Stanard).

Poe decided, though, to shift his efforts to fiction, hoping for the success that he had not yet won with his poetry. He entered the Philadelphia Saturday Courier’s short story contest, but he lost. Meanwhile, Henry had become sick, probably owing to excessive drinking. In light of the poverty of Maria Clemm’s household, the two brothers probably shared a room—perhaps, given the custom of the day, even a bed. On August 1, 1831, Henry died. Edgar may well have witnessed his brother’s death.

The earliest published short story attributed to Poe, a tale of the crucifixion of Jesus, titled “A Dream,” appeared in the Saturday Evening Post on August 13. Then, in early 1832, the Saturday Courier published five of Poe’s tales, including the supposedly comic work about the Romans’ mockery of the besieged Israelites, “A Tale of Jerusalem.” And Poe continued to write short stories, gathering them in “Tales of the Folio Club”—but the collection was never published.

Still, Poe won local attention when he submitted “Tales of the Folio Club” to the Baltimore Saturday Visiter competition in 1833. His tale of the Flying Dutchman, “MS. Found in a Bottle,” was selected as the prize-winning story—it was published on October 19, 1833, and Poe was awarded fifty dollars. But personal problems continued. In February 1834, Poe visited his dying foster father, but Allan, uninterested in reconciliation, raised his cane to Poe and ordered him out of the room. In March 1834, John Allan died. And Poe was not mentioned in his will. However, one of the judges in the Saturday Visiter contest, John Pendleton Kennedy, took an interest in Poe, providing him with clothing and writing in his behalf to publisher Thomas W. White of Richmond, who had recently begun a monthly magazine, the Southern Literary Messenger.

Poe began to publish stories and poems and reviews in the Messenger. In August 1835, he moved to Richmond, perhaps to pursue a teaching position (which he did not get)—and he shortly begin to assist White editorially. Poe’s drinking—probably aggravated by his anxiety about possibly losing Virginia to the guardianship of his second cousin Neilson Poe—led to his dismissal. Offered a warning by White (“No man is safe who drinks before breakfast!”), Poe was allowed to return. In October 1835, he moved back to Richmond from Baltimore, this time with Virginia (whom he may already have married secretly and whom he would soon marry publicly) and her mother, Maria Clemm. After many years of struggle, Poe had secured an important position and his own family—but not yet the popular and critical success that he desired.

 

On March 3, 1836, the intermediary for the Harper & Brothers publishing house, James Kirke Paulding, wrote to Poe’s employer, Messenger publisher White, that the Harpers had declined “Tales of the Folio Club” because some of the tales had already been published and some were too obscure. He advised that Poe “lower himself a little to the ordinary comprehension of the generality of readers, and prepare a series of original Tales, or a single work.” He soon thereafter wrote to Poe, “I think it would be worth your while . . . to undertake a Tale in a couple of Volumes. . . .” On June 19, Wesley Harper himself wrote to Poe, clarifying the publisher’s view: the book had been declined because many of its stories had been published, because “detached tales and pieces” were not usually successful, and because the works themselves were “too learned and mystical.” “They would be understood and relished only by a very few,” he added, “not by the multitude.” Harper offered his considered opinion about the American readership: “Readers in this country have a decided and strong preference for works (especially fiction) in which a single and connected story occupies the whole volume, or number of volumes, as the case may be. . . .” While Poe tried once more to publish “Tales of the Folio Club,” he also took seriously the advice he had received; his writing Pym, his only novel, was his response to that advice.

 

Seeking “the multitude,” Poe borrowed the story of the wreck of the Ariel from the popular press in 1836 and began to elaborate a nautical narrative, probably in hopes of attaining the popular success of Defoe or Cooper or Michael C.