Mr. Graham has told me in detail the story of his magazine. He was the owner and editor of Atkinson's Casket, when, in 1841, William E. Burton, the actor, came to him with the request that he should buy the Gentleman's Magazine, of which Burton had been the proprietor for four years. Burton explained that money was needed for his new theatre, that the magazine must be sold, that it numbered thirty-five hundred subscribers, and that it would be sold outright for thirty-five hundred dollars. Graham, who at that time had fifteen hundred subscribers to his own magazine, accepted the offer, and the Gentleman's Magazine was transferred to him. "There is one thing more," said Burton, "I want you to take care of my young editor." That "young editor," who in this manner entered the employ of George Graham, was Edgar Allan Poe. Mr. Graham bears clear and willing testimony to the efficient service rendered by Poe to the new magazine, which, now combined with the Casket, took the name of its new owner. He found little in Poe's conduct to reprove, nor does he remember any cause beyond envy and malice for Griswold's truculent slanders. A quarrel of an hour led to Poe's dismissal, but the friendly relations between the wayward poet and his former employer remained unsevered. From New York, Poe sent Graham the manuscript of a story for which he asked and received fifty dollars. The story remained unpublished for a year, when Poe again appeared in the editorial room and begged for the return of the manuscript, that he might try with it for the prize of one hundred dollars offered for the best prose tale. Graham showed his "love and friending" for the author by surrendering the story, and the judges awarded to Edgar Poe the prize for the "Gold-Bug."
After the dismissal of Poe, the magazine, still under Graham's management, was edited by Ann Stephens and Charles J. Peterson, until Rufus Wilmot Griswold sat in the responsible chair. James Russell Lowell was a subordinate editor of the magazine as early as 1843, and in April of that year communicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne the desire of the editor, Edgar Allan Poe, that he too should become a contributor. In 1845 Lowell was married and continued to reside with his wife in Philadelphia. The following letter was the first written by Mrs. Lowell from Philadelphia to her friend Mrs. Hawthorne:
Philadelphia, Jan. 16, 1845.
My Dear Sophia:—I wished to write to you before I left home, but in the hurry of those last hours I had no time, and instead of delicate sentiments could only send you gross plum-cake, which I must hope you received. We are most delightfully situated here in every respect, surrounded with kind and sympathizing friends, yet allowed by them to be as quiet and retired as we choose; but it is always a pleasure to know you can have society if you wish for it, by walking a few steps beyond your own door.
We live in a little chamber on the third story, quite low enough to be an attic, so that we feel classical in our environment; and we have one of the sweetest and most motherly of Quaker women to anticipate all our wants, and make us comfortable outwardly as we are blest inwardly. James's prospects are as good as an author's ought to be, and I begin to fear we shall not have the satisfaction of being so very poor after all. But we are, in spite of this disappointment of our expectations, the happiest of mortals or spirits, and cling to the skirts of every passing hour, although we know the next will bring us still more joy.
Your most happy and affectionate
Maria Lowell.
"Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife," Vol. I, p. 283.
The house so happily described, and in which Lowell so pleasantly lived while he wrote for Graham's and won a high place on its "canonized bead-roll," was the old house, still standing at the northeast corner of Fourth and Arch Streets, which had been built for the residence of William Smith, editor of the American Magazine (1757-8).
Griswold introduced James Fenimore Cooper to Mr. Graham in the editorial sanctum, and Graham bought from him his lives of the naval commanders, and engaged him to write a serial story. Cooper wrote "The Isles of the Gulf," afterward known as "Jack Tier," and received eighteen hundred dollars for it; "though," says Graham, "the money might as well have been thrown into the sea, for it never brought me a new subscriber."
Longfellow's "Spanish Student" appeared for the first time in Graham's Magazine, and Longfellow also contributed "Nuremberg" (June, 1844), "The Arsenal at Springfield" (May, 1844), "Dante's Divina Commedia" (June, 1850), "Childhood" (March, 1844), "Belfry of Bruges" (Vol. 22).