POE'S ALONE: ITS BACKGROUND, SOURCE, AND
MANUSCRIPT
by
I. B. Cauthen, Jr.
The lines entitled "Alone," first published in 1875, twenty-six years after Poe's
death, have been generally accepted by his editors as an early Poe poem.[1] Various details concerning the
background of this poem and bearing on its attribution to Poe have not previously been
known, for the correspondence of John Ingram, the English biographer of Poe, seems never
to have been examined for the light it throws on the poem.[2] In addition to discussing the prepublication
background of "Alone" and the source from which the poem is derived, this paper will
present information concerning the manuscript of the poem which only recently has been
definitely located.
The poem was first published in Scribner's Magazine for
September, 1875, with a prefatory note by Eugene L. Didier, who claimed to have found
the poem "in the album of a lady of distinguished social position."[3] The poem is reproduced in what
Didier calls "fac-simile," but very likely it is a reproduction either by wood-cut or
zinc-plate; this is different in several ways from modern
facsimile
processes since the hand of the engraver intervenes between the document and its printed
reproduction.
[4]
Nearly a year before the poem's publication, Didier had offered Ingram on the first of
October, 1874, a transcript of this poem for $100, along with other information
he had been collecting for "five or six years . . . for a correct life of Poe."
Concerning "Alone," Didier wrote, "I have in my possession a M.
S. poem of Poe's which has never been printed. Poe wrote it in a lady's Album in
this city [Baltimore], from which I copied it. It is dated March 17, 1829, and signed E.
A. Poe. This will be very valuable to you."[5] Ingram appears to have been interested enough in this
writer and the materials he offered to write to a Baltimore friend for details about
Didier. For, on May 17, 1875, John Parker, an assistant in the Peabody Institute
Library, wrote Ingram that Didier was "a magazine writer, who had been collecting and
writing in regard to Poe for some years, but from what I hear of him I do not believe he
would impart much knowledge."[6] Two months later Parker was able to send Ingram a copy of this poem
under rather strange circumstances:
I send you two photographic copies of a poem
which bears Poe's name and which I have never seen before. I obtained them quite
accidentally. A gentleman, who is doing some work for our librarian, has invented a
new style of photography, and one day about a month ago one of his assistants brought
up to the library some samples of this new mode of photographing manuscripts &c
and among these samples was this poem. As soon after this as I was able I obtained
some copies of it and also made enquiries as to where they had seen this poem. All the
information I could get was that they had photographed it from the autograph album of
some
gentleman whose name they did not remember. They also said that
the page whereon it was written was very yellow with age and that the writing had
almost faded away.
[7]
Ingram probably had his doubts of the poem's authenticity and must have asked Parker for
further details; thus, in December, after the poem had appeared in the September
Scribner's, Parker wrote:
From the photographer of the poem I
learnt the following items. Mr. Didier borrowed the album containing the poem from its
owner and brought it to him to have some copies photographed. He kept several copies
for himself, some of which I sent you. He says he photographed directly from the album
which was a very old one. Mr. Didier refused to give me the name of the owner of the
album and insisted that it was Poe's writing. He was rather indignant when I suggested
to him in a note that it might possibly be a copy of Poe's writing.
[8]
Later, in an essay on the Virginia Edition of Poe's Works,
Didier himself gives us an important piece of information concerning these lines. Again
claiming the poem to be a genuine one, although Professor Harrison had classed it under
"Attributed Poems," Didier declared,
I discovered it in the autograph album of Mrs.
Balderston, the wife of Judge Balderston, formerly Chief Judge of the Orphan's Court
in Baltimore. I had it engraved and published in
Scribner's
Monthly. I gave the poem the name of "Alone," and dated it, as it had neither
name nor date, but the poem and signature as published in the magazine are an exact
fac simile of the writing in the album.
[9]
Thus, although the poem
purported to be in Poe's handwriting, Didier admitted that he added a title and a date
to the manuscript. The title has been retained by Poe's editors, but the date has been
suspect. Although Didier had implied to Ingram that the dating of the poem, "Baltimore,
March 17, 1829." was in Poe's hand, actually it was his own handwriting. This fictitious
date has not been accepted by editors: indeed, the chronology of Poe's life does not
allow acceptance. After the funeral in Richmond of Mrs. Allen, Poe's foster mother, Poe
had returned to Fortress Monroe by March 10, 1829, and presumably
was
there until his discharge from the army on April 15, 1829. Although it is possible that
he could have visited Baltimore sometime in that month before his discharge from the
army, a letter from Baltimore, May 20, 1829, seems to indicate that he had but recently
arrived.
[10]
The handwriting of the poem as it appears in the reproduction in Scribner's has sometimes been doubted by Poe's editors and friends. For
instance, Mrs. Whitman, the "Seeress of Providence," was outraged by "so audacious and
so palpable a forgery." Nevertheless, she saw that the poem might after all be Poe's:
I think that the
poem might readily be accepted as genuine.
If it had been in Poe's writing I should not have questioned it even without
signature. . . . Still, the
poem may be his, but if so why was
it not given in his own handwriting.
[11]
Although there are many difficulties in determining the authenticity of the handwriting
with only the reproduction in Scribner's as a basis, it is now
possible to examine the original of the poem, which only recently has been definitely
located.[12] It is written
in an early nineteenth-century autograph album, 12.5 by 20.5 centimeters, bound in red
morocco with gold and black stampings; on the spine in the lettering in gilt, "ALBUM."
Its pages are numbered in script, the odd numbers on the recto, the even on the verso,
from 1 to 258. Some of the leaves bear the watermark, inverted, with the outline letters
"S &A Butler / U S"[13] at
the fold near the bottom of the sheet. The paper, which is of the "wove" type, appears
to be fully consistent throughout the album.
There are seventy-six poems in the album, many of them bearing datelines; these dates
range from August 1, 1826 (p. 15) to October 7, 1848 (p. 99). Many of the poems bear
signatures as well: one is signed by Lucy Holmes, the original owner of the album;
another signature is that of I. Balderston, who
married Miss Holmes.
In addition to members of the Balderston and Holmes families, several of the other
writers can be identified.
[14]
The poem that is of the greatest interest in the album is that signed "E. A. Poe" (p.
55). It is headed "Original" and bears no date-line. Yet traces of the title "Alone" and
the date-line which Didier admitted that he added can be seen, for they appear to have
been carelessly erased from pencilling. The traces left, however, are sufficient to
indicate that the writing is that of Didier, and that this is the manuscript that he had
photographed and from which he was working for the Scribner's
publication.
Of almost equal interest is a poem, p. 51, headed in this way: "by W. H.
Poe—copied at his / request by E. A. Poe—"[15] Although there is a slight difference in appearance
in the handwriting of this poem and Poe's own poem, it is very probable that they were
written by the same person. Especially the formation of short words like my and in, the long pendulums on certain
letters, the general cursory nature of the script, and the characteristic of crossing
the "t" some distance after the letter itself lead me to believe they are in the same
hand.
From several pieces of evidence it appears that these are genuine Poe manuscripts.
First, there are no blank rectos of leaves in the first hundred pages of the album
except in one instance where a poem is written on the verso following (p. 48). It seems
rather improbable, then, that two leaves, p. 51 and p. 55, would be left blank (to be
utilized by a forger) in this rather full first section; the leaving of these rectos
blank here would be more than chance. The latest poem in the album (p. 99), dated
October 7, 1848, may indicate that there were no blank rectos suitable for autograph in
this first section at that time; otherwise, the writer here would have utilized them.
His alternative was to turn to the back of the album where there are many blank leaves,
but he seemed to have wanted his poem as near the first of the album as possible, and
therefore he may have taken the first blank recto he came to.
Two other items may be mentioned to authenticate the poems: both pages 51 and 55 are
conjugate to their gathering, and there is no evidence of any kind of insertion of these
two leaves. The stitching is plainly evident, and it has not been tampered with. The
other item is a drawing, p. 258, the last page of the album, of a series of visiting
cards bearing the names of writers in the album. These are the work of a skilled penman,
and the cards are in contemporary styles of engraved cards. Among these cards is the
name of "E. A. Poe." The ink used seems to be of the same age throughout this page, and
the addition
of Poe's name at a later date might be indicated by a
difference in ink, which is not present. There is every indication that this card was
drawn with the others.
But the most conclusive evidence rests on the handwriting, which examination shows to
be the same in the two poems. It would seem an unnecessary and almost unbelievable
forgery to head a poem "by W. H. Poe copied . . . by E. A. Poe," since it would clearly
be more advantageous for a forger to give us another poem by Edgar Poe. But this problem
is subordinate to the handwriting of the poem "Alone." The signature of Poe on both
poems is very similar to those of the Poe letters to John Allan in 1829 and 1830, which
Mrs. Whitman and Ingram did not know; their conclusion that the poem was not in Poe's
handwriting was very likely based on the Poe script that they knew, which was some years
later than the presumed date of this poem. The handwriting within the poems, aside from
headings and signatures, has been carefully examined for me by several specialists.
Especially, Mr. Robert W. Hill, Keeper of Manuscripts, The New York Public Library, has
very generously examined this poem and compared it with Poe letters particularly of the
years 1829 and 1835. He has written that while this examination has been hindered by the
necessity of comparing letters against poem, "nevertheless, there are common characteristics in both: the 'th,' the
long pendulums of the 'f,' 'g,' and the 'y' and the beginning strokes of the 'm' and
'n.'" He summarizes his examination by stating that, "An examination of the photostats
which have been furnished me and which have been made from the autograph album described
in this paper leads me to lean toward acceptance of the poem as being in the handwriting
of Poe."[16]
Thus this poem which has been long suspect because of the method of first publication
and the temporary disappearance of this album now seems to be authenticated, and may be
accepted as a genuine Poe manuscript.
Poe's editors have generally agreed that, as Killis Campbell describes it, the poem "is
clearly in Poe's early manner."[17] The tone of the poem is certainly not that of the mature poet, but it
contains many resemblances to his early work. As Swinburne wrote Ingram, the verses
"seemed to me not unworthy on the whole of the parentage claimed for them."[18] Indeed, the lines are
particularly infused, as we shall see, with a reflection of Byronism that is very common
in the early poems. It is likely that Poe had "read all of Byron's poems, and that he
had read and re-read many of them";[19] this early reading obviously
influenced Poe's
earliest volumes, and "Alone" shares a kinship with those early volumes because of the
strong Byronic element common to all of them. While the mere presence of a Byronic
influence does not guarantee the authenticity of "Alone," it strengthens the claim that
this is a genuine Poe poem.
It has not hitherto been pointed out that the first nineteen lines of "Alone" are
derived from Byron's Manfred, II, ii, 50-75, although the last
three lines are a Poësque conclusion using only a slight hint from Byron. A
comparison of Poe's lines and the passage from Manfred shows
clearly the strong similarity of the two.
Both "Alone" and the speech of Manfred are autobiographical. Both begin with a similar
phrase, and both put an emphasis on the act of seeing. Manfred declares:
From my youth upwards,
My Spirit walked not with the souls of men,
Nor looked upon the earth with human eyes.
(ll. 50-52)
Poe writes:
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw.
Both poets continue in the description of their isolation from humanity. In Byron
it is,
The thirst of their ambition was not mine,
The aim of their existence was not mine;
My joys— my griefs— my passions— and my powers,
Made me a stranger; though I wore the form,
I had no sympathy with breathing flesh.
(ll. 53-57)
This difference in the poet's passions from those of the common man is reemphasized
in Poe:
I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow— I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov'd— I lov'd alone.
This is the same sense of isolation that Byron expresses in
. . . with men, and with the thoughts of men,
I held but slight communion.
(II. 60-61)
Byron, for dramatic foreshadowing, mentions the "One" who, as Manfred later explains,
has been destroyed by heart and not by hand. Poe does not reflect these two lines, but
begins a description, following Byron, of the mystery which binds him, a Byronic love of
nature. The elements that the two poets mention are similar, Poe's "red cliff of the
mountain," Byron's "iced mountain top," Poe's "the torrent, or the fountain," Byron's,
to plunge
Into the torrent, and to roll along
On the swift whirl of the new-breaking wave
Of river-stream, or Ocean, in their flow.
(II. 65-68)
Byron's "the moving moon, / The stars and their development," becomes in in Poe
"the sun that 'round me roll'd / In its autumn tint of gold." Byron's "the dazzling
lightnings" is Poe's "the lightning in the sky / As it passed me flying by—."
Byron's "the scattered leaves" and "Autumn winds . . . at their evening song" is
compressed by Poe to "the thunder and the storm."
Poe's conclusion,
. . . the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view,
is not directly derived from the passage in
Manfred but was
perhaps suggested by the Witch of the Alps to whom Manfred had spoken the lines of
autobiography.
Here again it appears that Poe was familiar with Byron's writings and did not hesitate
to rely on them for ideas. It would be interesting to know if Poe composed these lines
on the spur of the moment for Mrs. Balderston's album. If he did, the performance shows
a remarkable memory for his reading and an admiration for this particular passage in
Byron. But, of course, it is possible that he had composed the lines some time before
and that he took the opportunity of a proffered album to set them down. Although he was
probably satisfied in the suitability of his paraphrase for a lady's album, he was not
proud enough of its to include it in his later volume of poems.
Notes
