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By Root 17033 0

place, very sincerely, for your considerate kindness to me while in Philadelphia. Without your aid, at the precise moment and in the precise manner in which you rendered it, it is more than probable that I should not now be alive to write you this letter. Finding myself exceedingly ill — so much so that I had no hope except in getting home immediately — I made several attempts to see Mr Graham and at last saw him for a few minutes just as he was about returning to Cape May. He was very friendly — more so than I have ever known him, and requested me to write continuously for the Mag. As you were not present, however, and it was uncertain when I could see you, I obtained an advance of $10 from Mr G. in order that I might return home at once — and thinking it, also, more proper to leave you time in which to look over the articles.

I would be deeply obliged if you could now give me an answer respecting them. Should you take both, it will render me, just now, the most important service. I owe Mr G. about $50. The articles, at the old price ($4 per page) will come to $90 — so that, if you write me that they are accepted, I propose to draw on Mr G. for $40 — thus squaring our account.

Very gratefully your friend

Edgar A. Poe

P.S. I settled my bill with Arbuckle before leaving Phil. but am not sure >>whether it included<< how much I owe yourself for the previous bill etc. Please let me know.

Edgar Allan Poe to Robert T. Conrad — August 31, 1847

New-York Aug. 31 — 1847

My Dear Sir,

It is now a month since I wrote you about the two articles I left with you — but, as I have heard nothing from you, I can only suppose that my letter has not reached you — or, at all events, that, in the press of other business, you have forgotten it and me.

In it, after thanking you (as I do again most sincerely) for your late kindness to me in Phila, I begged an answer in respect to the articles — mentioning $40 as the sum in which the Magazine would be indebted to me in case of their acceptance, and asking permission to draw for that amount. — I owed Mr Graham $50 (as nearly as I can remember) and the papers, at the old price, would come to 90.

May I beg of you to reply, as soon as convenient, and oblige

Yours very cordially

Edgar A. Poe

Hon R. T. Conrad.

COOKE, PHILIP PENDLETON

Phillip P. Cooke to Edgar Allan Poe — September 16, 1839

My Dear Sir, — I received your friendly letter a long time ago but have scarcely been at home since its receipt. My wife enticed me off to visit her kins-people in the country, and I saw more of guns & horses and dogs than of pens and paper. Amongst dinners, barbecues, snipe shooting, riding parties Ax. I could not gain my brains into the humour for writing to you or to any body else. I reached home two days ago, & now “hasten slowly” to assure you of my undiminished regard & respect for You — and to tell you (as above) the reasons of my neglect in leaving yr. letter so long unanswered.

I do not believe you ingenuous or sincere when you speak in the terms which you use touching the value of my rambling compositions — my contributions to the Messenger &c — yet it of course cannot be disagreeable to me to find myself considered worth flattering. I will send you occasionally — if possible — such matters as I may consider worth inserting in the Genns. Magae (Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine) with pleasure; I cannot promise anything like the systematic contribution which I was guilty of in White’s case, for the “madness of scribbling “ which once itched & tickled at my fingers-ends has been considerably cured by a profession & matrimony — money-cares and domestic squabbles — buying beef & mutton, and curing my child’s croups, colicks, &c. The fever with which I was afflicted has given way to a chill — or, as romantic young persons say, “The golden dream is broken.”

As to Ligeia, of which you ask my opinion, (doubtless without any intention of being guided by any person’s but your own) I think it very fine. There is nothing unintelligible to my mind in the “sequel “ (or conclusion) but I am