LITERATURE
Edgar Allan Poe regrets drinking binge in 1842 letter
RICHMOND, Va. — In an 1842 letter, Edgar Allan Poe apologizes to his publishers for drinking too much and asks them to buy an article because he’s “desperately pushed for money.”
Writing from Philadelphia, Poe blames his friend William Ross Wallace, a poet and lawyer, for making him drink too many “juleps” and for misbehaving on a visit to New York.
The University of Virginia acquired the July 18, 1842, letter for an exhibition, to open Saturday, marking the author’s 200th birthday.
University officials declined to disclose how much it paid for the letter in a Sotheby’s auction after the document had spent years in private hands. But they said it was purchased with endowment funds.
The letter initially was disclosed in an American literary magazine in 1957, according to the 2008 edition of “The Collected Letters of Edgar Allan Poe.”
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