EDGAR ALLAN POE *..

His Life, Letters, and Opinions.

BY

JOHN H. INGRAM.

"Unhappy Master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his Songs one burden bore--
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of' Never, nevermore.'

PREFACE.

At last, after several years of research, I am enabled to place a full and faithful life of Edgar Allan Poe before the world. It was due to myself, due to the public, and due to the memory of a much maligned man, that the short, vindicatory "Memoir" prefixed to my edition of Poe's Works in 1874,* and my essays on his Life and Works-published before and after that sketch-should culminate in such a work as this. When that "Memoir of Poe" was published, I drew attention to the fact that no trustworthy biography of the poet had yet appeared in his own country, although that such a work had been frequently projected was then pointed out. Since the publication of my sketch, however, and its substitution in America for Griswold's so-called "Memoir of Poe,"

* Edinburgh: A. & C. Black. vols.