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The
relationship between Edgar Allan Poe and Rufus Wilmot Griswold
(1815-1857)
is complex and enigmatic, yet it is one of the essential keys to
understanding
Poe and his biographers. In one way or another, every biography of Poe
written since 1849 has either relied on or been obliged to respond to
Griswold's
depictions of Poe in his "Ludwig" article and his "Memoir of the
Author."
Even Griswold's edition
of
Poe's writings (the first posthumous collection) remains at the heart
of
nearly every modern compilation of Poe's works.
From their first meeting in 1841, the two men viewed each other with
a certain amount of professional suspicion. Personally, they seem to
have
held a mutual dislike, but both were willing to wear the appearance of
friendship as long as there was something to gain. By this time, Poe
was
already well known as a fearless and independent critic. Griswold, a
failed
Baptist minister turned editor, considered himself Poe's social and
moral
superior. To him, Poe was nothing more than a poor Southerner with an
unimpressive
smattering of education and an acid pen. Who was Poe to appoint himself
as the literary conscience of America? In Poe's eyes, Griswold was a
literary
dilettante, a mediocre writer who was born into prosperity and
succeeded
more through social connections and exchanges of favors than talent.
Allied
with the Northern clique of the literati, Griswold embodied all that
Poe
detested.
Initially, Poe seems to have held a somewhat higher opinion of
Griswold.
In his "Autography" series of 1841, Poe describes Griswold as "...not
only
a polished prose-writer, but a poet of no ordinary powers" (Harrison, Complete
Works, XV, p. 215). This view, if genuine, quickly diminished as
Poe
left the editorial chair at Graham's Magazine in 1842 and
Griswold
assumed his duties there. In a letter to Daniel Bryan (July 6, 1842),
Poe
wrote, "I have no quarrel either with Mr. Graham or Mr. Griswold --
although
I hold neither in especial respect" (Ostrom, Letters, p. 205).
In
a letter to F. W. Thomas (September 12, 1842), Poe revealed his growing
dislike of Griswold, "He [Graham] is not especially pleased with
Griswold
-- nor is any one else, with the exception of the Rev. gentleman
himself,
who has gotten himself into quite a hornet's nest, by his 'Poets &
Poetry.' . . . He is a pretty fellow to set himself up as an honest
judge,
or even a capable one" (Ostrom, Letters, p. 211). To James
Russell
Lowell (October 19, 1843), Poe wrote "It is a pity that so many of
these
biographies [for Graham's Magazine] were entrusted to Mr.
Griswold.
He certainly lacks independence, or judgment, or both" (Ostrom, Letters,
p. 237). Poe's negative view of Griswold was not entirely without
merit.
Griswold seemed almost proud of his own lack of editorial ethics when
he
wrote to Ticknor & Company on July 10, 1842, "I puff your books,
you
know, without any regard to their quality" (The Poe Log, p.
377).
More significant may be a recollection by John Sartain in which he
refers
to Griswold as ". . . a notorious blackmailer . . . I myself had to pay
him money to prevent abusive notices of Sartain's Magazine"
(John
Sartain, "Poe's Last Days," Boston Evening Transcript, February
25, 1893, reprinted by Richard Tuerk, "John Sartain and E. A. Poe," Poe
Studies, IV no, 2, December 1971, pp. 21-23).
Always at the center of their relationship was Griswold's anthology, The
Poets and Poetry of America. First published in 1842,
it was
an enormous commercial success, going through ten editions by 1850. It
was the information that Griswold was beginning such a work in 1841
that
initially prompted Poe to seek him out. By making a selection of
American
poetry, Griswold made himself a focus for Poe's campaign to reform the
American literary scene. Poe's personal opinion of the final collection
seems to have been harsh. In Poe's mind, The Poets and Poetry of
America
gave pages to many he deemed unworthy of attention and ignored many he
though deserved a place of recognition. "Have you seen Griswold's Book
of Poetry? It is a most outrageous humbug, and I sincerely wish you
would
'use it up'" (Poe to J. E Snodgrass, June 4, 1842, Ostrom, Letters,
p 202).
In a strange twist of fate, Griswold arranged for Poe to write a
review
of The Poets and Poetry of America, for which Griswold paid
Poe's
"usual fee" in advance, probably no more than $10. For the review, Poe
softened his opinions. The notice he produced was generally positive,
but
hardly as laudatory as Griswold undoubtedly expected. "We disagree
then,
with Mr. Griswold in many of his critical estimates; although
in
general, we are proud to find his decisions our own. 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." Poe concluded with more favorable
comments,
"The book should be regarded as the most important addition which
our
literature has for many years received. . . . It is written with
judgment,
with dignity and candor. . . . Mr. Griswold . . . has entitled himself
to the thanks of his countrymen, while showing himself a man of taste,
talent and tact" (Boston Miscellany, November 1842). Poe
wrote to F. W. Thomas on September 12, 1842, "that review has not yet
appeared,
and I am doubtful if it ever will" (Ostrom, Letters, p. 212).
Poe
also suggested to Thomas that Griswold's payment was essentially a
bribe
and he clearly took great delight in producing one that, while fair,
was
far from the puff Griswold likely thought he was buying. Why Griswold
permitted
the review to be printed, when he could easily have suppressed it, is
explained
by Griswold's letter of September 7, 1842 to James T. Fields, "I am
rather
pleased that it [Poe's review] is to appear, lest Poe should think I
had
prevented its publication" (The Poe Log, p. 378). A prior letter
to Fields, August 12, 1842, shows that Griswold was unhappy but not
especially
angry with Poe, ". . . the author and myself . . . [are not] on the
best
of terms, it [the review] is not decidedly as favorable as it might
have
been" (The Poe Log, p. 377). Perhaps, however, Griswold was
angrier
than he was willing to admit. In 1895, Griswold's son defended his
father's
"Memoir" of Poe in part by repeating the story of this review as an
example
of Poe's "utter lack of honor" (W. M. Griswold, "Poe's Moral Nature," The
Nation, p. 381).
A few months later, their already tenuous relationship would
deteriorate
considerably. The January 28, 1843 issue of the Philadelphia Saturday
Museum carried a truly negative, and extremely personal, review of The
Poets and Poetry of America. "Did any one read such
nonsense?
We never did, and shall hereafter eschew everything that bears
Rufus
Wilmot Griswold's name. . . Mr. G. belongs to the class called 'toady'
. . . Where is Professor Walter, Morton McMichael, Robert Morris
(another
sweet poet), the Rev. T. H. Stockton, and Dr. English? . . . all these
gentlemen should be gratified at their non-appearance in the volume
before
us, for if ever such a thing as literary ruin existed, or exists,
nine-tenths
of the Poets (!) of America are ruined forever by the praise of
Mr. Griswold!" This review ends with a strangely prophetic accusation:
". . . what will be his [Mr. Griswold's] fate? Forgotten, save only by
those whom he has injured and insulted, he will sink into oblivion,
without
leaving a landmark to tell that he once existed; or if he is spoken of
hereafter, he will be quoted as the unfaithful servant who abused
his
trust" (Harrison, Complete Works, XI, pp. 220-243).
Although
the anonymous review is now know to have been written by Poe's friend,
Henry B. Hirst, Griswold apparently presumed that Poe was behind it.
(To
be fair, Hirst probably repeated much that Poe had said to him
personally.)
His suspicions were confirmed, in his mind, by Poe's traveling lecture
on American Poetry. In 1843, 1844 and again in 1845, Poe presented his
lecture on a number of occasions, always with special criticism of
Griswold
and his anthology. Although a very brief comment near the end of a
minor
article, Griswold might well have taken offense also at Poe's
statements
from The Columbia Spy: "It is preposterous, also, to hear
anything
like commendation of that last and greatest of all absurdities,
Griswold's
Appendix to D'Israeli's 'Curiosities of Literature.'" ("Doings of
Gotham
- [Letter VII] June 25, 1844," reprinted by Spannuth and Mabbott, eds, Doings
of Gotham, 1929, p. 76).
In 1845, Griswold began a new anthology, The Prose Writers of
America.
Accepting that Poe could hardly be left out of such a work, Griswold
asked
him to submit a few tales and a sketch of himself: "Although I have
some
cause of personal quarrel with you, which you will easily enough
remember,
I do not under any circumstances permit, as you have repeatedly
charged,
my private griefs to influence my judgment as a critic, or its
expressions.
I retain, therefore, the early formed and well founded favorable
opinions
of your works" (Griswold to Poe, January 14, 1845, Harrison, Complete
Works, XVII, p. 197). Poe responded a few days later with a brief
apology
to Griswold: "Your letter occasioned me first pain and then pleasure:
--
pain because it gave me to see that I had lost, through my own folly,
an
honorable friend: -- pleasure, because I saw in it a hope of
reconciliation"
(Ostrom, Letters, p. 275). Continuing in this vein, Poe wrote
Griswold
again on April 19, 1845, "I presume you understand that in the
repetition
of my Lecture on the Poets (in N. Y.) I left out all that was offensive
to yourself?" (Ostrom, Letters, pp. 284-286). Poe seems to have
thought the matter resolved, although published commentaries about his
lecture show that he did not treat Griswold as kindly as this letter
would
suggest. On October 26, 1845, he felt free to ask Griswold for a loan
of
$50 to help sustain The Broadway Journal (Poe to Griswold,
Ostrom, Letters, p. 298). Poe also borrowed Griswold's copy of
the Southern
Literary Messenger, as a source for the text of excerpts from Poe's
play "Politian" for use in The Raven and Other Poems (Poe to
Griswold,
September 28, 1845, Ostrom, Letters, p. 298). For his part,
Griswold
too seems to have been willing to forgive past offenses. "Speaking of
Poe
reminds me of the brutal article [against Poe] in the Mirror
[by
Thomas Dunn English], which it is impossible on any grounds whatsoever
to justify in the slightest degree" (Griswold to E. A. Duyckinck, July
24, 1846, The Poe Log, p. 658).
In his 1846 series for Godey's Lady's Book, "The Literati of
New York City," Poe was careful not to include Griswold, although he
may
have been among those Poe would have covered had he not so suddenly
decided
to end the sketches. Nonetheless, Poe was harsh on some of Griswold's
friends,
saying of Charles F. Briggs that he, ". . . has never composed in his
life
three consecutive sentences of grammatical English."
A true friendship between Poe and Griswold was probably an inherent
impossibility. By 1847, they seem to have returned to their old
attitudes.
Griswold's introduction to Poe in The Prose Writers of America,
for example, essentially reprinted an earlier notice from 1845 and
suggests
some latent or renewed difficulties. After a brief and rather mixed
commentary
on Poe's abilities as a writer of tales and as a poet, Griswold ends
with,
"In criticism . . . his chief skill lies in the dissection of
sentences"
(The Prose Writers of America, 1847, p. 524). Poe, always
sensitive
to criticism, would not have been happy with such a dismissal of his
editorial
abilities. Poe's review (the Southern Literary Messenger,
February
1848) of Griswold's The Female Poets of America (1848) was
decidedly
more favorable. As Poe generally encouraged women writers, however, his
criticism was probably softened for their sake rather than Griswold's.
In 1847, a minor satire called, appropriately enough, The Poets
and
Poetry of America was published in Philadelphia over the pen-name
Lavante.
The obvious target of this satire is Griswold's anthology of poetry:
. . . With you, ye minor bards, I hold not war;
much as yourselves would I that strife abhor,
Too dull your muse offense to give or take,
My hate to rouse, or at my thrust awake;
So cold your strain, so dead your accents fall,
Great thanks to Griswold that ye live at all! . . .
The pamphlet received little attention and Griswold may never have
seen
it at all. If he did at least hear of it, however, he would doubtless
have
assumed that Poe was behind it. (The pamphlet was reprinted in 1887 as The
Poets and Poetry of America, [With an introductory
argument
and notes by "Geoffrey Quarles"], New York, Benjamin and Bell. That
edition
claims Poe as the author, although T. O. Mabbott dismissed the
attribution
in his collection of Poe's Poems, 1969, p. 510, item 80.)
At least one scholar (John E. Walsh, Plumes in the Dust) has
attributed much of the problem between Poe and Griswold to a mutual
infatuation
for the minor poetess and social butterfly Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood.
Although married, Mrs. Osgood and her husband were intermittently
estranged.
She and Poe carried on a public and probably platonic courtship through
a number of poems. Poe broke off the friendship in 1846. Mrs. Osgood
died
in May of 1850. Griswold edited her collection of poetry. Her fondness
for Poe never waned. About this same time, Griswold entered an
unpleasant
phase of his life, riddled with health, personal and legal problems,
all
of which may have colored his attitudes and opinions. At least one
scholar
has suggested that Griswold may have been mentally ill (Quinn, Edgar
Allan Poe, p. 692).
Whatever the cause of Griswold's animus, the long years of
resentment
finally revealed themselves in words of bitterness perhaps unique in
the
history of obituaries: "Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore
the
day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few
will
be grieved by it" (New York Tribune, October 9, 1849, p.
2).
Afraid of retaliation, Griswold signed this article "Ludwig," but his
dislike
of Poe was well known and he was quickly exposed. Griswold admitted to
Sarah Helen Whitman, in a letter of December 17, 1849, "I wrote, as you
suppose, the notice of Poe in The Tribune, but very hastily. I
was not his friend, nor was he mine" (Reprinted in Gill, The
Life
of Poe, 1877, pp. 228-229). The "Ludwig" obituary was widely
reprinted.
Griswold, having now assumed the mantle of a true villain, then
began
his most ingenious plot. Through some less-than ethical arrangements
with
Maria Clemm, Poe's mother-in-law, he secured the rights to publish a
posthumous
collection of Poe's works. (Technically, the rights to Poe's estate
belonged
to his sister Rosalie. Mrs. Clemm, unaware of his deep hostility
towards
Edgar, may have first approached Griswold.) The initial two volumes
appeared
towards the end of 1849, with a brief preface pronouncing the edition
as
a charitable act to benefit Mrs. Clemm. In actuality, instead of the
promised
money, Mrs. Clemm received six sets of the two volumes to sell at
whatever
she could get. Griswold even kept all of the manuscript material Mrs.
Clemm
had sent to him, all worth far more than one-hundred sets would have
been.
It was long claimed that Poe himself had appointed Griswold his
literary
executor, but no real evidence of this has ever been produced.
Initially,
the volumes contained only Poe's writings, reprinting brief and
somewhat
modified notices by James Russell Lowell and N. P. Willis, but Griswold
was not done yet.
In October of 1850, Griswold published an enlarged and even more
vituperative
account of Poe's life in the International Monthly Magazine.
Almost
simultaneously, this article appeared as a "Memoir of the Author" in a
third volume of Poe's works. In this "Memoir" Griswold cleverly
manipulated
and invented details of Poe's life for the least favorable account he
could
create. He even forged letters from Poe to exaggerate his own role as
Poe's
benefactor and to alienate Poe's friends. (A. H. Quinn provides an
exacting
account of these forgeries in his 1941 biography of Poe.) No lie was
too
great for Griswold, no slander too outrageous. Poe's choice not to
return
to the University of Virginia became expulsion for wild and reckless
behavior.
Poe's honorable discharge from the army became desertion. The 1827
publication
of Tamerlane and Other Poems was dismissed as a lie. He even
accused
Poe of engaging in some dark secret with the second Mrs. Allan and
invented
a scheme by which Poe supposedly blackmailed an unidentified "literary
woman of South Carolina" (presumably Mrs. Ellet). By praising Poe's
writings
and attacking Poe's character, Griswold managed to make himself appear
to be a sincere admirer and to attain a false sense of fairness in his
general approach to Poe. In short, it was a brilliant piece of
character
assassination. Poe's literary executor had become his literary executioner.
Once again, Poe's friends came to his defense, but Griswold had done
his
work well. For every magazine that carried a condemnation of Griswold's
infamy, three repeated his titillating slanders as fact. In 1852,
Griswold
prepared yet another biographical article on Poe, which was again
widely
copied. (A fourth, and final, volume of Griswold's collection was
published
in 1856. In subsequent editions, the preface to Maria Clemm was removed
and his "Memoir" moved to the first volume.)
Although Griswold died in 1857, his remained the only readily
available
biography of Poe until 1875. After 25 years, his interpretation of Poe
had worked itself deeply into the public consciousness. What strength
his
accusations lacked in truth they gained in repetition. Richard Henry
Stoddard
and others took up Griswold's banner and continued his attacks on Poe.
As has already been noted, however, Poe was not without his defenders.
Among his friends, John Neal, George Rex Graham, George W. Peck, James
Wood Davidson, Henry B. Hirst, Charles Chauncey Burr and especially
Sarah
Helen Whitman denounced Griswold and fought hard for a more balanced
and
sympathetic judgment of Poe faults and talents. Many others sensed the
inherent unfairness in Griswold's account, but it was not until 1875
that
a new champion emerged, the industrious Englishman John Henry Ingram
(1842-1916).
Coincidentally timed with the much publicized unveiling of a monument
to
Poe in Baltimore, the new memoir received a great deal of attention and
did much to unwind Griswold's lie. With the help of Sarah Helen
Whitman,
William Hand Browne and many others, Ingram expanded his memoir in 1880
and produced a two-volume biography of Poe, carefully researched and
documented.
Together with briefer biographies by Eugene L. Didier (1877) and
William
Fearing Gill (1878) Poe's reputation was brought back from the brink,
although
it sometimes suffered from intentional white-washing. Both sides
renewed
the fray and the battle still rages today. |
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