Nevermore:
The Edgar Allan Poe Collection of Susan Jaffe Tane

Poe long dreamed of launching his own literary magazine, and spent many years trying to obtain the requisite funding. A host of problems and complications, however, forced many delays, and Poe’s dream was never realized. One of the few surviving declarations of his intentions is preserved in this 1840 issue of Philadelphia’s Chronicle. Here Poe calls for subscribers and lays out his plans for a magazine which will “become known as one where may be found at all times, and upon all subjects, an honest and a fearless opinion.”

Poe’s stint at The Broadway Journal was his fourth and last as an editor. Taking up his post on January 4, 1845, Poe became sole owner and editor in October of that year, after acquiring the second half of his partner John Bisco’s interest. However, the magazine was, already struggling, and it failed just a few months later, ending Poe’s briefly realized dream of owning and editing his own journal.

This copy of The Broadway Journal belonged to John Bisco and includes a receipt written and signed by Poe, acknowledging Bisco’s payment to him for contributions to the journal.

This unsigned commentary in the New York Mirror reflects upon Poe’s work as an editor of The Broadway Journal.

Edgar A. Poe, one of the editors of the Broadway Journal—He never rests. There is a small steam-engine in his brain, which not only sets the cerebral mass in motion, but keeps the owner in hot water. His face is a fine one, and well gifted with intellectual beauty. Ideality, with the power of analysis, is shown in his very broad, high and massive forehead—a forehead which would have delighted Gall beyond measure. He would have made a capital lawyer—not a very good advocate, perhaps, but a famous unraveller of all subtleties. He can thread his way through a labyrinth of absurdities, and pick out the sound thread of sense from the tangled skein with which is connected. He means to be candid, and labors under the strange hallucination that he is so; but he has strong prejudices, and, without the least intention of irreverence, would wage war with the Deity, if the divine canons militated against his notions. His sarcasm is subtle and searching. He can do nothing in the common way; and buttons his coat after a fashion peculiarly his own. If we ever caught him doing a thing like any body else, or found him reading a book any other way than upside down, we should implore his friends to send for a strait jacket, and a Bedlam doctor. He were mad, then, to a certainty.