The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [1731]
"Lord, have mercy on my poor soul!"
Many were the friends who rose up to comfort the stricken mother and who hastened to bring rosemary to the poet's grave. But there was one whom he had believed to be his friend—a big man whose big brain he had admired—in whose furtive eye was an unholy glee, about whose thick lips played a smile which slightly revealed his fang-like teeth. To him was entrusted the part of literary executor—it had been The Dreamer's own request. In his power it would lie to give to the world his own account of this man who had said he was no poet and had distanced him in the race for a woman's favor.
The day was at hand when Rufus Griswold would have his full revenge upon the fair fame of Edgar the Dreamer.
"Out—out are the lights—out all! And, over each quivering form, The curtain, a funeral pall, Comes down with the rush of a storm; And the angels, all pallid and wan, Uprising, unveiling, affirm That the play is the tragedy, 'Man,' And its hero the Conqueror Worm."
MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR by Rufus Wilmot Griswold
The day Poe was buried, a long obituary appeared in the New York Tribune signed "Ludwig". It was soon published throughout the country. "Ludwig" was soon identified as Rufus Wilmot Griswold, an editor, critic and anthologist who had borne a grudge against Poe since 1842. Griswold had somehow became Poe's literary executor and attempted to destroy his enemy's reputation after his death.
Griswold wrote this biographical article of Poe called Memoir of the Author, which he included in an 1850 volume of the collected works. Griswold depicted Poe as a depraved, drunk, drug-addled madman and included Poe's letters as evidence. Many of his claims were either lies or distorted half-truths. For example, it is now known that Poe was not a drug addict. Griswold's book was denounced by those who knew Poe well, but it became a popularly accepted one. This occurred in part because it was the only full biography available and was widely reprinted and in part because readers thrilled at the thought of reading works by an "evil" man.
Now, some of the letters that Griswold presented as proof of this depiction of Poe have been exposed as forgeries. Therefore, this biographical text has only been presented in this edition to interest the reader, and NOT to inform them reliably about the life and character of the great writer Poe.
Rufus Wilmot Griswold – Poe’s enemy and slanderer
PREFACE.
HITHERTO I have not written or published a syllable upon the subject of Mr. POE’s life, character, or genius, since I was informed, some ten days after his death, of my appointment to be his literary executor. I did not suppose I was bebarred from the expression of any feelings or opinions in the case by the acceptance of this office, the duties of which I regarded as simply the collection of his works, and their publication, for the benefit of the rightful inheritors of his property, in a form and manner that would probably have been most agreeable to his own wishes. I would gladly have declined a trust imposing so much labor, for I had been compelled by ill health to solicit the indulgence of my publishers, who had many thousand dollars invested in an unfinished work under my direction; but when I was told by several of Mr. POE’s most intimate friends — among others by the family of S.D. LEWIS, Esq., to whom in his last years he was under greater obligations than to any or to all others — that he had long been in the habit of expressing a desire that in the event of his death I should be his editor, I yielded to the apparent necessity, and proceeded immediately with the preparation of the two volumes which have heretofore been published. But I had, at the request of the Editor of “The Tribune,” written hastily a few paragraphs about