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expand1996 (1)
1Author:  Gill, William FearingAdd
 Title:  Edgar Allan Poe—After Fifty Years  
 Published:  1996 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text 
 Description: WHEN Rufus W. Griswold, "the pedagogue vampire," as he was aptly termed by one of his contemporaries, committed the immortal infamy of blighting a collection of Edgar Allan Poe's works, which he found ready at hand, by supplementing his perfunctory labors with a calumniating memoir of the poet, nearly fifty years ago, there were many protests uttered by the poet's contemporaries at home and abroad. Charles Baudelaire, the Poe of French literature, in his tribute to the dead poet, indignantly wrote: "What is the matter with America? Are there, then, no regulations there to keep the curs out of the cemeteries?" In view of the fact that the Griswold biography of Poe has been incontestably discredited, and proved to be merely a scaffolding of malevolent falsehoods—the outcome of malice and mendacity—the deference paid to Griswold and his baleful work in the memoir accompanying the latest publication of Poe's writings seems well-nigh incomprehensible. Professor Woodberry excuses the detractions of Poe's vilifier, "in view of the contemporary uncertainty of Poe's fame, the difficulty of obtaining a publisher, and the fact that the editorial work was not paid for." Most amazing reasons, indeed, in justification of Griswold's interposition as the poet's biographer—an office that had been specially bequeathed by the dying genius to his bosom friend, Nathaniel P. Willis. Had Willis shirked this responsibility, there might have been some excuse for Griswold and his horde of gutter-snipes, who wreaked their venom upon the name of Poe, outraging every tenet of common decency; but Willis performed his delegated duty reverently, sympathetically, and adequately. No publisher with any sense of justice would have presumed to include any other memoir than that of Willis in the original edition of Poe's works.
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