The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [1349]
I refer you for the reputation of these tales to the covers of the 1rst & 2d vols. Lit. Messr — A mass of eulogy, in the way of extracts from papers, might be appended if necessary, such as have never appeared to any volume in the country. I mention this merely as a matter of business.
My object in stating the nature of these tales &c is to ascertain if you, or any bookseller of your acquaintance, would feel willing to undertake the publication. I make you the first offer. In regard to remuneration, as 3/4 of the book will have been published before, I shall expect none beyond a few copies of the work. My interest with the press throughout the U.S. is perhaps as extensive as that of any man in the country, and would aid the sale, no doubt. Please write me, as soon as possible, on this head. I shall be happy to review, fully, any books you may be pleased to forward.
Very respy
Yr Ob. St
Edgar A Poe
Herewith I forward the published Nos of Vol 2 of the Mess.
Halleck, Fitz-Greene
Edgar Allan Poe to Fitz-Greene Halleck — June 7, 1836
Richmond Va. June 7, 1836.
Dear Sir,
At the request of the Proprietor of the “Southern Literary Messenger” I take the liberty of addressing you, and of soliciting some little contribution to our Journal. It is well known to us that you are continually pestered with similar applications; we are, therefore, ready to believe that we have little chance of success in this attempt to engage you in our interest — yet we owe it to the Magazine to make the effort.
One consideration, will, we think, have its influence with you. Our publication is the first successful literary attempt of Virginia, and has been now, for eighteen months, forcing its way unaided, and against a host of difficulties, into the public view and attention[.]
We wish to issue, if possible, a number of the Messenger consisting altogether of articles from our most distinguished literati, and to this end we have received aid from a variety of high sources. To omit your name in the plan we propose would be not only a negative sin on our part — but would be a positive injury to our cause. In this dilemma may we not trust to your good nature for assistance? Send us any little scrap in your port-folio — it will be sure to answer our purpose fully, if it have the name of Halleck afixed[.]
With the highest respect
Yr. Ob. St
Edgar A. Poe
Ed. S. L. M.
Fitz-Greene Halleck Esqr
Fitz-Greene Halleck to Edgar Allan Poe — June 7, 1836
(. . . .) There is no place where I shall be more desirous of seeing my humble writings than in the publication you so ably support and conduct. It is full of sound, good literature, and its frank, open, independent manliness of spirit, is characteristic of the land it hails from. (. . . .)
Edgar Allan Poe to Fitz-Greene Halleck — June 24, 1841
Philadelphia — June 24 — 1841.
Dear Sir,
Mr George R. Graham, of this City, and myself, design to establish a Monthly Magazine, upon certain conditions — one of which is the procuring your assistance in the enterprise. Will you pardon me for saying a few words upon the subject?
I need not call your attention to the signs of the times in respect to Magazine literature. You will admit the tendency of the age in this direction. The brief, the terse, and the easily circulated will take place of the diffuse, the ponderous, and the inaccessible. Even our Reviews are found too massive for the taste of the day — I do not mean for the taste of the merely uneducated, but also for that of the few. In the meantime the finest minds of Europe are beginning to lend their spirit to Magazines. In this country, unhappily, we have no journal of the class, which can either afford to compensate the highest talent, or which is, in all respects, a fitting vehicle for its thoughts. In the supply of this deficiency there would be a point gained; and the project of which I speak has originated