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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Among the unsolved problems pertaining to Poe's life and works this article deals with two: (1) Did Poe write the anonymous article on “Our Magazine Literature” published in the New World, March 11, 1843? (2) What are the facts in the background of the bitter enmity between Poe and Lewis Gaylord Clark, for twenty-six years editor and principal owner of the most popular purely literary magazine in New York, the Knickerbocker? Clues pointing toward an answer to these two questions are found in the files of the Knickerbocker.
1 New World, vi, 302–303. See the late Professor Killis Campbell's last comments on the article, concluding: “… such evidence as we have is insufficient to warrant the unconditional ascription of the article to Poe.” The Mind of Poe (Harvard University Press, 1933), pp. 227–228.
2 In this installment Poe discussed five women and one man, characterizing the man, Lewis Gaylord Clark, as “noticeable for nothing in the world except for the markedness by which he is noticeable for nothing.” The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, edited by James A. Harrison, Virginia Edition, xv, 115.
3 Hervey Allen, Israfel (New York, 1926), ii, 650.
4 The letter was written on December 15, 1846. Harrison, op. cit., xvii, 269–272.
5 The article was signed with the letter “L.” The New World was a weekly fiction periodical, begun in 1840 by the printer Jonas Winchester, Park Benjamin, and R. W. Griswold. It was issued from June 6, 1840, to May 10, 1845, when it was merged into the Emporium. It was one of the so-called “mammoth weeklies,” which often cheaply printed whole novels as extras. Professor Mott says, “Its pages were sometimes more than four feet long and eleven columns wide.” See Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines, 1741–1850 (New York and London), pp. 359–361.
6 This magazine, Sargent's New Monthly Magazine of Literature, Fashion and the Fine Arts, was published in New York from January through June, 1843.
7 The last paragraph quoted above may explain why Griswold, assuming that he may have known the article to be Poe's, did not include the essay in the first collected edition of Poe's works.
8 Killis Campbell, “The Poe-Griswold Controversy,” PMLA, xxxiv (1919), 438.
9 The Mind of Poe, pp. 227–228. Italics mine.
10 Knickerbocker, xxviii, 368n (October, 1846). The excerpt is quoted below. This extensive comment was elicited by Poe's “literati” paper on Clark the month before, as well as by the increasing tension in the relations of Poe and Clark from 1843 to 1846.
11 Ibid., xxi, 380 (April, 1843).
12 Cf., for example, Clark's complimentary references to The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket and the “journal of Julius Rodman” (which appeared serially in six numbers in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, 1840), Knickerbocker, xv, 359 (April, 1840).
13 Before 1843 Poe had never referred in print to Clark; but it is interesting to know that a little over a year before he had commended Epes Sargent, on whom the remarks in the anonymous essay are vitriolic. In “A Chapter on Autography”—the last of the three articles on autography published in Graham's Magazine for November, December, 1841, and January, 1842—Poe complimented Sargent on his “very excellent poems,” instancing one published in the Knickerbocker, and said that “as an editor, Mr. Sargent has also distinguished himself. He is a gentleman of taste and high talent.” See the Virginia Edition, xv, 253.
14 Virginia Edition, xv, 114.—In the anonymous essay and in Poe's “literati” papers the Knickerbocker is wrongly said to be declining in significance of content and popular appeal, whereas at both times, 1843 and 1846, the circulation of the magazine was growing and the contemporary appraisal of it becoming even more favorable than ever.
15 Ibid., iv, 160–174, passim.
16 “Editor's Table,” Knickerbocker, xxii, 89 (July, 1843).
17 Ibid., xxii, 392 (October, 1843).
18 See above, page 1125.
19 “Literary Notices,” Knickerbocker, xxvii, 71 (Jan., 1846).
20 Virginia Edition, xv, 22.—Griswold's edition gives a different version of the criticism, omitting the comment quoted. Authorities are not agreed on whether such changes are due to Griswold or to Poe himself.
21 “Editor's Table,” Knickerbocker, xxvii, 461 (May, 1846).
22 The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Virginia Edition, xv, 114–116.
23 This is a reference to the July, 1845, incident which Hervey Allen relates. Israfel (New York, 1926), ii, 650. See above, page 1125.
24 The manuscript referred to is, I am convinced, that of the anonymous article finally published in the New World for March 11, 1843.
25 “Editor's Table,” Knickerbocker, xxviii, 368n (October, 1846).
26 The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Virginia Edition, xv, 121.