Edgar Allan Poe to C. Anthon — 1844-10

Edgar Allan Poe to C. Anthon — 1844-10 Historical printed text from James A. Harrison, The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, volume XVII (1902). Catalog identity: RCL-505. The heading uses the checklist date; the transcription retains the historical edition’s dateline and wording. The edition may contain older readings, omissions or date assignments. This is a printed transcription, not a manuscript facsimile. Modern website corrections in double brackets and navigation are omitted. Independent word-by-word proofreading has not been completed. POE TO ANTHON. [Century Magazine.] June, 1844. MY DEAR SIR, — Many years have elapsed since my last communication with you, and perhaps you will be surprised at receiving a letter from me now — if not positively vexed at receiving one of so great a length and of such a character. But I trust to your goodness of heart for a patient hearing at the least. You have already seen that, as usual, I have a favor to solicit. You have, indeed, been to me in many respects a good genius and a friend, but the request I have to make now is one of vital interest to myself — so much so that upon your granting it, or refusing it, depends, I feel, much if not all of the prosperity, and even comfort, of my future life. I cannot flatter myself that you have felt sufficient interest in me to have followed in any respect my literary career since the period at which you first did me the honor to address me a note while editor of the “Southern Messenger.” A few words of explanation on this point will therefore be necessary here. As I am well aware that your course of reading lies entirely out of the track of our lighter literature, and as I take it for granted, therefore, that none of the papers in question have met your eye, I have thought it advisable to send you with this letter a single tale as a specimen. This will no doubt put you in mind of the trick of the Skolastikos — but I could not think of troubling you with more than one. I do not think it my best tale, but it is perhaps the best in its particular vein. Variety has been one of my chief aims. In lieu of the rest, I venture to place in your hands the published opinions of many of my contemporaries.(1) I will not deny that I have been careful to collect and preserve them. They include, as you will see, the warm commendations of a great number of very eminent men, and of these commendations I should be at a loss to understand why I have not a right to be proud. Before quitting the “Messenger” I saw, or fancied I saw, through a long and dim vista, the brilliant field for ambition which a Magazine of bold and noble aims presented to him who should successfully establish it in America. I perceived that the country, from its very constitution, could not fail of affording in a few years a larger proportionate amount of readers than any upon the earth. I perceived that the whole energetic, busy spirit of the age tended wholly to Magazine literature — to the curt, the terse, the well-timed, and the readily diffused, in preference to the old forms of the verbose and ponderous and the inaccessible. I knew from personal experience that lying per du among the innumerable plantations in our vast Southern and Western countries were a host of well-educated men peculiarly devoid of prejudice, who would gladly lend their influence to a really vigorous journal, provided the right means were taken of bringing it fairly within the very limited scope of their observation. Now, I know, it is true, that some scores of journals had failed (for, indeed, I looked upon the best success of the best of them as failure), but then I easily traced the causes of their failure in the impotency of their conductors, who made no scruple of basing their rules of action altogether upon what had been customarily done instead of what was now before them to do, in the greatly changed and constantly changing condition of things. In short, I could see no real reason why a Magazine