Text: Anonymous, “Edgar Allan Poe,” Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper (London, UK), whole no. 2,301, December 26, 1886, p. 5, col. 1

[page 5, column 1:]

EDGAR ALLAN POE.*

Lonesome and erratic as this original poetic genius of America was, much will be found in the pages of Mr. Ingram's corrected re-issue to induce more than sympathetic feelings towards the subject of the biography. Biographers need all possible discretion in dealing with the truth; but when, as in Griswold's life of Poe, exaggerations, discreditable and untrue, are palmed off as moral pointers, there is reason to be thankful for fresh lights thrown on one who, despite a terrible career, continued to the end to be loved and esteemed by his friends, and memory was cherished by his wife and mother with life-lasting affection. Perhaps no more fertile field offers for the essayist of the future than in the condition of American society 1830-50. In all the phases of it Poe lived and moved — tottering, while in converse with the loftiest aspirers to State-building, through the ungilded, brutal, and sensual vices too readily met with in the corner-turned life of a new nation. Poe's existence was a romance from his birth. His grandfather, General Poe, who greatly distinguished himself in the first American war, was an Irishman of very ancient family. Poe's father was destined for the bar; but, much to the disgust of his parents, married Elizabeth Arnold, a beautiful English actress, in 1806, when both were 19. Three children, of whom Edgar was the second, were, born to them in five years of vicissitude. At the close of 1811 both parents were dead. Edgar was adopted by a kind-hearted but not too thoughtful Scotchman — Mr. Allan — who had emigrated to the States. They eventually quarrelled. The startling episodes of a sad life, until, on the 7th of October, 1849, Poe was discovered insensible, drugged, on a bench by a wharf, in Baltimore, need no sermon. Yet to the last his personality had a strange fascination. Sheridan, in poverty and sick, had only to ask for aid: Poe, freed from stimulants and narcotics, need not have done that. But his proud, unbending spirit had to yield, and, in hospital ward, at last to pass away. Mr. Ingram has tried to be faithful: he has not been ecstatic: and where he could not attempt to be just, he has done his best to be generous.

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 5, column 1:]

* “Edgar Allan Poe: his Life, Letters, and Opinions.” By John H. Ingram. New Edition. — W. H. Allen and Co.