A theory to fill the gap

Next to nothing is known about what happened to Poe after September 27, 1849, until six days later (that story will be later this week). It is even unclear where Poe was going when he left Richmond (Richmond's newspaper the Semi-Weekly Examiner reported he was on his way to New York, even though he had an appointment in Philadelphia, but the ship he presumably took was headed to Baltimore). That lack of information has led to speculation which is sometimes wild.

Perhaps the strangest comes from Poe "scholar" John Evangelist Walsh. Among his small series of Poe books is Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe. Though intended as a scholarly study of the last few days in the life of Poe, Walsh fills in the gaps with several heapings of fiction (the narrative voice he uses is part of the problem). It is from Walsh that we get the strange suggestion of accidental murder on the part of the brothers of Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton.

Elmira had almost certainly agreed to marriage by the time Poe left Richmond, rekindling a teenage romance that could have had a storybook ending. Nevertheless, it seems obvious that Elmira's family was not too pleased with Poe. Elmira may also have been concerned because her ample inheritance from her deceased husband would be slashed by a second marriage.

According to Dr. John J. Moran (the attending physician when Poe dies; any information from him should be deemed questionable at best), a train conductor named George Rollins said that Poe boarded a train from Baltimore to Philadelphia. Upon arriving, he did not disembark, but stayed on the train to return to Baltimore (??). Now, however, he was being followed by two men looking like "sharks."

Walsh says that the two "sharks" were actually three brothers of Elmira Royster, who followed Poe to threaten him into breaking the engagement with their sister. Arriving in Baltimore, here's what Walsh tells us happens:

As he left the depot, the three brothers trailed him, watching as he checked in at the hotel. Scarcely had he settled in his room when they again barged in. First came a faint tap on the locked door, then in response to Poe's wary question perhaps a polite, "Message, sir." As the door opened a crack there came a sudden rush into the room.

The brothers then force-fed whiskey to their victim, breaking Poe's temperance pledge to Elmira and thereby forcing an end to the engagement. They also threatened to ruin his reputation by spreading rumors of his relationship with Sarah Helen Whitman, and fathering an illegitimate child with Frances Osgood. Poe fought back, however, but was overpowered and forced to drink more alcohol. In his stupefied state, they left him outside of Ryan's Tavern — or so Walsh speculates.

Walsh's evidence is based on Poe's disappearing mustache, his traveling trunk (Jeffrey Savoye wrote more on this), a letter from poet Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Moran's testimony (picking what works for his theory and dismissing what doesn't), an ignored article published in 1857 with a similar theory, and his own imaginative prowess. I would speculate most Poe scholars dismiss this theory instantly, though there are a few who think at least a portion of this story is plausible.

Elmira did not speak up after Poe's death, refusing to be brought into the public eye. When she finally did answer questions, she denied her engagement with Poe entirely. Was she hiding her family's involvement?

*The photo above is the Shelton House in Richmond, still standing at 2407 Grace Street (a private residence). The image is courtesy of the incredible "Poe Revealed" web site, which focuses on Poe's bicentennial in the commonwealth of Virginia.

Poe takes his last trip

On September 27, 1849, Edgar A. Poe fell off the radar. He will not be seen or heard from again for another six days.

The night before his disappearance, there are several stories about what he was doing; how true they are is debated. He apparently visited the office of the Southern Literary Messenger (his former employer) to meet with John R. Thompson. He told Thompson he was leaving for New York the next day but stopping in Philadelphia on the way. In Philadelphia, he was supposed to edit a volume of (bad) poetry by a poetaster named Mrs. Marguerite St. Leon Loud — a gig he only accepted for the decent pay. Thompson gave Poe $5 to cover the trip (as well as a letter to give to Rufus Griswold in Philadelphia); Poe paid him back with a manuscript of a poem titled "Annabel Lee." Likely, this was just a gift, not intended for publication, as "Annabel Lee" had just been sold to John Sartain of the Union Magazine. Thompson published it anyway, claiming to Griswold that he paid "a high price" for it. Information from Thompson comes from his letter to Griswold as well as interviews with the questionable William Fearing Gill, an early (fanatic) biographer of Poe.

Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton claimed that Poe visited her at home the same day. "He came up to my house on the evening of the 26th Sept. to take leave of me — He was very sad, and complained of being quite sick." Elmira claimed he had a fever and urged him not to travel in such a condition the next day. She claims that she confirmed he had already left the next morning when she tried to check on him. Elmira's recollections often wavered so she may or may not be credible.

"About half-past nine" in the evening, Poe visited a young doctor named John F. Carter, presumably for the fever Elmira mentioned. He left (supposedly switching canes with Carter) to eat dinner at Sadler's Restaurant. According to Dr. Carter, the restaurant later told him Poe left "at exactly twelve that night" to board a boat which would depart at four o'clock. Biographer Arthur Hobson Quinn did some considerable thinking about this aspect of the story, whether Poe was really taking a boat which left at 4 a.m. or one at 4 p.m. and which boat, if any, was scheduled to leave that day.

Either way, it was the next day, September 27, a Thursday, when Poe left Richmond. It is believed he boarded a steamer to Baltimore (odd, considering the plans he revealed to John Thompson), identified by Arthur Hobson Quinn and others as Pocahontas. If it was this particular ship, we know that it successfully arrived in Baltimore the next day. Whether it was the next day or not, Poe's next appearance (six days later) would definitely be in Baltimore. Speculation rages if Poe went to Baltimore first, then went on to Philadelphia or New York, then returned to Baltimore, or if he never made it out of Baltimore. That's not including the speculation about whether or not Poe actually left on the 27th or if he went a day or two later. Poe was not in a condition to explain any of it. More on that soon.

The Last Lecture

At 8:00 p.m. on September 24, 1849, Edgar Poe presented his last lecture on "The Poetic Principle." Held at the Exchange Hotel in Richmond, Poe's lecture discussed his poetic theory, particularly that a poem should be written merely for the sake of being a poem, not as instruction. Poetry is art, he implies, and therefore should focus on pure beauty and aesthetics. He also says that a poem should be short, able to be read in a single sitting. He gave specific examples of poets he thought were good, and others he thought were bad.

Poe had given lectures on the topic before, including one in Richmond. In fact, the local newspaper that day, Daily Republican, noted, "Although it is a repetition, we are sure that few, if any, who attended his first lecture, would be unwilling to hear it over again, and those who were not present on that occasion, will deprive themselves of a delightful entertainment by failing to attend to-night." One of the audience members was Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton, who supposedly had a prime seat in the front row. 57 years later, the (usually unreliable source) Susan Archer Talley wrote that Rosalie Poe was there too.

We don't know for sure what was said in the original lectures. His first versions of it were lost or stolen and had to be rewritten. The manuscript from his September lecture in Richmond, however, apparently survived and was found in Poe's trunk after his death. According to the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, poet/editor Bayard Taylor wanted to sell this manuscript to George Graham for the benefit of Maria Clemm. Instead, it was purchased by John Sartain, who published it in his Union Magazine in October 1850. Taylor, working on behalf of Rufus Griswold, likely never turned the money over to Mrs. Clemm.

From that published version of the lecture, we see that Poe praises William Cullen Bryant ("The intense melancholy which seems to well up, perforce, to the surface of all the poet's cheerful sayings about his grave, we find thrilling us to the soul — while there is the truest poetic elevation in the thrill. The impression left is one of a pleasurable sadness.") as well as Edward Coote Pinkney, Lord Byron, and Lord Tennyson.

It was Poe's last public appearance before he vanished.

Poe's proposal in a cemetery

Before I get back to Poe's engagement to Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton, let's go back to exactly one year earlier. It is believed that on September 23, 1848, Poe proposed to the poet Sarah Helen Whitman in Providence, Rhode Island at the Swan Point Cemetery.

The romance between Poe and Whitman, who shared the same January 19 birthday (though she was six years older), was a strange one. She was fairly intellectual but had an alleged heart condition which she treated by inhaling from an ether-soaked handkerchief. More strange, however, was her affiliation with Transcendentalists, including the "busybody" Margaret Fuller. She also had a friendship with, of all people, Elizabeth F. Ellet. Poe was understating things when he wrote, "My heart is heavy, Helen, for I see that your friends are not my own."

Poe had called at Whitman's home in Providence (still standing) on September 21. Over the next couple days, she introduced him to friends and took him to the Providence Athenaeum. He gave her some of his books and revealed he was the author of the poem "Ulalume." On September 23, they visited the cemetery. Whitman later recalled:

He endeavored... to persuade me that my influence and my presence would have power to lift his life out of the torpor of despair which had weighed upon him, and give an inspiration to his genius, of which he had as yet given no token. Notwithstanding the eloquence with which he urged upon me his wishes and his hopes, I knew too well that I could not exercise over him the power which he ascribed to me.*

Poe gave up for a time and had to leave Providence. He would later resume his efforts to impress Whitman, even going so far as taking a pledge of temperance. They eventually were engaged but the December wedding was canceled when rumors were spread about Poe. Nevertheless, years later, Sarah Helen Whitman became one of Poe's strongest advocates after his death.

*The quote comes from a letter, written 25 years later, from Whitman to Richard Henry Stoddard, the self-appointed heir to the literary legacy of Rufus Wilmot Griswold. Think what you will.

Dearest object on earth

A letter was written to Maria Clemm, mother-in-law of Edgar Poe, on September 22, 1849. The letter-writer was a woman who had never met Maria, yet she wrote: "I feel as if I were writing to one whom I love very devotedly." Sarah Elmira Shelton (nee Royster) was encouraged to write this letter by her new fiancee, Edgar Poe.

Poe had first met Elmira when they were both teenagers in Richmond, but their budding romance was cut short due to the intervention of her father while Poe was away at the University of Virginia. The failed romance inspired a short story by Poe's brother William Henry Leonard Poe and, possibly, a play by Lambert A. Wilmer, a Baltimore friend of W. H. L. Poe. If nothing else, many of Poe's early poems about lost love or youthful folly seem inspired by the relationship.

Elmira married Alexander Shelton, but Mr. Shelton died shortly before she crossed paths with Poe again. Poe dropped in on her in July 1848 (she wrote, "I was ready to go to church and a servant told me that a gentleman in the parlor wanted to see me. I went down and was amazed to see him — but knew him instantly.") and it seems their relationship picked up right where it left off. However, Alexander Shelton's will stipulated that the ample inheritance left for her would be cut substantially. He pushed, she acquiesced, and it all happened very quickly: His visit was September 17, her letter to Maria Clemm was only five days later. In it, she referred to him as her "dearest object on earth." Nevertheless, it seems Elmira's family, particularly her brothers, never approved of the coupling. Poe then left Richmond on September 27, 1849. The marriage would never take place; Poe died two weeks after the letter from Elmira to Maria Clemm was written.

After Poe's death, Elmira kept tight-lipped about her relationship with Poe. She later said she would not have married him "under any circumstances" — a strange thing to say, considering what she wrote to Maria Clemm. She changed her tune again in June 1884 when she was interviewed by Dr. John J. Moran, who was preparing a booklet on his experience as Poe's attending physician in his last days. Moran's account is known for its lack of credibility in general but Elmira's changing testimony is questionable and confusing, which has led to some suspicion about her family's role in Poe's death...

Bicentennial of Sophia Peabody Hawthorne

2009 is celebrating more than just Edgar Poe. Another figure who celebrates a bicentennial this year is Sophia Amelia Peabody, later Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne. I have no evidence that Sophia (pronounced with a hard i as So-fy-uh) interacted with Poe. But, it's interesting to consider what's happening in Hawthorne's home life while he interacts with Poe.

The April 1842 issue of Graham's Magazine included a brief preliminary review of Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales, followed the next month by a more substantial full review. Hawthorne was living at the Utopian community Brook Farm, an ultimately unsuccessful Transcendental experiment. Hawthorne wasn't a believer in the experiment, but joined in the hopes of making enough money to support his future wife Sophia. He moved out in October. A few months later, Hawthorne published a humorous sketch on his contemporaries called "The Hall of Fantasy" in the February 1843 issue of James Russell Lowell's The Pioneer. The "Hall" of the title is the haven of quality writing that minor writers aspire to. "Mr. Poe," he wrote, "had gained ready admittance for the sake of his imagination, but was threatened with ejectment, as belonging to the obnoxious class of critics."* Poe's poem "Lenore" was published in the same issue.

The issue impressed Poe enough that he wanted to include Hawthorne as a contributor to his dream journal, The Penn. He wrote to J. R. Lowell asking him to serve as an intermediary on March 27, 1843. By then, Hawthorne had been married to Sophia for about eight months. Two days earlier, Hawthorne had complained to his friend Horatio Bridge about his money situation. "I did not come to see you, because I was very short of cash — having been disappointed in money that I had expected from three or four sources." Those sources likely included Lowell's The Pioneer, which had already gone out of business after only three issues. His financial situation wasn't getting much better when his first child was born. Sophia Peabody Hawthorne gave birth to Una Hawthorne on born March 3, 1844, after a particularly difficult delivery. Five months later, Poe wrote to Lowell and asked, "Do you ever see Mr Hawthorne? He is a man of rare genius."

Hawthorne's great letter to Poe was written from Salem, MA on June 17, 1846. In it, he informs Poe of the upcoming publication of Mosses from an Old Manse and praises Poe's ability to write tales (with a minor pot-shot at Poe's criticism). Five days later, his son Julian Hawthorne was born. After some delay, Godey's Lady's Book published Poe's essay "Tale-Writing — Nathaniel Hawthorne" in its November 1847 issue. By this time, Hawthorne's financial stress was alleviated by a government-appointed job at the Salem Custom-House. The job provided him decent income, but also stymied his literary output; he was forced out of the job in 1848.

Poe died in 1849, a year before the publication of Hawthorne's life-changing work, The Scarlet Letter. I can only speculate what Poe would have thought of the book. My guess is that he wouldn't have cared much for it. The heavy moral tone goes against Poe's theory of the "heresy of the didactic," not to mention how difficult it is to find a novel which Poe liked in general.

Anyway, happy 200th birthday to Sophia Amelia Peabody Hawthorne.

*When republished in Mosses from an Old Manse, Hawthorne excised many of these references. Though he meant it all in good spirit, Hawthorne's use of real names may have impeded his attempts at making money off his writing.

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.

Poe and politics

Frederick William Thomas came to visit Poe at his house (then on Coates Street in Philadelphia) on September 17, 1842. Years later, he described Poe's home life in the so-called Quaker City:

He lived in a rural home on the outskirts of the city. His house was small, but comfortable inside for one of the kind. The rooms looked neat and orderly, but everything about the place wore an air of pecuniary want. Although I arrived late in the morning Mrs. Clemm, Poe's mother-in-law, was busy preparing for his breakfast. My presence possibly caused some confusion, but I noticed that there was delay and evident difficulty in procuring the meal. His wife entertained me. Her manners were agreeable and graceful... She and her mother showed much concern about Eddie, as they called Poe, and were anxious to have him secure work.

Thomas was a writer himself and, throughout his 60 years, lived in Providence, Charleston, Baltimore, Cincinnati — though it was in Philadelphia that he met Edgar Poe. Thomas maintained a long, frequent correspondence with Poe, three years his junior; letters between the two are very frank, honest, and interesting. Thomas also got his hands dirty in politics and campaigned on behalf of William Henry Harrison, who died shortly after his presidential inauguration. Harrison's successor, the "accidental president" John Tyler, compensated Thomas for his support by granting him a clerkship at the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C.

Thomas hoped his connection with the new president would lead to a job for his friend Poe. Their September 1842 meeting was to discuss this possibility. Robert Tyler, son of the new president, was in town and would likely show his support for granting Poe a government job, Thomas believed. But, Poe knew his preferred path: even as Thomas chatted with Poe about obtaining a government post, Poe chatted about creating his own literary journal. Nevertheless, the struggling writer/critic was somewhat intrigued by government work, which he had heard was easy money. Thomas implied the job was all but his already; Robert Tyler was "remarkably fond of poetry." He agreed to meet Thomas the next morning.

Thomas likely didn't hear from Poe for several days. A letter from Poe dated September 21, 1842 excuses his absence:

I am afraid you will think that I keep my promises but indifferently well, since I failed to make my appearance at Congress Hall on Sunday, and I now, therefore, write to apologize... Upon reaching home Saturday night, I was taken with a severe chill and fever — the latter keeping me company the next day. I found myself too ill to venture out, but, nevertheless, would have done so had I been able to obtain the consent of all parties.

Poe blamed both illness and his wife for not allowing him to meet with Tyler, the president's son. Was he really sick? Was his wife concerned about his health? Or, as biographer Kenneth Silverman concludes, was he just nursing a hangover after a night's drinking? When Poe realized he had missed a good opportunity (apparently, the job promised an annual salary of $1,500 — nearly double what he was making at Graham's Magazine), he wrote he still wanted to pursue the job, "if he [Tyler] can look over matters & get me the Inspectorship I will join the Washingtonians" — a temperance group (years later, Poe did, in fact, join a temperance organization).