Page 45 - Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor

the professors; but they were disappointed.

Poe next went to Baltimore. There he tried to get employment in vain.
Friends helped him, but it was some time before he made his first literary

success.

It happened at last that a weekly paper called the Saturday Visiter was

started in Baltimore. To give the paper popularity, two prizes were offered,
one of a hundred dollars for the best short story, and the other of fifty for

the best poem. Poe tried for both. He had six short stories, which he copied
in a neat little manuscript volume entitled "Tales of the Folio Club." The
poem he sent was "The Coliseum."

The judges were well-known gentlemen of the city of Baltimore, one of

whom, John P. Kennedy, afterward became Poe’s intimate friend. When
they met they looked over several stories, which did not interest them very
much. They then came to the "Tales of the Folio Club." One was read

aloud, and the three gentlemen were so much interested that they kept on
till they had read all, and at once decided to give the prize to one of these.

They chose Poe’s famous story "A MS. Found in a Bottle." Afterward they
decided that his poem was the best submitted; but noticing that it was in the
same handwriting as the stories, they thought it best to give the prize to

another. When they made their report they greatly complimented the stories
Poe had sent in, and said they should be published in a volume.

We have said that one of the judges, Mr. Kennedy, became Poe’s friend. To
show how very poor Poe was, I copy this passage from Mr. Kennedy’s

diary: "It was many years ago that I found Poe in Baltimore in a state of
starvation. I gave him clothing, free access to my table, and the use of a

horse for exercise whenever he chose; in fact, I brought him up from the
very verge of despair."

Here, too, is an extract from a letter from Poe to Mr. Kennedy:

"Your invitation to dinner has wounded me to the quick. I cannot come for
reasons of the most humiliating nature--my personal appearance. You may