| | 1 | Author: | Gill, William Fearing | Add | | | 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. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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