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Indian Express

From Nevermore to Forevermore: How Edgar Allan Poe's rival tried and failed to bury his legacy

On Netflix's Wednesday, the fictional Nevermore Academy stands beneath the brooding gaze of an Edgar Allan Poe statue, its raven-topped pedestal a shrine to the macabre. For millions of viewers, it is a clever ode to the master of Gothic fiction. Off the page, the macabre clung to him, even in death. When Poe collapsed on the streets of Baltimore in October 1849, delirious and dressed in another man's clothes, he left behind unfinished stories, poems, and an unsatiated nemesis. Within hours of Poe's burial, the rival struck. On October 9, 1849, The New York Tribune published an obituary under the pseudonym 'Ludwig' that began: 'Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it.' The author, as the public soon learned, was Rufus Wilmot Griswold — minor poet, major anthologist, and Poe's self-appointed literary executor. This act of posthumous literary vendetta went on to outlive both men. Griswold's eulogy would become one of the most infamous posthumous betrayals in American letters, launching a character assassination so complete that even today, Poe's reputation still bears the scars. Their relationship began almost amicably in 1841. Poe, then a rising critic with a caustic pen and an appetite for literary skirmishes, initially gave Griswold guarded praise. In his 'Autography' series, Poe called Griswold 'not only a polished prose-writer, but a poet of no ordinary powers.' That early warmth faded quickly. Griswold, a failed Baptist minister and career anthologist, considered himself the cultural gatekeeper of American poetry. When he began assembling his anthology, The Poets and Poetry of America in 1842, Poe sent him poems and names of promising writers. But Griswold's selection was, to Poe's eye, a betrayal of taste. 'It is a most outrageous humbug, and I sincerely wish you would 'use it up',' Poe fumed in a letter to JE Snodgrass. Later, Griswold paid Poe his 'usual fee' to review the anthology. The result was a mix of reluctant praise and veiled disdain: 'We disagree then, with Mr Griswold in many of his critical estimates… he has scarcely made us amends by introducing some one or two dozen whom we should have treated with contempt.' Griswold published the review to avoid appearing petty. 'I am rather pleased that it is to appear, lest Poe should think I had prevented its publication,' he admitted in a letter. What began as literary rivalry soon calcified into personal loathing. In private, Poe dismissed Griswold as a pompous fraud, telling Lowell, 'He certainly lacks independence, or judgment, or both.' Griswold, in turn, bragged about puffing books 'without any regard to their quality,' and was, in turn, described by publisher John Sartain as 'a notorious blackmailer.' In 1843, Poe toured the lecture circuit criticising The Poets and Poetry of America, reserving 'witheringly severe' jabs for Griswold. That same year, the Saturday Museum published a scathing anonymous review, penned by Poe's friend Henry Hirst, that called Griswold a 'toady' and predicted 'he will sink into oblivion, without leaving a landmark to tell that he once existed.' Griswold, perhaps rightly, suspected Poe's involvement. Still, their enmity was not without its brief armistice. In early 1845, Griswold solicited Poe's work for a new anthology, writing, 'Although I have some cause of personal quarrel with you… I retain, therefore, the early formed and well founded favorable opinions of your works.' Poe, ever in need of money, softened: 'Your letter occasioned me first pain and then pleasure: — pain because it gave me to see that I had lost…an honorable friend: — pleasure, because I saw in it a hope of reconciliation.' That fragile peace did not last. By the time Poe died in mysterious circumstances in Baltimore in 1849, Griswold was lying in wait. Claiming (falsely) that Poe had named him literary executor, Griswold obtained Poe's manuscripts from his grieving mother-in-law, Maria Clemm, under the pretense of raising money for her. Instead, Griswold published a three-volume edition of Poe's works, reserving the most vicious blow for the final pages. In his Memoir of the Author, appended to Volume III, Griswold created the ultimate hatchet job. He depicted Poe as a depraved drunkard, expelled from university, dishonorably discharged from the military, and given to wild rages and blackmail. He even forged letters to support his claims. It was extremely damaging. Griswold's portrait was seen as the gospel truth. For decades, Griswold's version of Poe, which painted him as a mad genius, melancholic drunk, and literary pariah, was uncritically accepted. Poe's friends tried to fight back. Sarah Helen Whitman, Poe's former fiancée, publicly accused Griswold of falsehoods. The myth stuck. By the time John Henry Ingram published his rebuttal biography in 1875, Poe had been dead for 26 years. Griswold, too, was gone. He died in 1857 of tuberculosis, perhaps never fully aware of how his scheme would backfire. Ingram, with help from Whitman and others, painstakingly dismantled the Griswold narrative, revealing the forgeries, restoring context, and re-centering Poe as a misunderstood but deeply gifted artist. The war over Poe's image continued and still does. Why did Griswold go so far? Some point to jealousy. Others suggest a shared affection for the poet Frances Sargent Osgood, whose flirtation with Poe scandalised literary circles. Some scholars speculate Griswold suffered from undiagnosed mental illness. Whatever the cause, Griswold's actions remain among the most infamous acts of posthumous literary sabotage in history. However, ironically, it was Griswold's slander that helped immortalise Poe. Without The Memoir, Poe might have remained a literary footnote: a minor critic and a strange poet. Instead, he became myth, remembered as the tormented genius, the madman of melancholy, the raven-haunted soul. Griswold intended to bury Poe but in doing so he made him eternal. While Griswold may have triumphed briefly, Poe got the last word.