Rufus griswold biography of edgar allan poe

With me this is not so. In childhood I must have felt with the energy of a man what I now find stamped upon memory in lines as vivid, as deep, and as durable as the exergues of the Carthaginian medals. Inhe returned to the United States, and after passing a few months at an Academy in Richmond, he entered the University at Charlottesville, where he led a very dissipated life; the manners which then prevailed there were extremely dissolute, and he was known as the wildest and most reckless student of his class; but his unusual opportunities, and the remarkable ease with which he mastered the most difficult studies kept him all the [page x:] while in the first rank for scholarship, and he would have graduated with the highest honors, had not his gambling, intemperance, and other vices, induced his expulsion from the university.

At this period he was noted for feats of hardihood, strength and activity, and, on one occasion, in a hot day of June, he swam from Richmond to Warwick, seven miles and a half, against a tide running probably from two to three miles an hour. His allowance of money while at Charlottesville had been liberal, but he quitted the place very much in debt, and when Mr.

Allan refused to accept some of the drafts with which he had paid losses in gaming, he wrote to him an abusive letter, quitted his house, and soon after left the country with the Quixotic intention of joining the Greeks, then in the midst of their struggle with the Turks. He never reached his destination, and we know but little of his adventures in Europe for nearly a year.

By the end of this time he had made his way to St. Petersburgh, and our Minister, in that capital, the late Mr. Henry Middleton, of South Carolina, was summoned one morning to save him from penalties incurred in a drunken debauch. Through Mr. His meeting with Mr. Allan was not very cordial, but that gentleman declared himself willing to serve him any way that should seem judicious; and when Poe expressed some anxiety to enter the Military Academy, he induced Chief Justice Marshall, Andrew Stevenson, General Scott, and other eminent persons, to sign an application which secured his appointment to a scholarship in that institution.

Allan, whom Poe appears to have regarded with much affection, and who had more influence over him than any one else at this period, died on the twenty-seventh of February,which I believe was just before Poe left Richmond for West Point. Allan was now sixty-five years of age, and that Miss Paterson, to whom he was married afterward, was young enough to be his grand-daughter.

Allan was in his forty-eighth year, and the difference between his age and that of his second wife was not so great as justly to attract any observation. For weeks the cadet applied himself with much assiduity to his studies, and he became at once a favorite with his mess and with the officers and professors of the Academy; but his habits of dissipation were renewed; he neglected his duties and disobeyed orders; and in ten months from his matriculation he was cashiered.

He went again to Richmond, and was received into the family of Mr. Allan, who was disposed still to be his friend, and in the event of his good behavior to treat him as a son; but it soon became necessary to close his doors against him forever. Whatever the circumstances, they parted in anger, and Mr. Allan from that time declined to see or in any way to assist him.

Allan died in the spring ofin the fifty-fourth year of his age, leaving three children to share his property, of which not a mill was bequeathed to Poe. The contents of the book appear to have been when he was between sixteen and nineteen years of age; but though they illustrated the character of his abilities and justified his anticipations of success, they do seem to me to evince, all things considered, a very remarkable precocity.

Certainly, it was his habit so constantly to labor upon what he had produced — he was at all times so anxious and industrious in revision — that his works, whenever first composed, displayed the perfection of his powers at the time when they were given to the press. His contributions to the journals attracted little attention, and his hopes of gaining a living in this way being disappointed, he enlisted in the army as a private soldier.

How long he remained in the service I have not been able to ascertain. He was recognized by officers who had known him at West Point, and efforts were made, privately, but with prospects of success, to obtain for him a commission, when it was discovered by his friends that he had deserted. His mind was never in repose, and without some such resort the dull routine of the camp or barracks would have been insupportable.

John P. Latrobe, and Dr. James H. So perhaps it rufus griswold biography of edgar allan poe have been in this case, but that one of the committee, taking up a little book remarkably beautiful and distinct in caligraphy, was tempted to read several pages; and becoming interested, he summoned the attention of the company to the half-dozen compositions it contained.

The committee indeed awarded to him the premiums for both the tale and the poem, but subsequently altered their decision, so as to exclude him from the second premium, in consideration of his having obtained the higher one. The next day the publisher called to see Mr. Kennedy, and gave him an account of the author, which excited his curiosity and sympathy, and caused him to request that he should be brought to his office.

Accordingly he was introduced; the prize-money had not yet been paid, and he was in the costume in which he answered the advertisement of his good fortune. Thin, and pale even to ghastliness, his whole appearance indicated sickness and the utmost destitution. A well-worn frock coat concealed the absence of a shirt, and imperfect boots disclosed the want of hose.

Poe told his history, and his ambition, and it was determined that he should not want means for a suitable appearance in society, nor opportunity for a just display of his abilities in literature. Kennedy accompanied him to a clothing store, and purchased for him a respectable suit, with changes of linen, and sent him to a bath, from which he returned with the suddenly regained style of a gentleman.

His new friends were very kind to him, and availed themselves of every opportunity to serve him. Near the close of the year the late Mr. On receiving from him an application for an article, early inMr. Kennedy, [page xiii:] who was busy with the duties of his profession, advised Poe to send one, and in a few weeks he had occasion to enclose the following answer to a letter from Mr.

He is very clever with his pen- classical. He wants experience and direction, but I have no doubt he can be made very useful to you. And, poor fellow! I told him to write something for every number of your magazine, and that you might find it to your advantage to give him some permanent employ. He has a volume of very bizarre tales in the hands of ——, in Philadelphia, who for a year past has been promising to publish them.

This young fellow is highly imaginative, and a little given to the terrific. He is at work upon a tragedy, but I have turned him to drudging upon whatever may make money, and I have no doubt you and he will find your account in each other. In a letter to Mr. White, under the date of the thirtieth of May, he says:. I fully intended to give the work a thorough review, and examine it in detail.

Ill health alone prevented me from so doing. At the time I made the hasty sketch I sent you, I was so ill as to be hardly able to see the paper on which I wrote, and I finished it in a state of complete exhaustion. I have not, therefore, done anything like justice to the book, and I am vexed about the matter, for Mr. Kennedy has proved himself a kind friend to me in every respect, and I am sincerely grateful to him for many acts of generosity and attention.

You ask me if I am perfectly satisfied with your course. I reply that I am — entirely. My poor services are not "rufus griswold biography of edgar allan poe" what you give me for them. I reply that nothing would give me greater pleasure. I have been desirous for some time past of paying a visit to Richmond, and would be glad of any reasonable excuse for so doing.

Indeed I am anxious to settle myself in that city, and if, by any chance, you hear of a situation likely to suit me, I would gladly accept it, were the salary even the merest trifle. I should, indeed, feel myself greatly indebted to you if through your means I could accomplish this object. What you say in the conclusion of your letter, in relation to the supervision of proof-sheets, gives me reason to hope that possibly you might find something for me to do in your office.

If so, I should be very glad — for at present only a very small portion of my time is employed. He continued in Baltimore till September. At first he appears to have been ill satisfied with Richmond, or with his duties, for in two or three weeks after his removal to that city we find Mr. Kennedy writing to him:. It is strange that just at this time, when everybody is praising you, and when fortune is beginning to smile [page xiv:] upon your hitherto wretched circumstances, you should be invaded by these blue devils.

It belongs, however, to your age and temper to be thus buffeted — but be assured, it only wants a little resolution to master the adversary forever. You will doubtless do well henceforth in literature, and add to your comforts as well as to your reputation, which it gives me great pleasure to assure you is everywhere rising in popular esteem.

But he could not bear his good fortune. For a week he was in a condition of brutish drunkenness, and Mr. White dismissed him. When he became sober, however, he had no resource but in reconciliation, and he wrote letters and induced acquaintances to call upon Mr. White with professions of repentance and promise of reformation. With his usual considerate and judicious kindness that gentleman answered him:.

That you are sincere in all your promises I firmly believe. But when you once again tread these streets, I have my fears that your resolutions will fail, and that you will again drink till your senses are lost. If you rely on your strength you are gone. Unless you look to your Maker for help you will not be safe. How much I regretted parting from you is known by Him only and myself.

I had become attached to you; I am still; and I would willingly say return, did not a knowledge of your past life make me dread a speedy renewal of our separation. If you would make yourself contented with quarters in my house, or with any other private family, where liquor is not used, I should think there was some hope for you.

But, if you go to a tavern, or to any place where it is used at table, you are not safe. You have fine talents, Edgar, and you ought to have them respected, as well as yourself. Learn to respect yourself, and you will soon find that you are respected. Separate yourself from the bottle, and from bottle companions, forever. Tell me if you can and will do so.

If you again become an assistant in my office, it must be understood that all engagements on my part cease the moment you get drunk. I am your true friend. With the best wishes to the magazine, and to its few foes as well as many friends, he is now desirous of bidding all parties a peaceful farewell. While in Richmond, with an income of but five hundred dollars a year, he had married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, a very amiable and lovely girl, who was as poor as himself, and little fitted, except by her gentle temper, to be the wife of such a person.

A slight acquaintance with Dr. Paulding and others, it was printed by the Harpers. It is his longest work, and is not without some sort of merit, but it received little attention. The publishers sent one hundred copies to England, and being mistaken at first for a narrative of real experiences, it was advertised to be reprinted, but a discovery of its character, I believe prevented such a result.

Thus far a tendency to extravagance had been the most striking infirmity of his genius.

Rufus griswold biography of edgar allan poe: Edgar Poe, who was

He had been more anxious to be intense than to be natural; and some of his bizarreries had been mistaken for satire, and admired for that quality. Afterward he was more judicious, and if his outlines were incredible it was commonly forgotten in the simplicity of his details and their exhaustive cumulation. Near the end of the year he settled in Philadelphia.

He had no very definite purposes, but trusted for support to the chance of success as a magazinist and newspaper correspondent. But his more congenial pursuit was tale writing, and he produced about this period some of his most remarkable and characteristic works in a department of imaginative composition in which he was henceforth alone and unapproachable.

Rufus griswold biography of edgar allan poe: The long-simmering tension between

They have the unquestionable stamp of genius. The analyses of the growth of madness in one, and the thrilling revelations of the existence of a first wife in the person of a second, in the other, are made with consumate skill; and the strange and solemn and fascinating beauty which informs the style and [page xvi:] invests the circumstances of both, drugs the mind, and makes us forget the improbabilities of their general design.

An awakened ambition and the. Before the close of the summer, however, he relapsed into his former courses, and for weeks was regardless of everything but a morbid and insatiable appetite for the means of intoxication. He was with Mr. Burton until June, — more than a year. Burton appreciated his abilities and would gladly have continued the connextion; but Poe was so unsteady of purpose and so unreliable that the actor was never sure when he left the city that his business would be cared for.

On one occasion, returning after the regular day of publication, he found the number unfinished, and Poe incapable of duty. He prepared the necessary copy himself, published the magazine, and was proceeded with arrangements for another month, when he received a letter from his assistant, of which the tone may be inferred from this answer:.

Rufus griswold biography of edgar allan poe: Although Griswold died in , his

Your troubles have given a morbid tone to your feelings which it is your duty to discourage. I myself have been as severely handled by the world as you can possibly have been, but my sufferings have not tinged my mind with melancholy, nor jaundiced my views of society. You must rouse your energies, and it care assail you, conquer it.

I will gladly overlook the past. I hope you will as easily fulfil your pledges for the future. You must, my dear sir, get rid of your avowed ill-feelings toward your brother authors. You see I speak plainly: I cannot do otherwise upon such a subject. You say the people love havoc. I think they love justice. I think you yourself would not have written the article on Dawes, in a more healthy say the state of mind.

I am not trammelled by any vulgar consideration of expediency; I would rather lose money than by such undue severity wound the feelings of a kind-hearted and honorable man. And I am satisfied that Dawes has something of the true fire in him.

Rufus griswold biography of edgar allan poe: Rufus Wilmot Griswold (February

I regretted your word-catching spirit. But I wander from design. I accept your proposition to recommence your interrupted avocations upon the Maga. Let us meet as if we had not exchanged letters. Use more exercise, write when feelings prompt, and be assured of my friendship. You will soon regain a healthy activity of mind, and laugh at your past vagaries.

This letter was kind and judicious. Two or three months afterward Burton went out of town to fulfil a professional engagement, leaving material and directions for completing the next number of the magazine in four days. He was absent nearly a fortnight, and on returning he found that his printers in the meanwhile had not received a line of copy; but that Poe had prepared the prospectus of a new monthly, and obtained transcripts of his subscription and account books, to be sued in a scheme for supplanting him.

Poe, I am astonished: Give me my manuscripts so that I can attend to the duties you have so shamefully neglected, and when you are sober we will settle. Burton, I am — the editor — of the Penn Magazine — and you are — hiccup — a fool. George R. He produced revised versions and similar anthologies for the remainder of his life, although many of the poets he promoted have since faded into obscurity.

Many writers hoped to have their work included in one of these editions, although they commented harshly on Griswold's abrasive character. Griswold was married three times: his first wife died young, his second marriage ended in a public and controversial divorce, and his third wife left him after the previous divorce was almost repealed. Edgar Allan Poewhose poetry had been included in Griswold's anthology, published a critical response that questioned which poets were included.

This began a rivalry which grew when Griswold succeeded Poe as editor of Graham's Magazine at a salary higher than Poe's. Later, the two competed for the attention of poet Frances Sargent Osgood. They never reconciled their differences, and after Poe's mysterious death inGriswold wrote an unsympathetic obituary. Claiming to be Poe's chosen literary executorhe began a campaign to harm Poe's reputation that lasted until his own death eight years later.

Griswold considered himself an expert in American poetry and was an early proponent of its inclusion on the school curriculum. He also supported the introduction of copyright legislation, speaking to Congress on behalf of the publishing industry, but he was not above infringing the copyright of other people's work. A fellow editor remarked "even while haranguing the loudest, [he] is purloining the fastest".

Griswold was born to Rufus and Deborah Wass Griswold [ 2 ] on February 13,[ 3 ] in Vermontnear Rutlandand raised a strict Calvinist [ 4 ] in the hamlet of Benson. Griswold moved to Albany, New Yorkand lived with a year-old flute-playing journalist named George C. Foster, a writer best known for his work New-York by Gas-Light. After a brief spell as a printer's apprenticeGriswold moved to Syracuse, New York, where [ 8 ] he started a newspaper with friends titled The Porcupine.

This publication purposefully targeted locals for what was later remembered as merely malicious critique. He moved to New York City in In October, he considered running for office as a Whig but did not receive the party's support. Griswold married Caroline on August 12,[ 15 ] and the couple had two daughters. Following the birth of their second daughter, Griswold left his family behind in New York and moved to Philadelphia.

On November 6,Griswold visited his wife in New York after she had given birth to their third child, a son. Three days later, after returning to Philadelphia, he was informed that both she and the infant had died. When fellow passengers urged him to try to sleep, he answered by kissing her dead lips and embracing her, his two children crying next to him.

InGriswold released his page anthology of American poetryThe Poets and Poetry of America[ 16 ] which he dedicated to Washington Allston. Between andrufus griswold biography of edgar allan poe Griswold was collecting material for Prose Writers of Americahe discovered the identity of Horace Binney Wallacewho had been writing in various literary magazines at the time including Burton's Gentleman's Magazine under the pen name William Landor.

Wallace declined to be included in the anthology but the two became friends, exchanging many letters over the years. Prose Writers of Americapublished inwas prepared specifically to compete with a similar anthology by Cornelius Mathews and Evert Augustus Duyckinck. As it was being published, Griswold wrote to Boston publisher James T. Fields that " Young America will be rabid".

InGriswold founded The Opalan annual gift book that collected essays, stories, and poetry. Nathaniel Parker Willis edited its first edition, released in the fall of On August 20,Griswold married Charlotte Myers, a Jewish woman; [ 38 ] she was 42 and he was Neither of the two was happy with the situation, and at the end of Aprilshe had a lawyer write a contract "to separate, altogether and forever, A few years later, Griswold moved back to New York City, leaving his younger daughter in the care of the Myers family and his elder daughter, Emily, with relatives on her mother's side.

He had by now earned the nickname "Grand Turk", and in the summer ofmade plans to edit an anthology of poetry by American women. Although he worked on it for several years and even advertised for it, he never produced it. Ellet publish her book Women of the American Revolutionand was angered when she did not acknowledge his assistance in the book.

One seizure caused him to fall out of a ferry in Brooklyn and nearly drown. Fields: "I am in a terrible condition, physically and mentally. I do not know what the end will be Griswold, Jerry Jerome Griswold. Griswold, Erwin Nathaniel. Griswold, Erwin N. Griswold, Denny — Griswold v. Connecticut: Connecticut U. Connecticut Griswold del Castillo, Richard —.

Griswell, J. Barry ca. InGriswold prepared yet another biographical article on Poe, which was again widely copied. Although Griswold died inhis remained the only readily available biography of Poe until After 25 years, his interpretation of Poe had worked itself deeply into the public consciousness. What strength his accusations lacked in truth they gained in repetition.

As has already been noted, however, Poe was not without his defenders. Hirst, Charles Chauncey Burr and especially Sarah Helen Whitman denounced Griswold and fought hard for a more balanced and sympathetic judgment of Poe faults and talents. With the help of Sarah Helen Whitman, William Hand Browne and many others, Ingram expanded his memoir in and produced a two-volume biography of Poe, carefully researched and documented.

Together with briefer biographies by Eugene L. Both sides renewed the fray and the battle still rages today. Reprinted by Ian Walker, ed. Reprinted in Carlson, Eric W. Also reprinted by Ian Walker, ed. I, Octoberpp. This article was subsequently republished as the next item. Redfield,III, pp. After the appearance of volume 4 inthis Memoir was moved to volume I.

Excerpts of the memoir are reprinted in Carlson, Eric W. Hall,pp. Reprinted by James Harrison, ed. Crowell,vol XVII on pages noted. Harrison also reprints other letters which may be of interest. Griswold, W. GriswoldCambridge, Mass. Griswold, This writer was the son of Rufus W. Bibliography Other Items :. Cohen, B. Bernard and Lucien A.

Didier, Eugene, L. Widdleton,pp. Didier, Eugene L.