The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [790]
There is, however, considerable reason to doubt that Poe is the author of this article. In the Editor's Table of Snowden's Ladies' Companion for April 1843 appears the following notice, attributing the article to Charles Lanman (1819-1895): THE NEW WORLD -- Magazine Literature . -- We noticed a flimsy tirade in the "New World" of the 11th of March, upon ourselves and the magazine literature generally. Lest the potent "L." prefixed to the article, should impress the public that the writer is a person of more literary influence than even Mr. Park Benjamin , we beg to inform them that it emanated from the sapient and erudite mind of Mr. Charles Lanman, formerly, if not at present, an under clerk in a jobbing house of this city. We will merely state that we have been so repeatedly annoyed with the trash emanating from this young man's pen, that we have, of late, concluded to pass his communications by unnoticed. This will satisfy any interested individual as to the source whence sprang this ebullition of waspish vituperation -- it being solely attributable to our neglect of his repeated applications to publish his "prose-run-mad farragos." Well may the exalted pursuit of letters become a reproach and disgrace to all men of solid attainments, when a senseless churl like this deserts the calling assigned him by nature, to usurp a place in that realm where thought and genius away the mind's imperishable empire. (Ladies' Companion, XVIII, no. 6, April 1843, p. 308, middle of column 2.) The Snowden's notice was accepted at face value by Frank L. Mott (History of American Magazines: 1741-1850, p. 612 n 13 and p. 626) and Dwight Thomas and David K. Jackson (The Poe Log , 1987, p. xvii, under the entry for Park Benjamin). The possibility of Lanman being the author is quite plausible. Not only does the signed letter of "L" fit his last name, but Park Benjamin, the editor of the New World, was Lanman's cousin. As a very minor literary figure, Lanman contributed one signed item, a brief article called "Euroclydon," to Graham's Magazine for May 1842 (which notes Lanman as the author of "Essays for Summer Hours," published in Boston by Hilliard and Gray in 1841 and reprinted in 1842) and several items to the Southern Literary Messenger in 1840-1841, 1848-1850 and 1852 (David K. Jackson, The Contributors and Contributions to The Southern Literary Messenger, 1936, p. 42, 50, 91, 97, 102, 104 and 112). Of some interest, in this regard and only in this regard, may be Lanman's article "Thoughts on Literature" from the Southern Literary Messenger , April 1840, pp. 296-299, where he decries "those who cater for the public taste -- those scribblers who use any quantity of words, but are incapable of thought" and describes E. L. Bulwer and N. P. Willis a "mere pretenders" as literary men. (This essay was reprinted in Essays for Summer Hours .) As for Griswold, there is no certain record of Lanman's opinion of that gentleman, but there were unpleasant associations within the family. Park Benjamin had co-founded the New World with Griswold in mid-1840, and forced him out within the first few issues. Lanman seems to have been much more active, as a prose writer and journalist, beginning in 1847, when he was connected with the New York Express. He authored at least twenty books between 1845 and 1886, and was praised by Washington Irving as "the picturesque explorer of the United States" for his scenic descriptions of the Saguenay and the mountains of North Carolina. He was also active in politics, where he was the private secretary of Daniel Webster in 1850, and the secretary to the Japanaese legation in 1871-1882.
Replying, in the March 18, 1843 issue of the New World, the editors noticed Sargent's "card" from a morning paper: MR. E PES SARGENT has published in a morning paper a card, in which he corrects the "misstatements" of our correspondent "L.," touching Sargent's New Monthly