The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [1545]
Philadelphia March 1. 44.
Gentlemen,
Through some accident which I am at a loss to understand, your letter dated and postmarked Decr 29, has only this moment come to hand; having been lying, ever since, in the Phila P. Office. I hope, therefore, you will exonerate me from the charge of discourtesy in not sooner replying to your very flattering request.
I presume that your Lectures are over for the season; but, should this not be the case, it will give me great pleasure to deliver a Discourse before your Society at any period you may appoint; not later than the 9th inst:
With High Respect
Yr Ob St
Edgar A Poe
Edgar Allan Poe to Samuel Williams, John C. Myers, or William Graeff, Jr — March 7, 1844
Philadelphia March 7, 1844.
Gentlemen:
I have just received your favor of the 5th, and will be pleased to deliver a Lecture on “American Poetry” in Reading, on Tuesday the 12th inst., if convenient. Please reply by return of mail and let me know at what place I shall meet the Committee.
Very Resply, Yr. Ob. Svt.,
Mess. Sam. Williams
Wm. Graeff Jr.
Edgar A. Poe
WILLIS, NATHANIEL PARKER
Nathaniel Parker Willis to Edgar Allan Poe — November 13, 1841
Glen Mary
Nov. 13, 1841
Dear Sir
Your letter of the 10th finds me under an Engagement to your neighbor Mr. Godey to write for no other periodical in Philadelphia during the year 1842. In that year I am to write him an article a month. I see however by his literary notices that he is bon ami with Mr. Graham, and, with Mr. Godey’s “let=up” I am very happy to promise you the best I can do for your Magazine. My predilections I may say are very much with you — but my quill must eke out my short crops, and Mr. Godey’s very liberal engagement holds me. As he wants only prose however, perhaps he will release me the rhyme.
Would you think it too much trouble to send me the No. of your Maga. Containing my own autograph. I hear of it but have not seen it.
Yours very truly
N. P. Willis
Nathaniel P. Willis to Edgar Allan Poe — November 30, 1841
Glenmary, Nov. 30, 1841.
My Dear Sir, — You cannot have received my letter written in answer to yours some time since (say a month ago) in which I stated that I was under contract to Mr. Godey to write for no other periodical in Philadelphia than the Lady’s Book, for one year — 1842. I said also that if he were willing, I should be very happy to send you poetry, (he bargaining for prose,) but that without his consent I could do nothing. From a very handsome notice of Graham’s Maga which I saw in the Lady’s Book, I presumed Godey & Graham were the best of friends & would manage it between them. Still I do not understand your request — for the Lady Jane will be finished (all they agreed for — 100 stanzas) in their owl paper before Jan. I. & of course any extract would not be original. Any periodical is at liberty to copy, for tho’ Wilson has taken out a copyright, I should always consider copying it too much of a compliment to be resented.
Mr. Godey has been very liberal with me & pays me quite enough for the exclusive use of my name in Philadelphia, and I can do nothing unless you procure his written agreement to it of course. I am very sorry to refuse anything to a writer whom I so much admire as yourself, & to a Magazine as good as Graham’s. But you will acknowledge I am “in a tight place.”
Begging my compliments to Mr. Graham I remain
Yours very truly
N. P. Willis.
Edgar A. Poe, Esq.
Did you ever send me the Maga. containing my autographs? I have never seen it.
Edgar Allan Poe to Nathaniel P. Willis — May 21, 1844
New-York - May 21.
My Dear Mr. Willis,
Seeing that you, now and then, published Original Papers in the “New Mirror”, I have ventured to send you a Tale and an Essay for consideration. If you could afford me anything for them, or for either of them, I would feel highly honored by their appearance in your paper.
I have long been exceedingly anxious to make the acquaintance of the author of “Melanie”, and, more especially, of a little poem entitled “Unseen Spirits”, and would have called