Edgar Allan Poe to James Russell Lowell — 1844-05-28

Edgar Allan Poe to James Russell Lowell — 1844-05-28 Historical letter reading from George E. Woodberry, The Life of Edgar Allan Poe: Personal and Literary, volume II (1909). Catalogue identity RCL-481. The record heading uses the scholarly checklist date; the historical text retains the edition’s dateline and wording. This is a later printed transcription, not a manuscript facsimile or a modern critical text. Historical postscript and address material are retained where printed; source footnote callouts and modern website apparatus are omitted. The text has not been independently proofread word by word. NEW YORK, May 28, 44. MY DEAR FRIEND, — I received yours last night, forwarded from Philadelphia to this city, where I intend living for the future. Touching the Biography — I would be very proud, indeed, if you would write it, and did, certainly, say to myself, and I believe to Graham — that such was my wish; but as I fancied the job might be disagreeable, I did not venture to suggest it to yourself. Your offer relieves me from great embarrassment, and I thank you sincerely. You will do me justice; and that I could not expect at all hands. Herewith, I mail you a Life written some time since by Hirst, from materials furnished principally by Thomas and Mr. T. W. White. It is correct, I think, in the main (barring extravagant eulogy), and you can select from it whatever you deem right. The limit is 6 pp. of Graham — as much less as you please. Besides the Tales enumerated in the foot-note, I have written “The Spectacles”; “The Oblong Box”; “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains”; “The Premature Burial”; “The Purloined Letter”; “The System of Doctors Tar and Fether “; “The Black Cat”; “The Elk”; “Diddling Considered as one of the Exact Sciences”; “Mesmeric Revelation”; “The Gold Bug”; “Thou art the Man”; about 60 altogether, including the “Grotesque and Arabesque.” Those italicized are as yet unpublished — in the hands of different editors. Of the “Gold Bug” (my most successful tale), more than 300,000 copies have been circulated. There is an article on “American Poetry” in a late number of the “London Foreign Quarterly,” in which some allusion is made to me, as a poet, and as an imitator of Tennyson. I would like you to say (in my defense) what is the fact: that the passages quoted as imitations were writ ten and published, in Boston, before the issue of even Tennyson's first volume. Dickens (I know) wrote the article — I have private personal reasons for knowing this. The portrait prepared does not in the least resemble me. I wrote you a long letter from Philadelphia about seven weeks since — did you get it? You make no allusion to it. In great haste, Your most sincere friend, EDGAR A. POE.