Rufus Wilmot Griswold

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Rufus Wilmot Griswold
1855 engraving by Miner Kilbourne Kellogg
1855 engraving by Miner Kilbourne Kellogg
Born(1815-02-15)February 15, 1815
Benson, Vermont, U.S.
DiedAugust 12, 1857(1857-08-12) (aged 42)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Pen nameLudwig
OccupationEditor, literary critic, writer
NationalityAmerican

Rufus Wilmot Griswold (February 15, 1815 – August 12, 1857) was an American anthologist, editor and critic. He had a substantial feud with Edgar Allan Poe that continued after Poe's death.

Born in Benson, Vermont, Griswold left his family at age 15. By 22, he had moved to New York, had become ordained as a clergyman and had married his wife Caroline. After his wife's second pregnancy, Griswold left her and moved to Philadelphia. He worked as a journalist and minor writer, in his day best known for his 1842 collection The Poets and Poetry of America, an anthology of what he deemed the best examples in American poetry. He would produce revised versions and similar anthologies for the remainder of his life.

It was in Philadelphia that Griswold first met Edgar Allan Poe. Poe had been included in Griswold's anthology but Poe published a critical response which questioned the inclusion of some of the collected poets. Griswold soon after replaced Poe as editor of Graham's Magazine, commanding a larger salary than Poe had. The two also competed for the attention of poet Frances Sargent Osgood. They never reconciled their differences and, after Poe's mysterious death in 1849, Griswold began a heavy campaign to destroy Poe's reputation which lasted until his own death eight years later.

Life and career

Griswold was born on February 15, 1815 in Benson, Vermont near Rutland, and raised a strict Calvinist[1] in the hamlet of Benson.[2] He was the twelfth of fourteen children, the son of a father who was a farmer and shoemaker.[2] Griswold left his family when he was 15, calling himself a "solitary soul, wandering through the world, a homeless, joyless outcast."[3] He moved to Albany, New York with a 22-year old flute-playing journalist named George C. Foster, the writer of New-York by Gas-Light.[2] Griswold lived with Foster until he was 17 and may have had a romantic relationship with him.[3]

After an apprentice with a printer, he moved to Syracuse.[3] He was licensed as a Baptist clergyman in 1837 but never had a permanent congregation.[4] At the age of 22, Griswold married his wife Caroline.[2] After giving birth to their second daughter, he left her behind in New York to move to Philadelphia[5] on November 27, 1840.[6] Griswold left abruptly, leaving behind his job working with Horace Greeley's New York Tribune and his library made up of several thousand volumes.[5] He joined the staff of the Daily Standard and began to build up his reputation as a literary critic, becoming known for his savagery and vindictiveness.[4] A friend once called him "one of the most irritable and vindictive men I ever met." Novelist Ann Sophia Stephens called him two-faced and "constitutionally incapable of speaking the truth."[7]

On November 6, 1842, Griswold visited his wife in New York after she had given birth to a son. Three days later, after returning to Philadelphia, he was informed both she and their son had died.[8] Griswold was heavily grieved and rushed back via train, refusing to leave the cemetery after her funeral until he was forced to by a relative.[8] Forty days after her entombment, he entered her vault, cut off a lock of her hair, kissed her on the forehead and on the lips, and wept for several hours. A friend found him later the next evening, 30 hours later.[3] Griswold had difficulty believing she had died and often dreamed of their reunion.[8]

In 1842, Griswold also released his 476-page anthology The Poets and Poetry of America, the most comprehensive collection of American poetry up to this time.[5] Griswold's collection included 17 poems by Lydia Sigourney, 45 by Charles Fenno Hoffman, three by Edgar Allan Poe, and many others.[4] He oversaw many other anthologies, including Biographical Annual, which collected memoirs of "eminent persons recently deceased", Gems from American Female Poets, Prose Writers of America, and Female Poets of America.[9] In preparing these editions, he gained a reputation as a "literary dictator, whose favor it was advisable to seek and whose power to hurt the vanity of literary aspirants steadily grew."[10] Griswold also produced a collection of his own original poetry, The Cypress Wreath (1844), with themes emphasizing death and mourning. Titles in this collection included "The Happy Hour of Death", "On the Death of a Young Girl", and "The Slumber of Death".[11]

Griswold reviewed Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass in the November 10, 1855 issue of The Criterion, denouncing the work as "a mass of stupid filth." He also suggested, in Latin, that Whitman was homosexual, referring to it as "that horrible sin not to be mentioned among Christians." Whitman chose to include the review in a later edition of Leaves of Grass, possibly to show how he was distancing himself from the conventional.[12] Griswold was one of the only people in the nineteenth century to suggest Whitman's homosexuality in print.[13]

Publicly, Griswold was a supporter of the establishment of international copyright, though he himself often pirated whole works of literature during his time as an editor, particularly with The Brother Jonathan. A contemporary editor said of Griswold, "He takes advantage of a state of things which he declares to be 'immoral, unjust and wicked,' and even while haranguing the loudest, is purloining the fastest."[14]

Griswold died of tuberculosis in New York City on August 12, 1857. At the time of his death, after a series of disasters including a fire and impoverishment, the sole decorations found in his room were portraits of himself, Frances Osgood, and Poe.[15]

Relationship with Poe

Griswold first met Edgar Allan Poe in Philadelphia in May of 1841 while working for the Philadelphia Daily Standard.[16] In a letter dated March 29, 1841, Poe sent Griswold several poems for The Poets and Poetry of America anthology, saying he would be proud to see "one or two of them in the book."[10] Griswold included three of these poems: "Coliseum," "The Haunted Palace," and "The Sleeper".[4] In November of that year Poe, who had previously praised Griswold in his "Autography" series as "a gentleman of fine taste and sound judgment",[10] actually wrote a critical review of the 476-page volume, which Griswold purchased and used his influence to have published in a Boston periodical. The review was generally favorable, though Poe questioned the inclusion or lack of inclusion of certain authors. Griswold apparently had expected more praise and Poe, in private, told others he was not particularly impressed by the book,[17] even calling it "a most outrageous humbug" in a letter to a friend.[18] Another letter Poe wrote to fellow writer Frederick W. Thomas, Poe even suggests that Griswold bribed him into writing a favorable review, promising to use his influence to have it published and Poe to receive payment.[19] A later review, published anonymously in the Philadelphia Saturday Museum on January 28, 1843 but believed to have been authored by Poe,[20] asked: "...what will be [Griswold's] fate? Forgotten, save only by those whom he has injured and insulted, he will sink into oblivion, without leaving a landmark to tell that he once existed; or if he is spoken of hereafter, he will be quoted as the unfaithful servant who abused his trust."[21] Poe also said that Griswold "unduly favored" New England writers.[22] Making the relationship even more strained, only months later, Griswold was hired by George Rex Graham in Poe's former role as editor. Griswold, however, was paid more and given more editorial control of Graham's Magazine than Poe.[23] In the mid 1840's, Griswold and Poe also competed for the attention of a female poet named Frances Sargent Osgood.[24]

The "Ludwig" obituary

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

After Poe's death, Griswold prepared an obituary which he signed with the pseudonym "Ludwig". First printed in the October 9, 1849 issue of the New York Daily Tribune, it was quickly republished many times. In the obituary, Ludwig asserted that "few will be grieved" by Poe's death as he had few friends. He claimed that Poe often wandered the streets, either in "madness or melancholy," mumbling and cursing to himself, was easily irritated, was envious of others, and that he "regarded society as composed of villains". Poe's drive to succeed, Griswold wrote, was because he sought "the right to despise a world which galled his self-conceit." Much of this characterization of Poe was lifted almost verbatim from that of the fictitious Francis Vivian in The Caxtons by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.[25]

Griswold had left his name off the article because his dislike of Poe was well known. His true identity, however, was soon revealed. In a letter to Sarah Helen Whitman dated December 17, 1849, he admitted, "I wrote, as you suppose, the notice of Poe in The Tribune, but very hastily. I was not his friend, nor was he mine."[26]

Memoir

Later, claiming to be his literary executor, Griswold edited, with James Russell Lowell and Nathaniel Parker Willis, the posthumous works of Edgar Allan Poe in 1850. It is unclear if Poe appointed Griswold his executor (perhaps as part of his "Imp of the Perverse"[27]), if it were a trick on Griswold's part, or a mistake made by Poe's aunt and mother-in-law Maria "Muddy" Clemm.[28] This edition included a biographical "Memoir" which has become notorious for its inaccuracy. Griswold had in fact served as a literary agent for other American writers but it is unclear if Poe actually appointed him as his literary executor. He did not share the profits of his edition with Poe surviving relatives, a sister named Rosalie and mother-in-law Maria Clemm.[29] In the "Memoir", which served as a biography of Poe's life, Poe was depicted as a madman, addicted to drugs and chronically drunk. Many parts of it were fabricated by Griswold using forged letters as evidence and it was denounced by those who knew Poe, including Sarah Helen Whitman, Charles Frederick Briggs, and George Rex Graham.[30] Thomas Holley Chivers wrote a book called New Life of Edgar Allan Poe which directly responded to Griswold's accusations.[31] He said that Griswold "is not only incompetent to Edit any of [Poe's] works, but totally unconscious of the duties which he and every man who sets himself up as a Literary Executor, owe the dead."[32]

In modern days Griswold's name is usually associated with Poe's as a character assassin.[33] Some of the information that Griswold asserted or implied include that Poe was expelled from the University of Virginia and that Poe had tried to seduce the second wife of his guardian John Allan.[34] Even so, Griswold's attempts only attracted attention towards Poe's work; readers were thrilled at the idea of reading the works of an "evil" man.[35]

References

  1. ^ Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. Cooper Square Press, 1992. ISBN 0815410387 p. 125
  2. ^ a b c d Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. Harper-Perennial, New York, 1991. ISBN 0060923318 p. 212
  3. ^ a b c d Tomc, Sandra. "Poe and His Circle." Collected in The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe, Kevin J. Hayes, ed. Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN 0521797276 p. 26
  4. ^ a b c d Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. Cooper Square Press, 1992. ISBN 0815410387 p. 126
  5. ^ a b c Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance, Harper-Perennial, New York, 1991. ISBN 0060923318 pp. 213
  6. ^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. p. 350. ISBN 0801857309
  7. ^ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance, Harper-Perennial, New York, 1991. ISBN 0060923318 pp. 216-7
  8. ^ a b c Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. Harper-Perennial, New York, 1991. ISBN 0060923318 p. 217
  9. ^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. p. 350-351. ISBN 0801857309
  10. ^ a b c Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. p. 351. ISBN 0801857309
  11. ^ Kennedy, J. Gerald. Poe, Death, and the Life of Writing. Yale University Press, 1987. p. 66-67. ISBN 0300037732
  12. ^ Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself. University of California Press, 1999. ISBN 0520226879. p. 184-185
  13. ^ Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself. University of California Press, 1999. ISBN 0520226879. p. 202
  14. ^ Moss, Sidney P. Poe's Literary Battles: The Critic in the Context of His Literary Milieu. Southern Illinois University Press, 1969. p. 80-1
  15. ^ Rosenheim, Shawn James. The Cryptographic Imagination: Secret Writing from Edgar Poe to the Internet. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. p. 123. ISBN 9780801853326
  16. ^ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance, Harper-Perennial, New York, 1991. ISBN 0060923318 p. 211
  17. ^ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance, Harper-Perennial, New York, 1991. ISBN 0060923318 pp. 211-216
  18. ^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. p. 352. ISBN 0801857309
  19. ^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. p. 353. ISBN 0801857309
  20. ^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. p. 354. ISBN 0801857309
  21. ^ James Harrison, ed., The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1902, vol XVII. pp. 220-243
  22. ^ Omans, Glen A. "Poe and Washington Allston: Visionary Kin," collected in Poe and His Times: The Artist and His Milieu, edited by Benjamin Franklin Fisher IV. Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society, 1990. p. 24. ISBN 0961644923
  23. ^ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance, Harper-Perennial, New York, 1991. ISBN 0060923318 pp. 211-216
  24. ^ Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. Cooper Square Press, 1992. ISBN 0815410387 p. 209
  25. ^ Moss, Sidney P. Poe's Literary Battles: The Critic in the Context of His Literary Milieu. Southern Illinois University Press, 1969. p. 125
  26. ^ "Poe and Griswold from The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore
  27. ^ Hoffman, Daniel (1972). Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe (Paperback ed. ed.). Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. pp. p. 14. ISBN 0807123218. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |pages= has extra text (help)
  28. ^ Silverman, Kenneth (1991). Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance (Paperback ed. ed.). New York: Harper Perennial. pp. p. 439. ISBN 0060923318. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |pages= has extra text (help)
  29. ^ Sova, Dawn B. (2001). Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z (Paperback ed. ed.). New York: Checkmark Books. pp. p. 102. ISBN 081604161X. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |pages= has extra text (help)
  30. ^ Sova, Dawn B. (2001). Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z (Paperback ed. ed.). New York: Checkmark Books. pp. p. 101. ISBN 081604161X. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |pages= has extra text (help)
  31. ^ Davis, Richard Beale (editor) (1952). Chivers' Life of Poe (Paperback ed. ed.). New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. pp. p. 25-28. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |first= has generic name (help); |pages= has extra text (help)
  32. ^ Davis, Richard Beale (editor) (1952). Chivers' Life of Poe (Paperback ed. ed.). New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. pp. p. 70. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |first= has generic name (help); |pages= has extra text (help)
  33. ^ Frank, Frederick and Anthony Magistrale. The Poe Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991. p. 149 ISBN 0313277680
  34. ^ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance, Harper-Perennial, New York, 1991. ISBN 0060923318 p. 440.
  35. ^ Meyers, Jeffrey (1992). Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy (Paperback ed. ed.). New York: Cooper Square Press. pp. p. 263. ISBN 0815410387. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |pages= has extra text (help)

Further reading

  • Passages from the Correspondence and Other Papers of Rufus W. Griswold (Cambridge, Mass., 1898), edited by his son William McCrillis Griswold (1853-1899)

External links

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