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John
Sartain

1808 - 1897

A brilliant engraver in the tradition of Blake and a visionary publisher to rival Godey or Graham, John Sartain treated Poe with the respect and dignity a friend should show a friend.
 
Born in London, England on October 24, 1808, young John Sartain studied painting and served an apprenticeship as an engraver, beginning in 1823. He married the boss's daughter, Susannah, and they emigrated to America, settling in Philadelphia. Sartain soon became a preeminent portrait engraver.

Sartain brought with him from England the art of mezzotint engraving, a technological advance as important to printmaking as an updated operating system is to the modern computer.  This process more faithfully rendered prints of oil paintings than any previous method of printmaking.  The leading artists of the day, including Benjamin West, Peter Rothermel, George Caleb Bingham, Emanuel Leutze, F.O.C. Darley, Christian Schussele, Thomas Sully, Henry Inman, and John Neagle, commissioned Sartain to translate their works into print.

"Engraving is not a copy, but a translation from color to black and white, and in order to make it successful, the engraver should enter into the spirit and feeling of the painter." --- John Neagle, Portrait artist

After the "Panic of 1837," Sartain found commissions harder to obtain.  So, he turned to book publishers, introducing pictorial illustration into American periodicals. 

In 1839 Philadelphia, an informal social gathering of artists, actors, and writers was held regularly in the Falstaff Hotel.

This is where Poe met John Sartain.

By 1840, they found themselves working for the same employer. In May 1840, William Evans Burton (1802-1860) advertised his Gentleman's Magazine for sale. Burton had purchased and published engravings by Sartain.  Poe had been working as an editor for Burton and when he learned the future of his employment was dubious, he started to shop around his prospectus for his own magazine (at this time called the Penn Magazine).  Burton found out about this and felt Poe's announcement would reduce the market value of his magazine. He sent Poe an angry letter of dismissal. Poe sent a reply, explaining himself.

"The opportunity of doing something for myself seemed a good one -- I was about to be thrown out of business -- and I embraced it."

--- EAP to Burton, June 1, 1840

In October, George R. Graham (1813-1894), the publisher of the Casket and the principal owner of the Saturday Evening Post, bought Burton's magazine for $3,500.  (Interesting enough, back in June, when Graham learned about Poe's prospectus, he wrote and published an editorial praising Poe and encouraging his success.)

The first edition of Graham's Magazine included Poe's tale "The Man of the Crowd." The second edition for January 1841 published eight engravings by Sartain.  Apparently, Poe didn't care to see engravings included in a literary magazine.  Poe had nothing but contempt for these commercial "embellishments" and thought they should be used solely "in the necessary illustration of the text."

In February, Poe accepted Graham's offer to be the book review editor at his magazine. Graham also hired Sartain to provide at least one engraving every month.

EAP to Thomas Wyatt, April 1, 1841
EAP to Joseph Evans Snodgrass, April 1, 1841
EAP to Frederick W. Thomas, June 26, 1841

The June issue of Graham's included Poe's "The Island of the Fay."  Sartain provided a steel engraving to compliment Poe's sketch.  Sartain's illustration "The Island of the Fay" was printed on the frontispiece.

"The Island of the Fay"

Poe must've witnessed his talented friend Sartain getting rich.  In August, Graham spent $1,300 on "embellishments" for the August number. Poe's annual salary was only $800.

Sartain went on to engrave over 1500 prints during his career. Many of these in the leading magazines of the day including Gentlemen's, Graham's, the Casket, Godey's Lady's Book, the Eclectic, and the Nineteenth Century.

Sartain's finances continued to grow. In 1843, Sartain became the owner and proprietor of "Cambell's Foreign Semi-Monthly Magazine." In the late summer of 1848 he purchased the Union Magazine along with William Sloanaker, the former business manager of Graham's Magazine, as his partner.  They changed the name of the magazine to "Sartain's Union Magazine of Literature and Art."

In December, John Sartain paid Poe $15 for his eighteen-line poem "The Bells." (Sartain would purchase two more revisions of the same poem.)

"The Bells"

Sartain's first issue appeared in January 1849. Sartain became a powerful figure in the literary world.  Besides publishing Poe's poem "The Bells" and his essay "The Poetic Principle," Sartain presented work by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, N.P. Willis, W. Gilmore Simms, and a little-known essayist named Henry Thoreau.

"The Poetic Principle"

In the March issue, Poe's poem "A Valentine" appears along with an editorial comment by Sartain.

"A Valentine"

"The 'Valentine' by Edgar A. Poe, will, we venture to predict, make as many guessers as readers of his most provoking riddle."

--- John Sartain, Sartain's Union Magazine, March 1849

(Poe had written the poem for Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood in 1846, a poetess estranged from her painter husband Samuel Stillman Osgood who had painted an oil portrait of Poe in 1845.  She and Poe had a brief love affair and their friendship was broken up by the "bluestocking" scandal.  They may have produced an illegitimate child who was accepted as his own by her husband, but the child died shortly thereafter.)

In late February or early March, Sartain purchased Poe's expanded version of "The Bells" for $25.

EAP to John Sartain, February 9, 1849

In late June, Poe left New York on his last trip south and stopped in Philadelphia. Apparently, Poe began drinking again.  On the Monday afternoon of July 2, Poe showed up at the front door of Sartain's house completely disoriented and frightened.  He explained that "some men" were trying to kill him and begged for refuge.  Sartain gave him entrance along with food and comfort.  Poe thought a change of appearance could thwart his pursuers, so Sartain helped him cut off his moustache.  While doing so, Poe became maudlin and started threatening suicide. Poe described his latest debauch to Sartain.  Poe had been arrested for public drunkenness and taken to Moyamensing prison for trial.  When the Judge identified Poe as "Poe, the poet," he released Poe without imposing the customary fine.  Poe told Sartain that he had experienced hallucinations about his aunt and mother-in-law Maria "Muddy" Clemm during his brief confinement in prison.

	Moyamensing Prison

In the morning, Poe appeared to have come to himself.  Sartain felt it was okay for Poe to leave his house by himself. Curiously, Poe returned a few hours later and explained that his fears and hallucinations were all figments of his all too vivid imagination.

EAP to Maria Clemm, July 7, 1849
EAP to Maria Clemm, July 19, 1849

A few days later, Sartain purchased Poe's third revision of "The Bells" for five dollars as well as his last poem "Annabel Lee" for another five dollars.

(After Poe's death, the Griswold crowd made a big fuss over these three payments for "The Bells," suggesting Poe had pulled a fast one on Sartain. However, Sartain explained he had honestly and purposely paid for three different versions of the poem.)

Before leaving Philadelphia for Baltimore (and then to Richmond), Poe made the rounds of his friends hoping to borrow money for his trip.  Sartain and his clerk, William F. Miskey, gave Poe some money.

Sartain never saw Poe again.  Poe died on October 7, 1849.

Using the 1845 oil painting of Poe by Samuel Stillman Osgood, Sartain created a mezzotint engraving featured on the frontispiece of Griswold's 1850 "Collected Works of Poe" and on J.J. Moran's A Defense of Edgar Allan Poe published in 1885.

Sartain's Poe - Osgood Engraving

Despite critical success, Sartain's Union Magazine ceased publication in 1852. Never a financial success, Sartain spent several years paying off its debts.

John and his wife Susannah raised eight children.  Three of them, Samuel, William, and Emily, became prominent members of the art world.

Besides being an engraver, Sartain painted in oils and watercolors.  He involved himself in art education, serving as a director of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and on the board of the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art and Design).  In 1876, he also served as the art director for the Centennial Exposition.  He participated in the design of the Washington Memorial. While touring Europe, the King of Italy conferred on him the royal title of "Cavaliere."

Sartain wrote an article describing his last encounters with Poe, which was published in the Boston Evening Transcript on February 25, 1893.  Sartain expanded the essay and included it in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine for 1889 and in his Reminiscences of a Very Old Man published posthumously in 1899.

John Sartain died in Philadelphia on October 25, 1897.

Down to the last, Sartain continued to defend Poe against his ignorant critics and Griswold's lies.  In his remembrances, he paints Griswold as a villain to all.

"Poe's Last Days" by John Sartain

"Griswold was a notorious blackmailer, and I myself had to pay him money to prevent abusive notices of Sartain's Magazine."

--- John Sartain, Poe friend and defender

JOHN SARTAIN ENGRAVINGS

"Eugenie"
"Eugenie and Court"
"Mother and Child"
"Mother's Pet"
"Playmates"
"Spoiled Child"
"The Muses"
"The Pets"