderfully clear and musical voice speedily brought the audience under its spell. Those who heard this strange voice once never afterward forgot it… The lecture ended in the midst of applause.”

The content of the lecture on “The Poetic Principle” was distinctly Poe. One contemporary review notes that Poe denounced the didacticism in poetry as the “heresy of modern times” rather than allowing a poem to stand for beauty and nothing more. He spoke about specific authors and both praised and criticized as appropriate. Among those he mentioned was Edward Coote Pinkney, likely the American poet which Poe most admired. He also read from the work of Tennyson. Even journalist John M. Daniel, with whom Poe had once almost dueled, reluctantly admitted: “Mr. Poe is a man of very decided genius. Indeed, we know of no other writer in the United States, who has half the chance to be remembered in the history of literature” (though he rightly predicted his reputation would be based on a small number of works).

The irony might be that Poe lost his lecture notes before he made it to Virginia. That means he had to rewrite it just before taking the center stage.

“I never was received with so much enthusiasm,” Poe reported to his mother-in-law Maria Clemm. The lecture later became the essay of the same name, published posthumously. That manuscript is somewhat controversial; allegedly found after Poe’s death, it was first published by Rufus Wilmot Griswold in his collected works of Poe. The original manuscript was immediately lost after publication.

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Birth of Virginia Clemm

Written by Rob Velella, August 15, 2009, as part of “The Edgar A. Poe Calendar: 365 Days of the Master of the Macabre and the Mystery“

Happy birthday to Virginia Eliza Clemm, who was born August 15, 1822.* She would have been 195 today.

What more can be said about Virginia that hasn’t been said here already? I’ve written about the only surviving letter from Poe to his wife, their unusual marriage (and uncertain anniversary date), and Valentine’s poem she wrote to her husband — just to name a few. Today, I’d like to introduce the Poe work which is most inspired by Virginia. It is not “The Raven,” nor is it “Annabel Lee.” It is, in fact, the short story “Eleonora.”

First published in the 1841 issue of The Gift, the story features an unnamed narrator who lives a life of isolation with his cousin and aunt. The setting is paradisaical, known as the Valley of the Many-Coloured Grass. Untrodden by strangers, the land is full of beautiful flowers and trees as well as a River of Silence. In this paradise, the narrator falls in love with his cousin — but she was sick, “made perfect in loveliness only to die.” She worries that when she dies, her cousin will move on and fall in love with another. He promises that would never happen.

Her death, the narrator says, kicks off “the second era of my existence.” This new life, however, is not as idyllic as it had been. The Valley of the Many-Coloured Grass does not survive after Eleonora’s death:

The star-shaped flowers shrank into the stems of the trees, and appeared no more. The tints of the green carpet faded, and one by one the ruby-red asphodels withered away… And life departed from our paths; for the tall flamingo flaunted no longer his scarlet plumage before us, but flew sadly from the vale into the hills, with all the gay, glowing birds that had arrived in his company. And the golden and silver fish swam down through the gorge at the lower end of our domain, and bedecked the sweet river never again… And then, lastly, the voluminous cloud uprose, and abandoning the tops of the mountains to the dimness of old, fell back into the regions of Hesper, and took away all its manifold golden and gorgeous glories from the Valley of the Many-Coloured Grass.

The narrator leaves and moves to an unnamed city. There, he marries Ermengarde, not fearing the vow he had made. Eleonora appears to him and blesses his new union, saying “Thou art absolved… for reasons which shall be made known to thee in Heaven.”

The story clearly references the idealism Poe had with his marriage (the biggest clue that this story is autobiographical is the inclusion of the aunt/mother-in-law character; she plays no clear role in the story but is a definite reference to Maria Clemm). Virginia was just beginning to show signs of tuberculosis — the illness which would kill her in five years. Poe was already feeling guilty that he might have to consider other women as potential second wives. Jumping the gun a bit? Maybe, but the more important aspect of the story is the idealism of the Valley of the Many-Coloured Grass, and how this paradise dies with the wife.

A couple lines from this story are often quoted, though it doesn’t seem most know the origin of these quotes. This might sound familiar:

Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled,whether madness be or be not the loftier intelligence — whether much that is glorious — whether all that is profound — does not spring from disease of thought, from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape the dreamers by night.

Happy birthday, Virginia.

* I have found one source that lists her birthday as August 22. The majority of sources, however, use the August 15 date.

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Poe’s Place In Literary History

Written by Rob Velella, August 14, 2009, as part of “The Edgar A. Poe Calendar: 365 Days of the Master of the Macabre and the Mystery“

Poe’s place in literary history is occasionally questioned. Should he be considered a master of American literature? Does he deserve a place in the canon? Is he really important? I might be biased so take my opinion with a grain of salt (this post will shift away from my more academic tone and may, in fact, turn into starry-eyed gushing over my favorite author). Here’s my argument: even if you remove the quality of Poe’s work from the equation, Poe is one of the most important writers in American history.

The real evidence for this comes on August 14, 1835. It was on that date that the Trustees of the Richmond Academy began selecting their new English teacher. The fact that it was not Poe should solidify Poe’s role in American literary history. Excluding his military stints, Poe only applied for two jobs outside of literature. The first was the job with the Richmond Academy teaching English. The second was a job with the Customs House in Philadelphia in 1841, hoping that a connection to Robert Tyler (brother of President John Tyler) would secure his employment. Neither role worked out. That means that Poe never had a job outside of literature; for his 40 short years, he would have no source of income besides his pen.

This is significant because no other major American writers in the first half of the United States were able to sustain themselves in such a manner. Washington Irving had a couple government jobs and was, for a time, part owner in a mercantile business. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and others held full-time teaching positions (at Harvard, in the case of all three). Nathaniel Hawthorne attempted to make a living as a farmer for a time before taking government jobs at two different Customs Houses (one in Boston, another in Salem, Massachusetts). Ralph Waldo Emerson had his ministry for a time and, later, a public lecturing career (he was also supported by an inheritance from the family of his first wife). Margaret Fuller struggled as a teacher in Providence before becoming a full-time journalist (and, then, nearly all of her writing was not literature but nonfiction).

Poe’s financial failure is obvious. Nevertheless, his attempt is nothing less than historical, if not extraordinary. The fact that he stood the test of time is minor (so did the other writers I mentioned above) but, coupled with his lack of any other job outside of literature, Poe should be considered a trailblazer.

Odds were stacked against him, of course. The country was young, its literature younger, and the economy was not established for professional authors. Poe’s critical work emphasized that the quality of American literature needed to improve and, as such, he fought against the puffing system which inhibited proper growth. He also railed against the lack of copyright (suggesting authors may as well slit their throats), the culture of republishing without authors’ permission, and the tastes of American audiences which, he believed, did not recognize quality over popularity. All of these factors needed to change before an American could make money solely as an author. Poe missed out on those ideal conditions and did not survive into the American Renaissance of the 1850s. Even with all that, when he died at age 40, he showed no signs of turning away from his desired path.

For the sake of full disclosure, Poe was also hampered by bad decisions. He married before he had an established income and, in doing so, inherited not only a young wife but also a mother-in-law who needed his financial support (though, to Maria Clemm‘s credit, she occasionally provided minor assistance through odd jobs and, of course, begging). He also didn’t stay in one place for too long, constantly moving when he needed to escape overdue rent payments or in an optimistic pursuit of greater opportunities — all the money he spent on rent and moving expenses could have been saved to buy a house. Other than that, he was thrifty, particularly in his clothing choices, but his challenges are already numerous.

Yes, Poe was a financial failure in his pursuit of the life of a professional author. But that failure was unprecedented — and it deserves our praise. Thanks to the Trustees of the Richmond Academy for (inadvertently) making it possible.

* Longfellow should be considered America’s first successful professional poet as of 1854, when he retired from his professorship. However, Longfellow was gifted a mansion at age 35 thanks to his father-in-law and had saved up enough money from teaching for about 17 years before he had the solid footing to become a professional poet. Credit is deserved there as well, certainly, but he did not have the same challenges as Poe.

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Poe and the Early Development of Photography

*This essay is part of Murray Ellison’s Master’s Thesis from Virginia Commonwealth University on Edgar Allan Poe and Science©

In 1840, Poe became a writer for Alexander’s Weekly Messenger and published three essays on the newly emerging image copying process, then known as the Daguerreotype. This technology was the earliest prototype for modern photography. Alan Trachtenberg in, Classic Essays on Photography, reprints Poe’s essays on the daguerreotype and calls them among the earliest commentaries on the processing of film. Trachtenberg writes that as early as 1828, M. Nicephore Niepce succeeded in producing a photographic image using an invention he called the Camera Obscura (4). Louis Daguerre claimed that his process was quicker than Niepce’s and that his image was seventy times sharper than anything that had been developed. “Without any knowledge of chemistry and physics, it will be possible to take in a few minutes the most detailed views, the most picturesque scenery… and replicate images of nature (12-13). Poe exclaims that the Daguerreotype “is, perhaps, the most extraordinary triumph of modern science.”(37). He reports on this subject first as a technical writer:

“A plate of silver upon copper is prepared, presenting a surface for the action of light, of the most delicate texture conceivable. A high polish is given this plate by means of a steatitic cancerous stone (called a Daguerreolite) and contains equal parts of steatite and carbonate of lime…The plate is then deposited in a Camera Obscura, and the lens of this instrument directed to the object which it is required to paint.” (37)

After describing the details needed to manipulate light and exposure time, Poe changes from the style of a technical writer to a writer of narrative prose or poetry. He expresses awe about the new technology: “For, in truth, the Daguerreotype is infinitely…more accurate in its representation than any painting by human hands.” Upon closer scrutiny, “the photogenic drawing discloses only a more absolute truth, a more perfect identity…with the thing represented.” He declares further: “The variations of shade and the gradations of both linear and aerial perspectives, are those of truth itself, in the supremeness of perfection.” He is amazed that a mechanical technology was invented by that captures the romantic beauty of nature. He challenges readers to look at this innovation and try to imagine how it could change the world of the future. The consequences of such an invention, he exclaims, “will exceed, by very much, the wildest expectations of the most imaginative.”

Perhaps, Poe foresaw that future scientists might be able to view previously “inaccessible locations,” like a “lunar chart,” by using this process (38). Poe’s commentaries appear to be favorable. It can also be conjectured that he was concerned that powerful new technologies might introduce future intrusions on privacy. His essays on the daguerreotype employ both technical and artistic styles to describe one of the most important innovations of his lifetime. Not only was he among the first journalists to write about this emerging technology, but he was also one of the earliest historical figures to have had visual images captured on camera of his likeness. Michael Deas has published a book with “over 70 of Poe’s images and portraits from various periods of his life,” entitled Portraits and Daguerreotypes of Edgar Allan Poe.

Sources

Deas, Michael J. Portraits and Daguerreotypes of Edgar Allan Poe. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1988.

Trachtenberg, Alan. Classic Essays on Photography, Ed. New Haven: Leetes Island Books, 1980.

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Edgar Allan Poe: Conchologist?

An excerpt from Murray Ellison’s Master of Arts Thesis © 2015

The Conchologist’s First Book was first published in April 1839, with its author being listed as Edgar Allan Poe. However, Poe was a consulting editor of the book and only wrote the Preface and Introduction. According to Poe documentarians Dwight Thomas and David Jackson, Poe credited much of the work to scientist Thomas Wyatt for “his late excellent Manual of Conchology.” The book was originally meant to be an accessible and inexpensive abridgment of Wyatt’s original textbook (259). The work was published under Poe’s name due to his popularity. It turned out to be the most popular book, in sales, printed under Poe’s name. The fact that Wyatt asked Poe to accept authorship demonstrates that at least one professional scientist identified Poe as a credible authority on science. Poe’s interest in seashells was likely inspired by his service in the United States Army along the coastline of Charleston, South Carolina.

In Poe’s Introduction to the book, he explains that the history of the study of mollusks (seashells) went back to the ancient Greeks, noting the descriptions of seashells by Pliny and Aristotle. He documents that there have been significant historical studies of seashells found on board numerous seafaring vessels, on remote South Sea Islands, in West Africa, Chili, and New Holland. He argues that “Few branches of Natural History… are of more adventitious importance” than Conchology (Poe’s Complete Works XIV 98). A notable feature of this book is that it was one of the first popular scientific books to include color pages, offering “illustrations of two hundred and fifteen shells, presenting a correct type of each genus” (95).

Poe’s book was one of the first scientific publications to offer color plate illustrations.

The first edition was so popular that the publishers printed a second one in the same year. The third version was published in 1845 under Wyatt’s name, but Poe’s initials were only retained in the Preface (Thomas and Jackson 608). Poe’s involvement in The Conchologists First Book demonstrates that he was interested in lending his name to a legitimate scientific work. However, it also shows that he was willing to accept author’s credit for a work that he did not write.

*An excerpt from Murray Ellison’s Master of Arts Thesis © 2015

 

Sources:

Poe, Edgar A.The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume XIV: Essays and Miscellaneous. Ed.Harrison, James A. New York: T. Crowell, 1902.

Thomas, Dwight and David Jackson, Ed.The Poe Log- A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849.Boston: G.B. Hall and Company, 1987.

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The Poe Museum Blog

Poe’s Cryptographic Imagination – Part II

Taken from Baltimore Post-Examiner

Modern Computer Solves Poe’s Last Inscrutable Puzzle

Murray Ellison | April 13, 2018

Excerpts from Murray’s VCU Master of Arts Thesis on Poe and Science © 2015.

Poe published several columns on cryptography entitled “A Few Words on Secret Writing.” He explains that advanced puzzles, where the only secret to the code is “locked in the creator’s mind can be very difficult or nearly impossible to solve.” Poe mentions that the acclaimed sixteenth-century English philosopher and scientist Francis Bacon “very properly defined three essentials in secret correspondence.” Bacon’s first essential is that the cipher should “elude suspicion of being a cipher.” Secondly, that its alphabet should be so simple “as to demand but little time in the construction of the epistle.” Thirdly, that it should be “absolutely insoluble without the key.” Poe adds the fourth essential: “With the key, it is promptly and certainly decipherable” (147), perhaps, because he felt that he needed to solve the submitted puzzles in time to have them published in the upcoming issues of his journal articles. He quotes from a letter from a reader who has never been authenticated, named “W.B. Tyler,” who praises Poe’s correct solution to Dr. Charles J. Frailey’s puzzles. This mysterious letter pronounces: “You have exhibited a power of analytical and synthetical reasoning I have never seen equaled… I crown you the king of secret readers” (141). “Tyler’s” letter also proposes two additional challenging ciphers—which, according to Rosenheim, were among the only “legitimate” ones submitted that Poe was never able to solve” (39).

Poe explained in his December 1841 Graham’s article that Tyler’s cipher was indecipherable because it was improperly constructed. Rosenheim supports Poe’s assertion by stating that it was difficult to solve because spaces and punctuation were omitted between the letters and that it was written backward (38). Poe also states that he did not work at Tyler’s second challenge because the many ciphers being submitted to him by his readers “were beginning to take too much of his time” (149). In other words, it did not meet Poe’s fourth condition for legitimate puzzles. Rosenheim initially commented that Tyler’s longer second cipher “remains unsolved—and is likely to stay so for some time.” He wrote that in order “to solve that cipher, one needs to identify up to 156 characters…using six alphabets” (39).

However, after publishing this statement, Rosenheim had reservations about his initial conclusions and decided to determine whether twentieth-century cryptographers could unlock the second and most difficult unsolved puzzle. Rosenheim’s subsequent contest in early 2000, which he called, “The Edgar Allan Poe Cryptographic Challenge, “was supported by a $2500 prize from Williams College for anyone who could solve Tyler’s ciphers. On October 31, 2000, Newswise, an academic science news service of Williams College reported that both ciphers had been solved by a software programmer living in Toronto, named Gil Bronza. According to Rosenheim, it turned out that the second cipher was a polyalphabetic substitution cipher and contained “over two dozen mistakes.” It is ironic that it took a modern computer analyst to decipher the only two unsolved ciphers of the hundreds that readers submitted to Poe. I have been informed by our present-day Curator, Chris Semtner, that Gil Bronza visited the Poe Museum after winning the prize money. Despite Poe’s inability to solve a puzzle proposed by Tyler, or possibly himself, Rosenheim concludes that Poe was one of the most skilled cryptologists in history (Cryptographic Imagination 24). He points out that Poe’s columns on secret codes were also the first ones to be featured in popular newspapers. They generated a continued interest in this topic in and after Poe’s lifetime. Poe’s cipher format has also been proliferated in the present era in newspaper columns like Poe’s called “The Puzzle of the Day.” Poe next demonstrates that his interests in science are diverse, ranging from technical topics about chess and computers and from discussions about pseudo-science to unlocking solutions to deeply hidden puzzles and mysteries.

Selected Sources

Poe, Edgar Allan. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume XIV: Essays and Miscellaneous. Ed. Harrison, James A. New York: T. Crowell, 1902.

Rosenheim, Shawn. The Cryptographic Imagination: Secret Writing from Edgar Allan Poe to the Internet. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1997.

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The Poe Museum Blog

Poe’s Cryptographic Imagination – Part I

Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription on wood, from the tomb of the general Horemheb. Saqqara, Egypt, c. 1300 BCE. Louvre Museum, Paris, France.

Poe’s Cryptographic Imagination – Part I

Murray Ellison | February 1, 2018

Excerpts from Murray’s VCU Master of Arts Thesis on Poe and Science © 2015.

Poe continued to demonstrate an interest in unlocking mysteries and secrets in several of the essays and newspaper columns he wrote on secret codes and cryptography. These popular weekly columns offered puzzles, in which readers were invited to propose solutions and suggest additional ones for use in subsequent editions. He then provided the solutions to the ciphers in subsequent issues. Once Poe introduced the topic, readers sent in hundreds of other ciphers. His columns on secret writing became a very popular component of Graham’s Magazine. According to Shawn Rosenheim’s The Cryptographic Imagination, Poe’s four articles in Graham’s on secret writing are among the first published texts on the subject of cryptography. Rosenheim, a scholarly authority on secret codes in science and literature, notes that Cryptology “is composed of two parts: cryptography, the art of making codes, and cryptanalysis, the art of breaking them down” (254).

Poe’s “A Few Words on Secret Writing” first appeared in the July 1841 issue of Graham’s Magazine. As Poe writes, “We can scarcely imagine a time when there did not exist a necessity of transmitting information from one individual to another, in such a manner as to elude general comprehension.” Therefore, “we may well suppose the practice of writing in cipher to be of great antiquity” (Complete Works XIV 114). Poe’s accounts range from how the ancients used hieroglyphics to how the early Greeks used scytala, or wooden blocks, to carry secret messages between officers and messengers. He notes that the modern uses of secret communications started with the invention of letters and printed communications. “Few persons can be made to believe that it is not quite easy to invent a method of secret writing which shall baffle the investigation.” However, he acknowledges that people have different skill levels in solving secret codes. “It will be found that, while one cannot unriddle the commonest cipher, the other will scarcely be puzzled by the most abstruse” (116).

Demonstrating how secret codes may be formed and solved, Poe begins with simple substitution codes, where letters, numbers, and symbols stand for others. For example, he writes that in a systematic substitution code, “z” may stand for an “a,” and “x” for a “b.” In a random code, “a” may stand for “p,” and “b” for other variable letters. Harder to decipher codes, he suggests, may be constructed by using symbols for letters. He notes that there have been many attempts to construct such advanced codes, such as those that have perpetually shifting solutions. Many of them, he says “have about them an air of inscrutable secrecy. It appears almost an impossibility to unriddle what has been put together by so complex a method” (118). Poe’s suggestion that some ciphers have “an air of inscrutable secrecy” appears to be setting readers up for his explaining why he has been unable to perform a workable cryptanalysis on two inscrutable puzzles, which were apparently sent in by a reader named , “Tyler.”
In next month’s column, I will discuss Poe’s explanations on why he couldn’t solve these two puzzles, speculation about whether those puzzles might have been submitted by Poe, and how it took until the year of 2000, prize money by a famous research university, and a modern computer programmer named Gil Bronza to unravel “Tyler’s” almost inscrutable ciphers.

Selected Sources

Poe, Edgar Allan. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume XIV: Essays and Miscellaneous. Ed. Harrison, James A. New York: T. Crowell, 1902.

Rosenheim, Shawn. The Cryptographic Imagination: Secret Writing from Edgar Allan Poe to the Internet. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1997.

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The Poe Museum Blog

The Poe & Science Series

Was Poe Convinced that Phrenology is a Science?

Murray Ellison | Jan. 8, 2018

Excerpts from Murray’s VCU Master of Arts Thesis on Poe and Science © 2015

Poe continued his interest in spectacular news stories that blurred the lines between fact and fiction in an 1836 review on this topic: “A Review of Phrenology and the Moral Influences of Phrenology.” During the nineteenth century, there had been many debates among scientists whether Phrenology was a legitimate science or a pseudo-science. Advocates of this belief often used emotional appeals and anecdotal testimonials in order to “prove” that their views were supported by empirical science. This subject also received intense interest from the public and much coverage in the newspapers and magazines that Poe would have been exposed to as a journalist. Thus, it is likely that Poe was assigned by his editor to investigate this topic. Later in 1836, Poe wrote a more extensive report for the Southern Literary Messenger titled, “Phrenology and the Moral Influence of Phrenology,” which has been reprinted in James A. Harrison’s Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume VIII.

In this second SLM article, Poe reported on the “General Study” and “Discoveries” of Phrenology that were conducted by Gall, Spurzheim, and others. His account of the works of several of the “prominent” persons conducting research on phrenology demonstrates that he was interested in exploring a broad range of popular science-related topics. However, a careful reading of his commentaries also reveals that he maintained journalistic neutrality on a subject that was being questioned at that time by the public as well as by the professional scientific community. In his report, Poe assures readers that “Phrenology is no longer to be laughed at. It has assumed the majesty of a science; and, as a science, ranks among the most important which can engage the attention of thinking beings” (Collected Writings 8: 252). His use of the wording, “assumed the majesty of a science” indicates that he is enthusiastic about reporting on the subject, while also remaining personally non-committal concerning whether Phrenology is a valid area of scientific investigation. He maintains journalistic neutrality when he reports that the study of this science is “very extensively accredited in Germany, in France, in Scotland, and in both Americas.” He describes how a single lecture, in Scotland by Dr. Spurzheim “gained five hundred converts to Phrenology…Northern Athens is now a stronghold for the faith” (252). His use of the words “converts” and “faith” indicates that he may not have been convinced that Phrenology was as much of a hard science as many of its believers claimed. During this period, most scientists and religious leaders rejected the claims that there were connections between empirically-based fields of science and faith-based spiritual practices. Poe reports that its followers claim that with a well-directed inquiry of Phrenology, “Individuals may obtain, through the science, a perfectly accurate estimate of their moral capabilities…and will be better fitted for decision in regard to a choice of offices and duties in life” (253). It is difficult to determine whether those reporters’ extraordinary claims are serious or “tongue in cheek.” Therefore, his documentation of Phrenology’s classification system could be read as a serious scientific description, or as a satirical expose—depending on whether readers agree or disagree that it is a science.

Poe writes that the study and classification system of Phrenology is often divided into the two main categories of “Instinctive Propensities and Sentiments,” and “Intellectual Faculties.” The former category includes the traits of “Domestic Affections, Preservative Faculties, Prudential Sentiments, Regulating Powers, Imaginative Powers, and Moral Sentiments.” As an example, “Domestic Affectations” include Embraces, Philopregentiveness, Inhabitiveness, and Attachment. The second main category, “Intellectual Faculties,” is divided into “Observing, Scientific, Reflecting, and the Subservient Faculties—which is language.” In another example, “Reflecting Faculties” include Eventuality, Comparison, Causality, and Wit” (254).

Poe concludes his report by noting that studies of Phrenology have emphasized that the particular shape of a person’s head may denote particular talents or dispositions. He writes that “Edinensis” reported that the brain and head of an “Idiot” may be very small and that large headed people may be marked with animal tendencies. He writes that “Gall” claimed that a person who has a skull “Which is elevated or high above the ears…and thrown forward, so as to be nearly perpendicular with its base, may be presumed to lodge a brain of greater power…than a skull deficient in such proportion” (255).

After reading Poe’s journalistic reporting, it is difficult to determine whether he believed in Phrenology. Although he provided several testimonials from people of that “faith,” he provided no personal statement on that subject. Therefore, it is difficult to conclude if Poe’s story was more likely influenced by the public’s interest in Phrenology or by his belief that it was or was not a science. Yet, we can see in Poe’s reports that he revealed many interesting details and flaws about this subject. It must be noted again here, that this topic was considered by many to be a legitimate subject of scientific inquiry in the nineteenth century. Regardless of whether Poe believed these accounts were credible, they provided him with a phrenological framework for the descriptions and features of several characters in his later fictional works, such as “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” We shall discuss these characteristics in my later discussions about Poe’s science-based fiction. In next month’s blog, I will begin a two-part series on Poe’s interest in puzzles and Cryptography.

Selected References

Poe, Edgar Allan. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume VIII: Early Criticism I. Ed. Harrison, James A. New York: T. Crowell, 1902.

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