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Very Respy

Yr. Ob. St

Edgar A Poe

Mr Thomas W. Field.

FISHER, E. BURKE

E. Burke Fisher to Edgar Allan Poe — June 10, 1839

Pittsburgh, June 10, 1839.

Edgar A. Poe, Esq.

Dear Sir,

I am authorized by the publishers of the Literary Examiner to solicit from you contributions to their magazine. I should be happy in your compliance, for there is no writer in the Union whose ability as a general and elegant writer I value more highly than I do you. Their terms of remuneration are $2 per page. And I shall make your case an exception and make the terms $3, or rather than not meet your favorable consideration $4 per page. If $3 content you, well; if not I shall think the Examiner highly fortunate in publishing your articles at the other term ($4). In the event of your writing for me, I pledge myself to send you the amount due for whatever you may write, immediately on the publication of each article. The quantity is discretionary with yourself. The choice of subjects could not be left in better hands.

By the way, there is a subject I would like you much to take up. Your mode of handling authors as shown in your conduct of the Messenger is so much to my liking that I feel that in your hands the matter would be thoroughly and fearlessly managed. I allude to a criticism on our American Novelists taken up separately, and embracing all of them worthy of comment. It might possibly require to be carried on through 3 or 4 nos. of the Magazine. Having full confidence in your correct appreciation of the claims of each and all of them, I have no hesitation in promising the publication of the matter furnished by you, entire and without alteration. You may remain unknown in the premises if you wish.

I offer the proposition in the rough for I am up to my ears in business and can only spare time sufficient to inscribe my views hastily and express to you the pleasure it would afford me if you regard the foregoing favorably.

In either event

I am

Most sincerely yours,

E. Burke Fisher.

E A Poe, Esq.

(confidential)

E. Burke Fisher to Edgar Allan Poe — July 9, 1839

Pittsburgh, July 9, 1839

Examiner Office

My dear Sir,

Your favor of the 5th inst came duly to hand and contents noted. I am truly obliged by the receipt of your criticism and find it admirable — scarcely severe enough but still Willis is a kind of national pet, and we must regard his faults as we do those of a spoiled stripling, in the hope he will amend. He is certainly a brilliant fellow — with conceit enough to shock Sans Souci, but to be admired notwithstanding.

I regret that you did not sooner receive the Examiner. I ordered and thought it was sent to you, but the clerk neglected to send it — I now repair the omission. It is hardly fair to judge by what it is. I was going uphill, and had a thousand things to worry and retard me, but I am fairly afloat, and with your friendly cooperation, as well as others I shall be enabled to make the Examiner all I could wish. With you to assist me in the department of reviews, that portion of the Magazine shall become what the Messenger was before you quitted. By the way, the Messenger degenerates. It is shackled to twaddleism with lemonade stories and vile rhymes — with here and there a valuable paper —

You make the terms of compensation too low, but in my experimental stage I cannot do otherwise that accept the favor — for so I deem it — of obliging myself to pay $3 per page — I will in part requite it, by being punctual in remitting as currently due.

In regard to the sponsorship of articles, I am, as before, satisfied that whatever censure the articles create, shall rest upon my shoulders. An author’s “bark is worse than his bite,” and even if he maintains himself in the one position assailed, there is always some other weak point to which you may shift the question. I am anxious to bring down upon the Examiner some of their bite, provided that the grounds we take are tenable. We will, therefore, if you so please,