PoeForward.com

POE: Influences Friends Enemies Women

Friends: Sartain Willis

HOME

POE

EVENTS

POETRY

GALLERIES

DEAD GIRLS

LIBRARY

ABOUT US

Nathaniel
Parker
Willis

1807 - 1867

Unlike Poe's relationship with James Russell Lowell (they started as friends and became enemies), Poe and Willis began as enemies and became friends.

Nathaniel Parker Willis came from a long line of religious figures dating back to 17th century England. His ancestors emigrated from England to Boston. When his maternal ancestor, the Reverend John Bailey died in 1697, his funeral sermon was delivered by the Reverend Cotton Mather (the Salem Witch Trials) - a true American Gothic connection.

Nathaniel Parker Willis was born in Portland, Maine on January 20, 1807. As a youth, he attended the Latin School of Boston and the Phillips Academy at Andover. He graduated from Yale in 1827. While in college he published several religious pieces of poetry and won a prize for his poem "The Album."

After his graduation, Willis became the editor of "The Legendary" and then the "American Monthly Magazine," which later merged with the "New York Mirror."

In 1829, twenty-two year old Willis negatively reviewed twenty year old Poe's poem, "Fairyland." In his column, "The Editor's Table," Willis joked about consigning the manuscript to the flames.

"Fairyland," by Edgar A. Poe

"It is quite exciting to lean over eagerly as the flame eats in upon the letters, and make out the imperfect sentences and trace the faint strokes in the tinder as it trembles in the ascending air of the chimney. There, for instance, goes a gilt-edged sheet which we remember was covered with some sickly rhymes on Fairyland…Now it (the flame) flashes up in a broad blaze, and now it reaches a marked verse -- let us see -- the fire devours as we read:
They use that moon no more
For the same end as before -
Videlicet, a tent,
Which I think extravagant.

Burn on, good fire!"

--- N. P. Willis 

After this Willis gave up his editorial work and spent four years traveling in Europe and hobnobbing with royalty. In 1835, he married Mary Leighton Stace, daughter of the Commissary General William Stace, a distinguished officer who enjoyed a large pension from the British government for his gallant conduct at Waterloo. Immediately after his marriage, Mr. Willis returned to America and settled down to an early "retirement" on a rural estate "Glenmary" in the valley of the Susquehanna from which he wrote Letters from Under a Bridge.

About this time, Poe got his revenge when he published "Lionizing" in the May 1835 edition of the Southern Literary Messenger, which satirized Willis's hobnobbing with royalty.

A "lion" is a celebrity who is socially sought after without the established criteria for the value of the reason for that celebrity status. Like many media figures today, a "lion" is a person who is famous for merely being famous.

"Lionizing," by Edgar A. Poe

"Lionizing, by Mr. Poe, is an inimitable piece of wit and satire and the man must be far gone in a melancholic humor, whose risibility is not moved by this tale. Although the scene of the story is laid in the foreign city of 'Fum Fudge,' the disposition which it satirizes is often displayed in the cities of this country -- even in our own community, and will probably still continue to exist, unless Mrs. Frances Anne Butler's Journal should have disgusted the fashionable world with Lions."

--- Edward V. Sparhawk, SLM Editor, June 11, 1835

"Lionizing, a tale by Edgar A. Poe, is an admirable piece of burlesque, which displays much reading, a lively humor, and an ability to afford amusement or instruction, according to the direction he may chose to give his pen, which should not be suffered to lie unemployed, and will not, we trust, be neglected."

--- The Baltimore Republican, June 13, 1835

"Mr. Edgar A. Poe, a writer of much versatility of talent, has contributed much to this number (November issue of SLM). He is a magazinist somewhat in the style of Willis: he needs condensation of thought. But this is too flippant criticism for us, and we will read him more."

--- New York Spirit of the Times, January 1836

In the August 1836 SLM, Poe reviewed Willis' "Inklings of Adventure" and included his interpretation of Willis' signature in "Autography."

"N. P. Willis," Autography, by Edgar A. Poe

After the death of his father-in-law and the loss of his wife's "fortune," Willis returned to literary work in New York, establishing the weekly journal, " The Corsair: a Gazette of Literature, Art, Dramatic Criticism," with a partner, Dr. T.A. Porter. While in Europe on business and to visit his wife's relatives, Willis published an anthology of his magazine stories, poems, and letters, titled Loiterings of Travel. He also published his two plays "Bianca Visconti" and "Tortesa, the Usurer," with the joint title Two Ways of Dying for a Husband.

In December 1838, while serving as the British correspondent for the New York Mirror, Willis reviewed Poe's tale "Ligeia."

"The American Museum has certainly put out a first number of uncommon cleverness…in a tale called Ligeia, by Mr. Poe, there is a fine march of description, which has a touch of D'Israeli's quality, and is worthy of a more intelligible sequel."

--- N.P. Willis, New York Mirror, December 1838

"Ligeia," by Edgar A. Poe

On his return to New York, he found that his business partner Dr. Porter had suddenly abandoned their journal in discouragement.

Willis strode forward. On June 20, 1839, Willis' "Tortesa, the Usurer" opened at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia. Poe attended the performance and favorably reviewed the play.

In March 1840, Poe reviewed Willis' Romance of Travel in Burton's Magazine.

EAP review of N. P. Willis's Romance of Travel

In June 1841, Poe, now the editor of Graham's Magazine, began writing Willis, soliciting his literary contributions. Willis responded, "I am very happy to promise you the best I can do for your Magazine. My predilections I may say are very much with you."

However, Willis was contracted with Louis Godey's Lady's Book and couldn't submit his work to Poe. "I am very sorry to refuse anything to a writer whom I so much admire as yourself, and to a Magazine as good as Graham's."

In January 1843, the first edition of the Pioneer Magazine included Poe's story "The Tell-Tale Heart."

"The Tell-Tale Heart," by Edgar A. Poe

"Mr. Poe's contribution is very wild and very readable, and that is the only thing in the number that most people would read and remember."

--- N.P. Willis, Brother Jonathan, January 7, 1843

George P. Morris

In April 1843, Willis and George P. Morris issued the first number of their New Mirror. In July, the first volume of "The Prose Romances of Edgar A. Poe" was published in pamphlet form containing "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Man That was Used Up."

"Few writers of fiction are at all comparable with this fine author for clearness of plot and individuality of character. The first number contains a most thrilling story as well as a laughable sketch."

--- N.P. Willis & George P. Morris, New Mirror, September 9, 1843

In the New York annual, the Opal, for 1844, editor Willis included Poe's sketch "Morning on the Wissahiccon."

"Morning on the Wissahiccon," by Edgar A. Poe

In May 1844, Poe submitted "The Oblong Box" to Willis, but Willis replied that the Mirror couldn't pay for original contributions. (Without copyright laws, American publishers reprinted work from other papers without compensating the authors.)

"The Oblong Box," by Edgar A. Poe

While the relationship between Poe and Willis appears to have been warming up for the past several years, in June 1844, Poe used his familiar "tomahawk" style to criticize Willis.

"In retirement he might have accomplished much, both for himself and for posterity; but, chained to the oar of a mere weekly paper, professedly addressing the frivolous and the fashionable, what can he now hope for but a gradual sinking into the slough of the Public Disregard?"

--- E.A.P., Spy, June 29, 1844

However, in July, Poe quoted "the best" of Willis' poems, "Unseen Spirits."

"Unseen Spirits," by N. P. Willis

In September 1844, Willis and Morris ceased publication of the New Mirror, a weekly magazine, and began publication of the Evening Mirror as a daily newspaper with a weekly edition. Sometime soon after, Maria "Muddy" Clemm, Edgar's devoted aunt and mother-in-law, called on Willis, seeking employment for Poe. In October, Willis hired Poe as his assistant editor.

"It was rather a step downward, after being the chief editor of several monthlies, as Poe had been, to come into the office of a daily journal as a mechanical paragraphist. It was his business to sit at a desk, in a corner of the editorial room, ready to be called upon for any of the miscellaneous work of the moment -- announcing news, condensing statements, answering correspondents, noticing amusements -- everything but the writing of a "leader," or constructing any article upon which his peculiar idiosyncrasy of mind could be impressed. Yet you remember how absolutely and how good-humoredly ready he was for any suggestion, how punctually and industriously reliable, in the following out of the wish once expressed, how cheerful and present-minded in his work when he might excusably have been so listless and abstracted. We loved the man for the entireness of fidelity with which he served us -- himself, or any vanity of his own, so utterly put aside. When he left us we were very reluctant to part with him, but we could not object, as it was to better his fortunes. He was to take the lead in another periodical."

--- N.P. Willis to George P. Morris, Home Journal, October 30, 1858

In his October 1844 editorial "Authors' Pay in America," Willis introduced Poe to the paper's audience and argued that authors, not publishers, should receive the bulk of the profits from the sale of books. (It is possible Poe wrote this editorial himself.)

In January 1845, the Broadway Journal contained Poe's
"American Prose Writers, No. 2: N. P. Willis."

"American Prose Writers, No. 2: N. P. Willis."

When the Evening Mirror reprinted James Russell Lowell's sketch of Poe in the January 1845 issue, Willis flattered Poe and solicited more work for the still struggling poet.

"From Graham's Magazine, we copy a biographical and critical sketch of the American Rhadamanthus, done with Lowell's broad and honest appreciation and giving us a coup de'oeil, of the position and powers of Mr. Poe, which is of great interest to the public that feels him. We wonder, by the way, that, with so fine a critic at command for an editor, some New York publisher does not establish a Monthly Review, devoted exclusively to high critical purposes. Poe has genius and taste of his own, as well as the necessary science, and the finest discriminative powers; and such a wheel of literature should not be without axle and linch-pin. Mr. Poe is now residing in New York, and ready, we presume, for propositions."

--- N.P. Willis, Evening Mirror, January 20, 1845

"Edgar A. Poe," James Russell Lowell

Willis became instrumental in Poe's long-awaited fame and recognition by being the first to publish his poetical masterpiece "The Raven."

"We are permitted to copy (in advance of publication) from the second number of the American Review, the following remarkable poem by Edgar Poe. In our opinion, it is the most effective single example of "fugitive poetry" ever published in this country; and unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification, and consistent, sustaining of imaginative lift and 'pokerishness.' It is one of these 'dainties bred in a book' which we feed on. It will stick to the memory of everybody who reads it."

--- N.P. Willis, Evening Mirror, January 29, 1845

"The Raven," Edgar A. Poe

Willis' friendship with Poe remained invaluable, particularly when he defended Poe's unfavorable review of Longfellow's The Waif.  

EAP review of Longfellow's "The Waif"

Even when publishing colleague Graham asked Willis to publish a retraction to Poe's review, Willis acquiesced, but flippantly.

"To gratify a friend (Graham) we say that if our playful notice of our assistant critic's notice of 'Longfellow's Waif,' a few days since, did not give the impression that we (Willis) fully dissented from our assistant as to the charge against Longfellow for enviously leaving out of his book such poets as competed with himself -- dissented from all the disparagement of Longfellow in this review, and only let it pass for good reasons given at length in this same article -- if that impression was not given, it was not the fault of the fullest intention to that effect. We meant to do so, and we think it was so understood, -- but for a friend for whom we would do a much more unreasonable thing, we thus draw the nail and drive it again."

--- N.P. Willis, Evening Mirror, February 14, 1845

Poe's public and critical success with "The Raven" led to his developing a promising career as a lecturer. Before Poe presented his February 28, 1845 lecture on the "Poets of America" at the Society Library in New York City, Willis publicized the event to come with all the passion of a modern day advertising executive - albeit a literate one.

"The decapitation of the criminal who did not know his head was off till it fell into his hand conveys an idea of the Damascene slicing of the critical blade of Mr. Poe. On Friday night we are to have his 'Lecture on the Poets of America,' and those who would witness fine carving will probably be there."

---N.P. Willis, Evening Mirror, February 27, 1845

Willis reviewed Poe's performance with great enthusiasm and described Poe's manner on the rostrum:

"He becomes a desk, -- his beautiful head showing like a statuary embodiment of Discrimination; his accent drops like a knife through water, and his style is so much purer and clearer than the pulpit commonly gets or requires, that the effect of what he says, besides other things, pampers the ear."

--- N.P. Willis, Evening Mirror, March 1, 1845

Willis' attempts to better Poe's employment situation finally paid off. Due to his rave reviews and newfound celebrity status, Poe acquired a third interest in the Broadway Journal and joined the editorial staff including C. F. Briggs and H.C. Watson in March 1845.

C. F. Briggs

Perhaps Willis' greatest contribution to Poe's life, besides publishing "The Raven" and praising him publicly as a genius, was introducing him to Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood, later that March. Osgood, an attractive poetess, had recently become estranged from her painter husband. Poe and Fanny would have a brief love affair broken apart by the "bluestocking" scandal over her love letters to him. (It is further possible they had a child together named "Fanny Pay." Mr. Osgood reconciled with his wife and accepted the child as his own. Unfortunately, the child died a year or so later.)

Frances Sargent Osgood

In December 1845, Willis and Morris retired from the Evening Journal, leaving the paper in the hands of the third partner Hiram Fuller. The strain of running a daily paper, as well as the death of his wife, led to a physical breakdown for Willis. He traveled to Europe to recuperate.

When he returned, Willis married Cornelia, the only daughter of the Honorable Joseph Grinnell, a member of Congress from Massachusetts. By his second marriage, Willis had three children, one son and two daughters.

In April 1846, Godey's Lady's Book published Poe's "The Literati of New York City," including his essay on the work of N.P. Willis.

"The Literati of New York City: N.P. Willis," by Edgar A. Poe

When Briggs involved himself in Poe's feud with Longfellow, Willis advised him not to respond to Brigg's criticisms at all. Willis was certain any reply by Poe would advance Briggs' career rather than hurt it.

"Why reply directly to Mr. Briggs? If you want a shuttlecock squib to fall on the ground, never battledore it straight back. Mr. B's attacks on me I never saw, and never shall see. I keep a good-sense-ometer who reads the papers and tells me if there is anything worth replying to, but nothing is that is written by a man who will be honored by the reply. A reply from me to Mr. Briggs would make the man. So will yours, if you exalt him into your mate by contending on equal terms."

--- N. P. Wills to EAP, May 26, 1846 

N. P. Wills to EAP, May 26, 1846

In November 1846, Willis and Morris began editing the weekly Home Journal.

Throughout 1846, Poe suffered the "bluestocking" scandal, quarrels with others of the literati including his war with Longfellow, ill health and the closing of the Broadway Journal. Towards the end of the year, Poe's wife Virginia laid on her deathbed in their Fordham cottage.

Perhaps as a result of his own illness and need for time to recuperate, Willis had long believed in the establishment of an institution to assist the educated and refined persons who should become disabled or impoverished. In the Home Journal for December 26, Willis wrote an editorial, notifying the literary world of Poe's impoverishment and distress.

"Mr. Edgar A. Poe and his wife…both dangerously ill and suffering for want of the common necessaries of life. Here is one of the most industrious of the literary profession of our country, whose temporary suspension of labour, from bodily illness, drops him immediately to a level with the common objects of public charity…We received yesterday a letter from an anonymous hand, expressing high admiration for Mr. Poe's genius, and enclosing a sum of money, with a request that we would forward it to him."

--- N.P. Willis, Home Journal, December 26, 1846

Willis offered to forward any other "tribute of sympathy" to the Poe family. As a concerned friend and a gentleman, Willis went on to write Poe, checking in on whether he would be offended or not, enclosing the editorial, the anonymous letter mentioned in it, and a poem by Mrs. Jane Ermina Locke titled, "An Invocation for Suffering Genius."

"The enclosed speaks for itself -- the letter, that is to say. Have I done right or wrong in the enclosed editorial? It was a kind of thing I could only do without asking you, and may express anger about it if you like in print. Please write me whether you are suffering or not, and if so, let us do something systematically for you."

--- N. P. Willis to EAP, December 23, 1846

EAP to Willis, December 30, 1846

After Virginia's death on January 30, 1847. N.P. Willis (and his partner Morris) attended her funeral on February 2nd in Fordham.

"Mrs. Poe was an estimable woman and an excellent wife. Her loss is mourned by a numerous circle of friends."

--- Willis & Morris, Home Journal, February 6, 1847

In January 1848, Willis published Poe's poem "Ulalume: A Ballad." Poe requested it be printed anonymously as it referred to two different married women. For some time, people thought Willis wrote the poem.

"Ulalume: A Ballad," by Edgar A. Poe

Poe wrote to him about his desire to establish his own magazine entirely out of the control of a publisher called the Stylus.

EAP to N. P. Willis, January 22, 1848

Poe asked Willis to advertise his upcoming lecture on "the Universe." (This lecture would later become his philosophical-scientific treatise titled "Eureka.")

"The subject is rather a broad one -- 'The Universe;' but from a mind so original, no text could furnish any clue to what would probably be the sermon. There is but one thing certain about it, that it will be compact of thought, most fresh, startling, and suggestive…If there be in the world a born anatomist of thought, it is Mr. Poe. He takes genius and its imitation to pieces with a skill wholly unequalled on either side of the water."

--- N.P. Willis, Home Journal, February 3, 1848

The Home Journal did not offer a review of his lecture (Willis was confined to bed during February and March), but reprinted a favorable review from the Albion.

In April 1849, Poe asked Willis to republish his poem, "For Annie" in the Home Journal.

"For Annie," by Edgar A. Poe

"I have not forgotten how a 'good word in season' from you made 'The Raven," and made "Ulalume,' (which, by-the-way, people have done me the honor of attributing to you) --- therefore I would ask you (if I dared,) to say something of these lines -- if they please you."

--- EAP to Willis, April 20, 1849

When the poem was published, Willis included a preface:

"The following exquisite specimen of the private property in words has been sent us by a friend…Poe certainly has that gift of nature, which an abstract man should be most proud of -- a type of mind different from all others without being less truthful in its perceptions for that difference; and though (to use two long words) this kind of idiosyncracy is necessarily idiopathic, and, from want of sympathy, cannot be largely popular, it is as valuable as rarity in any thing else, and to be admired by connoisseurs proportionately. Money (to tell a useless truth) could not be better laid out for the honor of this period of American literature --neither by the government, by a society, nor by an individual -- than in giving Edgar Poe a competent annuity, on condition that he should never write except upon impulse, never dilute his thoughts for the magazines, and never publish anything till it had been written a year. And this because the threatening dropsy of our country's literature is its copying the gregariousness which prevails in everything else, while Mr. Poe is not only peculiar in himself, but unsusceptible of imitation. We have Bulwers by hundreds, Mrs. Hemanses by thousands, Byrons common as shirt-collars, every kinbd of writer 'by the lot," and less of individualesque genius than any other country in the world."

--- N.P. Willis, Home Journal, April 21, 1849

Around June 1849, Poe informed Maria Clemm that, in the event of his death, he would like Nathaniel P. Willis to write "observations upon his life and character in vindication of his memory."

Poe died on October 7, 1849.

Maria Clemm wrote N.P. Willis, asking for his help.

"I have this morning heard of the death of my darling Eddie…Can you give me any circumstances or particulars…I need not ask you to notice his death and to speak well of him. I know you will. But say what an affectionate son he was to me, his poor desolate mother."

--- Maria Clemm to N.P. Willis, October 9, 1849

After Poe's death, his chief rival and archenemy, the Reverend Rufus Griswold, took control of his estate and became his literary executor. As a result of Griswold's slanderous obituary and the "Memoir of the Author" published in his collected works of Poe in 1850, Poe's reputation suffered with falsehoods manufactured by Griswold himself, and, despite the corrections of his friends and scholars, continue to mar his character till this day.

If only N.P. Willis had become Poe's literary executor. How the world would have relished Poe's genius even more, been compassionate about his alcoholism and impoverishment, and not dwelled on Griswold's lies concerning his character.

On the Saturday following Poe's death, N.P. Willis' obituary of Edgar Poe appeared in the Home Journal.

N. P. WILLIS - "Death of Edgar Allan Poe"

Willis' defense of Poe continued until his death.

At heart a traveler, Willis toured the Southern and Western States and the West Indies. He spent his last years at "Idlewild," his estate near Newburgh, on the Hudson River. N.P. Willis died at Idlewild on January 20, 1867. A complete edition of his poems appeared in 1868. Today, he and his works are forgotten. All that remains is his friendship with Edgar A. Poe.

N. P. Willis' Poems

"Unseen Spirits"

 "The Belfry Pigeon"

"The Annoyer"

"Love in a Cottage"

"Little Florence Gray"

  
N. P. Willis' Prose

"The Pay For Periodical Writing"

"Authors' Pay In America"

Friends: Sartain Willis

POE: Influences Friends Enemies Women