Happy Women’s History Month! Although the Poe Museum celebrates Edgar Allan Poe, there were many women in his life that supported him, inspired him, and helped him find success and fame. Let’s take a look at the influential women in Poe’s life.
Eliza Poe
Eliza Poe was a renowned traveling actress and mother of Edgar Allan Poe. Unfortunately, she succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of 24, when little Edgar was only 2 years old. Her acting legacy most likely inspired Poe’s dramatic performances of his most famous pieces, which was a major source of income and was ultimately one of the ways Poe was able to become America’s first professional writer.
Frances Allan
Frances Allan was Edgar Allan Poe’s foster mother, who — along with her husband John Allan — unofficially adopted Poe when he was 2 years old. She encouraged little Edgar to recite poetry from a young age and supported his artistic aspirations until her death brought upon by an unknown illness in 1829 when Poe was only 20 years old.
Elmira Royster Shelton
Elmira was Edgar Allan Poe’s first and last fiancé. They were first engaged when Poe left for the University of Virginia, but Elmira’s father encouraged her to marry a wealthier man. Decades later, Poe and Elmira rekindled their romance when he was 40 and she, 39. Twenty-three years after Elmira broke their engagement, they became engaged a second time, but Poe died 10 days before their wedding. Their early relationship was most likely the inspiration behind a number of the pieces in Poe’s first published book of poems Tamerlane and Other Poems.
Jane Stith Stanard
Jane Stith Stanard was the mother of one of Edgar Allan Poe’s childhood friend’s Robert Stanard. Poe was captivated by Jane and even considered her to be a mother figure to him, since his own mother died when he was very young. At a time when Poe’s foster father discouraged him from reading or writing poetry, Jane encouraged and supported the budding poet. Jane died of an unknown mental illness when Poe was only 15. Years later, Poe wrote the poem “To Helen” about Jane Stith Stanard.
“To Helen” (1831)
To Helen
Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o’er a perfum’d sea, The weary way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the beauty of fair Greece, And the grandeur of old Rome.
Lo! in that little window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand! The folded scroll within thy hand — A Psyche from the regions which Are Holy land!
Virginia Clemm Poe
Although Virginia and Edgar Allan Poe’s relationship was very controversial, Virginia inspired much of Poe’s writing, especially after her death. One of Poe’s most famous quotes “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity” comes not from a poem or story, but from a letter Poe wrote in reference to Virginia’s long and suffering illness that ended in her death. It was clear that Virginia’s death devastated Poe, and he was never truly the same afterwards. The only one of Virginia’s poems that survives is a Valentine’s acrostic poem she composed for Edgar the year before she died.
Sarah Helen Whitman
Sarah Helen Whitman was a professional writer who met Edgar Allan Poe through the literary circles in New York. She introduced herself to him by publishing the poem “To Edgar Poe.” He replied by sending her a poem of his own. They began exchanging love letters and became engaged. Their engagement quickly ended due to Edgar’s failure to uphold his promise of sobriety. Although the two never married, Poe wrote the poem “To S__ H__ W__” (retitled “To Helen” after his death, even though he had already used that title for another poem) about her. The following is a quote that Sarah Helen Whitman wrote about reading Poe’s writing:
“I can never forget the impressions I felt in reading a story of his for the first time… I experienced a sensation of such intense horror that I dared neither look at anything he had written nor even utter his name… By degrees this terror took the character of fascination—I devoured with a half-reluctant and fearful avidity every line that fell from his pen.”
-Sarah Helen Whitman
Frances Sargent Osgood
As one of the most prominent female poets in the 1840s, Frances Sargent Osgood captured the attention of Poe in 1845. Although much is debated on the nature of their relationship. Poe secretly hid Frances Sargent Osgood’s name in his poem “A Valentine.” Can you find it?
A Valentine
For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes, Brightly expressive as the twins of Loeda, Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader. Search narrowly the lines!—they hold a treasure Divine—a talisman—an amulet That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure— The words—the syllables! Do not forget The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor! And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre, If one could merely comprehend the plot. Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing Of poets, by poets—as the name is a poet’s, too. Its letters, although naturally lying Like the knight Pinto—Mendez Ferdinando— Still form a synonym for Truth—Cease trying! You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.
Maria “Muddy” Clemm
Maria was Edgar Allan Poe’s aunt, but for most of his life Maria assumed a maternal role for him. After Poe was disowned by his foster father and expelled from West Point, Maria took him in. She eventually became his mother-in-law and was always seen as a stabilizing figure for Poe, even after her daughter Virginia’s death. Poe was on his way to bring Maria from New York to Richmond when he died. Maria lived to be 80 years old, outliving all of her children and Poe himself. Poe paid tribute to her in his poem “To My Mother.”
Anne C. Lynch
Anne C. Lynch was a New York writer, sculptor, tutor, and socialite who helped introduce Poe to the New York literary clique after the publication of “The Raven” had brought him international celebrity. In order to encourage the development of literature in the United States, she hosted weekly writers’ receptions that allowed the nation’s leading authors to meet and exchange ideas. When she added Poe to her guest list, he became one of the main attractions of her soirees, until a scandal involving love letters being sent to him by a couple of the other attendees forced her to remove him from her list. Poe once wrote about Anne C. Lynch:
“She is chivalric, self-sacrificing, equal to any fate, capable even of martyrdom, in whatever should seem to her a holy cause. She has a hobby, and this is, the idea of duty.”
-Edgar Allan Poe
Sarah J. Hale
Sarah J. Hale is mainly remembered today for encouraging Abraham Lincoln to establish the Thanksgiving national holiday, but, in her time, the “Mother of Thanksgiving” was best known as the editor of Godey’s Ladies’ Book, the most popular magazine in the United States. Whether you know it or not, you probably also know one of her poems, “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” She was already a successful and powerful editor when she first discovered the 21-year-old Poe’s work and published a notice of his book Al Aaraaf. She continued to encourage him throughout his career, and some of his most popular work, including “The Cask of Amontillado,” originally appeared in the pages of Godey’s, which helped him reach the widest audience then available in this country.
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.
From train accidents, bridge collapses, and steamboat wrecks, to diseases such as the “White Plague,” or tuberculosis, it is undeniable that the nineteenth century was a witness of tragedy and deep mourning. Although the idea of mourning and mourning culture is not exclusive to the 1800s, it is safe to say the 1800s may have especially romanticized death and dying. Consider Poe, who wrote in The Philosophy of Composition, “the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world…” From post-mortem photography and paintings to mourning brooches and tear vials; from black-bordered stationery to requirements of attire and length of mourning time–all these things make mourning culture of the 1800s worth exploring.
Watercolor Death Portrait of Virginia Clemm Poe.
In our collection, there are several objects and manuscripts relating to or similar to mourning objects, which will be examined in this article. Our first object is the death portrait of Virginia Clemm Poe, wife of Edgar Allan Poe. In 1842, Virginia Clemm Poe contracted tuberculosis, said to have been discovered while singing at the piano before her husband and mother Maria. The next five years were years of torment for Edgar, who strived to care for his wife. His faculties were in vain as, without proper medication, the disease claimed Virginia and she died on January 30, 1847. The painted portrait in our collection showcases Virginia just days after her death—her pale pallor and listless eyes display a stirring image. Not only were these haunting death portraits common during this era, but photographs of the deceased were also common during this time. With the introduction of the daguerreotype in the 1840’s, discovered by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre in the 1830’s, meant customers could preserve themselves in a silver-tinted memento, which could then be used for display or to wear (which we will look at later on in this article). Because many potential customers could afford neither paintings nor photographs during their lifetime, the post-mortem photograph became a last resort for families in order to preserve the memories of their loved ones. Although we do not carry a post-mortem photograph in our collection—no, that “post-mortem” photograph of Edgar floating about the internet is not, in fact, of Poe—our Virginia death portrait still stands as a lovely example of capturing beauty in death. (Note: We would like to warn our readers that post-mortem photography is not for the faint of heart. Should you look examples of these up, Google may supply disturbing images.)
Faux “Death Photo of Poe”
Just as preserving one’s image was important to the nineteenth-century, preserving other, physical mementos was important. Of course, material items such as clothing or books were held onto; but, in this case, we’re talking about hair. It may seem peculiar that hair was so precious during this era; however, it may not seem odd when compared to our modern culture’s custom of keeping baby teeth after they fall out.
Just as we sometimes tuck away teeth after they’ve done their Tooth Faerie duty, Victorians would snip a lock of hair, either from the living or, in our case, from the deceased, and also tuck it in a safe place. If cut from the deceased, it was most likely used for mourning and memorial purposes. Our museum has a few examples displaying the crafty ways hair was used, including our hair wreath and a lock of Poe’s hair. The former object, the hair wreath, serves as an example of how the living would save their hair, often in a hair receiver, and re-purpose it to create intricate hairy flowers and leaves. Often times as well, tiny, delicate decorations, such as colored pins and pearls were incorporated to enhance the artistic design of the memorial piece. The latter object mentioned, being a lock of Poe’s hair, serves as our example of a post-mortem memento. Not only does our museum own a lock of Poe’s hair, but other locks of hair remain floating about. In 1875, during the disinterment of Poe’s body, the coffin he was in gave way, exposing his corpse before the public. Those standing by proceeded to cut off pieces of Poe’s hair, perhaps to use for their own mournful ceremonies, or, perhaps, to say they owned a piece of Poe. Regardless of their intentions, these post-mortem mementos remain in circulation to this day, and we are especially proud to own a lock. On a side note, I wonder if Edgar woke up one day in his grave, only to discover he had received a bad haircut? A bad hair day makes for a bad day, period. (Read more about the disinterment of Poe here.)
But what would have been the significance of keeping Poe’s lock of hair, for example, except to prove that the man did, in fact, exist at some point, or if not to use in a decorative and complicated hair wreath? Mourning brooches were a fad that seemed to rise during the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries, alongside other pieces of mourning jewelry. For example, according to Meredith Woerner in her article, “Love after Death: The Beautiful, Macabre World of Mourning Jewelry,” pocket watches, lockets, fobs (braided hair ropes with a locket, especially used for pocket watches), cufflinks, and rings were used for these purposes (source). Our museum just had a previous showcasing of both Edgar and Virginia’s hair, carefully preserved in lockets, which you can read more about here.
But why wear these lock-laden brooches during a period of mourning? It was socially acceptable, by all means. These brooches, or other various pieces of mourning jewelry, would perfectly accessorize black clothing worn by family members. Pauline Weston Thomas in her article, “Mourning Fashion, Fashion History” for Fashion-Era Online, provides an excellent explanation of the etiquette of mourning-wear by explaining:
“A widow would mourn for two and a half years, with the first year and a day in full mourning. During that time, pieces of the crape covered just about all of a garment at deepest mourning, but the crape was partially removed to reach the period of secondary mourning which lasted nine months. After that the crape was defunct and a widow could wear fancier lusher fabrics or fabric trims made from black velvet and silk and have them adorned with jet trimming, lace, fringe, and ribbons.
In the final six months, a period called half mourning began. Ordinary clothes could be worn in acceptable subdued shades of grey, white or purple, violet, pansy, heliotrope, soft mauve and of course black. Every change was subtle and gradual, beginning firstly with trims of these colors being added to the black dresses. These were the transitional mourning dresses from secondary mourning to the final stage of lesser ordinary half mourning where colors like purple and cream rosettes, bows, belts and streamers along with jet stones or buttons were introduced.
Similar rules applied for the wearing of hats or bonnets. As the mourning progressed, so the hats and bonnets became more trimmed and fancy, whilst veils became shorter until they were eventually removed altogether.” (Source)
It sounds complicated and like tremendous work to remember, amidst the sorrow and grieving, which clothes to and to not wear. However, fashion was an integral facet of the entire process of mourning during this time, and the previously mentioned mementos only catered to the road to healing.
Alongside photos, pendants, and black attire, certain other accessories were sufficient for the healing process. Tear vials also played their part in this somber culture. Lachrymatory predates Christ, as it is referenced in Psalm 56:8, “Thou tellest my wanderings, put thou my tears in Thy bottle; are they not in Thy Book?” (Lachrymatory Online). However, this tradition reappeared in the 1800’s, carried on through the Civil War, and there are even contemporary bottles still being made. But what was the purpose of this device in the Victorian era? These bottles simply collected tears during the stages of grief. Once the tears evaporated, this indicated an end to the mourning period. Perhaps Maria Clemm Poe would have used one of these vials at the graveside of her dear son-in-law Eddy, or Edgar, himself, use one to collect his woeful tears after the death of his Virginia. Although we do not have one in our collection, there is a high probability that these were relevant to Poe throughout his life. Or, perhaps parchments, such as his letters and manuscripts, collected his tears? We wouldn’t be surprised. Although we do not own one in our collection, there is a connection between Poe, these tear vials, and Richmond’s own Monumental Church, which is worth exploring. Monumental Church is known within the Poe community as having been the church that Edgar and his “foster” parents, John and Frances Allan, attended. To be exact, they maintained pew number 80. But how do these tear vials connect with this church, and thus with Poe? According to Mary Ann Sullivan, who has also provided a photo example of the side on which these can be seen, “The portico [of the church] serves as the memorial with unusual symbols–the lacrimals (tear vials) in the frieze” (Source). The significance of these tear vials carries greater weight, which we will reveal with more context. Not only was this church formerly a Richmond Theater where Edgar’s mother, Eliza, had performed; but, it serves as a memorial and as testimony for a tragic occurrence. On December 26, 1811, the Richmond Theater caught ablaze, engulfing the theater in flames and claiming several lives. Monumental Church was rebuilt in its place to honor these lost lives, and thus Edgar and the Allans would have been exposed to these lacrimal symbols—these symbols perpetually representing eternal mourning for the lives tragically lost.
This ties us into our last object of mourning, which we have a number of examples of at our museum. Mourning stationery, such as the letter seen below, was a custom practiced to indicate to those you were writing to whether or not you were still mourning. Considering the tubercular rage that swept the nation, it wouldn’t be shocking if these were being sold in surplus. What is markedly distinctive about this stationery, as compared to regular stationery, is the black bordering. In this example, Rufus Griswold is writing a letter dated May 1843, five months after the death of his wife, Caroline. This is an appropriate amount of time to still be using this stationery, for, according to Victorian Web online, Victorian mourning stationery was used up to a year after the loss of a loved one.
An example of mourning stationery, from the Poe Museum’s Rufus W. Griswold Collection.
Despite these material objects and mementos, nothing could truly heal a broken heart or replace the corporeal spirit of lost loved ones. However, the condolence these objects and customs brought must not have completely been in vain, for just as some of these customs were being used before Christ, so are other customs still being used today. Perhaps it is time we reincorporate these Victorian mourning customs? Dear reader, would you implement these customs into your personal life?
Drawing of Poe at Ft. Monroe
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Written by Murray Ellison
Poe’s early schooling and military training inspire and shape his interest in science. According to Kenneth Silverman, Poe’s secondary education started after his foster parents moved from England to Richmond. In 1821, “Edgar attended the private academy of Joseph H. Clarke,” which served to prepare young gentlemen to obtain “an honorable entrance in any University in the United States.” One of Poe’s classmates wrote a testimonial that he was one of the top students in the class (23). In The Poe Log, Thomas and Jackson list the classes that students typically enrolled in while at the school, including English, Languages (French, Latin, and Greek), Arithmetic, Geometry, Trigonometry, Navigation (using celestial observations), Gunnery and Projectiles, Optics, Geography, Maps and Charts, and Astronomy (41, 48). Continuing a description of Poe’s education and experiences, Silverman writes, In February 1826, Edgar Allan Poe was among the first group of students enrolled at the University of Virginia. School records indicate that he was a bright and dedicated student. However, hefty financial and gambling debts to the University and his classmates left him hopelessly in debt. When his foster father refused to continue paying for Poe’s college expenses, he was forced him to drop out of college in March 1827 (Silverman 29-34).
Major William F. Hecker, the author of Private Perry and MisterPoe, writes that Poe enlisted in the United States Army on May 26, 1827, under the alias of Private Poe. He spent three years as an artilleryman stationed for the longest period at Fort Moultrie, in a coastal area of Sullivan’s Island outside of Charleston, South Carolina. Poe spent much of his Army service learning cannon drill and maintenance. This task needed to be performed by a soldier who had extraordinary expertise and skill in the areas of measurement, logistical planning, and design. Army records indicate that Poe was “the most technically competent artillerist in his battery.” He was assigned to “oversee the ammunition supply of the battery.” He was quickly advanced to an artificer, a technical job concerning the “weights and measures of iron and chemicals” (xxxiv). According to Army records, “Poe was the army’s expert bomb artisan, carefully designing, preparing and constructing inter-connected systems of iron and chemicals with the ultimate goal of explosively destroying his creation (xxxv- xxix). It was extraordinary for that time that Poe was promoted to a Sergeant Major in less than two years after he enlisted (xxix). Hecker concludes that Poe’s four years in the Army exposed him to many disparate subjects such as Cryptography, Geography, Oceanography, and Astronomy (xii). Also, he was able to employ many of his training and experiences in his journalistic and fictional works.
Nineteenth-century science and journalism were undergoing dramatic new advances during and after Poe’s military service during the same the time that he was also embarking on a writing career. These next essays will focus on the ways in which his subsequent journalistic news articles, columns, and essays reflected his and the public’s interest in the emerging scientific trends of the nineteenth century. Much scholarship has been dedicated to Poe’s poetry and fiction, but little to his science narratives written in the style of journalism.
George Daniels, in American Science in the Age of Jackson asserts that many of the most important theories and discoveries of the nineteenth century had already “been well-formulated and new subjects of controversy began to appear.” He argues, “Americans had contributed only minimally to the developing body of world science before the twentieth century” (3-4). This period was more important because it led to new ways for the “popularizers,” to explain science to the public (40). During the 1830’s, American journalism was beginning to reflect many of the significant social and technological changes of the nineteenth century. Improvements in printing technologies helped to produce and distribute newspapers and magazines more efficiently and less expensively to the public than had previously been possible. In Discovering the News, Michael Schudson reports, “The development of railroad transportation and telegraphic communications were the necessary preconditions for a cheap, mass-circulation, news-hungry, and independent press” (32). With these changes, newspapers and magazines suddenly were becoming more prevalent to the American public. Also, their ability to influence public attitudes about important issues, such as science, increased as their circulation rose. In 1830, the country had 650 weeklies and 64 dailies, with an average circulation of 78,000. By 1840, there were 1,141 weeklies and 138 dailies, with an average circulation of 300,000 (14). Schudson argues that early nineteenth-century penny newspapers and journals “invented the modern concept of the news.” In the “1830’s newspapers also began to reflect the activities of an increasingly varied, urban, and middle-class society” (22-23). The public’s interest in science also created the need for a new class of writers who could present scientific information in ways that the public could understand. At the same time, new print media sources, such as newspapers, journals, and encyclopedias offered these writers new powerful methods of communicating about science to the public.
It is, therefore, likely that the increased position of newspapers and magazines in the 1830’s influenced Poe’s decision to publish his works in these new powerful communication mediums. Gerald Kennedywrites, “In Poe’s writing career he worked… as a “proofreader, editor, reviewer” of newspapers in Baltimore, Richmond, Philadelphia, and New York—the publishing centers of the United States” (64). These venues also provided him with the “shelter in some happier star” to bring his imaginative ideas to the largest possible audience. Burton R. Pollin comments, in 1973, at the Annual Convention of the Poe Society in Baltimore, “Poe’s whole life was devoted to language-making. Early in his career as a poet, the niceties and refinements of words engaged his passionate devotion. He became a magazinist, as he honorifically called himself, in an age when the trend was “Magazine-ward.” To “use a Poe coinage; then he produced a stream of tales, reviews, essays, and lectures (www.eapoe.org). As a journalist, Poe’s attitude about science began to shift from an ambivalent to a more supportive position. With a reporter’s access to the news, he often wrote enthusiastically about many of the exciting new developments or “treasures” of science. It is hard to determine whether he wrote favorably about science because he was impressed about his topics, or if his editors expected him to write positive reports. By writing about science as a journalist, he could have it both ways: he could report about science, but still keep his personal convictions concealed. Works from this chapter, unless otherwise indicated, will cite from several volumes of the Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, by James Harrison. In the next column, I will discuss one of Poe’s first investigative reports for the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, “Maazel’s Chess-Player.”
Daniels, George. American Science in the Age of Jackson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968.
Hecker, William F. Private Perry and Mister Poe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005.
Kennedy, Gerald. A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Poe. Edgar A. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume XIV: Essays and Miscellaneous. Ed. Harrison, James A. New York: T. Crowell, 1902.
Pollin, Burton R. “Creator of Words.” Baltimore: Lecture delivered at the Fifty-first Annual Commemoration of the Edgar A. Poe Society, July 7, 1973. Web. 1 March 2015.
Schudson, Michael. Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers. New York: Basic Books, 1978.
Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar Allan Poe: A Biography. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
Murray Ellison
About the Author
Dr. Murray Ellison received a Master’s in Education from Temple University (1973), a Master’s Degree of Arts in English Literature from Virginia Commonwealth University (2015), and a Doctorate in Education at Virginia Tech (1988). He is married and has three adult daughters. He retired as the Virginia Director of Community Corrections for the Department of Correctional Education in 2009. He is the founder and chief editor of this literary blog and is an editor for the International Correctional Education Journal. He is Co-Editor of the 2017 Poetry Book, Mystic Verses by Shambhushivananda. He also serves as a board member, volunteer tour guide, and the Facilities Planning Committee Coordinator at the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, VA, and writes a monthly column for the Museum website, thepoeblog.org. He has taught literature classes on Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, and F.Scott Fitzgerald (thus far) at the OSHER Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Richmond. He is the organizer and Coördinator of The First Fridays Classic Book Club, and is the co-organizer, along with Rebecca Elizabeth Jones, of the VCU Working Titles Book Club. Contact Murray at ellisonms2@vcu.edu, or leave a Comment at the bottom of any post.
John Limon argues that Poe was one of the first American writers who was important both to the fields of literature and science because he engaged in literary mediation, or “negotiation with science.” Limon notes that Poe’s works provide abundant examples that he anticipated forecasted several future developments in technology, e.g., exploration of the Poles, astronomy, physics, space travel, photography, electronic communications, and the forensic sciences. He wrote about these technical subjects in imaginative ways that captured the public’s interest and concludes that lay writers like Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, or those who wrote “without “letters,” also struggled with the professional class to establish their authority to speak on emerging scientific issues “(19).
Poe had not received any formal training as a scientist. However, he had considerable exposure to scientific ideas in his education, in his training, and in his investigations of science. He believed that an interested, observant, and skilled writer did not need credentials from any official accreditation organization before he was qualified to write about scientific topics. Therefore, in the present column, I will discuss Poe’s early technical preparation, activities, and some of his experiences that likely inspired his interest in writing about science as a poet, journalist, fiction, and non-fiction writer.
Poe’s early schooling and military training inspired and shaped his interest in science. According to Kenneth Silverman, Poe’s secondary education started after his foster parents moved from England to Richmond. In 1821, “Edgar attended the private academy of Joseph H. Clarke,” which served to prepare young gentlemen to obtain “an honorable entrance in any University in the United States.” One of his classmates wrote a testimonial that Poe was one of the top students in the class (23). Thomas and Jackson list the classes that students typically enrolled in while at that school. They included English, Languages (French, Latin, and Greek), Arithmetic, Geometry, Trigonometry, Navigation (using celestial observations), Gunnery and Projectiles, Optics, Geography, Maps and Charts, and Astronomy (41, 48). Continuing a description of Poe’s education and experiences, Silverman writes that in February 1826, Edgar Allan Poe was among the first group of students enrolled at the University of Virginia. School records there indicate that he was a bright and dedicated student. Despite not being able to afford to pay for his college textbooks, he was one of the top students in several of his classes. However, hefty financial and gambling debts to the University and to his classmates left him hopelessly in debt. When his foster father refused to continue paying for Poe’s college expenses, he was forced to drop out near the end of his first term (Silverman 29-34).
Major William F. Hecker, the author of Private Perry and MisterPoe, writes that Poe enlisted in the United States Army on May 26, 1827, under the alias of Private Poe. He spent three years as an artilleryman stationed for the longest period at Fort Moultrie, in a coastal area outside of Charleston, South Carolina. Poe spent much of his Army service learning cannon drill and maintenance. This task needed to be performed by a soldier who had extraordinary expertise and skill in the areas of measurement, logistical planning, and design. Army records indicate that Poe “was the most technically competent artillerist in his battery.” He was assigned to “oversee the ammunition supply of the battery.” He was quickly advanced to an artificer, a technical job concerning the “weights and measures of iron and chemicals” (xxxiv). According to Army records, “Poe was the army’s expert bomb artisan, carefully designing, preparing and constructing inter-connected systems of iron and chemicals with the ultimate goal of explosively destroying his creation” (xxxv-xxix). It was extraordinary for that time that Poe was promoted to a Sergeant Major in less than two years after he enlisted (xxix), and then enrolled in the United States Army Officer’s School at West Point. At the military academy, he took some classes in French, astronomy, math and navigation, but decided to get himself expelled in 1831 so he could pursue his interests in being a writer. Once again, lacking the necessary financial support from his foster father, Poe wrote: “The army does not suit a poor man—so I left abruptly,” and “threw myself upon literature as a resource” (Poe).
Hecker concludes that Poe’s four years in the Army did not detract in the least from his future career as a writer. On the contrary, it exposed him to many disparate subjects to write about, such as Cryptography, Geography, Oceanography, and Astronomy (xii). Also, he was able to incorporate many of his experiences relating to science into the themes of his poetry, journalism, fiction and non-fiction works. In the next column, I will explore Poe’s earliest published writing on science, a poem entitled, “Sonnet—To Science.”
Sources:
Poe, Edgar Allan. “Memorandum in Poe Manuscript, May 29, 1841. The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore. www.eapoe.org/works/misc/poeautobiogrpahy.
Hecker, William F. Private Perry and Mister Poe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005.
Limon, John. The Place of Fiction in the Time of Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar Allan Poe: A Biography. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
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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Murray Ellison received a Master’s in Education at Temple University (1973), a Master’s of Arts in English Literature at VCU (2015), and a Doctorate in Education at Virginia Tech in 1987. He is married and has three adult employed daughters. He retired as the Virginia Director of Community Corrections for the Department of Correctional Education in 2009. He is the founder and chief editor of the literary blog, www.LitChatte.com. He is an editor for the “Correctional Education Magazine.”He also serves as a board member, volunteer, tour guide, poetry judge, and all-around helper at the Poe Museum in Richmond. See picture blow:
Many who have visited the museum may have recognized the striking portrait of a mysterious woman in the Memorial Building, just above Maria Clemm’s socks and cornered to Samuel Osgood’s Poe portrait. Her eyes follow no matter where you step in the room, her inquisitive gaze and smirk presenting an air of grace, affluence, intelligence, and perhaps suspicion. She was not unknowing when it came to her guests; Poe, a short-time regular guest, was no exception. This stark woman was Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta, hostess of one of New York’s prominent literary salons, and dictator of who was “in” and who was “out” of the literary scene.
According to Maggie MacLean, author of the Women History Blog, Lynch was a poet, sculptor, and teacher, who made her bearings in Philadelphia in the early 1840s. She was introduced to popular actress Fanny Kemble, who then opened Lynch to a world of artists and writers. In 1845, she moved to New York City, where she taught English composition at the Brooklyn Academy for Young Ladies. She also published poems, stories, and contributed to periodicals such as The Gift and the Democratic Review. (Source.)
It was this year, in 1845, when Edgar Allan Poe swept the nation with his popular poem, “The Raven.” In fact, most likely because of this he was given the privilege to attend Lynch’s events. According to Elizabeth Oakes Smith, a prominent literary figure, rights activist and Poe contemporary,
To be invited to the reception of Miss Lynch was an evidence of distinction, and one in itself, for she was strict in drawing the moral as well as the intellectual line. Perhaps no one received any more marked attention than Edgar A. Poe. His slender form, pale, intellectual face and weird expression of eye never failed to arrest the attention of even the least observant…women fell under his fascination and listened in silence (Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Wyman, 88).
Elizabeth Oakes Smith.
It is said that these women, including Frances Osgood, would sit at his feet to hear him speak his eloquent, poetical topics of various discussion. In this same memoir, Oakes Smith recalled,
At that time, at the houses of Rev. Orville Dewey, Miss Anna C. Lynch (now Mrs. Botta)…Edgar Poe was an accepted and honored guest. His manners were refined, and the scope of his conversation that of the gentleman and the scholar. His wife, being an invalid, dared not encounter the night air, but he spoke of her tenderly, and often (121).
Lynch seemed to be an intelligent, respected hostess, and Edgar was now up to celebrity standards amongst his peers. However, this would not last for long. Amidst the Frances Osgood scandal, in which he swapped numerous flirtatious poems with Frances Sargent Osgood, he found himself surrounded by other vindictive women, including Ann Stephens, Margaret Fuller, and Elizabeth Ellet. According to Frederick Frank and Anthony Magistrale, authors of The Poe Encyclopedia, Poe was “‘soon off her [Lynch’s] guest list because of her disapproval of Poe’s contemptuous treatment of Elizabeth Fries Ellet'” (214).
Thus came Poe’s rise and fall with the prestigious literary scene led by the eminent Anne Lynch. As one views the portraits next to one another, they cannot help but wonder if Lynch is keeping an eye on Edgar’s antics indefinitely. What we do know is that her portrait deserves the prominence it has received hanging in the Poe Museum. To close, we will leave our readers with Poe’s own words regarding Lynch in his “Literati of New York City,”
In character Miss Lynch is enthusiastic, chivalric, self-sacrificing, “equal to any fate,” capable of even martyrdom in whatever should seem to her a holy cause-a most exemplary daughter…In person she is rather above the usual height, somewhat slender, with dark hair and eyes-the whole countenance at times full of intelligent expression. Her demeanor is dignified, graceful, and noticeable for repose.
In spite of being reared by a frugal businessman who discouraged his writing, Edgar Allan Poe became one of the world’s greatest authors. Why did a boy who grew up in such a home decide to devote himself to a life in the arts? Was Poe born gifted, or was his genius the result of his upbringing? Maybe we can find some of the answers by learning about the family from which Poe was separated when he was orphaned at the age of two.
Above: Handkerchief Case Painted by Rosalie Mackenzie Poe
Talent runs in Edgar Allan Poe’s family. Not only was Edgar a talented writer, but so was his brother William Henry Leonard Poe. His sister was a gifted musician and an art teacher. His mother was a popular actress and singer. In order to shed some light on these forgotten members of Edgar Allan Poe’s family, the Poe Museum in Richmond will host a new exhibit The Unknown Poes: Edgar Allan Poe’s talented Family from April 28 until June 19, 2016. The display will feature a number of Poe family artifacts including clothing, documents, and a Poe family bible. The highlight of the exhibit will be a piece of original artwork painted by Poe’s sister Rosalie. The exhibit will place Poe’s talent in the context of a gifted family of artists, writers, and performers.
Above: Negative review of a performance by Poe’s father from 1806
The exhibit will open on April 28 from 6-9 p.m. with a special Unhappy Hour in the Poe Museum’s Enchanted Garden featuring live music by The Folly.
Above: Bridget Poe’s Dancing Shoes from 1805
Above: Chest of drawers given by Poe’s uncle Henry Herring to his daughter
Above: Poe family bible opened to a page containing a diagram of a Poe burial plot
Poe was notorious for being a harsh critic-he was nicknamed the “Tomahawk Man,” after all. But are you familiar with these particular criticisms?
Check these out:
1) Poe once told a guy to shoot himself. According to Poe scholar Chris Semtner in his book Edgar Allan Poe’s Richmond, Poe wrote a review of author Langston Osbourne’s book, Confessions of a Poet in an 1835 issue of the Southern Literary Messenger. First off, let us explain that the author had included a couple of sentences in his preface explaining that he’d had a gun on standby so he could shoot himself upon the book’s completion. Poe, knowing this, stated,
The author avers upon his word of honor that in commencing this work he loads a pistol, and places it upon the table. He farther states that, upon coming to a conclusion, it is his intention to blow out what he supposes to be his brains. Now this is excellent. But, even with so rapid a writer as the poet must undoubtedly be, there would be some little difficulty in completing the book under thirty days or thereabouts. The best of powder is apt to sustain injury by lying so long “in the load.” We sincerely hope the gentleman took the precaution to examine his priming before attempting the rash act. A flash in the pan — and in such a case — were a thing to be lamented. Indeed there would be no answering for the consequences. Wemight even have a second series of the Confessions.
Yikes!
2) In an introductory article for The Lady’s Book, entitled “The Literati: Of Criticism-Public and Private,” Poe proceeded to explain the premise of a series of articles he would be releasing. He then commenced, giving us a glimpse to prepare us for the potentially scathing reviews to follow:
Again, of Mr. Longfellow, who, although a little quacky per se, has, through his social and literary position as a man of property and a professor at Harvard, a whole legion of active quacks at his control-of him what is the apparent popular opinion? Of course, that he is a poetical phenomenon, as entirely without fault, as is the luxurious paper upon which his poems are invariably borne to the public eye (40-41).
Not only does Poe call Longfellow a “quack,” a pretty bold move to make, but he also sarcastically implies that Longfellow does entirely have faults, is not a poetical phenomenon, and he mocks the “luxurious paper upon which [Longfellow’s] poems are” written on. Keep in mind that this wasn’t the beginning, nor was it the end, of the “Poe-Longfellow War.” We will allude to this again later in this post.
3) Aside from literary critiques, Poe also went the mile and decided to critique include physical appearances and attributes at the end of some articles. Here’s one of our favorites regarding Margaret Fuller’s appearance in Poe’s eyes:
She is of the medium height; nothing remarkable about the figure; a profusion of lustrous light hair; eyes a bluish gray, full of fire; capacious forehead; the mouth when in repose indicates profound sensibility…but the upper lip, as if impelled by the action of involuntary muscles, habitually uplifts itself, conveying the impression of a sneer” (122).
How flattering.
4) Charles Fenno Hoffman was a common name back in Poe’s time. Hoffman was especially, personally known to Poe through a harsh published review of “Eureka” in The Literary World, for which Hoffman was the editor. Although it may have seemed to Poe that Hoffman was unfair to publish this review of Poe’s allegedly great masterpiece, we feel he had every right to his actions as editor, especially considering what Poe wrote regarding one of Hoffman’s own works, Greyslaer,
“Greyslaer” followed, a romance based on the well known murder of Sharp, the Solicitor-General of Kentucky, by Beauchampe[sic]. W[illam] Gilmore Simms, (who has far more power, more passion, more movement, more skill than Mr. Hoffman) has treated the same subject more effectively in his novel “Beauchampe,” but the fact is that both gentlemen have positively failed, as might have been expected (173)
Poe has effectively disrespected both Hoffman and Simms in a few short lines, making this a double-whammy critique. And, apparently Poe felt the need to mention in a review about Hoffman that even though Hoffman and Simms failed to provide a good novel, Hoffman failed harder than Simms. We say this statement was completely uncalled for.
5) In our same book of Poe criticisms, we found a curious man by the name of William W. Lord. Poe didn’t know who he was either, as his article opens by explaining, “Of Mr. Lord we known nothing-although we believe that he is a student at Princeton College-or perhaps a graduate, or perhaps a Professor of that institution.” (256). This anonymity seems to pull the worst out in Poe, perhaps because if he isn’t acquainted with them, he’ll never see the victim.
A curious passage arises in this critique, as he quotes the following lines from a poem of Lord’s, “And the aged beldames napping,/ Dreamed of gently rapping, rapping, / With a hammer gently tapping, / Tapping on an infant’s skull” (266). Poe goes on to imply that this is a theft of his “The Raven,” as he provides the following stanza for example, “While I pondered nearly napping, / Suddenly there came a rapping, / As of someone gently tapping, / Tapping at my chamber door” (266). He then attacks,
But it is folly to pursue these thefts. As to any property of our own, Mr. Lord is very cordially welcome to whatever use he can make of it. But others may not be so pacifically disposed, and the book before us might be very materially thinned and reduced in cost, by discarding from it all that belongs to Miss Barrett, Tennyson, Keats, Shelley, Proctor, Longfellow and Lowell-the very class of poets, by the way, whom Mr. William W. Lord, in his ‘New Castalia’ the most especially affects to satirize and to contemn (266).
This is how he ends his critique of Mr. Lord,
Invariably Mr. Lord writes didst did’st; couldst could’st, &c. The fact is he is absurdly ignorant of the commonest principles of grammar-and the only excuse we can make to our readers for annoying them with specifications in this respect is that, without the specifications we should never have been believed.
But enough of this folly. We are heartily tired of the book, and thoroughly disgusted with the impudence of the parties who have been aiding and abetting in thrusting it before the public. To the poet himself we have only to say-from any farther specimens of your stupidity, good Lord deliver us! (269).
As for Mr. Lord, whether he was a student or professor, we can guess he did not come out to see the light of day again after reading Poe’s article about him.
6) In regard to Rufus Griswold’s anthology, The Poets and Poetry of America, (you know, the man who attempted to destroy Poe’s reputation), Poe had this to say:
He has omitted from the body of his book, some one or two whom we should have been tempted to introduce. On the other hand, he has scarcely made us amends by introducing some one or two dozen whom we should have treated with contempt. We might complain too of a prepossession, evidently unperceived by himself, for the writers of New England. We might hint also, that in two or three cases, he has rendered himself liable to the charge of personal partiality…(103).
Perhaps he is referring to Charles Hoffman in this case, who had had 45 of his poems featured in the anthology. Poe even points this out in a separate, but relevant criticism and article about Hoffman,
Whatever may be the merits of Mr. Hoffman as a poet, it may be easily seen that these merits have been put in the worst possible light by the indiscriminate and lavish approbation bestowed on them by Dr. Griswold in his ‘Poets and Poetry of America.’ The editor can find no blemish in Mr. H., agrees with everything and copies everything said in his praise-worse than all, gives him more space in the book than any two, or perhaps three, of our poets combined (175).
In Griswold’s anthology, Poe only had three poems featured. Perhaps he was harboring ill feelings?
7) Lewis Gaylord Clark was known for being the editor of The Knickerbocker for many years, as well as another victim held under Poe’s scrutiny-we might also mention that Poe and Clark had quite a rocky relationship. Sometimes Edgar could be downright harsh to those he critiqued, and Gaylord wasn’t an exception, as seen in the following example, “Mr. Clark once did me the honor to review my poems, and-I forgive him…He is noticeable for nothing in the world except for the markedness by which he is noticeable for nothing” (Quinn 502). All we can say is that this critique didn’t go unnoticed by us in the least.
8) Many men did not go unobserved by Poe, and Charles F. Briggs was no exception. Briggs was Poe’s coworker at the Broadway Journal; in fact, Briggs was its founder. However, Poe remained merciless in his installment of “The Literati of New York City,” when he proclaimed that Briggs “has never composed in his life three consecutive sentences of grammatical English. He is grossly uneducated” (EAPoe).
9) Our ninth author sacrificed under the mercilessness of Poe is Joel T. Headley. This reverend, historian, and author was torn apart from first sentence to last under Poe’s evaluation. For example, Poe writes about Headley’s “Sacred Mountains,” stating,
We say that a book is a “funny” book, and nothing else, when it spreads over two hundred pages an amount of matter which could be conveniently presented in twenty of a magazine…that a book is a”funny” book, and nothing but a funny book, whenever it happens to be penned by Mr. Headley (47).
Sufficed it to say that Headley wasn’t going for a comical bent in his “Sacred Mountains.” We might also note that in this same editorial, Poe calls Headley a “quack”-does this sound familiar? (The author of this post would also like to note that she read the book that Poe grossly attacked and can say that she disagrees with Poe’s claims.)
10) Finally, Longfellow was, once more, analyzed under Poe’s seething Tomahawk gaze in an article titled “Mr. Longfellow and Other Plagiarists: A Discussion With ‘Outis’.” As you might recall, an intern at the museum wrote an article last summer about the Poe-Longfellow War, which you can check out here. That being said, we will not go too in depth into the ordeal. However, in this last section of our list, we will discuss this mysterious Outis mentioned in the title.
Have any of our readers heard of this mysterious Outis? Where did he come from, and what were his intentions? Whomever took the title of Outis was most likely trying to play a trick on Longfellow and other readers, we surmise, as it has even been speculated that this Outis was Poe himself.
Outis is Greek for “Nobody” or “No One,” which seems befitting if one were to take on a pseudonym. But why might Poe be this mysterious Outis? We will explain in a blog post soon to come. Meanwhile, we are left with the “Mr. Longfellow…” critique, which is more or less a battle against Longfellow and other plagiarists (just as the title suggests), as well as Poe’s battle against this other mysterious writer who took it upon himself to publish a letter in Longfellow’s defense, all the while mocking Poe. He or she even compares a poem, “The Bird of the Dream” (which, we cannot currently find any records of this ever having existed) to “The Raven.” The point is daft, regardless, as the two poems aren’t even comparable.
“Sweet bird from realms of light, oh! come again to-night, / Come to my window-perch upon my chair- / Come give me back again that deep impassioned strain
/ That tells me thou hast seen and loved my CLARE,” the last stanza quotes, as provided in Outis’ article (EAPoe). However, Outis continues by explaining that he dares not to charge Poe with plagiarism, but proceeds to provide fifteen points explaining what “identities” make this poem comparable to “The Bird of the Dream.”
How does Poe respond? “What I admire in this letter is the gentlemanly grace of its manner, and the chivalry which has prompted its composition. What I do not admire is all the rest. In especial, I do not admire the desperation of the effort to make out a case” (EAPoe).
Why did we choose this article for our last choice? Considering the potential that Outis might be Poe himself, it is comical. We are presented not only with Outis’ criticism of Poe’s works, but also Poe’s rebuttal to Outis. Essentially, Poe is rebuking himself! Perhaps Poe wanted an opponent worthy of himself, so he took up the challenge? Or, perhaps he invented Outis in the hopes that Longfellow would respond to his accusations? There is no denying that it takes someone with great confidence and a sense of humor to critique themselves.
Which was your favorite selection? Were there any critiques that didn’t make it in our list? Feel free to comment below!
In August of 2014, we covered the scandal between Poe and Rufus Griswold, Poe’s defamer. We went in depth into the situation and analyzed the happenstances leading up to Griswold’s scheme. However, it should be recognized that Griswold was more than just a villainous character in the life of Poe.
Rufus Griswold
Rufus Wilmot Griswold was born February 13, 1815, in Benson, Vermont. He and his ten siblings lived on a small farm with their parents, Deborah and Rufus Griswold. According to biographer Jacob Neu in his article, “Rufus Wilmot Griswold,” not a lot of information is known about his childhood. Neu paints Rufus’ modest childhood:
…no doubt [Rufus] performed such chores as are incident to the duties of a boy on a small farm. Very likely he took a boy’s part in the husking-bees, the sugar-making, and the fur-trapping. He attended such church services as were held in the church of his parents. His diversions he found in the companionship of other boys at the ‘bees’ of the neighborhood, in occasional visits to the banks of the Hudson or to Benson’s Landing, both but a few miles…from his home, or to the lumbering camps near the Westhaven settlement south of his home (102).
According to his son, William, in Passages from the Correspondence and Other Papers of Rufus W. Griswold, Rufus attended the Rensselaer school at Troy, thanks to the graciousness of his brother, Heman, who was a well known business man in that town. Just fifteen, he was kicked out of the school because of a school prank, and was sent to live in Heman’s counting-room (7). According to William, Rufus became acquainted with George G. Foster, writer of New-York by Gaslight, and abandoned his family to move in with Foster in Albany, New York.
Although it is believed that Griswold spent his later teenage years voyaging the world, according to Neu for example, many modern biographers since have discovered the fallacy in this part of his biography. What is known is that, according to the Vergennes Vermonter, he spent time in the South during this time (Neu 104).
In October of 1834, he began working for the office of the Constitutionalist in Syracuse, New York. After his brother, Silas, brought to his attention another job, it is presumed that Rufus began editing for the Chautauqua Whig, officially establishing himself as an editor (104). His success continued with the editorships of both the Western Democratand Literary Inquirer in 1835 and the Olean Advocate in 1836 (105). It was just before he took the Olean Advocate job when he found his first love and future wife, Caroline Searles.
According to Joy Bayless in her book, Rufus Wilmot Griswold, Griswold was walking with a friend when a downpour occurred sending the two men to take shelter in a home at 51 1/2 Clinton Street. Griswold’s friend, Butler, was well known by the owner of that home, Mrs. Angell, who was the mother of Hamilton Randolph Searles and Caroline Searles, who was then nineteen (15). According to Bayless, “This beautiful girl, with her dark, shy eyes and her glossy auburn hair, immediately became the center of Griswold’s world; and he learned later that from the moment she saw him her heart was his” (15).
Caroline Searles Griswold
The two were separated for a time when Griswold accepted a job as editor for the Olean Advocate in Olean, New York, however he left the paper Christmas 1836, and rejoined Caroline. The two married March 20, 1837, and, according to Bayless, “…[he], romanticizing himself into the rôle of tragic outcast rescued from his exile by a good angel, was happier than he had ever been in his life” (20).
Griswold’s life was improving and seemed promising with his new wife. According to Bayless,
He was smooth and suave as if he had lived in metropolitan cities all his twenty-two years. His slender physique carried his fashionable dress gracefully; and his glib tongue discoursed easily of books he had read, of sights he had seen, and of literary and political happenings of the day….He was intelligent looking, with a high broad forehead and large gray eyes, sharp, trenchant nose, and an expression of cocksure defiance…Griswold’s best asset, however, was his ability to attract friends…(22).
It may have been this charming demeanor which gained him a friend, Horace Greeley, founder of The New-Yorker. Greeley became Griswold’s mentor and sponsored the young man as he endeavored to become a successful literary historian.
Horace Greeley
In 1837, Griswold become a Baptist preacher, which must have been a contradiction with his religious stance, as he was not devout at this point in his life. It is possible that Caroline influenced him to become a preacher (24). By late 1837 to early 1838, Caroline was expecting their first child, and Griswold left for work in Vergennes, Vermont, to work for The Vergennes Vermonter (25).
According to Bayless, Griswold’s first daughter, Emily Elizabeth, was born four days after he began publishing for this paper. Caroline joined her husband three months later, and the three lived in a rented house (25). However, the family moved back to New York in 1839, where he rejoined Greeley to work for his Daily Whig paper (28).
Park Benjamin
By July, he was acquainted with both Park Benjamin, editor of The New England Magazine, and Charles Fenno Hoffman, founder of The Knickerbocker (28). Griswold and Benjamin began working together for the Evening Tattler, which featured Edgar Allan Poe as the butt of a joke in their July 19, 1839 issue (29-30). Greeley did not see any promise or true benefit for Griswold working with Benjamin, and he attempted to obtain a position for him with Thomas W. White, publisher of The Southern Literary Messenger; however, he was not given the position and looked for work in Boston. He was unable to find work there and accepted an assistant editorship position for The New-Yorker (32).
During this time, another daughter was born, Caroline, and Emily was two-years-old. He became closer to Hoffman, whom he greatly admired, and “fairly worshipped,” according to Bayless. He also began working on his first gift book, The Biographical Annual (33). The book was printed and, unfortunately, flopped. His next anthology was entitled The Poets and Poetry of America, and would be one of his most successful volumes.
By 1840, Griswold was in Boston, and his family remained in New York (36).
He worked for the Boston Notion, where he demonstrated his enthusiastic support of Hoffman’s poetry by publishing thirty-six of his poems. He would print these and nine more in his anthology, ThePoets and Poetry of America, which was published by Carey and Hart on April 18, 1842 (44). The anthology features ninety-one writers, selected verses, and brief biographical sketches of each writer. Edgar Allan Poe was given an inaccurate portrayal and only had three of his poems featured (45). Regardless, the book was given a fair and positive critique, considered as, “…the best collection of American poetry that has yet been made,” although, “…the author, without being aware of it himself, has unduly favored the writers of New England.” Another editor agreed with the latter statement by stating, “We protest against this injustice. The Southern states will be degraded in the eyes of the foreigners, by the course which this partial and prejudiced compiler has pursued” (46).
The volume did wonders for Griswold’s career and aided him in receiving an editorship job for Graham’s Magazine, taking Edgar Allan Poe’s place (49). By May 1842, he was in Philadelphia (50). In November 1842, however, his world seemingly ended. On the ninth of November, while staying in a hotel in Philadelphia, he received word that his wife, who had just given birth to their third child, a son, had died from an unknown cause. His son passed as well (64).
Bayless describes the scene after Griswold heard the news powerfully,
Hysterically he rushed on the night train to New York, where he took a seat near Caroline’s coffin and for thirty hours refused to leave her side. The watchers urged him to try to sleep, but he answered them by kissing the cold lips of his dead wife and embracing her. His two little children came to him, clung to him, and cried for their mother; and he, as much a motherless child as they, showed them ‘her soulless clay’ (64-65).
Griswold heartbreakingly wrote to his friend James T. Fields,
You knew her my friend—she was my good angel—she was the first to lead me from a cheerless, lonely life, to society…She was not only the best of wives, but the best of mothers. You have seen our dear children—she taught them as children are rarely taught, and when she went her way they were left by her at the feet of Christ, at the very gate of heaven…They will bury her then [11:00 that day]—bury my dear Caroline and my child from my sight!…then I must set about tearing up the foundations of my home. Alas for me, I shall never more have a home to fly to in my sorrows—never more a comforter in my afflictions—never more a partner to share in all my woes or to be a source and author of all my pleasures…May God forever keep you from all such sorrow—farewell (65).
The funeral took place on November 11, with the procession moving to Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. According to Bayless, “When the body was placed in the tomb, Griswold uttered a shriek, fell upon the coffin, and burst into agonized weeping” (65).
Those standing by, including Caroline’s brother, Hamilton Randolph Searles, and his wife, gently urged Griswold to leave the tomb. After seeing they couldn’t console the reverend’s throbbing heart, they let him be to make peace with Caroline’s death. Captain Waring, Caroline’s uncle, finally had to pry Rufus from her grave, stating, “In Heaven’s name, Rufus, have done with this nonsense and come along home with me,” to which Rufus obliged and followed (65).
The night after Caroline’s death, Rufus wrote his most heart-wrenching poem, “Five Days,” which was printed anonymously in The New-York Tribune on November 16, 1842. The poem can be found here. Forty days after Caroline’s death, Griswold went to her tomb, inspiring his account given below: I could not think that my dear wife was dead. I dreamed night after night of our reunion. In a fit of madness I went to New York. The vault where she is sleeping is nine miles from the city. I went to it: the sexton unclosed it: and I went down alone into that silent chamber. I kneeled by her side and prayed, and then, with my own hand, unfastened the coffin lid, turned aside the drapery that hid her face, and saw the terrible changes made by Death and Time. I kissed for the last time her cold black forehead—I cut off locks of her beautiful hair, damp with the death dews, and sunk down in senseless agony beside the ruin of all that was dearest in the world. In the evening, a friend from the city, who had learned where I was gone, found me there, my face still resting on her own, and my body as lifeless and cold as that before me. In all this I know I have acted against reason; but as I look back upon it it seems that I have been influenced by some power too strong to be opposed. Through the terrible scenes of the week I have been wonderfully calm, and my strength has not failed me, though it is long since I have slept. It is four o’clock in the morning—I am alone—in the house that while my angel was by my side was the scene of happiness too great to be surpassed even in heaven. I go forth today a changed man. I realize at length that she is dead. I turn my gaze from the past to the future (67).
Despite his broken heart, Griswold persevered knowing that he had to take care of his little girls and continue working.
Because of an overblown feud with Poe, Griswold resigned from Graham’s, and remained in Philadelphia (78). He continued compiling and publishing anthological volumes of poetry and stories, compiled from both American and English writers. Ironically, he also became one of the strongest advocates for copyright laws in the 1840s, organizing the American Copyright Club with other writers and friends, including Charles Fenno Hoffman (83).
Charles Fenno Hoffman
Despite keeping busy, Griswold found himself in need of a woman by his side. The emptiness of Caroline’s loss and loneliness of being without a partner may have left him seeking companionship-although it has been said that he enjoyed his bachelorhood for a time. It was in the summer of 1844 when he met his second wife, Charlotte Meyers, a wealthy Jewess from Charleston, South Carolina, according to Bayless (104). Griswold, aged twenty-nine, and Meyers, aged fifty-five, married August 20, 1845 (107).
Unhappy in his new marriage, Griswold left Meyers with the agreement that she keep his little daughter, Caroline, whom she loved and cared for deeply. According to Bayless, “The action which Griswold finally took to terminate this unhappy alliance was to plunge him into the greatest disaster which ever befell him in his eventful, troubled career” (113). His young Caroline was with Meyers and his eight-year-old Emily was with a relative in New York.
Just as things were looking worse, he published another notable volume, The Prose Writers of America, on March 3, 1847 (117). He did not consider this work as being one of his strongest; however, it proved to be positive for Poe who received the greatest praise, along with Nathaniel Hawthorne (119). About Poe, Griswold said, “The tales of Mr. Poe are peculiar and impressive. He has a great deal of imagination and fancy, and his mind is in the highest degree analytical…The reader of Mr. Poe’s tales is compelled almost at the outset to surrender his mind to the author’s control…” (120).
Seventy-two writers were featured in the book; however, only five were women, including Margaret Fuller, who was treated with contempt, according to Bayless (121). Meanwhile, an eighth edition of The Poets and Poetry of America was issued, where he spoke well of Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Poe, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, revising previous statements he had printed in the seventh edition (127-128).
Margaret Fuller
In fall of 1847, he was involved in a controversy with the Reverend Joel T. Headley. Both men were working on books about Washington, causing stress between the rival editors. Griswold published Washington and the Generals of the Revolution under Carey and Hart; whereas, Headley published Washington and His Generals under Baker and Scribner (132). Headley swore revenge against Griswold; the controversy became public and continued for about a month (133). According to Bayless, Headley won the battle by calling Griswold, “such a liar that even his friends replied to his statements with the query, ‘Is that a Griswold or a fact'” (134).
Joel Headley
Headley was not the first person who would cause trouble for Griswold that year, however. During winter of 1847, Elizabeth Ellet, a well-known lady associated with the high circles of literary society, approached Griswold and proposed the idea of a book about American Revolutionary women. She inquired about being granted access to any information Griswold may have, to which he agreed. He gave her permission to enter his private library, of which she took full advantage. Once her book was published, Griswold was shocked to find she had neither thanked nor mentioned him. This was the first mark against her character (143-144). He avenged himself by including the following statement about her book in his own anthology, The Female Poets of America:
Her object was to illustrate the action and influence of her sex in the achievement of our national independence,….and with the assistance of a few gentlemen more familiar than herself with our public and domestic experience, she has made a valuable and interesting work (150-151).
Elizabeth Ellet
This insult was quickly replaced by the kind friendship of Frances Sargent Osgood, whom he greatly admired and said of her, “She is in all things the most admirable woman I ever knew” (144). The two grew close, discussed poetry and prose, attended salons together, and Frances wrote an acrostic for him:
For one, whose being is to mine a star,
Trembling I weave in lines of love and fun
What Fame before has echoed near and far.
A sonnet if you like–I’ll give you one
To be cross-questioned ere it’s truth is solv’d.
Here veiled and hidden in a rhyming wreath
A name is turned with mine in cunning sheath,
And unless by some marvel rare evolved,
Forever folded from all idler eyes
Silent and secret still it treasured lies,
Whilst mine goes winding onward, as a rill
Thro’ a deep wood in unseen joyance dances,
Calling in melody’s bewildering thrill
Whilst thro’ dim leaves its partner dreams and glances (World of Poe).
From top to bottom on the left, the poem spells out Frances Osgood’s name. From top to bottom on the right, the poem spells out Griswold’s name.
Poe’s death on October 7, 1849, affected Griswold deeply, leaving him with conflicting emotions, yet he took full advantage of the writer’s death, and endeavored to destroy Poe’s image. You can read about the controversy here.
During this time, his dearest friend, Fanny Osgood, passed away and he was busy working on her memorial along with Mary Hewitt, while also working on multiple gift books, including Gift Leaves from American Poets (Bayless 202-203).
In 1852, he took steps to divorce Charlotte Myers Griswold, due to his disinterest in her and increasing interest in the poetess, Alice Cary (213). Cary, deeply smitten with Griswold, had been communicating with him long distance through letters, until their first meeting in the summer of 1850. She ultimately left dejected as Griswold found another woman more suitable for a married life, Harriet McCrillis (215-218). According to Bayless, she was domestic, religious, loving, socially important, but most importantly, very wealthy (219). Unfortunately, complications ensued.
Meyers did not want to divorce Griswold. Not only was the divorce denied, but Ellet and Ann Stephens, an ex-coworker of his and enemy, stepped in to plead against McCrillis marrying Griswold, “…telling her that she could be congratulated upon her escape from an illegal marriage, and informing her that she could not expect to be happy with a man who was undecided as to whether he should marry her or another lady,” according to Bayless (220-221).
Finally, there was an ultimatum. Charlotte agreed to the divorce if she could take full custody of little Caroline. After the divorce was finalized, Griswold did not see Charlotte or Caroline ever again (222). He and Harriet married on December 26, 1852.
Once again, Ellet intervened, causing Harriet to leave with Griswold’s daughter, Emily. Unfortunately, the train the two took to go to her brother’s house was in an accident which sent all the cars plunging into the water below. Harriet was slightly injured; however, fifteen-year-old Emily had to be resuscitated back to life after being pronounced dead (224-225). Another accident followed soon after. In October of 1853, a gas fire occurred in Griswold’s house, and he was badly burned while saving a twelve-year-old child’s life (227).
Finally, abandoned by Harriet over the great scandal perpetrated by Ellet and Stephens, Griswold took a small room at 239 Fourth Avenue. In early 1857, he became ill, and Alice Cary returned to make his last days comfortable (252). He attempted to visit the parents he had not seen in many years; however, he was too ill to do so and returned to New York.
Alice Cary
He wrote to Harriet and requested to see her and their little son, William, one more time before he died. According to Bayless, “Harriet hastened to him and remained with him to the end. In the conversation the minister asked him if he had been a Christian. ‘Sir, I may not have been always a Christian, but I am very sure that I have been a gentleman,’ was the answer.” He passed away August 27, 1857.
In an empathetic anonymous obituary, the writer states,
That Rufus W. Griswold was a weak and ill-judging man, no one will deny. As a man, there was much in him to regret; but those who knew something of his last lonely years, his bed of solitary and uncheered suffering, will feel for him only pity, as one who was made to atone deeply for all the mistakes of his life. He left three children, and we much doubt if either of them were with him in his last moments (Emerson’s Magazine and Putnam’s Monthly).
Despite being Poe’s defamer, Griswold lived a varied and interesting life. He was an accomplished anthologist, publishing a great number of works, which you can view here. He was a father, a husband, and a loyal friend to many. Although his attacks on Poe were uncalled for, shameful and hurt Poe’s reputation, perhaps Griswold may also be remembered for his valuable achievements. Thanks to his support and aid, many nineteenth century writers and poets, who might not have been remembered, are remembered today.
You can view objects in the Poe Museum in Richmond by visiting the following links:
“Burton not only lies, but deliberately and wilfully lies . . . Were I in your place I would take some summary method of dealing with the scoundrel, whose infamous line of conduct in regard to this whole premium scheme merits, and shall receive exposure.”-Poe to Joseph Snodgrass, June 17, 1840
Many may be familiar with the fact that Poe worked for multiple editors during the 1830s-1840s, including Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine; however, many may not know that Burton, Poe’s eccentric, conniving manager was a comedic-thespian during his day before becoming owner of his magazine, which would only run for about four years.
So, how did this actor-turned-magazine enthusiast become manager of his own magazine, and why did he and Poe have a strained relationship?
From EAPoe
William E. Burton came to Philadelphia from London in 1834, according to William L. Keese in William E. Burton, and first appeared in September of that year at the Arch Street Theater (4). This was not his first time acting, however, for he, according to his private journal obtained by Keese, wrote while in England, “‘July 19, 1825. Opened at the theater in Southern to only 50 shillings. In Ollapod, eighth time, in the ‘Hunter of the Alps.’ I sang the comic song of ‘Gaby Grundy’s Courtship'” (46). Therefore, he had already made his footing in theater. In fact, his first performance in Philadelphia was as Ollapod (46).
From William E. Burton by Keese
After establishing himself in his new home, he contributed to periodicals with articles that were “sketches of life and character made lively by touches of humor, and not infrequently a story would appear of graver import, often rendered somber by the introduction of a weird element” (5). He later published his own collection of pieces, “Waggeries and Vagaries.” His establishment in the literary and publishing field may have inspired him to start his own magazine, known as The Gentleman’s Magazine, in 1837-this would become known to Poe as Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine. Burton included his own articles in the magazine, including a notable sketch of his friend, Wallack (6).
Keese explains that Poe was associated with Burton in the conduct of a magazine about this time, however, “though Burton was disposed to be indulgent and friendly towards his associate, the comedian and the poet did not pull well together, and the relationship was severed” (9). This is when the magazine was sold to George Rex Graham, Poe’s future employer at Graham’s Magazine.
In Joseph Jefferson’s autobiography, he states, “Burton’s ambition to succeed in the various tasks he had set himself was strongly fortified by his quick apprehension and great versatility. He was at the same time managing the Arch Street Theater in Philadelphia, the Chambers Street Theater in New-York, acting nightly, and studying new characters as fast as they came out. In addition to these professional duties, he was building a country residence at Glen Cove, writing stories for the magazines, and taking prizes at the horticultural shows for hot-house grapes and flowers” (10). Not only was Burton interested in the theater and writing, but also horticulture, and, later stated, books-he carried with him to New York a library of over twelve-thousand volumes, which then grew to twenty-thousand before his death in 1860 (11).
We have established Burton’s acting career and its launch, as well as mentioned the magazine he managed and hired Poe under. Poe had already worked for the Southern Literary Messenger in his hometown of Richmond, so he had already begun forming and practicing excellent, albeit biased and sometimes very harsh editorship skills. But how did Poe come to know Burton, and why did they have that falling out previously mentioned?
From William E. Burton by Keese
Burton seemed as amiable of a boss as Poe could have had, although Burton’s daughters later recalled that their father “loved his children, but at all times demanded strict obedience…” (20). This implies a rough edge to Burton’s facade of being a comedic, genial gentleman. Would Poe have also had these strict holds on him while working under Burton?
Poe’s works were initially rejected by Burton. However, if we look at some of the material written by Poe published just a few months after being hired, including “The Fall of the House of Usher,” we can infer that Poe’s restrictions were gradually lifted. What appears to be very significant in the publishing of a story like “Usher” is that it was horrific, different, and potentially scarring to Burton’s readers. Burton was taking a risk for his magazine, just as White’s Southern Literary Messenger had done with Poe’s stories. The fact that these stories were being published, if even briefly for Burton’s, seems relatively positive in light of their relationship.
That Poe was an excellent editor wasn’t a question to Burton, who wrote in an announcement of the June, 1839 issue, “William E. Burton, Editor and Proprietor, has much pleasure in stating that he has made arrangements with Edgar A. Poe, Esq., late Editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, to devote his abilities and experience to a portion of the Editorial duties of the Gentleman’s Magazine” (EAPoe). Burton had full confidence in his new editor.
From William E. Burton by Keese
Not only might they have gotten along as colleagues, but also as acquaintances, for Poe might have found common ground with Burton in the fact that Burton was a thespian, just like Poe’s biological parents. With Poe’s appreciation for theater, as well as literature, one might surmise that Burton and Poe would have had well-mannered conversations regarding these subjects.
Unfortunately, these weren’t enough for the proprietor and his assistant’s relationship, and their ultimate falling out occurred. In Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography, Arthur Hobson Quinn explains that Poe wrote all of the reviews between the July and August issues, which were Burton’s responsibility (283). He follows this up with another statement, “Burton began to feature his own name on the front wrappers with larger display type. Yet Poe was acting as Editor during Burton’s absences on the road” (293). Finally, a letter by Charles W. Alexander on October 20, 1850, reminisces,
…I well remember his [Poe’s] connection with the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” of which Mr. Burton was editor, and myself the publisher, at the period referred to in connection with Mr. Poe.
The absence of the principal editor on professional duties left the matter frequently in the hands of Mr. Poe, whose unfortunate failing may have occasioned some disappointment in the preparation of a particular article expected from him, but never interfering with the regular publication of the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” as its monthly issue was never interrupted upon any occasion, either from Mr. Poe’s deficiency, or from any other cause, during my publication of it, embracing the whole time of Mr. Poe’s connection with it. That Mr. Poe had faults seriously detrimental to his own interests, none, of course, will deny. They were unfortunately, too well known in the literary circles of Philadelphia, were there any disposition to conceal them. But he alone was the sufferer, and not those who received the benefit of his pre-eminent talents, however irregular his habits or uncertain his contributions may have occasionally have been (297).
With a fair perspective from a bystander, may we approach more of the happenstance between Burton and Poe. Although a supposed letter from Burton to Poe, to which Poe responded to, is lost, Poe responds to said “ghost” letter with the following,
Sir,-I find myself at leisure this Monday morning, June 1, to notice your very singular letter of Sunday, and you shall now hear what I have to say. In the first place, your attempts to bully me excite in my mind scarcely any other sentiment than mirth. When you address me again, preserve, if you can, the dignity of a gentleman. If by accident you have taken it into your head that I am to be insulted with impunity I can only assume that you are an ass. This one point being distinctly understood I shall feel myself more at liberty to be explicit. As for the rest, you do me gross injustice; and you know it (297-298).
He goes on to chastise Burton for making him write 11 pages per month on average, not the supposed 2 or 3 that were, apparently, asked of Poe in the beginning (299). He then continues,
At first I wrote long articles which you deemed inadmissible, [sic] & never did I suggest any to which you had not some immediate and decided objection. Of course I grew discouraged & could feel no interest in the Journal. I am at a loss to know why you call me selfish. If you mean that I borrowed money of you-you know that you offered it-and you know that I am poor. In what instance has any one ever found me selfish…You first “enforced,” as you say, a deduction of salary…You next spoke disrespectfully of me behind my back…Lastly, you advertised your magazine for sale without saying a word to me about it. I felt no anger at what you did-none in the world (299-300). [Note: Quinn states that this letter may have been a rough draft copy of the one sent to Burton; however, Mrs. Richmond, when enclosing the letter to biographer John Ingram, explained that it was “a perfect copy…precisely like the original” (300).]
Amidst all of this, the rumor of Burton’s getting rid of the magazine to attend to his own prospective theater had gotten to Poe, as well as come true, for Burton’s theatrical project premiered in the opening of the National Theater on Chestnut Street on August 31, 1840. Because of this, any sort of break between the two was inevitable. As for Burton’s managerial skills, and describing the sort of treatment Poe underwent, Francis C. Wemyss, manager of the Walnut Street Theater, states of Burton, “As an actor, Mr. W. E. Burton has no superior on the American Stage-but as a manager, his faults are, first, want of nerve to fight a losing battle; in success he is a great general, but in any sudden reverse, his first thought is not to maintain his position, but to retreat” (301).
In the end, Burton’s magazine was sold to Graham, Poe was, for the most part, transferred, and the name William E. Burton left a sour taste in Poe’s mouth. Not only did Poe confide in Snodgrass that he was convinced that it was never Burton’s intention to stay true to the initial offer he had given Poe before taking the job, but in an April 1, 1841 letter to Snodgrass as well, he implied that Burton had spread rumors regarding Poe’s drinking habits (301-303). (Don’t let the date it was written fool you, for Poe was not in the least joking in this letter.)
But who ultimately won in the end? One could argue that Burton won, for he sought his theatrical pursuits free of debt and any nightmarish effects Poe and Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine may have had on him. As for Poe, he continued working only for nine more years thereafter, consistently impoverished, getting into literary and editorial brawls with writers such as Longfellow and editors such as Griswold, and riding a rollercoaster of slight gain and immense loss.
Ultimately, when the two parted, Burton returned to playing his characters, where as Poe continued writing his own.
With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, we thought the Poe Museum’s Object of the Month for February should be a memento of Poe’s “first and last love.”
Shelton’s CDV of Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was a distasteful subject in Elmira Royster Shelton’s home. In fact, her daughter forbade her to mention his name in her presence. For decades, the widow Shelton refused requests for interviews about her famous fiancée, and, when she finally agreed to answer some questions from Richmond historian Edward Valentine in 1874, she denied that she and Poe had ever been engaged. Scholars eventually questioned whether they had been or if the engagement was just one of the many legends that have grown up about Poe’s love life. After all, a number of women had emerged to claim their place as inspirations for his poetry. While one of Poe’s lady friends legally changed her name to match the nickname Poe had given her and while yet another held séances to communicate with his spirit, Elmira Shelton lived a quiet life in Virginia, attended church regularly, and revered the memory of her late husband. But, to her death, she kept this tiny photograph of the author as a memento of the poet.
Elmira Royster Shelton
The facts of Poe’s relationship with Shelton are already well known, even if some of the details have been obscured by time or disputed by historians. It is known that they first met in Richmond when Poe was fifteen and Shelton, about fifteen. James Whitty, a Poe collector who interviewed her in her later years, told Poe biographer Mary Phillps that Shelton been a “beautiful girl” who “was fond of all the boys, but liked Edgar best, while he was interested in all the girls but lingered longest with Elmira.” Her father was the merchant James Royster, who disapproved of the attention the orphan Poe was paying his daughter. Shelton later told Valentine, “He was a beautiful boy — Not very talkative. When he did talk though he was pleasant but his general manner was sad…” In an 1884 interview with John Moran, she related, “We spent much of our time together when we were children. They play the same piano, sang songs, and took walks through a neighbor’s walled garden together. By one account, the Presbyterian Elmira accompanied Poe and his foster mother Frances Allan to Sunday services at Monumental Episcopal Church.
It is believed that Poe and Elmira became secretly engaged before he left to attend the University of Virginia. One source, Shelton descendant Belle Fitzhugh, wrote the Poe Museum in the 1940s that she owned a letter Elmira had written to her own mother telling her about the engagement. That letter, however, disappeared after Fitzhugh’s death.
“Our acquaintance was kept up until he left to go to the University,” Shelton later told Valentine, “and during the time he was at the University he wrote to me frequently, but my father intercepted the letters because we were too young — no other reason.”
By the time Poe returned to Richmond after his first—and only—term at the University, she had engaged herself to the wealthy Alexander Barrett Shelton who had a shipping business on the canal. They were married a year later, in 1828, when he was twenty-one and she was eighteen. After their marriage, Mrs. Shelton was baptized at St. John’s Episcopal Church at the age of twenty-four.
The break from Elmira had sent Poe on a different path. Having accumulated so much debt at the University that he was unable to continue his studies, Poe went to work in an unpaid position at his foster father John Allan’s export business. After three months of increasingly heated arguments with Allan, Poe stormed out of his guardian’s house in a quest “to find some place in this wide world, where I will be treated — not as you have treated me.” The following day, Poe wrote Allan for money to facilitate this quest.
When Poe finally returned to Richmond in 1835, the twenty-six year old writer had published three books of poetry and had seen his poems and short stories published in newspapers and magazines. In fact, his first story to be printed in a nationally circulated magazine was “The Visionary,” which told of a young man hopelessly in love with a beautiful young woman who is married to a much older man she does not really love.
Poe had also met one of Elmira’s close friends, Mary Winfree of Chesterfield County, Virginia. She is said to have assured Poe that Elmira did not really love Alexander Shelton.
While in Richmond, Poe found employment at the Southern Literary Messenger and married his cousin Virginia. Shortly after the marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Poe attended a party where they encountered Mr. and Mrs. Shelton. Elmira later wrote to Poe’s aunt Mara Clemm that “I remember seeing Edgar, & his lovely wife, very soon after they were married — I met them — I never shall forget my feelings at the time — They were indescribable, almost agonizing— ‘However in an instant,’ I remembered that I was a married woman, and banished them from me, as I would a poisonous reptile…”
Within a year, Poe and his bride moved to New York, not to return to Richmond for over a decade. The Sheltons had four children, two of whom died young. The surviving children, Ann Elizabeth and Alexander, did not have much time to know their father before his death in 1843 at the age of thirty-seven. He is said to have died from pneumonia after having leapt into the freezing James River to rescue a drowning man. The only problem is that he died on July 12, in the middle of a hot Richmond summer, so his exact cause of death is unknown.
Alexander Shelton’s Grave in Shockoe Hill Cemetery, Richmond
Alexander’s death forced Elmira into a period of Victorian mourning. A proper lady like Elmira was expected to follow the etiquette of mourning, which dictated her behavior, clothing, and even her stationery for the next four five years. As her period of mourning drew to a close in 1848, she wrote a cousin, Philip Fitzhugh, “I am fearful Cousin Philip, that I shall never be a happy woman again…” Shelton had certainly changed since Poe had known her. One of their mutual acquaintances, Susan Archer Talley Weiss, described her as “a tall, rather masculine-looking woman, who drew her veil over her face as she passed us on the porch, though I caught a glimpse of large, shadowy, light blue eyes which must once have been handsome.”
Edward Alfriend, who knew Shelton, had a very different view of her appearance:
When I knew Mrs. Shelton she had a lovely, almost saintly face. Her eyes were a deep blue, her hair dark brown, touched with grey, her nose thin and patrician, her forehead high and well developed, her chin finely modeled, projecting and firm, and her cheeks round and full. Her voice was very low, soft and sweet, her manners exquisitely refined, and intellectually she was a woman of education and force of character. Her distinguishing qualities were gentleness and womanliness. She was just the woman in which such a perturbed spirit as that of Poe would have sought rest and found it.
Elmira Shelton
Shelton was also gifted in business. In the six years since her husband’s death she had increased her $60,000 inheritance to about $70,000 at a time when American women still had few rights.
Then Poe reentered her life. As she told Valentine,
I was ready to go to church and a servant told me that a gentleman in the parlour wanted to see me. I went down and was amazed to see him — but knew him instantly — He came up to me in the most enthusiastic manner and said: “Oh! Elmira, is this you?” That very morning I told him I was going to church, that I never let anything interfere with that, that he must call again and when he did call again he renewed his addresses.
Since leaving Richmond, Poe had moved from New York to Philadelphia and back to New York, working at some of the nation’s leading periodicals and becoming a literary celebrity along the way. While living outside New York, in the village of Fordham, his wife died after a prolonged battle with tuberculosis. The only alleviation from the crippling depression that ensued seemed to be the friendly admirers who came to Fordham to visit the famous poet. By the time he resumed his lecture tour in 1848, he was desperate to find a new wife to fill the void left by Virginia’s absence. His travels brought him from Fordham to Richmond to Providence and back to Richmond. Along the way, he became fixated on Nancy Richmond of Lowell, Massachusetts. Unfortunately, she was happily married at the time, so he turned his attention to Providence, Rhode Island where an eccentric widow named Sarah Helen Whitman had addressed a Valentine’s Day poem to him. She closed the poem by expressing her desire to share a “lofty eyrie” with the “raven.” When he read a copy of her Valentine, Poe dropped everything to visit her in Providence, and proposed to her on their first meeting. She declined, and he attempted suicide. About two weeks later, she accepted his proposal on the condition that he abstain from drinking. The engagement only lasted a month.
Elmira Shelton’s House on Church Hill, Richmond
Less than a year later, Poe showed up on Elmira Shelton’s doorstep. He was in town to lecture at the Exchange Hotel and to sell his essays to the Southern Literary Messenger, which was by then under new ownership. Although she had initially refused to receive him, Poe soon became a frequent visitor. On one such visit, Shelton later recalled, “he looked very serious and said he was in earnest and had been thinking about it for a long time. Then I found out that he was very serious and I became serious. I told him if he would not take a positive denial he must give me time to consider of it. And he said a love that hesitated was not a love for him.”
On August 29, Poe wrote his aunt Maria Clemm, “And now let me tell you all about Elmira as well as I can in a letter. — We are solemnly engaged to be married within the coming month (Septr) — but I make no doubt that in a week or 10 days, all will be over.”
According to the letter, Shelton tried to postpone the wedding until January, so Poe stormed out and went to his sister’s house in the country. Then Shelton “went out to Mackenzie’s after me & all about town — so that every body knows of our engagement. It was reported, indeed, that we were married last Thursday.”
Ann Elizabeth Shelton on left
But there was some strong opposition to the match. Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe disliked Shelton, who had tried to discourage her from annoying Edgar by following him everywhere he went. Additionally, Shelton’s married daughter opposed the marriage because, in Poe’s opinion, Ann Elizabeth’s “pecuniary interests will be injured…” The problem was a stipulation in Shelton’s late husband’s will stating that, if she ever remarried, she would lose three quarters of her inheritance, which would still leave her more money than Poe had made from his entire twenty-two year career as a writer. Poe, of course, had struggled with poverty his entire adult life and made plans to save $500 a year by educating her son Southall himself at home. The ten-year-old would have probably hated the idea. He is known to have mocked Poe behind his back while Ann Elizabeth giggled uncontrollably.
Poe had other plans for the marriage. In addition to expressing his intention to move with Elmira to a cottage in the country, he also wanted to bring Maria Clemm to Richmond to live with them. She accepted the plan, writing Clemm, “I am fully prepared to love you, and I do sincerely hope that our spirits may be congenial — There shall be nothing wanting on my part to make them so…”
If Elmira was looking forward to the wedding, Poe still had doubts. He wrote Maria Clemm, “There is one other thing, too, dear mother, which drives me frantic — my love for Annie — I worship her beyond all human love. My passion for her grows stronger every day. I dare not, at this crisis, either speak or think of her — if I did I should go mad…Indeed, indeed, there is no expressing or conceiving the devotion I have for her. My love for her will never, never cease, either in this world or the next.”
A couple weeks later, Poe wrote Clemm, “I confess that my heart sinks at the idea of this marriage. I think, however, that it will certainly take place & that immediately.” Just eight days after writing that letter, Poe wrote Clemm again, this time making plans to meet her in New York to bring her back to Richmond for the wedding. By then, he expressed his renewed devotion to Elmira, writing, “I think she loves me more devotedly than any one I ever knew & I cannot help loving her in return.” In spite of his poverty, Poe bought Elmira extravagant gifts including a gold locket containing a lock of his hair, a gold wedding ring, and a daguerreotype of himself. Meanwhile, the hotel in which he had been staying confiscated his luggage until he could pay his bill.
Shelton’s Daguerreotype of Poe ruined during a cleaning attempt
Regardless, Poe was in good spirits. He visited the office of the Southern Literary Messenger, where, as the editor John Rueben Thompson recalled, “The evening before his departure from Richmond he was with me and spoke in the highest spirits of his resolves and prospects for the future. He had become a Son of Temperance and was soon to be married to a lady here.” By joining the Sons of Temperance, Poe pledged to abstain from drinking alcohol.
On his last night in Richmond, Poe spent the evening with Elmira. He complained of feeling sick, and she thought he seemed “very sad.” The next morning, he caught a steamship to Baltimore, where he died ten days later.
Poe spent his last four days in a Baltimore hospital under the care of Dr. John J. Moran who noted a month later in a letter to Maria Clemm, “He told me…he had a wife in Richmond (which, I have since learned was not the fact).” The “wife” to whom Poe referred could have been Elmira.
Elmira was stunned to read about Poe’s death in the newspaper and frantically wrote Maria Clemm, “Oh! how shall I address you, my dear, and deeply afflicted friend under such heart-rending circumstances? I have no doubt, ere this, you have heard of the death of our dear Edgar! yes, he was the dearest object on earth to me… Oh! my dearest friend! I cannot begin to tell you what my feelings were, as the horrible truth forced itself upon me! It was the most severe trial I have ever had; and God alone knows how I can bear it!”
By the time of Poe’s death, word had already spread about his engagement. The day after Poe’s funeral, his friend John Pendleton Kennedy wrote in his diary, that Poe “was soon to be married to a lady in Richmond of quite good fortune.” Poe’s acquaintance and editor of the Richmond Semi-Weekly Examiner John Moncure Daniel, wrote, “It was universally reported that [Poe] was engaged to be married. The lady was a widow, of wealth and beauty, who was an old flame of his, and whom he declared to be the ideal and original of his Lenore.”
Others believed the engagement had been broken before Poe left Richmond. Dr. John Carter, whose house Poe visited immediately after his last evening at the Shelton house, wrote in 1902, “I had not seen Poe for some days, when he one evening, about half-past nine o’clock, called at my office, which, being on Seventeenth and Broad Streets, had afforded him a half-way resting-place between Duncan Lodge and the residence of Mrs. Shelton, on Church Hill, during his brief engagement to that lady. As was well known to his intimate friends, the engagement was broken off before he left Richmond, though whether afterwards resumed is not certain.”
A friend of Poe’s sister’s, Susan Archer Talley Weiss, wrote in 1904, “He himself always denied, even in public, that any engagement existed between himself and Mrs. Shelton, and spoke of the schoolboy love affair with her as a case of ‘measles.’” Weiss believed that Poe could only been interested in marrying Shelton for her money because Shelton was “not gifted with those traits which might be supposed capable of attracting one of his peculiar taste and temperament.” But Weiss does mention in the same account that “Mrs. Shelton, on Poe’s death, donned ‘widow’s weeds’ of the deepest mourning.”
Weiss also reported that Shelton’s neighbor, the former Civil War spy Elizabeth Van Lew, told her, “I used at first to often see Mr. Poe enter there, but never during the latter part of his stay in Richmond. It seemed to be known about here that the engagement was off. . . . Gossip had it that Mrs. Shelton discarded him because persuaded by friends that he was after her money. All her relatives are said to be opposed to the match.”
If Poe had been a celebrity during his lifetime, he became a legend after his death. Countless newspapers printed his obituary, and magazines carried accounts of his life. Rufus Griswold printed a memoir of the author, and Sarah Helen Whitman wrote her own Poe biography a few years later. John Rueben Thompson started deliver a lecture about “The Genius and Character of Edgar Allan Poe.” It seems almost everyone who had ever met the author started telling their story to any journalist who would listen. A number of women from Poe’s life were eager to alert the media that they were the inspiration for “Annabel Lee,” “Lenore,” or some other Poe poem. Elmira, however, refused to speak about her former fiancé. When she finally did answer a few questions from Edward Valentine, she insisted, “He never addressed any poems to me.”
After Poe’s death, Shelton continued to live in her Church Hill home, spurning the advances of potential suitors. Southall fought and lost an eye in the Civil War. Ann Elizabeth moved with her husband John Henry Leftwich to Ashland, Virginia. After the War, Elmira fell on hard times, eventually selling the locket, mother-of-pearl purse, drawing, and daguerreotype Poe had given her. At some point, she gave her wedding ring—with Poe’s name inscribed inside the band—to Poe’s sister Rosalie MacKenzie Poe.
Ann Elizabeth Shelton Leftwich
Around 1870, Shelton left Richmond to move in with her daughter in Ashland. After all those years, Ann Elizabeth still detested Poe, forbidding her mother to mention his name in her presence. Ann Elizabeth’s daughter Jennie Leftwich Wright later recalled, “The feeling of my mother was so strong against Mr. Poe and any association of his name with my grandmother’s that even as an old lady my mother would become incensed whenever their names were linked.”
By 1875, Shelton was living in a house on Clay Street in Richmond. She revered the memory of her husband and rarely spoke of Poe. The only person permitted to mention the poet was her favorite grandson, Southall’s son Alexander F. Shelton, who occasionally called out, “Well, Lost Lenore?” when she returned from visiting friends. To this she insisted she was most certainly not the “Lost Lenore.” Incidentally, the home in which she briefly lived in Ashland is listed on the National Record of Historic Places as the “Lost Lenore” House.
When she finally agreed to speak with Valentine, she insisted she had never been engaged to Poe: “He [continued] to visit me frequently but I never engaged myself to him. He begged me when he was going away to marry him. Promised he would be everything I could desire.”
In 1884, when Poe’s attending physician John J. Moran was preparing his own biography of Poe, he requested an interview, and Elmira accepted. On meeting her, he observed that “though in feeble health and well advanced in years, her face indicates a peaceful mind and a joyous hope of the rest beyond.”
He spoke with her for four hours during which “she talked freely with me of their childhood and riper years when they were in each other’s company.” He later quoted her as telling him, “I am lost in wonder and amazement at the singular drama now being enacted. Oh, sir, you can have no idea of the thoughts that have so crowded upon my memory and occupied my mind. How often I have wished to see his physician, so that I could learn from his own lips Mr. Poe’s dying words. And to think that so many years after his death, we are face to face, reviewing his life, from his childhood to his grave. All this I have anxiously hoped for before I should die, and it is now fulfilled.” She wept the tears with her handkerchief as she spoke.
Four years later, Elmira was dead. Her February 12, 1888 obituary in the Richmond Whig, entitled “Poe’s First and Last Love,” began, “One more of the few ties that prominently connect the name of Edgar Allan Poe to earth has been broken.” The article’s eleven paragraphs told of Poe’s life, his engagement to Sarah Helen Whitman, his marriage to Virginia Clemm, and nothing about Shelton’s life apart from him. Her granddaughter had grown up with no idea that her grandmother had once known a famous writer, but there was no missing the fact after the publication of that obituary.
Although Elmira Shelton had long-since sold almost all her mementos of Poe, she kept a tiny albumen print photograph of him until her death. It is unknown when or where she got the picture, but she must have acquired it at least twenty years after Poe’s death because the pastel portrait depicted in the photo was not created until 1868 and probably not reproduced until 1870.
The photograph is stamped “Lee Gallery, Richmond VA,” so she could have received it from any of her friends in the city or even from Poe’s sister, who resorted to selling photographs of her famous brother in the lean times after the Civil War. Rosalie Poe is said to have considered this portrait the best likeness of Poe, so copies of it could be among those she sold.
After Shelton’s death, the photograph was among her possessions that passed to her daughter Ann Elizabeth Shelton to Ann Elizabeth’s daughter Lou Newton Leftwich Coghill to her son daughter Bessie Coghill Cobb to her sons Maj. William Magruder Cobb and Thomas Tracy Cobb. William and Thomas Cobb donated their collection of Shelton family photographs and portraits to the Poe Museum in 1979. In addition to the photograph of Poe, the group includes two photographs of Ann Elizabeth Shelton Leftwich, a miniature of James Royster, a photograph of John Henry Leftwich, two photographs of Elmira Shelton’s sister, and one of two known daguerreotypes of Elmira Shelton.
Daguerreotype of Elmira Shelton donated by the Cobbs
Ever since Poe’s death, various scholars have tried to dismiss the possibility that Poe and Elmira were engaged at the time of his death, but evidence has emerged to lend support to claims made by Poe, Thompson, Kennedy, Daniel, and Shelton herself that they really were engaged and very likely would have married if his life had not been cut short just days before the ceremony was to have taken place. The truth is we can never be certain whether or not Poe would have married Shelton and finally settled down into a comfortable upper-class life for the first time in his adult life. All that remains as evidence of their relationship are some second-hand accounts, a couple letters, and a few scattered artifacts, among which is the Poe Museum’s photograph.
The albumen print carte-de-visite is slightly smaller than a baseball card. Poe’s image emerges in slightly faded sepia tones on one side. On the back of the photograph, Elmira wrote the name “Edgar Allan Poe” in handwriting clearly recognizable from her letters. Above her signature is written in a different handwriting, “Poe’s picture kept by Elmira Royster/ WMC [William M. Cobb] 1950/ Writing below probably/ Elmira Royster’s.” There is no other evidence to suggest what this photograph—or its subject—meant to her.
Back of CDV
Today the Poe Museum devotes a case to Elmira Royster Shelton. In it are displayed a handful of items donated by Shelton’s descendants. Her spectacles, a daguerreotype of her, a miniature of her father, a copy of a drawing Poe made of her, a photograph of her daughter, and a selection of other artifacts serve to tell the story of a love that could have been.
From the man who sneaked into his dead wife’s crypt to spend the night on her corpse to the woman who believed she was in communication with Poe’s spirit after his death, colorful characters seemed to flock to Edgar Allan Poe. But Stella stands out even among this crowd. It is said that, when he saw her approaching his front door, Poe fled through the back door to avoid her. She may have even convinced her husband to pay Poe to write positive reviews of her work. In spite of that, she told Poe’s biographer John Henry Ingram she had been Poe’s good and trusted friend, and she boasted that she had been the inspiration for his poem “Annabel Lee.” The Poe Museum now owns a strange letter she wrote to one of Poe’s biographers. Because it reveals some entertaining insights in her personality and her relationship with Poe, we have named it the Poe Museum’s Object of the Month.
Estelle Anna “Stella” Lewis (1824-1880) was a moderately successful writer and the wife of lawyer Sylvanus Lewis. She first became acquainted with Poe around 1846. She soon joined a group of Poe’s female admirers in helping the poet, his mother-in-law Maria Clemm, and his gravely ill wife Virginia in a time of need. After Virginia’s death in January 1847, Stella continued to visit Poe and his mother-in-law. According to Stella, she became his trusted confidant, but other sources believed she was really trying to bribe him to write complimentary reviews. Meanwhile, Stella’s “trusted confidant” Poe wrote in a June 16, 1848 letter to Annie Richmond, “If she [Stella] comes here I shall refuse to see her.”
Poe was close enough to Stella to write the following acrostic poem for her. The first letter of the first line, the second of the second, and so forth spell out her name.
“Seldom we find,” says Solomon Don Dunce,
“Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet.
Through all the flimsy things we see at once
As easily as through a Naples bonnet—
Trash of all trash!—how can a lady don it?
Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff—
Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff
Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it.”
And, veritably, Sol is right enough.
The general tuckermanities are arrant
Bubbles—ephemeral and so transparent—
But this is, now,—you may depend upon it—
Stable, opaque, immortal—all by dint
Of the dear names that he concealed within’t.
Unlike many of the poems Poe addressed to women, there is no hint of romance in this one. He also had this daguerreotype of himself made for her.
He gave Annie Richmond another, very similar, daguerreotype taken at the same session.
Stella later told John Henry Ingram, “I saw much of Mr. Poe during the last year of his life. He was one of the most sensitive and refined gentlemen I ever met. My girlish poem — ‘The Forsaken’ — made us acquainted. He had seen it floating the rounds of the press, and wrote to tell me how much he liked it: ‘It is inexpressibly beautiful,’ he said, ‘and I should like much to know the young author.’ After the first call he frequently dined with us, and passed the evening in playing whist or in reading to me his last poem.”
On his last night in New York before starting his ill-fated trip to Richmond, Stella invited Poe and his mother-in-law to her home for dinner. As Stella told it, “The day before he left New York for Richmond,” continues Stella, “Mr. Poe came to dinner, and stayed the night. He seemed very sad and retired early. On leaving the next morning he took my hand in his, and, looking in my face, said, ‘Dear Stella, my much beloved friend. You truly understand and appreciate me — I have a presentiment that I shall never see you again. I must leave to-day for Richmond. If I never return, write my life. You can and will do me justice.’ ‘I will!’ I exclaimed. And we parted to meet no more in this life. That promise I have not yet felt equal to fulfil.” Poe died a few months afterwards. Stella died three decades later without fulfilling that promise.
In the years following Poe’s death, Stella invited his mother-in-law to live with her. It seems that, in order to endear herself to Stella, Mrs. Clemm told her she had been the inspiration for “Annabel Lee”—even though nothing in the poem suggests this. Stella almost immediately told her friends, and the rumor appeared in the papers not long after that. Another of Poe’s friends, Frances Osgood, responded in the December 8, 1849 issue of Saroni’s Musical Times that Poe’s wife was the only woman he had ever loved and was unquestionably the true subject of “Annabel Lee.” Osgood continues, “I have heard it said that it was intended to illustrate a love affair of the author; but they who believe this, have in their dullness, evidently misunderstood or missed the beautiful meaning latent in the most lovely of all its verses…” Most people now agree with Osgood.
Poe’s ex-fiancée Sarah Helen Whitman, however, (who also thought she had been the inspiration for “Annabel Lee”) was so insulted by Stella’s claim that she spread the rumor that a New York writer familiar with all the parties involved told her Maria Clemm had only been flattering Stella to repay some favors and that Osgood had invented the claim that Virginia was the real Annabel Lee solely to spite Stella. (In case you’re counting, that’s three possible Annabel Lees in this blog post.)
Just to make sure her role in Poe’s life was recorded for posterity, she befriended his enemy and biographer Rufus W. Griswold. She still failed to convince the public she could have been the real Annabel Lee.
In 1858, Stella divorced her husband, began a feud with Maria Clemm (who apparently sided with Sylvanus Lewis in the divorce), accused another writer of stealing from her, and headed for Europe. About this time, Martin Van Buren Moore (1837-1900), a young reporter from Tennessee, wrote her for assistance in writing an article about Edgar Allan Poe. In her response, she boasts that Poe himself had entrusted her to be his biographer, calls Maria Clemm the “black cat” of Poe’s life, talks about her divorce, and asks Moore if she should change her name to La Stella or Anna Stella. She eventually settled on the name Stella. Here is a photo of this note.
The text of the letter reads:
Dear Van,
I had not time to reply to you [sic] letter which reached me the day before I sailed for Europe. I called at Mr. Scribner’s on my way to the vessel and told his brother to say to you that I would write the notice of Poe–I will if you can wait. It was his last request of me– “Write my life–you know better than anyone else.” he said. If any one else should write it do not permit the name of that old woman who calls herself his mother-in-law to appear in it. I have heard that she is not his mother-in-law–That she has something else on him. Any how. I believe that she was [the] black cat of his life. And that she strangled him to death. I will tell you about it when we meet. If you get the work out before I return to America put Poe first, and Stella next in the Poets of Maryland. You cannot get it out till next year as it ought to be– do wait–that is a good Van.
I intend to drop the name of Lewis–but cannot do it at once–What do you think of La Stella or Anna Stella. Call me Stella on all occasions–ring on it in biographical notice– You know that the Divorce was all in my favor–That is after trying for a year they could not get anything against me–and gave it up–say this in the notice–say that I stood unscathed against the treachery of a half dozen Lawyers. Let me hear from you the moment you get this. Direct to care of Mr. John Monroe, Banker, no 5, Rue de La Paix, Paris—
Ever Yours
Stella
After leaving the United States, Stella meandered around Europe before settling in London around 1874. While there, she provided information about the poet to another of Poe’s biographers John Henry Ingram. At the same time, Poe’s nurse Marie Louise Shew and his fiancée Sarah Helen Whitman were also supplying Ingram sometimes contradictory accounts of their own relationships with Poe.
Stella still found time to write poetry and plays. Her major works include the tragedies Helémah, or the Fall of Montezuma (1864) and Sappho of Lesbos (1868). The latter was printed in seven editions and translated into Greek to be performed in Athens. The Poe Museum owns a autographed copy of this, her most celebrated work. In 1865 she composed a series of sonnets about Poe. Her other works include The Child of the Sea and other Poems (1848), The Myths of the Minstrel (1852), Poems (1866) and The King’s Stratagem(1869).
Stella died in London in 1880. By then, the French poet Alphonse de Lamartine deemed her the “Female Petrarch” while Ingram considered her merely a “harpy” who had preyed upon Poe in his final years.
Martin Van Buren Moore eventually wrote his essay about Poe. The manuscript for it is also in the Poe Museum’s collection. His grandson Otis D. Smith of Richmond, Virginia donated both the Stella letter and the manuscript to the Museum in 1979 but kept the envelope because he thought he might be able to sell it to a stamp collector.
On this page from Moore’s manuscript, he acknowledges the assistance of the “brilliant” Stella to whom he is “indebted for many of the facts in regards to Poe’s life” that were used in the essay. Among these facts, he continues, “She stated positively that Poe was born in Baltimore and not in Boston.” Click here to find out where Poe was really born. Fortunately, Moore’s essay makes no attempt to promote the discredited claims that Stella was the real Annabel Lee.
While the Poe Museum owns a number of Edgar Allan Poe’s letters, most visitors do not realize the collection also holds several rarely seen letters from the people in his life. While these are rarely anthologized and seldom read, they nevertheless provide value insights into Poe’s life and work as seen by his contemporaries. Since this Stella letter was written to a person researching an article about Poe, the document reveals the way in which Poe’s biography was shaped (or distorted) by the biases and self-interests of the people who knew him as they provided information of varying quality to his biographers.
