T H E M A N W H O C A L L E D H I M S E L F P O E
THE MAN
WHO CALLED
HIMSELF POE
Edited by Sam Moskowitz
Doubleday 6 ׳ Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 291
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thomas Ollive Mabbott, in The Readers Encyclopedia of American Lit-
erature, by Max J. Herzberg. Copyright © 1962 by Thomas Y. Crowell Com-
pany, New York, publishers.
In W hich an Author and His Character Are W ell Met, Copyright 1928 by
Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., for Seaports in the Moon by Vincent
Starrett. Reprinted by permission of the author.
W hen It Was Moonlight by Manly Wade Wellman. Copyright 1940 by
Street & Smith Publications, Inc., for Unknown, February 1940. Reprinted
by permission of the copyright owner, The Condé Nast Publications, Inc.
The Man Who Collected Poe by Robert Bloch. Copyright 19 5 1 by Pop-
ular Publications, Inc., for Famous Fantastic Mysteries, October 19 5 1. Re-
printed by permission of the author and the author’s agent, Harry Altshuler.
The Man Who Thought He Was Poe by Michael Avallone, Tales of the
Frightened, August 1957. Copyright 19 57 by Republic Features Syndicate,
Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author.
The Dark Brotherhood by H. P. Lovecraft and August W. Derleth. Copy-
right 1966 by August Derleth for The Dark Brotherhood and Other Pieces
by H. P. Lovecraft 0 ־ Divers Hands, Arkham House, Suak City, Wisconsin.
Reprinted by permission of the copyright owner.
Manuscript Found in a Drawer by Charles Norman. Copyright 1968 by
Charles Norman.
Castaway by Edmond Hamilton. Copyright 1968 by Edmond Hamilton.
Published by permission of the author and the author’s agents, Scott Mere-
dith Literary Agency, Inc.
The Lighthouse by Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Bloch. Copyright 19 5 2
by Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. for Fantastic, January-February 19 53. Re-
printed by permission of the author and the author’s agent, Harry Altshuler.
Edgar Allan Poe by Adolphe de Castro, published in the M ay 19 3 7 W eird
Tales magazine. Copyright © 19 3 7 by the Popular Fiction Company. Re-
printed by permission of the copyright owners.
Providence: Two Gentlemen Meet at Midnight by August W. Der-
leth. Published in The Arkham Sampler, Autumn 1948. Copyright 1948 by
August Derleth. Reprinted by permission of the copyright owner.
Baltimore, October 3rd by Robert A. W. Lowndes. Copyright 1968 by
Robert A. W. Lowndes.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 69-20079
Copyright © 1969 by Sam Moskowitz
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition
To Madeline Haycock
Who has always possessed a real interest
in Edgar Allan Poe
the man and his works
Contents
Introduction
By Sam Moskowitz
ix
E d gar Allan Poe: A By Thomas Ollive Mob-
Biography in Brief
bott
1
Fiction About Poe
The Valley of Unrest
By Douglass Sherley
17
My Adventure with Ed- By Julian Hawthorne
gar Allan Poe
54
In Which an Author and By Vincent Starrett
His Character Are
Well Met
67
When It Was Moonlight
By Manly Wade Well־
man
86
The Man Who Collected By Robert Bloch
Poe
104
The Man Who Thought By Michael Avallone
He Was Poe
123
Manuscript Found in a By Charles Norman
Drawer
139
By H. P. Lovecraft and
August W. Derleth
146
Castaway
By Edmond Hamilton
177
v iii
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE
Fiction by Poe (?)
The Lighthouse
By Edgar Allan Poe and
Robert Bloch
189
The Atlantis
By Peter Prospero,
L.L.D.; M.A.; P.S.
207
Poetry About Poe Cub
minating in a Meeting
between H. P. Love-
craft and Edgar Allan
Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
By Adolphe de Castro
235
St John’s Churchyard
By R. H. Barlow
236
In a Sequestered Church- By H. P. Love craft
yard Where Once Poe
Walked
237
Providence: Two Gentle- By August W. Derleth
men Meet at Midnight
238
Untitled Valentine Poem By Virginia Poe
to Edgar Allan Poe
from His Wife, 1846
240
Baltimore, October 3rd
By
Robert
A.
W.
Lowndes
243
Introduction
By Sam Moskowitz
If the life of any American author can be said to be making
transition from fact to folklore, it is that of Edgar Allan Po<
He stands unique among American authors, a strange an
tragic figure, a victim of his times and of his temperamen
striking chords of originality that marked him a multifac
eted literary genius. He is revered by devotees of the d<
tective and mystery story as the true father of the genr<
He flawlessly designed the basic principles of the moder
science fiction story, which through Jules Verne create
the field as we know it today. He presaged the effectivenei
of the psychological in tales of terror.
In poetry, he had an absolute pitch for the cadence c
words, supreme and unsurpassed in the art. Quite pract
cally, he was the first important literary critic on the Amer
can scene, and as an editor, except for his own poorl
financed venture, he was dramatically effective.
He appeals to a wide range of readers, many of whoi
evince a considerable interest in his background, philosophy
and times. The result has been a substantial number (
biographies and literary critiques that reflect considerab]
research and information.
First editions of some of his books command among tl
highest prices for works produced upon American presse
His original letters and manuscripts are sought after t
X
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE
wealthy men and well-financed institutions, the only ones
who can afford them.
As a result, much is known about the life of the man and a
substantial amount of what is known has received wide-
spread circulation not only among the literary but also
among the general public.
At least one biography, substantially
buttressed with orig-
inal scholarship, was a best seller— Israfel by Hervey Allen
success. The biography generally acknowledged to be the
most satisfactory, Arthur Hobson Quinn's Edgar Allan Poe,
has gone into six printings since its publication in 1941. The
foregoing, and the considerable number of other biogra-
phies, have contributed to building the Poe mystique.
Literary critics and historians referring to the ‘ mystery״
of Edgar Allan Poe the man infuriated Arthur Hobson
Quinn, who though he was probably that author's leading
biographer, was also his apologist.
“Most of the problems have arisen from the deliberate
perversion of facts by his biographers, beginning with him-
self, or by the invention of theories concerning his nature
which reveal not his impotency but that of his critics,"
Quinn stormed in his American Fiction (1936). “There is
no mystery about the real Poe, the hard working man of
letters, proud as a demon, yet, in order to make a living,
descending to many of the tricks he despised."
He was railing against such critics and literary historians
as Fred Lewis Pattee, who in The First Century of American
Literature, 1770-1870 (19 35), after conceding Poe no
virtue but “ genius," then justifies his undiminished literary
reputation across the generations by concluding: “To read
him with fullest effect, however, one must be conscious at
every moment of Edgar Allan Poe. He has been kept alive
these two generations or three not because of his work but
because of himself. And the mystery has become a myth, the
shadow of which lengthens with the years."
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE
XÍ
It would seem that Pattees logic had flip-flopped. He
was correct when he stated that a delicious note of mystery
increasingly surrounded the name of Edgar Allan Poe. He
was wrong when he attributed the longevity of the works
to the interest in the man. It is only because the stories and
poems are unlike any other in literature; because they are
cast in formats superlative to any of their predecessors;
because they deal with subject matter remarkable in origi-
nality and bizarreness; because they are written in rhythms
and arrangements flashed through with genius; that the
public is interested in the man.
How did he come to create masterpieces which stand so
uniquely alone? What was he prevented from writing and
what did he plan to do had he lived?
Speculation on the life of Poe is impelled by the same
unbridled curiosity that causes people to read science fie-
tion. Up until the dawn of the space age, astronomy had
revealed to mankind that the sky was filled with myriad
worlds, and concerning some of them it uncovered tanta-
lizing hints and absorbing mysteries. To the truly imagina-
tive the point where astronomical knowledge ended was
one of maddening frustration. Beyond this point writers of
science fiction were called upon to astound the reader with
intriguing speculations and to parade the planets like fashion
models through the pages of pulp magazines, clad in the
garments of the firmament, as a palliative for a curiosity
that had grown to the proportions of lust.
The cult that has formed with fascination around the
unelaborated inferences and minutia of Sherlock Holmes
bears close resemblance to the attitudes of the more rabid
science fiction readers. What started out as a “don’t take
yourself so serious” joke from friend to friend when Robert
Barr, writing under the name of Luke Sharp, published The
Adventures of Sherlaw Kombs in the April 1892 issue of
The Idler has achieved the proportions of a separate
literary genre. The field of Sherlock Holmes research, pas
XÜ
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE
tiche writing, and errata has developed lead writers, second
stringers, and hacks. Pieces concerning “the sacred writings”
appear in leading national publications; specialized peri-
odicals are issued by its devotees, and not a year passes
when there are not at least a couple of hard covers adding
to the legend.
If you want a Who's Who of all characters in Sherlock
Holmes stories, a plot outline of each of the stories, a gen-
erous selection of quotations concerning the Great De-
tective, a dossier on Holmes' biographer Watson and a brief
one on A. Conan Doyle, read The Sherlock Holmes Com־
panion by Michael and Mollie Hardwick (John Murray,
1962). Lest there is any doubt concerning the authenticity
of the locale of the Sherlock Holmes stories, they will be
mitigated by In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes by
Michael Harrison (Cassell & Company, 1958), which sub-
stantiates them all thoroughly. If a lingering question still
remains that Sherlock Holmes was anything but a real
person, it will be eliminated by William S. Baring-Gould's
Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street (Clarkson N. Potter,
1962), which fills in all the gaps in Holmes' “life” and joins
together his cases in an incredibly believable scholarly and
literary achievement. The foregoing are but a sample se-
lection of an entire literature on the subject of Sherlock
Holmes.
As can be seen, the efforts of the Baker Street Irregulars
has been dedicated to turning a fictional character into a
real person. Only one readership phenomenon in literary
history can be compared to it and that is the attempts of the
admirers of Edgar Allan Poe to turn his fife into fiction!
The more people read Poe, the more absorbed they be-
come in the man himself. Few fives are as thoroughly docu-
mented as that of Edgar Allan Poe, yet his admirers are
not satisfied. They are sure there is more, much more, to the
fife of Poe than has yet been told, particularly since Poe
deliberately spread fanciful stories about himself. As strange
• • •
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE
X lll
as Poe’s life was, it does not adequately supply them with
the feeling that they know why he wrote as he did.
This book is dedicated to assisting those thousands of
readers all over the world who are determined to turn the
real Edgar Allan Poe into a fictional character in order to
assuage their curiosity concerning him.
It collects for the first time in literary history the best
stories in which Edgar Allan Poe appears as an integral
character. It is intended to serve the same purpose that
science fiction offers to the young student of astronomy—
conjecture of what is beyond the sight of the telescope.
Like all good science fiction, each story begins from a
factual premise, some basic and valid information about
Edgar Allan Poe, and proceeds from there. Yet only a few
of these stories are science fiction, for quite logically they
tend to cover the gamut of Poes own genius: the detective
story, murder mystery, horror tale, supernatural, humor,
bittersweet remembrance, and even verse.
This volume goes one step further and includes rarely
seen Poe marginalia, tipping the book in the direction of
scholarship. Though the intent is entertainment, the method
is serious and the tongue is not in the cheek.
This compilation leads off with a biographical sketch of
Edgar Allan Poe by the late Thomas Ollive Mabbott, who
was widely regarded during his lifetime as the greatest
authority on that author. Before his death, Professor Mab-
bott had completed preparation on the definitive edition of
the works of Edgar Allan Poe, to be published by Harvard,
containing 20 per cent more material than any previous
assemblage and running into a number of volumes. The
purpose of his biographical sketch of Poe here is to supply a
jumping-off-place for the readers of the fiction. Supplied
are the facts of Poe’s life set down by the man best qualified
to tell them. The biography should be read first, and as the
reader relates the truth to the events described in the fiction,
enjoyment will be greatly enhanced.
x iv
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE
Perhaps the most remarkable item in this collection is
“The Valley of Unrest״ by Douglass Sherley. This novelette
with its two introductions by the author actually comprised
an entire book originally printed in 1884 and reprinted here
in its entirety. It is virtually unknown to Poe scholars, Pro-
fessor Mabbott asserting he had never previously seen or
heard of it, and is the one selection which may be more than
fiction, for mixed in with facts about Poe’s school days
known to be true there are others which might be and have
not been verified or disproved. It should provide an enter-
taining exercise for Poe scholars to separate fact from fiction
in this one with the conceivable result of adding a few
footnotes of interest to the life of Poe.
Julian Hawthorne, the son of Nathaniel Hawthorne, was
one of those to whom the facts of Poe’s fife were not
enough. He delves into psychology in “ My Adventure with
Edgar Allan Poe,” in which the author is brought back to
life and given a chance for a new start.
Perhaps the best-known short story featuring Edgar Allan
Poe is the work of the deservedly popular literary critic