A New Poe Letter—to Nicholas Biddle

Abstract

A previously unrecorded Poe letter has been located in the Nicholas Biddle Papers in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. The letter to Biddle, dated June 7, 1836, was among the several Poe sent out to prospective contributors to the Southern Literary Messenger on or near this date, requesting contributions—“any spare scrap in your port-folio”—for “a number of the Journal consisting altogether of articles from distinguished Americans whose names may give weight and character to the work.” Other known recipients of this request include Robert M. Bird (Letter 65), James Fenimore Cooper (Letter 66), Fitz-Greene Halleck (Letter 67), Washington Irving (Letter 67a), John Pendleton Kennedy (Letter 68), Edward Everett (Letter 68a), Peter S. Du Ponceau (Letter 69a), Francis Lieber (Letter 69b), and Lewis Cass (69c).1 References in the letters to Kennedy, Lieber, and Cass suggest that similar requests may have also been sent to John Quincy Adams, Lydia Sigourney, Catharine Sedgwick, James Kirke Paulding, Judge Joseph Hopkinson, Lieutenant Alexander Slidell, Timothy Flint, Thomas Dew, James W. Alexander, and Charles Anthon. The letter to Biddle, transcribed below, features only minor differences with the letters to Cooper, Irving, and Everett written on this date. It is not known whether Biddle ever responded to the letter, but he is not among the contributors of the August 1836 issue of the Messenger, the issue for which Poe was acquiring these “articles from distinguished Americans.”Nicholas Biddle (1786–1844) at the time of this correspondence was the president of the Second Bank of the United States, which had earlier in 1836 lost its federal charter but had been rechartered by Pennsylvania. Biddle would resign this position in 1839 after the fallout from the Panic of 1837. Aside from adding Biddle's name to the list of the recipients of this 1836 request from Poe on behalf of the Messenger, this letter also demonstrates that Poe had interacted, even if superficially, with Biddle prior to late 1840 when Poe visited him at Andalusia, Biddle's estate outside of Philadelphia, to interest him in Poe's plans for the Penn magazine. Apparently, Poe was successful in securing Biddle as a subscriber for “four years in advance” and gave him an inscribed copy of Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in gratitude.2 In a letter dated January 6, 1841 (Letter 106a), the only previously known correspondence between the men, Poe asked if Biddle would contribute “a brief article for my opening number.”3 The newly discovered letter shows that this 1841 letter was actually the second time that Poe had requested such a contribution from the now former bank president.Jeffrey Savoye, coeditor of the Collected Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, has provided the letter number and checklist number used below to place this letter into the chronology of the correspondence included in Collected Letters. Letter 66a—1836, June 7 [CL-144a] Poe (Richmond, Va.) to Nicholas Biddle (Philadelphia, Pa.): Richmond. June 7. 1836.Dear Sir, At the request of Mr T. W. White, the proprietor of the “Southern Literary Messenger” I take the liberty of addressing you, and of soliciting some little contribution for our Journal. I am aware that your time is occupied with more serious matters, and that you are frequently pestered with similar applications. I am therefore ready to believe that I have very little chance of success in this attempt to engage you in our interest. Yet I owe it to the Magazine to make the effort. One reason will I think have its influence with you. Our publication is the first successful literary attempt of Virginia, and has now been, for eighteen months, forcing its way, unaided, and against a host of difficulties, into the public view and attention. We wish, just now, to strike if possible a bold stroke—to issue, as soon as may be, a number of the Journal consisting altogether of articles from distinguished Americans whose names may give weight and character to the work. To aid us in this attempt would cost you no effort, as any spare scrap in your port-folio would answer our main purpose. To us such aid would be invaluable. With the highest respect Yr. Ob. St Edgar A. Poe.Source: microfilm of the original MS (1 p.) in the Library of Congress. The letter is numbered 12679 and contained on Reel 22 of the Nicholas Biddle Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. The address, on the back of the page, is directed “To / Nicholas Biddle Esqr / Philadelphia / Pa” and is postmarked from Richmond, Virginia, June 7.