Generally, people praise extravagantly those of which I am ashamed, and pass in silence what I fancy to be praise worthy. The last tale I wrote was Morella and it was my best. When I write again I will write something better than Morella. At present, having no time upon my hands, from my editorial duties, I can write nothing worth reading.
--Letter from Edgar Allan Poe to Beverly Tucker, December 1, 1835.

The Poe letters at the Special Collections Department at University of Virginia Library unite a unique collection of letters which give the reader a glimpse of Poe's life as an editor and critic. He served as both for the Southern Literary Messenger after moving back to Richmond in 1835, and then later joined the editorial staff of Graham's Magazine. The letters range from a detailed critique of verses sent to the Messenger to business letters to passionate discussions of versification, poetry, music and prose. This collection affords readers the opportunity to see two sides of Poe's editorial life: his criticisms of others' works as well as his own responses to rejection and criticism from other editors. Finally, this collection includes two noteworthy letters that reflect other aspects of Poe's life: the first is a letter from Charles Percival asking for Poe's help in deciphering a crytogram (see Letter from Charles Percival to Edgar Allan Poe, 1845 December 19). Poe's keen interest in ciphers and cryptograms led him not only to include them in several of his tales, but also to invite readers of Alexander's Weekly Magazine and later Graham's Magazine to send in ciphers for him to solve (Silverman, 152). The second letter, written by Poe's aunt, Maria Clemm, sixteen years after his death (see Letter from Maria Clemm to an unknown correspondent, 1865 October 6), makes a rather poigant mention of the anniversary of "darling Eddies death." This collection of letters, which includes letters written by Poe and to Poe, gives readers a sense of the variety of relationships, both personal and professional, in Poe's brief but intense life.

If it is your wish to forget that I have been your son I am too proud to remind you of it again--I only beg you to remember that you yourself cherished the cause of my leaving your family--Ambition--If it has not taken the channel you wished it, it is not the less certain of its object. Richmond & the U. States were too narrow a sphere & the world shall be my theatre... I can walk among infection & be uncontaminated.
--Letter from Edgar Allan Poe to John Allan, December 22, 1828.

This collection of Poe's letters from the Valentine Museum in Richmond, Virginia provides an intimate reading of the young man's often sad struggles with his foster-father, poverty, and uncertainty about his place in the world. These letters greatly aid the project of constructing a biography of Poe's life between the years 1826 and 1833. Among this collection are two letters that Poe, the student, sent John Allan while at the University of Virginia. Other letters in the archive are addressed from places such as Fort Moultrie in Charleston, S.C., where Poe spent a claustrophobic two years while in the U.S. Army, and Richmond, Virginia, where, dejected and disowned by Allan, he awaits the arrival of his trunk. In every letter--from UVa to his departure from West Point-- we see intimations of Poe's desire to live beyond the chains of life's conventions, to live as the unfettered artist. But sadly this desire is continually undermined by Poe's despondent wish that Allan might acknowledge him and reach out with the love, care, and admiration that no father has ever given him.

nothing can be clearer than that a very generous spirit -- truly feeling what all merely profess -- must inevitably find itself misconceived in every direction -- its motives misinterpreted....in looking back through history for traces of their existence, we should pass over all biographies of "the good and the great," while we search carefully the slight records of wretches who died in prison, in Bedlam, or upon the gallows.
--Poe, "Marginalia"

In this eclectic collection from the Edgar Allan Poe Museum, we glimpse Poe in his various guises: as self-promoting author, self-conscious autobiographer, literary enthusiast, and maverick critic. Perhaps the most notable manuscript in the collection is the "Autobiographical Fragment," in which Poe relates a half-fabricated history of his life to man-of-letters Rufus Griswold, who would later publish a libellous "Memoir" of Poe. The collection also contains fragments from manuscripts for Poe's critical essays "A Rationale for Verse," "Frances Sargent Osgood," and "Marginalia," as well as for his fable "Siope." Poe acknowledged the influence of Milton and Shakespeare by transcribing quotations from their works, and he delighted in his own growing fame in granting Lucy Dorothea Henry's request for an autograph. We also see Poe attempting to advance his own position as author and editor. For example, Poe boasts of his literary accomplishments to Thomas White, publisher of the Southern Literary Messenger; once Poe had been hired as the Messenger's editor (a post which he held from 1835-1837), he pressed his friend Hiram Haines to promote it. Throughout the collection, Poe shows his powers of creating not only literary works, but also his identity as an author and editor.