lf in an unfortunate attack upon Longfellow known as the "Little Longfellow War," with various reverberations. By the end of 1844 Poe was ready to sever connection with Willis who remained his firm friend until the end. Through the good offices of Lowell, Poe had been put in touch with some minor journalists about New York who were ready to launch a new weekly to be called The Broadway Journal. Upon this paper Poe was retained in a more important editorial capacity than Mr. Willis could offer him. In January, 1845, Poe's poem "The Raven" was published annoymously in the Evening Mirror in advance of its appearance in the American Whig Review for February. It created a furor, and on Saturday, February 8, 1845, Mr. Willis reprinted it over the author's name in the Evening Mirror. Poe's reputation immediately took on the aspects of fame which it never afterward lost. It is safe to say that no poem in America had ever been so popular. The poet continued to edit the Broadway Journal in which he carried on the Longfellow controversy, reviewed books, published and republished his poetry, wrote dramatic reviews and literary criticism, and reprinted many of his stories now more eagerly read as coming from a famous pen. He was also preparing to become owner of the Broadway Journal and for this purpose went into debt, in the meanwhile quarreling with Briggs, one of his partners. He now too began for the first time since early Richmond days to lead a less lonely life and to go about in a semi-literary and artistic society. Poe was much seen during the winter of 1845 in the "salons" of various writers and minor social lights of New York who were known as the literati. Through Mr. Willis he met a Mrs. Fanny Osgood, the wife of an artist of some note and a minor poetess, with whom he soon struck up an intimate if not tender friendship. He followed her about to such an extent that she was finally compelled through the scandal involved and on account of ...
