Poe's Last Visit to Philadelphia

EAR THE BEGINNING of his account of Poe's last visit to Phila1W delphia in summer of I849 Hervey Allen says, probably rightly, that the precise order of events and calamities which now overtook man can never be precisely reconstructed.' Nevertheless, many have attempted partial reconstructions, no two of which agree in every particular. So far as I have been able to discover, up to present time known primary sources of information about this visit to Philadelphia are three letters from Poe to Maria Clemm dated July 7, Saturday Night (July I4), and July I9, i849;2 a letter from George Lippard to Rufus W. Griswold dated November 22, I849;3 a letter from Sarah Anna Lewis to George W. Eveleth dated February ii, I854;4 John Sartain's The Reminiscences of a Very Old Man;5 John H. Ingram's Edgacr Allan Poe,6 and William F. Gill's The Life of Edgar Allan Poe.7 From these it has been possible to reconstruct following somewhat vague order of events: Poe left New York City at 5 p.m., June 29,8 and arrived at Philadelphia late that night or early next morning; he was deranged for more than ten days and was taken

Art · Art history · American Literature and Culture · History · Literary, Cultural, Historical Analysis · Literature, Film, and Journalism Analysis