And I heard much lively chinning
’Bout a man who would get drunk.
Another Chapter
on
“The Raven.”
On page 217 of the second volume of the life of Edgar Allan Poe, Mr. J. H. Ingram quotes the following extract from one of his letters:—“Have you seen ‘The Moral for Authors’ a new Satire by J. E. Tuel? Who, in the name of Heaven, is J. E. Tuel? The book is miserably stupid! He has a long parody of the ‘Raven’—in fact, nearly the whole thing seems to be aimed at me. If you have not seen it and wish to see it I will send it.”
Poe was well within the mark when he stigmatised “The Moral for Authors” as a miserably stupid production. It was published in 1849 by Stringer and Townsend of New York, and consisted of forty-eight pages of rhyme almost entirely destitute of reason. On one page, it is true, the author vainly attempts a feeble parody of Lord Macaulay’s style, and there is, of course, the parody of the “Raven.” As Poe, himself, has alluded to this, students of his life and works may probably wish to refer to it, which they would have great difficulty in doing as copies of the pamphlet are now exceedingly scarce. I therefore reprint the parody in full, from a copy kindly lent me by Mr. J. H. Ingram.
It is dated from the—
PLUTONIAN SHORE,
Raven Creek, In the Year of Poetry