Page:Edgar Allan Poe - a centenary tribute.pdf/113

 Despite their bickerings, Burton was sufficiently interested in Poe to request that his young editor should be retained when the Gentleman's Magazine was bought by Mr. Graham and merged with The Casket, the two forming Graham's Magazine. Poe became the editor of the new publication and Mr. Graham ever remained his devoted friend.

Poe's cryptographic challenge sent out in Alexander's Weekly Messenger of Philadelphia had brought innumerable responses. Over these he had worked with inexhaustable patience answering almost undecipherable tests, many languages often being combined in one cryptograph. This unique exhibition of his singular powers was closed by an article from his pen which appeared in Graham's in July, 1841. His extraordinary faculty of reasoning from another's mental standpoint still further aroused universal astonishment when, in The Saturday Evening Post, of May, 1841, he announced a prospective notice of "Barnaby Rudge." The initial chapters of the story had just appeared, from them Poe deduced the entire plot, and correctly presented its culmination. The character of this work, without the vast amount otherwise accomplished, silently corroborates statements of Poe's entire abstinence through these years.

Graham's Magazine achieved a wonderful success under its star leader, the subscriptions increasing from five to thirty-seven thousand. In April of 1841 "The Murders in the rue Morgue" appeared in Graham's inaugurating a school to which many great writers have acknowledged their indebtedness. The latest of these tributes was rendered by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at the Poe Centenary