Poe's Quarrel with Boston Writers

Edgar Allan Poe to Rufus Wilmot Griswold
Autographed Letter
May 29, 1841
[Full text]

This letter accompanied several poems that Poe hoped Griswold (1815-1857), the editor of The Poets and Poetry of America, would consider for publication. In the letter, Poe mounts his favorite hobbyhorse, accusing Longfellow of having plagiarized from one of his own works, "The Haunted Palace," in writing a poem called "The Beleaguered City." The comment seems particularly abrasive in the context of the letter Longfellow sent Poe just ten days earlier in which he (Longfellow) graciously wrote: "all that I have read, from your pen, has inspired me with a high idea of your power; and [I think] you are destined to stand among the first romance-writers of the country, if such be your aim."

Boston Public Library, Rare Books & Manuscripts