Text: George W. Eveleth to Edgar Allan Poe — June 9, 1846

Notes:

The location of this letter is unknown. It was sold at the Bangs auction of April 11, 1896, as part of item 112. The catalogue entry quotes this portion of the letter, without giving the date. The date is established by Poe’s December 15, 1846 letter, which notes a letter from Eveleth of June 9, 1846, and the fact that the surviving letters from Eveleth are not of that date and do not include this text. It is also in keeping with the nature of Eveleth’s early letters to Poe, which were mostly concerned with his subscription to the recently folded Broadway Journal. This letter is the only one of the original set of twelve which was, apparently, not available to Mabbott in 1922 and not reprinted in his article on Eveleth’s letters to Poe.

Based on Poe’s reply of December 15, 1846, Eveleth asked about a criticism of “The Raven” by “the Hartford Review man” (Rufus White Griswold), and offered his own objections to Poe’s use of the phrase “footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.” Eveleth also quoted two lines from “The Valley of Nis,” apparently “Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees / That palpitate like the chill seas,” and asked about “Politian.”