The Beautiful Cigar Girl

by Daniel Stashower

  By the following year, the success of Poe’s lectures and “The Gold-Bug” had faded. As the family fell back into a state of destitution, Poe decided that Philadelphia held no more promise for him. In April of 1844, with barely five dollars to his name, Poe decided to return to New York—“where I intend living for the future”—to make a final stab at literary success.

  The moment of his greatest fame was at hand, but first he would have to write the final chapter in the saga of the beautiful cigar girl.

  PART FOUR

  The Lady Sleeps

  “…a corpse had just been towed ashore by some fishermen, who had found it floating in the river.”

  Illustration of “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,” from an 1852 edition of Poe’s stories.

  Courtesy of The Library of Congress

  The lady sleeps: oh! may her sleep

  As it is lasting so be deep—

  No icy worms about her creep.

  I pray to God that she may lie

  Forever with as calm an eye,

  That chamber chang’d for one more holy—

  That bed for one more melancholy.

  —Edgar Allan Poe, “Irene”

  XIX

  It May Not Be Improper to Record

  ON APRIL 13, 1844, barely a week after Edgar Allan Poe’s return to New York, a dramatic story broke in the pages of the New York Sun. “Astounding Intelligence By Private Express From Charleston Via Norfolk!” announced a special stop-press broadside. “Atlantic Ocean Crossed in Three Days!” The “gripping exclusive” went on to inform readers that a group of “valiant and greatly daring men of science” had contrived to cross from Dover, England, to Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina, in a hot-air balloon. Given the fact that the previous distance record for a hot-air balloon was some twelve miles, the news of a transatlantic crossing, with its “breathless drama and constant peril above the icy waves,” caused a major sensation. A large crowd gathered at the offices of the Sun, eager for further news. The newspaper promised that additional details would be available shortly.

  It soon emerged that the story was an elaborate hoax orchestrated by Poe, in the tradition of Richard Adams Locke’s “Great Moon Hoax,” published in the Sun nine years earlier. Initially, Poe was gratified by the strong response to the story: “I never witnessed more intense excitement to get possession of a newspaper,” he declared. “As soon as the first few copies made their way into the streets, they were bought up, at almost any price, from the news-boys, who made a profitable speculation beyond doubt. I saw a half-dollar given, in one instance, for a single paper, and a shilling was a frequent price. I tried in vain during the whole day to get possession of a copy.”

  After two days, when sales of the special edition had exceeded fifty thousand copies, the Sun felt obliged to print a retraction. The editors offered a winking declaration that they were “inclined to believe that the intelligence is erroneous,” but added that they “by no means think such a project impossible.” For Poe, the article proved to be a mistake. He had hoped that the success of the hoax would help him to find his footing in New York, but the episode ultimately had the opposite effect, reinforcing the notion among editors that he was not trustworthy.

  In spite of this misstep, Poe was determined to put the best possible face on his return to New York. While Aunt Maria remained behind to wind up the family’s affairs in Philadelphia, Poe and Virginia found comfortable rooms in a boardinghouse at 130 Greenwich Street. Poe sent an ecstatic letter to his mother-in-law, describing the bounty of its table: “Last night, for supper, we had the nicest tea you ever drank, strong & hot—wheat bread & rye bread—cheese—tea cakes (elegant) a great dish (2 dishes) of elegant ham, and 2 of cold veal, piled up like a mountain and large slices—3 dishes of the cakes, and everything in the greatest profusion.” He added: “No fear of starving here.”

  Poe seemed equally effusive in presenting New York as a restorative for Virginia’s health, as well as his own. “[W]e are both in excellent spirits,” he wrote. “She has coughed hardly any and had no night sweat. She is now busy mending my pants which I tore against a nail.…I feel in excellent spirits & haven’t drank a drop—so that I hope to get out of trouble.”

  For all of Poe’s optimism, within weeks the familiar pattern of itinerant poverty resumed. As Mrs. Clemm joined them in New York, the household progressed through a series of more humble lodgings, ranging from an isolated house at Eighty-fourth Street and Broadway—then at the center of two hundred acres of farmland—to a modest set of rooms near Washington Square. Although Poe continued his lectures with some success, he was frequently reduced to seeking loans from his shrinking circle of friends.

  One month after his arrival in New York, Poe took a position at the New York Evening Mirror as an assistant editor and “mechanical paragraphist,” or writer of anonymous filler material. The editor, Nathaniel Willis, would later describe his duties in fairly bleak terms: “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.” This was quite a step down from Poe’s work at Graham’s and Burton’s, and a far cry from his dream of editing his own journal. Even so, Poe felt grateful to Willis for his fifteen dollars a week. He would later praise the editor as someone who “has made a good deal of noise in the world—at least for an American.”

  As it happened, the offices of the Mirror stood at the corner of Nassau and Ann streets, a few steps from the site of the Rogers boardinghouse. By this time Phoebe Rogers had long since closed her doors, finding herself unable to run the boardinghouse without her daughter’s help. She now lived with one of her sisters, and the house on Nassau Street had stood empty for several months. Many in the neighborhood believed it to be haunted, and tales were told of a dark-eyed apparition peering out from the upper windows.

  As Poe settled into the routine of the neighborhood, the memory of Mary Rogers made itself felt in his work. In a series of letters published in a Pennsylvania newspaper called the Columbia Spy, he offered a despairing comment on the unsolved case. “It is difficult to conceive anything more preposterous than the whole conduct…of the Mary Rogers affair,” he wrote. “The police seemed blown about, in all directions, by every varying puff of the most unconsidered newspaper opinion. The truth, as an end, appeared to be lost sight of altogether. The magistracy suffered the murderer to escape, while they amused themselves with playing court, and chopping the technicalities of jurisprudence.” Although he avoided any mention of his own attempt to illuminate the mystery, Poe suggested a line of inquiry that clearly recalled “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.” “Not the least usual error, in such investigations, is the limiting of inquiry to the immediate, with total disregard of the collateral, or circumstantial events,” he declared. “It is malpractice to confine evidence and discussion too vigorously within the limits of the seemingly relevant. Experience has shown, and Philosophy will always show, that a vast portion, perhaps the larger portion of truth, arises from the apparently irrelevant. It is through the spirit of this principle that modern science has resolved to calculate upon the unforseen.”

  Poe’s interest in the case may have been rekindled by the success of a new potboiler novel entitled The Beautiful Cigar Girl: or the Mysteries of Broadway. The author, J. H. Ingraham, was a prolific writer whose work frequently appeared in Snowden’s Ladies’ Companion, where he may have seen and drawn inspiration from “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.” Ingraham’s novel traced the misfortunes of a “modest, sensible and industrious” young woman named Mary Cecilia, who finds employment in a New York cigar store. “The reputation of her charms,” Ingraham wrote, “of her modesty, and of her exceeding grace in conversation, for she was alike affable to all, spread throughout the city, and the
Beautiful Cigar-Girl became the theme of every young man’s conversation in the city. Hundreds visited there only to see her, and those who never smoked cigars, now lounged in there to purchase them, that they might behold her, who had turned the heads of half the young men in town. Her beauty impressed not only the gentlemen; for the ladies as they passed en promenade, would linger to glance in at the beautiful Cigar-Girl.”

  As related by Ingraham, the young woman’s life is nothing if not eventful; she endures not one but three kidnappings, culminating in headlines that report a “HORRIBLE SUSPICION OF MURDER!” In case any of his readers might have failed to recognize the inspiration of the tale, Ingraham paused to give a helpful reminder of the real-life drama and the “fruitless issue of the investigations that followed her disappearance, and the deep mystery which to this hour, envelopes, like the pall of the tomb, the whole of this painful and most extraordinary affair.” Unlike Poe, Ingraham made no further effort to parallel the progress of the actual crime; instead, he offered a contrived if happy ending in which Mary Cecilia was found to be alive and well in England, having captured the heart of a British aristocrat.

  Poe himself made a further reference to the saga in “The Purloined Letter,” which appeared in December of that year. The story marked the third appearance of C. Auguste Dupin and his unnamed companion, who are found at the beginning of the narrative in yet another period of “profound silence,” mulling over their past experiences: “I mean the affair of the Rue Morgue,” says the narrator, “and the mystery attending the murder of Marie Rogêt.” Soon enough their reverie is interrupted by the arrival of Monsieur G——, the prefect of the Paris police, who seeks Dupin’s assistance in recovering a highly incriminating letter that has been stolen from the royal apartments. Dupin agrees, after negotiating a generous fee.

  The problem of the missing letter proves highly unusual in that the identity of the villain is known at the outset. He is Minister D——, a man of extraordinary cunning, who plans to use the document to gain political advantage. Hoping to avoid a scandal, the author of the letter, “a personage of most exalted station,” is relying on the ingenuity and discretion of the prefect. (“Than whom,” Dupin comments archly, “no more sagacious agent could, I suppose, be desired, or even imagined.”) As Dupin considers the dilemma, he notes that the prefect has erred in “the supposition that the Minister is a fool, because he has acquired renown as a poet. All fools are poets; this the Prefect feels; and he is merely guilty of a non distributio medii in thence inferring that all poets are fools.” Dupin, himself a poet, makes no such mistake. He reexamines the problem from the minister’s perspective, attempting to mimic his adversary’s likely chain of thought, and concludes that the missing letter has been hidden in plain sight. By substituting a facsimile for the genuine article, Dupin is able to recover the letter and save the reputation of his exalted client.

  “The Purloined Letter” demonstrates that Poe’s enthusiasm for Dupin remained strong after the travails of “Marie Rogêt.” For several years he had been attempting to persuade a publisher to issue a revised edition of his short stories. Now, in a letter to James Russell Lowell, he described “The Purloined Letter” as “perhaps the best of my tales of ratiocination.” He had reason to hope the appearance of the story in The Gift, a popular Christmas annual, might bring about this new collection, featuring all three Dupin tales.

  He would not have long to wait. In January of 1845, Poe happened to run across a friend, the poet William Ross Wallace, on the street. Poe had been in the habit of reading his “not yet published poetical work” to Wallace, and on that particular day he seemed more than usually eager to share his latest creation.

  “Wallace,” he said, “I have just written the greatest poem that ever was written.”

  “Have you?” said Wallace. “That is a fine achievement.”

  “Would you like to hear it?” asked Poe.

  “Most certainly,” Wallace answered.

  Poe then read out the verses in “an impressive and captivating way,” and when he finished, he turned to hear Wallace’s opinion. “Poe,” said his friend, “they are fine; uncommonly fine.”

  “Fine?” snapped Poe. “Is that all you can say for this poem? I tell you it’s the greatest poem that was ever written.”

  Wallace’s response is not recorded, but other critics of the new poem, “The Raven,” would respond in terms that were nearly as rhapsodic as Poe’s. The poem appeared on January 29, 1845, in the Evening Mirror, where Poe was doing his humble service as a mechanical paragraphist. An instant sensation, “The Raven” soon became the most popular American poem yet published. It went through dozens of reprints over the course of the year, culminating in The Raven and Other Poems, a collection of Poe’s verse published in November of 1845 by Wiley & Putnam. In his essay “The Philosophy of Composition,” Poe gave a deceptively simple outline of the action of the poem:

  A raven, having learned by rote the single word, “Nevermore,” and having escaped from the custody of its owner, is driven, at midnight, through the violence of a storm, to seek admission at a window from which a light still gleams—the chamber-window of a student, occupied half in poring over a volume, half in dreaming of a beloved mistress deceased. The casement being thrown open at the fluttering of the bird’s wings, the bird itself perches on the most convenient seat out of the immediate reach of the student, who, amused by the incident and the oddity of the visiter’s demeanor, demands of it, in jest and without looking for a reply, its name. The raven addressed, answers with its customary word, “Nevermore”—a word which finds immediate echo in the melancholy heart of the student.

  Poe went on to offer an illuminating account of how he found his inspiration for the poem. Having decided to offer a meditation on the subject of beauty, he recalled, “my next question referred to the tone of its highest manifestation—and all experience has shown that this tone is one of sadness. Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones.” Having reached this conclusion, Poe had laid the groundwork for one of his most famous dictums. “I asked myself—‘Of all melancholy topics, what, according to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most melancholy?’ Death—was the obvious reply. ‘And when,’ I said, ‘is this most melancholy of topics most poetical?’ From what I have already explained at some length, the answer, here also, is obvious—‘When it most closely allies itself to Beauty: the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world—and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover.’ ”

  This elegant formulation played well on the lecture circuit, but privately Poe would admit that he composed the poem with his eye on commercial success.” ‘The Raven’ has had a great ‘run,’” he told his friend Frederick Thomas, “but I wrote it for the express purpose of running—just as I did the ‘Gold-Bug,’ you know. The bird beat the bug, though, all hollow.”

  For all the bluster, Poe’s success had yet to earn him any real money. Despite the endless reprintings of “The Raven,” the poem earned him only nine dollars, while “The Gold-Bug,” which sold well over a quarter of a million copies, brought him only one hundred dollars. Still, Poe believed that fortune would come. Only a month previously he had been a literary pariah, grateful for the journalistic hackwork offered by Nathaniel Willis. Now, with the success of “The Raven,” he became a sought-after figure in New York’s literary salons, where his verses were received with worshipful respect. The talents he had developed on the lecture platform now came into full flower. To heighten the effect of his readings, he would “turn down the lamps till the room was almost dark,” one listener reported, “then standing in the center of the apartment he would recite those wonderful lines in the most melodious of voices…So marvelous was his power as a reader that the auditors would be afraid to draw breath lest the enchanted
spell be broken.”

  With his black suit and haunted air, Poe appears to have cut a romantic figure. “His remarkable personal beauty,” an acquaintance would write, “the fascination of his manners and conversation, and his chivalrous deference and devotion to women, gave him a dangerous power over the sex.” Poe began to form a series of intense, if platonic, attachments with the women of his new literary circle, echoing the passion of his youth in Richmond for the unattainable Jane Stanard (who had died in 1824). In March of 1845 Poe became enamored of a Massachusetts poet named Frances Sargent Osgood, known to her friends as “Fanny.” Like Mrs. Stanard, Fanny Osgood was a beautiful woman in fragile health, a combination that conformed to Poe’s poetical ideal. Separated from her husband, she was free to respond to Poe’s attentions, and he came to think of her as the only friend who truly understood him. She offered him numerous poetic tributes—“And all should cry, Beware! Beware! / His flashing eyes, his floating hair!”—and he returned the favor with “A Valentine,” a puzzle poem in which her name was encoded in the first letter of the first line, the second letter of the second line, and so on. Virginia Poe was not only aware of the friendship but actually condoned it. Mrs. Osgood would later claim that Virginia “imagined that my influence over him had a restraining and beneficial effect.” As fate would have it, Mrs. Osgood later drew the attentions of Rufus Griswold, the man Poe had roundly criticized in his public lectures, adding a new and deeply personal shading to the rivalry between the two men.