Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 087: Review of Henry Curwen’s Sorrow and Song, by John H. Ingram, Mar. 13, 1875,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 265-266 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 265:]

87. Review of Henry Curwen's Sorrow and Song, by John H. Ingram, London Academy, 7 (Mar. 13, 1875), 262-63

MR. CURWEN, if we do not misunderstand his exordium, has written these six “studies of literary struggle” to prove that Grub Street and its attendant misery are not things of the past. But of the half-dozen writers whose stories he adduces, not one, it should be pointed out, is an Englishman, or in other respects confirms the truth of his proposition [....]

The authors whose lives Mr. Curwen has selected to typify the suggestively alliterative compound of “sorrow and song” are men whose stories must be badly told indeed not to prove interesting, even though the teller have few or no new facts to tell [....]

In his memoir of Edgar Poe Mr. Curwen seems to have been rather more desirous to “adorn a tale” than to give the somewhat commonplace story of the poet's life. In all fairness to Mr. Curwen, however, it must be acknowledged that the inaccuracies of this life are not so much due to him as to his American authorities. In reading Griswold's Memoir of Poe, he has, like all impartial persons, naturally been disgusted with the biographer's open display of hatred for the subject of his story, and, asserts Mr. Curwen, when resolved to write the poet's life, “I began with a thorough determination to vindicate Poe from the aspersions Dr. Griswold had so cruelly cast upon him.” After this assertion it seems strange to find Mr. Curwen declaring that, “after sifting every item of evidence I could lay hands on for Poe and against Poe, my present monograph has turned out very differently from what I had hoped,” and that he should then, notwithstanding the fact that there is scarcely an accusation made against Poe by his biographer but has been frequently refuted in print, repeat, as matter of fact, almost the whole of Griswold's calumnies! Elsewhere we have shown, upon irrefutable testimony, the utter falsity of Griswold's pseudo-Memoir of Poe, and it is neither necessary nor possible to recapitulate here the facts of the poet's career. Besides the misstatements, however, which Mr. Curwen has been led to make through following Griswold and his alter ego in the Southern Literary Messenger — this latter, doubtless, from Baudelaire's quotations — we find a few others new to us. Poe was born in 1809, not 1811, and we much doubt whether Mr. Curwen can give any authority, other than Griswold's, for saying that the author of “The Raven” ever gave any other date. Upon what basis Mr. Curwen -has raised his romantic superstructure of Poe's passion for Virginia Clemm having originated in 1822 [page 266:] we know not; but this we can say, if it be true, it is the most wonderful circumstance of Poe's life, the precocious young lady then being in her second year! Poe was first married to Miss Clemm in 1834, but she continued to reside with her mother until 1835, when, being only fifteen, she was again married to Poe, some doubts having been expressed as to the legality of the former ceremony. Poe's expulsion from the University of Virginia the unimpeachable records of the faculty disprove; and the statement, transcending Griswold, “that there was not a vice in the whole catalogue of human sins” that this young Yankee Heliogabalus “did not hasten to commit,” is utterly disproved by facts. It is needless, however, to re-tread the weary maze of lies in which Griswold and others involved Poe's history, and which Mr. Curwen, through no fault of his own, has so innocently followed, quoting letters which we do not hesitate to call forgeries, and recounting disgraceful anecdotes which had no foundation in fact. How apt he has been to adopt the idea of Poe's badness is shown by his statement that the poet's first use of the Broadway Journal was “to attack his enemies at Boston” — an assertion which reference to the pages of that journal in the British Museum Reading Room would have disproved. That the “Helen” of the poem quoted at page 155, vol. ii, was “one of the wealthiest women” of New England will doubtless surprise the lady to whom Poe wrote the lines. She was not, is not, even rich. The poet's engagement with her was not secret, as stated by Mr. Curwen, nor was it broken off in the way he describes, as reference to the New York Tribune for June 7, 1852, will show. But enough has been said to prove that Mr. Curwen has been misled by his authorities with regard to Poe's character; he has dealt with him less leniently than either Hannay or Baudelaire did, and yet doubtless with quite as much desire for veracity as they had. Should Sorrow and Song reach a second edition — and we trust it may — it is to be hoped that Mr. Curwen will retell this story of a life which is certainly worth the telling.