Edgar Allan Poe to Mathew Carey — 1836-07-30

Edgar Allan Poe to Mathew Carey — 1836-07-30 Historical letter reading from George E. Woodberry, The Life of Edgar Allan Poe: Personal and Literary, volume II (1909). Catalogue identity RCL-156. 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. POE TO CAREY RICHMOND, July 30, 1836. DR SIR, — Your article on the “Study of the Learned Languages” was duly received, and is already “set up.” I am much in hope that it will please the public generally as much as it had done myself. My object in writing you at present is to beg that you will allow us to alter the heading which you have affixed to it, from the words “A Looker-on in Venice, No. 2,” to the words “On the Study of the Learned Languages, “or some similar caption. I have many reasons for requesting this favor. First, it would accord with all the other captions made use of in our magazine; secondly, it would prevent the necessity of making any explanation in regard to the heading of your last article, — and explanations are always inconvenient; thirdly, your article would then stand by itself unconnected with anything going before or to come; fourthly, it would prevent our having a series of continued articles, which you must know by experience are the cause of some trouble; and fifthly, the “Looker-on in Venice” is a caption which has been very frequently been [sic] made use of before by essayists. I submit all, however, to your better judgment, merely saying that Mr. White would take it as a personal favor if you would allow us to make the alteration proposed. I am extremely sorry that the error should have occurred in relation to your “Anthologia” and “The Science of Life.” We did not, however, suppose it necessary to put the “Anthologia” as a selection — supposinging the word Anthologia itself sufficiently significant. With high respect, Yr. ob. st. EDGAR A. POE. I perceive that your article, “National Ingratitude,” has attracted great attention and approbation. The “Charlottesville Jeffersonian “among other papers pay it a merited compliment. [Addressed] MATHEW CAREY, EsqE. Philadelphia, Pa.