Abstract
Thanks to generations of women scholars, readers of Poe scholarship today have a far richer and more nuanced understanding of the writer’s connections to literary women of his day; of his conscious and unconscious attitudes toward women’s autonomy and self-determination through writing; and of the complex tides of influence between Poe and the prominent literary women to whom he was closest. But many of those women scholars have still to get their due. Building on the pioneering work of Eliza Richards and Colin Dayan, this article offers a survey of those prominent women who, during Poe’s lifetime and in the generation or so following, had the most far-reaching impact on his writing, literary networks, and reception. I begin with influential editor and early Poe advocate Sarah Josepha Hale before discussing the women who after Poe’s death made the most headway in establishing an accurate, nuanced, anti-Griswoldian account of the writer’s life. Finally, I enumerate the many women, far more than have been previously acknowledged, who contributed to Poe scholarship between the dawn of the twentieth century (which sees the end of direct reminiscences of Poe’s life) and 1968, the year Amy Branam Armiento points to as the beginning of the modern era in women’s Poe scholarship.