Their names will be found in such limbos of
the dead as Griswold's "Poets and Poetry of America" and Poe's
"Literati." They knew "the town" in their day, and pleased its
very easily pleased taste. The short-lived literary magazines of
the eighteen-forties gave them their hour of glory. As
representatives of passing phases of the literary history of New
York their careers are not without sentimental interest, but few
of them spoke to or for the country as a whole. Two figures,
indeed, stand out in sharp contrast with those habitual strollers
on Broadway and frequenters of literary gatherings, though each
of them was for a while a part of Knickerbocker New York. To all
appearances they were only two more Bohemians like the rest, but
the curiosity of the twentieth century sets them apart from their
forgotten contemporaries. They are two of the unluckiest--and yet
luckiest--authors who ever tried to sell a manuscript along
Broadway. One of them is Edgar Allan Poe and the other is Walt
Whitman. They shall have a chapter to themselves.
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