Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, page 282
EDGAR ALLAN POE TO DANIEL BRYAN — JULY 6, 1842
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 received none. My connexion with “Graham’s Magazine” ceased with the May number, which was completed by the 1st of April — since which period the editorial conduct of the journal has rested with Mr Griswold. You observe that the poem was sent about three weeks since. 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 Magazine”? I know not how to escape from this conclusion; and now distinctly remember that, although in the habit of receiving many letters daily, before quitting the office, I have not received more than a half dozen during the whole period since elapsed; and none of those received were addressed to me as “Editor of G’s 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 Griswold — 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 secretexertions to resume my project of the “Penn 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 representations 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 expiration of 6 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.
I had nearly 1000 subscribers with which to have started the “Penn”, and, with these as a beginning, it would have been my own fault had I failed. There may be still 3 or 4 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 endeavor to procure others. You are aware that, in my circumstances, a single name, in advance, isworth 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 Alexandria, with even a single name, I shall feel deeply indebted to your friendship.
I feel that now isthe 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 represented. 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 disgustingly manifested in the Rev. Rufus W. Griswold’s “Poets & 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 & esteem,
Yr Obt Sert
Edgar A Poe.
Danl Bryan Esqre
P.S. I have not seen the “attack” to which you have [re-]ference.
Could it have been in a Philadelphia paper[?]
DANIEL BRYAN TO EDGAR ALLAN POE — JULY 11, 1842
My dear Sir
I am very much gratified to learn that you are determined to “resume your project of the Penn Magazine,” and I am highly pleased with the independence and elevated ground on which you are resolved that it shall be conducted. — We stand in need of a literary journal of the character which you propose to give to yours; a character based on principles uninfluenced by selfish monoploising cliques, and stamped with the impress of justice and truth regardless of sectional partialities and the indiscriminate puffery and exclusiveness of a combination of self-constituted critics. — m Prudence, however, will require that you shall not rouse the hostility of this combination by intimations which may alarm their selfishness, and array their batteries against you before your arrangements are matured, and a substantial patronage obtained. — I am convinced that you occupy a very favourable position as an editor in the estimation of the public; and when you get your journal fully established, I believe that its independence and the spirit and genius which you will be able to infuse into its columns, will insure it success.
If my humble efforts can be in any wise conducive to its interest they shall be at your service. —
You shall have one name in Alexa. (Alexandria) among your patrons at all events, and I will try very hard to procure you some more (names). When your prospectus is out, please send me a few copies of it. —
Your failure to receive my communication accompanied by the poems to which I alluded in my last, appears to me inexplicable, if you were in Philadelphia at the time it reached the P. O. there, — which, I think was on the 15th day of May. My record shows that there were mailed here on the 14th of May four free letters for Philada. two of which were doubtless packages addressed to you — not as editor, or to the care of any body — but simply to “Edgar A. Poe, Esq Philada.” If, therefore, they were taken from the P. O. and opened by any other person, without your authority, the person opening them, was guilty of an act of baseness, for which he deserves to have his ears cut off, of a brand of infamy stamped on his front. If by possibility they went out from the Phila. P. O. with the letters of any other individual and were opened by him through mistake, a very improbable occurrence, — he would forthwith, on discovering his mistake, which the first sentence of my long letter to you wd (would) have made palpable, have returned them to you with a proper explanation & apology. —
But I trust that there is no man in Philada. wearing the semblance of a gentleman, so villainously base as to be guilty of such a violation of principle and honour, as to open, and withhold from you, communications thus transmitted to you under the sanctity of a seal. — Hence I venture to indulge a hope that they may have been advertised in the Philada. office during your absence and that on inquiry you will find them among the advertised letters now on hand there; — or that they were taken to your boarding house and mislaid among your papers. —
I suggest, that, if you have not already done so you make special inquiry on the subject at the Philada. office, and in the event of no satisfactory development being made, that a reference be had to the record of mails rec’d there, to ascertain if the Alexa. mail for that city of the 14th of May — wh(ich) called for 4 free letters — was regularly rec’d there, & I will expect to hear further from you on the subject soon, in the mean time I beg you to be assured of my high respect,
And friendly regards,
Danl Bryan
P. S. Seek at your Reading Rooms for a file of the Washington “Independent” — and in that paper of the 17th of June you will see in an article signed “Flash” — dated Philada. June 11th, the allusion to “attacks” upon your “literary character” to which I referred. Flash alleges that they appeared recently in “Graham’s Mag.” I have not seen them, & presume there is some mistake about the matter.
DANIEL BRYAN TO EDGAR ALLAN POE — JULY 26, 1842
Confidential
Alexandria D. C.
July 26, 1842
My dear Sir
Did you receive my reply to your letter is relation to the lost verses?
I trust you did, and that your investigation of the mystery about the missing coms. has resulted in the dispersion of your apprehensions with regard to them — I don’t care much about the loss of the M. S. as I have the rough originals, and am not sure, any how, that they merit preservation. — But the violation of your sealed packages and the detention of their contents wd (would) be a very different matter. I venture to hope, however, that I shall learn from you that the parties to whom suspicion pointed as being guilty of the presumed offence are innocent thereof. —
Did you find the No of the Independent in which the article to which I referred imputing to G’s Mag. (Graham’s Magazine) an attack upon you, appeared? — If you did not, I can send it to you. — I repeat my conviction that the writer of that article had some how or other fallen into a mistake on the subject, as on further scrutiny of the Mag. I have not been able to find any thing which I cd (could) construe into animadversion of either yourself of your productions. —
How proceed your arrangements with a view to the establishment of the “Penn Magazine”? — If you had a well skilled trustworthy agent to travel about & procure subs. (subscribers) I think a liberal patronage might be obtained for it. — A reliance upon stationary agents for the procurement of subs. at the commencement of a literary work, no matter how distinguished the editor may be, is less judicious, according to my observation, than a dependence upon the active exertions of traveling agents of proper qualifications. — The combined efforts of both classes in your case, could not it appears to me fail to success. — But I am volunteering suggestions in a matter which you understand better, probably, than I do. — And, then, I am aware that there may be difficulty in the employment of suitable agents, and that the expenses connected with this mode of getting subs. may prove a formidable obstacle to its adoption. —
Ah curse that cruel peace destroying hag poverty! How she casts her withering blight upon the fairest hopes of the sons of Genius!
“It’s hardly in a body’s power
To keep at times from being sour,
To see how things are shared;
How best o’chiels (?) are whiles in want,
While coofs (?) on countless thousand rant
And ken na how to wais’t.”
But then, My dear Sir, I trust that we have some of the consolations which the high souled bard pictured to his friend as an offset to the ills which poverty threw in their path. —
I see it represented in the Phila Evning Jour. that Griswold’s “Poets & Poetry” has succeeded well — and that a new edition is issuing from the press. — Is there not some of the “trickery of trade” in this? — What was the amt. Of the 1st edition and may not the 2nd ed. have been printed at the same time as the 1st was? By the bye have you read any of Griswold’s own verses? The only sample I have seen of them is mere doggerel in my humble estimation. I allude to “Sights from my window — Alice” — printed in the May of June No. of Graham. — I have at my disposal a MS critique on this production, wh(ich) I wd (would) be pleased to see printed in some respectable newspaper, or periodical, published in one of the large cities. — Would it comport with your views & feelings to take charge of it, and, if you deemed it just and worthy of publication, have it transferred to the columns of some journal over which you have influence? Just favor me with an answer to this inquiry. — If it shd (should) be in the affirmative, the critique shall be at your disposal as soon as the mail can convey it to you.
My agency, as well as your own, in the matter wd (would) of course be kept entirely to ourselves — unless you might be willing to confide your part in it to the editor, or publisher, of the Jour. to wh(ich) you might send it. —
You may please the most implicit reliance in the inviolability of any confidence which you may repose in me, — and I feel assured that my secrets will be safe in your keeping. — Pardon the hurry in wh(ich) I write. With the highest respect very faithfully yr obt sert
Dan Bryan
Edgar A. Poe, Esq.
Phila.
DANIEL BRYAN TO EDGAR ALLAN POE — AUGUST 4, 1842
Alexandria D. C. Aug. 4, 1842
My dear Sir
I feel equally surprised and indignant at the conduct of the wretch by whom the sanctity of my letter to you was invaded: and, while I desire to exercise charity in relation to Mr. Griswold in this matter, I cannot abstain from the indulgence of a suspicion that there has been at least a culpable disregard by him of our rights and of honourable principle in his connivance at the perpetration of this act of baseness; or in his failure to communicate to you the fact of the existence of such a letter, with explanation of the circumstances connected with the invasion of its seal and the removal of its enclosures. —
Although, from his own shewing, he knew the letter was there, and that it had contained M. S. verses; yet, if he is capable of becoming an accessory to the conduct of the principal (principle) in this matter, he would make up a plausible tale to exonerate himself from all blame in relation to it, and it would probably be impossible to obtain proof of the fallacy of his story. — He may not have been much to blame in the affair — but my present impressions implicate him in its guilt as, at least, an “accessory” after the fact.” — We have been grossly injured by this violation of our correspondence & the crime deserves a signal punishment; but it may be prudent for us to let it pass without exposure. — You have been more egregiously wronged than myself, — and I pretend not to dictate the course for you to pursue concerning your grievance. On this point you are the best judge. — If, however, I may be permitted to advise you on the subject, I wd (would) recommend that you make discretion and your interest your counselors in the case, and that you be guided by their dictates. —
There were some things in my letter which, uttered, as they were in confidence of friendship, I regret should have been exposed to Griswold’s eye; — but as far as I am concerned, I feel no delicacy now about a divulgement of the whole transaction; — yet, looking to your interests, especially in connexion with your anticipated literary movements, it appears to me probably, that, unless prompted to make developments by circumstances of which I am not aware, a silent acquiescence in the wrong, at least for the present, may be judicious. —
As respects the mutilation of the “second leaf” of my letter, I am not sure that it did not take place in consequence of some accident before it left my own hands. — Is there any break in the continuity of the sense where the severance occurs? If there is, the mutilation did not happen with me — and the guilt of the violater of the letter is deepened by the dismemberment of my comn. —
Enclosed I send you a letter for Mr. Graham which you can either hand to him, or forward through the P. O. — there were transmitted with my letter of the 13th of May three sets of verses — The May Queen’s Address — The coronation address by 1st Maid of Honour — and an address by 1st Goddess. This letter covered one of the poems, and the other two were contained in a separate franked, & sealed envelope.
I send herewith 3 Nos. of the Independent — in each of which you will find some allusion to Mr. Griswold’s book.
I have no means of ascertaining the authors of the articles in question. I shall be happy to hear from you when you find it convenient to favour me with a letter.
With high respect
I am very faithfully yr. Friend
Danl. Bryan
What think you of the article signed J. H. S.? Are you acquainted with Judge Conrad, Dr. Mitchell, and other writers therein — assailed, and what justice is there in the cursing of J. H. S. Can you find out the writer of Flash or the productions to wh(ich) he refers as “attacks on yr. Literary character?”
I will take into consideration yr suggestion with regard to the publication of the critique through Mr. Dow or Mr. Thomas. Not having any personal or epistolary acquaintance with either of them, I feel some hesitation about the introduction of the subject to them. The index too, the only paper in wh(ich) the crititque wd (would) probably find a place here — has but a very limited circulation, & but a slender reputation at a distance. But I will think of the matter. If I knew any distant editor who wd be likely to exercise independence in the case, I wd prefer sending the article to him. I must not be suspected of having anything to do with it. —
Buckingham, Edwin and Joseph Tinker
EDGAR ALLAN POE TO JOSEPH T. AND EDWIN BUCKINGHAM — MAY 4, 1833
Baltimore May 4 th
Gentlemen,
I send you an original tale in hope of your accepting it for the N. E. Magazine. It is one of a number of similar pieces which I have contemplated publishing under the title of ‘Eleven Tales of the Arabesque’. They are supposed to be read at table by the eleven members of a literary club, and are followed by the remarks of the company upon each. These remarks are intended as a burlesque upon criticism. In the whole, originality more than any thing else has been attempted. I have said this much with a view of offering you the entire M.S. If you like the specimen which I have sent I will forward the rest at your suggestion — but if you decide upon publishing all the tales, it would not be proper to print the one I now send until it can be printed in its place with the others. It is however optional with you either to accept them all, or publish ‘Epimanes’ and reject the rest — if indeed you do not reject them altogether.
Very resply,
Yr Obt St
Edgar Allan Poe
Messrs Buckingham.
Please reply by letter as I have few opportunities of seeing your Magazine.
(Here appears the full text of Poe’s short story “Epimanes”)
[page 2: Epimanes, continued]
[page 3: Epimanes, continued]
