Edgar Allan Poe to Daniel Bryan — 1842-07-06 — reading text

Edgar Allan Poe to Daniel Bryan — 1842-07-06 Historical printed letter from James A. Harrison, Life and Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, volume II (1903), appendix. Catalog identity RCL-377. The first scan page also contains the end of a different letter. The searchable excerpt begins with Poe to Daniel Bryan. The letter’s postscript is retained. The local PDF preserves the selected source pages unchanged. Searchable text is unreviewed repository OCR and retains recognition errors and historical editorial notes. This is a historical printed witness, not an autograph manuscript or a modern critical text. [Source scan page 518] POE TO DANIEL BRYAN. JULY 6, 1842. The Critic of April 16, 1892, prints the subjoined letter with this comment: "Mr. Charles Aldrich of Webster City, Iowa, sends us a copy of the following interesting letter from Poe, the original of which has been presented to him for the Aldrich Collection in the Iowa State Library by the Hon. John A. Kasson, to whom it was given some thirty years ago by a rel ative of Mr. Bryan. So far as we know, it has never before been seen in print ' ' : — PHILADELPHIA, July 6, 1842. MY DEAR SIR: — Upon my return from a brief visit to New York a day or two since, I found your kind and welcome letter of June 27. What you say in respect to " verses" enclosed to myself has occasioned me some surprise. I have certainly re ceived none. My connection with Graham" s Magazine ceased with the May number, which was completed by the i st of April — since which period the editorial con duct of the journal has rested with Mr. Griswold. You observe that the poem was sent about three weeks since. [Source scan page 519] APPENDIX. 463 Can it be possible that the present editors have thought it proper to open letters addressed to myself, because addressed to myself as "Editor of Graham's Maga- 2/W ? I know not how to escape from this conclu sion ; and now distinctly remember that, although in the habit of receiving many letters daily before quitting the office, I have not received more than half a dozen during the whole period since elapsed ; and none of those received were addressed tome as "Editor of G.'J Magazine*'' What to say or do in a case like this I really do not know. I have no quarrel with either Mr. Graham or Mr. Gris- wold — although I hold neither in especial respect. I have much aversion to communicate with them in any way, and, perhaps, it would be best that you should address them yourself, demanding the MS. Many thanks for your kind wishes. I hope the time is not far distant when they may be realized. I am making earnest although secret exertions to resume my project of the Perm Magazine, and have every confidence that I shall succeed in issuing the first number on the first of January. You may remember that it was my original design to issue it on the first of January, 1841. I was induced to abandon the project at that period by the rep resentations of Mr. Graham. He said that if I would join him as a salaried editor, giving up, for the time, my own scheme, he himself would unite with me at the expi ration of six months, or certainly at the end of a year. As Mr. G. was a man of capital and I had no money, I thought it most prudent to fall in with his views. The result has proved his want of faith and my own folly. In fact, I was continually laboring against myself. Every exertion made by myself for the benefit of Graham, by rendering that Mag. a greater source of profit, rendered its owner at the same time less willing to keep his word with me. At the time of our bargain (a verbal one) he had 6000 subscribers — when I left him he had more than 40,000. It is no wonder that he has been tempted to leave me in the lurch. [Source scan page 520] 464 APPENDIX. I had nearly 1000 subscribers with which to have started the Penny and, with these as a beginning, it would have been my own fault had I failed. There may be still three or four hundred who will stand by me, of the old list, and, in the interval between this period and the first of January, I will use every effort to procure others. You are aware that, in my circumstances, a single name, in advance y is worth ten after the issue of the book ; for it is upon my list of subscribers that I must depend for the bargain to be made with a partner possessing capital, or with a publisher. If, therefore, you can aid me in Alex andria, with even a single name, I shall feel deeply in debted to your friendship. I feel that now is the time to strike. The delay, after all, will do me no injury. My conduct of Graham has rendered me better and (I hope) more favorably known than before. I am anxious, above all things, to render the journal one in which the true, in contradistinction from the merely factitious, genius of the country shall be rep resented. I shall yield nothing to great names — nor to the circumstances of position. I shall make war to the knife against the New England assumption of " All the decency and all the talent" which has been so disgust ingly manifested in the Rev. Rufus W. Griswold's "Poets and Poetry of America." But I am boring you with my egotism. May I hope to hear from you in reply ? I am, with sincere respect and esteem, your ob't Servt. , EDGAR A. POE. DANL. BRYAN, ESQ., Alexandria, D. C. P.S. — I have not seen the "attack" to which you have reference. Could it have been in a Philadelphia paper ?