Text: Eugene L. Didier, “The Poe Cult,” Athenaeum (London, UK), whole no. 4276, October 9, 1909, pp. 425-426

[page 425, column 3, continued:]

‘THE POE CULT.’

Baltimore, Md., U.S.A., Sept. 22, 1909.

A CARD with the above heading, signed “John H. Ingram,’ was published in The Atheneum on August 28th, in which I am accused of infringing Mr. Ingram's copyrights, and publishing gross libels upon his integrity. This is not the first time that Mr. Ingram has accused American writers on Poe of infringing his “copyrights, although no one in America has been able [page 426:] to discover what his “copyrights” are. When Prof. Harrison, of the University of Virginia, published his edition of Poe in seventeen volumes, Mr. Ingram threatened him with a lawsuit; but, when Prof. Harrison said he was ro to meet Mr. Ingram in a court of justice in order to test his claim, nothing was done by the latter.

I am ready to prove, by Mr. Ingram's own letters to Mrs. Marie Louise Shew and her daughter that he admitted everything that I published in ‘The Poe Cult’ regarding his transactions with these ladies.

As to Mr. Ingram's threat to take legal measures against any British publishers and booksellers who circulate ‘The Poe Cult,’ I have only to say that such a threat is mere empty talk, as there is nothing in the book which infringes any right that he possesses over anything in the matter of Edgar Allan Poe.

EUGENE L. DIDIER.