The Poet’s Income
A letter of Poe, dated New York, January 18, 1849, also in the possession of Mr. Madigan, allows us to look behind the scenes of a literary workshop of the early fifties. It is addressed to John R. Thompson, the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, one of the most powerful literary magazines of the time. Poe offers his services as a critic at the rate of two dollars a page, provided Mr. Thompson obliges himself to take not less than five pages each month. The irony of fate was never better exemplified. The manuscript which he offered at two dollars a page is now worth four hundred and fifty dollars. The very letter in which he offers to sell it at that sum was purchased a short time ago for five hundred dollars.
“New York, Jan. 13, ’49.
“My Dear Sir:
“Accept my thanks for the two Messengers containing Miss Talley’s ‘Genius.’ I am glad to see that Griswold, although imperfectly, has done her justice in his late ‘Female Poets of America.’
“Enclosed I send you the opening chapter of an article called ‘Marginalia,’ published about three years ago in The Democratic Review.... My object in writing you now is to propose that I continue the papers in the Messenger, running them through the year at the rate of five pages each month, commencing with the March number. You might afford me, as before, I presume, $2 a page.... If you think well of my proposal, I will send you the two first numbers (10 pp.) immediately on receipt of a letter from you. You can pay me at your convenience, as the papers are published or otherwise....
“Very truly yours,
“EDGAR ALLAN POE.”
“Jno. R. Thompson, Esq.
“P. S.—I am about to bestir myself in the world of letters rather more busily than I have done for three or four years past, and a connection which I have established with two weekly papers may enable me, now and then, to serve you in respect to The Messenger.”
Our interview was interrupted by a handsome youth with a fashionable fur coat and who used very broken English.
He desired to buy autographs of French “big people,” and of composers and of musicians of all nations. Mr. Madigan brought out his royalty portfolios. Louis XIV. and Marie Antoinette were the star pieces. The youth did not hesitate long. He bought them and took about two dozen letters of musical people. He ordered them all framed and sent up to his studio. He offered English bank notes in payment of the bill (some four hundred odd dollars), but Mr. Madigan insisted on receiving United States currency, and so the man went to a nearby bank, returned shortly, and paid.
“What does he want with them?” I asked, astonished.
The whole transaction had lasted less than fifteen minutes.
“He is a musician,” replied Mr. Madigan, “who will play the social game. He will invite some very rich people to his studio, the walls will be hung with the autographs he has just bought, and he’ll tell them about his ‘dear’ relics of his ancestors and will also point familiarly to his ‘dear’ friends the musicians and composers.
“If he succeeds in his game, he will keep the autographs, but most likely he will come back to me in six months or sooner, financially embarrassed, and will beg of me to buy them back.”
A well-known poet came in. Mr. Madigan took him to the back of the store. The poet wrote for a little while and then handed the sheet of paper to Madigan. A short conversation in subdued tones, and the poet left the shop. Madigan told me that the poet had written an extemporaneous ode on Oscar Wilde. “He often comes in,” Mr. Madigan continued, “for a chat and presents me quite frequently with a few lines of his poetry. Once he had not left the shop more than half an hour. I sold the poem he had just written to another friend of mine for ten dollars.”
An old lady entered. She unwrapped a parcel that she had carried under her arm. A lot of letters and photographs. I felt that she resented my presence during the coming transaction. I turned my back. I listened to a long lecture by Mr. Madigan about the cheapness and undesirability of the autographs which she offered to him for sale. Finally he offered a few dollars and the old lady, reluctantly, pocketed the money and left her parcel.
A young woman entered next—an interior decorator doing Mrs. Van X’s breakfast room. It had come into her head that Cardinal Richelieu’s picture and signature in that charming Louis Quatorze frame would be ideal between the lavender window hangings. She asked the price and had it sent.
A newspaper man was the next visitor. He wanted a picture of Stephen Crane, the poet, to illustrate a Sunday story. Mr. Madigan fished out a portrait from many others, card indexed and filed away in a specially constructed cabinet.
And so it goes on continuously, the whole day, buying and selling.