Text: Burton R. Pollin, “Contemporary Reviews of Eureka: A Checklist,” Poe as Literary Cosmologer (1975), pp. 22-30 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 26, continued:]

Students may have wondered why Poe, in his letters of 1848, seemed particularly concerned over the response of the press to Eureka and to the precursive lecture, “The Cosmogony of the Universe, “ which has been called an “abstract” of the book — its delivery time being over two hours.(1) Since his letters to Eveleth, to Mrs. Shew, and to C. F. Hoffman and Isbell often discussed or even replied to several of the reviews,(2) it might seem desirable to supply the substratum of Poe's commentaries. The two biographers who have surveyed them are so partial, so indirect, and so merely allusive that frequently one cannot trace the original reviews without widespread research.(3)

Through the following group of abstracts I intend to do more than help one to read Poe's letters knowingly. The reviews, in conjunction with the letters and a few biographical comments by the publisher of Eureka, George Palmer Putnam, and others enable us to determine Poe's vacillating intentions concerning is scientific “discovery” or thesis, in 1848. Did he, for example, expand the lecture into a book or abridge the book into a lecture? Did he plan Eureka as a money-procuring performance from the beginning? Most important, did he lecture for funds to help him with the Stylus, for the expression of his deep convictions, for publicity for a book that he intended, even in 1847, to present to Putnam or another major publisher, or for all these and other motives?

The simple chronology seems to be this. After he had almost completed Eureka or, possibly the lecture, at the end of 1847, he planned a speaking tour to gain subscribers for his long-projected magazine the Stylus, discussed in a letter of 4 January 1848 to the Maine medical student George Eveleth (Ostrom, pp. 54-357). Apparently, he first thought of initiating the lectures in Portland, Maine, the home of his old friend John Neal, possibly using “The Rationale of Verse” as a text. Within two weeks he had changed his mind about the place and topic, perhaps because of the cost of the long trip or a discouraging reply from Neal up in wintry Maine or the generally bleak cultural scene there. Whatever the cause, on January 17, he besought H. D. Chapin, a friend, to engage the hall of the prestigious Society Library and pay the fifteen dollar fee for him. Poe thought he could count on from 300 to 400 auditors.(4) Then bad luck in the form of a severe snow storm permitted an audience of only sixty — many of them on press passes. On January 22, Poe had written to Willis about advance publicity for the lecture, the theme of which had probably shifted from “verse” to “universe.” Perhaps he was influenced also by the advertising for the first of seven lectures — on January 25 — on ‘Views of Astronomy, “by the eminent Scotch professor, J. P. Nichol, whose 1837 book (Views of the Architecture of the Heavens) had contributed to Eureka. We know that Poe's attention had been directed to these lectures, thrice published in toto by the New-York Tribune, beginning January 26, for the final version of Eureka incorporated passages verbatim from them.(5) Perhaps, too, the competition of Nichol's lectures and a concomitant series on Biblical history by Professor Wines helped reduce Poe's audience. Willis, moreover, forgot to print the advance notice until after the lecture, although the New World and the Weekly Universe did carry it.

Poe read these notices and reviews, cherishing his clippings and begging his correspondents to return them. He also worked further on the text of his book after February 3. According to Putnam, partner of the firm which had published his two volumes of 1845, and according to M. B. Field, an auditor who knew him, within two days Poe was to present an almost finished form of Eureka to Putnam for consideration.(6) [page 27:] I believe that well over a month elapsed before this meeting took place. In a letter to Eveleth, Poe still calls it “my late lecture on the Universe” (Ostrom, p. 361) and on the same date, in a letter to Isbell (p. 363), speaks rather vaguely of eventually publishing the “Lecture.” His letter of March 30 to Mrs. Shew (p. 364) suggests his wish to discuss textual matters with Mr. Hopkins, her friend and a student of divinity, who was later to review the book for the Literary World. The first definite evidence of an arrangement with Putnam for publication is the contract dated May, 1848, and a reference by Hopkins to his seeing the manuscript in Putnam's office early in May (Ostrom, p. 365). In view of the usual rapid typesetting and editorial preparation needed for small-book manuscripts in those days, we can conclude that Putnam erroneously ascribed to February the real date of March or, more likely, April for his “quick” decision to publish the book.(7)

He agreed to issue 500 copies instead of the 50,000 urged by Poe, who was either euphoric or grossly misled by the relatively few and mildly favorable reviews of his lecture. Although Poe's financial need may have dictated his urging, we must rely solely upon the unreliable report by Putnam, whose son stated that one-third were unsold a year later. Poe made almost no money from the whole deal and had to continue his solicitations for backing for the Stylus.(8) Eureka appeared late in June, bearing traces of the lecture on the outside spine, Eureka or the Universe. The half-title page bears Eureka: A Prose Poem, given it, I believe, as a result of the New York Express's declaring: “The work has all the completeness and oneness of plot required in a poem” (Woodberry, 9.376) and, possibly, of the New-World's reference to his “select and nervous diction” and “lofty language” (9.378). The full title was Eureka: An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe, but in Putnam's advertisements, we find Eureka, A Prose Poem: Or the Physical and Metaphysical Universe.(9) This is a significant variation if it is Poe's wording.

Of the roughly thirty reviews of the lecture and book that are given below in abstract, only a few were not personally inspected by me. For indirect reports, the substantiation is given. The arrangement is alphabetical by title of the periodical, since none of the reviews was signed and since the exact date of the monthlies cannot be ascertained. I hope that a full presentation of these notices along with others can be made in the future, together with a study of the publishing papers, the inferred reviewers, and implications for Poe's life and work. This paper is a mere beginning.(10)

THE BOSTON JOURNAL, Feb. 12. Two paragraphs. Speaks of Poe as giving a series of lectures intended raise money for the Stylus. Cites the material in the Home Journal and takes from the Courier material about extending Laplace's nebular theory, proof of which will make Poe, “a great man” now, even greater.(11)

NEW YORK COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER, February 4. Editorial comment, “Hyperbolic Nonsense, “of two paragraphs. Cites most of the long, laudatory first paragraph of the Express review of February 4 (presumably in an early edition) and expostulates against such high praises and publishing the whole lecture. The theory is incomprehensible.

MORNING COURIER AND NEW YORK ENQUIRER, February 11. Two paragraphs, including one from the Home Journal. This, Poe's noblest effort yet, develops LaPlace's theory, which was thought to be demolished by the findings of Lord Rosse's telescope, and shows how gravitation will annihilate all systems in the universe. Quotes the Home Journal's paragraph on the purpose.

THE NEW YORK EVENING EXPRESS, February 4. Seven long paragraphs (see an excerpt in Woodberry, 9.375-376). The most elaborate and profound lecture ever heard, unified in thought and “in plot” like “a poem” but with the detail and accuracy of a scientific lecture. Summarizes the theory and argument in florid metaphors and calls it an extraordinary work of “Art, “of searching analysis, metaphysical acumen, and unsurpassed passion for ideas, from a man whose uncommon powers are still growing.

THE NEW YORK EVENING EXPRESS, February 9. Nine-paragraph letter to the editors from “Spes Credula.” Admires the tales of Poe, especially “Magnetic Revelation, “but deplores his neglect of Revelation and use of the Atomic Epicurean theory of Lucretius which considers matter as eternal. The Express's editor initially protests that according to Poe divine volition created the primary particles.

THE HOME JOURNAL (the weekly of Willis and Morris), February 5. Two paragraphs. Regrets omitting the announcement of the lecture, undoubtedly a mental treat. Since its purpose is to raise money for the Stylus all lovers of literature should subscribe.

THE LITERARY WORLD (weekly of Charles F. Hoffman), February 12, p. 30. Three long paragraphs. Summarizes the introduction, concerning the letter [page 28:] in the bottle and the Baconian system, and the main thesis concerning the diffusion of atoms and their subsequent “agglomeration and ingathering” in endlessly alternating cycles. Alludes to Rosse's telescope and Poe's refutation of the apparently contrary evidence, praises the “entertaining” lecture of two and one-half hours, and anticipates seeing he lecture in print.

THE NEW WORLD (weekly of Park Benjamin), January 29. A two-paragraph pre-announcement of a lecture anticipated to be “interesting and original,” from a “splendid genius” and “literary artist.” Mentions the planned magazine.

THE NEW WORLD, February 12. “Mr. Poe upon the Universe” by “Decius” (P. Benjamin himself?). Eight paragraphs give the result, rather facetiously, of the two “mortal hours”of listeners’ time, referring to the long introduction, the old concept of a First Cause, the gyratory radiation of created matter, surrounded by ‘'spiritual electricity, “the nebulous theory” which is still valid if reinterpreted, Poe’ s use of Chambers's Vestiges of Creation as well as Herschel and LaPlace, his extraordinary diction and wrapt, almost oblivious manner.(12)

NEW YORK EVENING POST (W. C. Bryant's daily), February 3. Preannouncement of the lecture of his evening.” Poe is “acute-minded” and subtle and of independent opinions.

SATURDAY COURIER (Philadelphia weekly), February 12, p. 881. One paragraph. Poe's doctrine appears similar to Spinoza's, that man is a mere extension of Deity, and, also, reports that the stellar system will fall into one and be reabsorbed y the creator, before a new, similar cycle begins — all a poor theory.

SATURDAY EVENING POST (Philadelphia weekly), February 12. First reported by Eveleth. 13 Six sentences in a “letter” from “Gothamite, “discussing the week's lectures in New York, Poe's being preeminent for its eloquence, wit, poetry, astronomical knowledge, and keen analysis. Doubts that Poe can establish a magazine, as he intends to do.

SATURDAY GAZETTE (Philadelphia weekly), February 12. One paragraph of mockery. Feared before that Poe was half-crazy and now is convinced by his theory of a Deity who exists solely in man after exhausting himself in creating the world.

NEW YORK DAILY TRIBUNE (Horace Greeley's daily), February 2. Preannouncement (sic). Cites the Home Journal text, apparently secured in advance. The same, February 4. One long paragraph on the small audience of high intelligence, listening to a lecture evincing strong analytic powers and intense imagination rather than probability. Gives a one sentence summary of Poe's “agglomeration” theory.

THE WEEKLY UNIVERSE of New York. Non-existent now for the dates involved, save as reported by Eveleth and Woodberry: Issue of January 29. Preannouncement about Poe as a man of science, of poetry, of letters, who will surely give a worthwhile lecture (Eveleth Letters, p. 20). Issue of February 12 (two paragraphs, perhaps the whole, given in Woodberry, 9.376-377). The lecture, interestingly presented, was highly worthy of its intellectual audience, who pondered it deeply for its overlong span of two hours „ Suggests that it be printed. Another notice in the Weekly Universe, probably much later, about Poe's having “prepared it for publication” (Eveleth Letters, p. 20).

ALBION (weekly of New York, orientated toward the British colony), 7 (July 15, 1848), 345. Two paragraphs. Cites the preface, looks in vain for the poetry elsewhere in the book, has given this abstruse, deep, metaphysical essay a few hasty glances, and asks that Poe's keen research and talents bring him acute criticism.

BOSTON DAILY EVENING TRANSCRIPT, July 20, 1848. Not seen but listed by Dameron in his 1974 Bibliography (A258) thus: ‘'Sneers at Poe's ostentation of scientific lore, recognizes his talent, but doubts his sincerity.”

ATHENAEUM (London weekly), August 19, 1848, p. 820. Under “New American Books” announces Eureka, or, the Physical and Metaphysical Universe. A Prose Poem. By Edgar A. Poe.(14)

BOSTON SATURDAY RAMBLER, 3 (July 22, 1848), 2. Preannouncement. Poe “is about publishing a prose-poem” revealing “his new theory of the universe.”

BROOKLYN (daily) EAGLE, July 31, 1848. One paragraph. It is said that this is a dying bequest. “New and startling” thoughts about God, and man, and immortality in a strong, musing, poetic style.

NEW YORK COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER, July 12. A brief paragraph. The writer expects to find in it brilliance, some truth, and much eccentricity.

DEMOCRATIC REVIEW (NYC), 23 (August, 1848), 192. One brief paragraph. Eureka is handsomely printed. Poe is too well known here and abroad to need an extended notice of a work which will doubtless be sought by admirers and the people.

DOLLAR MAGAZINE (Philadelphia weekly), July 19. One paragraph. Not read as yet, but is expected to [page 29:] have brilliant thoughts, some truths, much eccentricity.

NEW YORK EVENING EXPRESS (daily), July 12. One long paragraph. Cannot do justice to this extraordinary essay, which consummately expands the lecture into an elegant volume. With its reasoning power and depth, this new theory of the universe, unequaled since Newton's day, is highly recommended.

GAZETTE OF THE UNION AND GOLDEN RULE AND ODD-FELLOW’ S FAMILY COMPANION (weekly of New York), 9 (August 26, 1848), 155. Brief paragraph on the production of an eccentric genius, dealing with a vast theme. Subtle analysis, ingeniously combatting [[combating]] many existing theories and tramping on ordinary opinions and authorities.

HOME JOURNAL, August 12. Three paragraphs. Dr. Chalmers, man of genius, and Dr. Draper have shown the modern tendency to wed to science Christian truth or the sense of beauty and imagination. Poe boldly disavows induction for his theory of the universe in favor of scientific inspiration. All is attraction and repulsion in this suggestive work of phantasy, sounding like the Vestiges of Creation and close in ideas to Swedenborg's.

HUNT'S MERCHANTS’ MAGAZINE, 19 (August, 48), 237. One paragraph. A startling work, properly located in the province of poetry or romance, with imaginative beauty and glorious thought about the true, intuitively felt and well illustrated, using facts or fancies at will.

NEW YORK JOURNAL OF COMMERCE, July 14. One paragraph. This romance or poem has beautiful passages, is said to be ingenious, and is good for lovers of dreamy speculations.

THE LITERARY WORLD (N.Y. weekly), 3 (July 20 [[29]], 48), 502. Full page review by John H. Hopkins, Jr. (see Ostrom, p. 382). The reviewer will ignore its alleged poetry for its claim to truth. Hypotheses ill need demonstration and must be consistently stated. Yet one page speaks of unitary God as might a Christian or deist, another polytheistically, and another of each soul as its own creator — nonsense, if not blasphemy. The physical elements may be true, although derivative, but the metaphysical are unintelligible and the theological, intolerable. Might all be a scientific hoax from the ingenious narrator of “The Maelstrom.”

THE EVENING MIRROR (N.Y. weekly), July 15. One paragraph. Notices the three different titles and regards “prose poem” as contradictory, signalizes the marked character and clear style of the author, and promises to read the book subsequently.

NEW CHURCH REPOSITORY, AND MONTHLY REVIEW (Swedenborgian organ of N.Y.), 1 (August, 1848), 508-509.15 Two-page review, probably by Editor George Bush (see Poe's comments on him in Works, 15.5-6 and 16.97-98, in the Harrison edition). The author treats the universe “poematically, “not mechanically. While it denies demonstration, the treatise begins to explain gravitation through a plausible guess. His generative principle is a simple monad, unlike that of Leibniz, but approximating Swedenborg's “first natural point” as shown in a long quoted paragraph from Outlines on the Infinite. The worst feature is the book's pantheism.

NEW YORK EVENING POST, July 15. One paragraph announcing the book, which arises from Poe's metaphysical speculations. Passages of beauty but no time as yet for a careful reading.

NEW YORK DAILY TRIBUNE, August 3. A full paragraph plus excerpts. A remarkable book, of bold imagination, keen analysis, and ingenuity. It fills out the lecture with additional illustrations, expresses mental passion through startling propositions, daringly overturns previous philosophical systems, and tenaciously thrusts knowledge to the furthest possible limits. But the initial humor is degrading. Cites the “wild” conclusions at the end of the book.

Bronx Community College, The City University

[[Footnotes]]

1. George Woodberry, The Works of . . . Poe (N.Y.: Scribners, 1914), 9.363, hereafter cited as “Woodberry.”

2. See Letters of . . . Poe, ed. J. W. Ostrom (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1966), 2.354-382, hereafter cited as “Ostrom.”

3. Woodberry, 9.375-378, cites three with excerpts, but omits the name of two journals (identified below via excerpts elsewhere cited). Quinn, Poe (N.Y.: Appleton, 1941), pp. 539-541, mentions or cites several, ith scarcely any bibliographic information.

4. Ostrom, pp. 357-358. See the first Literary World review (below) for an eight-paragraph write-up of he high repute of the Society Library as a leading cultural institution, on the same page as the review of Poe's lecture.

5. See Frederick W. Conner, “Poe and John Nichol: Notes on a Source of Eureka, “in All These to Teach, ed. Robert A. Bryan (Gainesville, Univ, of Florida Press, 1965), 190-208, for a good discussion of Poe's se of ideas of Nichol from his earlier work and of two passages in his lectures of 1848. I am indebted to Richard M. Hodgens, of Glendale, N.J., for pointed observations on five more short passages from the lectures incorporated, unacknowledged, into Eureka. All could have been added in the final revision of the book for the publisher. [page 30:]

6. For Putnam's statements and the elaborations of his son see Putnam's Magazine, N.S. 4 (Oct., 1869), 467-474 and George Palmer Putnam: A Memoir (N.Y.: Putnam's, 1903), 2.258-259. M. B. Field, Memories of Many men. . . (N.Y.: Harpers, 1874), p. 224, also tells an unreliable story about Putnam's decision.

7. For Putnam's unreliable memory about Poe see my paper on Pym in Studies in American Fiction, 2 (1974), specifically p. 47.

8. For the decline in Poe's reputation, see Sidney P. Moss, Poe's Major Crisis (Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 1970). Going through the N.Y.C. newspapers at the time of the lecture, one is struck by the small space accorded Poe's and the extensive coverage, often verbatim transcripts, accorded those of Nichol and Wines; e.g., see the latter one in the Journal of Commerce, Feb. 2 and 9 and the former on Feb. 11 and 16.

9. For a discussion of the way these were added to Eureka, see Heartman and Canny, Bibliography . . . of . . . Poe (Hattiesburg, Book Farm, 1943), pp. 122-123.

10. My thanks are owed to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and to the CUNY Research Foundation for the time, funds, and travel opportunities to complete this study.

11. The whole notice is given by T. O. Mabbott in his Letters from George W. Eveleth to . . . Poe (New York Library, 1922; a reprint from the Bulletin of the New York Public Library of March, 1922), pp. 26-27, hereafter cited as “Eveleth Letters.” Mary Phillips mentions it in her Poe (Phila.: Winston, 1926), p. 1258.

12. Poe, in his Feb. 29 letter to G. E. Isbell, denies an apparent charge of borrowing from Chambers's Vestiges, a source uninvestigated, although the work is listed by R. P. Benton in the “Bibliographical Guide” to Eureka in his 1973 edition of the work. Woodberry, 9.377-378, prints two paragraphs of the “Decius” review.

13. Eveleth Letters, p. 22; see also Mary Phillips, p. 1258.

14. No notices of the book in British publications have been found, perhaps because there was no British imprint per se. Heartman and Canny, p. 122, infer a British title page, issued by J. Chapman, but the British Museum copy bears the imprint of New York. The matter needs more research.

15. My thanks must go to Heyward Ehrlich for indicating this review to me, to Peter T. Johnson and Linda Holland of the Wilson Library of the University of Minnesota for procuring from a Chicago library the earlier Express items, and to Benjamin Franklin Fisher IV and Richard Fusco for procuring the Saturday Evening Post item.