Mr. Poe’s Reply to Mr. English and Others — July 10, 1846

Mr. Poe’s Reply to Mr. English and Others — July 10, 1846 Poe’s public reply in the 1846 dispute with Thomas Dunn English. The article carries a June 27 dateline and was printed on July 10. Its allegations are preserved as the author’s statements, not independently verified findings. Locally preserved electronic transcription of the cited historical printing. This is not a newspaper-page facsimile. Typography is simplified, and the text has not been independently proofread word by word. [COMMUNICATED.] MR. POE’S REPLY TO MR. ENGLISH AND OTHERS. NEW YORK, June 27. To the Public. — A long and serious illness of such character as to render quiet and perfect seclusion in the country of vital importance, has hitherto prevented me from seeing an article headed “The War of the Literati,” signed “Thomas Dunn English,” and published in “The New York Mirror” of June 23d. This article I might, and should indeed, never have seen but for the kindness of Mr. Godey, editor of “The Lady's Book,” who enclosed it to me with a suggestion that certain portions of it might be thought on my part to demand a reply. I had some difficulty in comprehending what that was, said or written by Mr. English, that could be deemed answerable by any human being; but I had not taken into consideration that I had been, for many months, absent and dangerously ill — that I had no longer a journal in which to defend myself — that these facts were well known to Mr. English — that he is a blackguard of the lowest order — that it would be silly truism, if not unpardonable flattery, to term him either a coward or a liar — and, lastly, that the magnitude of a slander is usually in the direct ratio of the littleness of the slanderer, but, above all things, of the impunity with which he fancies it may be uttered. Of the series of papers which have called down upon me, while supposed defenceless, the animadversions of the pensive Fuller, the cultivated Clark, the “indignant Briggs,” and the animalcula with moustaches for antenna that is in the capital habit of signing itself in full, “Thomas Dunn English” — of this series of papers all have been long since written, and three have been already given to the public. The circulation of the Magazine in which they appear cannot be much less than 50,000; and, admitting but 4 readers to each copy (while 6 would more nearly approach the truth) I may congratulate myself on such an audience as has not often been known in any similar case — a monthly audience of at least 200,000, from among the most refined and intellectual classes of American society. Of course, it will be difficult on the part of “The Mirror” (I am not sure whether 500 or 600 be the precise number of copies it now circulates) — difficult, I say, to convince the 200,000 ladies and gentlemen in question that, individually and collectively, they are block-heads — that they do not rightly comprehend the unpretending words which I have addressed to them in this series — and that, as for myself, I have no other design in the world than misrepresentation, scurrility, and the indulgence of personal spleen. What has been printed is before my readers; what I have written besides, is in the hands of Mr. Godey, and shall remain unaltered. The word “Personality,” used in the heading of the series, has of course led astray the quartette of dunderheads who have talked and scribbled themselves into convulsions about this matter — but no one else, I presume, has distorted the legitimate meaning of my expression into that of private scandal or personal offence. In sketching individuals, every candid reader will admit that, while my general aim has been accuracy, I have yielded to delicacy even a little too much of verisimilitude. Indeed, on this score should I not have credit for running my pen through certain sentences referring, for example, to the brandy-nose of Mr. Briggs (since Mr. Briggs is only one third described when this nose is omitted) and to the family resemblance