Text: Edgar Allan Poe to John Allan — November 18, 1831 (LTR-033)


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Balt:
Novr 18. 1831,

My Dear Pa,

I am in the greatest distress and have no other friend on earth to apply to except yourself if you refuse to help me I know not what I shall do. I was arrested eleven days ago for a debt which I never expected to have to pay, and which was incurred as much on Hy‘s account as on my own about two years ago.

I would rather have done any thing on earth than apply to you again after your late kindness — but indeed I have no other resource, and I am in bad health, and unable to undergo as much hardships as formerly or I never would have asked you to give me another cent.

If you will only send me this one time $80, by Wednesday next, I will never forget your kindness & generosity. — if you refuse God only knows what I shall do, & all my hopes & prospects are ruined forever —

Yours affectionately
E A Poe

I have made every exertion but in vain.


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Notes:

This letter is printed here with permission from the Valentine Museum in Richmond, Virginia. A photographic facsimile of this letter was published in Mary Newton Stanard, Edgar Allan Poe Letters Till Now Unpublished in the Valentine Museum, Richmond, Virginia, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1925.


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[S:0 - MS, 1831] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Letters - Poe to J. Allan (LTR033/RCL068)