POE, EDGAR ALLAN. AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED ("E A POE") TO THE NEW YORK PUBLISHERS J. AND H.G. LANGLEY, [PHILADELPHIA, N.D.], POSTMARKED 18 JULY [1842]. 1 PAGE, SMALL 4TO, WRITTEN IN BROWN INK, ADDRESSED BY POE ON VERSO, WITH POSTMARKS AND A DOCKET ON VERSO, TIPPED TO QUARTO SHEET., SLIGHT MARGINAL SOILING AND NICKING, A SMALL MARGINAL SEAL TEAR, REMNANT OF RED SEALING WAX, A LITTLE CREASED . "I KNEW NOT WHAT I WAS EITHER DOING OR SAYING" "On a trip to New York in June 1842 [circa 24 June], a few months after [his young wife] Sissy's first hemorrhage, Poe drank himself into an alcoholic amnesia. He went to the city [from Philadelphia] looking for work, and also hoping to get a new collection of his tales into print. He ended up giving a magazine publisher [the Langleys] a review lacking half a page of the opening, and otherwise acting strangely enough to make him think the publisher must have formed 'a queer idea of me.' As he ususally did, he explained that others had induced or forced him to drink..." (Kenneth Silverman, Edgar A. Poe Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance , New York, 1992, p. 184, quoting from this letter). Poe writes to the Langleys (publishers of the Democratic Review ), submitting an article and apologizing for his drunken behavior: "Enclosed I have the honor to send you an article which I should be pleased if you would accept for the 'Democratic Review.' I am desperately pushed for money; and, in the event of Mr. [John L.] O'Sullivan's liking the 'Landscape-Garden' [the submitted article], I would take it as an especial favor if you could mail me the amount due for it, so as to reach me here by the 21st, on which day I need it...If you accept the paper I presume you will allow me your usual sum, whatever that is for similar contributions -- but I set no price -- leaving all to your own liberality ..." "Will you be kind enough to put the best possible interpretation upon my behavior while in N. York? You must have conceived a queer idea of me -- but the simple truth is that [William Ross] Wallace [a young New York poet] would insist upon the juleps , and I knew not what I was either doing or saying. The Review of [the poet Rufus] Dawes which I offered you was deficient in a page of commencement, which I had written to supersede the old beginning, and which gave the article the character of a general & retrospective review. No wonder you did not take it -- I should have been very much mortified if you had. I hope to see you at some future time, under better auspices ..." The Langleys returned "The Landscape Garden" to Poe, but he was able to place it with another magazine. Printed in Letters , ed. J. Ostrom, 1966 edition, pp. 698-99 in supplement; quoted in D. Thomas and D.K. Jackson, The Poe Log (Boston, 1987), p. 375.
POE, EDGAR ALLAN. AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED ("E A POE") TO THE NEW YORK PUBLISHERS J. AND H.G. LANGLEY, [PHILADELPHIA, N.D.], POSTMARKED 18 JULY [1842]. 1 PAGE, SMALL 4TO, WRITTEN IN BROWN INK, ADDRESSED BY POE ON VERSO, WITH POSTMARKS AND A DOCKET ON VERSO, TIPPED TO QUARTO SHEET., SLIGHT MARGINAL SOILING AND NICKING, A SMALL MARGINAL SEAL TEAR, REMNANT OF RED SEALING WAX, A LITTLE CREASED . "I KNEW NOT WHAT I WAS EITHER DOING OR SAYING" "On a trip to New York in June 1842 [circa 24 June], a few months after [his young wife] Sissy's first hemorrhage, Poe drank himself into an alcoholic amnesia. He went to the city [from Philadelphia] looking for work, and also hoping to get a new collection of his tales into print. He ended up giving a magazine publisher [the Langleys] a review lacking half a page of the opening, and otherwise acting strangely enough to make him think the publisher must have formed 'a queer idea of me.' As he ususally did, he explained that others had induced or forced him to drink..." (Kenneth Silverman, Edgar A. Poe Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance , New York, 1992, p. 184, quoting from this letter). Poe writes to the Langleys (publishers of the Democratic Review ), submitting an article and apologizing for his drunken behavior: "Enclosed I have the honor to send you an article which I should be pleased if you would accept for the 'Democratic Review.' I am desperately pushed for money; and, in the event of Mr. [John L.] O'Sullivan's liking the 'Landscape-Garden' [the submitted article], I would take it as an especial favor if you could mail me the amount due for it, so as to reach me here by the 21st, on which day I need it...If you accept the paper I presume you will allow me your usual sum, whatever that is for similar contributions -- but I set no price -- leaving all to your own liberality ..." "Will you be kind enough to put the best possible interpretation upon my behavior while in N. York? You must have conceived a queer idea of me -- but the simple truth is that [William Ross] Wallace [a young New York poet] would insist upon the juleps , and I knew not what I was either doing or saying. The Review of [the poet Rufus] Dawes which I offered you was deficient in a page of commencement, which I had written to supersede the old beginning, and which gave the article the character of a general & retrospective review. No wonder you did not take it -- I should have been very much mortified if you had. I hope to see you at some future time, under better auspices ..." The Langleys returned "The Landscape Garden" to Poe, but he was able to place it with another magazine. Printed in Letters , ed. J. Ostrom, 1966 edition, pp. 698-99 in supplement; quoted in D. Thomas and D.K. Jackson, The Poe Log (Boston, 1987), p. 375.
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
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