Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Bookmart, Vol. 4: June, 1886 to May, 1887
The mystery was soon explained, however, when he turned to the back of the book, and drew from its resting-place a fiy-leaf that had been detached some time before. It was time-stained like the other pages, and I could see that there was writing on it; and turning it over, i saw at the foot of the manu script the signature 'e. A. P.' This, then, was the poem Leonanie printed years ago in the Kokomo (ind.) Dispatch, and reprinted in The Critic of April loth, with a letter attributing it to Edgar Allen P00. And relating the circumstances under which it was written. No sooner had Mr. Foote read the communication than he wrote to the editor of the Dispatch, who put him in communies tinn with the family of the inn-keeper at Chesterfield, near Richmond, Va, to whom the old dictionary belonged. The result was that the volume came speedily into its present owner's hands.
Mr. Foote is a collector of manuscripts, early edi tions, etc., of American authors, and amongst other literary treasures and curiosities possesses certain autographs of Poe. He has compared his latest acquisition with these, and is convinced of its nu then'icity. Moreover, he has shown it to Mr. E. C. Stedman, who has made a special study of Poe, and who writes concerning Leonanie Very curious and interesting, and at least five to one that it is a genuine holograph of Poe's. I have seen many real, and some counterfeit, Poe mss. The poem is un questionably by Poe, me judice; and I believe the handwriting is also.' Mr. Foote is particularly gratified by this discovery, as he has found Poe manuscripts and first editions harder to get than those of any other American writer. He has not only advertis widely for them, but has sent out some postal-cards, with little or no result.
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