The Museum Collection

Sarah Helen Whitman Engraving

ID #:	P156
Creator:	C.G. Thompson (painter), Charles Skinner (engraver)
Date:
Format:	engraving
Dimensions:	4" x 3" image, 7.25" x 4.5" sheet
Source:	Gift of Helen R. Jones
Collection:	Poe Foundation, Inc.
Publisher:
Place of Publication:
Publish Date:

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Description:

The Rhode Island poet Sarah Helen Whitman (1803-1878) was briefly engaged to Edgar Allan Poe in 1848. After his death, she defended his reputation by assisting Poe's biographers (including John Henry Ingram) and by writing the book Edgar Poe and His Critics (1860).

This engraving was given to the Poe Museum by Helen R. Jones, who had received it from Mrs. Maude Dailey Chace, in whose home Sarah Helen Whitman died. Chace's mother had been a close friend of Whitman's. Chace and her sister, Charlotte Field Dailey, cataloged Whitman's correspondence after her death and assisted James Harrison in his Poe research.