The New International Encyclopædia/Whitman, Sarah Helen Power

WHITMAN, (1803-78). An American poet, born in Providence, R. I. Her Hours of Life, and Other Poems appeared in 1853, and a posthumous volume of verse in 1879. She became best known, however, for her association with Poe, with whom, about 1848, she entered into a conditional engagement of marriage. In 1860 she published a work in his defense, entitled Edgar Allan Poe and His Critics. In 1828 she married John W. Whitman, who died in 1838.