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May I trouble you to leave it, directed to the care of Mr. Heape, at the counting room of Fitch & Co., no. 14 Wall St., within the week?

How is your wife and her mother Mrs. Clemm? Alas, Poe, I have suffered a terrible affliction lately. My sister Fanny, (Mrs. Watts) whom your mother remembers well, went two years since to her husband, who is naval agent for the India Co. In Calcutta. There she suffered so much from the climate that the medical adviser recommended that she should return to the U. States for her health. — She accordingly left Calcutta in February last with her two children — a little boy and girl — most interesting children. On the 29 of April the Ganton (the vessel on which she had embarked,) went aground at 11 at night, and at 3 in the morning she went to pieces, when my sister and her children were washed off and lost. Only 7 lives were saved of the whole ship company.

You know how much I loved my sister, my dear friend, and you can sympathise with me in my deep sorrow. I thought, Poe, I had more sense.

My kindest remembrances to your fair wife and her good mother. Drop me a line and believe me,

Sincerely your friend (in haste),

F. W. Thomas

Frederick W. Thomas to Edgar Allan Poe — August 24, 1846

Washington, August 24, 1846.

My dear Poe —

I wrote to you directing to New York some time since requesting you to send me my MS. by Mr. Heep who would soon leave N(ew) York for Washington.

To day I received a letter from Mr. Heep written from Philadelphia, in which he tells me that he was informed in New York that you had returned to Philadelphia to reside.

Will you be so kind, my dear Poe, as to leave the MS for me at Mr. Charles Field’s Front St, near Pine, and Mr. Heep will get it for me.

Direct the MS to the care of J. H. Heep, and, drop through the Post office, a note to Mr. Heep saying that you have done so?

How I long to see you Poe. How is Mrs. Clem(m) and your lady. I suppose you have heard of my terrible loss — the wreck of my sister Fanny on her way home from India with the death of her and her two children — the most awful affliction of my life.

I am in no spirits to write, my old friend, give my love to all.

Yours ever,

F. W. Thomas

Edgar A. Poe, Esq.

Edgar Allan Poe to Frederick W. Thomas — February 14, 1849

Fordham, near New-York

Feb. 14 — 49.

My dear friend Thomas,

Your letter, dated Nov. 27, has reached me at a little village of the Empire State, after having taken, at its leisure, a very considerable tour among the P. Of rices — occasioned, I presume, by your endorsement “to forward” wherever I might be — and the fact is, where I might not have been, for the last three months, is the legitimate question. At all events, now that I have your well-known M.S. before me, it is most cordially welcome. Indeed, it seems an age since I heard from you and a decade of ages since I shook you by the hand — although I hear of you now and then. Right glad am I to find you once more in a true position — in the field of Letters.” Depend upon it, after all, Thomas, Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man. For my own part, there is no seducing me from the path. I shall be a litterateur, at least, all my life; nor would I abandon the hopes which still lead me on for all the gold in California. Talking of gold, and of the temptations at present held out to “poor-devil authors”, did it ever strike you that all which is really valuable to a man of letters — to a poet in especial — is absolutely unpurchaseable? Love, fame, the dominion of intellect, the consciousness of power, the thrilling sense of beauty, the free air of Heaven, exercise of body & mind, with the physical and moral health which result — these and such as these are really all that a poet cares for: — then answer me this — why should he go to California? Like Brutus, “I pause for a reply” — which, like F. W. Thomas, I take it for granted you have no intention of giving me. — [I have read