Poe's Quarrel with Boston Writers

James Russell Lowell
"Our Contributors: Edgar Allan Poe"
Graham's Magazine, February 1845

Eager to "please ... [Poe] and not the public," Lowell shared a draft of this highly positive and detailed biographical essay with his friend prior to publication. While observing that as a critic Poe "seems sometimes to mistake his phial of prussic-acid for his inkstand," Lowell goes onto see in Poe "two of the prime qualities of genius, a faculty of vigorous yet minute analysis, and a wonderful fecundity of imagination."

Boston Public Library, Research Library Collection