Poe (8 page)

It was one of the few triumphant moments in Poe's literary career. For the first time he had been afforded recognition. His prospects of fame and fortune had been transformed. On the Sunday and Monday after the award had been announced in the journal, he called upon the members of the editorial committee. One of them, Mr. Latrobe, recalled that “his manner was easy and quiet, and although he came to return thanks for what he regarded as deserving them, there was nothing obsequious in what he said or did.” He noted that Poe's “forehead was high, and remarkable for the great development of the temple. This was the characteristic of his head, which you noticed at once, and which I have never forgotten.” This was a frequent remark about him—that there was something about his appearance that was indeed unforgettable. He went on
to tell Latrobe that he was presently engaged on a story about a voyage by balloon to the moon, and in the course of his explanation “he clapped his hands and stamped with his foot by way of emphasis.” Afterwards he laughed and apologised for his “excitability.”

One of the other editors whom he met on that Sunday, John P. Kennedy, became his unofficial patron. On a later occasion he recalled to Kennedy “those circumstances of absolute despair in which you found me” and “how great reason I have to be grateful to God and yourself.” In a diary written after Poe's death, Kennedy recorded that “I found him in Baltimore in a state of starvation.”

Yet Poe now had some reason for hopefulness. In October the
Visiter
announced that “a volume of tales from the pen of Edgar A. Poe” was to be published by subscription. The intended book was to be entitled
Tales of the Folio Club,
and comprised some seventeen stories. Each of these stories was narrated by a member of the club, and there were general critical discussions among them after every contribution. It was a showcase, in other words, for Poe's heterogeneous talents. The stories were, in Poe's words, “of a bizarre and generally whimsical character;” more significantly they were largely designed as satires on a range of literary styles, from the Germanic sensationalism of
Blackwood's Magazine
to the snappy journalistic style currently fashionable. He caricatured writers as diverse as Walter Scott and Thomas Moore, Benjamin Disraeli and Washington Irving. The tales ranged from “The
Spectacles,” a story in which the narrator falls in love with his own grandmother, to the necrophiliac “King Pest,” and the narrators themselves were given names such as Horribile Dictu and Convolvulus Gondola. It was indeed a convoluted humour, but it is important to note that Poe embarked upon his fictional career as a predominantly satirical writer. There was always a trace of vaudeville in his performance.

Poe's humour was, at the best of times, somewhat laboured. He often verged upon facetiousness, and delighted in what can only be called gallows humour. He only ever approached wit in his scathing reviews of other writers, where an almost Wildean note emerges. His principal gift was for sarcasm, an effortless tone of superiority not unmixed with contempt. He also enjoyed “hoaxing,” with accounts of imaginary voyages to the icy regions and of trips to the moon; there is in fact a serious argument that he was “hoaxing” in his tales of horror, deliberately piling the terror onto a gullible public. “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” are also exercises in burlesque.

• • •

In March 1834 John Allan died and, as Poe expected, left nothing in his will to his erstwhile foster child. Yet anticipation did not necessarily soften the blow. “I am thrown entirely upon my own resources,” he told Kennedy, “with no profession, and very few friends.” Throughout his life Poe continually complained about friendlessness, as if somehow it emphasised his orphan status. There had been
a time when Poe had hoped, or even expected, to receive a large inheritance from his guardian. If Frances Allan had lived, he might have gained the entire estate. But in fact he was consigned to a life of penury and, as always, he harboured grief and resentment at being so unluckily and unnaturally cast away.

In addition the publication of
Tales of the Folio Club
had come to nothing, foundering on the reluctance of publishers to take on a volume of short stories by an American writer. Indigenous writers were at a grave disadvantage during this period. They survived only by taking other professions, such as diplomacy and education, or by relying upon an independent income. The cultural palm was given to the English, but, more important, books from England could be pirated and reprinted at no cost at all. There was no copyright legislation in existence. To pay a native writer, for what could be appropriated free of charge from another country, seemed to many publishers to be an unnecessary expense. So Poe suffered. He was one of the first truly professional writers in American literary history, but he was in a marketplace where none came to buy. It has been estimated that the total income from all of his books, over a period of twenty years, was approximately three hundred dollars.

In the unhappy year of 1834, when Poe was twenty-five, there were reports of his suffering a heart attack, of his being incarcerated in a local jail, and of his being employed for a time as a bricklayer or as a lithographer. None of these stories can be substantiated. It can be confirmed,
however, that he applied for a post as schoolteacher in the spring of 1835.

A letter to Kennedy, asking for assistance, survives. Kennedy, still one of the editors of the
Baltimore Saturday Visiter,
invited Poe to dinner, after receiving his letter of solicitation, but Poe had to decline on the very good grounds that he had nothing suitable to wear. He only had the one shabby black suit that he donned on all occasions. Kennedy realised at once the extent of the young man's penury. He gave him clothing, afforded him free access to his table, and even lent him a horse for periodic exercise. He lifted him “from the very verge of despair.”

Kennedy performed a further favour for Poe in the spring of 1835. He gave him what Poe called “my first start in the literary world,” without which “I should not at this moment be among the living.” Kennedy recommended him to the editor of the newly established
Southern Literary Messenger,
Thomas Willis White, whose offices were in Richmond. It was the best possible introduction for an aspiring writer. Kennedy advised White that Poe was
“very
poor,” and he counselled the editor to accept articles from the talented young man. Poe sent one of his tales of terror, “Berenice;” it was promptly accepted. Then he entered into a correspondence with White in which he advised the new editor on journalistic principles. He recommended changes in typeface, and also in style. “To be appreciated,” he told him, “you must be read.” White had criticised aspects of “Berenice” as “too horrible,” and Poe admitted the impeachment. But he went on
to say that the most successful stories contained “the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque: the fearful coloured into the horrible: the witty exaggerated into the burlesque: the singular wrought out into the strange and mystical. You may say all this is bad taste.” This was Poe's journalistic credo, the principles of which he followed for the rest of his writing career. He had an instinctive understanding of what would attract, and hold the attention of, a newly formed reading public. He understood the virtues of terseness and unity of effect; he realised the necessity of sensationalism and of the exploitation of contemporary “crazes.” In his lifetime he was sometimes condemned as a mere “Magazinist,” but that perilous and badly rewarded profession would be the cradle of his genius.

As a result of Poe's unasked-for advice on editorial matters, White wrote to him in June, 1835, offering him a post on the journal. His acceptance would mean that he would be obliged to move to Richmond. But the prospect of work, and money, triumphed over any local inconvenience. Poe replied at once, promising his services to the
Southern Literary Messenger
and professing that he was “anxious to settle myself” in his hometown. So in the summer of 1835 Poe returned to the scenes of his childhood.

He rented a room in a boarding house and, after a period of prevarication in which he applied unsuccessfully for a post as a schoolteacher at Richmond Academy, he joined White's periodical at a salary of sixty dollars per month. It was his first prospect of prolonged paid employment. Quite by chance the headquarters of the
Messenger
were beside the offices of Ellis and Allan, John Allan's erstwhile business, so he was offered daily reminders of his change of status or what he used to call “caste.” He was engaged, after all, in what was essentially hack work. With White abroad gathering subscriptions, Poe was obliged to write most of the periodical himself. He contributed book reviews and squibs and heterogeneous “copy,” all against an advancing deadline; he was also engaged in binding up and addressing the numbers of each edition. Printer's ink was the air he breathed. The periodical came out monthly, at a subscription price of five dollars a year, and comprised some thirty-two double-columned octavo pages. There was a great deal of space to fill.

• • •

In August, however, the delicate balance of his nature was entirely overthrown. Maria Clemm wrote to inform him that his cousin Neilson Poe was ready to take in and educate her daughter Virginia at his own expense. There was already some presumption that Poe would one day marry Virginia, and he replied with an hysterical communication which opened “I am blinded with tears while writing this letter.” In the course of it he declared that “I have no desire to live and
will not
,” while adding that “you know I love Virginia passionately devotedly.” The prospect of losing another young female, just as he had lost his mother and Jane Stanard, rendered him almost helpless with grief. “Oh God have mercy on me. What have I
to live for?
Among strangers with
not one soul to love me
.” He also enclosed
a letter to Virginia in which he called her “my own sweetest Sissy, my darling little wifey” and implored her not to “break the heart of your cousin. Eddy.”

He invited Mrs. Clemm and her daughter to leave Baltimore in order to live with him in Richmond, and lied that he had “procured a sweet little house in a retired situation.” The house's “situation” was only in his imagination. He had the propensity of believing that anything he wrote down somehow became true.

There was no immediate resolution to this crisis, and in the following month Poe became deeply melancholic. In a letter from Richmond he told Kennedy that “I am wretched, and know not why.” This is an odd admission, since he knew that the reason for his depression lay in the possibility of losing Virginia forever. It can only be attributed to the fact that he was constantly demanding the sympathy of others; he was always desperately in need of love and attention. But he also began drinking heavily. White wrote to one friend that Poe “is unfortunately rather dissipated, and therefore I can place very little reliance upon him.” One of the printers in the office of the
Messenger
recalled that “Mr. Poe was a fine gentleman when he was sober. He was ever kind and courtly, and at such times everyone liked him. But when he was drinking he was about one of the most disagreeable men I have ever met.”

• • •

In September Poe suddenly vacated his desk. He “flew the track,” as White put it; he added that “I should not be
at all astonished to hear that he has been guilty of suicide.” Poe did not kill himself, however. He returned to Baltimore, where it is surmised that he secretly married Virginia. The evidence for this is uncertain, but it is clear that some arrangement was reached. Marriage may have been the only way of retaining Virginia for himself. Since she was only thirteen years old, some element of secrecy was obviously considered desirable.

At the end of that month he wrote to White, asking to be reinstated at the
Messenger.
White consented on the understanding that Poe would refrain from drinking. “No man is safe who drinks before breakfast,” he told him. “No man can do so, and attend to business properly.” So Poe had been drinking very deeply indeed. Two or three of his tales from this time, among them “Shadow” and “King Pest,” offer visions of men sitting around a table drinking even as death is a guest among them. Their drinking parlours are enclosed and shrouded from view, lit by lamps or torches: it is the nightmare vision of a tavern, where drink and death are part of the same lurid and fitfully lit reality. He had seen such taverns, in New York as well as in Richmond, where a flight of steps from the street led down to a room with a packed dirt floor. It was little more than a converted cellar, with a wooden counter and wooden benches. Poe knew these leprous places very well.

At the beginning of October Poe returned from Baltimore to Richmond. With him he brought Maria Clemm and Virginia. They took rooms in a boarding house, rather than the “sweet little house” he had promised
to them. The three of them maintained the appearance of a bachelor cousin, and a mother, caring for a girl. Almost as soon as they arrived Maria Clemm wrote to a relation that “we are entirely dependent on Edgar. He is, indeed, a son to me & has always been so …”

White appointed Poe editor of the
Messenger,
retaining his own role as proprietor, and at first he prospered in his new role. He gave up drinking, now that the cause of his unhappiness had been removed, and told Kennedy in a letter that he had “fought the enemy manfully.” He went on to state that “my health is better than for years past, my mind is fully occupied, my pecuniary difficulties have vanished, I have a fair prospect of future success …”

He had also been writing steadily. Ever since the
Southern Literary Messengerhad
published “Berenice,” he had contributed other tales and essays to the periodical. The December number, for example, contained “MS Found in a Bottle,” an uncompleted drama entitled “Politian,” two or three “fillers” and critical reviews of no less than nineteen books. In the previous nine months he had published six new stories, among them “Hans Phaall—A Tale,” “Morella,” and “King Pest.”