Scenes from “Politian” (_decorated title_) 149 (_Headpiece_) 151 “I CANNOT PRAY!— MY SOUL IS AT WAR WITH GOD” 157 (_Tailpiece_) 170 LETTER TO MR. —— (_headpiece_) 173 (_Tailpiece_) 181 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE (_frontispiece_) 184 (_Headpiece_) 185 THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION (_headpiece_) 211 FINIS 225 [Illustration] INTRODUCTION [Illustration] “A lie,” says an American proverb, “will run from Maine to Mexico while Truth is putting on its boots,” and the memories of few celebrated men have been more freely aspersed or more tardily vindicated than has that of Edgar Allan Poe. No sooner was the breath out of his body than his enemies addressed themselves to the congenial task of bespattering his reputation, and continued to do so, unchecked and almost unchallenged, for many years. Amongst other charges so contemptible as to be unworthy of a moment’s consideration, he was held up to public execration as a confirmed inebriate and denounced as a shameless plagiarist. At this distance of time it is hardly necessary to remark that the former charge was a particularly cruel perversion of the truth, while the latter was entirely without foundation. But it is a well-known axiom that, if only a sufficiency of mud is thrown, some of it is sure to stick; and in consequence Poe was for a long time denied that place on the roll of fame to which his remarkable talents, both as a poet and a romancer, fairly entitled him. The present generation, however, has witnessed a signal reaction in his favour. Thanks to the untiring efforts of several prominent men of letters both in his own country and in England, the darker shadows which rested upon his name have been effectually dispersed; the world has gradually come to take a more just view both of his character and his genius; and in this, the closing year of the nineteenth century, we find Poe’s reputation more firmly established than at any time since his untimely death in 1849.