WCP3530

[1]

Broadstone, Wimborne

England.

May 25th. 1905

Dewitt Miller¹Esq.

Dear Sir

The origins of Leonainie remains to me as much a mystery as ever. My second article in the Fortnightly Review² of April 1904, not having elicited from Mr. Riley³ any defense of his special version of the poem, which I have impugned as in many places unmeaning and inconsistent — I am more than ever convinced that he did not compose it. I know of no other writer than Poe⁴ to whom to impute it.

[2] In the New York Sun of April 14th ¹⁹⁰⁴is an article giving "a statement" by Riley, blaming himself in an agg exaggerated way for the hoax, but giving no further particulars whatever, & concluding with these words –

"Even as it is now, there is nothing for it me to do but to acknowledge that I wrote it, as I do; but that does not stand, since I once denied being the author. I wrote it, but I did not; I did not write it, but I did, and I am a liar any way you put it."

Now if he wrote the above after he had seen my second article, it is an evasion of the whole of the [3] points at issue. He replies to none of my criticisms or difficulties.

If he wrote it without having seen my 2nd article, why does he not reply to that, defend his own version; and point out what he meant by it.

To me there is an ideality, a high poetic imagination in Leonainie which none of Riley's verses I have seen make any approach to. He has poetic feeling but not poetic imagination.

I hope you will be able to [4] throw some light on this curious problem.

Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

I see the New York Sun prints it twice "Leonaine" instead of "Leonainie".