each month) at $5 per page. The $5 Magazines do not pay quite so well and are by no means so prompt. Colton gives me $3 per page and the Dem. Review $2 — but I seldom send anything to the latter. “Arthur’s Magazine” gave me, not long ago, $10 a page for a paper “The Sphynx” — but the pay is no pay for the degradation. What others get from the Magazines I can scarcely say — although I know that Willis and Longfellow have been liberally paid — liberally as times go & as publishers think. When your book comes out, I fancy that it will make a stir in England — and enable you to do well in letters — pecuniarily well. You will yet have Fame & get it easily. Money follows at its heels, as a matter of course. Griswold is quite right about the externals of your book. Never commit yourself as a pamphleteer. — I am now writing for Godey a series of articles called “The N. Y. City Literati”. They will run through the year & include personal descriptions, as well as frank opinions of literary merit. Pending the issue of this series, I am getting ready similar papers to include American litterateurs generally — and, by the beginning of December, I hope to put to press (here and in England) a volume embracing all the articles under the common head “The Living Literati of the U S.” — or something similar. Of course I wish to say something of yourself. What shall I quote? “Rosalie Lee” I have not. Would it put you to much trouble to copy it for me? Give me, also, (if you think it right) some account of your literary projects — purposes etc. — The volume is to be prefaced by some general remarks on our Literature and pre-prefaced by the Memoir of myself, by Lowell, which appeared in Graham’s Mag. for February 1845. This Memoir, however, is defective, inasmuch as it says nothing of my latest & I think my best things —”The Raven” (for instance), “The Valdemar Case”, etc. May I ask of you the great favor to add a P.S. to Lowell’s article — bringing up affairs as you well know how. I ask this of you — what I would ask of no other man — because I fancy that you appreciate me — estimate my merits & demerits at a just value. If you are willing to oblige me — speak frankly above all — speak of my faults, too, as forcibly as you can. The length of the P.S. I leave to yourself.
Very cordially yours
Edgar A Poe
P.S. I cannot lay my hand on Porter’s note. The substance of it, however, was — that he had read the article with great pleasure but as the “present publisher of the Spirit of the T” could not pay, he was forced reluctantly to return the M.S.
Phillip P. Cooke to Edgar Allan Poe — August 4, 1846
My Dear Sir, — Your letter of Apr. 16th is to this day unanswered! I have however the excuse to make that I have been a good deal away from home, and whilst at home greatly drawn off from literature and its adjuncts by business, social interruptions, &c, This much of explanation, no doubt, will satisfy one so well assured as you must be of my regard & admiration.
You propose that I shall take up your memoir where Lowell drops it, and carry it on to the present date of your publications. I will do so, if my long delay has not thrown the work into the hands of some other friend, with entire pleasure. I, however, have not Graham’s Mag. for February 1845, and if you still wish me to continue the memoir you must send that number to me. I some months ago procured your Tales & Poems, and have read them collectively with great pleasure. That is a wonderful poem ending
“Hell rising from a thousand thrones Shall do it reverence.”
“Lenore,” too, is a great poem. The closing stanza of “To one in Paradise” (I remember it as published in “The Visionary “) is the perfection of melody. “The Raven “ is your best poem.
John Kennedy, talking with me about your stories, old & recent, said, “the man’s imagination is as truth-like and minutely accurate as De Foe’s” — and went on to talk of your “Descent into the Maelstrom,” “MS. found in a Bottle,” “Gold Bug,” &c. I think this last the most ingenious thing I ever read. Those stories of criminal detection,