Text: Ruth Leigh Hudson, “Chapter I.I,” Poe's Craftsmanship in the Short Story, dissertation, 1935, pp. 6-50 (This material is protected by copyright)

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To a letter written him by his foster son from Baltimore under the date of May 29, 1829, John Allan appended the following note: “replied to Monday 8th June 1829, strongly censuring his conduct and refusing any aid.”(1) Poe's letter to which this note was attached contains, not a plea for assistance as one might think, in extricating himself from some wildly imprudent escapade, but an urgent request for financial guarantee in the publication of a volume of verse by the Philadelphia company, Carey and Lea. In the preceding year Poe had hinted at his hopes of a literary career in begging for a restoration of his foster-father's interest and affection: “I feel that within me which will make me fulfil your highest wishes and only beg you to suspend your judgment until you hear of me again.”(2) And again he had written: “I only beg you to remember that you yourself cherished the cause of my leaving your family — Ambition — If it has not taken the channel you wished it, it is not the less [page 7:] certain in its object. ... I will be an honor to your name ... the world shall hear of the son whom you thought unworthy of your notice.”(3) Three thin volumes of verse in 1827, 1829, and 1831, were the fruits of this burning boyish ambition to make his place in the world as a poet. Only once again, after the lapse of fourteen years, Poe issued a volume of poetry, and that was after the world had for some time been hearing, with frequency of the son John Allan “thought unworthy of ... notice.” The story of what happened intervening years is clearly written in the preface to this last volume:

In the spring of 1835 John Pendleton Kennedy wrote of Poe to T. W. White, proprietor and editor of the Southern Literary Messenger: “He is at work on a tragedy, but I have turned him to drudging upon whatever [page 8:] may make money.”(5) The word which Kennedy used upon this occasion — drudging — night very well be taken as descriptive of Poe's activities in the literary field during the whole of his life. But he had learned long before his friend, Kennedy, recommended such a course to him that his only road to success, even to livelihood itself, depended upon his capacity for drudging.

That Poe was at heart a poet and became a writer of tales originally through the pressure of circumstances is evident from an examination of his life, his early publications, and his somewhat consistently cold-blooded attitude toward his stories. Mystery still shrouds the years of his life in the early 1830's in spite of numerous theories as to his activities. It seems fairly clear, however, that during most of that time he was living in Baltimore in the clutches of very real poverty and partially dependent upon the bounty of relatives only a little less poor than himself. As his letters to his foster-father and his early volumes of poetry indicate, he was definitely committed to a literary life. The ventures in poetry made it only [page 9:] too plain to him that he could expect no financial returns from that source. Deliberately, then, and energetically he turned to producing a type of writing that would have a market. Many years later Poe asserted his belief that “the whole tendency of the age is magazineward”; that we have arrived at an “era in which men are forced upon the curt, the well-digested in place of the voluminous — in a ward, upon journalism in lieu of dissertation.” We need,” he asserted, “the light artillery rather than the peace-makers of the intellect.”(6) In all probability his anxious examination of all possible outlets for the products of his pen in these early years first brought this Conviction to the young man who transformed himself from poet to magazinist. He must have been during ‘this period an eager reader of any periodicals he could lay hands upon. The magazines mere filled with stories of such a quality as he must, without undue egotism, have realized himself capable of equalling, or even surpassing. That he read industriously the current British and American periodicals and copied their manner and materials is evidenced by his mention of them in his [page 10:] stories, critical writings, and letters, and by actual similarities and borrowings that have been pointed out between his tales and certain ones in the magazines of the times. There are indications, too, that he even had recourse to old files of certain journals, for some of his stories show unmistakably the marks of borrowings from magazines of a date preceding his literary activity. His notes for “Marginalia” also bear testimony to his habit of studying the old numbers of periodicals.(7)

That Poe was writing stories as early as 1831 we know because of the publication early in 1832 of some of his tales in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier. It is probable, though by no means an established fact, that he submitted a group of tales in the prize contest of the Courier announced in the issues of that journal May 28, 1831. According to its announcement the periodical offered a premium of one hundred dollars to the winning tale and reserved the right to print [page 11:] such of the other submitted tales as it chose.(8) Since December first of that year was announced as the closing date of the contest, If Poe tales were entered in the contest, they must have been written before that date. Poe left West Point early in 1831 and probably stayed for some weeks in New York while his volume of poetry was being prepared for publication by Elam Bliss. This volume came from the press in April, 1831.(9) It is likely, therefore, that Poe had not been long in Baltimore(10) when the Courier announced its contest. He would have hardly been sufficiently settled or have had time for earnest writing in the months preceding ray, unless he had already decided before leaving West Point to try his hand at tale-writing. It is altogether likely, I think, that his first stories were written, after he heard of the Courier contest, between June and December, 1831. Certainly it would have been entirely appropriate that the young writer who was so repeatedly to avow that his interest in tale-writing was a purely mercenary one should have written his very first stories with a specified prize in money as his aim. [page 12:]

It is not necessary, in this connection, to go into the evidence. In the Valentine Museum letters revealing how desperately he needed the hundred dollars which went to another in the contest. Very probably his only reward for the stories later printed in the Courier was the satisfaction of seeing in print such of his tales as the publishers chose.(11) In January, 1832, his first story, so far as present records extend, appeared in the Courier and was followed in the same year by four others. Since Poe's connection with this contest is only conjectural, we can also merely speculate about the probability of his having submitted other stories for the prize. He may even at that early date have written others of the group which he later called “Tales of the Folio Club,” though the chances are against this supposition. If he did submit other stories in the contest or offer others to the Courier for publication, they must have been in a decidedly rough state not to have been given preference over some of those chosen for printing. Again it seems highly probable that he had written only the five stories published in 1832 or that he later rewrote or revised thoroughly any which he may have had on hand when he submitted the others. [page 13:]

If Poe received any money from the Courier for his five stories, it was insufficient to help him materially in his struggle to support himself by his own efforts. No doubt he was greatly encouraged by seeing his work in printed form; certainly it set him busily to producing other materials of the same type, and, we can be very sure, to serious comparison of his own stories with those current in the journals which fell into his hands. He was, I think, in these obscure years of humble and painstaking work, well on the road to becoming a critic as well as a romancer. We may be sure, too, that he was attempting to dispose of any salable wares he possessed in the fiction line, but discouragement and desperation did not except him among authors from their companionship. Many years later Poe told the story of a “poor-devil” author whose article was first repeatedly rejected, then accepted but unpaid for for [[four]] months in spite of his desperate pleas, until at length starvation overtook him and he perished in garret.(12) Though he denied any personal application in his example, he must have done so with tongue in cheek, for he knew all too frequently the bitterness of similar treatment; and he was undergoing [page 14:] it fully in 1833 when he made to John Allan what appears to have been his last appeal:

It is a strange, almost uncanny, coincidence that on the same day on which Poe wrote this appeal Allan in Richmond must have been turning over and rereading the letters from his foster-son which he had so carefully preserved. On Poe's letter to him, dated. February 21, 1831, from New York, John Allan wrote:

This, so far as we know, is Allan's last written comment upon Poe, an opinion formed, no doubt, then the old sore in his heart had been freshly irritated by a [page 15:] re-reading of some of Edgar's bitter thrusts in the letters from West Point. It is a fairly safe guess that when the boy's plea for help, written on April 12, arrived soon after in Richmond, it met with no response from a man who had made his final judgment after two years’ deliberation.

But that Poe, was being truthful when he avowed, “And yet I am not idle,” has been substantiated in the Recollections of a Baltimore acquaintance, Lambert A. Wilmer, with whom he formed a warm friendship in 1833. Many years later Wilmer wrote of these very months in Baltimore, “His time appeared to be constantly occupied by his literary labors.”(14) These labors were to bring him a more gratifying reward then he had known before actual money and warm public approval. In the summer of 1833 the Baltimore Saturday Visiter announced a prize story contest similar to the one conducted by the Courier in 1831. It is now, of course, an old story that Poe submitted six of his stories an “Tales of the Folio Club,” that his “MS. Found in a Bottle was awarded the first price of fifty dollars, and that it was published in the Visiter for October 19 as the [page 16:] “Prize Tale by Edgar A. Poe.”(15)

The notice of the judges’ decision in the Visiter of October 12, 1833, spoke in enthusiastic language of the “singular force and beauty” of Poe's tales and urged that for the sake of “his own reputation, as well as the gratification of the community,” he publish the entire volume. This was the impulse which set him to work upon a project which her did not achieve for seven — fears the publication of a collection of his tales. The Visiter contest brought him into contact with John P. Kennedy, one of the judges in the contest, and gave him a friend who was to prove one of the most valuable and significant of his whole life. Through Kennedy's influence Poe sought in Philadelphia the publishers, Carey and Lea, and interested them in his projected volume. He succeeded also in selling another of his stories to a Philadelphia periodical, Godey's [page 17:] Lady's Book.(16) In January, 1834, his seventh published story, “The Visionary” — later called “The Assignation” — appeared in Godey's.

With the exception of his plan to establish. with Lambert Wilmer a high-class literary periodical in Baltimore,(17) Poe's literary activities in 1834, so far as there is any record of them, are concerned largely with his efforts to get something done by Carey and Lea in regard to his volume of tales. Miss Phillips stresses the “grim want”(18) which he knew in these months. In November, 1834, he wrote Kennedy the truth about his situation and asked his aid in securing from the publishers as small sun in consideration of my manuscript” in their hands.(19) When nothing came of the first, he made a second appeal in December. The outcome of Kennedy's intervention with the publishers in Poe's behalf was the sale of “MS. Found in a Bottle” [page 18:] to Miss Leslie's annual, The Gift, for fifteen dollars and a bit of free advice from H. C. Carey by way of Kennedy to the effect that writing is “a poor business unless a man can find a way of taking public attention — not often done by short stories.”(20) He offered the opinion also that Poe would find the same tales worth more after he had established a name by “prior press or periodical print.” in March, 1835, Poe was asking aid of Kennedy in his effort to secure a teaching position and was confessing that he could not accept Kennedy's invitation to dinner because he was unable to make himself presentable.(21) This bit of tragedy appears to have awakened Kennedy to an appreciation of just how desperate was the situation with young Poe, for thereafter he was more active in his efforts to aid him. Upon Kennedy's suggestion Poe sought a market for his tales with the Southern Literary Messenger, but recently established in Richmond, and this act on his part marked the approaching of the end of his first period of literary activity.

In 1835, between March and December, ten of his stories appeared in the Messenger, four of them being [page 19:] revived versions of earlier tales and six being published for the first time.(22) In the meantime, Poe had formed his first definite connection with the magazine world in which he was later to play an important part. When upon the advice of Kennedy, he had sent some of his tales to the Messenger he had probably offered his services in the capacity of a critic also. The editor, T. W. White, had written a letter of inquiry to Kennedy and had received a response in which Kennedy gave his opinion of the talents and, equipment of the obscure young writer. He described Poe as being very clever “with his pen” and “very poor.” “I told him,” added Kennedy, “to write something for every number of your magazine, and that you might find it to your advantage to give him some permanent employ. ... This young fellow is highly imaginative, and a little given to the terrific.”(23) Poe knew, then, how good it was to have a “friend at court” in the literary world. No doubt the commendation of the successful young novelist, John P. Kennedy, had equally as much weight with [page 20:] White as the very real merits of the stories and critiques submitted by Poe. At any rate, White not only accepted Poe's tales for every issue of his magazine, but he received and used critical notices from Poe. Poe in turn gave advice freely and acted energetically in White's behalf in advertising the Messenger in Baltimore.

On June, 1835, Poe wrote White:

A letter late in July, 1835, indicates that Poe was still in Baltimore but actively engaged in writing for the Messenger. It contains details concerning his contributions to the magazine and his receipts from White.(25)

In August, 1835, Poe went to Richmond to act as White's assistant in the editing of the Messenger. With the exception of brief intervals then, according [page 21:] to White, he “flew the track,”(26) he maintained his connection with that magazine for about a year and a half. With the assumption of editorial duties his first period of great productivity in the field of the short story was over. After September, 1835, he published only one new story in the Messenger and two installments of the long Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Woodberry attributes the subsequent inactivity of Poe in composing original tales to ‘intellectual weariness.” He believes that “the first creative impulse was exhausted and his imaginative genius slept.”(27)

I am much more inclined to explain Poe's failure to create new stories by referring to the new demands upon his pen and his strength. His duties in the editorial office were of such a nature as not to per nit him leisure for composing new tales.(28) Of great weight, [page 22:] too, in estimating the forces at work in slaving up his creative output, is the fact that he could look forward with a fair amount of certainty to a regular salary; he no longer had to write under the compelling threat of actual starvation. He had turned tale-teller originally in order to try to find a way to earn a livelihood; when a new and more promising means of supporting himself and his dependents offered, it was entirely natural that he should devote all his best energies to making a success of his editorship.

Another element which perhaps had same influence in stopping temporarily his creation of new tales was the uncertainty and disappointment connected with the publication of his collection by Carey and Lea. The manuscript of his tales had been in their hands since 1834, perhaps since the late fall of 1833. After having been led to feel birth hopes of achieving the volume publication, he was forced to accept a deferment until he should have achieved a name by “prior press and periodical print,” as Carey had advised. Having succeeded in running his unprinted tales through the columns of the Messenger, he planned to issue the volume in the fall of 1835, perhaps from the Messenger press with the name of Carey and Lea as publishers.(29) [page 23:] The August, 1835, number of the Messenger carried a statement about the Baltimore Saturday Visiter award and copied the commendatory notice which had appeared in the Visiter on October 12, 1833, together with an announcement of Poe's plan to publish a collection of tales under the title, “Tales of the Folio Club,” in the fall of 1835.(30) Something prevented the execution of this design, perhaps the cautious policy of the Philadelphia publishers. A few months later Harpers also refused to assume responsibility for the volume, though they declared themselves sensible of the merits of Poe's work. They based their refusal chiefly upon the obscurity in the application of the satire in some of the tales, and partly upon the fact that the tales had appeared but recently in the Messenger and would have to be issued as reprints.(31) In trying to follow the advice of one publisher, H. C. Carey, Poe had given his tales “prior periodical printing” and had, consequently, acted contrary to the opinion of Harpers, thus again losing what might otherwise have proved a good opportunity to issue his volume. [page 24:]

It is impossible to fix exactly the number of tales which Poe had written before he became connected with the Messenger. He himself declared in a letter to Judge Beverley Tucker in 1835 that all of the stories published in the Messenger “since Morella,” which appeared in April, 1835, had been written some time before “Morella.”(32) “Epimanes,” the only previously unpublished tale which as printed in the Messenger after Poe wrote this letter, is known to have been in existence as one of the tales examined by Carey and Lea in 1835.(33) It seems safe to hazard a guess, therefore, that all the unpublished stories which appeared in 1835 And 1836 existed in one form or another before April, 1835, with the possible exception of ‘Hans Phaal.” Poe declared in a letter to White that the latter story, published in the Messenger in June, 1835, had been written expressly for the Messenger. If we accept this statement, then we may place [page 25:] its composition definitely in the Spring of 1835.(34) [page 26:] in the first four months of 1836, Poe republished in the Messenger three of the Courier stories and “Epimanes.” After April of 1836 no other stories by him were printed in the Messenger except the two installments of Pym.(35)

Poe's connection with the Messenger, first as contributor, then as assistant editor, and finally as editor, lasted until January, 1837. Under his direction and largely by virtue of his striking stories and pungent critiques, the Messenger became one of the leading magazines of the period. According to Poe's own statement, its circulation increased in the months of his connection with it from 700 to 5,500 subscribers.(36) But the popularity of the Messenger had been [page 27:] due, not so much to Poe's genius as a creative writer as to his abilities and on manner as a critic. It is true that his stories were highly praised, but his wide public laudation was for his criticism. Perhaps the knowledge that his reputation rested largely upon his work as a critic was responsible for his apparent inactivity in creating new stories during the next two years. A part of this period was no doubt devoted to the completion of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, but even this work would hardly have prevented his turning out some shorter tales if he had been intent upon establishing a firmer reputation as a writer of short fictions. He had become definitely convinced, I think, that his career awaited bin as an editor and had substituted for the early desire to be a poet the determination to achieve distinction as an editor of his own magazine. This ambition directed most of his activities during the remainder of his life, and he attempted to make his tales serve the purpose of furthering this aim. In a letter to Charles G. Anthon in 1844, he wrote: “Before quitting the Messenger I saw, or fancied I saw, ... the brilliant field for a Magazine of bold and noble alms presented to him who should successfully establish it in America.”(37) [page 28:]

From January, 1837, till July, 1339, Poe was what might be termed a free-lance in the magazine world. In this period he was, so far his publications indicate, less creative than one would have expected. Only six of his stories were published between the time of his leaving the Messenger and his connection with the Philadelphia periodical, Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, in the summer of 1839. Little is known of his activities during this time. He lived for a short while in New York before removing to Philadelphia. Besides the writing of desultory critical articles, be was at work on his Pym, brought out at length by Harpers in 1838, and, according to the testimony of a New York acquaintance, William Gowan's,(38) he was also busy with “Ligeia,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “How to Write a Blackwood. Article,” and “The Predicament.” Only one story reached print in 1837, “Mystification,” published in the American Monthly Magazine in June of that year. In September, 1838, “Ligeia,” perhaps his finest story, appeared in the American Museum, to which he also contributed “How to Write a Blackwood Article” and “The Predicament” for the November issue and critical material for two of the early issues of 1839. In the [page 29:] meantime, the Baltimore Book for 1839, published in the fall of 1838, contained his “Siope — A Fable,” which, as has been pointed out, was one of his early “Tales of the Folio Club.” On May 18, 1838, the Saturday Chronicle and Mirror of the Times of Philadelphia printed his “The Devil in the Belfry.”

In July, 1839, Poe became assistant editor of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. In the issues of that year he published four new stories and re-issued “Morella,” formerly printed in the Messenger. This work was of such a quality as perhaps to mark the tale-writer at his peak, including as it did, “Usher,” “William Wilson,” and “The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion.”(39) [page 30:]

The fall of 1839, however, was marked by a far more important event for the tale-writer than the printing of single stories in magazines. His long-deferred collection, in two volumes, was brought from the press by the publishers, Lea and Blanchard, with the title, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, under the date of 1840. In the field of the short story Poe had achieved the dignity of a book and hoped that its circulation would add to the luster of his name in order that ho might the sooner take his place as a recognized editor and critic in the management of his own magazine. Financially his arrangement with the publishers was such that he received only the copyright to the volumes and a small number of copies for circulation among his friends.(40) Apparently the collection did not attract wide attention, for according to the statement of the publishers, the first issue was not exhausted after the passage of three years.(41)

The year 1840 marked another low point in the appearance of Poe's tales in periodical print, partly because of his activity as editor of the Gentleman's [page 31:] Magazine during the first months of the year and later because of his quarrel with Burton and his withdrawal from the magazine. He had not formed any other connection which would afford him an outlet for his tales. His “Journal of Julius Rodman” ran in the issues of the Gentleman's Magazine from January to July of 1840, and his “The Business Man” appeared in February. When George R. Graham bought the Gentleman's Magazine from Burton in October, 1840, he not only welcomed Poe as a contributor, but offered him another opportunity as editor. In the last number of the Gentleman's Magazine, published under the management of Graham, December, 1840 Poe's “The Man of the Crowd” appeared. With the beginning of the new year, 1841, the magazine as entitled Graham's Magazine, and within a few weeks Poe was acting as its editor.

With the appearance of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” in the April issue of Graham's, 1841, he began a definitely new phase in short-story writing, one which had been heralded by his articles on cryptography and by his promise in the preface to the collection of 1840 that “tomorrow I may be something else.” This tale marked his venture into the field of ratiocinative fiction, a field which was peculiarly of his own finding and which he alone was to dominate for many [page 32:] years. Woodberry minimizes Poe's new achievement by pointing out that the ratiocinative tales differ from their predecessors only in the general method of narration, but the effect is decidedly’ a novel one. Woodberry writes:

Some years later after Poe had published all four of his strictly ratiocinative tales, his friend, P. P. Cooke, praised the ingenuity of his stories of criminal detection.(43) Poe replied(44) to this praise in a self-depreciatory way: [page 33:]

Poe declared repeatedly that “Nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its dénouement before anything be attempted with the pen.” He himself had experienced the difficulty of trying to write for serial publication when he did not have the conclusion clearly in mind in his Pym and “Journal of Julius Rodman,” and he wrote of this difficulty in connection with his famous review of Dickens's Barnaby Rudge. It was perhaps because of his clear perception of the necessity for deciding upon the dénouement in advance of composition of a tale that he chanced to find a new and intriguing method of narration.

Although Poe's method in the ratiocinative tale appears to have been of his own invention, he probably derived a suggestion for his subject-matter in crime and police records from a series of tales, or sketches, which ran in the Gentleman's Magazine for some months just prior to his own connection with it. These were [page 34:] called “Unpublished Passages in the Life of Vidocq, the French Minister of Police,” and appeared in nine installments from September, 1838, till May, 1839. It is interesting to note that they have the French setting used by Poe in his tales of criminology, that they center around a “master-mind,” Vidocq, and that they purport to be derived from his memoirs of certain crimes of which he had knowledge in his of capacity as Minister of Police. Still more interesting is the fact that the name of Poe's master-detective, Dupin, occurs in the name of the heroine of the first of these sketches, “Marie Dupin.” These articles are episodic and flimsily told; they have little kinship with the effective technique adopted by Poe in his tales of ratiocination. As was generally the case when Poe chose to use suggestions from another, his ability to detect the weakness in the work of his predecessor led him to avoid the same pitfalls in dealing with similar materials. The ineptitude and sometimes stupidly blind behavior of Vidocq as Minister of Police may, indeed, have been directly responsible for Poe creation of a clever foil for the prefect in the person of a private detective, his own Dupin. [page 35:]

Poe was associated with Graham's Magazine for about a year. During that time he published nine other tales besides “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” only one of which came out in another magazine. At least three of these belong to his best work — “The Descent into the Maelström,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” and “Eleanora.” Counting this last tale, contributed to The Gift for 1842 but published in the fall of 1841, the year 1841 saw seven tales published. In 1842 Poe published five tales, two in Graham's before his withdrawal from that magazine and three others in the fall in other periodicals.

Again he was bending all his efforts to secure a re-publication of his tale-collection in order to aid his plan to establish a magazine of his arm. His attempt to secure this new volume brought only an abortive result in the issuance from Philadelphia in the summer of 1843 of a curious little pamphlet in paper cover, The Prose Romances of Edgar A. Poe, containing his “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Man that was Used Up.” It is believed that this was the first number of a sort of serial publication of all Poe's existing tales, ants that its reception was not sufficiently favorable to justify the continuance [page 36:] of the plan.(45)

June of 1843 marked what appears to have been Poe's highest reach in obtaining public attention by means of a story. “The Gold-Bug,” rescued from the desk of Graham's Magazine, where it is purported to have lain unpublished for nine months, won the one hundred-dollar prize offered by the Dollar Newspaper of Philadelphia and was published in part in the issue of June 21. In the next week's issue of the paper the first part of the tale was reprinted and the conclusion given. On the inside sheet appeared a comment of half a column regarding the story:

Even before the Dollar Newspaper had completed the original publication of the tale, it was reprinted in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier for June 24, July 1, and July 8. On July 12 a Supplement to the Dollar Newspaper appeared containing “The Gold-Bug” and the second and third Prize-winning stories in the contest. On July 19 the editor had farther comment to make upon the story in connection with some charges of plagiarism that had been brought against it. An article in the Philadelphia Spirit of the Times, copied [page 38:] also in the New York Herald for July 4, had pointed out the imagined similarity of Poe's tale to “Imogene: or The Pirate's Treasure,” by a Miss Sherburne of Philadelphia. After making this comment, the Spirit of the Times writer had examined Miss Sherburne's story and had published a retraction of his former charge by admitting that the only resemblance between “Imogene” and “The Gold-Bug” lay in the finding of buried treasure. According to the note in the Dollar Newspaper of July 19, the Spirit of the Times amende honorable had appeared in the issue of that paper on July 15. The editor of the Dollar Newspaper accepted the apology and expressed the hope that the New York Herald would copy the correction also.

The following year Poe boasted in a letter to Lowell that the circulation of ‘The Gold-Bug” had reached 300,000.(47) He continued to believe it his most popular story, but perhaps not his best. After the phenomenal success of “The Raven’” in 1845, he wrote his friend, F. W. Thomas, “‘The Raven’ has had a great ‘run,’ Thomas — but I wrote it for the express purpose of running — just as I did ‘The Gold-Bug,’ you know.” [page 39:]

The old charge of plagiarism from “The Pirate's Treasure” came up again in 1845, this time in the “New Books” column of The Rover for June 28, 1845.(48) in a brief review of Poe's Tales of 1845 appeared the following comment, “Bye and bye, however, we shall take the liberty of pointing out a close similarity of the main incident in the ‘Gold Bug’ with another in a story published some years ago called ‘The Pirate's Treasure.’” The writer of this review seems not to have followed up his intention of exposing, the fancied resemblance; perhaps, like the author of the charge of plagiarism in the Philadelphia Spirit of the Times, he found no real similarity in the two tales when he made a serious comparison. No doubt the allusion in. The Rover had reference to the tale of Miss Sherburne previously mentioned, but it is worth pointing out, especially in view of other comments upon Poe's tale, that a story entitled “The Pirate's Treasure” had been published in the London Magazine in 1824.(49) If Poe knew it, it would have been of no great assistance to him in the writing of his tale; it deals chiefly with a disastrous sea voyage that ended in the search for a [page 40:] buried treasure, and the only resemblance between the two tales lies in the fact that a certain tree in each tale acts as a marker for the searchers. In the English tale, a tall, gaunt tree with a single limb pointing in a certain direction, indicates the location of the buried treasure.

It is possible that some one had brought a charge against Poe of having plagiarized his, story from English sources. At any rate, some minor mystery is attached to its history. In the Broadway Journal for October 11, 1845, under “Editorial Miscellany,” Poe referred to a recent discussion of himself in the New York Mirror in the column designated by the signature *. Poe declared that he himself was sadly at a loss to comprehend the meaning of the allusion and asked for help from his readers. He quoted a section entitled “Poe-lemical,” which attacked Poe mildly for his sneers at British critics and commented: “This is indeed ‘bearding the lion in his den’; and as Mr. Poe is preparing to publish an edition of his ‘Tales’ in England (omitting the story of the Gold Bug, we suppose) he can expect but little mercy from the backbiting reviews of the Lockharts and Fonblanques.” In reply Poe denied any intention of issuing an English edition, but added, “Should we ever think of such a thing, however, [page 41:] we should undoubtedly give ‘The Bug’ a more prominent position than it even occupies at present. We should call the book ‘The Gold-Bug and Other Tales’ instead of ‘Tales,’ as the title stands.”(50) Perhaps those who “puffed” Poe or read “puffings” of him had read the “Bug” and its popularity alluded to until they became weary of it, and this reference in the Mirror may have been merely a friendly jibe on its part at Poe's inordinate pride in the success of this particular tale. It leads one to speculate, though, as to whether there had been some charge of plagiarism from an English source.

In the meantime, however, Poe was again experiencing one of his difficult years so far as success in publishing his tales was concerned. Once more his withdrawal from an editorial connection with a magazine cut him off for the time being from an established outlet for his tales. It was fortunate, therefore, that he achieved a fresh popularity with “The Gold Bug” in 1843, for that was one of his low years so far as other publications were concerned. He was jobless and in financial distress, as his correspondence reveals. Only four other stories found publishers, though he [page 42:] had a number going the rounds of editorial offices. Lowell had issued Poe's “The Tell-Tale Heart” in the first number of his ill-fated The Pioneer. “The Black Cat,” which Poe regarded as one of his best tales,(51) appeared in August, “Diddling considered as One of the Exact Sciences” in October, and “The Elk” in the fall in The Opal for 1844.

No doubt the fame of “The Gold-Bug” in 1843 was responsible for the fact that Poe succeeded in reaching, during 1844, the peak of is sales in the number of stories. He published eleven more stories, most of which had probably accumulated in his desk in the preceding lean year and a half, saw three re-printed, and found himself represented by stories in six magazines and two annuals. Of the stories published in this year, none except “The Purloined Letter,” issued in The Gift for 1845, belongs to his finest group, though the essay-fiction, “Mesmeric Revelation,” in its own period attracted wide attention and was considered by many as a serious piece of scientific writing.

Poe again attempted in 1844 to take advantage of his enhanced popularity as a tale-writer to re-publish his stories and gain sufficient reputation for the [page 43:] founding of a magazine of his own. In June he wrote Doctor Charles Anthon of his long-cherished plan to found a magazine of his own and bespoke Anthon's influence with Harpers in publishing s new collection of stories. He sent Anthon one of his stories and a sheaf of commendatory notices concerning his work, in order, as he said, to bring Anthon's knowledge of his career up-to-date. “I venture to place in your hands,” he wrote, “the published opinions of many of my contemporaries. I will not deny that I have been careful to collect and preserve them. They include, as you will see, the warm commendation of a great number of very eminent men, and of these commendations I should be at a loss to understand why I have not a right to be proud.”(52) His reply from Anthon some months later informed him that Anthon had called upon the publishing house and had learned that they had complaints against Poe based on certain movements of his while they were acting as his publishers.(53) He advised Poe to call upon Harpers and adjust the matter in person. [page 44:]

When this reply reached Poe, he was just about to become associated with Lowell's friend, C. F. Briggs (“Harry Franco”), in the publication of the Broadway Journal. If things had, been managed at all well, he would have had the opportunity of his lifetime in 1845. It is true that the Journal was not the type of periodical he had dreamed of editing, but its possibilities were great, particularly in view of the position Poe had but recently made for himself. By midsummer of 1845 he had become even more widely heralded by “The Raven,” was seeing published a new volume of his tales, and was preparing for a long — deterred edition of his poems. His name was heading the journal as editor, and he had a one-third proprietary interest in it which expanded in October to entire control. If he had been able to gain such a position in earlier years, before his reputation for “attacking any windmill” as a critic, or his public laudations for “The Gold Bug and “The Raven” had made him excessively sensitive to adverse criticism, his career as an editor of his own magazine might have been different. It is true that the Journal was from the first a precarious financial venture, but it is likely that had Poe been editing his coveted five-dollar magazine with its circulation of 50,000, in 1845, the story would have been practically [page 45:] the same. He became embroiled in the Longfellow war in the spring, insulted and taunted the Bostonians in the fall, borrowed money right and left on exceedingly thin hopes of ever re-paying it, pled for more, and so far under-estimated the intelligence of his readers as to fill his columns almost exclusively with old materials, re-publishing in all forty-one of his tales and many of his poems. He had, in my opinion, reached the point where he could not control his jealousies and prejudices or humble himself to public taste sufficiently to edit any periodical successfully for a longer period than a year. Recognition, coupled with memories of old slights and fancied wrongs, had made him unspeakably arrogant. January, 1846, found him writing his “Farewell” with the same mysterious insinuations and the same defiance that he allays showed in times of defeat.

That Poe had no other engagements and was on the verge of one of his most desperate years we now know. Whether his second interesting statement in this valedictory is as empty of meaning as the former we cannot [page 46:] say — “The objects being fulfilled, no far as regards myself personally, for which ‘The Broadway Journal’ was established.” He may have meant that he had made an opportunity to bring out the vast bulk of his own work in the form in which he wished it to be known, for it is to be remembered that in this same year he wrote in the Preface to his Poems, “If what I have written is to circulate at all, I am naturally anxious that it should circulate as wrote it.” We know also from his letter to Anthon in 1844 that he had his tales “prepared in every respect” for re-publication. It may be that one of his objects had been to wage his private war in his own peculiarly vindictive way against the Now England clique that he particularly disliked. At any rate his association with the Journal served in his lifetime only to increase animosities and to involve Poe in further financial obligations from which he could never hope to free himself. Students of Poe, since his death, have had reason to be more than grateful for the association, however, since it has given us the authoritative version of the majority of his tales.

The year 1845 saw sixty-three of his stories put into final form, twelve in the Wiley and Putnam volume of his Tales, forty in the Journal for 1845, and one [page 47:] in the issue of the Journal for January 3, 1846.

After his withdrawal from the Journal Poe was in desperate straits, financially and physically. He was living in retreat at Fordham, ill, asking his long-suffering friends for money, and involved in the scurrilous war with T. D. English. Toward the end of the year Willis and other friends made a public appeal for funds for the Poes, much to the humiliation of Poe himself. His work was at low ebb, as was natural after the driving years of 1843, 1844, and 1845, and in view of his illness and worry over the approaching death of his wife. Poe published only two new stories, “The Sphinx” at the beginning of the year and his brilliant “The Cask of Amontillado” in November. He was trying again to publish another volume of tales and declaring himself willing to sell the copyright for fifty dollars.(54)

The sole fiction publication from Poe's pen for the year 1847 was his sketch, “The Domain of Arnheim,” more of an essay than a tale, cold in tone and correct in design. The next year, 1848, passed, so far as we know, without the publication of a single tale. In 1849, however, he was active again, publishing, it is true, only trifling things with the exception of his [page 48:] powerful “Hop-Frog,” a total of five in that last year of this life.

One would expect that upon Poe's death and as a consequence of the notoriety attached to it, there would have followed the publication of a number of his tales in the hands of publishers. It seems almost unbelievable that he should have had nothing “going the rounds of the press.” Nothing reveals more clearly the fact that he was exhausted creatively, that his day was really over, than the fact that among his papers only a fragment of an unpublished sketch was found — “The Lighthouse,” printed in Woodberry's Life, (II, 397).

Poe had confessedly followed tale-writing, and had given the best of himself to it for seventeen or eighteen years, for the purpose of making a meager living and establishing a reputation for himself in the magazine world. In all he had created sixty-eight stories or semi-fictions, a one-volume adventure story, and a fragment of another tale. Of the tales at least half a dozen pass considerably beyond the length of an ordinary short story, and the whole collection does indeed fill, as he declared, five ordinary novel volumes. They average something like four yearly, no mean accomplishment when his critical writings and [page 49:] poetry are taken into consideration. It would be interesting to know, at least approximately, the amount of gross receipts from his tales. There is little definite information in regard to what they brought him. We know, for example, that he received fifty dollars for the “MS. Found in a Bottle,” when it won the Visiter prize and fifteen dollars when it was sold to The Gift. Likewise, we have information in regard to the one hundred dollars for “The Gold Bug.” For other stories sums ranging from ten to fifty dollars are mentioned in his correspondence, but it is likely that an average of fifteen dollars would be a liberal estimate, or something like a total of twelve hundred dollars for the sale of the stories. Add to this the one hundred and twenty dollars which he acknowledged receiving from Wiley and Putnam, at eight cents a volume for the sales of the Tales of 1845, and the hundred dollars for Pym. In all he earned from his tales perhaps about fifteen hundred dollars, less than a hundred dollars yearly during the time that he was writing fiction. Poe once wrote his friend, Thomas, who was seeking to secure an appointment to government service for Poe, that he could be glad, of anything that would make him “independent of letters for a subsistence.” “To coin one's brain into [page 50:] silver at the nod of a master,” he wrote, “is to my thinking the hardest task in the world.”(55) He was probably referring in this connection to his duties as editor and critic, but ho might very well have said of his career as a writer of tales that his master was poverty and his pay in copper rather than in silver.

If he did not achieve his purpose of making tale-writing pay his way in life or of opening the avenue to a successful editorship of his own magazine, he achieved at least the satisfaction during his lifetime of an enviable position in the field of the tale. Professor Killis Campbell has Summarized his contemporary reputation in the short story as follow: “as a writer of gruesome and fantastical tales he early achieved considerable local fame, and ... before his death he had come to be generally recognized as one of the leading writers of the short story in America”(56) To this should be added, however, that short-story writing had hardly, by 1850, come to be regarded as a major activity in the literary field.

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 6:]

1.  Edgar Allan Poe Letters Till Now Unpublished. In the Valentine Museum, edited by Mary Newton Stanard, 1926, 133 ff.

2.  Ibid., 76. December 1, 1828.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 7:]

3.  Ibid., 88-89. December 22, 1828.

4.  Preface, The Raven and Other Poems. New York, 1845.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 8:]

5.  G. W. [[E.]] Woodberry, The Life of Edgar Allan Poe. Boston and New York, 1909, I, 110.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 9:]

6.  “Marginalia,” Godey's Lady's Book, Sept., 1845. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, edited by James H. [[A.]] Harrison, New York, 1902. (All references to Works and Letters are to this edition), XVI, 82.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 10:]

7.  See his references in “Marginalia,” Democratic Review, Nov., 1844, to the Monthly Register for 1807 (Works, XVI, 4 and 53), to the London Magazine for 1760 (Ibid., 46), to the London Monthly for 1818 (Ibid., 48), and to the Weekly Inspector for 1806 (Ibid., 33); and in “Marginalia,” Graham's, Feb., 1848, to the New Monthly for 1828 (Ibid., 132).

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 11:]

8.  For a discussion of this contest and its probable connection with Poe's early ventures in tale-writing, see John Grier Varner introduction, Edgar Allan Poe and the Philadelphia Saturday Courier, Charlottesville, 1933, iii.

9.  Killis Campbell, Appendix, The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, Ginn and Co., 1917, 308.

10.  That he was in Baltimore on May 6, 1831, seems fairly certain because of his letter of that date to William Gwynn, soliciting assistance in obtaining employment. See Letters, 1.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 12:]

11.  In this connection, see Varner, op. cit., page iv, note 4.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 13:]

12.  “Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison-House,” Broadway Journal, I, 7. Works, XIV, 162.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 14:]

13.  Letters ... In the Valentine Museum, 313. Dated from Baltimore, April 12, 1833.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 15:]

14.  Woodberry, I, 92. Lambert's “Recollections of Edgar A. Poe” were published in the Baltimore Daily Commercial, May 23, 1865.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 16:]

15.  Because of the statement of Harrison that this tale was printed in the Visiter on October 12, this error has strangely persisted in a good many quarters. It seems worth while, therefore, to call attention to this correction. The announcement of the award appeared in the issue of October 12; the tale itself as printed on October 19 (III, No. 38) with the introductory note: “The following is the Tale to which the Premium of Fifty Dollars has been awarded by the Committee. It will be found highly graphic in its style of composition.”

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 17:]

16.  Woodberry, I, 101, suggests that the acceptance of Poe's story by Godey's came as “the immediate fruit of his [Kennedy's] general advice and patronage.”

17.  Harrison, Biography, 114.

18.  Mary E. Phillips, Edgar Allan Poe — The Man, John C. Winston Co., 1926, I, 477-8.

19.  Harrison, Biography, 1f.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 18:]

20.  Phillips, I, 482.

21.  Letters, 2.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 19:]

22.  Earlier tales republished: “The Visionary,” July, 1835; “Bon-Bon,” August, 1835; “Loss of Breath,” Sept., 1835; “MS. Found in a Bottle,” Dec., 1835. New tales: “Berenice,” March, 1835; “Morella,” April, 1835; “Lion-izing,” May, 1835; “Hans Phaal,” June, 1835; “King Pest,” Sept., 1835; “Shadow,” Sept., 1835.

23.  April 13, 1835. Woodberry, I, 109f.

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24.  Letters, 8ff.

25.  Ibid., 10.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 21:]

26.  White to Lucien Minor, Sept. 21, 1835. David K. Jackson, Poe and the Southern Literary Messenger, Richmond, 1934, 99f.

27.  Op. cit., I, 123-124.

28.  The fact that between December, 1835, and September, 1836, according to Poe's own statement (Works, VIII, p. x), ninety-four books were reviewed, presumably by Poe himself, indicates the industry with which he worked at his editorial desk. Professor Killis Campbell has pointed out (The Mind of Poe, Cambridge, 1933, 230f.) that Poe did not assert that he himself had written the ninety-four reviews. The text of the articles from which this statement is extracted — a defense of his own reviewing policies — would appear to indicate, however, that he himself wrote this number.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 22:]

29.  See Poe's letter to Kennedy, Sept. 11, 1935 [[1835]]. Letters, 18.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 23:]

30.  Southern Literary Messenger, I, 716.

31.  Paulding to White, March 3, 1836. Letters, 377f.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 23:]

32.  Dec. 1, 1835. J. S. Wilson, “Unpublished Letters of Edgar Allan Poe,” The Century Magazine, CVII (March, 1924), 652ff.

33.  See Poe's letter to White, Sept. 11, 1835, Letters, 17-18.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 25:]

34.  Little Importance is to be attached to the statement of J. H. B. Latrobe, one of the judges in the Visiter contest of 1833, that Poe visited him shortly after the award was made public, described his present occupation as “a voyage to the moon,” and detailed at length upon that occasion the incidents in “Hans Phaal.” Latrobe told of this incident, many years after its occurrence, in his address made at the dedication of the Poe Memorial in Baltimore. A reading of his statement (Sara Sigourney Rice, Edgar Allan Poe — A Memorial Volume, Baltimore, 1877) will convince one of the unreliability of his memories about Poe. Obviously he had confused details from his personal impressions of the early Poe with information which he acquired later in his reading. For example, he stated that the prize awarded was for one hundred dollars instead of fifty, that Poe told him Kennedy had promised him a letter to White of the Southern Literary Messenger, which was not established until August, 1834, and that one of the tales submitted for the prize as “A Descent into the Maelström,” which according to the testimony of Poe himself was apparently written only a short time before its publication in 1841. Harrison accepted Latrobe's reminiscence as the basis for correcting Woodberry's statement that the “sixteenth Tale [of the Folio Club] is unidentified,” and Miss Phillips appears to have given it credence. Woodberry tactfully pointed out that Latrobe probably confused “The Descent” with “MS. Found in a Bottle” (II, Appendix C, 401) in spite of the fact that Latrobe recalled the difficulty which the committee had in deciding, between these two tales for the first place. Both Hervey Allen (Israfel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe, New York, 1927, 350f.) and Una Pope-Hennessy (Edgar Allan Poe. A Critical Biography, London, 1934, p. 156) accept Latrobe's statement that “A Descent into the Maelström” was one of the tales submitted in 1833.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 26:]

35.  In his letter to Kennedy, Sept., 11, 1835, alluded to above, Poe told of sending “Epimanes” for Miss Leslie's The Gift instead of the already published “MS. Found in a Bottle.” He wrote that he did not know why either “Epimanies” or “Siope,” later “Silence,” had not been used. Although “Siope” was not published until the fall of 1838, it is known to have existed at the time that Carey and Lea were examining Poe's manuscript in 1834-5, as it is preserved in manuscript as a part of the “Tales of the Folio Club” and appears to have been the tale that was missing when the publishers returned Poe's manuscript to him. See letters to Poe from Carey and Hart, Feb. 20 and Nov. 29, 1836, Woodberry, II, 375.

36.  Poe to Charles G. Anthon, June, 1844, Letters, 178. For discussion of varying figures, see Woodberry, I, 184, Phillips, I, 539.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 27:]

37.  Letters, 176.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 28:]

38.  Gowans’ Sale Catalogue, No. 28, 1870, p. 11. Cited by Woodberry, I, 193.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 29:]

39.  “The Man that was Used up” appeared in August, “Usher” in September, “William Wilson” in October, “Morella” in November, and “Eiros and Charmion” in December. The choice of “Morella” for republication may have been due to the high praise bestowed upon “Ligeia,” published the preceding year. Poe himself recognized the similarity between the two tales in a letter to P. P. Cooke, Sept, 21, 1239. (Letters, 51ff.) Poe may have felt that since “Morella” had been his second tale to appear in the Messenger, it had not had the circulation it deserved in view of the acclaim bestowed upon “Ligeia.” At any rate, the tale was reprinted shortly after his exchange of the letters with Cooke in which they discussed the theme and treatment of the two stories.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 30:]

40.  Carey and Hart to Poe, Sept. 28, 1839. Woodberry,

41.  In this connection see the letter of Lea and Blanchard to Poe, Aug. 15, 1841, Woodberry, I, 295; also the letter of Henry C. Lea to the New York Nation, XXXI (Dec. 9, 1880), 408.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 32:]

42.  Op. cit., 1, 304.5.

43.  August 4, 1346, Letters, 204.

44.  August 9, 1846. Ibid., 207.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 36:]

45.  See Harrison, Biography, 186. Also J. W. Robertson, Bibliography Edgar Allan Poe and A Commentary, San Francisco, 1934.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 37:]

46.  The Dollar Newspaper, I, no, 23. (July 23, 1843).

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 38:]

47.  May 28, 1844. Woodberry, II, 70.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 39:]

48.  The Rover: A Dollar Weekly Magazine, New York, V (June 28, 1845), 240. Lawrence Labree was the editor in 1845. I am indebted to Mr. John Cook Wyllie, of the library staff of the University of Virginia, for calling my attention to this comment upon Poe.

49.  IX (May, 1824) 261ff.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 41:]

50.  Broadway Journal, 14 (Oct. 11, 1846), 216.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 42:]

51.  Letter to Lowell, July 2, 1844. Woodberry, I, 95.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 43:]

52.  Letters, 175ff.

53.  These “certain movements” on Poe's part to which Harpers objected may have had reference to something in connection with the bringing out of Pym in 1838. It has also been suggested that the publishing firm was probably antagonized by Poe's connection with the book on conchology, put out in 1839 as a cheap rival of the expensive edition of Wyatt's A Manual Conchology. No doubt, this incident would have greatly offended the firm which was at the same time acting as Poe's publishers. In this connection see Allen, II, 596.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 47:]

54.  Poe to Duyckinck, Jan. 8, 1846, Letters, 227.

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 50:]

55.  Letters, 94.

56.  The Mind of Poe, 37.