WCP4919

Letter (WCP4919.5332)

[1]

Broadstone, Dorset.

March 1st. 1904

E. Marriott Esq.

Dear Mr. Marriott

You will no doubt have seen Mr. Robb’s letter in this month’s "Fortnightly". I have written to him, and also to Mr. Law, to try & get the matter cleared up. This morning Mr. Courtney1 sends me a cutting from the Glasgow Herald of Feb[ruary]. 20. giving a slight modification of Mr. Robb's story, as being the actual "clever hoax" practised by Riley2 & his friend, as related in "American Humourists Recent & Living" by Mr. Robert Ford3, published by Gardner [2] (of Paisley) " a few years ago". Perhaps you have this work, & can see if dates are given, if the book in wh[ich]. the poem was written when "discovered" is still in existence — whether the paper ink &c were imitated as at least 25 years old. I have now looked through 4 vol[ume]s. of Riley & can find no sign of his being able to write Leonainie with all its defects.

Did you see Ingram's4 contemptuous letter in "Daily Chronicle" of Feb[ruary]. 4th. — just such as you thought he would write. All the expressions he sneers at offended me, at first, but with use I see they may be [3] defended as poetic imagery & licence, especially in a rough draft — in Poe's5 "Paean" — the early poem which was afterward modified into the exquisite "Lenore" there are things worse than any in "Leonainie".

I think now we ought to have Riley's own full account of his hoax, with names places & dates all given, & why he did not include it in his earliest vol[ume]s. — & why he has not written anything in the same style since — but perhaps he has, in the volume "Afterwhiles" which I am waiting for from America.

Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

[4]6

1
Courtney, William Leonard (1850 — 1928). British writer and editor.
2
Riley, James Whitcomb (1849 — 1916). American poet and author.
3
Ford, Robert (1846 — 1905). Writer.
4
Ingram, John Henry (1842 — 1916). British writer, biographer of Edward Allen Poe and editor of a Poe collection.
5
Poe, Edgar Allen (1809 — 1849). American author and poet.
6
A pencil sketch is on the bottom half of the blank fourth page, subject unknown.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP4919.5332)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcription checked by Benny, Ruth [2014-06-25] Transcribed by Humphries, Ceri [2014-07-10] Transcription checked by Sherwood, Danni [2020-08-10]

Published letter (WCP4919.5506)

[1]1 [p. 16]

Broadstone, Dorset.

March 1st. 1904.

E. Marriott, Esq.

Dear Mr. Marriott:

You will no doubt have seen Mr. Robb's letter in this month's "Fortnightly." I have written to him, and also to Mr. Law, to try & get the matter cleared up. This morning Mr. Courtney sends me a cutting from the Glasgow Herald of Feb. 20 giving a slight modification of Mr. Robb's story, as being the actual "clever hoax" practised by Riley & his friend, as related in "American Humourists recent & living" by Mr. Robert Ford, published by Gardner (of Paisley) "a few years ago". Perhaps you have this work, & can see if dates are given, if the book in wh. the poem was written when "discovered" is still in existence—whether the paper ink &c. were imitated as at least 25 years old. I have now looked through 4 vols. of Riley & can find no sign of his being able to write Leonainie with all its defects.

[2] [p. 17] Did you see Ingrams' contemptuous letter in "Daily Chronicle" of Feb. 4th.—just such as you thought he would write. All the expressions he sneers at offended me, at first, but with use I see they may be defended as poetic imagery & license, especially in a rough draft—In Poe's "Paean"—the early poem which was afterward modified into the exquisite "Lenore" there are things worse than any in "Leonainie".

I think now we ought to have Riley's own full account of his hoax, with names places & dates all given, & why he did not include it in his earliest vols.—& why he has not written anything in the same style since—but perhaps he has in the volume "Afterwhiles" which I am waiting for from America.

Yours very truly,

(signed) Alfred R. Wallace.

1
Editor Charles H. Smith's Note: Thirteenth of fifteen letters in a pamphlet, a background to which is as follows: In 1904 Wallace published a pair of short essays (S612 and S614) describing what he had mistakenly taken to be a previously unknown poem by Edgar Allan Poe. This turned out to be a hoax that had been perpetrated by the Indiana writer James Whitcomb Riley some years earlier. In late 1903 Wallace had entered into a correspondence with the literary figure Ernest Marriott about this matter; sometime later Wallace's part of the correspondence—seventeen letters in all (actually, fifteen separately dated ones)—was collected and turned into a privately printed pamphlet. Who did this and when it was done is unknown, though it could not have taken place any later than 1930 (by which time both Wallace and Marriott were long dead), the date a copy of the pamphlet was added to the New York Public Library's collection.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Published letter (WCP4919.5506)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Smith, Charles Hyde [2013-02-07] Transcription checked by Catchpole, Caroline [2013-02-08]

Please cite as “WCP4919,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP4919