Evening star. [volume], January 18, 1931, Page 4, Image 76

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
4
Many Loves in Life of Edgar Allan Poe
BY IRMA BENJAMIN.
-m yEW slants on the love affairs of
r f\ I Edgar Allan Poe come to light with
]\f the celebration tomorrow of the
± yf 125th anniversary of his birth.
They aie made possible through
the researches of Richard Gimbel, Poe scholar
and collector, through whose efforts the house
In which Poe lived while a resident of Phila
delphia and in which he wrote his master
pieces has recently been purchased, soon to be
aet up as a national shrine.
At 14 a love for a girl of his own age; at 19
a marriage with a child of 13 in an act of
magnanimity; in maturer years a penchant for
rich widows; in Paris escapades with Alexander
Dumas, the basis of his French mystery
stories —these are some of the romantic touches
lately revealed in an analysis of the Poe col
lection owned by Mr. Gimbel.
TN Philadelphia, at 530 North Seventh street,
A stands the old Poe house. Tragedy stalks
its stairway. The ghost of Annabel Lee haunt
ingly returns to the passing visitor. Paint
echoes of “The Bells.” the incessant flapping of
the “Raven’s” wings and memorable phan
toms of the “Murders in the Rue Morgue" are
re-created. The fascinating mystery of Marie
Roget permeates the eerie atmosphere of long
deserted nooks and comers.
This sanctum has just been purchased by
Mr. Gimbel as a rightful spot for a Nation's
memorial to one of its outstanding intellectual
creative geniuses. The house will be stripped
of all modernity. The formal three-story
brownstone-front addition —the pride of the
gay nineties —will be tom down, revealing the
charm of a modest abode of 1827, in which Poe
wrote the masterpieces of his career. And the
restored outward shell will house the original
evidences of his masterful struggle there against
the torments of a racked body and a tortured
soul —evidences gleaned by Mr. Gimbel through
years of painstaking study and collecting.
"I am interested in Poe and in a Philadel
phia testimonial to him because I am a Phila
delphian. and I claim him as such,” said this
Poe adherent. Surrounded by rare letters,
manuscripts and first editions of the famous
author, one felt the authenticity of Mr. Gixn
bel’s emphatic statement.
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A few lines of a very morbid poem of
Poe's reproduced from the actual manu
script, which is in Richard Gimbel s
collection.
ALTHOUGH Edgar Allan Poe was born In
Boston on January 19, 1809, this accident
of birthplace does not necessarily make of him
a Bostonian,” he continued. “As a matter of
fact, Poe hated Boston and spent most of his
life away from his birthplace. His four out
standing yean of productivity were spent at
690 North Beventh street, Philadelphia, the
real apex of his prolific literary career and
tragic life. In fact, he was on his way to Phil
adelphia when the pathetic finish was put to a
life of sadness and turmoil.
"The events leading up to his death sound,
as does most of Poe's life, like yellow Journal
ism. But in the end, as all through life, he
was a victim of circumstances. At the time
of his death he was on his way to Phila
delphia to edit the poems of a lady in that
city. He had taken the boat from Richmond
to Baltimore, where an election was being
held. Poe met some of his friends there and
at their invitation—for he seldom drank alone
and a very little liquor affected him horribly—
he imbibed enough to set up the mechanism
of alcoholism in his brain. He boarded the
train in Baltimore and thereupon forgot the
purpose of his prospective visit to Philadel
phia. Arriving in Philadelphia, he was com
pletely befuddled and took the next train back
to Baltimore. His friends there refreshed his
memory and again put him on a train bound
for the Quaker City. At Havre de Grace, how
ever, he became so ill that he was taken off
the train at 4 in the morning and sent
back to Baltimore, where he was found un
conscious seven or eight hours later. His old
friend, Dr. Snodgrass, was sent for, and after
two days of delirium Poe died in a hospital.
" 'Edgar Allan Poe is dead. This announce
ment will startle many, but few will be grieved
by it.’ This was the introduction to a graphic
and highly finished portraiture from the pen
Os Dr Rufus Griswold, written upon the death
bf Poe ”
The suggestion that birth and death in other
btties might be contestant causes for dispute
Os Philadelphia proprietorship of a Nation's
fcenhis was emphatically waved aside by this
Philadelphian so saturated with the knowledge
Os the author.
"At the time of his death, in 1849,” Mr.
Gimbel explained, “Poe was to have married
his very first sweetheart, the former Sarah
E. Royster, but at that time the widow, Sarah
Royster Shelton, of Richmond, Va. One might
add, however, that his later desire to marry
Sarah Royster was enhanced by the knowledge
THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. G, JANUARY If, 1991.
Researches by Richard Gimbel Who Is Soon to
Restore the Philadelphia House in Which
the Author l Vrote Many of His Master
pieces, Reveal Interesting Romantic
Slants on Career of the Tragic
American Man of Tetters.
I as / .....
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Courtesy Harlow. McDonald & Co.
C osar o's dry-point portrait of Edgar Allan Poo.
of her wealth as a means to accomplish his
lifelong ambition, that of owning a magazine,
which, by the way, he had prematurely called
the Penn Magazine and which he intended to
publish in Philadelphia. His almost equal
desire at the same time to marry two other
ladies of comfortable livelihood has been proved
by documents to that effect. They tell of the
refusal of Mrs. Whitman, a widow of Provi
dence, R. 1., and that of Annie Richmond of
Lowell, Mass. Perhaps the gruesome and un
psycbological spot for the proposal to Miss
Richmond reacted in a refusal. For, in true
Poe fashion, this highly unconventional swain
picked a cemetery as the setting for his great
moment. At any rate, the lady is immortalized
in his 'Poem for Annie.'
"I don’t want to detach too much from his
feelings for his various amours,” continued Mr.
Gimbel. “At 14 Poe deeply loved Sarah
Royster, but her family, realizing his insta
bility, hurried her off to Europe. He went to
West Point at this time and when he returned
she was married. Os course, his marriage to
the 13-year-old Virginia Clemm stands out to
most persons as the highlight of his romantic
career, but real knowledge of the reason for
this marriage is disillusioning from the stand
point of the all-possessing love for Virginia
Clemm which is generally attributed to him.
“One must know the true psychology of
Poe’s nature to understand why he married
Virginia Clemm,” continued Mr. Gimbel
thoughtfully. “Gratitude was one of his out
standing qualities, as shown in many Instances
of his life. At the age of 2 —the son of a long
line of Poes, originating in Italy on the
River Po, migrating to Scotland and then to
America, and of the beautiful and talented
actress, Mrs. Hopkins—Edgar Poe was or
phaned and adopted by a wealthy merchant
of Richmond, John Allan. For a short span
Poe’s life was illumined by the warmth of the
love of his foster-parents and the irresponsible
Joy of all sorts of luxuries. The Allan fortunes,
however, fluctuated considerably, and Edgar
Allan Poe lived, in a few years, through the
vicissitudes of fortune and poverty. The con
stantly sympathetic attitude of his foster
mother was counteracted by the later harsh
Judgments of his foster-father, and at 17 he
decided to go on his own. At 18. after a year
of near-starvation, he went on a cattle boat to
Europe. Upon his return he discovered an
aunt, Mrs. Clemm, in Baltimore, who became
his only real friend. At that time Virginia
was 13. His aunt had faith in his ability, and
with her modest resources financed him
through all his hardships. Poe had nothing to
give in return, and in a spirit of genuine
gratitude gave himself to the beautiful child,
Virginia. The great love for Virginia, which is
attributed as the reason for his marriage, de
veloped with her ripening years, but was ruth
lessly cut off by her untimely death, after five
years of horrible suffering. In 1842, while Vir
ginia was singing in the old Poe house in
Philadelphia, she ruptured a blood vessel,
which almost proved fatal. After Virginia’s
hemorrhage he wrote ’The Masque of the Red
Death.’ After several years of abstinence from
drink, Poe, a crushed man, took to liquor, and
in 1844 a shattered and crumbling Poe
moved to New York, where he took his wife.
Poe claimed he suffered a thousand deaths
from the time of his wife's illness until her
demise in 1847. He later sent for his mother
in-law with the proceeds of ‘The Balloon
Hoax.* From then until his death in 1849 he
tells in moments of sanity of his hours of
delirium.
“QNE of the most interesting highlights on
Poe’s life I have discovered only re
cently," added Mr. Gimbel, with the animation
of the successful collector. “Poe was supposed
to have made three mysterious trips to Europe,
but no one seemed to have positive proof of
these. I always felt he must have lived in
Paris at some time, to have so vividly caught
the atmosphere in his French mystery stories.
They were written in Philadelphia, in the Poe
house, but ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue* and
‘The Mystery of Marie Roget’ teem with
Parisian color. Whether Poe had ever been in
Paris was a matter of conjecture until a year
ago, when I discovered a Dumas manuscript
sold in Paris, telling of Poe’s adventures there
with Dumas during the Summer of 1832.
These escapades were the foundations of his
French mystery stories.
“People so often ask,” he continued, "why
Poe wrote only short stories. The answer is an
interesting sidelight on the lack of international
copyright at that time. The American pub
lisher could publish a foreign novel with no
copyright expense attached, so that 4t didn’t
pay the author to write more than a short story,
for which he could ask as much. In 1842
Dickens, a millionaire at 30, came on a lecture
tour to America. He wanted an international
copyright, which would enhance the value of his
books in this country. A big dinner was given
in his honor, to which were Invited the recog
nized literary lights of the country. Poe was
absent for want of an invitation. Some time
before this Dickens had written ‘Bamaby
Rudge,* in a serial form. Poe read three in
stallments of this masterpiece and uncannily
figured out the ending. Some one wrote Poe’s
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* ,
The Poe house, 530 North Seventh
street, Philadelphia, as it appears today.
The three-story front, added in later
years, will be removtA so that the house
will appear as it did in 1827, when Poe
occupied it.
‘climax’ to Dickens, at which the latter re
sponded that this man must be possessed of
the devil, that no one in the world but himself
knew the denouement When Dickens arrived
in Philadelphia the millionaire English littera
tuer and the poverty-stricken American genius
met and a strong friendship ensued.
“Poe’s highly sensitized self is so much in
the foreground in the chronicling of his life
and works that one seldom thinks of him in the
terms of an athlete. As a matter of fact, his
early years at the University of Virginia, at
Charlottesville, find him an expert swimmer,
excelling In broad jumps and a boxer of no
mean ability.
detective stories, the origin of the pop
ular detective tales of today, were born
of real detective genius on the part of the
author, shown in the episode with Dickens. If
he lost anything, personally, he was never satis
field until he had hunted down the source. One
might rightfully call him the inventor of the
detective story Perhaps nothing appeased the
tricky side of Poe’s nature so much as the suc
cess of ‘The Balloon Hoax.’ With true pro
phetic genius, Poe told of the perilous flight of
a balloon, as though it were authentic news,
and sold it in serial form to a New York news
paper, which itself was ‘hoaxed’ until the ap
pearance of the third installment. Even
though unrewarded personally. Poe’s works
were instrumental in increasing the circulation
of the Southern Literary Messenger of Rich
mond from 700 to 3,500, while Burton’s Gentle
men’s Magazine and its successor, which
merged with Graham’s Periodical and was later
known by that name, added 35.000 copies to its
circulation through Poe’s literary efforts and
paid him only SIOO a month. His ‘Gold Bug*
was sold to Mr. Graham for $52. Graham had
it for nine months unpublished. The latter’s
office was in the old Public Ledger Building in
Philadelphia. The Dollar Newspaper, in the
office below, offered, a SIOO prize for the best
short story. With Graham’s permission, Poe
submitted ‘The Gold Bug,’ for which he won
the prize That story was also written in the
garden of the Poe house. He thereupon re
turned the $52 to Graham and Jubilantly re
turned home. This is a striking example of
the author’s pride in his own genius. He often
lied about his age, reducing it several years, so
as to appear an even greater genius. At 6 he
showed signs of uncanny ability, and at the age
of 12 some of his poems were published. He
declared himself a genius from then on.
"Some people doubt that a 12-year-old boy
could have written the poems,” said the happy
possessor thereof, “but I feel sure of their
origin.
"I should say that one of Poe’s greatest dis
appointments was his failure to own his own
magazine, in which he could use the scientific
precision, the coldness of mathematical demon
stration In the honest, if sometimes caustic,
criticism of others’ works. There is no doubt
that Poe was one of the greatest American
critics. Fearlessly criticizing his own works, he
rewrote with a passion for self-criticism equal
ing his creative genius. As an example, he
wrote ‘The Raven’ three times, each time im
proving it vastly.”
And now, amid the turmoil of a twentieth
century thoroughfare, sanctuary. The Poe
house will stand restored, a fitting, if belated,
tribute to the memory of that master who wove,
from the loosened strands of sordid realties, the
exquisitely fine fabrics of inimitable dreams.
IFire Industry Grows.
TP HE wire-manufacturing Industry took aa
enormous stride during the two yean
from 1927 to 1929 toward the select billion
dollar industrial class, reaching a production
total in 1929 of $884,000,000, a figure almost
$200,000,000 over the 1927 output.
Os the total wire produced, iron and steel
wire led, with a figure in excess of 6,000.000.000
pounds, while copper wire was second with
1,110,000,000 pounds, the latter being more than
300.000,000 pounds over 1927.