Edgar Allan Poe is dead

He collected several anthologies, among the highest-selling books in the entire century. An influential editor, a prolific literary critic and essayist, and one of the most well-read men in the United States, Rufus Wilmot Griswold's reputation today rests on one obituary that he wrote. First published on October 9, 1849, in the New York Tribune, the obituary 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... He had few or no friends. The regrets for his death will be suggested principally by the consideration that in him literary art lost one of its most brilliant, but erratic stars.

Griswold's description of Poe claimed his "choler" was quickly raised, that he was plagued with gnawing envy, and that he believed all people were villains. His career, said Griswold, was spent seeking success only for a "right to despise a world which galled his self-conceit." Much of Griswold's characterization of Poe was stolen verbatim from a work of fiction by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

One of the earliest responses to Griswold's posthumous attacks on Poe came from George Lippard, the young Philadelphia novelist who considered Poe a mentor. In several articles, Lippard both defended Poe and attacked Griswold. At one point, he said that he would give more for Poe's toe nail than for "Rueful Grizzle's soul." Lippard predicted Poe's fate:

As an author his name will live, while three-fourths of the bastard critics and mongrel authors of the present day go down to nothingness and night. And the men who now spit upon his grave, by way of retaliation for some injury which they imagined they have received from Poe living, would do well to remember, that it is only an idiot or a coward who strikes the cold forehead of a corpse.

*The debate between Griswold and Lippard over the legacy of Poe continues this month (October 2010) at the Rye Arts Center in New York as part of their annual "POE: EVERMORE." The original script was written by me, your faithful American Literary Blogger; I'll also be performing as Mr. Lippard.

A romance of Philadelphia life, mystery, and crime

George Lippard, who died yesterday, caused quite a sensation with his novel The Quaker City; or, The Monks of Monk Hall, when it was published in 1845. The book has been identified as the highest-selling American novel before Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). It sold 60,000 copies in its first year and at least 10,000 more each year for the next decade. Lippard was well-compensated as well, earning a lucrative $3,000 to $4,000 a year. He was 23 years old when it was first published.

And what were his readers buying?

The novel occasionally carries the subtitle "A romance of Philadelphia life, mystery, and crime." It depicts the seedy underbelly of urban Philadelphia, a world teeming with adultery, murder, social corruption, sexual exploitation, and downright evil — all perpetuated by Philadelphia's elite who use code names as members of a secret society. There is no hero in The Quaker City and the book comes across as a series of progressively more vile acts.

The character which gets the most ink, however, is the hideous Devil-Bug, the gatekeeper of the secret Monk Hall. The one-eyed creature attempts murder just for the fun of it, despite being literally haunted by the mangled corpses of previous enemies. His catch phrase — "Wonder how that'll work?" — refers to each of the sadistic methods of torture or murder he comes up with, including his own. Arguably, the most climactic scene is the apocalyptic vision, which warns of succumbing to greed and capitalism and losing sight of the idealism of Democracy. The dead rise and float down the river in their coffins, as Independence Hall crumbles to the ground and an empirical palace is built in its place. But, perhaps in Lippard's own ironic sensibility, this message of warning appears to Devil-Bug, who happily watches and laughs.

Perhaps what makes all this worse is that Lippard's book is inspired in part by a true story.

On February 10, 1843, Mahlon Hutchinson Heberton was murdered while traveling aboard the Philadelphia-Camden ferry vessel Dido. A man named Singleton Mercer was put on trial for the murder. Mercer testified that Heberton only five days earlier had lured Mercer's sister into a brothel and raped her at gunpoint. She was 16. Mercer pleaded insanity and was found not guilty of murder.

A similar scenario is the driving point for much of The Quaker City and how one willing partner in the elaborate plot to defile a teenage girl is suddenly shocked to find that his sister is the intended target. The book was dedicated to Charles Brockden Brown, whose early Gothic works were an inspiration to Lippard.

*The image from the title page of The Quaker City included engravings by Felix (F. O. C.) Darley, considered the father of American illustration. At the top is Devil-Bug, the evil gate-keeper, and at the bottom is the climactic scene of the dead rising in an apocalyptic vision. The angels in the scene chant their warning, "Wo unto Sodom," while Devil-Bug laughs.

Death of George Lippard, Supreme Washington

George Lippard, once stood as the highest-selling novelist of his generation. His death on February 9, 1854 cut short an eclectic career as novelist, journalist, muckraker, editor, reformer, and myth-maker. He was 31 years old.

Lippard's novels — including his most well-known, The Quaker City; or, the Monks of Monk Hall (1844) — are trashy and sensationalistic, full of violence, gore, sex, and sin with a little bit of social commentary thrown in (more on that tomorrow).

In addition to his novels, Lippard was also a labor organizer and reformer. In 1850, Lippard founded The Brotherhood of the Union, a secret society that hoped to eliminate urban poverty and crime by addressing society's moral failings. The organization was very religious, a sort of Christianity intermingled with an extreme American patriotism. Lippard, as founder, held the title "Supreme Washington," in honor of the country's first President.

Much of Lippard's fiction has a similar patriotic bent and he (perhaps inadvertently) created a few American myths or legends that were never true but were often perpetuated. His most famous was suggesting that the iconic Liberty Bell got its famous crack when it was rung to announce that the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776. Another Lippard legend is that of the "unknown orator" who riled his fellow Patriots to action and break from the British crown. Works like Washington and His Generals portrayed the Founding Fathers as larger-than-life, heroic figures who were beyond reproach and committed to the optimistic ideals of democracy.

Such myth-making was not unusual for the period: Washington Irving carefully crafted the character of George Washington in his biography of him, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow contributed to American legend when he wrote about a certain midnight ride. More on that last one in April.