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acquainted with you, yet my intimate acquaintance with your lamented Brother, the occasional correspondence which has taken place between us, and the favourable sentiments which you have expressed towards my poetical pretensions, embolden me to regard you in a very different light from that of a stranger. — Hence I write to you with freedom and frankness, and I desire you to deal with me in the same spirit. — If you believe my verses to be unsuitable to your Journal, I beg you to return them to me. Indeed I do not wish you to extend to them the slightest countenance beyond your conviction of their merits. At the same time I have strong special reasons which, when leisure permits, I may hereafter take occasion to communicate to you, — or desiring that whatever merits my productions possess, may be properly brought into view, and receive the justice to wh(ich) they are entitled. — More than this I do not expect, or wish for. — I have received applications for contributions “either in prose or verse” from several editors recently, — but I prefer putting under your auspices any thing which I have to offer for publication adapted to the character of yr. Mag. to giving it any other destination. — As, however, you may have others to consult previous to the acceptance of an article, and as my May-Day Rhymes may not, in your own judgement, seem sufficiently imbued with the inspirations of Poesy to justify their appearance in your beautiful Journal I repeat my request that if you feel the slightest hesitation about their publication therein, you will enclose them back to me. I tender you my most respectful salutations & am very cordially

Your friend

Danl Bryan

Daniel Bryan to Edgar Allan Poe — June 27, 1842

My dear Sir

As your connexion with Graham’s Mag. has ceased, you may feel some difficulty about the disposal of the verses which I some weeks ago enclose to you. They were transmitted for that work under an impression, — and because I believed, — that you were still one of its editors. But now that you have withdrawn from it, I prefer having the verses returned to me, or retained by you, — if you deem them worthy of preservation, — for your future use. — I care nothing about their having gone before the present edts (editors) of that Journ. if my name did not accompany them, and they were not known to have emanated from me — I have a sprained wrist — which is my excuse for this scratching.

If, indeed, you have already disposed of them, they must be permitted to “take their course.” —

I trust that we shall have the pleasure to see you before the public ere long in some new and commanding position. — That prosperity, distinction, and happiness, may attend you in all your career through life, is the prayer of

Your very respectful,

And obt servt

Danl Bryan

P S I saw some allusion in a newspaper recently to an attack upon you by a writer in one of the Philada. Journals. I have not seen any such attack, & trust there is no ground for the allusion.

Edgar Allan Poe to Daniel Bryan — July 6, 1842

Philadelphia, July 6. 1842.

My Dear Sir,

Upon my return from a brief visit to New-York, a day or two since, I found your kind and welcome letter of June 27.

What you say in respect to “verses” enclosed to myself has occasioned me some surprise. I have certainly received none. My connexion with “Graham’s Magazine” ceased with the May number, which was completed by the 1st of April — since which period the editorial conduct of the journal has rested with Mr Griswold. You observe that the poem was sent about three weeks since. Can it be possible that the present editors have thought it proper to open letters addressed to myself, because addressed to myself as “Editor of Graham’s Magazine”? I know not how to escape from this conclusion; and now distinctly remember that, although in the habit of receiving many letters daily, before quitting the office, I have not received more than a half dozen during the whole period since elapsed; and none of those received were addressed to me as “Editor of G’s Magazine”. What to say or