The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [1734]
Yours very truly, EDGAR A. POE.
His next letter is dated February 24,1845:
My dear Griswold: — A thousand thanks for your kindness in the matter of those books, which I could not afford to buy, and had so much need of. Soon after seeing you, I sent you, through Zieber, all my poems worth re-publishing, and I presume they reached you. I was sincerely delighted with what you said of them, and if you will write your criticism in the form of a preface, I shall be greatly obliged to you. I say this not because you praised me: everybody praises me now: but because you so perfectly understand me, or what I have aimed at, in all my poems: I did not think you had so much delicacy of appreciation joined with your strong sense; I can say truly that no man’s approbation gives me so much pleasure. I send you with this another package, also through Zieber, by Burgess & Stringer. It contains, in the way of essay, “Mesmeric Revelation,” which I would like to have got in, even if you have to omit the “House of Usher.” I send also corrected copies of (in the way of funny criticism, but you don’t like this) “Flaccus,” which conveys a tolerable idea of my style; and of my serious manner “Barnaby Rudge” is a good specimen. In the tale line, ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Gold Bug,” and the “Man that was Used Up,” — far more than enough, but you can select to suit yourself. I prefer the “G.B.” to the “M. in the R.M.” I have taken a third interest in the “Broadway Journal,” and will be glad if you could send me anything for it. Why not let me anticipate the book publication of your splendid essay on Milton?
Yours truly, POE.
The next is without date:
Dear Griswold: — I return the proofs with many thanks for your attentions. The poems look quite as well in the short metres as in the long ones, and I am quite content as it is. In “The Sleeper” you have “Forever with unclosed eye” for “Forever with unopen’d eye.” Is it possible to make the correction? I presume you understand that in the repetition of my Lecture on the Poets, (in N.Y.) I left out all that was offensive to yourself. I am ashamed of myself that I ever said anything of you that was so unfriendly or so unjust; but what I did say I am confident has been misrepresented to you. See my notice of C.F. Hoffman’s (?) sketch of you.
Very sincerely yours, POE.
On the twenty-sixth of October, 1845, he wrote:
My dear Griswold: — Will you aid me at a pinch — at one of the greatest pinches conceivable? If you will, I will be indebted to you for life. After a prodigious deal of manoevering, I have succeeded in getting the “Broadway Journal, entirely within my own control. It will be a fortune to me if I can hold it — and I can do it easily with a very trifling aid from my friends. May I count on you as one? Lend me $50, and you shall never have cause to regret it.
Truly yours, EDGAR A. POE.
And on the first of November:
My dear Griswold: — Thank you for the $25. And since you will to draw upon you for the other half of what I asked, if be needed at the end of the month, I am just as grateful as if it were all in hand, — for my friends have acted generously by me. Don’t have any more doubts of my success. I am, by the way, preparing an article about you for the B.J., in which I do you justice — which is all you can ask of any one.
Ever truly yours, EDGAR A. POE.
The next is without date, but appears to have been written early in 1849:
Dear Griswold: — Your uniform kindness leads me to hope that you will attend to this little matter of Mrs. L , to whom I truly think you have done less than justice. I am ashamed to ask favors of you, to whom I am so much indebted, but I have promised Mrs. L — this. They lied to you, (if you told what he says you told him,) upon the subject of my forgotten Lecture on the American Poets, and I take this opportunity to say that what I have always held in conversations about you, and what I believe to be entirely true,