Poe's brother, The Pirate

The Baltimore North American Review published a short story titled “The Pirate” by William Henry Leonard Poe, Edgar’s older brother, on October 27, 1827. The story was based on Edgar’s young, tragic romance with Sarah Elmira Royster. Henry, as he called himself, published several poems in his short life and even occasionally submitted the poetry of his younger brother — though they were often credited to the wrong Poe. There has been some debate about some of the Poes' early poetry, as far as who wrote which.

Less than four years after the publication of "The Pirate," William Henry Leonard Poe died. He was 24 years old.

Henry had served as a sailor for a time but his life was cut short due to tuberculosis, but most biographers are quick to point out that his illness was exacerbated by alcoholism. In fact, the little we are told about Henry is almost always used as a way to better understand Edgar Poe.

Admiring his brother's exploits, Poe later made claims that he traveled to exotic lands (just like Henry). He set many of his prose works at sea, including his only complete novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Poe was deeply affected by the various tuberculoid figures in his life, including his brother. And, like his brother, he turned to drinking when times were tough.

Edgar once wrote: "there can be no tie more strong than that of brother for brother — it is not so much that they love one another as that they both love the same parent." For a time, Edgar used the alias "Henri Le Rennet," incorporating a French version of his older brother's first name. The strangest speculation comes from biographer Jeffrey Meyers, who says the name "Lenore" was a transformation of "William Henry Leonard."

It's all very poetic. But it's also making speculative leaps to connect the dots. How much do we really know about William Henry Leonard Poe? We don't even know what he looked like; no image of him has been identified.

$50 found in a bottle

On October 19, 1833, Baltimore's Saturday Visiter published Poe's tale "MS. Found in a Bottle." The tale is considered one of Poe's first major success. The newspaper was sponsoring a writing contest, as announced in their June 15, 1833 issue: "The proprietors of the Baltimore Saturday Visiter feeling desirous of encouraging literature, and at the same time serving their readers with the best that lies within their reach, offer a premium of 50 dollars for the best Tale and 25 dollars for the best Poem, not exceeding 100 lines." Though the newspaper claimed it was a national contest, both winners were identified as "Baltimoreans" — including Poe.

Interestingly, the paper had been founded in part by Lambert Wilmer, a friend of Poe's older brother. The judges for the contest, which included John Pendleton Kennedy, deliberated on October 7. Poe was chosen as the winner for prose and he was granted the $50 prize (apparently this translates to just over $1000 today). His prize-winning tale was published 12 days later with an introduction praising that it was "highly graphic in its style of composition."

"MS. Found in a Bottle" tells the story of an unnamed narrator ("Of my country and of my family I have little to say.") whose was a passenger aboard a ship caught in a hurricane/sandstorm/typhoon. Everyone aboard the ship is blown overboard — except the narrator and an old Swedish man. Driven south by the storm, this ship eventually collides with another, and the narrator climbs on board. It is while aboard this strange ship, continuously heading south, that the narrator begins to record a journal (the "manuscript" of the title). That manuscript is thrown into the sea just before... well, you'll have to read the story.

This incident was not without controversy. Shortly after "MS. Found in a Bottle" was published, Poe's poetry submission, "The Coliseum," was published as well. In fact, the poetry contest winner was "Henry Wilton" — a pseudonym for John H. Hewitt, one of the judges of the contest. Poe (and others) was outraged and suspected something was afoul. He, of course, presumed he would have been the poetry winner, if it wasn't for the whole contest being rigged. Decades later, in 1885, Hewitt claimed that he had a fistfight with Poe on the street over the accusation (no further evidence exists to substantiate this claim). A third judge, John H. B. Latrobe, later admitted that Poe was right: he would have won, if not for Hewitt.

Either way, "MS. Found in a Bottle" was a major financial boon for Poe, not to mention a morale boost for the struggling writer early in his career. Poe would continue writing adventures at sea for many years, including his only complete novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. He would later win another writing contest with his tale "The Gold-Bug."

This shape was peculiar

Continuing the series of Poe works published in September issues, I realized I almost neglected one of the most interesting and spirited of Poe's tales. "The Oblong Box" was first published in the September 1844 issue of Godey's Lady's Book (and, part of a trend of concurrent publications, similar to "The Raven," it was also published in the August 28, 1844 issue of the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper).

"The Oblong Box" is a mixture of some of Poe's greatest story-telling elements. Set as a variation of the sea adventure tale, the story follows an unnamed narrator traveling by boat (the Independence) from Charleston, South Carolina to New York. On board, he bumps into his old friend Cornelius Wyatt, who is traveling with his wife and two sisters. The narrator is suspicious that his friend has rented three state-rooms, not to mention the cargo he brought aboard: an oblong box, ("this shape was peculiar," we are told) and a fairly large one at that — "about six feet in length by two and half in breadth." The box is made of pine and emits a slight odor. As a reader, you might already know what's in the box, but the narrator sure didn't.

Instead, he assumes (oddly) that the box housed a copy of The Last Supper that Wyatt recently acquired. He grows more suspicious, however, when he realizes how those three state-rooms are being used. One is for the two sisters, the other seems to be empty, and the third is for Wyatt, his wife, and the mysterious box. At night, however, Wyatt's wife leaves the room and spends the rest of the night in the empty room. After she leaves, the narrator hears the box being opened, followed by his friend's audible sobs. When the Independence is caught in a hurricane and breaks apart, Wyatt refuses to get in a lifeboat and leave the box behind. Instead, he goes down with the ship.

Some time later, the narrator meets the captain of the ship, who reveals what was in that box, why Wyatt refused to part with it, and why his "wife" left the state-room every night.

In addition to elements of the sea tale, the ending proves "The Oblong Box" is a horror story. The mystery behind the box, however, also implies it is a part of Poe's developing "ratiocination" method of tale-telling. More than all this, however, is the amazing symbolism in the story. Wyatt refuses to part with his precious cargo while aboard a ship named Independence, of all things. The voyage from South Carolina also echoes Poe's own trip from there via steamboat.

Oddly, Arthur Hobson Quinn notes that Poe offered the tale to Nathaniel Parker Willis, who suggested it be included in a new annual gift-book founded by Rufus Griswold. The Opal, which was edited first by Willis and later by Sarah Josepha Hale, was subtitled "A Pure Gift for the Holidays." Packed with religious or moral tales and poems for Christmas, "The Oblong Box" would have been an odd fit.

A tale of two sailors

Herman Melville was born August 1, 1819 in New York City, just over ten years after Poe's birth. The two would never cross paths but they certainly have connections. Both were under-appreciated during their lifetime, especially for works they were particularly proud of (Moby-Dick for Melville, Eureka: A Prose Poem for Poe, for example). Both made substantial enemies, both literary and personal, and died relatively miserable. Most importantly, both were interested in the sea.

Melville's connection to the ocean is more obvious than Poe's; Melville served as a sailor and for a time lived amongst a cannibalistic tribe — an experience which would inspire his popular book Typee. That particular voyage left from New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1841 — three years after Poe published his own novel featuring a character named Arthur Gordon Pym who takes to the sea and later finds himself among a cannibalistic tribe. The literary connections between Melville and Poe don't end there. Though speculative, it's all but certain that Melville's white whale was largely inspired by the symbolism of the color white in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Additionally, Poe and Melville were part of a subgenre of literature known as "Dark Romanticism" — a direct response to the Romantic movement's optimism and faith in the human experience (the third major Dark Romantic writer was Nathaniel Hawthorne, who easily connects to both Poe and Melville). I will be speaking about Poe's influence on Melville some time in September at New Bedford; date to be determined.

Perhaps ironically, August 1 has another interesting maritime connection. That date, in 1831, marked the death of William Henry Leonard Poe, the often-forgotten older brother of Edgar, who died of tuberculosis at age 24. In his short life, WHL Poe had traveled the world as a sailor. As a crewman aboard the frigate USS Macedonian, WHL Poe made it to South America, the West Indies, the Mediterranean, and Russia — all before the age of 20. When he returned to the United States, he became a writer (relatively unsuccessful; one notable work fictionalizes his younger brother's first true romance). After his death, WHL Poe was buried at Westminster Abbey in the Poe family plot (near where Edgar Poe was originally buried in 1849). Some say that the character of August Barnard in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym might have been inspired by WHL Poe.

RIP, William Henry Leonard Poe... and happy birthday, Melville. Smooth sailing to you both.

The perfect whiteness of the snow

The New York publishers Harper & Brothers published a short, two-volume work on July 30, 1838. Presented as an apparent true story with the help of a "Mr. Poe, lately editor of the Southern Literary Messenger," its title, in full, was:

THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM OF NANTUCKET: Comprising the Details of Mutiny and Atrocious Butchery on Board the American Brig Grampus, on Her Way to the South Seas, in the Month of June, 1827. With an Account of the Recapture of the Vessel by the Survivers; Their Shipwreck and Subsequent Horrible Sufferings from Famine; Their Deliverance by Means of the British Schooner Jane Guy; the Brief Cruise of this Latter Vessel in the Atlantic Ocean; Her Capture, and the Massacre of Her Crew Among a Group of Islands in the Eighty-Fourth Parallel of Southern Latitude; Together with the Incredible Adventures and Discoveries Still Farther South to Which That Distressing Calamity Gave Rise.

The book was Poe's only complete novel. It was mostly critically panned. One critic noted the book was clearly a fantasy, despite an "impudent attempt at humbugging the public" into believing it a true account. Another critic, William Evans Burton, called it "a very silly book." Critic Lewis Gaylord Clarke found it confusing, noting the story was "told in a loose and slip-shod style, seldom chequered by any of the more common graces of composition." Modern Poe scholar Scott Peeples summarizes the book this way: "a mock nonfictional exploration narrative, adventure saga, bildungsroman, hoax, largely plagiarized travelogue, and spiritual allegory... one of the most elusive major texts of American literature." He's right on all counts.

The irony is that Poe wrote the book specifically to appeal to mass market tastes in a declining economy amidst the Panic of 1837. Readers, he understood, were looking for long narratives instead of the short stories he had been writing. They wanted adventure, sea stories, exploration narratives — and especially true stories. He even acquiesced to the suggestion that the book be published in two volumes (his publisher called it "the magical number").

The plot is fairly obvious from the novel's subtitle — but, what it doesn't say is that the book is almost senseless. Each chapter introduces more and more unrealistic elements, from the main character hiding in plain sight from his grandfather to his nearly starving to death hidden in a ship's cargo hold right before conveniently finding food and water to his being caught amidst a group of savages on an unknown island. Throughout the very short novel, there are plotholes, inconsistencies, a disappearing dog, shark attacks, overly-detailed descriptions of maritime life and maritime exploration history, and an infamous scene featuring cannibalism.

Oh, then there's the strange part: the ending.

If Poe hadn't convinced you that this could not possibly be a true story (even after plagiarizing word-for-word from a true account by Jeremiah N. Reynolds), nothing could prepare you for the final scene. Traveling closer and closer to the Antarctic region and, ultimately, the South Pole, the ocean surrounding Pym (who is suddenly a nautical expert, though he had no experience with boats on page one) begins to swallow itself, creating dangerous whirlpools. Still, the little boat presses on. Then, from nowhere, a huge figure arises — its skin "of the perfect whiteness of snow." Sorry to give away the ending; that was the last line of the story.

Readers in Poe's day must have been perplexed (as are scholars today). How seriously should we take this novel? Is it just a fun adventure story? Is it a complicated, deeply-allegorical tale strewn with symbolism? Is it the best example we have that Poe was incapable of writing a long, coherent narrative? What the hell is happening at the end??

I don't know. But I can tell you this: it's worth reading.

The Martha arrives in the United States

After 36 days at sea, an 11-year old Edgar A. Poe returned to the United States on July 21, 1820. The ship, named Martha, left Liverpool on June 16; it docked in New York City just over a month later and, as the local newspaper reported, passengers included "J & F Allan, E A Poe," and others. "J & F Allan," of course, are John and Frances Allan — Poe's foster-parents.

John Allan brought the family to England to expand his mercantile business in 1815, shortly after trade was re-opened after the War of 1812. Poe spent five of his most important formative years abroad. He visited Scotland (where his foster-father was born) and was educated in several London schools, including a boarding school at Stoke Newington run by Rev. John Bransby (an experience later fictionalized in "William Wilson"; the character in that story also has a schoolmaster named Bransby).

For the Allan family, the five years in England were not successful. Frances Allan's health continued to deteriorate (in fact, in 1819, a year before their return trip, John Allan reported "Frances begins to think she will never be able to cross the Atlantic"; she dies ten years later) and the Liverpool branch was not prospering.

Nevertheless, the experience overseas must have been influential on the young Poe. Though several other American writers spent time in Europe (especially Washington Irving — who dined with John Allan while overseas — as well as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne and James Russell Lowell), each of them visited in their adult years; only Poe spent a major portion of his childhood there. Though he would never return to Europe, his first-hand experience with long sea voyages likely inspired his later fictional sea tales, most notably The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.

Poe, Pym, and Reynolds

On June 8, 1844, the Spy — a periodical based in Columbia, Pennsylvania — printed the fourth in a series of "dispatches" by Edgar A. Poe. Written from New York, the series of weekly articles gossiped about his experiences wandering Manhattan, the public's reaction to "The Balloon-Hoax," and occasional notices about recent New York publications. The June 8 issue, however, included a discussion of an explorer named Jeremiah N. Reynolds.

Years earlier, Reynolds had sailed to the Antarctic: a treacherous yet exciting voyage which Reynolds wrote about in a pamphlet entitled Address on the Subject of a Surveying and Exploring Expedition to the Pacific Ocean and the South Seas. Poe reviewed the work in January 1837 and praised Reynolds's words, which had originally been presented to Congress, and he supported efforts to fund future expeditions in the Pacific Ocean and South Seas. Of Reynolds himself, Poe notes he is "the originator, the persevering and indomitable advocate, the soul of the design." Science would benefit from further exploration, he writes, and "the people demand it, and thus there is a multiplicity of reasons why it should immediately be set to foot." Poe admits he wants to inspire his audience to read the original pamphlet — it's that good.

Reynolds and his voyage were the biggest inspirations to Poe's own major sea voyage — the fictitious one in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. The first installment of the serialized novel was published in the same issue as Poe's review of Reynolds. In fact, Poe borrowed verbatim about 700 words of Reynolds's address in Chapter XVI, amounting to nearly half the content of that chapter. The novel, one of Poe's most bizarre and confusing works, is based on the public's interest in sea voyages and expeditions to the Antarctic in particular. Like Reynolds, the title character of Pym heads as far south as he can go, and Pym eventually reaches the Polar regions. What he finds there is the single strangest ending to any of Poe's works — and amongst the most debated to this day.

Poe's notice about Reynolds in the Spy was published six years after the novel was published in two volumes. It's an indication that Poe was such a strong supporter of Reynolds and Polar exploration that he thought about it throughout his life. This life-long interest has also led to speculation on Poe's death. In the couple days before his death at a Baltimore hospital in 1849, Poe was delirious and incoherent. The doctor noted he screamed out in the night, repeatedly calling out the name "Reynolds!" There is, of course, as much speculation on Poe's death as there is on Pym's final chapter

Upcoming lectures

Looking for some of Rob's famous Poe-expertise outside the electronic/digital realm? Here are some "real world" appearances and lectures coming up:


"Poe and the Maritime Literary Tradition"
Wednesday, March 4 at 7:00 p.m.
160 Derby Street, Salem, Massachusetts
Part of a maritime lecture series by the schooner Fame and Salem Maritime National Park

Join Rob Velella, creator of the Edgar Allan Poe Bicentennial Desk Calendar, to discuss why sea adventures were popular, how Poe was inspired to write several of his own, Poe's personal experience of the sea, and how one particularly famous sailor who has a link to Salem's Friendship may have a connection to Poe`s mysterious (and as yet unsolved) death in 1849.


"A War of the Words: Poe's Battle With Longfellow"
Thursday, April 9 at 7:00 p.m. (I'll confirm the time later)
Cambridge Center for Adult Education, Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts

In the 1840s, at the height of his literary fame, Edgar Allan Poe publicly accused Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of being a weak poetic imitator. Poe's infamous conflict with the Brattle Street poet drew the attention of other writers with deep connections to Cambridge. Was Poe right or was he just jealous? This discussion will reexamine the various theories behind Poe's accusations and determine his true motivation.


"Edgar A. Poe's Friends and Enemies: A Walk Among the Dead"
Sunday, April 19 at 2:00 p.m.
Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Nothing goes together better than cemeteries and Edgar Allan Poe. Meet many of his interred literary contemporaries at Mount Auburn. As a critic, Poe had much to say about many of these figures, both well-known and lesser-known. Some were friends, and some were enemies.


"Poe and Publishing"
Tuesday, May 12 at 6:00 p.m. (I'll confirm the time later)
Boston Public Library (room TBD)
Sponsored by the Ticknor Society

In addition to his poetry and fiction, Poe was also an editor and magazine proprietor at a time when the publishing industry was changing and technology was rapidly improving. This lecture will discuss Poe's knowledge of the industry, his role in it, and how it changed around him - though, ultimately, he was never able to profit significantly from it.

More to come, I hope!

Poe and the sea

Today, November 13, is the anniversary of the birth of Robert Louis Stevenson, the Scottish author. Coincidentally, I mentioned his name in conversation today, without knowing the significance of today's date. Perhaps best-known for his Treasure Island, Stevenson was not born until just over a year after the death of Edgar Allan Poe.

One of the things I often try to do with Poe is discuss him in new and surprising contexts for people. Today, for example, I mentioned that Poe was one of many participants in the 19th century literary tradition of maritime or sea adventures. This tradition enveloped people like James Fenimore Cooper, Richard Henry Dana Jr., Herman Melville — and, of course, Robert Louis Stevenson.

Edgar Poe himself wrote a fair handful of sea adventure stories. His only novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, for example, is set predominantly at sea. Shorter works include "A Descent into the Maelstrom" and "MS. Found in a Bottle." Poe's brother was a sailor, of course, and he himself traveled by sea several times — most significantly as a boy living with the Allan family when they spent several weeks en route to England, where they lived for some five years.

The question is, when people think of Poe, do they think of the sea? Maybe they should.