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The Works of Edgar Allen Poe Vol. 1
The Raven Edition
THE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE
IN FIVE VOLUMES
VOLUME I Contents
Edgar Allan Poe, An Appreciation Life of Poe, by James Russell Lowell
Death of Poe, by N. P. Willis The Unparalled Adventures of One Hans
Pfall The Gold Bug Four Beasts in One The Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Mystery of Marie Rogêt The Balloon Hoax MS. Found in a Bottle The
Oval Portrait
EDGAR ALLAN POE
AN APPRECIATION
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast
and followed faster till his songs one burden bore-- Till the dirges
of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of "never--never more!"
THIS stanza from "The Raven" was recommended by James Russell Lowell
as an inscription upon the Baltimore monument which marks the resting
place of Edgar Allan Poe, the most interesting and original figure in
American letters. And, to signify that peculiar musical quality of
Poe's genius which inthralls every reader, Mr. Lowell suggested this
additional verse, from the "Haunted Palace":
And all with pearl and ruby glowing Was the fair palace door, Through
which came flowing, flowing, flowing, And sparkling ever more, A troop
of Echoes, whose sweet duty Was but to sing, In voices of surpassing
beauty, The wit and wisdom of their king.
Born in poverty at Boston, January 19 1809, dying under painful
circumstances at Baltimore, October 7, 1849, his whole literary career
of scarcely fifteen years a pitiful struggle for mere subsistence, his
memory malignantly misrepresented by his earliest biographer,
Griswold, how completely has truth at last routed falsehood and how
magnificently has Poe come into his own, For "The Raven," first
published in 1845, and, within a few months, read, recited and
parodied wherever the English language was spoken, the half-starved
poet received $10! Less than a year later his brother poet, N. P.
Willis, issued this touching appeal to the admirers of genius on
behalf of the neglected author, his dying wife and her devoted mother,
then living under very straitened circumstances in a little cottage at
Fordham, N. Y.:
"Here is one of the finest scholars, one of the most original men of
genius, and one of the most industrious of the literary profession of
our country, whose temporary suspension of labor, from bodily illness,
drops him immediately to a level with the common objects of public
charity. There is no intermediate stopping-place, no respectful
shelter, where, with the delicacy due to genius and culture, he might
secure aid, till, with returning health, he would resume his labors,
and his unmortified sense of independence."
And this was the tribute paid by the American public to the master who
had given to it such tales of conjuring charm, of witchery and mystery
as "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "Ligeia"; such fascinating
hoaxes as "The Unparalleled Adventure of Hans Pfaall," "MSS. Found in
a Bottle," "A Descent Into a Maelstrom" and "The Balloon Hoax"; such
tales of conscience as "William Wilson," "The Black Cat" and "The
Tell-tale Heart," wherein the retributions of remorse are portrayed
with an awful fidelity; such tales of natural beauty as "The Island of
the Fay" and "The Domain of Arnheim"; such marvellous studies in
ratiocination as the "Gold-bug," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The
Purloined Letter" and "The Mystery of Marie Roget," the latter, a
recital of fact, demonstrating the author's wonderful capability of
correctly analyzing the mysteries of the human mind; such tales of
illusion and banter as "The Premature Burial" and "The System of Dr.
Tarr and Professor Fether"; such bits of extravaganza as "The Devil in
the Belfry" and "The Angel of the Odd"; such tales of adventure as
"The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym"; such papers of keen criticism
and review as won for Poe the enthusiastic admiration of Charles
Dickens, although they made him many enemies among the over-puffed
minor American writers so mercilessly exposed by him; such poems of
beauty and melody as "The Bells," "The Haunted Palace," "Tamerlane,"
"The City in the Sea" and "The Raven." What delight for the jaded
senses of the reader is this enchanted domain of wonder-pieces! What
an atmosphere of beauty, music, color! What resources of imagination,
construction, analysis and absolute art! One might almost sympathize
with Sarah Helen Whitman, who, confessing to a half faith in the old
superstition of the significance of anagrams, found, in the transposed
letters of Edgar Poe's name, the words "a God-peer." His mind, she
says, was indeed a "Haunted Palace," echoing to the footfalls of
angels and demons.
"No man," Poe himself wrote, "has recorded, no man has dared to
record, the wonders of his inner life."
In these twentieth century days -of lavish recognition-artistic,
popular and material-of genius, what rewards might not a Poe claim!
Edgar's father, a son of General David Poe, the American revolutionary
patriot and friend of Lafayette, had married Mrs. Hopkins, an English
actress, and, the match meeting with parental disapproval, had himself
taken to the stage as a profession. Notwithstanding Mrs. Poe's beauty
and talent the young couple had a sorry struggle for existence. When
Edgar, at the age of two years, was orphaned, the family was in the
utmost destitution. Apparently the future poet was to be cast upon the
world homeless and friendless. But fate decreed that a few glimmers of
sunshine were to illumine his life, for the little fellow was adopted
by John Allan, a wealthy merchant of Richmond, Va. A brother and
sister, the remaining children, were cared for by others.
In his new home Edgar found all the luxury and advantages money could
provide. He was petted, spoiled and shown off to strangers. In Mrs.
Allan he found all the affection a childless wife could bestow. Mr.
Allan took much pride in the captivating, precocious lad. At the age
of five the boy recited, with fine effect, passages of English poetry
to the visitors at the Allan house.
From his eighth to his thirteenth year he attended the Manor House
school, at Stoke-Newington, a suburb of London. It was the Rev. Dr.
Bransby, head of the school, whom Poe so quaintly portrayed in
"William Wilson." Returning to Richmond in 1820 Edgar was sent to the
school of Professor Joseph H. Clarke. He proved an apt pupil. Years
afterward Professor Clarke thus wrote:
"While the other boys wrote mere mechanical verses, Poe wrote genuine
poetry; the boy was a born poet. As a scholar he was ambitious to
excel. He was remarkable for self-respect, without haughtiness. He had
a sensitive and tender heart and would do anything for a friend. His
nature was entirely free from selfishness."
At the age of seventeen Poe entered the University of Virginia at
Charlottesville. He left that institution after one session. Official
records prove that he was not expelled. On the contrary, he gained a
creditable record as a student, although it is admitted that he
contracted debts and had "an ungovernable passion for card-playing."
These debts may have led to his quarrel with Mr. Allan which
eventually compelled him to make his own way in the world.
Early in 1827 Poe made his first literary venture. He induced Calvin
Thomas, a poor and youthful printer, to publish a small volume of his
verses under the title "Tamerlane and Other Poems." In 1829 we find
Poe in Baltimore with another manuscript volume of verses, which was
soon published. Its title was "Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Other Poems."
Neither of these ventures seems to have attracted much attention.
Soon after Mrs. Allan's death, which occurred in 1829, Poe, through
the aid of Mr. Allan, secured admission to the United States Military
Academy at West Point. Any glamour which may have attached to cadet
life in Poe's eyes was speedily lost, for discipline at West Point was
never so severe nor were the accommodations ever so poor. Poe's bent
was more and more toward literature. Life at the academy daily became
increasingly distasteful. Soon he began to purposely neglect his
studies and to disregard his duties, his aim being to secure his
dismissal from the United States service. In this he succeeded. On
March 7, 1831, Poe found himself free. Mr. Allan's second marriage had
thrown the lad on his own resources. His literary career was to begin.
Poe's first genuine victory was won in 1833, when he was the
successful competitor for a prize of $100 offered by a Baltimore
periodical for the best prose story. "A MSS. Found in a Bottle" was
the winning tale. Poe had submitted six stories in a volume. "Our only
difficulty," says Mr. Latrobe, one of the judges, "was in selecting
from the rich contents of the volume."
During the fifteen years of his literary life Poe was connected with
various newspapers and magazines in Richmond, Philadelphia and New
York. He was faithful, punctual, industrious, thorough. N. P. Willis,
who for some time employed Poe as critic and sub-editor on the
"Evening Mirror," wrote thus:
"With the highest admiration for Poe's genius, and a willingness to
let it alone for more than ordinary irregularity, we were led by
common report to expect a very capricious attention to his duties, and
occasionally a scene of violence and difficulty. Time went on,
however, and he was invariably punctual and industrious. We saw but
one presentiment of the man-a quiet, patient, industrious and most
gentlemanly person.
"We heard, from one who knew him well (what should be stated in all
mention of his lamentable irregularities), that with a single glass of
wine his whole nature was reversed, the demon became uppermost, and,
though none of the usual signs of intoxication were visible, his will
was palpably insane. In this reversed character, we repeat, it was
never our chance to meet him."
On September 22, 1835, Poe married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, in
Baltimore. She had barely turned thirteen years, Poe himself was but
twenty-six. He then was a resident of Richmond and a regular
contributor to the "Southern Literary Messenger." It was not until a
year later that the bride and her widowed mother followed him thither.
Poe's devotion to his child-wife was one of the most beautiful
features of his life. Many of his famous poetic productions were
inspired by her beauty and charm. Consumption had marked her for its
victim, and the constant efforts of husband and mother were to secure
for her all the comfort and happiness their slender means permitted.
Virginia died January 30, 1847, when but twenty-five years of age. A
friend of the family pictures the death-bed scene--mother and husband
trying to impart warmth to her by chafing her hands and her feet,
while her pet cat was suffered to nestle upon her bosom for the sake
of added warmth.
These verses from "Annabel Lee," written by Poe in 1849, the last year
of his life, tell of his sorrow at the loss of his child-wife:
I was a child and _she_ was a child, In a kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with _a _love that was more than love-- I and my Annabel
Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me. And
this was the reason that, long ago; In this kingdom by the sea. A wind
blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came And bore her away from me, To shut
her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea,
Poe was connected at various times and in various capacities with the
"Southern Literary Messenger" in Richmond, Va.; "Graham's Magazine"
and the "Gentleman's Magazine" in Philadelphia.; the "Evening Mirror,"
the "Broadway journal," and "Godey's Lady's Book" in New York.
Everywhere Poe's life was one of unremitting toil. No tales and poems
were ever produced at a greater cost of brain and spirit.
Poe's initial salary with the "Southern Literary Messenger," to which
he contributed the first drafts of a number of his best-known tales,
was $10 a week! Two years later his salary was but $600 a year. Even
in 1844, when his literary reputation was established securely, he
wrote to a friend expressing his pleasure because a magazine to which
he was to contribute had agreed to pay him $20 monthly for two pages
of criticism.
Those were discouraging times in American literature, but Poe never
lost faith. He was finally to triumph wherever pre-eminent talents win
admirers. His genius has had no better description than in this stanza
from William Winter's poem, read at the dedication exercises of the
Actors' Monument to Poe, May 4, 1885, in New York:
He was the voice of beauty and of woe, Passion and mystery and the
dread unknown; Pure as the mountains of perpetual snow, Cold as the
icy winds that round them moan, Dark as the eaves wherein earth's
thunders groan, Wild as the tempests of the upper sky, Sweet as the
faint, far-off celestial tone of angel whispers, fluttering from on
high, And tender as love's tear when youth and beauty die.
In the two and a half score years that have elapsed since Poe's death
he has come fully into his own. For a while Griswold's malignant
misrepresentations colored the public estimate of Poe as man and as
writer. But, thanks to J. H. Ingram, W. F. Gill, Eugene Didier, Sarah
Helen Whitman and others these scandals have been dispelled and Poe is
seen as he actually was-not as a man without failings, it is true, but
as the finest and most original genius in American letters. As the
years go on his fame increases. His works have been translated into
many foreign languages. His is a household name in France and
England-in fact, the latter nation has often uttered the reproach that
Poe's own country has been slow to appreciate him. But that reproach,
if it ever was warranted, certainly is untrue.
W. H. R.
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