Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Neele's Literary Remains

Abstract

EDGAR ALLAN Poe played fast and loose with his sources, often taking his literary material at second- or third-hand while pretending he had gone back to primary texts. His deliberate obfuscations have left many puzzles to unravel. Compiling The Brevities, a modern edition of the various sententiae Poe had published himself under such titles as ‘Pinakidia’ and ‘Marginalia’, Burton Pollin identified some of the Poe sources yet left many others unidentified.1The Literary Remains of the Late Henry Neele, one work that escaped Pollin’s attention, forms an important source for several items in ‘Pinakidia’ and influenced Poe’s other writings, as well. British poet Henry Neele published his first book of verse when he was eighteen. As the anonymous editor of Literary Remains observed, Neele’s father defrayed the expenses of publishing the book, having ‘the judgment to perceive, and the good taste to appreciate and encourage, the dawning genius of his Son’.2 Reading this remark, Poe could have recognized similarities and differences between Neele and himself. Like Neele, Poe had published his first book of verse at eighteen. Poe never received the kind of encouragement from his foster father John Allan that Neele had received from his father, however. Neele published additional collections of poetry and tales and, in 1827, delivered a series of lectures on English poetry in London, which let him demonstrate his critical acumen. But Neele’s promising literary career ended all too soon. On 7 February 1828, in a bout of insanity, Neele slit his own throat and perished.